Testing tolerance in Quebec schools

Many education officials seem to be more interested in imposing secularist orthodoxy than in exploring diversity

SHEEMA KHAN Freelance
Sheema Khan is chairman of the Ottawa-based Council on American-Islamic Relations - Canada

GAZETTE Monday, September 16, 2002

Serious questions about the rights of religious minorities in Quebec's public schools overshadow this fall's back-to-the-books rituals for some students and their parents.

At issue is the Quebec government's decision to appeal a recent court-mediated compromise permitting a Sikh boy, Gurbaj Singh, to wear his kirpan to school. The Marguerite Bourgeoys School Board has also filed an appeal, in spite of the fact that Gurbaj has chosen to attend a private school that allows him to wear his kirpan.

Ostensibly, the reason for seeking the ban is safety. About 40 Sikh students wear kirpans in Montreal area schools, and yet not a single incident of a Sikh using it as a weapon has been reported. Recent judgments in Ontario, Alberta and B.C., as well as in the U.S. and Europe have allowed kirpans. In face of this evidence, are we to conclude that Quebec schools are more prone to violence than those elsewhere? That the precautions taken to sheath the kirpan are insufficient here?

The heart of the matter has to do with Quebec's uncompromising secularist education policy. The fact that schools across Canada have welcomed children with kirpans without incident isn't the point, according to François Aquin, lawyer for the school board. "Maybe we're more secular here in Quebec in our approach to education," Aquin told reporters. "It's very important to respect people's beliefs, but also the beliefs of other people who want schools to be secular. We can't have a rule so important as no weapons in schools interpreted in two ways - for some, yes, for others, no."

The board and the PQ government have decided to impose the view that the kirpan is most definitely a weapon - in spite of attempts by Sikhs to educate officials otherwise. The message to students is chilling: education is not a means to explore diversity and find ways of living together, but rather a tool to inculcate that which is truly "Québécois," and that which is not.

Quebec Muslims remember all too painfully similar attacks on their faith, and should be on the alert for a reversal of prior accommodations. In the fall of 1994, 13-year-old Emilie Ouimet was sent home from her public high school for wearing an Islamic headscarf (hijab). The principal stated that the school forbade hats and any apparel that signified membership in an identifiable group or gang. A few months later, Dania Bali faced the same ultimatum at her private school where she had been a straight-A student. Other female students were subject to interrogations by school administrators about their motives for wearing the hijab. Modesty in dress became the target of an inquisition. By early 1995, some Muslim parents were getting letters from school officials requesting that their able-bodied children not observe the Ramadan fast. Throughout this, the PQ government remained curiously silent.

Following these incidents, the Quebec Human Rights Commission issued a statement in February 1995, titled Religious Pluralism in Quebec: A Social and Ethical Challenge. It emphasized that in the debate over the place of religion in public space, "special attention should be paid to the fact that tolerance and mutual respect are the most fundamental values in our society." The commission urged discussion and debate "to name the sources of unease first, in order to get past them and identify the conditions of the 'desire to live together.'"

The Quebec government has decided to abandon both the spirit and the letter of the commission's guidelines. This sends a dangerous message. For if a principal can impose the decision that a kirpan is weapon, what is to prevent him from imposing the judgment that a hijab is a hat that violates school policy for gang identification?

The most obvious contradiction of Quebec's education policy is that secularity is imposed on non Judeo-Christian traditions. One has yet to hear of a student being asked to remove a crucifix or a yarmulke. This further implies a hierarchy of citizenship: observant Jews and Christians have full rights to religious apparel, whereas observant Muslims, Sikhs and others do not.

Before the rest of Canada gets too smug about double standards in Quebec, it should remember that recently, Sikhs were forbidden to enter Legion Halls with their turbans, and a Muslim chaplain was asked to remove his Islamic cap (kufi) in an Ontario courtroom where yarmulkes had been permitted. Since 9/11, incidents of intolerance against Muslims, Arabs and South Asians have gone up.

Those involved in anti-racism efforts know that education is the key. It seems that priority should be given to the education of educators.