Headline Nov. 02/ ''' HIJAB -NIQAB- BURQA '''

''' HIJAB -NIQAB- BURQA '''

THE HEART OF THE CRISES CONFRONTING   all world democracies, all Western democracies, this very moment and day :............

''The great democracies face new serious threats, yet seeming to be losing confidence in their own calling and competence............

Economic, political and national security challenges proliferate, and they are made worse by the  tendency to turn inward. 

The health of the democratic spirit itself at issue. And the renewal of that spirit is the urgent task at hand.'' 

I thank and appreciate and totally agree with that line of reasoning from President George W. Bush   

THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY  -the most democratic, humane organization mankind could ever conceive,........ reasons in greatness and evolving spirit that:

The dress-code is your own personal right and honor. The World Students Society welcomes every worthy dress code : Hijab, Niqab and Burqa. And respects every unique identity.

While veil-law rankles  Canada,...because expectedly, of a very great democratic nation like Canada,  -from right across Canada, denunciation of a law requiring people to show their faces has been vocal and swift............

*A hot debate  in Quebec, where  multiculturalism is seen as an eroding identity*.

''Quebec for the last 50 years  has been fighting against the power of religion in public institutions,'' said Diane Guilbault, the vice president of the advocacy group For the Rights of Women in Quebec.

''Suddenly the battle has become racist. Why? We were against religious symbol long before the first veils came here.''

For second-wave feminists like Ms. Guilbault, the memory of a powerful Roman Catholic Church that pushed Quebec women to stay home, produce the country's highest birthrate and be excluded from public life is still potent.

In Quebec, unlike the rest of Canada, the Catholic Church ran all hospitals, schools and social services until the 1960s, when a social movement known as the Quiet Revolution pushed it out.

Women gained the right to vote in provincial elections only in 1940, two decades after most of the rest of the country.

''We are very proud of what we have accomplished over 50 years,'' said Ms. Guilbault, 62. ''We don't want to go back.''

While Ms. Guilbault does not support the new law, she does think the niqab and burqa should be banned.

''They are a symbol of the banishment of women,'' she said.

Support for the law within Quebec is strong -91 percent among French speakers,  according to an  online Angus Reid poll conducted last month that is often cited by the provincial government.

But denunciation of the new law from across the country has been vocal and swift. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that while Quebec makes its own laws, he believed women could make up their own minds on what to wear.

The premiers of Ontario and Alberta both slammed the law, with the Alberta leader, Rachel Notley, saying that it ''smacks of Islamophobia''.

Human rights advocates and lawyers fear that the law will further isolate Muslim women and flame  anti-Muslim hate crimes, which have risen in recent years in Quebec and across the country.

The most heinous was the of six Muslims in a Quebec City mosque last January.

''The message is this community is dysfunctional and needs to be corrected,'' said Salam Elmenyawi, the president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, which represents 70 mosques and Islamic organizations. ''This is institutional discrimination.''

The provincial justice minister, Stephen Vallee, who has said that the goal of the law is to ensure identification, communication and security, held a news conference on Tuesday to address the confusion and increasing protests the law has drawn.

People will have to show their faces only at initial contact with government workers, she clarified. They can cover themselves again.

''No one will be thrown off public transport, be refused emergency health care or be chased out of the library,'' she said, according to the local news media.

''We do not have the intention of setting up an uncovered-face police.''

The agency that runs the Montreal subway and bus system said its workers would not enforce the law until it had been analyzed further.

Some people think it will never be enforced.

''IN WINTER, if a women is wearing a full veil with her two kids and is waiting for the bus, will the driver not accept her?'' said Gerard Bouchard, who was co chairman of the commission on religious accommodation a decade ago.

''No, this is nonsense. We can't do that. Quebecers are not hard people.''

With respectful dedication to all the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter !E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' World & Wonders '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless