Between Memory and Present Aspirations:
Canadian Identities and Religious Diversity
Paul William Reid Bowlby, Ph.D.
Department of Religious Studies
Saint Mary’s University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3C3
[email protected]
1-902-420-5863 (office)
1-902–420-5181 (fax)
Commissioned by the Department of Canadian Heritage for the
Ethnocultural, Racial, Religious, and Linguistic Diversity and Identity Seminar
Halifax, Nova Scotia
November 1-2 2001
Available on-line in English and French at www.metropolis.net
The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect
those of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
2
Abstract
This paper situates the discussion of the impact of religious diversity on the formation of
Canadian identities within two contexts. The first is a brief account of the historical
patterns of diversity characteristic of the establishment-type Christian denominations.
The second examines the relationship of religions to the meaning of culture as
constituted by the fields of ethics and aesthetics. The argument follows that the historic
churches held a dominant cultural role in colonial and post-colonial Canada. As such,
they contributed in a major way to the formation of the public discourse on social and
political issues. In contemporary Canada, by contrast, the diasporic religious traditions,
such as the Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Sikh, join with the marginalized historic
traditions of Native peoples, Christians and Jews as voices among many others in the
Canadian culture debates. Religions then are no longer dominant, but integral
contributors to the ethical and aesthetic fields of Canadian cultures. The paper
illustrates these dialogical interconnections by reviewing selected patterns of contention
within religious traditions and, secondly, in the ways by which those traditions engage
Canadian cultures and institutions in their processes of adaptation. These patterns of
contention are, the paper argues, integral to the processes which shape Canadian
identities in the midst of religious diversity.
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The title of this paper is intended to evoke the fact that many Canadians, be they native
peoples or historic or recent immigrants, have been and continue to be religious.i
Whether historic or diasporic,ii religious or not, Canada’s citizens reside in landscapes
which support complex, intersecting relations between remembered traditions and
present aspirations. The historical patterns and social impact of religions have been a
matter of scholarly inquiry for a long time (Crysdale and Wheatcroft 1976; Slater 1977;
Murphy 1991; O’Toole 1996). The results have shown the diverse ways by which the
historic patterns of religious diversity, understood primarily as Roman Catholic and
Protestant churches such as the Anglican and the United Churches of Canada, have
been a central fact of Canadian social, political and cultural life. More recently,
scholarship has turned its attention to understanding religions in the multicultural,
Canadian landscape. This more recent picture also includes Protestant churches, such
as the Mennonite and Hutterite religious communities, as well as the Greek and
Russian Orthodox churches. The growth of Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Sikh religious
communities,
to
mention
only
a
few,
(Bryant 1989;
Buchignani 1988;
Coward 1999 2000b; Dawson 1998; Hadad 1978; Hinnells 1997a; Husieni 1990;
O’Toole 1996; Rukmani 1999; Rummens 2000) fundamentally transforms the
characteristics of religious diversity.
It is not clear how the new complexity of religious diversity will alter Canadian identities
or affect economic, social, political and cultural policy in the territories, provinces and
federally. Recent scholarship illustrates the weaknesses in our understanding the
relationship of religions to Canadian identities. Joanna Rummens was commissioned by
the Department of Heritage in the Government of Canada to review the interdisciplinary
scholarly literature on Canadian identities. In her conclusions she states: “(R)eligious
identity remains an especially underdeveloped research area and yet is particularly
salient among several newcomer immigrant and refugee groups.” (Rummens 2000b:22)
Rummens is correct that there is little research directly on religions and their relation to
Canadian identities in the databases surveyed. However, there is a substantial body of
research which deals with the larger question of religious diversity in Canada.iii That
literature, as we shall see, has important implications for an understanding of Canadian
identities as shaped and informed by religious traditions.
Contemporary public language has difficulty inserting the viewpoints arising from the
religions and spirituality of Canadians into debates about ethics, public policy and
culture in general. Indeed, the voices of religious leaders on contemporary issues are
likely to be inaudible to the press and to governments or, if heard, viewed as simply
inappropriate (Robinson 2001) because the views are shaped in a religious language
and may express moral views which are different from the apparent social consensus of
the times. The impoverished state of public vocabulary pertaining to religions has a
number of effects both on religions and on public life. It breeds the ignorance upon
which prejudice, hate and racism can flourish (cf. Roberts 1999; Kaspar and Noh 2001).
It also creates unnecessary barriers for religious men and women to contribute to public
policy relating to diversity. Finally, it diminishes our capacity to formulate an
understanding of Canadian identities based upon a comprehensive appreciation of the
sum of characteristics which define diversity.
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To address the impoverished state of our public language pertaining to religions, this
paper situates the discussion of religious diversity in two contexts: first, the historic role
of religions in Canada; second, the meaning of “culture” and its relation to religions.
These two contexts illustrate the contestediv landscapes of religious diversity and
provide the framework for a review of their impact on the discussion of Canadian
identities. We first look at the patterns of contention within diasporic religious traditions
and then explore the ways by which those traditions engage Canadian cultures in their
processes of adaptation.
Historical Considerations
Since the 1960s, religion in Canada has undergone a profound change. There has been
a significant decline in religious participation in the various Christian denominations in
Canada (Bibby 1983 1987; Statistics Canada 1993a&b and 2000). Furthermore,
changes in immigration policy have resulted in the introduction and growth of the
diasporic religious traditions—Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh, to mention only a few
of the living religious traditions in Canada (Coward 1997; Statistics Canada 1993a&b).
The diasporic traditions, together with Jewish and Christian denominations and sects
and the new patterns of spirituality (Valpy 2000; Dawson 1998), are proof of entirely
new patterns of religious life in Canadian society.
It is commonplace to suggest that public policy ought to imitate the American model of
separation of Church and Statev as a way to negotiate the public relationship between
religions and society at large. However, the constitutional solution of the American
Revolution was never characteristic of the relationship of religion and the nation-state in
Canada. O’Toole has rightly argued that:
(I)n contrast, Canadian religion boasts manifestly establishmentarian roots.
Though sectarianism has undoubtedly played a vital and vigorous minor role,
it has been large churches with strong links to powerful political, business and
cultural elites which have dominated Canadian religious experience since
their importation (O’Toole 1996:121).
O’Toole asserts that the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, with Presbyterians,
Congregationalists and Methodists (after church union in 1925, the United Church of
Canada) in supporting roles, were a type of established Churchvi throughout much of
Canada’s colonial and post-colonial society until well into the twentieth century. The
vast majority of citizens were members of those churches (Statistics Canada 1993a&b).
