Nadira Sher-Alam: In its submission, SALDA argued that there
should be no arbitration based on Sharia, and also that there should
be no faith-based arbitration per se under the Arbitration Act. The
reason why I felt strongly about the Sharia arbitration, is that I
work with the newly arrived immigrant community, mostly with
Muslims. With language and cultural barriers, they do not know
about their rights here. And the way the system currently runs,
whether it’s social services and general information, it’s going to
be very hard. You can put out information and flyers and all that,
but you don’t have people on the ground to support these women.
There are just not enough trained personnel, social workers and
so on, who actively go in and speak with these women to find out
about their fears or their like or dislike of Sharia-based arbitration.
So the Boyd report and the safeguards were really patronizing
in this regard.

Farida Sher-Alam: The more we studied the people who brought
forward this proposal, the more unacceptable this whole thing
seemed to me. Because it was totally what we were trying to escape
when we were in Pakistan – this absolutely narrow interpretation
of the Sharia. The man [Syed Mumtaz Ali of the Islamic
Institute for Civil Justice] did declare that if you don’t follow the
Sharia you’re not a Muslim, you’re an apostate. And then my
subsequent research into what was happening at the tribunal court
confirmed in my mind the reason for opposing it. It was clear that
this was some kind of right-wing group that is totally uneducated
about how women have been marginalized and how they’re continuing
to be marginalized under the Sharia law. So I felt that this
tribunal was not going to assist women; it was just going to continue
the status quo that’s been going on for hundreds of years.
These people are trying to legitimize their presence and their
agenda. That scared the hell out of us.

Aparna Sundar: My understanding is that Sharia is used or applied
differently in different Islamic countries and it’s not one
body. So this Institute that he’s proposing, how did the other groups
accept it? Or was there one version that he was going to put forward
as the authoritative version? And was that the only version
that was going to be used for settling disputes? What about the
other versions?

Nadira: He discussed it with imams of other Muslim sects and all
agreed to the application of Sharia to the Arbitration Act. There
were no women in this original group. When this was pointed out
to them, they later brought in a couple of women.

Farida: It didn’t make me happy to protest against the Sharia; it
made me feel considerable shame that it had come to this point.
But I felt that because Sharia law’s interpretation and application
are being disputed by so many women and we have seen how its
misapplication has damaged women’s lives and their status within
Islam in so many different countries; I felt it was really my
religious duty to oppose it.

Nadira: I wonder on what grounds did the McGuinty government
decide to do away with Sharia? Did they really understand
what they were opposing i.e. that all traditional faith-based legal
systems discriminate against women and so should have no place
in our society? I think it was the London bombings that clinched
it for them. Announcing it on a Sunday afternoon that also happens
to be the anniversary of 9/11 seems to point that way. Did I
fear Islamophobia when this whole thing came up? Yes and no.
Yes, because most Canadians are not well-informed about Islam
or Sharia or the richly diverse lives of Canadian Muslims, having
little or only cursory contact with them, add to this stereotypes
and prejudice and you do get Islamophobic commentary. No, because
I think people have a right to speak about what’s happening
in their society. And when it doesn’t impact you directly but it is
questionable or harmful to some people, then you have to speak
out and get involved as those who are vulnerable and directly
affected may have no way of getting heard where it matters.

Aparna: The argument that it’s Islamophobic, that Islamophobia
was the driving force, while it does explain why the campaign
gained such currency and visibility, doesn’t look at who originated
the campaign. I think the originators were mostly women
from Islamic countries, people like Homa Arjomand, like you, so
it’s by and large not white male Islamophobes who started the
campaign. And even in a group like ours, even those of us who
aren’t Muslim, we have strong reasons for supporting the campaign.
We acted against Hindu communalism; we see the parallel
very clearly. It’s a very similar infiltration of certain religious
groups into public life, not religion in general but a certain kind
of religiosity. That’s what we’re opposed to, so it’s just consistent
with earlier campaigns we’ve taken up.

Secondly, we also have the experience in South Asia, certainly
in India, around a very similar move for the Muslim Women’s
Bill. There, too, just like Nadira said, Sharia is such a big body of
law, why is it only on women’s issues and the family that it becomes
so important? This is exactly what happened in India; it’s
only the Muslim Women’s Bill that was seen as somehow defining
Muslim identity. If you opposed it, you were somehow anti-
Muslim.

