Public Displays of What?

As I tend to do, I have been watching the news over the last couple of days and taking in the news of the man in Calgary who stabbed his tenant, his wife, two of his children and then himself. Everyone is suitably horrified and shocked, including some of the police officers arriving on the scene. I understand that — it must be unspeakably difficult to have to deal with that, or to find out that such a thing has happened in your city or in your neighbourhood.

The part I can't figure out is the impromptu memorial that grew in the yard.

When did this become an acceptable part of our behaviour in our society? Strangers, with no personal connection to the slain or the otherwise tragically killed, going out and buying flowers, teddy bears, etc. and heaping them on a lawn or some other roadside area (for car accidents) to express their grief. Perhaps the most extreme example was the hectares of rotting vegetation that marked the death of Princess Diana in that car accident in a tunnel in Paris:

People expressing their grief? Most of these 'mourners' don't even know the people they are grieving. Is there something about our wacky disconnected society that drives us to manufacture connections to the dead so that we can feel something — anything — and then express it publicly for all to see?

I understand grieving those we know. This other phenomenon is just creepy.

Friday en français - Accommodement raisonnable, partie 1

Fin d'un processus parfois difficile parfois intéressant ou début d'un débat qui va dévoiler encore plus les préjugés peu cachés de notre société? C'était le dépôt du rapport de la Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d'accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles qu'on peut télécharger en version intégrale ou abrégée ici.

Toute de suite, nous avons eu quelques signes de ce que va faire le gouvernement québécois avec les recommandations : rejet par motion appuyée unanimement par les trois parties représentées à l'Assemblée nationale de la recommandation d'enlever le crucifix du mur en arrière du président de l'Assemblée nationale. Le premier ministre prétend que ce symbole explicitement chrétien représente la culture et l'histoire du Québec et non une religion.

D'autre part, ce même premier ministre — minoritaire, il faut souligner — veut introduire une loi ou des règlements servant à obliger toute personne immigrante de jurer son adhérence à certains principes de base de notre société. Ceci me suggère deux questions : 1 - Est-ce que ces principes comprennent un accueil et une ouverture envers la différence? 2 - Quand est-ce qu'on va obliger toute personne née au Québec de jurer le même respect des principes de base?

hijab

niqab

Le symbole le plus discuté de ce débat est le hijab, la voile portée par certaines femmes musulmanes. Oublie le niqab (qui cache aussi le visage), car ceci est porté par très peu de femmes au Québec, donc le débat à cet égard ne devrait même pas être recevable. Le hijab est beaucoup plus commun et est, sans doute, un symbole de foi. J'ai un ami croyant qui m'a confié que chaque fois qu'il voit une femme portant le hijab, il fait la signe de la croix (un autre symbole de foi). Les réactions qu'il reçoit ne sont pas généralement positives. Ma première réaction était de penser qu'il posait son geste de manière défensive, ce qu'une expression de foi ne devrait pas être, mais je ne comprends pas nécessairement une réaction négative de la part de la femme dans cette situation, car son habillement sert d'expression de foi envers toute personne qu'elle rencontre.

Moi aussi, je me trouve confronté par ces symboles et expression de foi. Je me considère athée, mais je trouve que je tolère beaucoup plus facilement les hijabs, turbans, etc. que les symboles chrétiens. Ça se peut que mon statut de minorité sexuelle m'amène à avoir plus d'empathie pour les personnes des minorités culturelles, mais je suis quand même conscient que la plupart des religions m'excluraient en tant qu'homme gai. C'est peut être l'illustration de l'idiome anglais « familiarity breeds contempt. » J'ai eu plus d'années à construire un manque de tolérance pour les chrétiens, ayant été exposé pendant toute ma vie à leurs croyances.

La pire chose pour moi se trouve à l'intérieur des recommandations du rapport cité en haut. La commission recommande que les policier(e)s, les juges, et les personnes qui occupent des postes semblables aient une interdiction de porter des symboles religieux, alors que d'autres personnes — professeurs, fonctionnaires, etc. — soient libre de le faire. J'ai entendu sur la radio une entrevue avec une jeune femme qui aurait voulu devenir policière, mais qui doit maintenant changer de plan ou abandonner son expression de foi qui est le hijab.

