Islamophobia

U of T's Institute of Islamic Studies captures stories and data to change the conversation on Muslims in Canada

noreen.rasbach — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 19:54:03 +0000

U of T's Institute of Islamic Studies captures stories and data to change the conversation on Muslims in Canada

noreen.rasbach Wed, 09/25/2019 - 15:54

Cutline

Canadians hold a vigil at Toronto City Hall in March for victims of the Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shootings, which left 51 dead (photo by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Jovana Jankovic

Topic

Our Community

Institute of Islamic Studies

Diversity

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Law

Humanities

Islamophobia

Muslims

Research & Innovation

Alongside its mission to foster research projects in the study of Islam and Muslims, the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Institute of Islamic Studies also wants to help change the public conversation about Muslims in Canada.

The institute is spearheading a number of digital humanities projects to collect Muslim stories, combat Islamophobic ideas and partner with various organizations to better understand and represent the demographics and lived experiences of Muslims across Canada.

One such project is the recently launched Study of Islam and Muslims in Canada, in which the Institute of Islamic Studies is building partnerships with other academic institutions, community organizations and nonprofits like the Inspirit Foundation, whose mandate is to combat discrimination based on ethnicity, race and religion.

Anver Emon, director of U of T's Institute of Islamic Studies

“We are constantly engaging each other to understand what's happening on the ground and at the grassroots level with Muslims in Canada,” says the institute's director Professor Anver Emon, a scholar of Islamic legal history appointed to the Faculty of Law and the department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

Within the Study of Islam and Muslims in Canada, two particular projects are in the works: a large-scale data architecture project and an archival collection project.

Statistics Canada conducts a nationwide census every five years but only asks a question about religious identity on every second census – every 10 years. It’s something Emon wants changed because “a lack of data hinders responsible democratic decision-making,” he says.

Since Muslims often identify in both religious and ethnic terms, which do not overlap, Emon says the once-per-decade census question is inadequate for analyzing Islamophobia alongside other, more race-based discrimination.

“White supremacist rhetoric, which is increasingly part of hate online, targets people not just by race, but by religious identity,” says Emon. “Our statistical landscape and the architecture of our data need to fundamentally shift to understand hate directed at people on racial or religious grounds.”

Accordingly, the Institute of Islamic Studies aims to build more efficient pathways – through sorting, tagging, search functions, keywords and more – that will enable citizens, scholars and policy-makers to acquire accurate and nuanced portraits of Muslim issues and communities.

Sarah Shah will lead the data architecture project within the Study of Islam and Muslims in Canada

The data architecture project will be led by post-doctoral researcher Sarah Shah, who recently completed her PhD at U of T’s department of sociology and works as a community organizer in the Muslim LGBTQ community.

“If, say, there’s a hate crime directed at a mosque in one particular town,” says Emon, “we need to know things like: How many Muslims are in that area? What's the socioeconomic class? What is the gender distribution? What are the property allocations? What's the educational level? We need this to understand why a particular community was targeted. Moreover, we need to relate these particular data points to each other, which is impossible when you don’t have data on Muslims that you can disaggregate.”

While Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is a valuable resource for exploring the history of many of Canada’s communities, Emon says the race-versus-religion problem comes up.

“The LAC subject search function doesn’t have a religion category. There are only ethnic categories. So again, the process is indirect: You have to go through those ethnic categories to grossly estimate the picture of Muslims in Canada.”

Moska Rokay will create a digital archive of Muslims in Canada

Enter Moska Rokay, the Institute of Islamic Studies' recently appointed digital humanities research fellow. Rokay is a graduate of the archives and records management program at U of T’s Faculty of Information. She will create a proof-of-concept digital archive of Muslims in Canada and will analyze the ways in which such an archive can support identity-formation processes.

The archive’s acquisition strategy is still underway, but Emon hopes contributions to the archive will come largely from the Muslim community itself.

“We want to draw upon basements that may have had documents filed away for decades – documents just languishing around the country – and we want to construct an acquisition policy that can inform new storytelling initiatives about Muslims in Canada,” says Emon.

As digital technologies and online content continue to play ever-increasing roles in our lives, there is growing concern about ethical questions.

The social and political implications of AI and other emerging technologies are only starting to be scrutinized, and the Institute of Islamic Studies – with its goal of combatting Islamophobia and white supremacy, particularly online – has a vested interest.

Some scholarly work has begun to investigate the inherent inequality embedded in algorithms, including those that govern social media feeds and search engines.

“We're in early stages, but we’d like to work with colleagues across disciplines to have a conversation about our core interest in the algorithms that amplify online hate and inequality, such as Islamophobia,” says Emon.

“It’s important to recognize that the current search engines and search vehicles, whether developed by government agencies like LAC or by private corporations like Google, are just not structured in a way that helps us find useful information about Muslims in Canada.”

The presentation of information – whether online, in archives or in conversations – is key to shaping the public discourse that surrounds a given community. The institute is combing through data, documents and stories to build a more holistic portrait of Muslims across Canada.

“If people want to get involved in the archive, they should ask their families,” says Emon. “Talk to their grandparents, talk to people who are coming in to the country – people who might have old records.”

Islamophobia in Canada: Muslim students share their personal experiences

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 14:51:57 +0000

Islamophobia in Canada: Muslim students share their personal experiences

geoff.vendeville Fri, 01/26/2018 - 09:51

Cutline

Sidrah Ahmad, a master's student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, interviewed Muslim women in the GTA about their experiences of Islamophobic violence (photo by Vince Talotta/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Topic

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Undergraduate Students

When Sidrah Ahmad describes the climate in Canada for Muslims, she uses the boiling frog analogy. If you put a frog in boiling water suddenly, it jumps out. But if the temperature increases gradually, it doesn't notice the change and will be boiled alive.

Some people don't realize Islamophobia exists and is getting worse, she says, especially since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, with his anti-immigration rhetoric and policies like the Muslim travel ban.

Islamophobia “is slowly and gradually getting more accepted, more intense, more rampant,” says Ahmad, a master's student in adult education and community development. “I feel like Muslims are like, ‘It's really hot in here,’ but many other people are like, ‘Well, what do you mean?’”

A painful reminder of the hostility toward Muslims in Canada will occur next week: the one-year anniversary of the shooting at Quebec City's Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec. Six Muslim men were killed and many others were injured after a gunman opened fire in the mosque on Jan. 29. Alexandre Bissonnette, charged with six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder, is expected to go on trial this spring.

Remembering the Quebec City mosque shooting: An events calendar

U of T's Muslim Students' Association, which describes itself as the largest student club at the university, helped organize a vigil the night after the shooting. The group also hosted a healing circle in U of T's Multi-Faith Centre. About 70 people shared their grief at the event, says Ammara Wasim, vice-president of communications at the MSA.

Hundreds showed their support for the Muslim community at the vigil in front of U of T's University College on Jan. 30, 2017 (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Ahmad, the master's student, learned about the shooting in “in the worst way possible: alone and on Twitter.” She was in the process of writing her ethics proposal when she got the news. Although still reeling from the tragedy, she felt a greater sense of urgency to produce her planned master's thesis – resesarch on Islamophobic violence faced by Muslim women in the GTA.

That summer, she made a social media call-out for volunteers to participate in the study, and found 21 women within a month. Their ages ranged from 18 to 58. Nine were Black, 18 wore a hijab, niqab and/or abaya, and each had a story to share about being attacked because of their beliefs.

One woman said a stranger in a car called her a “terrorist” and tried to run her over. Another said someone tried to pull off her hijab on the subway. And one participant reported being groped at a party by a man who said, “If I do this to you, will your dad blow up my house?”

Read about how U of T combats Islamophobia

She remembers questioning herself and thinking that if she hadn't worn a hijab, the man wouldn't have insulted her. “But no, this is my choice,” she told herself. “I could take it off, but I love wearing it.”

Another student, Ayah Said, in life sciences and humanities, says she is often asked about her hijab and religion when she is in public. She doesn't mind discussing her beliefs – depending on the tone of the question. On one occasion at work, she was talking to a customer about an Xbox when he suddenly tugged her hjiab saying, “Aren't you hot in that?”

“I'm not usually sensitive about this, but I'm in the middle of talking about the product – why is this bothering you so much? Would you touch somebody's shirt like that?” she recalls.