A third parallel in Canada is with Native women who had the
same arguments against various laws around self-governance, who
invoked the Charter against their own community laws. Again it’s
women who have had to take that kind of position and who are
seen as traitors by their leadership. Even for them it would have
been a hard stand to take; their male leadership would have said,
“you’re exposing us and weakening our autonomy when we are
already so vulnerable”, and all these kinds of things that Muslim
women have faced. This also raises the question of who is seen as
the “authentic” representative of the community and who is not.
And that’s what this whole left thing is about: we must seek out
the mullahs to be on their side. Well, why aren’t you on the side of
the secular women or the practising women who oppose the use
of Sharia family law? Why aren’t we seen as “authentic
spokespeople” for our community? Why is it only the religious
leaders; why are they the only authentic sites of the community?

The same lefties don’t go to the churches. They don’t go to the
religious sites within Western Christian society, so why are they
seeking out those people within our communities? But I agree
that it is a difficult line one has to walk, conducting this kind of
campaign in the climate of Islamophobia that exists, and knowing
how it can be used.

Nathan Rao: On this business of authenticity, it’s clear that there
is growing racialized inequality and that many of the non-whites
who are on the bottom end of Canadian society are Muslims. The
left is interested in building itself among the most oppressed and
marginalized layers of the society. So some on the left, and on the
radical left, feel that one path to doing this is by building a de
facto alliance with who they see to be the “authentic” representatives,
thatisthe“Muslim leadership.” So forthem,thisissuecrystallizes
around thisstrategic choice thatthey have made:they
wouldbe jeopardizing their alliance with them iftheydon’t stand
with them atleast againsttheperceptionofIslamophobiaor double
standards. Some go one step forward and actually embrace the
ideaoffaith-based tribunalsthemselves.

I disagree with them forthe reasons Aparna has given. Surely
there is a “third way” between Islamophobia, on the one hand,
and an alliance with the religious leadership, on the other. But it’s
interesting, because it’s not just the left. Allthe mainstream newspapers supported
the Marion Boyd report: the Globe and Mail,
the Toronto Star and the National Post. All supported the report
as a “balanced” approach to this “delicate and difficult” issue.

And it seems to me to be a strange marriage of a particular form
of multiculturalism and an important part of the neoliberal agenda.
Multiculturalism is often taken as a way to build relays within
each of the “communities,” such as they define them; the Liberal
Party was historically famous for building a network of leaderships
within the different immigrant communities, through which they
built their base into the broader society. So you have this specific
take on multiculturalism, combined with the recognition that there
are increasing numbers of Muslims in Canadian society, many
who are generally more marginalized from the institutions. There
you have the whole neoliberal approach of the last 20 years, which
supporters of faith-based arbitration echo in their statements.

It’s interesting to see the IICJ website where they say, “why
do people oppose this? It’s economical and saves taxpayers’
money!” So you even have the Sharia proponents taking up the
Fraser Institute attitude of “cost-cutting” and “slashing bureaucracy”
for the “taxpayers” and the “ratepayers.” Like some on the
left, the Canadian Establishment is also looking for “authentic
representatives”; so it’s as if there’s a race on within the Muslim
community itself to see who will be the “authentic representative”
and I guess these people from the IICJ see themselves as the
primary candidates for this role.

Farida: Maybe there wouldn’t have been any question had this
matter not also affected the Christian and Jewish rights as well.
My sense is that they were trying to protect their own rights as
well. So if it had only been the Muslim community that was affected
by this law, I don’t think you would have such a
long, drawn-out debate. They would have just put a stop to it
much earlier.

Sudhir Joshi: Absolutely. You have to remember that the terms
of the initial debate did not include the possibility that the
McGuinty government would take away these tribunals from all
religious communities. For Haroon Siddiqi of the Toronto Star,
for example, it was just a matter of giving Muslims a right which
all others enjoyed. On those terms, I too would agree with him.
But no one foresaw that McGuinty would come along and make
such a fundamental change.

