Banning of Keffiyeh at Ontario Legislature Will Not Silence Voice of Palestinian Resistance
Picket at Premier Ford's constituency office aganst ban on
keffiyeh, April 26, 2024
In early April, security staff at the Ontario Legislature began approaching legislature staff and visitors to the legislature asking them to remove the keffiyeh they were wearing if they were planning to enter the legislative building. On April 12, Marit Stiles, the opposition NDP leader sent a letter to the Speaker of the House questioning why legislature security were preventing staff, including from her party, and guests from wearing the keffiyeh to work. Stiles said that these were cultural symbols important to the Palestinians, Arabs and others and, similar to Scots wearing the kilt, permitted in the legislature.
Speaker of the
Legislative Assembly Ted Arnott responded in writing on April
16,
noting that after "extensive research" he concluded "the wearing
of
keffiyehs at the present time in [the] Assembly is clearly
intended to
be a political statement," and
that while he "wholeheartedly" agreed that the legislature must
be a
welcoming place for all Ontarians, it was with that welcoming
environment in mind that he sought to ban the keffiyeh. Arnott
also
indicated that if the legislature voted unanimously to oppose
the
banning of the keffiyeh, he would
go along with the decision. On April 18, NDP leader Marit Stiles
put
forward a motion to have the ban removed, but did not get the
unanimous
vote needed.
Arnott subsequently said that his decision to ban the keffiyeh is not "written in stone" and that if other MPPs wanted to bring forward motions to oppose the ban, they were free to do so.
For his part, pro-Zionist premier Doug Ford said that he was opposed to the ban because it is "unnecessarily divisive." The leader of the Liberals, former Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie also sided with Stiles and spoke against the ban. But the vote was not unanimous and therefore did not result in the speaker changing his decision.
All of this is spontaneous grandstanding where everyone, encouraged also by the monopoly media, presents themselves as champions of freedom of expression. Lest we forget, it was the leaders of the political parties in the Ontario legislature that banded together to criminalize and attack Hamilton NDP MPP Sara Jama when she expressed public support for the cause of the Palestinian people and opposed the genocide that Israel is committing against the people of Gaza. Marit Stiles even removed Sara Jama from the NDP caucus.
Premier Ford, who seemed so concerned about the "unnecessary divisions" the banning of the keffiyeh would cause among the people of Ontario, proudly proclaimed in October 2020 that his government was adopting the working definition of anti-semitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a group of some 35 countries including Canada which consider criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. At that time the Ford government stated: "We stand with Ontario's Jewish community in defence of their rights and fundamental freedoms as we always have and always will."
The official position of the Canadian state, from the founding of the state of Israel to the present time, is to stand with the Zionists while they have murdered and displaced the Palestinian people and sought to undermine their resistance. Since October 7, when the Zionists began their genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and other occupied lands, the Canadian state has consistently supported the Zionist regime in Israel by sending them money and arms.
At the same time, as more and more people in Canada and around the world have rallied around the besieged Palestinians by standing with the Palestinian resistance, the Canadian state has increasingly used violence and terror and sought to silence them. The unilateral decision by Arnott, whose job is to keep order and facilitate the business of the house, to ban the keffiyeh is part of the campaign to silence the growing support of the Canadian people for the Palestinians and in keeping with the Canadian state's full support of the U.S./Israeli genocide. Not only has Canada funded and sent arms to Israel, but it has also cut its funding to UNRWA.
At home, more state violence and intimidation is taking place as workers, academics, students and others have been suspended and sanctioned when speaking out against the U.S./Zionist genocide. For example, last fall Wanda Nanibush, one of only two Indigenous curators at the Art Gallery of Ontario, was fired from her job for posting a message on her Facebook page supporting the Palestinians. The other Indigenous curator resigned in protest.
Following the failure to get unanimous consent, Hamilton MPP Sara Jama, who is sitting now as an independent, noted: "Wearing a keffiyeh is now banned at Queen's Park -- not just in the chamber, but from the building itself. This is unsurprising, but nonetheless concerning in a country with an ongoing legacy of colonialism. You don't have to go far back in Canadian history to see how state powers use suppression of Indigenous cultural dress, language, ceremony and beliefs as tools of genocide. Seeing those in power in this country at all levels of government, from federal all the way down to school boards, aid Israel's colonial regime as Israel's genocide in Gaza and the West Bank continues, we see attempts to demonize and suppress every aspect of Palestinian identity here in Ontario. Students are reprimanded for wearing keffiyehs at school, while racist Zionist groups continue to equate Palestinian identity with terrorism with little or no pushback from people in power. Those who do speak out in solidarity are slandered and silenced, all while police violence escalates to repress the people using their voices to demand peace."
On April 23 Stiles once again presented a motion to reverse the ban. Several Conservative MPPs objected meaning the motion did not get unanimous consent. On April 25, Sara Jama, who has been wearing a keffiyeh in the legislature in defiance of the ban, was ordered by the speaker to leave the chamber. He said “Sarah Jama you are named. You must leave the chamber… As a result of being named, the member, for the remainder of the day, is ineligible to vote on matters before the assembly…” Jama refused his order to leave, and the clerk of the legislature did not attempt to forcibly remove her.
The cause of the Palestinian people is just and no amount of state intimidation and terror will divert the movement in Canada from standing with the Palestinians until Palestine is free from the river to the sea.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 3 - April 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M540036.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca