Anti-Islamophobia ad campaign draws heated debate online

2016/06/22 Leave a comment

Means it’s working:

An ad campaign drawing attention to Islamophobia has Torontonians talking — and that’s just the point, backers of the campaign say.

The poster, recently rolled out at about 150 TTC stations and bus shelters across the GTA, depicts a young white man squaring off against a young woman in a head scarf.

“Go back to where you came from,” he says.

“Where, North York?” she replies.

The ads, launched this week by the City of Toronto and the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI), have sparked a flurry of comments online and on the street — precisely the point, said Amira Elghawaby: “to have constant dialogue … and force people to rethink their assumptions.”

Elghawaby, spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said recent events have rekindled latent prejudices.

The idea for the campaign was brought forward last fall, to cushion the arrival of Syrian refugees, she said, but has become all the more urgent in the wake of the Conservatives’ proposed partial ban on the niqab in 2015, presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, the fallout from the Paris attacks and mass shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., and Orlando, Fla..

“Islamophobia has become a serious concern in many communities in Canada,” said Elghawaby, whose organization was consulted on the ad’s creation but isn’t an official part of the campaign.

It’s not uncommon for women wearing a hijab to field unsolicited questions about their origins or criticism of their appearance, Elghawaby said. “That almost goes with the territory of being a visibly Muslim woman in Canada.”

Hijabs and hockey don’t clash; head scarves and beavertails aren’t incompatible, she says: “In other words, I’m as Canadian as the next guy or gal. And newly arrived immigrants and refugees will eventually be as well.”

Some people saw the ad as entrenching stereotypes and inflaming tensions.

“I think it’s in poor taste. I think it feeds into a racial stereotype,” said Toronto resident Bryan Carras, referring to both figures depicted.

“It’s an oppressive form of expression. It makes me sick to think of the countries where there’s human rights problems and where (the hijab) is everywhere,” he said.

A Reddit post of the ad sparked more than 200 comments in less than six hours last week.

Some were supportive: “I suppose it’s good for these messages to be out there, as a reminder — to victims as well as perpetrators — that this s**t isn’t acceptable.”

Others less so. “It creates a further divide between people by playing on a stereotypes (sic),” one commenter typed. “You think it’s just white people spewing Islamophobic rhetoric?” wrote another.

A fourth quipped in response: “It’s almost as though, in this instance, white men take things ‘too personal’ and need to stop ‘looking for reasons to be offended…’”

More than 80 per cent of Muslim respondents in an Environics survey last April said they were very proud to be Canadian, 10 per cent more than non-Muslims. Yet an assumption remains “that people who look different are not from here,” says Patricia Wood, a York University geography professor who focuses on diversity and urban citizenship.

Not only can that harm a person’s sense of belonging or safety, it’s simply not accurate, especially in Toronto, Wood says.

Source: Anti-Islamophobia ad campaign draws heated debate online | Toronto Star

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What Canada needs now: a strategy against hate: Elghawaby

2015/11/24 2 Comments

Amira Elghawaby, the communications director at the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), with her suggestions on what should be done to combat anti-Muslim activity:

Yet the events of the past few days, both the terrorist attacks and the apparent backlash, must reinforce our commitment to ensuring Canada remains one of the happiest places on earth—for everyone. Our history shows that we have to work for the country we want.

How should we do this?

First, the federal government should immediately partner with Canadian Muslim communities to fashion an effective strategy to combat extremist narratives. This new brand of terror promotion is a contemporary phenomenon that few know how to tackle. The previous government did provide limited funding for an initiative called Extreme Dialogue which highlights the experiences of a mother of a young Canadian who was killed fighting overseas for extremist groups and the experiences of a former white supremacist. There was also some funding provided to explore community resilience through workshops and public fora. We need more of this, implemented strategically across the country.

Second, community stakeholders must come together to find new ways to teach about acceptance and to promote multiculturalism. Again, leadership is key: for example, provincial ministries of education must ensure that teachers are using the resources that national organizations like MediaSmarts and others provide to ensure curricula are taught through a lens that allows young people to identify stereotypes and to challenge popular misconceptions. We need to create safe spaces for our increasingly global classrooms.

