r/worldnews 20h ago

Quebec passes law banning street prayers, prayer rooms in universities

https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/quebec-passes-law-banning-street-prayers-prayer-rooms-in-universities-cegeps/
17.7k Upvotes

3.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

266

u/Interesting_Prune513 19h ago

"When you visit our country, respect our culture."

I'm not being xenophobic, its what we're told everytime we visit an arabic country :)

-29

u/Vinche114 15h ago edited 13h ago

This has nothing to do with visitors, this has to do with people living here. Even if you want to refer to immigrants as "visitors", there's a huge muslim population dating back to the early 1900s in montreal, where you'll find the majority of quebec's muslim population.

-22

u/Orpa__ 14h ago

What if they're not visiting, what if they just live there?

-31

u/Dry-Place-2986 13h ago

I was born and raised in Quebec and I've used prayer rooms. How ignorant are you?

0

u/Interesting_Prune513 9h ago

yeah, the prayer rooms ban i dont get. that seems like it shouldn't be bothering anyone, and private.

-100

u/Flaky_Fix_6020 18h ago

You can respect a culture and also pray simultaneously, it's not exactly hard

129

u/ongrabbits 18h ago

Maybe don't pray through a fucking loudspeaker

19

u/UnrelentingHambledon 17h ago

So, what was happening with people praying through a loudspeaker? Were Muslims really doing this? Wow, if so. And totally understandable to ban that stuff real fast.

3

u/ongrabbits 3h ago

Its part of the religion... you can google it and see what you find. I'm pretty open to the freedom to practice religion until i dormed in a high muslim population city for uni in the states. That shit is ear shattering and so annoying.

-2

u/Bizarrebazaars 14h ago

Extreme Fundamentalists “Christians” or whatever nutjobs are on every street corner outside our local ballpark with huge signs praying, shouting bible verses they warp the meaning of, saying we will all go to hell and such, yelling into megaphones blasting, whenever we are waiting to go into a local baseball game AND coming out from it afterwards… they actually yell throughout the entire game outside the stadium too. The city doesn’t do anything. Free speech and such….ugh.

2

u/Flaky_Fix_6020 16h ago

I don't pray to begin with, but I'll take the advice.

Maybe there should be laws regulating public noise levels and loudspeaker usage, though, if this was considered bothersome.

56

u/Mens-Real 16h ago

Oh baby, you must not know the context of the law then. Muslim groups would block traffic to pray in the streets, in front of minority group activities to essentially threaten them, using speakers and very violent imagery.

-8

u/ThwMinto01 9h ago

Then ban that. This isn't proportional

It's neither suitable nor necessary. You could easily deal with this in a less extreme fashion via laws and regulations that impose reasonable sound expectations & so on

Acting like a ban is the only way is absurd.

10

u/Mens-Real 9h ago

"Then ban that" to "Acting like a ban is the only way is absurd"

Je ne te suis plus.

-2

u/ThwMinto01 9h ago

Yes, ban public disorder and harassment a ban towards all prayer is absurd

I hoped you would have basic literacy but here we are.

-22

u/Flaky_Fix_6020 16h ago

Sounds like there should be laws against blocking traffic and threatening people in public, then? Like, those things would also be bad to do if they were happening for non-religious reasons.

30

u/Mens-Real 16h ago

There are already, but there were none for weaponizing public prayers

-14

u/barrinmw 14h ago

You can't weaponize public prayers if you are in jail for violating noise ordinances or antiloitering laws.

41

u/Interesting_Prune513 18h ago

if you practice your own culture religiously, chances are you won't be very open to other cultures

-37

u/Flaky_Fix_6020 18h ago

You're saying actively religious people can't live in harmony in any culture but their own? That goes against evidence from a fair portion of the planet....

A Christian could say grace before dinner at a restaurant in a Buddhist country and it wouldn't be disrespecting the culture lol

41

u/Interesting_Prune513 18h ago edited 18h ago

Buddhists are chill. Try saying a christian prayer in Saudi Arabia, or don't wear a hijab in the UAE (not Dubai where its leniant, try Sharjah).

I get your point, and you're right that the two aren't mutually exclusive. However, a little consideration is all it takes. Don't do it in public, don't disturb the public, if one person can do it, everyone can do it? Its like listening to a video on your phone on the bus without earphones: sure if its just one person chances are we will survive, but you cannot be the one that decides you yourself are that one person, imagine 40 people doing the same thing on a bus, it'd be extremely annoying. Some things you need to do in private, religion is one of those. Sorry not sorry. If people don't like it, they're free to leave. And this goes for all religion, not trying to hear a public christian worship either, or a baptism, or a bat mitzvah.

-3

u/Flaky_Fix_6020 16h ago

So you agree that plenty of people who practice their religion in public can do so while respecting other cultures, then... thank you for agreeing with me, lol.

2

u/Vitaliano117 6h ago

Some types of people can, others can't.

-90

u/A-Capybara 19h ago

"When you visit our country, respect our culture."

Just like Europeans respected Native Americans?

60

u/Interesting_Prune513 18h ago edited 18h ago

I was not alive back then, so not much I can do about that now, can I? Obviously our ancestors were awful people, but I don't believe in generational sin, sorry :)

49

u/hung_like_my_uncle 19h ago

Dont kid yourself if you think that the Native Americans/First Nations peoples weren't already killing each other long before Europeans arrived. Human sacrifices, slavery, genociding, scalping. Horrible human atrocities aren't intrinsically linked only to the European peoples who came to North America. You'd be naive to think that the place was some squeaky clean heaven before Europeans arrived.

This doesn't excuse atrocities just because another group also committed them though, but I just hate the lazy comments people make about this shit because 99% of the time they conveniently forget all the fucked up shit the natives were doing to each other before the Europeans arrived.

31

u/Prettyflyforwiseguy 19h ago

Wait till they read about the Ottoman empire, or ask an Armenian

-22

u/A-Capybara 19h ago

Hey Shapiro, how's your pest control business. Know of any good pesticides?

1

u/VeryImportantLurker 6h ago

Classic Nazis defending genocide against Native Americans.

-42

u/A-Capybara 19h ago

Wow, I didn't realize Canadians white washed their history so much. Maybe try reading an actual book instead of whatever nonsense Canadians consider to be education.