Life in Cowtown

Readers with an eye on European politics will recognize Ali as the Somali-born    member of the Dutch parliament who faced death threats after collaborating on a film about domestic violence against Muslim women with controversial director Theo van Gogh (who was himself assassinated). Even before then, her attacks on Islamic culture as “brutal, bigoted, [and] fixated on controlling women” had generated much controversy. In this suspenseful account of her life and her internal struggle with her Muslim faith, she discusses how these views were shaped by her experiences amid the political chaos of Somalia and other African nations, where she was subjected to genital mutilation and later forced into an unwanted marriage. While in transit to her husband in Canada, she decided to seek asylum in the Netherlands, where she marveled at the polite policemen and government bureaucrats. Ali is up-front about having lied about her background in order to obtain her citizenship, which led to further controversy in early 2006, when an immigration official sought to deport her and triggered the collapse of the Dutch coalition government. Apart from feelings of guilt over van Gogh’s death, her voice is forceful and unbowed—like Irshad Manji, she delivers a powerful feminist critique of Islam informed by a genuine understanding of the religion. 8-page photo insert.

From Publishers Weekly

This weekend I finished digesting the controversial autobiographical novel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the recommendation of a friend, and what a novel it was. Very well written, it chronicles the life of Ayaan from the streets of Somalia to her arrival in the Netherlands, and her journey of renouncing religion in favor of atheism. She speaks very passionately about the oppression of one half of the world’s women for religious reasons, then proceeds to warn the west about the dangers newly arrived immigrants pose.  Actually this book covers a multitude of issues, way too numerous to dissect in one post – whether Islam is truly a religion of peace, whether any religion can shed its bloody history of war and oppression, whether westerners have any idea of the value of the freedoms we have, and how vigilant we must be to guard them. It’s a fascinating saga of a book that never gets too dull or pedantic but wraps up all the issues and historical context in a profound personal story.

Ayaan doesn’t pull back punches though, and some of them are aimed at the western world, that she feels is too lenient and permissive towards immigrants. She feels that hiding under political correctness and tolerance is a reluctance to protect not only the foundations of liberty of the west, but a disservice to the women and girls that continue to be persecuted by unintegrated community members of the newly arrived. She points out the statistics of the girls killed by family members, the genital mutilations performed on kitchen tables, the women’s shelters overflowing with beaten wives, the crime rate spikes in predominantly immigrant neighborhoods, and the drain on resources they represent if they choose not to learn the language and participate in the economy funded by the safety net of the world that sheltered them. Referring mainly to Holland, she says that with political correctness and tolerance and fear of being called racist, the country funds ethnic schools where the children are done a disservice with a cherry picked education, heavy on religion and light on history and science, and promote harmful segregation in the name of cultural sensitivity. They are heavy topics to discuss and yet the books doesn’t get heavy with proselytizing and reads easily.

There’s lots of food for thought here, and as an immigrant I can see both sides of the issue. On one hand you have indisputable statistics that support many of Ayaan’s assertions. You don’t have to look far in Calgary to find that the crime rates are higher as a rule in the quadrant of the city where many of the newly arrived cluster. The gang problem that’s spiked dramatically in the last few years is predominantly a product of the oriental culture and our latest murder trial was of a mother who killed her daughter for her overly westernized ways.  To deny the negative impact of immigration from vastly different cultures is dishonest. But on the other hand I see a severe failing of the country to prepare immigrants for life here and perhaps even help them succeed. When predominantly young families arrive in Canada, the culture shock is often severe, I know it was for us. Despite Canada’s self-claim as a polite and friendly country it is often rather cold or uncaring towards immigrants. Sure there’s a genuinely nice culture in small towns, but that’s not where the jobs are, so newcomers end up immersed in cosmopolitan and jaded cities. Not helped by the language barrier, the people are actually not that easy to get to know with our busy lifestyles that often don’t allow us to know our own neighbors, never mind befriend someone new. We often lament that we don’t even have time to see the friends we have, let alone make time for new ones. We often wait for new people to get more ‘westernized’ before we allow them into our circle, making polite small talk at work, but not really breaking down any cultural barriers.

