Don’t tell Kipling, but I think the twain have met.

In spite of the fact that I place a very high value on my democratic right to stay home on election day, or to go to the polls and spoil my ballot, I actually went out and voted first thing this morning. Unfortunately, by the time the candidates got finished spinning the issues and dissing one another for six weeks, I hardly knew what to do. But when I got to our polling station, I was encouraged to discover that they didn’t seem to know what they were doing either. Suzanne and I are new in the riding and weren’t on the list, and, even with picture ID, it took them about 20 minutes to sort us out. The polling station woman had obviously been watching all this nonsense. She handed me the ballot with the usual instructions, then looked around and whispered, “The blood and urine samples go on that table over there”. Ah, anarchists; the little cherry-bombs of life that make it all worthwhile.

Yesterday, for lack of something serious to talk about, radio phone-in-guy, Charles Adler, decided to revisit this question of whether Moslem women should be allowed to vote with their faces covered. As I expected, most callers said, no. But it was the vitriolic tone of much of the discussion and, what seems to me, the muddled thinking of most of the rest of it, that bothered me. So I’d like to put a few of my own thoughts on paper. – Virtual paper, I should say; and, perhaps, virtual thoughts.

This is a problem of negotiation; the kind that needs to take place when cultures bump up against one another.

In Western-European-type Canadian culture it’s generally assumed that you cover your face to conceal your identity. But there are many exceptions to this: surgical masks, gas masks, goalie masks, burn mask, scarves and balaclavas on cold days, etc. So, when face covering is not about concealing identity, it’s not a concern. And, sometimes, even when a person is trying to conceal their identity, in a game for example, or at a Halloween party, no one will object. All of which indicates that the issue at a polling station isn’t about covered faces per se, but about fraud, and sinister intent.

Now, in recent years, there has been a small but interesting cultural shift in Canada. We now have a relatively tiny number of women among us who cover their faces for the sake of modesty. This, of course, seems strange to us, just as it seems strange to people of some cultures when they discover that our women, for the sake of modesty, cover their breasts. These are not reasonable or logical practices, so there’s not much point in arguing about them. We simply need to decide if we are willing to accommodate them. And it seems to me that, if we want people to come to this country and become Canadians, to participate in our society and raise children who will make a contribution, we need, where possible, to accommodate them.

If we want a voting system that serves all Canadians, even as the population changes, we’re going to have to make some interesting adjustments. Picture ID with your current address is a great thing, but what about the young man in the burn mask, or the homeless woman of no fixed address? Right now we let them bring someone who will vouch for their identity. We do this, of course, because we want them to be able to vote. Is it not reasonable, then, to allow these Moslem women to do the same? That is, of course, if we really want them to be able to vote.