Third, police services must bolster hate crimes units and their responses. Victims are often reluctant to report and it’s important to provide both adequate resources and support. Perpetrators must also be swiftly brought to justice.

Fourth, Islamophobia must be considered as offensive and as socially unacceptable as any other hatemongering out there, whether anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia or sexism. This means that even in political discourse, there must be a responsibility to ensure that questions about refugees, for example, are not giving people license to air anti-Muslim sentiments and fuel suspicions about people fleeing the very same type of terror we witnessed in Paris.

Fifth, it’s time to take the Islam, out of ISIS. Most of the world calls this terrorist movement Daesh and ISIS has been widely condemned by Muslim scholars and institutions worldwide. Muslims and Islam should not be synonymous with a group of barbaric criminals. It hurts our communities, it hurts our children, and it only bolsters their false claims. Even law enforcement agencies agree that language has the power to cast suspicion over entire communities, and provide a veneer of credibility to the terrorists’ claims.

Finally, Canadians must choose “love over fear,” to echo the touching sentiments expressed in a Montreal metro earlier last week by three young men who posted a video of their solidarity. Holding each other’s hands, a Muslim originally from Egypt, his friends from Paris and New York, did what many Canadians must do now—defeat the extremist narrative by coming even closer together.

I would also add to her list: maintain the Statistics Canada annual report on police-reported hate crimes (with the shift of multiculturalism to Canadian Heritage, this should be a priority).

Source: What Canada needs now: a strategy against hate | hilltimes.com

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What a difference a day makes: The reframing of Canadian Muslims has begun

2015/10/24 Leave a comment

More evidence of how the change in tone is being noticed:

Women in headscarves are smiling everywhere. They are in the subway station in Montreal with brightly coloured headgear and cell phones to match. They are at a rally in Ottawa, up close with the prime-minister-designate as they snap selfies that will trend on Twitter. They are walking with their heads held just a little higher, returning smiles offered by random passersby.

What a difference a day makes. The same women who were expressing feelings of fear and discomfort just walking to a mall, or to school, are now the same women whose text emoticons are high-fives, fist bumps, and smiley faces as they share videos of Justin Trudeau bhangra dancing.

It is as though Canadian Muslims, and Canadian Muslim women in particular, stepped out of one frame and into another.

The previous frame had been imposed on them, without their consent and despite their protests. Throughout the election, Canadian Muslims watched as they were vilified as “other,” practitioners of “barbaric cultural practices,” and making choices alien from “Canadian values.”

This othering led to a documented spike in anti-Muslim incidents, including verbal and physical attacks on visibly Muslim women in both hijab and niqab, along with increased Islamophobic online postings and comments.

Yet this deliberate framing throughout the election period was nothing new. Canadian Muslim communities have endured years of it. Whether it was making sweeping generalizations about an entire faith – claiming that “Islamicism” was the greatest threat facing Canada – or suggesting that Canadian mosques could be harbouring radical extremists – a decade of Stephen Harper changed perceptions about Canadian Muslims in deeper and perhaps more hurtful ways than even the aftermath of 9/11.

Back then, Prime Minister Jean Chretien made it a point to visit Ottawa’s main mosque soon after those horrific attacks, memorably doffing his shoes and joining the congregants in a public show of solidarity.

Little of that was on show during the Harper years. After the deadly attack at Parliament Hill by a deranged individual pledging allegiance to violent extremist ideology a year ago, the Prime Minister went nowhere near a mosque.

The local police chief, on the other hand, reached out to community leaders to reassure them that the force was on alert in case of any backlash. Mr. Harper preferred to amplify the incident as a terrorist attack and underplay the details of the perpetrator’s life, including the fact that he was a homeless drug addict who had no formal connection to international terrorist groups.

…Canadian Muslims stepped out of those unfair frames every day as they continued to lead typical lives, yet the national framing and its impacts could not be ignored. A poll found that the number of Canadians holding negative impressions of Islam and Muslims had climbed to 54 per cent in 2013 from 46 per cent in 2009.