Ayah Said says she was made to feel uncomfortable when a customer at her work grabbed her hijab and commented on it (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Ahmad, the master's student at OISE, now works for the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. Her qualitative research, she hopes, will give greater visibility to the violence and other negative experiences lived by Muslim women. The interviews also shed light on how Islamophobia overlaps with other forms of hatred and discrimination, she says, from anti-Black racism to gender-based violence.

Some of the women, especially those with darker skin or those who wore the robe-like abaya or a black hijab, reported being harassed more often.

Instead of seeing the participants in her study as victims, she says she was impressed with their resilience. Many of the women told her they recited passages from the Qur'an to themselves or prayed for their attackers.

Ahmad collected the women's experiences in an online “toolkit on Islamophobic violence by and for Muslim women,” which includes poetry by the participants and a list of supports like counselling hotlines and the National Council of Canadian Muslims hate crime reporting tool.

Researchers at the university have an important part to play if Canada is to address rising hate activity in the country and make sure that life is safe for everyone who lives here, Ahmad says.

“A vacuum of research and knowledge is dangerous,” she says, “because that's where you get hate groups and anti-Muslim groups controlling the narrative.”

A year after Quebec City mosque shooting, U of T experts reflect on Islamophobia in Canada

Remembering the Quebec City mosque shooting: An events calendar

lanthierj — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 05:00:00 +0000

Remembering the Quebec City mosque shooting: An events calendar

lanthierj Fri, 01/26/2018 - 00:00

Cutline

Mourners at the Jan. 29, 2017 vigil on the downtown Toronto campus of the ��߲ݴ�ý (photo by Geoff Vendeville)

Topic

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Political Science

U of T Scarborough

The night after the shooting at a Quebec City mosque, which claimed the lives of six Muslim men and injured many more, Torontonians rallied on the ��߲ݴ�ý campus to show support for the Muslim community.

Events are being planned around the anniversary of the Jan. 29 tragedy, to keep the memory of victims alive and highlight the importance of fighting Islamophobia and other forms of hatred and discrimination.

Jan. 29, 4 p.m.

Experts from U of T and Wilfrid Laurier University will discuss what Canada has learned from the massacre. The event at U of T's Centre for Ethics features Chris Cochrane, an associate professor of political science at U of T Scarborough, who specializes in anti-immigrant sentiment; Mohammad Fadel, an associate professor in U of T's Faculty of Law and Canada Research Chair in law and economics of Islamic law; and alumna Jasmin Zine, a professor of sociology and Muslim studies at Laurier, who has written extensively about Islamic feminism and Muslim women's studies.

Jan. 29, 7 p.m.

A vigil will be held at Nathan Phillips Square near Toronto City Hall. The event, a memorial and call to action, will be co-hosted by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and city councillor and U of T alumnus Neethan Shan, who introduced a motion for a Muslim youth fellowship at city hall.

Jan. 30, 6:30 p.m.

At Hart House, the Multi-Faith Centre and the Muslim Students' Association are hosting "One Year Later: Islamophobia & the Quebec Mosque Shooting," a prayer followed by a panel discussion featuring community activist Gilary Massa; legal analyst and U of T alumna Azeezah Kanji, who is also the director of programming at the Noor Cultural Centre; Imam Yasin Dwyer, the Muslim chaplain at Ryerson University; and Lucy El-Sherif, a PhD student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Know an event at U of T that's not included? Send a message to U of T News (uoftnews@utoronto.ca).

Not in Toronto? The National Council of Canadian Muslims has published a longer list of vigils and memorials to be held across Canada.

Islamophobia in Canada: Muslim students share their personal experiences

A year after the Quebec mosque shooting, U of T experts reflect on Islamophobia in Canada

ullahnor — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 17:26:44 +0000

A year after the Quebec mosque shooting, U of T experts reflect on Islamophobia in Canada

ullahnor Thu, 01/25/2018 - 12:26

Cutline

Mourners at the funeral service for some of the victims of the deadly shooting at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City on Feb. 3, 2017 (photo by Alice Chiche/AFP/Getty Images)

Topic

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Political Science

U of T Scarborough

It's been a year since a gunman entered a Quebec City mosque and killed six men – a shooting that rattled a nation that often prides itself on accepting diversity.

