A girl from a Hindu family in Quebec. Canada has long been identified as a multicultural nation, but new QC legislation threatens that image.

In late August 2010, Quebec’s government proposed a new “secular, value-based” charter. Among other things, as revealed on September 10th, 2013, this charter would ban certain religious “symbols” and modes of dress from appearing in the public sector. The charter is unconstitutional and defies the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the United Nations Bill of Human Rights, among numerous other international rights charters.

Think about this poster, for a minute, and you realize that it would essentially offer a choice to observant Muslims, Jews, and Sikhs: follow the edicts of your religion, or serve in the public sector. Many will have no choice but to choose the former and forsake the latter.

This has troubling racist and sexist implications. Most Muslims are Arab, African, or Desi: in a word, immigrants, or of immigrant descent. And the most visible “religious symbols” on the poster are those worn by Muslim women. Schools and teachers are going to be targeted hard by this legislation. There are far more female than male teachers and many Muslim women will be persecuted by this legislation as such.

Compare this poster from 1940s Nazi Germany. The poster is yellow and shows a prominent Star of David, as worn by Jews in the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Poland in WWII. It bears the words, in German, Wer dieses Zeichen tragt, ist ein Feind unseres Volkes. “He who bears the mark, is an enemy of our people.”

One might be forgiven for wondering, how far is the leap from A to B, from Quebec’s allegedly “secularist” banning of religious imagery in the public sphere, to Nazi Germany’s identifying of those who wear such a mark as enemies? When Nationalism turns sour, xenophobia seizes its opportunity.

“If the state is neutral, those working for the state should be equally neutral in their image,” said Bernard Drainville, the politician who headed up the new charter. But many workers in the public sector would do well to point out that they were not made in Quebec’s image, but God’s.

Consider that Canada historically has promoted an integrationist rather than assimilationist approach to multiculturalism. By banning the “exotic” headgear (turban, yarmulke, veil) and endorsing symbols emblazoned on familiar fashion accessories of western culture (ring, earring, necklace), which approach is Quebec endorsing? If McLuhan is right – that the medium (not the content) is the message – then the Government of Quebec is assuredly adopting an assimilationist stance.

It’s music for individuals who don’t submit to the zeitgeist that the corporations are trying to sell them: they make their own art and live their own lives.

Instead of classifying their art as music, they classify it as noise, which is formless and in opposition to a “beat.” Chaos, destruction, honesty, art. If the old structures and kinds of music are failing us, then we need something new and vital and violent to wipe it away: something primordial.

Note that The Shape of Punk to Come is a premonition, perhaps a wish that other bands will start playing new noise. It takes it name from Ornette Coleman’s album The Shape of Jazz to Come, which introduced the revolutionary free jazz genre to the world back in 1959.

The system is rigged against the poor, in this case, poor musicians, because their anti-capitalist themes and lack of access prevent them from entering the larger music industry and market. In short, the industry is based on money, not on talent.

Rites of Spring said it another way on “Hain’s Point.”

I read somewhere that every wall’s a door to something new
Well if that’s true, why can’t I get through?