Nathan: Those on the left who criticize secular Muslim opponents
of arbitration say that they’re mostly middle class, very disconnected
from the community. They say that opponents don’t
understand that the “real” community wants this and define themselves
in a primarily religious way. And therefore to oppose this
is to further confirm that you are totally out to lunch, with no
connection to the “real” Muslims out there. They also say that if
the tribunals don’t receive official sanction, they will go on anyway
and it will be like the old abortion argument: if you don’t give
proper, safe access to abortion, it’s going to take place anyways in
dangerous conditions, in the back alleys and so on. So what’s going
on in the “real” community, and how do you respond to this matter
of “law or not, arbitration will go on,” and you’re just missing an
opportunity to frame and control it?

Nadira: No doubt the anti-Sharia campaign was taken on by
middle-class, and elite Muslim women. You can see that in the
people who appeared on TV, radio and so on. But that doesn’t
mean that the women of lower socio-economic status are not
against it. And a lot of the women who are for the Sharia tribunals
are themselves middle class. My experience is mostly in
Scarborough among low-income Muslims. They are the middle
class and the upper class of their own countries. To those who say
that these people are working class, my response is “excuse me?!”.
They don’t want to be the working class; they are the middle class
of their own country and they want to be middle class here. When
immigrant women become aware of their rights as women in
Canada, the resources available to them, they spread the word.

They also come to learn what this can mean negatively to them
and their families. They know they can call 911 if their husband
abuses them, but they also know that the Children’s Aid Society
can take away their children, so they are less likely to call 911.
They’re aware that if they get into the system of shelters for women,
leave their husbands, get divorced and so forth, that it will be a
completely different life for them, and not many of them are
prepared for that.

Still some of them choose to seek that help, go to the shelters,
and through that process sometimes the husband finds that he can
change and so they reconcile. Is there going to be “back-alley
Sharia”? I suppose there will be for some time, but it’s going to
die down because it won’t have the sanction of the state and I
think women are also going to realize that they do have an option,
that they can ask under Canadian laws for their rights as women,
as abused women or someone in a dissolved marriage. I think that
what really matters to women who are struggling, for whom
poverty is a major issue, is survival; I don’t think religion is such
a big issue. The practicalities of life are the real issue. They want
their children and themselves to survive as a unit. They want their
children; that’s one of the most important things to them in their
life. If they could get the support through the Canadian system,
and they know they’re not going to get it through Sharia, I think
they’ll choose Canadian law. They’re practical and down to earth
women; they’ve suffered and they’re not choosing an ideology,
they want to survive and I don’t think they would choose Sharia.
The debate on Sharia has taken place though and I think the
majority of Muslim women are relieved that there’s no Shariabased
arbitration. They know that Sharia has been messed around
with.

I want to go back to the question of who is an “authentic”
Muslim and who represents the community, especially in relation
to the political parties. They tend to go towards the lowest common
denominator. They’ll see people like me and others as integrated
or even assimilated Muslims. But why does that make us less
authentic? If we tell them that inside, we’re deeply Muslim, why
would they have such a hard time accepting that? We can be deeply
Muslim and Canadian and Westernized at the same time. Why
does it have to be someone who has got a lot of ethnic trappings?

I think there’s something really shallow there. Do I have to wear a
hijab in order to be accepted as authentic? Political parties find it
easier to connect to Muslims who are more affluent, more
integrated; it’s also easy because we come to meetings and we
want to be politically active. But among those whom they think
are the authentic Muslims, why does religion have to be the
connection? Why are they not concerned about the economic
situation of these Muslim immigrants? Like I said, these
immigrants don’t consider themselves working class. They don’t
want to be working class. They are thoroughly angry about it.

Last Thursday I met this man from Bangladesh and he said, “I
didn’t come here to work in a factory; I’ve got this background as
an HR consultant to the World Bank. I don’t want to work in a
factory or drive a taxi.” So why can’t the left get involved in this
issue or the education system where ESL funding has been used
for things other than ESL – how can they deprive the most
vulnerable? From what I have heard, unions have been sticky about
not opening up certain trades and professions to immigrants. The
left must do work around these issues if it really wants to network
with immigrants.

Farida: I want to respond to the argument raised by Anver Emon
(Faculty of Law, U of T) in the Globe and Mail, who says:

By banning religious arbitration in Ontario, a real
opportunity has been lost. With the contemporary breakdown
in Islamic legal education, a vacuum of authority
prevails that could have been filled with fresh analysis of
the tradition, in the light of critical historical and legal
scholarship. A regulated regime of Sharia arbitration
could have opened the door for Canadian Muslims to
grapple with their tradition in a way that reflects the spirit
of Islamic law and the values they hold as Canadians.

His position is that, because of this setback, informal back-alley
Sharia mediations will remain untouched. What Aparna is saying
is true. If the tribunal had proceeded, there wouldn’t have been
any more debate. Whatever back-alley Islamic mediations that
are taking place right now, that is exactly what the tribunal was
setting up. So there was no difference. It is exactly those practices
that the court was going to legalize and legitimize. So that’s why
we’re arguing against it. For various political and international
reasons, this has now been stopped, but that doesn’t mean we
can’t continue the debate about the Sharia.

Nadira: Had the Islamic court been set up, I think this whole
thing would have been confined to the Muslim community. The
court would have felt very strong and it would have really divided
the Muslim community. Nobody else outside in Canadian society
at large would have paid much attention; they would say, “it’s
their matter, it’s an internal matter.” And that part of “political
correctness” or multiculturalism really bothers me. No, we are
one society. If there’s something in the Hindu community that
bothers me, I have a right to speak out against it. If it’s pedophile
priests among the Catholics, I want the right to speak out about it.
This is where I am living, and the democracy allows me that. The
debate about Sharia is ongoing, very much so in the West; and I
think from here it will go back to the countries we come from,
Pakistan and other places. Back-alley Sharia will happen, but
hopefully it will die out.

Nathan: Those criticizing opponents of Sharia say they are middle
class and disconnected. But my impression is that the people
who are in favour of it didn’t exactly emerge from the bowels of
the oppressed masses themselves. They’re professors from U of
T, and the head of the IICJ himself is a professor at Waterloo.

Nadira: When the left is looking for all these authentic Muslims,
do they not see that when they go out to protest, where are these
Muslims? Do they come out to the protests? Which Muslims come
out?

Nathan: But the progressive cause for which they do come out,
though, and perhaps more than some of the opponents to Sharia,
is for the protests against the war in Iraq or the Afghanistan intervention.
It appears to be true that there is a somewhat mobilized
segment of the organized Muslim community around those issues;
but around issues of the Sharia and gay rights, they’re not as
progressive as one might wish. Perhaps I have a schematic view,
but I would say that on certain issues these segments of the Muslim
community are our tactical allies. I will participate with all comers,
up to a certain point, around issues of importance such as the ones
I just mentioned. But at the same time they are strategic adversaries,
the leadership of these people. The leadership is a strategic adversary,
they have another project that is quite antagonistic to the
left.

Take the example of Globe and Mail columnist Sheema Khan:
I often enjoy reading her pieces about the Muslim world, against
Islamophobia, against the war in Iraq, and I agree with a lot of
what she says. But around this issue, I was quite struck by her
hard line against Sharia opponents, calling them “neo-secularists”
and even taking Svend Robinson to task for wanting to remove
God from the Constitution. I just thought that this is not a person
of the left. And when she says things like “neo-secularists,” that
just reminds me of BJP (Hindu nationalist) types in India who
spit the term “pseudo-secularists” out of the corner of their mouths.
As if the BJP were the genuine secularists!

Another example comes to mind: the Salman Rushdie affair
some 15 years ago in Britain. Some see that as a turning point
which ultimately led to the London bombings. The Satanic Verses
came out and there was the Iranian fatwa, and a segment of the
British Muslim leadership took up this cause and mobilized around
it. I remember visiting London shortly afterwards in late 1990. In
the east end of London, I met with the kind of people I’m used to
dealing with: left-wing anti-racist campaigners, generally socialists,
Labour-left types. I discussed this anti-Rushdie mobilization
with them, and they said of course it was crazy to mobilize against
Rushdie and they didn’t participate in that.

On the other hand, they couldn’t but be impressed by the ability
of the Muslim leadership to mobilize. And, as with the London
bombings, it wasn’t immigrants from Somalia or wherever, but
rather British-raised youth who mobilized. And the anti-racism
campaigners, who were about my age at the time (early-mid 20s),
were saying that these are the people that in theory they
should be mobilizing, but weren’t able to.

