Nenshi lofts Hail Mary on race, religion

Remark on nebulously sinister ‘forces’ condescending to decent community

The problem with politicians who bring up race or religion is how it inevitably reveals more about the politician than it does citizens.

The latest example comes from Naheed Nenshi, who in recent comments to the leader of a local Pakistani community group, expressed a concern. “Everything we’ve built together,” said the mayor — who self-identified as the “the first Muslim mayor” of any western city — is “very, very tenuous.”

He then remarked on “forces” that wanted the city to go “backwards.”

Nenshi later pointed to racist and anti-Muslim remarks on social media as justification for his comment. But cranks, misogynists and bigots have long populated the netherworld of online commentary. They are nothing new and explain little about the motivations of most Calgarians, unless one believes in stereotypes.

Nenshi’s language about “backward” is curious. It implies that pre-2010 (when Nenshi was first elected), Calgary was … what exactly? — an abyss of antebellum racism from the deep American south, circa the 1960s? Some of us were alive in Calgary in 2009. We recall a rather more positive civic culture.

Another possible interpretation: The mayor meant to retroactively insult the 213,827 Calgarians who did not vote for him in 2010, or the 69,184 voters who stubbornly skipped his name on the ballot in 2013.

It is possible that such voters, the ones who denied Nenshi a North Korean-like perfect 100 per cent in both elections, were all “backward.” Another plausible explanation is that such dissenters thought Nenshi did not address their priorities, their way.

Similarly, in Monday’s vote, a Calgarian may be irritated with an issue and the mayor’s non-action. Example: Nenshi’s demonstrable preference for keeping government employees’ unions happy over reforming civic pay and pensions. Those are 18.7 per cent higher than comparable private sector positions, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. That spending fact keeps property taxes higher, and this in a year when taxes are an issue.

Nenshi’s comments were likely prompted by the poll that showed him 17 points behind his main challenger, Bill Smith.

Nenshi then did what some politicians do when facing a possible firing: Play the fear factor, the race card, or both, and hope that pushes enough of “their” voters to the polls on election day.

The deeper problem is what the mayor’s comments reveal about his views on fellow citizens, including his notion that some with Islam as part of their identity should be concerned if he loses in Monday’s election.

Nenshi’s comments imply the standard majorityminority way of categorizing people used by academics, statisticians and politicians. But such labels are clumsy and here’s why: Imagine a successful female businesswoman, of half-Korean/ halfCaucasian ancestry, married with children.

Is she a “minority” because half her ancestry is Korean, a “majority” because of the other side of her ethnic heritage, or because her Korean grandparents came to Canada in the 1950s (and thus are as Canadian as someone with British ancestry whose grandparents arrived in the same decade)?

Is she part of the majority Canadian mosaic given she has children, as do most others — or would she label herself a persecuted minority because she is a wealthy entrepreneur, but feels picked on by proposed federal tax changes?

Any meaningful selfunderstanding goes beyond some label, which is anyway fluid and near-meaningless. It is also why when a politician assumes he knows what trait or practice matters to individual voters, that an assumption of arrogance has been committed.

Nenshi’s recent remarks are condescending, and in particular, to the community he ostensibly addressed.

In playing the religion card, the mayor assumed his audience was monolithic, that faith labels are how everyone or most in his audience primarily self-identifies.

Nenshi, in other words, assumes no individuality on the part of such citizens. I would suspect many such voters, appealed to by the mayor as a monolithic bloc, disagree.