Pierre Cloutier ll.m

2017-02-21

It is important not to confuse immigration with religion. They are two completely distinct subjects. Not all immigrants to Quebec are Muslim and not all Muslims practice their religion. There is however within Islam a small minority which is very activist and militant, and which demands religious accommodations. This minority attempts to bypass the law by exploiting their right to freedom of religion, an individual right, so as to interpret it as a collective right to be imposed on all Québécois. However the individual’s freedom of religion must not be confused with the right to display one’s religion using ostentatious symbols, particularly in state civil institutions such as hospitals, schools and the public service.

Freedom of belief has never been threatened in Quebec. Never. One may hold whatever belief one wishes and the state leaves people alone, which is not the case in Muslim countries. But that does not mean shouting one’s belief from the rooftops anywhere and everywhere and at all times. For that, there are places of worship, where one may express one’s belief in the existence of a superior being or another level of being. There is a difference between belief and worship. Doesn’t true spirituality involve an attitude of simplicity and discretion? Otherwise doesn’t it risk being distorted into hysterics and theatrics, which are characteristics of religious fanaticism, among other things?

On the other hand, wearing the Islamic veil is not a religious obligation imposed by the quran. Similarly, neither the times at which the five daily Muslim prayers must be done, nor the way in which they must be recited, are specified in the quran. These prayers can very well be recited outside of working hours and there is no need to carry a prayer rug everywhere in order to do so. All the various Islamist demands are part of a permanent blackmail campaign undertaken by a small fundamentalist current within Islam, a very small minority within a minority. Imagine if the disciples of Raël demanded special rooms for “relaxation” and “absolute love” and the right to wear white robes like that of their prophet, with ostentatious jewelry exhibiting the glory of the Elohim, in the workplace—including judges, police and prison guards. When you think about it, isn’t a “religion” just a sect which has succeeded?

The whole rigamarole is senseless and completely ridiculous. And yet this debate has been poisoning Quebeckers lives for at least a decade on the pretext of not offending “immigrants” in general and facilitating their “integration” into Quebec society, while running the risk of being accused of racism, xenophobia and islamophobia. In fact, “immigrants” are being exploited by fundamentalist Islam. The whole issue is essentially POLITICAL, has nothing whatsoever to do with spirituality and is the work of a handful of fundamentalists whose goal is to destroy the democratic underpinnings of western societies and replace them with theocratic dictatorships, where Allah will rule as absolute dictator, where there will be no freedom of conscience—i.e. the right to believe or to disbelieve—no separation between state and religion and no legal equality between men and women. When Muslim dogma is strictly enforced, the result is the death of freedom. Fundamentalist Muslims invoke religious freedom in order to stifle and destroy all other fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of expression—all criticism of Muslim dogma is denounced as “Islamophobic”—and gender equality. The Islamist veil is the flag of gender inequality.

The world in which we live has gone insane. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard who, in the not too distant past, sold his services, in exchange for cold, hard cash, to Saudi Barbaria, one of the most reactionary and despotic countries on the planet, has invented a new concept which he calls “clothing discrimination” in an attempt to convince us, as well his minister of justice, that the Islamist veil is nothing more than a piece of cloth. It really takes an enormous degree of bad faith to say such nonsense, when everyone in Quebec knows full well what the veil represents: political Islam, militant Islam and liberticidal Islam. Islam at its most reactionary and retrograde.

The Muslim woman who demands the right to wear the veil is like a black woman who, disavowing what Rosa Parks fought for in Alabama in 1965, demands the right to give up her seat to a white man and return to the back of the bus. THE WHOLE THING IS INSANELY RIDICULOUS AND THAT IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. If Quebec women who fought so hard for equality with men were to accept that, then Quebec is done for.

Rosa Parks with Martin Luther

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) was an American civil rights activist, whom the United States Congress called
“the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement” … (Rosa Parks — Wikipedia ^[1])