So, frustrated with the dishonesty in the “discussion” of Québec’s Charter of Values, I spent the last post deconstructing a set of ridiculous and self-serving “ground rules”. Because I was focused on the “ground rules” themselves, I never got around to the tiny bit of discussion at the end. Now I will, and I will add my own questions, too.
First, answering the questions asked of opponents of the Charter:
One of the major stipulations of the Charter is the prohibition of religious symbols in the public service, either displayed by the institutions themselves or by employees on duty.
False. One of the “ground rules” was a requirement to actually discuss what the Charter actually says. Well, the Charter doesn’t say that. The Charter prohibits… some religious symbols from… some public sector employees. Specifically, the Charter only prohibits the symbols of minority religions, and it only applies to the lower levels of the public service. It is a sham. It is picking on the little guys for cheap, dirty political points.
Public service employees are already expected to exercise restraint with regard to expressions of partisan political views while on duty. Is it a reasonable restriction on personal freedom to require that employees of the state, while on duty, refrain from obvious declarations of religious allegiance as well?
This is not an honest question because it is based on an unjustified assumption about why people wear religious accoutrements. It is not necessarily true that everyone who wears a religious symbol does so for the purpose of making a “declaration of religious allegiance”. In fact, although I don’t have survey data to prove it, I would be willing to bet big money that most people don’t wear religious symbols because they want their head or chest to be a billboard for their religious beliefs. I would bet large that they do it because the religious symbols feel comfortable and familiar, and they feel agitated and “naked” without them.
But, to be reasonable, let’s assume that they are making some kind of “declaration of religious allegiance”. So the fuck what? Seriously. Everything we customize about our appearance is technically a “declaration” of some kind. By cutting your hair one way as opposed to another, you are telling the world either “I’m a fun guy” or “I’m serious and fastidious” (or in my case “I’m okay with looking like a hobo”). The makeup you choose makes a statement. The clothes you choose make a statement. You’re making hundreds of declarations already. Unless you dictate every single aspect of a person’s appearance, there is no way to stop them from making some declarations. The question is not whether making a declaration is permissible; the question is whether making that declaration – a declaration of religious identity – is permissible.
For example, I wear a lot of blue – I consciously go out of my way to purchase and wear predominantly blue clothing – so you could say by doing so I’m “declaring” my personal belief that blue is an awesome colour. You gonna ban me from wearing blue now? No? Why not? Because my declaration of allegiance to the “blue is awesome” belief is an irrelevant personal quirk that has no relationship to my job, and no sane person could make the leap from “Indi likes blue” to “the place where Indi works likes blue”.
The reason political statements are not kosher is the same as why you’re not allowed to wear a “fuck Wal-Mart” (or “yay Target”) pin while working at Wal-Mart – you’re supposed to be the face of the institution that the customer is interacting with the institution through. If you’re doing something that actively undermines the institution while supposedly being its agent, you’re failing to be an agent for that institution. That’s why you can’t wear political messages while working for the government. Despite the mad fantasies of the Charter supporters, nobody would believe that a clearly personal statement made by an employee reflects the institution’s policy. Nobody who saw a bus driver wearing a “fuck Harper” pin would think it meant the Transit Board endorsed that message; that’s not why it’s inappropriate. It’s inappropriate because an employee shouldn’t be critiquing the company – positively or negatively – while acting as an agent of the company.
Okay, so what about religious statements? Again, no sane person who sees a surgeon with a hijab is going to think, “damn, the Québec government is Islamic!” That’s idiotic. And a person’s statement about their religious beliefs has absolutely no bearing on government business. The declaration “I’m a Muslim” is as irrelevant to a public employee’s job as “I like blue”.
Indeed, I haven’t seen any plausible arguments for why wearing a religious symbol has to be a declaration, and why that kind of declaration is intolerable while others aren’t. All I’ve seen are empty assertions. Why am I allowed to freely choose to wear blue because I believe it is an awesome colour, while a Muslim woman is not allowed to wear a hijab because she thinks Islam is an awesome religion? What, precisely, is the relevant difference?
So there’s my answer: No reasonable person thinks that the personal religious attire worn by a civil servant represents a government endorsement of that religion, and so long as a person can do their job (and only their job) while wearing it, there is no rational justification for demanding its removal.
Now here are my questions:
Why is it necessary to secularize people? Isn’t it enough if the institution itself is secular, if all the services it provides are secular, and if those services are provided without any religious proselytizing or other interference? How does it make the institution non-secular if the clerk is wearing a turban (bearing in mind that he’s doing his job admirably, and without any interference from his religious beliefs)? Must we make public sector employees look like dehumanized automatons with no individual quirks or personality? Is that what we want our government to look like – robots?
