The Dignity of Difference
July 16th, 2009 | Tikkun Daily
Second of two parts || This article has been edited for length; text has been removed. Images not in the original have been added.
Hijabs are quite common in Montreal. My wife, the scholar of religion Dr Susan J Landau-Chark, attended Concordia University for her PhD studies. Concordia is in the middle of probably the single largest community of Muslim students in the city.
A niqab. The niqab covers the face. A hijab covers the hair only.
Many among the Muslim observant have not yet grappled with the issues called “reasonable accommodation” in Quebec. Until perhaps the last generation Muslims have largely lived in Muslim majority societies.
Asma Uddin’s speculations about how Muslims must recondition themselves for western society is an important contribution. Most observant perspectives, however, irrespective of the cultural or confessional tradition, eventually evolve.
But there will always be the remnant who won’t permit evolution or who, like me, permit it but take what we like and leave the rest. We must be permitted to hold on to what we think our faith tells us.
A Jewish male praying with his head covered by a talit. It's probably Shabbat or a holy day, since he is no wearing tefilin.
I wear my talit (a “prayer shawl”) over my head. This is called in the Jewish tradition “Aravit” (according to the custom of the Arabs). I’ll never forget the first time I covered my head with my talit in a Conservative synagogue: the rabbi was very upset — this was an Orthodox custom!
The woman wearing a talit an tefilin (see photo on right) is controversial. Yet The daughters of a noted commentator, Rashi, wore tefilin; halakha (Jewish law) clearly states women can wear talit (and then equivocates by adding “but this is not our custom”).
It is not possible to be fully cultural in a multicultural society. Should that be a reason not to try to be cultural as possible?
Montreal and Quebec take many cues from France, and there can be little doubt that multiculturalism there is in serious jeopardy.
M Sarkozy, the French president, suggests that traditional clothing does not belong in France. This is echoed by similar sentiments in Quebec. Both France and Quebec — and we must recall this — were terribly damaged by the Catholic Church.
The Quiet Revolution in Quebec all but disempowered the Church, which finally lost the constitutional entitlement to public confessional schools only in 1998.
All Catholic discourse, no matter how liberated, is now blithely ignored by many in Quebec.
The Quiet Revolution occurred because an ascendant Church in Quebec had a sense of entitlement. I would urge the ascendant religious of every faith to heed the lessons of the Quiet Revolution.
It is possible to be just like everyone else — but different.
