Don’t forget your shovel.

This is mostly a gut reaction… but I feel it is the right one. I’ve learned on the radio that Conservative M.P. Michael Chong has resigned his cabinet post in protest against the motion to recognise Québéc nationhood. Mr. Chong and I are both Canadians of multiracial heritage, but that is not why I support him. I think that the ability for us all to live peacefully together is one of Canada’s greatest assets and this needs protecting. While most of my politics is not much in line with Mr. Chong’s, I am in support of this. We need to protect our right to be Canadian.

I’ve been writing a lot lately about our Multiculturalism, what that means, and various issues related to Islamic dress in Canada. I write about these things even though I am not Muslim, not Sikh, and not Conservative. I write about them because I’m Canadian. It is fine for us to be all of these things, and to be able to discuss these many issues, but it needs to come from a position of unity as to what it means to be Canadian first.

Oh me & my high horse! It’s time for dinner.

In today’s Globe and Mail, Sheema Khan has another column on issues on Islam. Today it’s about the clash between Multiculturalism (or is that multireligiosity) and [western] Feminism. And I was nodding along with her, right up until she turned the argument to say that one who is an outsider to religion x or y cannot be critical unless he/she is also critical of his/her own religion. By way of example, she chose to quote UofT Professor Janice Gross Stein. And while a little mea culpa is good for one and for one’s closest levels of community, as members of the wider community of Canadians, I think Ms. Khan undertakes classicly neoconservative tactics to limit debate by insisting/inferring that all outsider debate/points will necessarily be racists/illegitimate/negatively critical. She assumes, in short, that it is impossible to say anything except from an insider position. But are not all Canadians insiders to the community that is Canada? And as such, are we not all entitled to have an opinion about our community?

It is highly problematic for our multiculturalism and our feminism to assume that you can only have your feet in one of these camps. It is like dismissing the westernized feminist professors at Canadian universities who ethnically represent Middle Eastern cultures because of their social class and political backgrounds. They have legitimate voices… as legitimate as Ms. Khan’s, and yet they have their feet in both ideological camps. It is also akin to saying that as a Canadian, I am only allowed to have an opinion, an input, into shaping Canada from the point of view of myself as either Western Feminist OR as Multicultural, but not both. Honestly, the whole point of Canada, IMHO, is that we can wear multiple hats and have multiple social roles comfortably and without contradiction.

I wear my own multiple hats happily and have always reveled in the lack of polarisation in Canada as being the best space for me to occupy and to engage in issues important to me. The visible polarisiation of these debates in Canada does not make us healthier. It only divides us and in dividing us leads us to a negative place in our future efforts to build this country. Issues related to the places held by our native population, our “ethnics”, our multireligiosity, our blurred social class lines concern us all regardless of gender, ethnicity, or religion and therefore we have not just the right but the need to engage in the debate and in creating solutions to the problems of our time and of our future.

The first thing we need to do is to separate multiculturalism from multireligiosity. After we have accomplished that, if we can, then we will see that feminism and multiculturalism are not at odds. And we will then be able to find a way to incorporate feminism into multireligiosity. We are a long way off from this, particularly when the mainstream media-centred debate is itself so far away from these goals.