Why is it so important that we remove every single icon of religion from an institution – even those that clearly aren’t officially sanctioned by the institution? Are we really so afraid – or that intolerant – of religion that the mere sight of its existence – even in a completely benign capacity where it is obviously not officially condoned – is too much for us to handle? Seriously, if an employee of the motor vehicle bureau found a religious pamphlet on their car during break and brought it back in to toss in the waste bin… would it be necessary for someone to remove it from the waste bin, destroy it, and dispose of it where no one could see, lest someone be confronted with evidence of religious belief inside of a government office? I’m not being flip. It is a religious symbol (and, unlike the ones targeted in the Charter, actually an instrument of proselytizing), and if the mere presence of a turban on the employee can somehow imply the institution is not secular because even though the institution did not ask for him to wear it they are “allowing” it to be worn… then the fact that the institution is “allowing” the pamphlet to remain visible in the trash – even though it didn’t actually ask for it to be put there – should also imply the institution is not secular. If no, why not? Why is it that what someone obviously chose to wear themselves without official endorsement somehow implies official endorsement… but what someone obviously just left lying around without official endorsement does not?
Why is wearing an obvious religious symbol
is a declaration – a non-verbal one, but very loud – of partisanship
? What makes you think every single indication of belonging to a group is a “declaration of partisanship”? Do you really believe that, for example, if I asked Pauline Marois what party she is with, her answer would be a “declaration of partisanship”, and not simply an act of honesty and transparency in response to my request for information? Why isn’t wearing a religious accessory just an act of honesty and transparency? Why isn’t it just an act of conscience that one’s belief system requires? Why isn’t it just a traditional “thing” people in your group have done for ages that you’re also doing to honour and respect your heritage? Why can’t it be that they just like having their head warm, and feel weird walking around without it?
How do you justify asserting why someone wears a turban, hijab or kippah for them? You are insisting that they’re wearing it because they want to advertise their religious affiliation… how do you justify making that assertion? How did you manage to read their minds and determine why they were doing it? Science wants to know.
If showing religious affiliation is so unacceptable because it is showing “partisanship” with some group… what about accents? Isn’t a person with a thick Swedish accent clearly declaring their connection with Sweden? Aren’t national identities just as “divisive” as religious ones? So why can we fire everyone with funny clothing who can’t take it off because of their religious identity, yet not firing everyone with funny accents who can’t turn it of because off their national identity? If we can force people to betray their religious beliefs to work in the public sector, why can’t we force people to get some vocal coaching or at least try to hide their accent?
If the government was really serious about removing all appearance of religious “partisanship” – even cases where they obviously didn’t set it up – then wouldn’t a better solution be to design a single item of headgear that could serve as a dastar, kippah, or hijab… and mandate all public service employees wear it? Then no one would have to violate their faith, everyone would be dressed similarly, and no one would be wearing an item specific to one religion so there would be no sign of “partisanship”, right? Everyone wins! Why isn’t that solution being taken seriously?
Pauline Marois has gone on record claiming that this isn’t about targeting minority ethnic groups or religions – she is banning the hijab because it oppresses women. So why isn’t she also banning high heels?
The mark of an educated mind is being able to entertain an idea without accepting it. So I will now entertain the idea that – for some reason – we do need to remove all religious symbols, even ones that are clearly only the responsibility of individuals and not endorsed by the institution. I will pretend that argument is correct for a moment. But even if that is true, is it really right to support this Charter of Values? Because not only does it fail to remove all religious symbols – which is bad enough – it selectively removes only the religious symbols of minorities. That is a fact. It cannot be denied. In other words, it’s a law that specifically only targets minorities. It doesn’t matter if it is otherwise a fine law – even a law that banned stabbing would be bad if it banned stabbing only for black people while doing nothing about white stabbers, right? Even though it is a law against stabbing, no decent person could support such a clearly racist law, right? As much as we might want and even need a law against stabbing, that law cannot be accepted, right? So even if it is true that we do need a law banning public sector employees from dressing as they please (with reasonable limits), isn’t this Charter wrong? As badly as we may want a law banning religious symbols, is it not unjust to support this Charter that only targets minorities and the powerless, while leaving majority religions and the powerful off the hook? I know that some people have argued that we should accept this half-assed “secular” charter, rather than refuse it because it’s not “perfect”, but I’m calling bullshit on that. Do we really need secularism that badly that we’re willing to throw minorities under the bus to get it? Do we value such a superficial freedom from religion so very highly that we are willing to sacrifice our principles, and our minority friends? Is this what we want secularism to look like?
That’s just a sampling, of course, but it should do to start.
