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#OurLondonFamily defies “There is no Islamophobia in Canada.”
6-23-2021
On Sunday, June 6, 2021 Nathanial Veltman, 20, of London, Ontario converted his truck into a weapon used in what police described as a premeditated murder. This heinous premeditated terror attacked killed four members of the Afzaal family and seriously injuring a minor child, the only survivor of this tragic event. A terror attack that took the life of his father, mother, sister, and grandmother. Three generation of a single Canadian Muslim family wiped out in an instance. This is something the only surviving child would have to live with for the rest of his life. His father Salman Afzaal, mother, Madiha Salman, sister, Yumna Afzaal, and grand mother Talat Afzaal. Most of us adults, still cannot wrap our mind around it. Yet this is what this child would have to cope with, for his remaining life.
"It is believed that these victims were targeted because they were Muslim," Det Supt Paul Waight told a news conference on Monday. The attack was the worst against Canadian Muslims since six people were killed in a Quebec City mosque in 2017.
The overwhelming outpouring of support and sympathy shown by Canadians from coast to coast is appreciated. Equally acknowledged is the outrage and disgust demonstrated by the Canadians at the suspect. After all, this is Canada. We don’t expect such terror attacks on civilians out on an evening stroll on Sunday evening. This is something we read and hear on the news in another parts pf the world but never in Canada. Unfortunately, Canadian Muslims have also realized that such outpouring of support and expressions of disgust at the suspects are merely temporary and it fizzles away just as fast as it rises. A week later, no one seems to care about this glaring problem called Islamophobia that has crept up in our peaceful society, and it is this nonchalant approach that is the biggest contributing factor for the rise in islamophobia in Canada.
The problem is not limited to rise of the far-right hate groups that have sprung up and easily spreading hate on social media platforms by poisoning young minds with misinformation. Most Canadians have heard the term, including Canadian Muslims, but most of us are unable to describe it.
What is Islamphobia?
Ms. Azeezah Kanji (JD LLM) in her Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief defines it as: “unfounded or disproportionate fear and/or hatred of Islam or Muslims (or people perceived to be Muslim), leading to violence and systemic discrimination.”
She further added that “Islamophobia is gendered, meaning that it operates according to gendered stereotypes about Muslim men (as violent terrorists and patriarchs) and Muslim women (as subjugated victims and dangerous cultural vectors).”
“Islamophobia intersects with other systems of racism. Black Muslims, Indigenous Muslims, and Black Indigenous Muslims experience the compounding effects of anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, and Islamophobia; for example, they are more likely to suffer the negative effects of information-sharing agreements between police and national security agencies, since Black and Indigenous communities are disproportionately targeted by police information-gathering practices like carding.” Carding is where police forces and security agencies share information with other police forces. Thus, creating a hype.
Clamping down on online hate groups is not the only solution. The problem is far deeper and real and meaningful efforts must be applied and resources by all levels of government as well as Muslim organizations need to be allocated, focusing on educating mainstream Canadians about Islam and Muslims.
The result of a recent survey on how Canadians view Islam and Muslims vetted astonishing and eye-opening findings that:
• 46% of Canadians have an unfavourable view of Islam – more than for any other religious tradition;
• Fewer than half of Canadians would find it “acceptable” for one of their children to marry a Muslim – lower than for any other religious group;
• 56% of Canadians believe that Islam suppresses women’s rights;
• More than half of people living in Ontario feel mainstream Muslim doctrines promote violence;
• 52% of Canadians feel that Muslims can only be trusted “a little” or “not at all”;
• 42% of Canadians think discrimination against Muslims is “mainly their fault”;
• 47% of Canadians support banning headscarves in public (compared with 30% of Americans);
• 51% support government surveillance of mosques (as compared to 46% of Americans)
• 31% of Canadians approve of American President Donald Trump’s restrictions on travellers from Muslim-majority countries;
• 55% of Canadians think the problem of Islamophobia is “overblown” by politicians and media, and only 29% supported a non-binding parliamentary motion (M-103) to condemn and study Islamophobia.
Multiple analyses of Canadian and US media have concluded that Islam and Muslims receive disproportionately negative coverage – both quantitatively (in terms of amounts of coverage) and qualitatively (Muslim perpetrators are more likely to be defined as “terrorists,” represented as having more violent motives, linked in media reports to larger terror networks and broader patterns of ideological violence, and labelled by their religious and ethno-racial identities).
Few days after the burial of Afzaal family, the largest distributing newspaper in the country, The Toronto Sun, published an article written by a self hating Islamophobe, headlined, “There is no Islamophobia in Canada.” Most astonishing part was that one of Canada’s former justice minister and attorney general of Canada, and special envoy Irwin Cotler in fact retweeted the article, which he deleted shortly afterwards. It is to be noted he has acknowledged his error of judgement and have since apologized for it.
There were 349 police-report hate crimes against Muslims in 2017 and 173 in 2018, according to the most recent Statistics Canada data available. The number of anti-Muslim hate crimes more than tripled between 2012 to 2015, even as the overall incidence of hate crimes declined. As compared to other groups targeted by hate, Muslims (and Indigenous peoples) had the highest percentage of women victims (45%) between 2010 and 2018.
Let’s face it. Islamophobia is real and it is here to stay and if efforts are not made to combat Islamophobia there will be more Quebec Mosque attacks, there will be more Afzaal families who will be mowed down by ill-informed Canadians motivated by hate.
The only way to eliminate is by directing resources by all levels of governments, Muslim organizations, and by all Muslim Canadians. The government officials will attend memorials and make promises to tackle Islamophobia for their two-minute sound-byte. But let’s face it there is no urgency on the part of the politicians to tackle Islamophobia. The Canadian Muslim leadership and mainstream Canadian Muslims will have to take the lead and eventually compel the politician to get involved.
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