Aparna: Why is it so impressive? They go out and make an announcement
in the mosques and places like that. In India the BJP
can pull out hundreds of thousands of people for a rally and a left
rally will have a few hundred. I don’t find it impressive. You’re
appealing to their traditional feeling, through the family and the
mosque and church. These are the traditional avenues of
mobilization. They don’t have to do the extra work that the left
has to do, keep going in and knocking on doors. As for the antiwar
movement, OK so there have been large sections of the Muslim
community who came out in anti-war protests. But is it progressive?

Of course, you don’t want to be bombed and you’re
going to protest it, right? So if you’re coming from Arab countries
and you’re seeing all this as Islamophobic, which it is, you’re
going to protest it. But does that inherently make them progressive
people who will protest if some other country is being bombed,
a non-Islamic country for example? I don’t see it as progressive
per se, since you’re coming out in defense of your own interests.
It’s natural and to be expected.

Sudhir: As far as we lefties are concerned, right now we are in
retreat and we are unfortunately in a position where we tend to
have a schizophrenic existence. On the one hand, on issues that
involve opposing globalization or U.S.-led wars, we are seen to
be tactically allied to one camp. In other matters, we are diametrically
opposed to the same camp. A case in point is the anti-war
protests. I have a personal experience with this: in the anti-fascist
movement against the BJP and the [Hindu communalist] riots in
Gujarat. I was sitting on a committee around this issue with the
chief Imam of Toronto and we were talking about secularism. I
said that we are genuine secularists and happened to mention the
injustice against the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan. Suddenly
the discussion completely fizzled out because I mentioned the
wrong thing! So we are unfortunately in a position where we have
very little initiative of our own, whereby we can mobilize people
on the basis of issues we choose – with the recent exception of
this campaign against the Sharia tribunals, which is a genuine
issue where we are not just following one large body of people
who have their own agenda and just hanging on to their coat tails.
We need to define issues and initiatives where we’re not seen to
be riding on others’ coat tails.

Nathan: Around this whole matter of tactical allies, we’re actually
trying to avoid two sets of dead-ends. Frankly, around this
whole Sharia issue we also found ourselves in a tactical alliance
with people with whom we disagree with on a number of things.
Never mind such right-wingers like Margaret Wente of the Globe
and Mail and Rosie Di Manno of the Toronto Star, who are way
beyond the pale. But I also happen to feel physically ill when I
read pieces by Irshad Manji (Toronto-based author of The Trouble
with Islam) or see her video spots on the CBC, and yet we were in
a tactical alliance with her around the Sharia tribunals. On the
matter of Margaret Wente and Rosie Di Manno, though, let me
just come back to the fact that the editorial decisions of those
papers (Globe and Mail, National Post, and also the Toronto Star)
were in defence of the Boyd report. So I get a bit angry when the
International Socialists and others say that “by definition” you’re
allying yourself with the right wing, because of what Wente and
Di Manno have said. All the mainstream newspapers and all the
mainstream parties have supported the Boyd report; so it’s ridiculous
to say that the right and the mainstream have unleashed some
kind of hysteria around this matter.

Nadira: Salman Rushdie wrote a piece where he echoes what
others were saying after the bombings: “how did the Muslim community
allow this to happen? Why don’t they get involved? Where
are the progressive Muslims?” and so on. But I think the homegrown
Muslim bombers are not a problem of the Muslim community
as such, but rather of all of British society. It’s not one
community’s problem, and certainly not the Muslim community’s
problem. When I look at where I work and the youth, it does bother
me since the London bombings how we are selling short all our
immigrant youth and especially the Muslim youth. The parents
come and are struggling to do so much, but the doors are closed
and people stand aloof from them and will not engage. And they
realize that playing by the rules means nothing.

Mainstream society tells you to do this and that, but what do
you get out of it? Zero. The parents are the most law-abiding. So
these children are obviously learning that there’s a lot of hypocrisy
going on and what are they going to listen to. It’s the socioeconomic
set-up of this society, not Muslim society, not Muslim
parents, not the mosques. It’s everyone. People who don’t hire
immigrants, or the teachers who are condescending and disparaging.
This is what they face. It’s not a Muslim problem; it’s a societal
problem. It’s a lack of opportunities; where do they go to
play? Who welcomes them into their clubs, or talks to them, or
invites them to join the debating society or whatever. People shrink
away. So many women go to LINC classes to learn English, and
they want to talk, but there’s no one for them to talk to. There’s a
very small window of opportunity after that; they work hard and
they’re not going to come out of that shell, out of that ghetto that’s
imposed on them. They want to move out; there’s no way for
them to move out, economically or socially.

