Contending Loyalty Case Study

Contending loyalties are a problem many people around the world face, whether two nationalist loyalties come into conflict or a nationalist and non-nationalist the consequences can be dire if these contentions are not dealt with. To have a contending loyalty means to be loyal to two things, whether a nation, language, culture or many other thing and have the two come into conflict. When dealing with contending loyalties you have three options. You can choose one loyalty over the other, ignore the problem or find a way to include and accommodate both. Generally most people seek to accommodate both so that they can still have more than one aspect of their identity. Many Canadians face contending loyalties, especially aboriginal peoples and immigrants.

Reasonable accommodation is a policy of changing the way things are traditionally done to accommodate someone of a different religion, culture, race, etcetera. Canada has a put funding towards a policy of reasonable accommodation. This policy allows people from all walks of life to feel acceptance and belonging within their community and can help to ease cultural divisions. Reasonable accommodation is an important factor in reconciling contending loyalties. An example of this would be the example of Baltej Singh Dhillon. In 1989 he was offered a job with the RCMP, but only if he would remove his turban, cut his hair and shave his beard. He refused, and started a legal battle. Over 90,000 Canadians signed a petition against changing the traditional uniform, the flat-brimmed Stetson hat. It became a great political controversy. However, in 1990 Brian Mulroney and his government announced new changes would be made to the uniform, and Dhillon was allowed to wear his turban. In 2016 the RCMP made changes to its uniform again to allow muslim women to wear a hijab while serving, which was also the source of much controversy. However these small changes helped to reconcile contending nationalist, Canadian, and non-nationalist, religious, conflicts. Another example of reasonable accommodation was for British bus drivers in 1969. During this time there were divisions growing among the people,

In the USA there is a great divide between their people and their many contending loyalties, a situation like this is what we are trying to prevent in Canada. Many groups are at conflict over religion, language and race. One example of this is the Black Lives Matter movement. It started in 2013, in response to the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager from Florida. Since this incident there have been many instances of people in authority racially profiling blacks, which consequently often leads to police brutality. Such as the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Grey and Tamir Rice. All of these men were unarmed and unjustly killed. Protests started to pop up around many major cities in the USA, demanding for the police force and government to change their ways. Two major protests were in Ferguson, MO in 2014 and Baltimore, MD in 2015. Both were triggered by brutality against members of the black community. In Ferguson the protests were fueled by the death of Michael Brown. Brown had robbed a convenience store and when questioned allegedly attempted to grab the officer’s gun. The police officer discharged his gun, injuring the man who then fled. Brown turned to surrender, raising his hands above his head the office fatally shot him, claiming he had charged at him. Brown’s body was left in the street for four hours after the shooting, which greatly