Is this now over? Probably not: There is a small but growing cottage industry of anti-Muslim bloggers and commentators who seem bent on suggesting that Islam and Muslims are inherently anti-democratic and dangerous. This may be helping to feed a nascent anti-Muslim movement in this country.

Yet a change in tone and rhetoric from the highest office in the land is certainly something to smile about. That alone will help change the picture, or at least refocus the lens.

 Source: What a difference a day makes: The reframing of Canadian Muslims has begun – The Globe and Mail

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Une poursuite en diffamation contre Harper devant les tribunaux: NCCM Case

2015/08/27 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to watch (earlier story Why Stephen Harper owes Canadian Muslims an apology):

Le bras de fer entre l’avocat de Stephen Harper et celui d’un groupe musulman qui poursuit en diffamation le premier ministre lui-même a commencé mardi, en pleine période électorale.

Le Conseil national des musulmans canadiens (NCCM) poursuit M. Harper et son ex-directeur des communications, Jason MacDonald, pour avoir affirmé à la télévision Sun News que l’organisme avait «des liens documentés avec une organisation terroriste telle que le Hamas».

Le groupe musulman assure avoir toujours dénoncé le terrorisme et demande une rétractation publique pour laver sa réputation ainsi qu’un montant de 100 000 $ en dommages-intérêts. Mais l’avocat du premier ministre a été clair mardi lors d’une requête présentée devant la cour: il entend prouver que le Conseil a bel et bien des liens avec le Hamas.

Mardi, les discussions ont tourné autour d’une demande de l’avocat du premier ministre, Peter Downard, d’avoir plus de temps pour interroger les intervenants, mais surtout d’avoir accès à plusieurs documents de la NCCM. Sa requête va de la liste des donateurs du groupe musulman à des informations sur certains de ses administrateurs, en passant par les documents liés au changement de nom du groupe (anciennement CAIR-CAN).

L’avocat de l’organisation, Jeff Saikaley, croit que ces documents ne sont pas pertinents à l’affaire, certains n’existant tout simplement pas, et il aimerait aller de l’avant avec le procès.

La juge de la Cour supérieure de l’Ontario Liza Sheard a réservé à plus tard sa décision sur l’affaire. Les deux parties devront s’armer de patience dans cette cause, puisqu’une autre requête devrait être entendue en novembre, et le procès comme tel risque de ne pas commencer avant plusieurs mois.

Une poursuite en diffamation contre Harper devant les tribunaux | Fannie Olivier | Actualités judiciaires.

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ICYMI: Beware of the Muslim Brotherhood, expert warns

2015/05/21 1 Comment

US security expert on the Muslim Brotherhood activities and strategies in North America and the narrative used that he argues prepares the ground for violent extremism:

Authorities should be concerned about the unseen hand of the Muslim Brotherhood gripping sections of Canada’s diverse Muslim community, says a U.S. security expert.

The movement has planted its revivalist interpretation of Islam, political ideology and activism among some Muslims here and sees itself as a minder and broker between them and the rest of society, Lorenzo Vidino, who specializes in Islamism and political violence, told the Senate’s national security committee recently.

“They basically aim to be the gatekeepers to Muslim communities, that whenever politicians, governments or the media try to get the Muslim voice, if there were such a thing, they would go through them, sort of the self‑appointed leaders of Muslim communities,” he said.

Vidino is director of the program on extremism at George Washington University and author of The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Columbia University Press, 2010). He sees no direct links to terrorism among the group’s western supporters. In fact, some work to prevent violent radicalization, he said.

“It would be an analytical mistake to lump them, as some do, with al-Qaida or ISIL. These are not organizations that plan attacks in the West, and actually in many cases they do condemn them.”

The problem is more indirect, Vidino said. “Generally speaking, the movement has not abandoned violence as a tool to advance its agenda.” Tactically, it doesn’t pursue violence, “but it’s not heartfelt,” he said.

“They have this narrative where they lump together foreign policy issues with issues like cartoons and so on as part of a big narrative that proves this point that the West hates Muslims and Islam. It’s that mainstreaming of this narrative which is very much the staircase to violent radicalization and the brotherhood does mainstream that. It provides somewhat of a fertile environment.

