Secularism and securitisation: the imaginary threat of religious minorities in Canadian public spaces

ABSTRACT

From the assumed physical threat of a ceremonial Kirpan in an elementary school carried by a Sikh child, to the fictional possibility of rich, Arab, Muslim University students utilising their implicitly understood patriarchal power to subjugate all women from access to common swimming pools, Canada has become increasingly replete with examples of using religious minorities as a danger to secure public spaces for societies most privileged. Since 9/11, this has become a far too common public discourse on maintaining close surveillance, scrutiny and regulations for those religious and racialised Canadian minorities associated with the ‘war on terror’. Promoting public spaces, especially public-school spaces, as ‘secular’ has become the argument of supposed non-bias in ensuring safety and equality for the wider population, all the while leaving many of those used as an example of threat to wonder if the ultimate intent is to preserve white, Christian (and Christian cultural) privilege. This article proposes to examine cases since 9/11 that have problematised racialised groups associated with the terrorism in public schooling to the benefit of maintaining ‘Old Stock’ status quo.

KEYWORDS:

• secularism and reasonable accommodation
• Islamophobia and religious minorities
• securitisation
• schools and public spaces
• politics in Canada

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Acknowledgments

The author wishes to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for a grant allowing the study of the nature of secularism in Canadian public schools.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [435-2014-2026].

Notes on contributors

C. Darius Stonebanks

C. Darius Stonebanks is a multiple teaching award winning Professor at Bishop’s and Adjunct at McGill University. Among his publications are Teaching Against Islamophobia and Muslim Voices in Schools, which won the NAME’s Philip C. Chinn book award. He is the co-founder of Transformative Praxis: Malawi, an Action Research project that connects social justice theory to practice and is the Primary Investigator on the SSHRC funded research project examining the secular nature of Canadian public schools.