How Islamophobia Has Been Uncovered Again in Canada?

Islamophobia sounds to be on the rise in many Western societies, including Canada. Muslims there are being subject to hostility and rejection every day.

This malice has been proven by a growing number of acts of discrimination and attacks against people associated with the Muslim community.

According to the Canadian foundation, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), which focuses on fostering justice, peace, prosperity, and security for all peoples of the Middle East, confirms that 54% of Canadians held a negative view of Islam with 69% among Quebec residents, in a 2013 Angus Reid poll.

In this regard, the Toronto District School Board, TDSB, has cancelled a book event by the Yazidi Nobel Prize-winning author Nadia Murad, as reported by the Telegraph.

Nadia was about to defend Muslims, based on her own experience, and prove that terrorists do not represent Islam at all.

Despite the importance of her speech, the reason provided by the Canadian school to justify its decision was that the book written by Nadia could “promote Islamophobia” and “offend” the Muslim students.

So how did this uncover the real face of Canada’s hostility towards Muslims again?

Anti-Islamophobia Claims

In a 2015 report by the CJPME Foundation, researchers highlighted a movement of Canadian government-sanctioned Islamophobia. The report said that this type of Islamophobia is particularly disturbing as it can endanger “rights to citizenship, access to employment, and community integration.”

Nadia Murad’s incident may be the most recent act manifesting hostility and hatred of many Canadians towards Muslim community.

The Telegraph reported that Nadia Murad, 28, was about to discuss her upcoming book, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, to be published in February 2022, with students from different schools that are part of the Toronto District School Board.

But school board superintendent Helen Fisher “pulled the plug” on Murad’s visit, declaring that she would not let the students attend, because Nadia’s book would be offensive to Muslims and might “foster Islamophobia,” as the Telegraph reported.

‘The Last Girl’

Nadia Murad, the 28-year-old activist, is a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and UN Goodwill Ambassador. She also advocates for survivors of genocide and sexual violence.

Her book tells how she escaped the Islamic State after being “kidnapped” from her home and sold into sexual slavery when she was only 14.

According to the New York Post’s report published on Saturday 27 November 2021, the UN Goodwill Ambassador gives details about how she was raped and cruelly tortured before finding her way to a refugee camp in Duhok, in northern Iraq, and then to Germany, where she lives today.

According to The Telegraph, District parent Tanya Lee was outraged, she said that “this is what the Islamic State means. It is a terrorist organization. It has nothing to do with ordinary Muslims. The Toronto school board should be aware of the difference.”

Not only Lee, many Canadian writers and media have criticized the Toronto District School Board (TDSB)’s decision, according to the news and current affairs website, OpIndia.

Canadian commentator Rex Murphy said that “for those with a cynical mind, and I am of course exempt from that failing, it might be concluded that equity departments actually hold existence for the sole purpose of contradicting their own purpose. And, in particular, those within school boards have honed that skill to supernal perfection,” according to the source.

To explain the board’s reason for the decision, TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird told The Globe and Mail that “there seems to have been a misunderstanding because the ‘fairness’ department does not review and approve books for book clubs.”

He also explained that “the two books were nevertheless examined by the members of the council, as is the practice, in order to decide or not their distribution to the pupils.”

To put it into perspective, Human Right Activist and University Professor in Arab Civilization, Ghada Tlili Brahmi said in her interview with Al-Estiklal that “this decision, once again, shamefully reflects Canada's pursuit of Islamophobia, and it is contrary to what TDSB claims that the decision came to fight hostility towards Muslims and defend the rights of the Muslim community.”

Brahmi added that “again, Canada reveals the real face hidden by the mask of democracy and freedoms when TDSB claimed that it was fighting Islamophobia and wanted to protect the students from hostile discourse, but the administration did the total opposite of that.”

The Human Activist concluded to say that “Nadia’s book highlights the true meaning of Islam and proves that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam and does not belong to any religion, but such a speech does not fit Canada’s religious discrimination, especially Islamophobia.”

It Does Exist

A recent survey conducted by EKOS Research Associates confirms that Islamophobia stands as a continuous challenge to Canada’s multicultural society. The survey examined religious discrimination in Canada in different ways, and each time, they confirmed an undercurrent of Islamophobia. Yet, the survey also made clear that many Canadians recognize the problem of religious discrimination and Islamophobia in Canada, but the government takes no measures to treat it.

According to the Islamic Social Services Association—which is a not-for-profit organization committed to anti-racism, dedicated to advancing gender, racial, economic, and environmental justice—around “46% of Canadians have an unfavorable view of Islam, more than any other religion, and less than half of Canadians would find it ‘acceptable’ for one of their children to marry

a Muslim.” The same survey shows that 56% of Canadians believe that Islam represses women’s rights.

Furthermore, 52% of Canadians feel that Muslims can only be trusted “a little” or “not at all,” as mentioned by the survey.

In fact, 42% of Canadians think discrimination against Muslims in Canada is “mainly their fault” and they are the only responsible.

When it comes to freedoms, the survey indicated that more than 47% of Canadians support banning headscarves in public compared with 30% of Americans, and more than half of Canadians think the problem of Islamophobia is just “overblown” by politicians and media.

Hate Incidents

Islamophobia in Canada is manifested by many discriminating actions. There were 349 police-reporting hate crimes against Muslims in 2017 and 173 in 2018, according to the most recent Statistics Canada data.

According to the same source, the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes more than tripled between 2012 to 2015, and the highest percentage of women victims, about 45%, was between 2010 and 2018.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the greatest number of Islamophobic crimes are reported by Ontario and Quebec as they are the two provinces that most of the Muslims in Canada live in. For example, over 7.5% of the population of the Greater Toronto Area is Muslim, according to the same source.

In September 2020, a volunteer was killed outside a mosque in Toronto, by a guy with social media connections to White supremacist groups, in addition to six Muslims who were killed on January 29, 2017, and five were critically injured in a shooting attack on the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec.

Studies by academics and civil rights organizations are always documenting the unequal impact of national security measures on the Muslim community, like the laws that expand state national security powers without adequate transparency and oversight, like the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015 and the National Security Act, 2017.

Thus, inequality is threatening the fundamental rights and freedoms of Muslims like the rights to privacy and a fair trial, and freedoms of expression and religion.

According to a report published on 10 June 2021, by the BBC News, four members of a Muslim family were hit by a truck in Ontario, Canada, on Sunday, June 6, 2021, which revived again Islamophobia feelings by the Canadian society.

Canadian police claimed that “the four members of the Muslim family were deliberately targeted in an anti-Islam hate crime,” as reported.