As a result, the public language of debate was rooted in the ethical-religious language
of the churches. Canadians said much about their identity as a people when they
named their country “The Dominion of Canada” in which the term “dominion” was a
direct allusion to Genesis 1.28 in the King James Biblevii. Among the lasting inheritances
of the establishment place of the major Christian denominations is the constitutional
protection for Roman Catholic religious schools (Shilton 1999), and less well known, the
tax benefits accorded to Protestant ministers and priests (Faulkner 1999).
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The hegemonic social and cultural influence of religions in Canada, for good and for ill,
was founded on the intimate connection understood to exist between the membership in
the Christian denominations and the powerful elites in the society. As a result, there
were profound social influences originating in the religious traditions:
In the broadest sense, the vitality of Victorian Christianity has profoundly
shaped the character or identity of the nation. Thus, many features of modern
Canadian life, including the political party system, the welfare state, foreign
policy goals and a distinct “law and order” bias arguably originate, at least in
part, in religious ideas, attitudes and structures which are now quite
unfamiliar to contemporary Canadian Christians (O’Toole 1996:121).
The very endurance of these institutions suggests within them a remarkable flexibility,
adaptability and capacity for change (Kymlicka 1998). Whether or not those enduring
qualities are related to their religious origins is not clear. What is clear is that they had to
acknowledge denominational diversity from the outset, and this tacit recognition is a
plausible ground for their adaptability.
Notwithstanding these positive contributions, to read O’Toole’s list as the only role of the
denominations is, of course, a profound error. It must not be forgotten that there was an
intimate relationship between the churches and Canadian imperialist policies
appropriated from Great Britain (Said 1993) which endorsed both racism (Clifford 1977;
Johnston 1979; Cairns 2000; Day 1999) and anti-semitism through government policies
of ethnic assimilation. The missionary zeal of Canada’s colonial churches paralleled the
political zeal of English-speaking Canada for British Imperialism (Said 1993; Day 2000;
Cairns 2000). Taken together, such views helped define the meaning of assimilation in
relation to Native Peoples, French Canadians or the first African and Asian immigrants.
As with all institutions then, it is important to remember critically the history of religions
in Canada and their contribution, for good and for ill, in the formation of Canadian
institutions and identities.
The implications for Canadian identities of the convergence between the missionary role
of the churches and the conceptions of the imperial destiny of Great Britain and its
colonies are significant indeed. To be “Canadian” implied that citizenship and religious
allegiance were coeval. This does not imply that they were identical or uncritical of one
another, but does make clear how public language drew upon both religious and
imperialist discourses in the formation of Canadian identities and public policies. That
historic identification is, of course, gone. Multiculturalism names our religious and ethnic
pluralism and we speak of our Canadian identities situated in our diverse cultures. What
remains, however, is an important principle. Religious allegiance and citizenship, or
political allegiance, are theoretically compatible with one another in contemporary
Canadian cultures. That compatibility does not imply a homogeneous relationship
between religious and political allegiances. Indeed, it is much more likely that the
relationship will be contested as people debate ethical and political issues out of their
diverse conceptions of being religious and being a citizen.viii Unlike the historic pattern
of the relationship of religions and citizenship, contemporary Canadian ethnic and
religious diversity is situated in the context of “multi-culturalism.” The key element of that
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term is “culture.” I wish to turn, now, to its significance in order to better understand
these relationships.
“Culture,” “Religion” and “Identity” in Canada
In contemporary Canadian society, religion is viewed primarily as a subcategory of
culture. “Culture” is one of those immensely useful terms, the utility of which lies in the
diverse usages it encompasses. Bruce Lincoln (2000) has usefully analyzed both the
meanings of culture and religion’s place in it.ix He argues that the primary fields of
content conveyed by the term are usefully named “ethics” and “aesthetics.” The ethical
field of culture is made up of public mores, etiquette, constitutions, legislation and laws
which provide citizens with the ethical tools and content for living a civil life.
Multiculturalism, as legislated public policy, fits within this dimension of culture, as do
the distinctive ethics and mores of diasporic peoples who embody the heritage of the
“culture” of their ancestors. In its aesthetic sense, culture is evident in museums,
galleries and theatres, in literature and music, in sacred spaces such as temples or
churches, and in popular “culture,” from advertisements, films, sport, jazz and
rap. Diasporic peoples express their distinctive identities as they build temples or
mosques, open restaurants to recreate the foods of their homelands or contribute
artistically to Canadian life and society. Following Lincoln then, “culture,” with its primary
fields of ethics and aesthetics, names the complex framework within which peoples
negotiate how to live a good life. Such a negotiation is, I would argue, at the center of
identity formation for all peoples, both historically and contemporaneously.
Lincoln’s definition begs the question of culture’s relationship to “religion.” Religion is
not, in Lincoln’s view, a core attribute of culture. Religion, he argues, may be prominent,
even hegemonic, in relation to “culture,” or it may function within it or even in the
background. Because religion may function so differently, it cannot necessarily be a
primary attribute of culture. Nonetheless it plays very important functions—both as a
partner or as a contender—within the fields of ethics and aesthetics.
In Lincoln’s view, religion possesses four elements which make up its primary
characteristics:x a) discourses about beliefs; b) ritual and ethical practices;
c) conceptions of community, and d) institutions which regulate the beliefs, practices
and communal characteristics. These four elements are to be taken together, and
understood to be constantly interacting. Furthermore, they are contested both from
within religions, involving disagreements about interpretation of texts or rituals, and from
without, as a religion critically engages the primary fields of culture. The relationship
between the critical appropriation of religious traditions and the critical appropriation of
the primary attributes of culture defines the settings in which, to follow Charles Taylor
(1994), the dialogical formation of identities takes place. So situated, the dialogical
contradicts a common assumption about religions and their relation to culture. John
Hinnells, in The Study of Diaspora Religion, points out that “typically, scholarship on
religions tends to view the traditions as monolithic wholes and anything that is different
as deviant” (1997:684). The stereotype has its root in the ways western scholarship has
named the religions of the world. Thus “Hinduism,” while a seemingly convenient term,
7
disguises the ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity commonly subsumed underneath
the titlexi. Such distortions were historically convenient to European imperialism and
colonialism and to the western scholarship which served those interests
(Said 1978, 1993; Balagangadhara 1994).
Suffice it to say that when one speaks of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and
Christianity, there lies behind the label not a monolith, but a diversity of meaning and
interpretation. Behind every name we must see historical change, ethnic diversity,
contested textual and legal interpretations, regional and linguistic distinctions, distinct
gender role differences, class, caste and gender distinctions, and in the case of the
diasporic religions, issues rooted in the homelands of the religions. Such varied issues
bring to the fore distinct understandings of what it means for people to be Hindu,
Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim, Christian or Jew. This is particularly true for diasporic religions
which, at one level, are detached from their roots in a homeland and, at another, seek to
exist in continuity with those roots while surviving in, and engaging, a foreign culture.
In what follows, then, this paper assumes that no religious tradition has ever been static
and fixed; rather participants in every religious tradition engage in continuing debates—
sometimes heated and acrimonious—about how best to live life from within the wisdom,
norms and practices of a religious tradition and the society in which it is set. In this
respect, religions are no different from any other aspect of cultures.
Lincoln’s notions about culture and religion are very helpful for understanding major
themes about religions in Canada. In the phase of Canada’s history from its colonial
origins up to the 1960s, we have argued that Protestant and Roman Catholic
denominations played dominant roles in Canadian cultures as quasi-established
churches. This corresponds to Lincoln’s view that religion can play a hegemonic role in
the ethical and aesthetic fields of culture.
Lincoln’s thesis also helps to interpret the current situation in which religions, and
particularly the historic denominations, no longer hold the allegiance of a majority of
people in Canada (Statistics Canada 2000; Bibby 1983, 1987, 1993). As a result, what
some would call secularization of Canadian society corresponds to the fact that the
debates in the ethical and aesthetic fields of Canadian culture do not, as we have seen,
comfortably include voices from the religions. Religion in the contemporary Canadian
context is not, in Lincoln’s terms, a primary characteristic of Canadian cultures.
Nonetheless, the place religion occupies for those citizens for whom it is a primary
allegiance. To suggest that this population could include up to a third of Canadian
citizens is to lend considerable significance to this point (Statistics Canada 2000;
Bibby 1983, 1987, 1993). Within both the historic and the diasporic communities, the
religious tradition may well be hegemonic as a strategy for community building and for
negotiating a Canadian identity. We shall therefore see below that numerous, ethnicallydiverse communities have developed in Canada centered on sacred spaces such as
mosques, temples, centres and gurdwaras. From within the security of those spaces,
the communities can carry forward debates on two fronts. Debates within the
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community touch upon the authoritative interpretation of ethics, customs, icons, rituals
and sacred texts which connect them to the religion in their places of origin. Sacred
spaces also provide a place for the community to discuss the religious implications of
the diverse issues which arise out of their day-to-day life in relation to government,
society, economic life, and the mainstream cultures of Canadian society. The capacity
of a religious community to adapt to its setting and to negotiate a life within the cultures
of Canada emerges from both types of conversation.
Identity, both for individuals and for the religious community, takes shape as these types
of conversations, or negotiations, unfold. Lincoln’s thesis about the relationship of
culture and religions helps define the terms in which it is possible to understand the
relationship of religions to identity formation in Canadian society. I therefore wish to use
it in the following discussion of two aspects of religious diversity in Canada: the
contested diversity within diasporic religious communities and the contested diversity
between diasporic religious traditions and Canadian cultures.
Contested Diversity Within Religious Communities
Immigrants to Canada have always brought their religious beliefs, practices,
conceptions of community and institutions with them. Once established in Canada, they
have set out to create societies in which Lincoln’s four characteristics of religion could
play a significant, if not central part. This was as true for colonial immigrants as it is for
the diasporic religious traditions growing today in Canadian society.
Both recent and historic immigrants brought with them some portion of the diverse
interpretations of the religion from which they derived in their countries of origin. Such
continuities provide the initial outward expressions of religious and communal identity.
Some of these characteristics can endure for very long periods of time. This was true of
the Irish Catholic immigrants to Newfoundland or the Scottish Protestants in Nova
Scotia (Murphy and Byrne 1987), many of whose churches, rituals, languages, ethics,
music and step dances continue to this day. It is reasonable to expect that similar
characteristics will endure in the identities of Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Hindus as
their religious communities evolve in Canada.
A shared religious tradition of beliefs and liturgical practices provides a common ground
for building and sustaining religious communities and institutions (Lincoln 2000).
Several overlapping elements may be viewed as stages of religious community
development as well as varied strategies for community maintenance. When the
numbers of new immigrants sharing a common religion are small, the tendency is to
subsume ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences in an effort to form a supportive
religious community for all. The accent is placed on what is shared within the religion.
As the religious community’s numbers increase, the tendency is to create more
ethnically-specific religious communities and institutions (Israel 1994; Coward et
al. 2000b; Coward 1999; Bowlby 2000; McGown 1999). In this development, the accent
is once again placed on what is shared in the religion, but the religious is framed by the
ethnic and cultural characteristics of a common homeland. Simultaneously from both
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multiethnic religious communities and from the ethnically specific communities,
collaborative endeavors lead to the creation of regional, national and international
organizations intended to support and sustain the local religious communities. Each of
these strategies for community building contributes elements to communal and
individual identity formation as a religious person. That religious identity derived from a
homeland adapts as individuals engage the culture at work, in society and in the
dialogues about how to be religious within the culture.
For example, during the 1960s and 1970s, the individuals who were instrumental in the
growth of the Islamic Association of the Maritime Provinces (IAMP) (Bowlby 2000) and
the construction of the first Muslim mosque in Halifax were from Turkey, East Pakistan
(now Bangladesh), West Pakistan and the Republic of India. The majority of Muslims
were from South Asia. The first Imam for the community was from Egypt. This
ethnically-diverse group shared their Muslim faith in common, worshipped together in
homes, and worked effectively to build the Association. A primary goal of the community
was the purchase of land and the construction of a mosque which could serve both as a
place of prayer and the headquarters for IAMP. These early Muslims in the Halifax
region were for the most part professional families. As a result, in addition to successful
fundraising enabling them to establish the mosque, additional funds were raised for a
small school and for international charitable works for Muslims around the world.
Growth in the Muslim community lead to a second mosque in Truro, Nova Scotia. There
a plot of land had been purchased for a Muslim cemetery in the 1940s. IAMP took it
over and built a Mosque on the site which can be used for funerals for Muslims from
across the Atlantic region. IAMP also played a key role in the growth of the Muslim
school, now called the Muslim Academy. It is located in Halifax on the site of a former
public school. The Academy has 115 students and offers all grades, from primary to
twelve. The school buildings also function as an additional mosque.