As Canada looks back at the Jan. 29 shooting, hashtags like #SouvenezVous29Jan, or #RememberJan29, have emerged, along with calls for the day to be marked as a national day of remembrance and action on Islamophobia.

Three University of Toronto experts spoke to U of T News, reflecting on Islamophobia in Canada, why prosecutors did not pursue terrorism charges in the mosque shooting and how Canada needs to address anti-Muslim sentiment in its midst.

Chris Cochrane is an associate professor of political science at U of T Scarborough, tracking public opinion about Muslims and diversity. Aisha Ahmad is an assistant professor of political science at U of T Scarborough and the Munk School of Global Affairs. Anver Emon is a professor and Canada Research Chair in Religion, Pluralism and the Rule of Law at U of T's Faculty of Law.

Along with vigils and remembrances across the city, U of T's Centre for Ethics is hosting a flash event on Jan. 29, titled The Quebec City Mosque Shooting: What Have We Learned? Mohammad Fadel, an associate professor in the Faculty of Law, and Cochrane are two of the three speakers at the panel discussion that will explore what, if anything, Canada has learned from the shooting.

On Jan. 30, the Muslim Students' Association, the Multi-Faith Centre and Hart House are organizing a prayer and panel discussion, One Year Later: Islamophobia & the Quebec Mosque Shooting.

Remembering the Quebec City mosque shooting: An events calendar

Montrealers gathered last year to pay respect to the victims of the mosque shooting (photo by Amru Salahuddien/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

How bad is Islamophobia in Canada compared to other countries? How vigorously has the Canadian government tried to combat Islamophobia?

Chris Cochrane: A good place to look for an answer to this question is the World Values Survey, which interviews thousands of people from many different countries all around the world. The World Values Survey used to include a question where the interviewer would pass the interviewee a piece of paper with a list of groups on it, and then ask them to indicate which of these groups they wouldn’t want as neighbours. The groups on the list included Jews, Christians, people of a different religion, immigrants, people of a different race, Muslims, and so on. No matter how the data were sliced, Canadians were consistently among the most tolerant respondents. In 2000, for example, just over 5 per cent of Canadians said that they wouldn’t want a Muslim (or an immigrant) as a neighbour, compared to 11 per cent who said the same about Muslims in the U.S. and 13 per cent in Spain, 20 per cent in Belgium, and much higher still in other countries.

There were signs that things were changing for the worse in the 2005 World Values Survey, where every country except Canada stopped asking altogether the question about having Muslims as neighbours. In Canada, levels of anti-Muslim opinion increased everywhere, but especially in Quebec. In 2005, about one in five Quebec respondents said they didn't want a Muslim as neighbour. More recent data indicates that this basic pattern has persisted.

In the 2015 Canadian Election Study, 14 per cent of Canadians expressed a clearly negative opinion about Muslims, compared to 4 per cent who expressed negative opinions about Indigenous people and racial minorities, and 6 per cent about immigrants. Respondents in Quebec were the most likely to express a clearly negative view about Muslims, where more than one in five respondents said they disliked Muslims living here, and almost 10 per cent said they “really disliked” it. (By the same measure, 11 per cent of Ontarians said they disliked Muslims living here, and 3 per cent said they really disliked it.) Nonetheless, most Canadians, including most Quebecers, say they like having Muslims as neighbours, and there are more than three times as many Canadians who say they “really like” Muslims living here as who say they “really dislike” it. Of course, much of this also depends on what one means by Islamophobia. Canadians, by and large, have mixed opinions about face coverings, for example, where public opinion in Canada is evenly split outside of Quebec, and slants heavily (80-20) against face coverings inside Quebec.

Aisha Ahmad: The hard truth is that Canada – and particularly Quebec – has an Islamophobia problem. The social scientific data that my colleague Chris Cochrane highlights is astonishing. Security research shows that violent alt-right, white extremist groups have proliferated in recent years and have been emboldened by leaders who use racist rhetoric, scapegoating and policies to shore up political support from their base. White supremacist terrorism perpetrated against Black, Indigenous, Muslim and immigrant communities, however, is typically characterized as an isolated incident, rather than as a serious security problem. Yet, we have a tonne of statistical and empirical data demonstrating that these are systemic patterns. Addressing this reality is a moral challenge, and one that requires moral leadership.

