Adrienne Clarkson: Fashion Accessory

Canada Dept: Adrienne Clarkson s latest book, Room for All of Us , with its hope-filled illustrations of successful immigrants, doesn t address the new cadre. Before 9/11, the niqab wasn t seen on the streets of Toronto and the hijab wasn t a fashion accessory on university campuses. The glue that held together Canada s various immigrant communities stayed firm because a uniformly benign welcome wagon greeted all newcomers, according to Globe and Mail. The shadow of a politicized Islam is the new game across the world. The repellant notion that a bare-faced woman is a whore and brings shame not only to herself but also to her family belongs to the repressive male-dominated communities of backward societies. Yet, this has now reached the shores of Canada, where, despite the knowledge that this isn t a religious practice, the odd attention-seeking female duped by a newly politicized male of her community exercises the power to paralyze appropriate responses and generate tonnes of press and i m hunched up wondering whether, 44 years later, my adopted country where both my children and my writing career were born and have flourished has been invaded by aliens. Having watched the multicultural bandwagons roll by in the 1980s and the curry, bhangra and Bollywood imprints add splashes of colour to the Canadian drabscape, I now find myself filled with deep concern. A handful of people with whom I share a spiritual link have embedded themselves within the fabric of our civil society and managed to dupe others into believing that symbols of patriarchy and misogyny have been adopted by them of their own free will. Rough beginnings, where adaptations to dress, cuisine and culture are par for the course for all immigrants. Yet, the game plan was to participate to the best of one s ability and thereby enhance all existing cultural, educational and political institutions. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.