THE CANADIAN ISLAMIC CONGRESS
Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:56:15 -0700
In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful
The Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Magazine
Friday, July 27, 2007 - Rajab 12, 1428, Year:10 Vol:10 Issue: 81
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THIS FRIDAY MAGAZINE CONTAINS TWO ITEMS: 1. CANADA AT 140 - SOME LESSONS FROM HISTORY 2. EMAIL FEEDBACK =========================================================================== 1. CANADA AT 140 - SOME LESSONS FROM HISTORY [By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry] =========================================================================== (Part 2 of 2) The colonizing efforts of France in Canada were carried out by both Church and State. The Catholicism of the French Counter-Reformation saw the evangelization of the natives as a high priority. Trading companies usually had to agree to transport priests on their ships to New France. The task of missionizing in the New World was entrusted to the Catholic orders of the Recollets and Jesuits. "It was the Jesuits who constituted themselves par excellence the soldiers of the Cross in French America," comments Prof. Arthur Lower in his book Colony to Nation (1946). "The glory of God came first, the advance of the fleur-de-lis [French settlement and culture] next, money motives far behind ... If the French had shown the same zeal in colonizing as in missionary work, the racial situation in North America might have been different today. Piety, finance and bigotry lay behind the missionary effort." In 1627, the Company of New France was established to trade in furs and in 1670 the Hudsons Bay Company was established for the same reason. The latter was named after the British captain Henry Hudson, who back in 1610 explored the vast bay that also bears his name. In 1700 the Compagnie du Canada, yet another French commercial venture, was established; it was also in business to manage fur trading with the natives. As long as the native peoples complied with the various trading companies, they were generally left alone, but whenever they resisted the traders pricing and policies, they were subjected to total genocide -- economically, religiously, culturally and physically. In 1666, De Tracy destroyed rebellious Mohawk villages. By 1667, the Catholic Church arbitrarily claimed its right to receive a portion of the grain harvest of each parish in New France. "Church and state were obverse and reverse of the same coin," comments Prof. Lower. "They were missionaries, fighting troops, to be moved from station to station at the discretion of their commander, the Bishop." In 1665, Jean Talon had been appointed administrator and New France came directly under the French Crown, given the status of a province of France. As native populations began to sharply decline due to death in their resistance to the invaders and due to diseases introduced by the colonists, the latter looked for ways to increase their population to gain a firmer power base in their new land. "The famous filles du roi [daughters of the king] experiment involved recruiting young women and sending them off to Quebec by the ship-load for marriage to the bachelors of the colony," reports Prof. Lower. "Relatively few people in early 18th century Canada had been born in France ... The total number of immigrants before the English Conquest (in 1760) was estimated at between 4,000 to 10,000, all of them French. But this handful became the 60,000 inhabitants of the Colony at the Conquest and from it has descended the whole French stock in America today ..." The wars between French and the English in America began almost with their respective arrivals on North American soil. These wars were, often as not, continuations of conflicts rooted in Europe. Even by the mid-1600s, other European powers began efforts to restrain France from creating a continental hegemony in the New World and succeeded only on the battlefield of Waterloo. In America, "there was no bridge between zealous 17th century Catholicism and stiff-necked 17th century Puritanism," writes Prof. Lower. "For the Puritans, Rome was the evil thing, to be blotted out whenever possible in the persons of its adherents. The Catholics hardly took so extreme a view: wholesale conversion, with military persuasion, would have satisfied them." In 1611, French Jesuits established a mission in Acadia, but in 1621 Nova Scotia was granted to the Englishman, Sir William Alexander. And in 1713 Hudsons Bay, Newfoundland and Acadia were all transferred to the rule of Great Britain by Treaty of Utrecht. In 1744, an aggrieved France declared war on Great Britain, but as early as 1689 it had attempted to take over control of New York. Similarly, the English tried in 1690 and 1711 to wrest Québec from the French. In 1755 the English forced a wholesale expulsion of the Acadians (the Nova Scotian French) from their settlements. At the conclusion of the Seven Years War, the Marquis de Vaudreuil signed the capitulation on September 8, 1760 whereby he surrendered Montreal and the colony known as Canada to General Amherst. "For the British it was glorious victory; for the Americans it ended the threat from the North, and for France it was the loss of quelques arpents de neige - a few acres of snow," notes Prof. Lower. But that pivotal event also marked the birth of "a French Catholic Province in an English Protestant Empire." Thus the French conquerors of Canada became themselves conquered subjects. "It is hard for people of English speech - except those of the Southern States - to understand the feelings of those who must pass under the yoke of conquest, for there is scarcely a memory of it in all their tradition," writes Prof. Lower. "Conquest is a type of slavery and of that too the conquerors have no memory, except as masters. Conquest, like slavery, must be experienced to be understood. As long as the French are French and the English are English, the memory of the Conquest and its effects will remain. Not until that great day comes when each shall have lost themselves in a common Canadianism will it be obliterated." It is astonishing how Prof. Lowers summation of more than 60 years ago describes the current situation so accurately. I wonder; has that day of "common Canadianism" come to the Canada of 2007? (Dr. Mohamed Elmasry is national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]) =========================================================================== 2. EMAIL FEEDBACK =========================================================================== RE: CICPAC REJECTS PROPOSED NEW SYSTEM TO ELECT MPPs Dear Dr. Elmasry; CICPAC-Ontario viewed negatively the proposed