Canada Faces the Ugly Truth of Ascending Islamophobia
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

 

Canada is in shock; the nation is in mourning as well as in deep introspection.

What has caused this unprecedented dismay in a nation which has long prided itself as a model of multi-cultural harmony, is the heinous murder of a Muslim-Pakistani family mauled down by a pickup truck at a crossing in a quiet residential district of London, Ontario.

The ghastly incident, of what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has described as a deliberate hate crime inspired by Islamophobia, happened late Sunday, June 6, afternoon. A family of Pakistani origin was out for a stroll on a relatively hot day of early summer. A warm day is not very common for Canada’s otherwise frigid climate. So, the family of five representing three generations—74 years-old grandmother, her 46-years old son, 44 years-old daughter-in-law, 15 years-old granddaughter and a 9 years-old grandson—were out to make the best of the weather.

They were waiting at a road-crossing for the traffic light to turn green. They were all standing on the footpath where pedestrians were expected to be. It was at this point that a pickup truck, driven by a 20-year- old young man, wearing what the police later described as some kind of protective jacket—most likely a bullet-proof vest—mounted the sidewalk and mauled all of them underneath its tyres. He didn’t stop, but carried on, after committing the crime, but was later arrested at a shopping mall, six to seven kilometers away from the scene of his crime.

The lone survivor of the murderous act is the 9-year-old child, left to spend the rest of his life with the shock and trauma of seeing his elders of two generations perish, not just under the wheels of the truck, but under the mounting burden of Islamophobia.

Canada, as mentioned above, has long prided itself as a haven for immigrants, from around the world, flocking to it because of its accommodating cultural shores that had enough room for people of any faith, color or creed. The Statue of Liberty, at the entrance to New York’s harbor may proclaim the US as a haven for the huddled masses of the world but, in the wake of the cataclysmic 9/11, that slogan sounds increasingly hollow.

It’s a fact that on the heels of 9/11, when US was gripped by a dam-burst of Islamophobia—and Muslims, as well as their look-alike Sikhs, were targeted with impunity—Canada suddenly witnessed an upsurge of Muslims, from US, seeking a new home in its welcoming ambience.

This scribe, settled in Canada since doffing the mantle of a career diplomat, could vouch, without any reservation, that Canada made Muslim immigrants—from our part of the world, South Asia, as well as from Arab countries, such as Syria and Iraq, in particular—feel completely at home. One could, in fact, say without fear of being contradicted, that a Muslim, of any sect, Sunni or Shia, could practice their faith and beliefs without any fear, or any kind of backlash from those not sharing their creed.

But things started to take on a worrying trend with Donald Trump winning the White House, in 2016. His agenda of exclusion of minorities, especially Muslims, had a ripple effect on Canada. Remember, his first act as President was to put a ban on visas from at least six countries, all of them Muslim.

Trump’s hate-filled racial bias soon traveled north, to Canada. Quebec, long a festering sore of racial prejudice in Canada, had receptive ears for Trump’s message. Muslims became an instant, and easy, target for the partisans of Quebecois, those insisting that their province could be home only to those who adhered to their exclusivist French agenda.

As Canadian Muslims mourn over this latest incident of Islamophobia, in the heart of Ontario—which has been home to millions of Muslims—they have suddenly been reminded, once again, of another similarly dastardly incident that took place in Montreal, on January 29, 2017, when a gunman stormed into Ben Abdullah Mosque, and shot six men dead; 19 other worshippers were seriously wounded.

The Canadian government has since observed, every year, January 29 as a day to honor the victims of that cowardly hate-attack. On the Canadian national calendar, that day is remembered as the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec Mosque Attack and of Action Against Islamophobia.

But dedicating a day on its calendar to the victims of Islamophobia hasn’t, apparently, doused the ambitions of those filled with their misplaced sense of racial pride against Muslims, in particular. Islamophobia seems to have made a home for itself in Canada, much to the anguish of a Liberal political leader, such as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as to the mounting sense of horror of Canadian Muslims.

Two months ago, another mosque, in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) was targeted by an Islamophobe. He just opened fire, while passing by the mosque, and killed an elderly worshipper seated on a chair trying to catch his breath.

It would be too tentative, and too early, to jump to conclusions or say that there’s, now in motion, a deliberate plan to target Muslims in Canada, or that Islamophobia has already dug its heels into Canada’s erstwhile idyllic landscape of multi-culturalism.

But the heart-wrenching incident of calculated targeting of Muslims, on the basis of their faith, has wrung alarm bells from the city where it occurred right up to the nation’s capital, Ottawa.

London, Ontario’s mayor—a positively disturbed and shaken Ed Holder—didn’t mince any words in decrying the horrific attack as “an act of mass murder perpetrated against Muslims.” Politicians and leaders of all stripes and persuasions, led by PM Trudeau, haven’t also held themselves back from denouncing this hateful act as a betrayal of those values that Canada has prided itself on for so long. Trudeau let no one in doubt that he looked at it as an act of hate-inspired terrorism. Jagmeet Singh, leader of the left-leaning NDP and himself of Sikh origin, sent out a clarion call to all cultural minorities of Canada not to allow themselves to be cowed down or intimidated by the rising tide of racial and religious hatred in Canada. He was forthright in telling the craven Islamophobes that their crimes wouldn’t intimidate Muslim women to give up their Hijab or Sikhs to stop wearing their Turban.

It’s a national tragedy for Canada, no doubt. The harrowing impact of this ghastly incident is being felt all the more because it has come, swiftly but grievously, on the heels of the discovery, a fortnight ago, of the remains of 215 children of Canada’s natives—called the Indigenous—in the vicinity of a school, called an Indian school, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Canada had practiced, for more than a hundred years, until the early 1990s, the hair-raising tradition of the Catholic Church snatching from the indigenous people, their children, at a very early age, and putting them into boarding schools run by the Catholic clergy. This gruesome practice had the sanction of law; Canada’s first PM, John McDonald, had presided over the passage of the legislation giving the Catholic Church the license to seize native children, convert them to Christianity and educate them at special schools in order to civilize them.

It’s hard to count how many thousands of native children perished at those schools, where the Catholic clergy treated them worse than animals and abused them with impunity. The uproar and national stir triggered by the discovery of this latest mass grave in Vancouver has jogged Trudeau into emergency salvage operation. He has called upon the Catholic clergy to accept their guilt, apologize and recant. Otherwise, he has served notice to take them to court.

In the wake of this tragedy in London, Ontario, Trudeau and his government’s roster of remedial action has multiplied, by leaps and bounds. He must act, and act swiftly, to staunch the flow of blood amongst his Muslim Canadians. The law of the land must get involved into a calibrated exercise to ferret out the moles of Islamophobes in order to assure Canada’s Muslims that they didn’t make a wrong choice in making this country their new home.

An Afghan baker, working at a restaurant in Toronto, perhaps captured the sentiment of hurt, and persecution, felt by his fellow Muslims, as a result of this harrowing act of Islamophobia. He said, succinctly, that when he sought refuge in Canada, he thought he’d left behind, for good, the madness and mayhem of terrorism in the name of religion. This incident has made him think that he was wrong. Religious terrorism is also haunting him here!

K_K_ghori@hotmail.com

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)