ISLAMPHOBIA - Canada is re-invoking the "none is too many" rule of the 1930's
Islamphobia
Canada RE-INVOKING THE "None is too many" rule of the 1930's.
One of the main reasons used to keep Jewish refugees out, whichReason reportsnot only flooded the media but was even endorsed by President Franklin Roosevelt, was that they were "Hitler's Slave Spies in America."
The argument was that Jews could be acting as Trojan horse saboteurs to protect their Nazi-captured loved ones -- or thatNazis could infiltrateAmerica posing as Jews -- and so had to be denied entry. The ascribed motivation may be different, but the fear-stoking security concerns are the same.
Oh, and in case Canadians want to get on on their high horse here, don't forget that we were just as culpable back then, infamously joining the U.S. in refusing to accept the more than900 Jewish refugee passengerson the MS St Louis ocean liner, one of the last ships out of Germany before WWII started later that year.
AForward magazine article reportedthat the head of Canadian immigration at the time, Frederick Charles Blair, "believed an international Jewish conspiracy was trying to skirt Canadian immigration policies by sneaking the refugees into the country."
Sound familiar?
Or maybe this quote from the book "The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy" that said even after the war, "as public-opinion polls demonstrated, Jewish refugees were regarded as an alien race, incapable of assimilating into the Canadian way of life."
Trudeau, in fact, invoked this national shame in March, prior to the election campaign, foreshadowing how it would teeter toward outright Islamophobia and racism.
"We should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a 'none is too many' immigration policy towards Jews in the '30s and '40s being used to raise fears against Muslims today,"he said in a speechslamming the niqab debate as "nothing less than an attempt to play on people's fears and foster prejudice, directly toward the Muslim faith."
Irving Abella is the co-author of "None Is Too Many," which turned a government official's anti-Semitic response into a infamous phrase symbolizing Canada's pre-war Jewish refugee policy which he deemed the worst in the west. Abellawrote in the Globe&Mailtwo years ago that his book had since become "an ethical yardstick."
"We know, for example, that 'None Is Too Many' was instrumental in opening up Canada's gates to vast numbers of desperate Vietnamese forced out into the rough, pirate-infested waters of the South China Sea in the late 1970s.
The Canadian minister of immigration at the time, Ron Atkey, later told us that in the midst of the crisis, while he was being pressured by some to allow the refugees in and by many others to keep them out, he received an advance copy of some chapters of the book. These, he said, emboldened him not to behave in the same callous way a previous government had rebuffed European Jews. His courageous decision opened up Canada's doors to tens of thousands of valuable new citizens."
Now is the time to be courageous again, to refuse to bow to prejudice and to save as many Syrian refugees as we can.
Because never again.
Canada RE-INVOKING THE "None is too many" rule of the 1930's.
One of the main reasons used to keep Jewish refugees out, whichReason reportsnot only flooded the media but was even endorsed by President Franklin Roosevelt, was that they were "Hitler's Slave Spies in America."
The argument was that Jews could be acting as Trojan horse saboteurs to protect their Nazi-captured loved ones -- or thatNazis could infiltrateAmerica posing as Jews -- and so had to be denied entry. The ascribed motivation may be different, but the fear-stoking security concerns are the same.
Oh, and in case Canadians want to get on on their high horse here, don't forget that we were just as culpable back then, infamously joining the U.S. in refusing to accept the more than900 Jewish refugee passengerson the MS St Louis ocean liner, one of the last ships out of Germany before WWII started later that year.
AForward magazine article reportedthat the head of Canadian immigration at the time, Frederick Charles Blair, "believed an international Jewish conspiracy was trying to skirt Canadian immigration policies by sneaking the refugees into the country."
Sound familiar?
Or maybe this quote from the book "The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy" that said even after the war, "as public-opinion polls demonstrated, Jewish refugees were regarded as an alien race, incapable of assimilating into the Canadian way of life."
Trudeau, in fact, invoked this national shame in March, prior to the election campaign, foreshadowing how it would teeter toward outright Islamophobia and racism.
"We should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a 'none is too many' immigration policy towards Jews in the '30s and '40s being used to raise fears against Muslims today,"he said in a speechslamming the niqab debate as "nothing less than an attempt to play on people's fears and foster prejudice, directly toward the Muslim faith."
Irving Abella is the co-author of "None Is Too Many," which turned a government official's anti-Semitic response into a infamous phrase symbolizing Canada's pre-war Jewish refugee policy which he deemed the worst in the west. Abellawrote in the Globe&Mailtwo years ago that his book had since become "an ethical yardstick."
"We know, for example, that 'None Is Too Many' was instrumental in opening up Canada's gates to vast numbers of desperate Vietnamese forced out into the rough, pirate-infested waters of the South China Sea in the late 1970s.
The Canadian minister of immigration at the time, Ron Atkey, later told us that in the midst of the crisis, while he was being pressured by some to allow the refugees in and by many others to keep them out, he received an advance copy of some chapters of the book. These, he said, emboldened him not to behave in the same callous way a previous government had rebuffed European Jews. His courageous decision opened up Canada's doors to tens of thousands of valuable new citizens."
Now is the time to be courageous again, to refuse to bow to prejudice and to save as many Syrian refugees as we can.
Because never again.
Replies
our local churches are getting together on this and the european union is discussing closing its borders because of what is going on. can\'t believe all this is happening.