Speech to St. Catharines City Council Against Having Religious Displays (Nativity Scene) on City Property

 

Dear Mayor and councillors, I am Saleh Waziruddin speaking today as an individual resident in support of staff's recommendation not to allow religious displays on City property.

This whole issue started as about having a nativity scene at City Hall. It's not an accident that applications for displays will start in November. There is no way to make this inclusive, no matter how you spin it, because there is only one religion with a tradition of having a nativity scene.

There is no way to make it inclusive of atheists, agnostics, those who don't follow any religion. 

I understand there was even an application for a Satanist display that was denied.

(*Mayor Siscoe says the request was not denied but they did not respond to the requirements, only one request met the requirements)

But there is also no way to make it inclusive of other religions, except maybe as a proverbial fig leaf.

This is because other religions don't have the tradition of a nativity scene, so will just be adapting themselves to make some kind of display just to fit in. It's still favoring one religion, with a select few other religions on hand just for appearances sake.

But followers of some of the other religions don't have the resources to do even that token participation.

So what you will end up with is a show of being inclusive without actually being inclusive, fooling ourselves only. This is public relations, not actual diversity, not inclusion. and not least importantly, not equity. This seems to be the trend here in Niagara, on-brand

If you want nativity scenes, have them in thousands of places all over the City, but not on City property which is supposed to be our common property. Unfortunately while this policy slowly winds it's way through the cogs and wheels of the process, nativity scenes have been allowed in the interim, so please put an end to it today.

Let's not forget why the one religion with the tradition of having a nativity scene is the majority religion here: it is because of colonialism, it is because of genocide. There weren't nativity scenes on this land 500 years ago. I think we acknowledge that in the land acknowledgment. Re-enshrining this only perpetuates the on-going legacy of colonialism, there is no way to dress it up as being inclusive. It has to go.

And across Canada it is going, city after city, even out in Terrace, BC, they are finding having a nativity scene on City property is not inclusive and are removing it. But in Niagara and St. Catharines, while we claim the progressive legacy of Harriet Tubman as our own, we are going in the opposite direction: backwards in time, away from progress, finding new ways to keep doing the old ways.

Thank you.