Read CBC report on Islamophobia featuring Aisha Ahmad

Police arrest a demonstrator during a counter-protest against Islamophobia and fascism in downtown Toronto on March 19. The protest was over M-103, the motion put forth by Liberal MP Iqra Khalid to condemn Islamophobia (photo by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Anver Emon: I worry about the comparative question because, all too often, it’s asked in the hopes that we can all feel better that “we” (i.e. Canadians) are not as bad as “them.” This results in a certain schadenfreude, where someone else’s misfortune makes us feel better about ourselves. This is hardly a basis by which to build a policy against discrimination. It’s rather an ethic of not taking responsibility. Having lived in Canada now since 2005 and naturalizing in 2014, I have found Canadians generally allergic to any suggestion that they, or their country as a whole, participate in systemic forms of discriminatory behaviour. The dominant image of discriminatory behaviour is the outward, expressed hostility toward a marginal group. But the fact is that very few indulge this kind of hostile rhetoric. It’s not the kind of discrimination that I am interested in addressing. I’m interested in the systemic form of racism and discrimination, in this case against Muslims. We see systemic forms of discrimination all around us. Obvious examples are the incarceration rates of visible minorities and Indigenous peoples in comparison to whites. The question is whether we can also identify sites of systemic discrimination against Muslims. It seems that simply asking the question gets people up in arms.

Indeed, the Government of Canada tried to ask that question when the Liberal government passed M-103 last year, calling for a study on systemic racism and discrimination, including Islamophobia. That motion – not a bill – simply asked the Standing Committee on Heritage to conduct a study. In fall 2017, I appeared before that committee, only to have my testimony cut short. In preparing for my testimony and watching the hearings, I was struck at how the partisan processes of our democracy allowed our public officials to escape any responsibility for using the Committee Hearing room as a space to promulgate hateful speech against Muslims. Witnesses to these House of Commons committees are selected by the respective parties (Liberal and Conservative), and it was surprising to see avowedly Conservative selected witnesses appear before the committee espousing hate and suspicion of Muslims. Indeed, the Conservatives went so far as to bring in a witness with clear and distinct ties to foreign donors in the U.S. who had a hand in the disinformation campaign in Germany, and thereby supported the rise of the extreme right party AfD. I’ve written on this particular witness and the challenge inviting people like her poses to our democratic space. The more we allow our political leaders, under the guise of process, to create space for such hateful speech, then we must acknowledge that the Government of Canada’s fight against Islamophobia is a mixed bag at best.

Nor can we view that motion in isolation. In the same year, the Liberal government allocated $30 million to a new program in public safety to combat radicalization in communities. These sorts of programs, commonly known as Combatting Violent Extremism (CVE), have proliferated in Europe and the U.S. since 9/11. And all of them employ the paradigm of the Muslim radical as the model for their analysis. Across the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere, the model of the Muslim radical is quite similar: Racialized, young and susceptible to extreme ideologies.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke at the funeral service for three of the victims of the Quebec mosque shooting (photo by Mathieu Belanger/AFP/Getty Images)

Were the charges in the Quebec shooting sufficient? What can Canada or Canadians do better to address the issue?

Aisha Ahmad: Many Canadians expected the mass slaughter of Muslims in a Quebec mosque last year to be treated as terrorism. The alleged attacker had specifically targeted Muslims, had propagated anti-immigrant extremist materials and had expressed support for anti-Muslim politicians. As such, the attack arguably meets the criteria of “terrorist activity” under section 83 of the Criminal Code, which defines the phrase as an act that is committed for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause with the intention of intimidating the public, or a segment of the public that intentionally causes death or serious bodily harm to a person by the use of violence. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself categorized it as terrorism.

So, why did the charges not include terrorism? The reasons behind the Crown’s decision appear twofold: First, to increase the prospect of conviction, and second, to impose the maximum penalty allowable upon conviction.