“That kind of narrative in the mind a 16- or 18-year-old is extremely dangerous, because violence is justified when Muslims are under attack. If it’s OK in Gaza and Afghanistan, why is it not OK in the West, where you’re also telling me that Islam is under attack?”

…. To start, there is no group calling itself the “Muslim Brotherhood” in North America. Instead, a few hundred sophisticated, politically savvy and well-funded supporters in Canada have over the past 50 years created vocal and visible organizations that represent a very small part of the Muslim community. They exert a disproportional influence over mosques, schools and spaces where Muslims come together, said Vidino.

While they don’t take orders from any Arab capital, they “are part of an informal network where you have strong links based on personal and financial connections, and at the end of the day what matters the most: ideology. They all embrace a certain world view.”

Groups sometimes go to great lengths to sever or hide such ties, Vidino told the committee. He said they include the Muslim Association of Canada and what used to be called CAIR-CAN, now the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

Another group he identified is The International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy – Canada, IRFAN. Its charitable status was revoked after the government alleged the organization sent almost $15 million to groups affiliated with the Palestinian terror outfit Hamas between 2005 and 2009. IRFAN has since been listed as a banned terrorist organization in Canada.

Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the NCCM, said Vidino is misinformed.

“The NCCM is an independent, non-partisan and non-profit grassroots Canadian civil liberties and advocacy organization with a public track record spanning 15 years,” said Gardee. “The NCCM is not a religious group and does not and has never had any affiliations, links, ideological or of any other kind, with the Muslim Brotherhood or any other overseas group.”

Beware of the Muslim Brotherhood, expert warns | Ottawa Citizen.

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National Muslim group warns C-51 posturing ‘giving fodder to extremists’

2015/03/18 Leave a comment

Valid points:

“I quite honestly wanted to tell Ms. Ablonczy, ‘please, stop helping the terrorists win’,” NCCM Executive Director Ihsaan Gardee told iPolitics of their tense exchange.

In the exchange Thursday night, Ablonczy said she wanted to “put on the record” what she said was as “a continuing series of allegations” that the NCCM is linked to groups that have expressed support for “Islamic terrorist groups,” including Hamas. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former spokesman, Jason MacDonald, is already being sued by the NCCM for similar comments.

At the time, Gardee bristled at the comments, calling them “McCarthy-esque.”

Gardee later elaborated, warning that, “Violent extremists will now use this kind of thing to say to the young and to the vulnerable and uninformed that ‘See? Even if you are trying to be a part of Canadian society, your country will never accept you’ and that despite what they say, they are in fact at war with Islam and Muslims.”

“It’s seems to be open season,” he said.

National Muslim group warns C-51 posturing ‘giving fodder to extremists’

And in related news, it seems to be open season for inappropriate language by Conservative MPs (see earlier John Williamson apologizes for ‘offensive’ comment on temporary workers program):

“If you aren’t willing to show your face in a ceremony where you’re joining the best country in the world, then frankly … stay the hell where you came from,” he said.

“I think most Canadians feel the same. I may be saying it a little harshly, but it’s the way I feel. I’m so sick and tired of people wanting to come here because they know it’s a good country and then they want to change things before they even officially become a Canadian.”

In a statement released Tuesday, Mr. Miller said some of his comments were “inappropriate.”

“I stand by my view that anyone being sworn in as a new citizen of our country must uncover their face. However, I apologize for and retract my comments that went beyond this.”

Carl Vallée, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office, said Mr. Miller’s comments went “beyond our clear position.”

Mr. Miller’s comments went further than Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who said last week that the niqab, a face-covering veil worn by a small minority of Muslim women in Canada, was “rooted in a culture that is anti-women.”

Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said recent comments from the Conservative government were “seemingly designed to keep the electorate focused on identity politics in order to distract them from broader issues in an election year.”

“Even with an apology, the damage has been done, and continues to be done, by elected officials who seem intent on debating an issue that has already been fully addressed in our courts and which does little to address the real concerns Canadians have about their day-to-day lives,” Mr. Gardee said in a statement. “It further creates a climate in which Muslim women may be subjected to anti-Muslim sentiment and discrimination.”

Again, quick apology but damage done.

Remarks on women wearing niqabs were ‘inappropriate,’ Tory MP says – The Globe and Mail.