In the 1990s, the numbers and diversity of the Muslims in Halifax grew to its present
total of approximately 12,000-15,000 persons. Additional mosques were built by the
new Muslim groups in suburban metropolitan Halifax and in Bridgewater, a small town
on the South Shore of Nova Scotia about 60 kilometers from Halifax.
The initial strategy of the Halifax Muslims was to build a regional organization which
could serve to develop Islam in the Maritimes. McDonough has shown that this strategy,
albeit on a larger scale, was also shared by other Muslims in Canada and the United
States. As a result, there are numerous national and international Muslim organizations
in North America, such as the very active Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and
the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) (McDonough 2000). ISNA promotes the
development of mosques and schools and each year hosts a continent-wide convention
of Muslims. ICNA tends to focus on the development of the faith da’wa or missionary
meetings, publications and audio-visual resources which may be used to advance the
cause of Islam in North America. In addition, the Muslim Arab Youth Association
(MAYA), which began in the United States, has branches in Canada. A very active
Council of the Muslim Community of Canada (CMCC) was founded in 1973. This
10
council has spun off several additional organizations: “Canadian Council of Muslim
Women, Families Meeting Families, International Development and Refugee
Foundation, Muslim Youth Camping, Islamic Schools Federation of Ontario, National
Christian-Muslim Liaison Committee, Muslim Elders Network and Vision TV”
(McDonough 2000:184). Such a range of activities are clearly oriented toward the
internal development of Islam in Canada and toward engagement with the society at
large. In terms of identity formation, all of the organizations create a sense of
involvement in the growth and expansion of Islam. In turn that feeling reinforces the
sense of appropriateness of a Muslim identity for life in Canada.
The sudden growth in the Muslim community in Halifax in the 1990s brought about a
change in the ethnic makeup of the community. The majority of Muslims now came from
Middle Eastern countries. This shift led to an ambitious plan for a new mosque and
social center to serve the newer immigrant community needs. In this development,
Muslims in Halifax appear to be following a second pattern which has been identified by
scholars : as immigrant communities grow and diversify, they also experience ethnic
diversity as a characteristic of their “religion” and that awareness becomes a stimulus
for religious adaptation and change.
Rima Berns McGown has documented the impact of the ethnic diversity of the Somali
Muslims in Toronto:
(S)omalis are not as homogeneous a people as they have frequently been
depicted, and there are significant differences in culture and even language
between the northern pastoralists and the southerners, with their more mixed
economy, and between the histories that have accompanied each tradition
(McGown 1999:22).
Despite these differences, the experience of immigration has not prevented the Somali
Muslims from sharing the established mosques and schools that earlier arrivals had
established. But, from within these established mosques, McGown also reports that the
Somali Muslims have significantly transformed Islam in Toronto with their views on how
Islam is to be practiced. She reports that :
(T)he Muslims already in Toronto, according to the same imam, tended to be
reticent about religious demands, perhaps because they did not feel that their
numbers warranted their demands, but when the Somalis arrived, notably in
the schools, and began to pray in the halls because there was no prayerroom, the schools had to wrestle for the first time in earnest with meeting the
needs of significant numbers of Muslims (McGown 1999:25-26).
McGown makes clear that the Somalis played a major role in the setting of new
standards for adherence to Muslim faith and practice.
The issue of multiethnic communities also characterizes the South Asian religions :
Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism (Coward 2000b; Israel 1994). The vast
majority of South Asian immigrants, in the 1960s and 1970s, were professionals. This
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led in each case to the establishment of multiethnic religious institutions which parallel
what we have seen among the Muslim arrivals in the same period. Cooperation
produced religious institutions such as temples and gurdwaras which, through
compromise, served the relatively small numbers of people.
In Halifax, for example, the Maritime Sikh Society provides a center for worship for
Sikhs from across the Atlantic region. So too, a Hindu temple, the Vedanta Ashram
Society, hosts services each Sunday morning for a highly diverse community. The
Hindu temple is a modified, house-like building in central Halifax. In the case of the
Sikhs, they have built a new gurdwara in the suburbs that draws participants from
across the Atlantic region.
The Halifax gurdwara and Hindu temple correspond to the kinds of initial establishments
found in other parts of Canada. Israel (1994:31ff) describes in detail the evolution of the
“community of communities” of South Asians in Ontario, in which Hindus initially work
out of common interests to establish centers of worship and community life and
subsequently fragment into sub-communities representative of ever more refined ethnic,
religious and linguistic groups with more temples or centers.
How worship is conducted also appears to follow a pattern of adaptation. The pattern of
individual and family home worship in Hindu life is very well established (Coward 2000a)
and the Muslim injunction to pray five times a day is possible in any location so long as
the prayer’s orientation is toward Mecca. Worship requires significant adaptation in the
temples, mosques and gurdwaras and it is not unusual for that to become quite
controversial and divisive (Sekhar 1999).
In the Halifax Vedanta temple, for example, the hall for worship does not permit
circumambulation of a sanctum where images of the gods are situated. Rather it is
focused on a raised platform at one end of the hall where both the priest who leads the
worship and the sacred images are located. In contrast to such simplicity serving a
diverse community, the Ganesh Temple complex in Toronto recreates a south-Indian
style of temple permitting simultaneous worship (darshan) at the 14 altars which house
images of Ganesh, Shiva and Durga and other deities (Coward 2000a:157;
Israel 1994:55-57).
Religions maintain important international connections with the homeland of the
tradition. Teachers, priests and gurus come to Canada to offer instruction and advice to
participants in the tradition (Coward 2000a). These international connections have been
particularly important in the Hindu community. Traditional religious education took place
in the family setting in which the oral traditions found in sacred texts and rituals were
literally learned by participation in the morning household puja at dawn. In the Canadian
setting, this practice has broken down under the pressures of the time demands for
schooling and employment. Its replacement has centered on a redefinition of puja
inspired by visiting gurus (Miller 1976-77). Home worship focuses on the mantra given
by a guru which can be chanted in brief moments of prayer or worship in the course of
the day (Coward 2000a:162; Goa, Coward and Neufeldt 1984).
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To move from multiethnic religious communities toward the establishment of more and
more ethnically-specific religious institutions is one pattern which seems well
established. At the same time, these institutions provide support for adaptation within
urban Canada. This pattern of change invites comparative study. It would, for example,
be instructive to review the scholarship on the mainline Christian churches and the
small sects of Mennonites, Doukhobors and Hutterites with a view to seeing how the
more recent immigrant experiences compare with these more historic examples.
