Niagara College still doesn’t get it
You ever have that one obnoxious friend who, no matter what you do or say, just cannot understand why their behaviour is so irritating?
Niagara College is like that friend for our region. It’s hard to imagine Niagara without the college, but, like a friend who routinely acts out in embarrassing ways, it can’t or won’t change.
Readers of this column will not be surprised that I am again referring to the college’s ever-deepening relationship with the oil theocracy of Saudi Arabia, a nation that sets annual records for state-sponsored beheadings.
When I last wrote about Niagara College it was to inform you that it was running not one, but two menonly tourism/ hospitality programs in Saudi Arabia. The college didn’t exactly hide this fact, it just didn’t volunteer the information to the community. You have to go looking for it.
As it turns out, Niagara College is actually operating a third such program, this time at the femaleonly Al Ahsaa college.
When I inquired about this campus, college spokeswoman Susan McConnell e-mailed me a statement which reads in part: “Single gender colleges are prevalent in many countries around the world (including Ontario).”
While true in the strictest sense, the implication of that statement — that all-girls or all-boys schools in Ontario are the same as those in Saudi Arabia — was so shocking it nearly caused an electrical fire in my brain.
It also displayed the ethical gymnastics the college is willing to do to justify its actions.
Niagara College just doesn’t get it.
No matter what anyone says, no matter the degree of oppression in Saudi Arabia, Niagara College will participate in that nation’s system of gender apartheid so long as it can make a buck.
It is a disgraceful betrayal of Canadian democratic values.
We need to back up for a moment, however, because there is a lot to unpack in terms of the reality of Saudi Arabia versus Niagara College’s justifications and the fact that the college is now operating a women-only school. We’ll start with the latter. Niagara College came under fire earlier this year for its Saudi men-only programs. Even Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne was unhappy about it, although she has studiously avoided the subject for months.
Saudi Arabia is a nation where women live in a theocratic straitjacket. Women cannot work, go to school or even leave the house without the expressed permission of a male guardian.
(As I noted in my last column, the Twitter campaign #stopenslavingsaudiwomen allows you to hear the accounts of the lives of Saudi women for yourself.)
Now, let it not be said I won’t give credit where it is due. In her e-mail statement, McConnell says part of the college’s mission is “aimed at improving the employability of young people anywhere in the world.” This is important work. Providing job skills to Saudi women may, in fact, improve their lives.
But there are some caveats so serious that the college shouldn’t be applauded for operating a women-only campus.
First — and contra to McConnell’s implied equivalence of single-gender schools in Ontario and Saudi Arabia — the Al Ahsaa college exists because women are forbidden by law to attend classes with men.
This is not just the case in schools. Gender segregation is strictly enforced everywhere. Women cannot be in public with men who are not family. Punishment for breaching these laws is severe, including imprisonment and torture.
Under Saudi law, a woman cannot attend post-secondary classes — including the ones operated by Niagara College — without the consent of her male guardian. Far from promoting the cause of gender equality by educating women in hospitality, Niagara College is further entrenching itself in a system of state-enforced misogyny.
To McConnell’s point about single gender schools in Ontario: yes, they exist. But they are private institutions that parents and students elect to attend. There are no laws in Canada that enforce gender segregation. A Canadian woman does not need the permission of any man to go to school.
So to suggest the situation in Ontario is akin to that of Saudi Arabia on any level is to either be deliberately evasive or shockingly ignorant. I will let the college’s administration determine which of those things it wants to be.
(By the way, when I asked McConnell if she really meant to equate Ontario to Saudi Arabia, given the context of Saudi law, she e-mailed the following: “As for the info you requested, NC, like many other Western governments and organizations, has chosen engagement rather than isolation and we remain committed to the important work we do there.”)
It’s time Niagara College, its students, faculty and the Niagara community — from business people to politicians — cast off the childish naivety of “engagement.”
There is no give-and-take here. Western colleges in Saudi Arabia operate at the pleasure of the Saudi authorities. The Saudi government, which suppresses freedom of expression with an iron fist, would never permit a college to teach classes on secular, democratic political theory or gender equality. Niagara College classes must be taught in conformity to Saudi Sharia laws.
Instead of changing Saudi Arabia, institutions such as Niagara College merely prove that Canadian democratic values are for sale when the price is right.
Operating women-only classes does not change the ethical and moral implications of participating in a political and social system that actively and openly oppresses women.
We, as a community of free people in a free nation, need to stop pretending this is OK and insist Niagara College invest its resources elsewhere.