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Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with , ,

Bill C-51 hearings: Diane Ablonczy’s questions to Muslim group ‘McCarthyesque’

2015/03/17 Leave a comment

How does the Government seriously think that this ongoing line of unsubstantiated allegations helps increase cooperation with Canadian Muslim groups and Canadian Muslims in generally in helping reduce the risk of radicalization and violent extremism?

Just reinforcing previous examples of divisive language and the lack of a de-radicalization strategy on “soft” measures to reduce what are real risks:

During a question-and-answer session following National Council of Canadian Muslims executive director Ihsaan Gardee’s presentation to the House public safety committee on Bill C-51, Diane Ablonczy used her allotted time to “put on the record” what she described as “a continuing series of allegations” that the NCCM has ties to groups that have expressed support for “Islamic terrorist groups,” including Hamas.

“I think it is fair to give you an opportunity to address these troubling allegations,” Ablonczy said.

“In order to work together, there needs to be a satisfaction that, you know, this can’t be a half-hearted battle against terrorism. Where do you stand in light of these allegations?”

Gardee pushed back.

Ihsaan Gardee, the executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, told Diane Ablonczy that her line of questioning Thursday was “entirely based on innuendo and misinformation.” (CBC News)

“First and foremost, I’ll say on the record that NCCM has condemned violent terrorism and extremism in all of its forms, regardless of who perpetrates it for whatever reason,” he told the committee.

“However, the premise of your question is false, and entirely based on innuendo and misinformation.”

Gardee pointed to the group’s history as an independent, non-profit, grassroots Canadian Muslim civil liberties organization with a “robust and public” track record.

“These are precisely the types of slanderous statements that have resulted in litigation that is ongoing,” he said, including a defamation lawsuit launched last year against the Prime Minister’s Office over “false statements” linking the group to Hamas made by now-former spokesman Jason MacDonald.

“The NCCM is confident that the courts will provide the necessary clarity on these points to ensure they are never repeated again,” he said. “The NCCM is not going to submit to a litmus test of loyalty used against Canadian Muslims and their institutions… which underlie such offensive questions.”

“McCarthyesque-type questions protected by parliamentary privilege are unbecoming of this committee,” he said, referring to a style of questioning used by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, imputing guilt with little or no evidence to back it up.

In response, Ablonczy mused that Gardee seemed to have been prepared for her question — as, she said, she thought he might be — before switching topics to hear his thoughts on effective anti-radicalization initiatives.

Bill C-51 hearings: Diane Ablonczy’s questions to Muslim group ‘McCarthyesque’ – Politics – CBC News.

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Prime Minister, this isn’t how we should do things in Canada | Elghawaby

2015/02/26 Leave a comment

Amira Elghawaby of the NCCM reacting to the Government’s messaging, making three points:

  1. Stoking fear of the “other”;
  2. Pretend to care about Canadians wrongfully imprisoned abroad but do as little as possible to get them released; and,
  3. Act tough on terror.

Similar to other commentary I have already posted.

Hard not to disagree with her conclusion:

The government that says it is committed to protect Canadians is the same one that alienates the very communities it needs to empower and work with. Prime Minister, this shouldn’t be how we do things here.

Prime Minister, this isn’t how we should do things in Canada | Toronto Star.

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Niqab appeal by Ottawa is questioned over motivation

2015/02/16 Leave a comment

CIC Minister Alexander trying up to come up with a convincing rationale for the niqab ban bit mixing up the niqab at citizenship ceremonies with domestic violence issues (which are not, needless to say, unique to niqabi women) is clumsy.

PM is more convincing when he spoke about the symbolism of “joining the Canadian family,” as niqab signals separation, not integration, in a way that other religious symbols (hijab, kippa, kirpan) do not:

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, who was named as the respondent in Ishaq’s case, said Friday that people need to be identified and need to “commit to the oath.”

“We also are a government, and I think a people, that is concerned about protecting women from violence, protecting women from human smuggling, protecting women from barbaric practices like polygamy, genital mutilation, honour killings,” Alexander said.