Terrence Murphy identifies two patterns, both of which are evident in the preceding
discussion. The first involves “creating under the auspices of the Church an entire
network of social institutions“ (Murphy 1991:310) while the second, adopted by smaller
sectarian groups, is described as the “colony” approach in which sects establish small
yet quite self-sufficient agricultural settlements. With regard to the second type, the
focus for comparison emerges as the settlements are complimented by the
development of the sect in urban centers. At that point the sect must explore how to
preserve ethnic and religious identity without the resources of the self-sufficient
settlement (Driedger 1988).
The Muslims in Canada live primarily in urban centers. They have adopted many
aspects of the network strategy suggested by Murphy (1991). The range of institutions,
from local mosques and schools to regional, national and international organizations,
provides a network of connections across North America. Such networks provide
support for local mosques and communities and are probably crucial to the continued
growth and expansion of Islam as the second, third and fourth generations become
participants in the religious tradition.
The majority of the members of the South Asian religious traditions also live in the cities.
The exception is found in the Sikhs in British Columbia. Somewhat like the Mennonites,
many Sikhs have established colonies based on an elaborate agricultural economic
base. Having said that, Sikhs, like the diverse Hindu population, are also living and
working in cities. As a result Sikhs must develop strategies of continuity which can
continue to serve both their members who are based in agricultural economies and
those who have either moved or settled in the large urban centers.
Leo Driedger (1988) has studied the Mennonite urban strategy and discovered that “the
crucial factor in maintaining ethnic identity is the strength of institutional support. The
more a group establishes its own churches, publications, welfare institutions, and
voluntary agencies the more it retains its distinctive character” (Murphy 1991:311). This
pattern, as we have seen, appears to be ubiquitous across the diasporic religious
traditions. However, further research is required to verify the appropriateness of these
suggestive comparisons of strategy.
In summary, it would not be possible to talk about the diasporic religions in Canada
were it not for the fact that, despite diversity and contestation, common beliefs and
practices exist and are recognized among ethnically-specific and ethnically-diverse
religious communities. No less common is the resultant creation of new religious “sects”
13
which set out to shape new religious institutions either on the basis of ethnicity or as a
result of disagreements over interpretation of a belief, a ritual, a scripture, a customary
practice. Assuming such differences of interpretation, it is also important to see that
diasporic traditions establish and maintain local sacred spaces and they participate in
regional, national and international networks. These networks permit people to see
themselves both as integral parts of a local religious community and also as part of the
extensions of that community nationally and internationally. This appears to be a central
contribution of religious traditions to identity formation. It is possible to see oneself as
Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist or Hindu—and here I would add to the list the Jewish and
Christian traditions as well—as an identifiable part of a religious tradition that exists in
Canadian localities, in homelands and through networks of national and international
connections.
Contested Diversity Between Diasporic Religions and Canadian Cultures
Multiculturalism is widely criticized because, it is argued, it supports the creation of an
endless diversity of ethnic identities at the expense of Canadian identitiesxii. Immigrants,
in this kind of argument (Bissoondath 1994), are understood to be hyphenated
Canadians: German-Canadian, Chinese Canadian and so on. By virtue of an ethnic
identity, such persons cannot be named simply “Canadian.” Do primary religious
allegiances reinforce such interpretations creating compound identities such as
Egyptian-Muslim-Canadian? How does being Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish or
Christian relate to conceptions of Canadian citizenship?
Lincoln’s theory of culture and its relation to religion can help formulate contemporary
patterns in the relationship between religious and national identities. Diasporic religions
have entered Canada under two quite different sets of public policy. The first was
imperialist and racist (Day 2000; Cairns 2001). Consequently, governments considered
assimilation to be the only public policy both for aboriginal nations and for new
immigrants. Since the 1970s there has been a policy of multiculturalism accompanied
by constitutional provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Immigration policy
has also changed, permitting much more diverse populations to enter Canada. As a
result of these changes, any concept of Canadian identity is informed by the ethical
notions of freedom and human rights in the context of a multicultural society. Religions
in all of their manifestations articulate their religious place in society in dialogue with, or
more generally, in relation to these fundamentals of Canadian cultures.
Charles Taylor (1994) argues that concepts of identity in such a context take shape
dialogically in relation to other persons and the cultural setting in which those persons
reside. Such identity formation situates all allegiances in the context of social,
economic, cultural and political—as well as religious—networks of interdependencexiii.
To be Muslim or Buddhist, Hindu, Jain or Sikh is to be situated in daily life in the context
of towns and cities across Canada; to be in some way a wage-earner in the economy;
to be a participant in the culture of the local society through organizations, holidays and
festivals; to be a voter and a participant in political parties and the like. At every turn in
daily life, being religious situates one in dialogue about citizenship, whether that be in
14
one-on-one conversation or in public policy contention with others. As has been
emphasized so often in this paper, the religious is not to found as a monolith in isolation,
but in its connectedness, even in disagreement, with people in all aspects of culture. We
have discussed how this dialogical fact takes place within religious communities.
To focus on the dialogical or relational fact of cultural life is not a sentimental platitude. It
carries with it the assumption that constituencies understand themselves as Muslim,
Hindu or Sikh residing as citizens within the foundational characteristics of Canadian
culture, its Charter of Rights and Freedoms, federal and provincial parliamentary
systems and so on. In essence, being religious in contemporary Canada is situated in
the midst of culture, both in its ethical and aesthetic fields. Being religious and being a
citizen are manifestations of the dialogical as rights are claimed and citizenship
exercised. This becomes most visible in those instances of controversy and contention
which attract the attention of the media.
Numerous highly visible controversies illustrate the dialogical relations between
religions and culture. The established churches (and governments, cf. Cairns 2001)
have had to face up to their historic role in support of ethnic assimilation with regard to
Native Peoples and particularly with regard to their role in the residential schools. The
intensely debated issues of the participation and ordination of women and gay and
lesbian persons have made these ethical debates in the Christian churches highly
visible. In these cases the protests by aboriginal peoples, gays and lesbians have been
shaped in the language of freedom and human rights arising from the Charter and
international treaties, and directed towards the institutions of the churches for debate.
Related issues have been directed by the courts to provincial governments regarding
legal recognition of same sex relationships.
Quite a different example shows religions working for change in government policies.
The churches, functioning ecumenically, were the principal political force behind the
government’s change in policy which admitted some 60,000 boat people (Bieser 1999),
the refugees from Vietnam. Thousands of church organizations across the country
sponsored those refugees, giving them a start in life in Canada. While the results, as
Beiser shows, have been mixed, it is unlikely that even a fraction of the boat people
would have been admitted to Canada without the efforts of the churches and their
grassroots supporters.
