I was sworn in as a Canadian citizen in September of this year. As someone who waited close to ten years to be considered a Canadian, it was the last hurdle towards being freer to help shape this country live in. I am grateful to be allowed to live here. I can afford to go to school and I even have relatively free health care, something I could have never had in my home country of Chile. However, that does not mean I will let Canada’s ethnocentrism pass on by when I see it.
On December 12th, 2011, Jason Kenney, Canada’s current Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, was in charge of placing a ban on face veils such as niqabs for people swearing their oath of citizenship. He reasons that women could hide behind their veils to not recite the oath during the citizenship vows which should be “taken freely and openly.”(1) This decision seems to be motivated more by politics than procedure. If it was a matter of procedure, every single person, including infants, would be required to recite the oath flawlessly.
The primary contradiction in this whole ordeal is the approach that Canada has towards its new citizens, who are repeatedly told they have freedom of expression without fear of persecution and oppression as long as they hurt no one, as established by the Canadian Charter of Rights of Freedoms. Understandably, they show their faces in airports and for official document pictures, but must they be further hounded for their choice to not adhere to Canadian social norms?
Although face veils can signify the degradation of women to non-Muslims, many women gladly decide to follow their religious dress-code. Women like Huda Hasan and her sister-in-law Amena Faysal, are angry that such a tangible right to exercise their religion and culture on the day they became Canadian citizens was taken away(2). I am not Muslim, but I can understand the anger felt by Muslim women, who are being told they cannot exercise their culture freely in a country that boasts to the world to be so open-minded, understanding, and advanced in the arena of bodily self-determination for women. To me, this can be compared to asking Catholic women to stop wearing cross-necklaces. As a Catholic man who in his youth contested the right of pro-choice information being freely distributed at his University(3), Kenney seems like the least fitting candidate to dictate what any woman needs — or how she should choose to present herself to the world.
As a migrant-friendly, feminist organization, the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy disagrees with Jason Kenney’s decision to ban face veils from one of the most emotionally impacting ceremonies for all new Canadians. This is a ban against migrant women making their own choices in a nation that says it values cultural freedom and equal gender rights.
Rosario Gallardo
Board of Directors
2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy
Montréal, Québec
Sources:
1. Face veils banned for citizenship oaths
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/12/12/pol-kenney-citizenship-rules.html
2. New swearing-in rule upsets local Muslims:
http://www.therecord.com/living/faith/article/640331–new-swearing-in-rule-upsets-local-muslims
3. Video of jason kenney as young U.S. anti-choice activist:
http://wmtc.blogspot.com/2011/04/must-see-video-jason-kenney-as-young.html