“I worry when some of those defending the idea of keeping a woman behind a niqab in a citizenship ceremony are also those who say that we don’t need these protections for women from violence and from abuse. It’s something we’re all passionate about in Canada, there is no place for violence against women or any domestic violence in this country.”

Alexander said not showing your face is not a requirement of Islam and the “vast majority” of Muslim groups have said the 2011 law in question is fair and does not violate their freedom of religion.

Amira Elghawaby, human rights coordinator at the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said many Muslims and Canadians disagree with the idea of the niqab, but if it’s someone’s sincere religious belief, the right to wear one is a legal matter protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

New Canadians take the oath of citizenship at a ceremony in Dartmouth, N.S. in 2014. A Federal Court ruling that women who wear a niqab do not have to remove it to take the oath is being appealed by the federal government. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)

“Our opinions about these things really are irrelevant, what’s important is what it means to be Canadian and what it means to have freedom of religion and consciousness in this country,” she said.

“I think that unanimously, people who understand our Charter of Rights understand that this is a right that should be protected. She is not harming anyone by deciding to keep her niqab on … and whether I agree in it or not, I do not have the right to tell her to remove it because the law does not support that and the constitution does not support that.”

NCCM forgets that freedom of religion, like other fundamental freedoms, is not absolute.

Niqab appeal by Ottawa is questioned over motivation – Politics – CBC News.

The muted reaction of other political parties:

Federal opposition parties trod carefully Friday on the issue of whether a Toronto Muslim woman should be allowed to wear a niqab while taking the oath of citizenship.

NDP multiculturalism critic Andrew Cash said the Conservative government was conflating matters of security and ceremony by appealing a court decision permitting the woman to wear the facial covering.

“It’s unfortunate that in matters of ceremonial issues, Conservatives are willing to play partisan politics to simply ratchet things up to win votes,” Mr. Cash said.

Liberal immigration critic John McCallum said that the matter is before the courts. And party spokesman Cameron Ahmad said that “the responsibility to present the case falls on the government.”

Neither party would say outright whether it backed Zunera Ishaq’s bid to keep her face covered during the swearing-in portion of the ceremony.

Federal opposition parties tread carefully on issue of niqabs during citizenship oath

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Charlie Hebdo just meeting demand for Islamophobia | NCCM

2015/01/21 Leave a comment

Not convinced that Abbas Kassam NCCM has done its homework and actually looked at Charlie Hebdo seriously, beyond a simplistic “no depiction” of the Prophet perspective:

Yet, the magazine and its supporters are just meeting the market demand for Islamophobia. It is now popular in our discourse to pitch western values against radical Islamists (no matter how empty these terms are). Charlie Hebdo met this demand in the worst possible way.

It is questionable whether the cartoons were even satirical. Satire is a classical tool of those without power to shed light on the weaknesses of the powerful. Satire is not about perpetuating negative stereotypes about a disenfranchised minority. Ultimately, Charlie Hebdo was promoting the very stereotypes it was supposedly trying to satirize. This might work as a business model, but it is detrimental for society.

…. It is essential that we also collectively reject the demand for Islamophobic material because it harms our valued social cohesion. As Canadians, we are living in a society that promotes tolerance and cohesion, not discrimination. However, Islamophobia stigmatizes Muslim communities, disenfranchises and isolates them from the mainstream. This creates conditions ripe for extremist radicalization, which has proven to be a danger to all of us, including Muslims themselves. And violence then creates demand for a response. This reaction can sometimes lead to the erosion of civil liberties and decreased freedoms for everyone.

Much of Canadian media should be lauded for their principled stand in declining to print the magazine’s incendiary cartoons. We can take a cue from their decision. As democratic societies we need to demand mutual respect and understanding, and reject the purveyors of intolerance. This may not sound as interesting or exciting as the clash of civilizations framework, but it is a long-term investment in our shared future.

After all, satire on the activities of fundamentalists and their political views is not necessarily Islamophobic, just as criticism of fundamentalist advocates of greater Israel is not necessarily antisemitic.

Charlie Hebdo just meeting demand for Islamophobia | TorontoStar.

For a more serious look at Charlie Hebdo, see Arun with a View for a range of commentary:

Understanding Charlie Hebdo

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