Ontario electoral reforms. We, on the other hand, find the proposed electoral system (which includes elements of proportional representation) has many favourable aspects to it, especially when it comes to the marginalized segments of society and minorities. The proposed system will guarantee smaller, and usually more progressive, parties the seats they cannot usually win under the current system. Thus it will encourage minorities to join smaller parties, which may be more in tune with their beliefs and positions, without feeling that their involvement is worthless. We would actually like to see more seats in every legislature across Canada (Federal and Provincial) chosen through party lists than the 40 proposed in the Ontario reforms. We do not find much difference in accountability between both systems. If anything, under the new system there is improved accountability since we mostly choose and decide who to vote for by party rather than by candidate (even within in the current system). Under the proposed system we, the electors, will be able to hold parties more accountable and reward them or punish them directly if we don't like their performance. In addition to this, we don't agree that the proposed system would further marginalize minorities. Geographically scattered minorities will even have more influence on the outcome of elections if they vote as a block and thus they will be more encouraged to participate in the political process. Last, under the current system, majority popular vote is not being taken into account. Governments in Canada today, provincially and federally, can be a majority easily without having getting even close to 50% of the total votes at the polls. It is the norm today that a party which has been chosen by more than 20% of the population will hold less than 10% of the seats in the legislature, while a party has been chosen by 30% of the population and enjoy 50% or more of the seats. In short, we find the proposed reforms a great democratic improvement that we wholeheartedly support. Mohamed S. Kamel, Eng. - Montreal Ehab Lotayef, Eng. - Montreal (members of CICPAC - National) --------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: CICPAC REJECTS PROPOSED NEW SYSTEM TO ELECT MPPs Asalamalykoom. Thank you all for discussing this issue because I did not really understand the communiqué when I received it. I thought there must be some other reasons why CICPAC-Ontario said what they said. This might still be the case as I did not read the proposed law or read about it. However, I happen to agree with Brs Ehab Lotayef and Mohamed Kamel on this. I thought the new system as described would actually produce more accountabilities and more involvement in the election process. If a specific community does not participate they will pay the price and our democratic system, correctly, does not protect those who do not participate; but the new changes encourage participation. First: If you can vote for the local candidate and for the party, then every vote will have weight, and that should encourage people everywhere to go out and vote even if their riding is normally won by a very high margin, and even if their local choice has no chance to win. This is a new encouraging factor for participation. Second: Any time I do not like the political parties in parliament I can form a new party to attract, for example, Muslims and conscious-minded people or other minorities, and their votes will be aggregated to insure some seats in the parliament to raise issues that would never have been raised otherwise. This is a good factor against political apathy. And it will also encourage people to be more active in politics. Both points provide new opportunities than were not available before, with better MPP representation of all communities. In addition, in the current system, successful parties normally win absolute, sometimes very large, majorities with about 35% of the popular vote; in fact in Quebec sometimes the government that wins the election with an absolute majority has numerically less votes than the opposition, because of the uneven riding distribution of supporters. And that lacks accountability, as the elected party becomes arrogant even though its support is soft, and against democracy, which is "one person one vote, all equal." In this case the winner should be the one who gets more popular votes. The new system would provide some reasonable correction and closes the gap. Waassalam, Salam Elmenyawi (Montreal) --------------------------------------------------------------------- RE: CICPAC REJECTS PROPOSED NEW SYSTEM TO ELECT MPPs Dear Dr. Elmasry: I was surprised by this, and curious. I do not understand your position. If I look at places where similar systems have been used, such as Germany, I see much better representation for minorities than I see in Canada. In Canada a minority could have 20% of the votes and not a single seat. With the proposed system, that would not happen. Even groups with only 5% (and sometimes smaller) get representation in Germany. Isn't it important to have an elected voice? Dave --------------------------------------------------------------------- Re; USER FRIENDLY MOSQUES Dear Dr. Elmasry: Assalamu'alaikum ~ We ran across an article on the MPACUK website in which you spoke of the User Friendly Award for Mosques; could you let us know more about the criteria that you use to grant the award? InshaAllah, we would love to do something similar here in NYC. Jazak Allahu Khairan. Sarah Sayeed Women In Islam, Inc. www.womeninislam.org =========================================================================== NOTE: Some letters and articles may have been edited for clarity and/or length; however, writers' opinions are unaltered. =========================================================================== --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: All material published by The Friday Magazine is the sole responsibility of its author(s). The opinions and/or assertions contained therein do not necessarily reflect the editorial views of The Friday Magazine, nor those of the Canadian Islamic Congress and its officers. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** * To subscribe/unsubscribe: * * http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/subscribe.php * *************************************************************************** || || o || _o_,_\ ,;: .'_o_\ ,;: (_|_;: _o_,_,_,_; ( .. / (_) / ( . Bismillah irRahman irRaheem In the Name of Allaah, The Most Gracious, The Most Kind Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islam-net1/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islam-net1/join (Yahoo! 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