The eruption of religious tensions in Brampton, while extremely worrying, is merely the inevitable consequence of our deeply flawed concept – and even more deeply flawed practice – of multiculturalism.
ISOLATED VOICES
Readers who are familiar with my views will remember that I have often criticized both the concept and the practice of multiculturalism in Canada. Just as a reminder, though, I reiterate here the crux of my criticism: our idea of multiculturalism consists of multiple cultures existing side by side, with little cultural exchange (if any) taking place between them – whereas in my opinion, multiculturalism is a state where the same individual is capable of occupying more than one cultural space.
To give you a simple example, if there is a performance of An American In Paris, or of Dirty Dancing, or of Mozart’s symphony, how many members of the so-called ‘ethnic communities’ do you expect to see in the audience? Lest this be seen as an elitist argument, we can substitute these names with those of Taylor Swift or Cardi B. The answer will remain the same. At a deeper level, how many members of one ‘ethnic community’ would you expect to see in an event of another ‘ethnic community’? Again, the same answer. The truth is that our so-called ‘multiculturalism’ has had the effect of isolating and ghettoizing different ethnic communities into silos. There is, of course, an economic side to this, which I explored in an article more than 5 years ago (see The Ghetto Economy at this link). Moreover, this ghettoization leads to problems between the ‘ethnic community’ on one hand and the broader Canadian society on the other, which also I wrote about over a year ago (see Does Multiculturalism Cause ‘Racism’? at this link). In that latter article, I explored the friction that may arise between people of different ‘ethnic communities’ on account of their respective rights being in conflict, because even after over half a century of having the official policy of multiculturalism, we have not paid any attention to devising the needed mechanism(s) to resolve such conflicts. While disappointing, this is expected of the political class, because political careers thrive on the existence of conflicts of one kind or another; I believe that the failure can be blamed on the broader society, and more so on the thought-leaders and opinion makers, who have not pushed the political class to attend to this requirement – at least not sufficiently.
FOREIGN ELEMENTS
However, it had not occurred to me that such a conflict could arise between different groups based on foreign conflicts / issues. The eruption of religio-political friction between Khalistani and Hindu communities in Brampton is not the first instance of a conflict of this kind – for well over one year, we have been witnessing pro-Palestinian protesters targeting Jewish institutions and individuals because of the war in Gaza, which has since expanded to the broader region in the Middle East. The key question, that not only the political class but also the media / commentators / Punditocracy has not got around to address in 13 months, is this: What is the justification for targeting Canadians of a certain identity owing to events originating from outside Canada? I believe that there is no justification, nor can there be one. Canadians are not responsible for the actions of foreign governments and have a right to live in peace. But, for exactly 13 months to date, Canadian Jews have faced the ire (perhaps I should say ‘wrath’) of other Canadians who are incensed at what is happening in Israel / Gaza / Lebanon / Iran. I believe that this patently unjust, and the fact that this has not been addressed – let alone stopped – represents an abysmal failure of governments at all levels, viz., federal, provincial and municipal. It also represents an equally abysmal failure of our media, which has failed to articulate – or perhaps even attempted to articulate – this argument. I think the explanation for this is simple.
While we do profess to be multicultural, being truly multicultural requires a significant amount of effort and time. Therefore, most of us look for the easiest method to justify (even if to ourselves only) that we are living up to our ideal of multiculturalism. At the individual level, this is commonly done by partaking in the food of different cultures. At the political level, there are two, non-mutually exclusive, approaches available: posing for photographs at the events of the ‘ethnic communities’ and expressing sympathy for their foreign causes. Apart from sparing the time for these, the approaches are cost-free to the politician. I spoke about this in a podcast episode (see this link on YouTube) wherein I articulated that our warped sense of multiculturalism leads to multi-politicalism, meaning that instead of occupying more than one cultural space, we end up occupying more than one political space, viz., those of Canada and of the respective foreign country from which the ‘ethnic community’ originates or the religion ton which it adheres. I said ‘cost-free’, but that is for the politicians; for Canadian society, the cost tends to be heavy, albeit it may take some time to manifest itself – by which time the pandering politicians tend to ‘ride off into the sunset’. The flare-up in Brampton but the latest instance of this cost.
In the context of the conflict between Khalistani and Hindu Canadians, it is worth noting that in the US, where a similar case of the alleged complicity of the Indian government in an alleged plot to kill a US citizen is at play, we do not see such a conflict arising – or even on the horizon. I think this is because the Canadian political class is either more vested in pandering to the Khalistani elements or too weak, to the point of being spineless, to check such behaviour on the part of the Khalistanis.
GLOOMY PROSPECTS
In a recent chat with Alex Pierson on her show at the radio station AM640, in response to her question (listen at the 9:03 mark in this Spotifylink) , I replied to the effect that I believe the situation between Khalistani and Hindu Canadians in Brampton would be getting worse. My assessment is based on the fact that in the political arena, there has been zero initiative to bring about any resolution of – or even a reconciliation in – the dispute; the elected politicians have limited themselves to issuing public condemnation on their social media for the violence. It is left to the respective community to attempt this, but given the heightened emotions on both sides, I fail to see how this can be achieved. The issue is political at its core, and without the politicians getting involved, it is not only not going to be resolved but also, given their electoral interest in the continuance of the issue, very much likely to be exacerbated for yet more political gain.
This political apathy does not augur well for Canadian society, either in terms of preserving its peaceful nature or even in terms of maintaining a basic level of cohesiveness between different ‘ethnic communities’, be they Khalistani v/s Hindu or pro-Palestine v/s Jews. My current assessment, therefore, is that the peaceful and harmonious Canada that we have known is in real danger of disappearing before our own eyes.
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