What is barbaric about its origins?
To the Expositor:
Our PM seems to be an expert on everything and if he knows nothing, he invents it as he goes, right out of his empty little brain. He has invented a folk history for the niqab, a whole set of untested values for all Canadians, and an alternative for the House of Commons, not to mention for the Supreme Court, namely himself. In fact the niqab means veil and nothing but veil. What is barbaric about its origins? Barbaric means foreign, which is apparently bad. Well then the Queen is barbaric and bad whenever she wears a veil, which is frequently.
The PM is fond of telling us what to afraid of. But I not afraid the veil I am afraid of Mr. Harper. I am really afraid of him, afraid that he is not afraid of himself; and I am afraid of the dark Orkian forces that he not afraid to summon forth, those creatures bred in the slime of Mordor, who work for the dark Lord Sauron and threaten Middle Earth with a reign ignorance and horror. These are the forces I lived through when the Orks bombed London and I slept on the platforms of Liverpool St. tube station while the Luftwaffe randomly bombed London. For me the question is an important election issue. Is Harper to be feared or does he protect us from a dangerous veil? I fear bigotry and ignorance much more than veils. Should we teach freedom along with our customs and culture or should we impose a dress code on women who want to be citizens? What do they learn from that?
Jews wear a head covering, a skull-cap, in their synagogues and Christians uncover their heads in churches, but they do not conflict over this difference or seek to impose one custom over the other. If we cannot maintain mutual respect we cannot live together. We got here by uniting the right at any price including tearing up agreements a la Peter Mckay. Can this be repaired?
Remember “The office of Religious Freedom”? It was buried in the Ministry of Citizenship. It’s gone, disappeared, no trace left. I was trying to find out their stand on the niqab, or any record of any action they had ever taken. It has evaporated into nothing like Harper’s grandfather.
Joseph Gold
Kagawong