First, under 83.18 (1) of the Criminal Code, the indictable offence of terrorism pertaining to participation in or contribution to a terrorist group, the wording may impose a burden to prove that Alexandre Bissonnette, who was charged with six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder while using a restricted firearm, was acting as part of a group, whereas he appears to have only been inspired by extremist group ideologies. As well, the Crown also bears the onus of proving – beyond a reasonable doubt – that a political or religious purpose motivated the attack. This might seem obvious to us, but such motivation would be harder to prove in court, and it would thus be more challenging to convict him on a terrorist charge. The prosecution therefore seems to be trying to avoid the possible pitfalls of the terrorism charges and instead come out with a solid win on the murder charges alone.

Second, the Crown prosecution chose to lay multiple first-degree murder charges because they impose stiffer and longer penalties. A first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. Because there's multiple murders, there is also a chance that the prosecution will ask for the sentences and parole eligibility periods to be stacked. In short, the prosecution is going for maximum punishment.

Nonetheless, because the root cause of this horrific violence was anti-Muslim hatred, the fact that there were no terrorism charges sends an ugly message to Canadians. We need to reflect on how the terrorism label is readily used to describe violent incidents involving Muslims, but rarely applied to white supremacist violence. While there are some rational reasons why the prosecution might have chosen the easier road, dropping the terrorism charge also sent a signal to Canadians that bodes ill. If the justice system fails to be even-handed in laying terrorism charges across ethnic and cultural differences, it will undermine confidence in the system. This is a frightening prospect for all Canadians.

Anver Emon: I was not surprised by the charges in this case, which is not to say I wasn’t upset by them. When lone-gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, of both Libyan and Canadian heritage, attacked Parliament in 2014, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper shortly rolled out bill C-51 saying that Canada faced the threat of international jihadi extremism. But when Alexandre Bissonnette, a white male enamoured by the alt-right white nationalism movement, was accused of being the lone gunman who killed Muslims at a mosque in Quebec, he faced murder charges, but not charges of terrorism, despite the fact that Prime Minister Trudeau labelled it a terrorist attack.

So why was I not surprised? This is where Canadians need to have a broader, more poignant conversation about race, class, and identity in the formation not only of their politics, but also in their law and legal system. I am aware some decry identity politics is a form of political correctness that demeans the vibrancy of our democratic space. I would argue that the problem with the conversation on identity politics is that they remain framed in individual, liberal terms, without due regard to the systemic implications of identity on how we govern, how we legislate, and how we profess our views in the media.

Protesters during a march against racism and Islamophobia in Montreal, Canada, on March 26. The House of Commons had just passed an Islamophobia motion, known as M-103, three days before, calling on the government to condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination (photo by Amru Salahuddien/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

How far has Canada come in terms of legislation to fight Islamophobia?

Anver Emon: There is no legislation to fight Islamophobia. There was only M-103, at the federal level, which was a request to study systemic discrimination, including Islamophobia. We are still waiting to see what the results of those hearings have been. But I suspect that the Liberals and Conservatives will espouse two different views, thereby creating more confusion that will be too politically costly to harmonize.

Ontario’s Anti-Racism Directorate, however, has developed a robust program on combating systemic racism, and it has incorporated into its scope of work a concern about Islamophobia. I would focus more at the provincial level than the federal to see possible positive outcomes.

Chris Cochrane: If we’re asking about resources to crack down on, monitor, and/or disrupt people who make and distribute hate speech, that’s one thing. There is plenty of information circulating on social media which seems to exist for no other reason than to encourage the depravity we saw last year in the Quebec City mosque attack. I don’t know who’s creating this information or why they are doing it, but I hope the government knows who they are.

But if we’re asking about public opinion, legislation is not going to change how people think about Muslims, not least because the government can no longer restrict information flows as it could in the era of radio and television broadcasting, but also because the heavy hand of the law is exactly the wrong place to look for a solution to the problem of public opinion. If anything, I think the highly publicized initiatives and airings of grievances that governments have orchestrated may have made things worse, not better.

My advice would be for the government to focus on the information supply side, on getting the stories out there. The government could and should do a better job of highlighting the contributions that all sorts of Canadians have made to this country, including Muslim Canadians. It’s important for people to see others, and themselves, in the success of the country. If people see themselves in some of these stories, perhaps they’ll be more likely to appreciate the stories of others as well.

