Canada is not what you think it is
Andrew Mitrovica
If you believe Canada is a pretty, picture-postcard Islamophobia-free zone, then I recommend you stop reading this column. Youre about to be profoundly disappointed, shocked, or both.
Scratch its inviting surface and you will discover quickly that, as in most other Western democracies, Islamophobia is not only alive and rampant in Canada, but it has long been a defining characteristic of at least one of its major political parties and large swaths of the countrys corporate media.
The most recent evidence of this unassailable fact has been on unsavoury display in the still raw residue of the massacre of six Muslim Canadians at prayer in a Quebec City mosque earlier this month.
Immediately after the terrorist attack, politicians went about the ritual of decrying the murders, while praying for the victims and their grieving families and urging their countrymen to rally around the Muslim community as a sign of unity and support.
Meanwhile, after a burst of attention to blunt any criticism that it took a terrorist attack on Muslims in Canada by a white, reactionary male as seriously as attacks in Paris, Brussels or London, much of the establishment media promptly went on its way, as the carnage in a mosque receded comfortably into the rearview mirror.
But difficult questions remained unanswered. Chief among them: What to do about the Islamophobia that was stoked into a raging bonfire by some of the very politicians and media that were pleading - with all the faux solemnity they could muster - for harmony and understanding?
Condemning Islamophobia
Wisely sceptical of the flowery rhetoric, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) - a prominent voice for Canadas Muslim community - has written an open letter to politicians of all persuasions, urging them to take concrete steps to confront Islamophobia and racism and discrimination that exists plainly in their midst.
Among its sensible recommendations, the NCCM said that more money needed to be spent to report and gather data on hate crimes and train police; that, following the province of Ontarios lead, other provinces should create an anti-racism directorate and establish a mandatory high-school course on systemic racism and its corrosive impact on society.
Finally, the NCCM threw its powerful backing behind a largely symbolic, non-binding motion sponsored by a governing Liberal MP, Iqra Khalid, that calls on the House of Commons to condemn Islamophobia and all religious discrimination in the aftermath of the Quebec city attack.
For context, its important to note that after a few hours of perfunctory debate, Canadian parliamentarians unanimously adopted another Liberal MPs motion in 2015 condemning the rise of anti-Semitism around the world.
Not surprisingly, Khalids motion has faced a much more different, tumultuous and instructive fate.
Rather than be approved swiftly and unanimously, Motion 103 has morphed into a running spectacle that has not only dominated Canadas political agenda but has also exposed the pus of Islamophobia still oozing from Canadian politicians and media that only a few weeks ago were expressing sympathy for men murdered during evening prayers because they were Muslims.
Phantom horrors
Leading the hysterical charge in opposing the motion is Canadas Conservative Party and the bevy of candidates who are vying to lead it. All but one of the leadership candidates have signalled their vehement opposition to the motion, claiming that, among other phantom horrors, it would stifle freedom of speech and possibly act as a precursor to the invocation of Sharia Law.
This is, of course, lunacy. But it is lunacy that has coursed its malevolent way through the core of the Conservative Party for a long time and not, as some have suggested, emerged only lately from the swamp of Islamophobia to take up residence at the partys radical fringes.
This is a revisionist lie. Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent much of his tenure fuelling and satisfying the not-so-latent Islamophobia that was politically appealing to his legion of supporters by making the niqab a racist dog-whistle and lauding old-stock Canadians.
By the way, the NCCM has sued Harper and his former spokesman for suggesting that the respected advocacy group had documented ties to a terrorist organisation such as Hamas.
Harper not only stocked his cabinet with ministers who shared his embrace of what amounted to hate politics, but also plucked them from obscurity, gave them a national profile, all the while defending and championing them.
Perhaps Harpers signature legacy in this sorry regard was first encouraging, and then promoting, the political career of Kellie Leitch - who, in turn, repaid her patrons largesse with unrivalled zealotry and loyalty.
During last years election campaign, Leitch fronted the unveiling of a Harper-approved tip line for reporting so-called barbaric cultural practices - a thinly disguised, bureaucratic euphemism for Islam.
And, today, as a prominent and popular Conservative leadership candidate, Leitch keeps channelling her former bosss odious modus operandi while attending a freedom rally stuffed with avowed Islamophobes who are convinced Motion 103 is an Islam-inspired plot to undermine Canadians rights and freedoms.
Its great to be in a room full of severely normal people tonight, Leitch told the adoring crowd. Canadian values are not fringe, and together, I know, we are going to fight for them.
Leitch is Harper without the filter.
Cheering her on is an equally hysterical mob of largely right-wing journalists who have pounced on Khalid and her motion, chomping at the bit of Islamophobia while insisting, unconvincingly, that their objections to Motion 103 are motivated solely by their oh-so-sincere concern that it would grant one religion special status over all others.
Aljazeera