For the diasporic religious communities, controversies have emerged as individuals and
organizations have exercised their constitutional rights to dress distinctly in public
institutions. There was the controversy between Sikhs wishing to wear the turban in the
RCMP (Coward 1997:783) or the debates about women wearing the hijab in public
schools (Carens 2000:140ff; McDonough 2001:83). At the level of fundamental ethics,
there was the clash between the western literary communities, with their advocacy of
freedom of speech, and Muslim convictions that Salmon Rushdie had committed
blasphemy. It is a measure of religions’ place within culture in Canada and elsewhere
that the term “blasphemy,” once the name for illegal behaviour, is virtually
15
incomprehensible. Most certainly it is a term which has very little, if any, cultural weight
in the face of the claim to an author’s freedom of expression.
It is clear that as members of the diasporic religions exercise their social and political
citizenship, there will continue to be controversies. In Halifax, the March 31st 2001
headline story of The Mail Star concerned the adamant opposition of a provincial MLA
and Deputy Speaker of the Legislature, Brooke Taylor, to even consider altering the
long-standing practice of beginning a sitting of the provincial legislature with the Lord’s
Prayer. The headline read : “Taylor slams opposition to the Lord’s Prayer: Religious
Groups should respect majority views, Tory MLA says” (The Mail Star, March
31 2001:1). Such headlines indicate just how far many Canadians have to go to
integrate the multicultural fact of Canada and its religious component in particular.
Deputy Speaker Taylor will no doubt soon realize that the Atlantic Chapter of the
Canadian Jewish Congress will not be the only group to raise the question of the
contemporary legitimacy of this tradition. Other voices in the province, representative of
its changing population base, will also speak out. The second most frequently spoken
language on the streets of Halifax is Arabic and the second largest religion after
Christianity is Islam. Such facts mean that many long-standing traditions, such as the
Lord’s Prayer in the commencement exercises of schools or legislatures, have to
change to accommodate the new configurations of the provincial population.
It is hardly surprising that these examples illustrate the contentious character of the
dialogical. The diasporic religions are in a constant state of adaptation to Canadian
cultures. Simultaneously, the public policy of multiculturalism, together with Charterbased human rights, requires a whole range of adaptations on the part of established
Canadian cultures and religions. These adaptations range from the mundane questions
of when and how to worship and celebrate holy days in Canada to fundamental issues
which show deep divisions in the society over ethical and legal issues, particularly
issues of racial, gender and religious prejudice.
In Halifax, the Hindu and the Muslim communities have adopted quite different
approaches to the question of when and how to worship and celebrate holy days. The
Hindu temple meets for worship on Sundays at 11 a.m., following the conventional
patterns of many churches. As with the Sikh gurdwaras (cf. Johnston 1988), the Hindu
community shares a meal or refreshments after Sunday worship.
The Muslim community in Halifax continues the custom of Friday prayer, usually held in
the early afternoon at each of the city’s mosques and universities. This timing limits
participation because of conflicting work and school commitments; consequently, it
requires schools and employers to adapt. This being said, mosques are generally too
small to accommodate the entire Muslim community, which means that, for the Eid
celebration at the end of Ramadan, Muslims gather in public facilities such as the
Dartmouth Sportsplex or the Halifax Forum.
One of the critical moments in the life of any religious community is the death of one of
its members. Yet Canadian culture has developed a system in which memorial rituals
16
are located in funeral homes in which chapels are most likely to be dominated by
Christian symbols such as the cross. Furthermore, the rituals for grieving families who
are not Christian are frequently lead by Christian ministers. For Muslims and Hindus,
such settings are unacceptable. In Nova Scotia, the earliest Muslim immigrants came to
the country in the 1940s and settled in Truro. There they bought a plot of land for a
cemetery, because local cemeteries could not provide plots for burial which permitted
the body’s orientation toward Mecca. As a result, a Muslim cemetery in Truro was
established very early on. This cemetery and the mosque, which is adjacent to it on the
same property, serves the entire region as the location for memorial services and burial
of Muslims.
Hindus have not found as satisfactory a solution for their mourning rituals. The tradition
for Hindus requires that the family be present at the cremation of the body of a family
member. Crematoria in Canada are not designed to permit the Hindu rituals in which the
family places the body on the funeral pyre and the eldest son ignites the ritual fire
(Coward 2000a:159). As Coward points out, “The Canadian restructuring of the Hindu
funeral to accommodate funeral directors, the law, and the technology associated with
cremation has made the experience much more abstract and removed from the
mourners than was the case in India... No longer is the physical burning of the bare
body by fire (Agni) actually seen. Now everything is abstracted and hidden”
(Coward 2000a:159).
Much less mundane has been the focus which has emerged over the last twenty-five
years on the issues facing women in society, and in religions in particular. The churches
have all gone through protracted controversies about patriarchal language in religious
rituals, sacred scriptures and the privileged position given to men in priesthood and
ministry. These controversies have not left the diasporic religious traditions untouched,
and particularly affect religious families as children mature and second and third
generations contend with their understanding of the family’s religious traditions and their
place within them. Are arranged marriages to be the family practice or are the children
to be allowed to arrange their own marriages? How differently does this question affect
women and men? What happens when second and third generation women and men
are not capable of understanding the language of sacred scriptures or of the parents’ or
grandparents’ language of origin? The common conviction that women ought to be the
primary carriers of religious tradition becomes intensely problematic as succeeding
generations negotiate their place and identity, both religiously and culturally
(Pearson 1999).
Joseph Carens in Culture, Citizenship and Community: A Contextual Exploration of
Justice as Evenhandedness (2000) explores with considerable sensitivity the meeting
ground between religious conviction and basic cultural convictions in liberal
democracies. He chooses Islam as his primary example because the accusation has
been widespread that Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy, a view which he
sets out to refute. Carens explores issues such as gender equality, genital mutilation,
wife beating, polygamy and wearing the Hijab. In his conclusion, he argues:
17
that liberal states are not obliged to tolerate every practice that some people
claim is justified by Islam but that it is wrong to suggest that Muslims cannot
be good citizens. The various examples of alleged conflicts between liberal
commitments and the place of women in Islam that I have considered
suggest that, in fact, liberal critiques often demand more of Muslims than of
members of other religious communities. An understanding of justice as
evenhandedness would seem to require more modifications of western
attitudes towards Muslim immigrants than of Muslim practices
(Carens 2000:160).