Should we mark Jan. 29 as a national day of remembrance?

Anver Emon: I suspect that many, though not all, Muslims (and supportive allies) across Canada will support such an idea. But even if you and I agree that we “should,” we must first ask if marking Jan. 29 as a national day of remembrance will do what such national days of remembrance are designed to do. When Canadians observe Dec. 6 as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, we say as a collective whole that we will not tolerate anti-women violence. The flip side of this observance is that we also, collectively, stand against those (including Canadians) who would espouse such hate or violence against women.

So, if we were to have a national day of remembrance for the Quebec Mosque massacre on Jan. 29, can we realistically presume that most Canadians nationwide will stand against anti-Muslim, Islamophobic violence? We cannot ignore the fact that some, if not many, Canadians, imagine Muslims as foreign, racialized and religiously deviant. Indeed, religious deviance is a trope of Islam and Muslims among some Christian Evangelical sects, who also happen to vote Conservative. For as long as these views remain pervasive and are milked for electoral gains, our electoral politics make it unlikely that such a holiday will enable the kind of observance that such days of remembrance are meant to engender. It seems to me that Canada, like the United States and Europe, remains divided on the place of Islam and Muslims in the life of our country.

Members of the Holy Blossom Temple form a ring of hope around the Imdadul Mosque in North York in a show of solidarity with Muslims in the days following the Quebec mosque shooting (photo by Bernard Weil/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

U of T's Shafique Virani on CBC, talking about fighting Islamophobia with “weapons of mass instruction”

ullahnor — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 19:58:20 +0000

U of T's Shafique Virani on CBC, talking about fighting Islamophobia with “weapons of mass instruction” ullahnor Thu, 04/06/2017 - 15:58

Topic

City & Culture

Islamic Studies

Islamophobia

Ontario premier tours U of T Mississauga, talks about tuition, Islamophobia

ullahnor — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 18:20:50 +0000

Ontario premier tours U of T Mississauga, talks about tuition, Islamophobia

ullahnor Tue, 01/31/2017 - 13:20

Cutline

Premier Kathleen Wynne talks to students at U of T Mississauga today

Nicolle Wahl

Author legacy

Nicolle Wahl

Topic

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne visited U of T Mississauga Tuesday, meeting with students and talking about removing financial barriers to higher education.

“I’m touring campuses because it’s important to me to hear about the challenges that you’re facing,” said Wynne. “I’m in provincial politics because I think education is the most important thing that we do…[students] are also important to the current and future economy.”

Wynne was welcomed to U of T Mississauga by Ulrich Krull, interim vice-president and principal, Nour Alideeb, president of the campus' student union, and Alex Paquette, co-president of the campus' association of graduate students.

The premier began her visit in the Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre, stopping to chat with students in the RBC Learning Commons.

Giordana De Leo, Kimberly Jagdeo and Emma Russell were studying French together and were shocked to suddenly find the premier standing next to them.

“She asked us what we were doing and talked about the importance of knowing French in your career,” said Russell.

Wynne then headed to the Innovation Complex, where she met with members of the U of T Mississauga's Muslim Students Association. The discussion, broadcast live on Facebook, touched on several topics but focused primarily on the economy, the Ontario Student Assistance Program and Islamophobia. The meeting took on extra significance in the wake of the deadly Quebec mosque shooting on Jan. 29.

“We have to remember that we are not immune to racism in our community. You know that, you have all dealt with that,” said Wynne. “If we want to be a more inclusive society, we have to understand our own biases.”

Ontario Minister of Children and Youth Services Michael Coteau was travelling with Wynne and is head of the government’s Anti-Racism Directorate.

“People have to acknowledge that racism exists,” said Coteau. “We need to do a better job of capturing statistics on hate crimes. There’s a saying: ‘No data, no problem, no solution.’”

On the topic of tuition, Wynne outlined the changes to OSAP that will make higher education tuition free for students from families with a household income of $50,000 or less.

“We want you to graduate without debt,” she told students.

Wynne also met briefly with members of the Ontario Young Liberals party before sitting down for an interview with the Medium student newspaper.

Her visit was part of a week-long tour of colleges and universities around the province, where she is meeting with students, faculty and staff on other issues such as mental health and the post-graduation job market.