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9/11 A Year Later - What happened to us?
by Mohamed Elmasry
"We have to fear our (Muslim) neighbours down the street... They provide
the culture in which fifth columns grow..." wrote a Canadian columnist
shortly after September 11, 2001.
Less than two weeks later, the same columnist wrote, "From the
beginning, Western attempts to draw a distinction between Islamist
terrorists and Islam resulted in a lopsided effort." And then in March
of this year, he recycled his argument, saying, "The terrorist enemy has
no armies to send against us; it has to penetrate our perimeter through
fifth-columnists."
Unfortunately, such statements are not exceptions to the rule -- they
are one small sample of many similar arguments that have been
prolifically emblazoned across editorial pages since the 9/11 atrocities
in America.
Even before 9/11, the Canadian Muslim community and some interested
academics have believed that the media's frequent demonic portrayal and
mis-representation of Islam and Muslims has been one of the most
persistent, virulent, and socially significant sources of anti-Islam in
this country.
While some media sources, both print and broadcast, have realized the
implications of such discrimination and have tried to act responsibly,
certain specific and often predictable others have been actively
incorporating the most explicit expressions of anti-Islam into their
coverage, resulting in prejudicial, insightful, and extremely dangerous
biases against all Muslims.
Such irresponsible journalism serves to reinforce the gross
misconception that Islam is entirely uni-dimensional, monolithic and
singular, without any internal differentiation or opinion. Through
indiscriminately saddling Canadian Muslims with the weight of conflicts
in Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Palestine and elsewhere, the media have deliberately attributed a full spectrum of negative anti-Islam
characteristics to the entire global Muslim community.
Some in the media have traditionally and too freely coupled their
understanding of Islam or Muslim with inappropriate terms such as
"extremist," "fundamentalist," "fanatic," or "terrorist," but the
increase in negative repetitious usage since 9/11 has underlined a new
and disturbing development.
Whilst the intention of such descriptions has always been that Islam is
the inherent "other enemy" of the West, recent usage of these terms now
infers, as my introductory quotation suggests, that these same
"extremists," "fundamentalists," "fanatics" and "terrorists" are rampant
among us in Canada and are willing to do the same to Canadians as they
did to thousands of unsuspecting Americans. Some Canadian media have
taken pains to restate their anti-Islam and anti-Muslim biases often
enough to convince the vulnerable and uninformed among their readers and listeners that the worst possible things are probably true of ALL
Canadian Muslims -- including their next-door neighbours, co-workers,
colleagues, medical professionals, etc.
If Osama bin Laden and his supporters indisputably planned and executed
the 9/11 terrorist acts then, yes, certain individual Muslims are
guilty. But Islam is not Muslims. Even if 1,500 Muslims were to commit
similar acts every year -- an unimaginable scenario -- they would
represent only one criminal per million.
Thus, as a living faith with nearly 1.2 billion global adherents that
has survived as a world religion for more than 1400 years, Islam needs
no defence -- but our children here in Canada do. As young and
vulnerable human beings, they need to be protected against the lifelong
social and psychological damage inflicted by hate-mongering, negative
stereotyping, and smear campaigns against their self-identity,
self-esteem and human dignity.
We are gratified that many Canadians have been drawn to explore Islamic
teachings, that many have found them attractive, and have embraced them
in a spirit of love and compassion. But Canadian Muslims and their
children still must be protected against discriminating bigotry,
harassment, and mental and physical abuse.
Analogies are being made to the representation of the Jews in such early
twentieth century literature as "Mein Kampf," where gross exaggeration
and dehumanization proved to be fatally dangerous for more than six
million of them. What, then, could be the parallel consequences for
Muslims? German academic Gunther Grass states that such beliefs about
Islam in the West and the current climate of hate against it bring us
very close to a situation not unlike that which prompted Germany's
infamous "Kristallnacht" in 1938. Once "the enemy" has been so
dehumanized and portrayed as demonic and parasitical, what further
justification is needed to persecute and finally exterm
inate it?
But anti-Islam in the media is not our sole concern. Canadian Muslims
are also very disturbed about the increasing pressure to link
patriotism, the idea of being a "good citizen," with unqualified support
for enormous government increases in military spending, the passing of
multiple anti-terrorism laws, and the economic and cultural
Americanization of Canada at the expense of all other priorities,
particularly those that our country traditionally valued, such as the
elimination of homelessness and child poverty.
Anti-Islam is most dangerous because it does not respect the individual.
It is an indiscriminate prejudice that tarnishes everything and everyone
it touches, not only the 650,000 Muslims who call this great country
home, but also the motives and attitudes of more than 30 million
Canadians, in turn determining their behaviour toward, and beliefs
about, Islam and Muslims.
We have seen this prejudice become so socially significant that the
actions of a small group of Muslims on September 11, 2001 were enough to
influence and mobilize many misguided people to attack the innocent
Muslims in our midst -- women harassed for wearing the hijab, bearded
young men abused because of their appearance, places of worship and
learning firebombed and vandalized. It is the time to differentiate
between the real "them" and the real "us," and apportion blame for the
horrors of terrorism where it belongs.
Prof. Mohamed Elmasry
is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of
Waterloo and national president of the
Canadian Islamic Congress.
Source:
by the same author:
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