I began this post a few months ago, but decided to finish it off now anyways. I think it is still relevant in light of the lead up to the presidential race across the border in the U.S.A., as stereotypically mild-mannered Canadians compare Donald Trump’s bombastic divisive cultural politics to less vociferous ones at home.
Take a foray into Canadian politics, late 2015…
Media portrayals often play a role in reflecting and reproducing hegemony according to the language utilized by state actors. The discourse on culture in Canadian politics, and the shift in that discourse over the time previous to and throughout the federal election in October 2015, is a case in point. Analyzing this shift and the reception of it can reveal the ongoing framing and negotiation of which values are at play in Canadian nationalism and the identification of the ideal “Canadian.” Borrowing from Timothy Fitzgerald, this post illustrates how “language is far from being a game because control of language brings power to the controllers. Politicians [among others] hope to define words in such a way that they confer power and authority” (2000: 88).
While Stephen Harper was in power, culture was something that got in the way of such things as citizenship, women’s rights, and public safety. For example, in reference to the well-publicized debate around one woman’s desire to wear the niqab for the public portion of her citizenship ceremony, Harper stated, “We do not allow people to cover their faces during citizenship ceremonies. Why would Canadians, contrary to our own values, embrace a practice at that time that is not transparent, that is not open and frankly is rooted in a culture that is anti-women.”
Several things are interesting in this declaration about culture. The former Prime Minister uses the word “values” – but when religious freedom is a constitutionally protected right (despite the ambiguity in what exactly it protects) and the nation has an official policy of multiculturalism, shouldn’t those concepts characterize Canadian values, as opposed to state-enforced ideas of openness and transparency? Might we read this debate as actually about submission to authority, expectations around conformity, and the limits of diversity? As Ranu Samantrai remarks of frustrated multiculturalism, “the concern is not that Muslims fail to become Christian, but that they fail to follow Christianity’s path to secularism by subsuming their religious affiliation to their national membership” (2008: 331). Harper’s discourse frames this woman’s face-covering as an affront to the nation as a whole. In this situation Muslim women’s bodies, covered or not, become the site on which to contest institutionalized force and the reproduction of ideal citizens.
It’s also important to note that Harper uses the word “culture” and not “religion” or “Islam.” I would venture to say that he espouses a Bernard Lewis/Samuel Huntington-esque approach to culture (one that Samantrai critiques in the article above): that religious affiliation is a (perhaps the) foundational element in determining individual and national “cultural” identities. The religion of the ‘other’ is public, not private; irrational, not enlightened; and cannot be reconciled with a national ethos based upon a model of secularism that supposedly separates from but actually grew out of largely Christian societies and still reproduces Christian-centric bias. William E. Connolly might agree; he calls “secular rationality… hypocritical because it secretly draws cultural sustenance from the “private faith” of constituencies who embody the European traditions from which Christian secularism emerged.” (1999: 91)
Samantrai’s article is valuable for its proposal for the state to eschew religious affiliation as a criterion for citizenship and privilege, which she foresees as beneficial for minorities within minorities (i.e. women within ethnicized constituencies). Her piece, however, begs two questions: can a nation rupture from its own historical contingency in such as way as to align societal norms with constitutionally guaranteed ideals? And, what then holds together the public culture of the nation – or, how might the nation be reconstituted or redefined (if it ought to be)? Connolly’s argument points out that the very idea of a nation, contingent upon vague notions of unity, allegiance, and communication, exists in tension with that of democracy (1999: 90, 87). Connolly suggests that no constituency be given, “the right to occupy the definitive center [or public sphere] of the nation,” which he sees as opening up possibilities for “multiple minorities” to explore multiplicity and intersectionality (1999: 92-3). Instead of subsuming one’s allegiances to that of the nation, his reconfiguration requires people to positively identify with other constituencies based on such categories as gender, language, class, ethnicity, and what may have you. Whether such a desanctified nationalism is possible, I’m not sure.
Returning to Harper, his political decline is also characterized by the proposed “Barbaric Cultural Practices” police hotline. This initiative purported to contribute to public safety when more likely inciting violence against publicly religious persons, particularly given the PM’s obvious opinion of the niqab. As media reports, “The heightened rhetoric over ‘Canadian values’ coincides with a rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes.” Harper in the past year doesn’t sound like the same PM under whom Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom became a thing – although, promoting Western-defined religious freedom abroad perhaps isn’t all that far off from intolerance at home; there is a similar imposition of foreign values in an effort to “civilize” the inappropriately religious subject. (NB: The Liberals might scrap the Office of Religion Freedom.)
