Foreignness and Western Liberation
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Mahrouse's analysis of interculturalism recognizes the deep-rooted desire to preserve the Quebecois identity, primarily based on the French language. While the Canadian model of multiculturalism, at least on a surface level, embraces other cultures, Quebec's model does not even attempt to do so, as their desire for a model citizen includes speaking the French language and assimilating into the culture to maintain this "minority" within Canada. A strong example of this is when Canada implemented the point system for immigration, which inherently benefited those from European countries; Quebec added additional points to French-speaking immigrants as they would be more "suitable." This balance between assimilation and acceptance was the backbone of the "reasonable accommodation" debates on how immigrants could co-exist with Quebecois values. However, the debates that stemmed from this included more isolation and alienation of individuals as there were debates over hijabs used by Muslim girls in sports or Sikh boys wearing cultural identifiers to school—essentially anyone who upheld cultural practices outside of the Quebecois norm. These tensions brought about the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, which concluded that "collective life in Quebec is not in a critical situation," which is the opposite of what most Quebec nationalists wanted to hear at the time. So they promptly refused the findings and criticized the commission for failing to address the "threats" that were supposedly posed by immigrants. On the other hand, immigrant communities stood behind this report, whose recommendations aligned with a vision for a province that could include many identities rather than trying to feed into one. Mahrouse powerfully uses Edward Said's note that dominant groups position themselves as "the spectator, the judge, and jury," despite all that, were still proven wrong in the commission.
Moving toward Al-Saji's work, the theme of cultural identifiers is prevalent as she highlights the French debate over the hijab. This began in 1989 when three hijabi girls were suspended from their college. However, the minister of education clarified that students should be allowed "freedom of conscience and hence the right to wear religious signs." Western societies typically perceive cultural practices such as wearing a hijab as forced or oppressive, regardless of whether that is something desired by the women—an evident irony as it is the West who do not listen to Muslim women. There is an assumption that Muslim women who choose to wear a hijab lack agency, underscoring the normative view on Western ways of life. In this case, gender norms are universal and deviate from that, meaning they must be oppressive. Additionally, while victimizing Muslim women, they also take power away from those who use the hijab for different reasons and thus homogenize all experiences, feeding into the Western liberation attitude.
The theme of alienation is continued in Sikh Knowledge's track, which makes a mockery of the securitization that has enveloped America following 9/11. This includes lines such as "rob you of your modesty, like Americans," which is about the disproportionate targeting of South Asian and Middle Easterners as security threats. Again, visually or even by identity representing as "the other" is shown to have its downside with lines such as "Do you have your passport, Mr Singh?" perpetuating this theme of foreignness and marginalization that is prevalent across Mahrouse and Al-Saji's reports and Sikh Knowledge's track.