As far as we lefties are concerned, right now we are
in retreat and we are unfortunately in a position
where we tend to have a schizophrenic existence.

Nathan: We can agree that they can’t get out of this ghetto, but
there seems to be something about this particular ghetto whereby
what you describe leads to a reactionary and sometimes violent
politicization. Yet, in many respects, the more disenfranchised
and marginalized youth in Toronto or even Britain are Black-Caribbean.
I know this is a very delicate matter, and there is no evidence
of violent groups among Canadian Muslims. But there does
seem to be a specific political problem, and A. Sivanandan (of the
Institute for Race Relations in London) has written what I felt was
a balanced piece about this soon after the London bombings. Others
raise this matter in a way that is clearly opportunistic and illintentioned.

For example, immediately following the London bombings,
Irshad Manji laid down an ultimatum to Muslims everywhere (!)
in the pages of the Globe and Mail (of all places): “Muslims everywhere
face a test in the next several hours...[to help] the world
differentiate between the moderates and the apologists.” And so
on. I think Manji sees herself as an “authentic representative” of
another sort, and has built a handsome career around that.

Aparna: In my opinion, that disenfranchisement and looking for
other, often more right-wing positions, is not unique to the Muslim
youth. That’s exactly what happened with Hindu communalism.
That’s where the BJP and VHP have got their money – from
first generation and second generation people here. It’s people
here who are seeking alternatives because they haven’t found certain
opportunities here in Canada and the USA and then get drawn
into the appeal of the VHP. So I don’t think that’s unique to the
Muslim community. There’s a mobilized political ideology, there’s
political power and state power, and money, available for certain
youths. This obviously exists within the Muslim societies, because
there are powerful Muslim countries funding these kinds of things.
Then immigrant youth can happen to be attracted to it. It so happens
that in the Islamic case, there are powerful countries and
wealth to fund these movements. This doesn’t apply to Black and
Caribbean youth: there’s no single body of ideology that can’t be
used, there’s not so much money. But more than that, there are
also strong reasons for anger, aside from the racism (especially
after 9/11) and disenfranchisement they face here. And this has to
do with the history of western imperialism in the Middle East, the
whole issue of Palestine, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the
justification for this in the demonisation of Islam and Muslims.
So there’s all kinds of historical, political and economic reasons
why Islam can become a vehicle in a way that anger at anti-Black
racism cannot.

Nathan: And of course the wealthy, powerful governments Aparna
is talking about have historically been totally supported by the
West, and this brings us full circle, with the case of Saudi Arabia
being the most blatant.

Nadira: Absolutely. I attended a lecture on the Muslim diaspora
given by someone from France. She said that she was very afraid
because they see that there are Muslim youth who feel they cannot
be themselves anywhere but in the mosque. There’s no other
space for them to be themselves – not in the community or school.
So they go to the mosque, which provides them with a fully integrated
identity which is extremely important for their psychological
well-being. If you’re going to alienate them so much, any human
being will look for that wholeness somewhere, even if the
mosque would not have initially been very attractive to them. So
this progressive scholar was very worried about what is happening.
This puts these youth under the sway of the mosque leadership,
and so they’re listening to them. The students here who go
to the mosque wear the flowing robes and the topi caps. Those
girls who weren’t wearing hijabs are now doing so. Who is talking
to these young people? There’s nobody going and talking to
them, even from among the Muslim progressives. I wonder if they
would even have much credibility with those youths, because
they’re just not used to speaking with them in a way that respects
the youth. When I want to do programs with the girls after school,
they tell me they have to be home right after school. They tell me
that their parents weren’t so strict back in Pakistan. Their parents
are not integrating because there’s nothing to receive them, nothing
to integrate into. They’re here in a vacuum. When the Muslim
parents tell me that they don’t want their kids turning out like the
Canadian children, I say, “you know what? Canadian parents say
exactly the same thing, ‘We don’t want our parents doing such
and such thing’.” So you have this in common, but they’re not
talking to each other. I’m also talking about integrated Pakistanis
who have been here for a long time. They have no connection
with these people; if I didn’t work there I wouldn’t have any connection
with these people either.