Je trouve ça triste.

May Day, Mayday

Ah, International Workers' Day. Is there anything better? I constructed the lovely Facebook profile picture (yes, the one you see above) and smiled at the news that my friend Andy (I have such trouble calling him Andrew after meeting him as Andy) has been given a lovely honour: a Jiangsu Province May 1st Labour Glory Medal as a Model Worker. (He's teaching English in Nanjing and is quite amused by the thought of being a Model Worker.)

There was something else happening today that was not at all glorious or honourable.

It was going to be the day on which a judge in Longueuil (just to the south of Montréal) passed sentence on a woman recently convicted of sexual assault and aggravated assault. The story is not as clear as we usually like to think when the news tells us about someone being convicted of a crime; it is, in fact, muddy and not at all representative of the system of justice we all thought we had.

A brief recap of the whole story is probably in order. This woman (we'll call her D) is HIV positive. She has a child. A few years ago, at one of her child's soccer games, she met a man (we'll call him S). D and S had an adventure. D didn't disclose her HIV status, but insists that they used a condom. She didn't think it would be a good idea, in the context of someone she met at her child's soccer game and would probably not have another 'adventure' with, to disclose her status.

Next phase. S wants to pursue a relationship with D. D chooses this moment to disclose her status (new context) and S has some trouble dealing with it. After some amount of time, S reconsiders his reaction and comes back to D, again wanting to pursue a relationship with her in the full knowledge of her HIV status. They have a relationship that lasts for several years.

Next phase. S becomes abusive and actually assaults D and her child. D makes a complaint and S is prosecuted for conjugal violence. Here's where justice takes a turn for the worse. In a phenomenon that is becoming disturbingly common, S picks up on the concept that the best defence is an offence. During his trial, S makes a complaint against D: it's all about her not having disclosed her status to him during a one night adventure years ago. D is charged with sexual assault and aggravated assault. S is found guilty, but his lawyer raises the charges against D during representations on sentencing. The Crown prosecutor agrees that S has suffered a terrible injustice and joins the defence in recommending an absolute discharge (not record, no sentence, no conditions). The judge goes with that.

Next phase. D is tried and convicted of sexual assault and aggravated assault. The judge takes pains to point out that neither of the parties is credible as a witness, so he can't believe that a condom was worn, but he sees how this prosecution is probably based on feelings of revenge on the part of S. Today was going to be the sentencing. The judge, faced with a Crown prosecutor insisting on jail time and a defence insisting on nothing less than an absolute discharge, has decided to take more time, until 8 July, before deciding on the sentence.

Today, while that was unfolding in a courtroom in Longueuil, many of us were demonstrating on the streets of Montréal. There were 30-40 of us, marching from the Palais de Justice in Montréal (where the Québec Minister of Justice's offices are located) to a nondescript building in Montréal that houses the offices of the Minister of Health, chanting some slogans that might have been better conceived in terms of their rhythmic qualities and attracting some media and public attention, but not tons. Our point was to demonstrate not only the injustice of what is happening to D, but also the two-faced approach of the authorities: public health speaks of prevention as a 'shared responsibility' while justice pins the blame on the positive person. We got no official response.

This whole situation makes me really angry. What happened to a couple of decades of education of the justice system with respect to conjugal violence? How can D's HIV status ever justify her being assaulted by S? And four years later?! This tells me that every HIV+ person can be held hostage to a decision not to disclose his or her status — kind of understandable if you consider the stigma and discrimination that almost always follow that disclosure — forever. Four years of a consensual relationship in the knowledge of that HIV status doesn't erase one fearful decision to not disclose that pre-dates the relationship.

An issue that should be dealt with by public health is being criminalized. HIV positive people are being told to choose between discrimination and jail.

Hence the Mayday.