Carens’ judicious analysis and conclusion about these highly controversial issues
emphasize the extent to which it is necessary to revise our public language about Islam
in particular and religions in general if we are to avoid the worst forms of stereotyping
and prejudice.
Once again these issues provide a fascinating opportunity for comparative research.
The literature on the debates and transformations of the churches as a result of the
feminist critiques of patriarchal religion is well established. These religious issues are
part of current cultural debates about sexism, racism and class issues (Bannerji 1993)
and have, as we have seen, extended into the debates within the diasporic religions
(Carens 2000). It is therefore not surprising that every essay included in The South
Asian Religious Diaspora in Britain, Canada and the United States (Coward, Hinnells
and Williams 2000) incorporates a discussion of the issues arising from unique religious
enculturation of women and the consequent issues which face them in particular in their
adaptation to Canadian society. Essays on “Women and...” in the religions are
proliferating and provide an established base on which comparative studies can build.
Comparative research should also explore strategies employed by churches, sects and
other religious institutions for survival in contemporary Canadian culture. The aging
population of church members contrasts strikingly with the relative youth of the adult
immigrant populations in the diasporic religions. Hamdani anticipates that this will be a
major factor in the realization of his projection that Islam will have some 650,000
members by the 2001 census, making Islam the largest religious community after
Roman Catholics and the members of the United Church of Canada (Hamdani 1999).
Nonetheless these numbers, relative to the whole population, are still small and the
diasporic religions remain minorities in Canadian culture. As a result, issues relating to
the continuity of all religious traditions may well reveal significant commonalities which
could enhance the understanding of all concerned.
One of the most important questions raised in Murphy’s historiographical essay (1991)
touches upon the relationship between religions and national unity. Murphy argues that
at best the churches might provide a “prophetic” voice in the culture debates
(Murphy 1991:317). By this, he presumably means that the religious role is as a
participant in the ethical and aesthetic debates. However, the term “prophetic,” rich as it
is in both religious and sociological meaning, may be deemed rooted too exclusively in
Jewish and Christian traditions. Is it plausible that Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, to
mention only these, would find such a term satisfactory to describe the role of their
18
public religious voice in the culture debates? That question requires careful research
about how the participants in the diasporic religions view the relationship between their
religious life and the ways they wish to give expression to that life as part of their social
citizenship in Canada. The deeper question then becomes how to establish a respectful
place for religious views and arguments within the on-going culture debates carried out
in the media, schools, governments and society generally.
Conclusion
All religions set out to shape identity in their own terms. Persons identify themselves as
Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Jew while simultaneously identifying themselves
as Canadian. As part of the religious identity, persons worship, socialize, build
institutions, debate questions of interpretation about the religion, and are visible
members of a religious community. At the same time, those same individuals conduct
their lives as employers and employed, as voices in political and cultural debates. The
religious community debates how to relate the economic, social, political and the
cultural with the fundamental convictions about how to live a good life. Yet such debates
are not easily resolved. Nor, it appears, from the examples we have identified in the
paper, is it easy for the culture to always accommodate the diversity of ways that the
religions wish to influence the culture. The dialogical or relational pervades the
experience of being religious in the midst of being Canadian. This is not hyphenated
Canadian identity. It is the picture of the complexity that any citizen experiences as she
or he exercises their right to be religious as a Canadian citizen.
19
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Notes
i
In the 1891 Canadian Census, 41.6% of the population were Roman Catholic and 56.6%
were Protestant (total = 98.2%).In 1951, the total for Roman Catholics was 44.7% and for
Protestants 52.2% (total = 95.6%). After the 1961 census there commences a significant
decline in the Protestant population which reaches 36.2% in 1991 while Roman Catholic
percentages remain steady at 45.7% in 1991 (total = 81.9%). The fact that the Roman
Catholic percentages do not change substantially is probably due to significant immigration
from Roman Catholic European countries in the post-Second World War era. At the same
time as there was a 14.7% decline in Protestant affiliations between 1981 and 1991, there
emerged a significant rise in those persons reporting that they had no religion (12.4% in
1991 up from 7.3% in 1981) and also a major increase in the number in the category
“other” religions which rose from 1.5% in 1981 to 3.2% in 1991.Census Canada used the
inappropriate category title “Eastern non-Christian” to define “other” to include Islam,
Hindu Buddhist, Sikh and Other Eastern non-Christian religions. “Consistent with
changing immigration patterns towards more Asian immigrants, Eastern non-Christian
religions increased by 144% between 1981 and 1991 to 747,000 people. Among this group
the largest increases occurred for Buddhist (215%) Islam (158%), Hindu (126%) and Sikh
(118%).” (Statistics Canada 1993b:4) The very significant increase in Muslim immigrants
leads Hamdani to argue that Islam is now the second largest religious tradition in Canada
(Hamdani 1999).
ii
I am using the terms “historic” and “diasporic” to distinguish between immigrant peoples,
largely from France, Great Britain and Ireland who arrived prior to the twentieth century
and the much more diverse origins of immigrants in the twentieth century. I am also using
the terms “diapsora” and “diasporic” to point to those more recent immigrant populations
and their religious traditions. The term “diaspora” is borrowed from the history of Judaism
in the Hellenistic and Roman periods in which many Jewish communities spread
throughout the Mediterranean world away from their homeland in Israel. These religious
communities have been called the Jewish diaspora. “Diaspora” has been appropriated in
modern scholarship, not without controversy, (Hinnells 1997c) as a term to describe the
experience of peoples who have emigrated and have sought to establish religious and
cultural continuity between religious meaning and practice in their place of origin and their
adopted homeland. Doing so is a continuous process of adaptation. Day to day experience
in an adopted landscape involves on the one hand issues related to employment or
education and the cultural components of ethics and aesthetics of the mainstream culture.