Post-October 19th, 2015, and the election of PM Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party
Shifting for a moment to the provincial level of government instead of the federal, “What does culture mean to you?” That’s what the provincial Government of Ontario was asking via Facebook ads throughout November and December, in the months following the election. The criteria that they provide to define culture is telling of the shift in discourse discussed in this post. Culture is no longer majorly religion nor threat, but is now something that one participates in or shares with others voluntarily. Perhaps a consumer model of culture with the government regulating the market? According to various sections of the Ontario Culture Strategy, run by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Sport:
Culture is all the ways we remember, tell and celebrate our stories, and present and interpret the stories of others.
We tell our stories through:
film and television
recorded music and live performances
books and magazines
visual arts, theatre, dance
crafts
value systems, traditions and beliefs
Not only is culture now redefined as a creative and performance industry, but values are placed within this category. This shuffling of the conceptual deck of cards removes culture from the top of the deck, as this redefinition depoliticizes and domesticates culture as art, performance, material, narrative, and/or heritage. Culture is separated from that dangerous realm characterized by “transcendental narcissism,” as William E. Connolly calls self-serving religio-centric political discourse (8). Culture becomes a positive value, one to be enjoyed, instead of a potential source of threat to one’s way of life.
Justin Trudeau’s popularity grew at least in part through his courting of the segments of Canadian society that benefit the most from the multicultural policy, and those constituents who see themselves as liberal, welcoming, and open (there’s that word again). Trudeau particularly reached out to ethnic minorities. Trudeau is pro-refugee, and opposed Harper’s stance on the niqab. In a pre-election citizenship debate, Trudeau claimed that Harper’s stance “devalues” the citizenship of all Canadians, and that “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” The PM also gained publicity and generally positive reactions after videos of him dancing Bhangra to Punjabi music, and “palancing” (dancing) to a Soca song circulated via social media.
Trudeau’s victory speech reads as a repudiation of Harper’s ideological agenda. In an effort to be inclusive he begins: “In coffee shops and in town halls, in church basements and in gurdwaras you gathered. You… told us about the kind of country you want to build and leave to your children.” He redefines Harper’s indeterminate signifiers: “[You want] a PM who understands that openness and transparency means better, smarter decisions.” He references Islam and women’s rights: “Last week, I met a young mom in St. Catharines, Ontario. She practises the Muslim faith and was wearing a hijab… She said she’s voting for us because she wants to make sure that her little girl has the right to make her own choices in life and that our government will protect those rights.” He addresses both religious and cultural diversity: “We know in our bones that Canada was built by people from all corners of the world who worship every faith, who belong to every culture, who speak every language.” And he ends by redefining Canadian values and national culture: “Have faith in your fellow citizens, my friends. They are kind and generous. They are open-minded and optimistic. And they know in their heart of hearts that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” (But a Trudeau type of Canadian, not a Harper type).
The second Prime Minister Trudeau depoliticizes culture, partly by participating in performances of culture (as defined by the criteria provided by the government of Ontario), and especially by enfolding “culture” into the national narrative of “Canadian-ness” as something to be proud of instead of threatened by. In a softer way than Harper’s niqab fixation, Trudeau establishes the primacy of national identity over religious affiliation by attempting to open the boundaries of Canadian-ness wider. Trudeau makes openness to cultural diversity cool again – a strategic role for him to step into with his father, former Prime Minster Pierre Elliot Trudeau, recognized for enacting the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Ontario government asking, “what does culture mean to you?” via social media in the months following the election reflects the politics of a sort of “people’s culture” that the Liberal party frames Justin Trudeau as representing in contrast to Conservative Stephen Harper’s “war on culture.”
The examples provided above show why, as academics and also as citizens, we should be wary of political essentialism and the naturalization of concepts and signifiers that get thrown around as if they’re prediscursive, unambiguous, and apolitical. Terms such as “culture” carry the weight of the values that get packed into and attached onto them. The concept of culture has the ability to shapeshift according to political aspirations that are contingent upon the promotion and reproduction of such values. Therefore, it’s more important to ask – what does culture mean for you, instead of to you?
*Bibliography in hyperlinks*
Stacie A. Swain 