So what are people to do? They do what comes naturally. They find other immigrants from their country, and sigh in relief. Often lonely and homesick, having left all their friends and many family members they understandably feel comforted at meeting someone, anyone who understands, has been there and speaks the language. Quite often the informal ‘training’ they get from their friends is invaluable and not found in any guidebook. Newly arrived people don’t need to know how Canada’s parliament system works right away, they need to know how to purchase bus fare and navigate the city.  Where to buy groceries and how to enroll your child in school. What work options are available and where to take English courses. This, and a myriad of other basic things, skills and tips are not found in any guide for newcomers and make culture shock more severe than it needs to be. Many people get overwhelmed with all the information flying at them with mach speed and you end up with older generations that have lived in Canada for twenty plus years and still don’t speak English.  But the biggest way we fail immigrants is by failing to truly streamline their re-accreditization in their chosen profession. That’s how we end up with the most educated cab drivers. I cannot count how many people have degrees that are sitting there unused while they do menial work because they have to start from scratch and get re-certified, negating the years of effort it took to get the degree in the first place. These are people who are in the prime of their earning years who cannot afford to go back to school for four, six or eight years as they have a family to support, so their degrees get shelved as they find ways and means to support them. In the meantime, politicians bleat about nurse and doctor shortages as well as every other employee shortage you can think of, yet can’t find the time to streamline the process of getting qualifications recognized.  This is a criminal waste of talent and ensures that many immigrant families’ earning power is low longer, contributing to both the burden on social services and delaying their productive integration into our society.

Whew. This is just one of the many tangents this book can take you on, so needless to say it’s an excellent and important read.  I now leave you with a picture that is much more tranquil than the rant I just went on. Feel free to agree or disagree below. Or just pet a cat.

When my family and I immigrated to Canada we happened to arrive in Newfoundland in December. I won’t even attempt to recoup the shock of coastal cold after three years of basking on a tropical island, but needless to say it was formidable. After being installed in a temporary apartment, we waited for the courts to hear our case and decide whether we’d be an asset to this fine young country. A new country is always a very exciting place to explore, especially if you haven’t seen too much of the world and become thoroughly jaded. Culturally, climatically, and historically Russia, Cuba and Newfoundland were very different indeed.

One of the first things we did, after unpacking our few suitcases, is go to the local grocery store. If memory serves it was a Dominion, and it was a small supermarket, the kind that thrives in many urban neighborhoods. I clearly remember the awe of that first trip. The bright lights, the sheer amount of food, the choices and the selection were simply overwhelming. I think we wandered around the store in a kind of happy daze, just window shopping and having the pleasurable feeling that no matter how long you shopped you could never try all of it.

We purchased some staples – milk, bread, eggs, cheese, potatoes, pasta and a few condiments – ketchup, mayo, sour cream and the like. Having never seen any of the brand names in our lives, my parents guided their decisions strictly on cost so I’m sure we ended up with some variant of a store brand for many things. We also bought some veggies – some year-rounders like potatoes and onions, and some items that seemed wonderfully absurd in December – melons or strawberries or something. Hauling all the bounty home we settled in to prepare our first few meals and compare these newfangled packages of shiny colorful labeling to the stuff that we’d previously only seen in paper, colorless tubs or in bulk.

Soon a slight puzzled look was exchanged by us as first suspicions and confusion set in. As we chewed and tasted there was a definite disappointment in the air as slowly the realization came that all this wonderfully packaged, shiny or out of season bounty simply tasted bad. The dairy was flat and bland tasting, as anyone who’s traveled to Europe and had European dairy can vouch for. (In fact the only Canadian dairy brand I’ve had that compares so far, is the justly renowned Liberty). The mayo had none of the rich, eggy taste that we later discovered in Hellmann’s, the cheese was also – well like every overprocessed, supermarket cheese. The out of season fruit were woody, tasteless and watery and the bread was fluffy and sweet. Somewhere along the line we realized that the food we’d eaten all our lives had way more taste and we should not feel bad over the opportunities we missed not having a supermarket nearby all our lives.

Over many years we discovered some fine supermarket brands, farmers markets for fresh fruit and vegetables, went to eating more seasonally again and for me, at least, found other wonderful local food producers that cared enough to deliver a delicious product. There were other compensations too – the rice no longer had to be picked through to weed out the debris and weevils, the flour came pre-sifted, new spices could be explored and wonderful new condiments to be discovered – hello soy sauce! Not to mention the foraging – oh the foraging. Every single summer without fail finds us in the woods near Calgary foraging for wild mushrooms. Since most of the population fears getting sick or dying (cause driving is not way more dangerous), the only foragers out there are fellow Europeans who can’t believe the bounty. Some years the forest floor teems with mushrooms that grow as thick as carpet and you can fill your trunk within a four foot radius. Forest berries though less frequent, can also be found and wild saskatoons, raspberries, blackberries and currants round out the wild pantry.

We’ve come a long ways since that first supermarket shopping trip, and some days I still think that someone should print a small guide to supermarket brands so that newly arrived Canadians have a hope in navigating the morass.