On the other hand these experiences are engaged through the interpretive lenses of the
religious and cultural background of the immigrant.
iii
The “References and Bibliography” attached is by no means complete but it is indicative of
the substantial body of work by scholars on religions and diversity in Canada. One of the
most useful initial projects for future research on this topic is the creation of searchable
database on religions and diversity in Canada.
iv
My use of the term contested is heavily influenced by several sources. First is the argument
by Charles Taylor about the dialogical formation of identity in which the “dialogues” are
35
properly understood to be deeply contentious (Taylor 1994). In addition there are two
additional works: Gerd Baumann’s Contesting Culture (1996) and the essay “The
‘Canadian Diversity Model’: Repertoire in Search of a Framework” by Jane Jenson and
Martin Papillon (2001). Bauman summarizes succinctly the various anthropological
definitions of “culture,” “ethnicity,” and “community.” He then discusses the ways in
which the dominant scholarly and public discourse derived from these terms relate to the
manner in which each term represents “contested” and even subverted meanings, as the
occasion warrants, within the community he is studying. He offers the following as an
illustration of how elusive terminologies are used to describe ethnic communities and
cultures: “ ‘See me friend Jas here’, said Phil, an Englishman, and pointed to his drinkingmate at the Railway Tavern bar, ‘he’s an Asian, but he’s born in Africa, so I’d say he’s an
African. And me, I was born in Burma, so I’m the Asian here, aren’t I. And Winston here,
you think the’s a West Indian: he’s the only one of us born in this town, so he’s the
Englishman born and bred!’” (Baumann 1996:5) Jenson and Papillon use the term
“repertoire” to indicate the limits and range of options for managing the diversity Baumann
illustrates. Within this metaphor, they then set out the polarities to be found in their
understanding of the ‘Canadian Diversity Model.’ Jenson and Papillon are working out a
practical model for the use of the Canadian state, to understand the contested terminologies
which Bauman’s example of diversity illustrates.
v
In a revealing article by an otherwise insightful social commentator, Spider Robinson
begins his column in the Globe and Mail: “We in the Western World believe in separation
of church and state. It is an article of faith for us—rim shot!—that ministers should
minister, and politicians should pander....” (Robinson 2001) In the worrisome argument
that follows this opening sentence, the separation of church and state is rigidly interpreted
to mean that the freedom of speech of Bishop Henry of British Columbia ought not to
extend to the expression of views which are not in accord with the dominant cultural ethical
view, in this case, on abortion. It would appear that Mr. Robinson thinks that the only
social citizenship a religious leader can exercise is silence. Such views may well be a
commonplace and do not bode well for the exercise of social citizenship by leaders or
members of any religious tradition in Canada. What kind of reaction will persons like Mr.
Robinson have as Hindus or Muslims exercise their social citizenship in a public critique of
ethical issues held by politicians?
vi
After 1850, there was no legally “established” church comparable to the continuing place
of the Anglican Church in Great Britain. Rather O’Toole uses the term “established” to
name the dominant cultural roles of Roman Catholicism in Quebec and of the Protestant
churches in English Canada prior to the 1960s.
vii
After God created both male and female, “God blessed them, and God said unto them, ‘Be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth.’” (KJV Genesis 1:28)
36
viii I am not in a position to pursue the possibility in this paper as the article, “Canadian
Diversity Model: a Repertoire in Search of a Framework” by Jensen and Papillon (2001)
came into my hands as final revisions to this paper were being made. However, the
suggestion that “Canadian Diversity Model” is best understood as a “repertoire” is a fruitful
one. They define the term thus: “In the world of the theatre, repertoires define the
boundaries of what an actor or a company can do. The repertoire sets limits, at the same
time as it offers a range of possibilities.” Religions, as my paper argues, are clearly among
“plays” in the repertoire of Canadian life and society and may be analyzed fruitfully for
their contributions to the debates which Jensen and Papillon characterize as having four
dimensions, each of which involving a range of possibilities: “homogeneity-heterogeneity,
individual rights-collective rights, symmetry-asymmetry, economic freedom-well being for
all.” We could ask: Do religions emphasize heterogeneity over homogeneity, individual
rights over collective rights and so on?
ix
The primary content of culture can in his view be subsumed under two invariable elements
of culture: ethics and aesthetics. By these terms I mean to signal the two areas in which
groups articulate their “values.” Under the heading of aesthetics, I would include all
practice and discourse concerned with “taste,” that is, the evaluation of sensory experience
and all matters of form and style. In similar fashion, I take ethics to include abstract
discussion of moral tenets, concrete practice and casuistic evaluations regarding specific
behaviours performed by (and upon) specific categories of person: how does a gentleman
treat a lady? What can a beggar expect from a lord? Must one answer a psychopath
truthfully? Can one kill in self-defense? (Lincoln 2000:415)
x
Lincoln argues that religion is constituted by four intersecting and frequently contesting
elements:
1. A discourse that claims its concerns transcend the human, temporal and
contingent, while claiming for itself a similarly transcendent status.
2. A set of practices informed and structured by that discourse.
3. A community, whose members construct their identity with reference to the
discourse and its attendant practices.
4. An institution that regulates discourse, practices and community, reproducing
and modifying them over time, while asserting their eternal validity and
transcendent value (Lincoln 2000:416).
xi
A recent edition of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (2000:68,4) was
entirely devoted to the question “Who Speaks for Hinduism.” In the introductory essay to
the collection, Sarah Caldwell and Brian K. Smith state:
This set of articles brings together a diverse group of scholars of Hinduism to
focus specifically on questions of “authority” and “voice.” Among the
contributors are North Americans of both South Asian and European ancestry;
they speak either strictly as scholars of Hinduism or as some combination of
scholar and believer. The theoretical points of view represented here range from
37
postcolonial studies to western feminism, from theology to the history of
religions. The articles indicate the complexity of any form of generalization about
“Hinduism,” the wide range of persons and positions encompassed by that term,
and the problems contemporary scholars of this religion face in a postcolonial era.
xii
I have deliberately used the terms “cultures” and “identities” in the plural throughout the
essay because notions of “a Canadian identity” are simply illusory. The historical roots of
the country, first with aboriginal nations, then as a French colony and subsequently, as
English colonies, show us that there is no single Canadian identity and never has been.
Subsequent constitutional developments always included recognition of at least the duality
of cultures and identities. As one who was born in southern Ontario and lived most of his
adult life in Nova Scotia, I am convinced that only English speaking southern Ontarians
imagine there is one Canadian identity!
xiii I have been particularly struck by the question posed by Alan C. Cairns in his recent book
Citizens Plus: Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian State. He writes: “A viable
constitutional vision, I argue, must address two facts: Aboriginal peoples and other
Canadians differ from each other; our differences are not total. There is much overlap—and
we share a common space. Are our future constitutional arrangements going to foster some
version of common belonging so that we will feel responsible for each other, and will be
eager to engage in some common enterprises, as well as accommodate our differences?”
(2000:6) While the aboriginal issues will always claim a distinct place with reference to
this question, the broader implications of the question for ethnic and religious communities
in Canada goes without saying. In many respects, then, the Cairns question defines the
appropriate setting for Taylor’s understanding of the dialogical character of identity
formation.