Harper himself avoids Canadian Muslims except for a selected few, such as the minority Ismailis. The prime minister and his Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney have pointedly courted those who’ve come to Canada fleeing persecution in Muslim lands — Christians and Ahmadis from Pakistan, Christians from Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, Bahais from Iran, etc. Some openly spit hatred at Muslims, yet are cosseted by the Harperites.
Contrast this with Barack Obama and David Cameron of Britain who do extensive outreach to Muslims, at home and abroad.
And unlike Obama who speaks knowledgeably and confidently about how terrorism violates Islamic principles, Harper has been clumsy, speaking instead of “Islamic terrorism.”
But he is learning.
Last month in opening the Aga Khan Museum, he said:
“The Aga Khan has devoted an extraordinary amount of time, toil and resources to the ideals of Islamic culture and history. In doing so, His Highness has greatly contributed to demystifying Islam, throughout the world, by stressing its social traditions of peace, of tolerance and of pluralism. This is a vision of Islam of which all Canadians can be proud especially when a contrary and violent distortion of that vision so regularly dominates the news.”
A few days later, speaking in New York, Harper went against the holy grail of Islamophobes, that terrorism emanates mostly from mosques. Speaking of radicalized youth, he said:
“Our experience in Canada has been that their connection to the Muslim community is often extremely tangential. A surprising number of these people have no background in Islam whatsoever. They’re individuals who for whatever reason drift to these kinds of causes. Even (those with) backgrounds in Islam, they’re often people who are not participants in mosques . . . They’re off on kind of a radical, political fringe.
My comments: We should pay special attention to what Harper didn't say--i.e. the idiotic things that Obama, Cameron and Justin Trudeau have said.“Our security and intelligence people would tell you that a good relationship with our Muslim community has actually really helped to identify a lot of these threats before they become much more serious.”...
Also: that paragraph about the Muslim community helping identify the threats may help explain why the RCMP got involved in that anti-terror handbook--because it wanted to ingratiate itself with these groups so that they would lend a hand in identifying jihadis. The real danger in that is that there's the potential for a Rotherham here in Canada as authorities turn a blind eye to bad behavior because they don't want to alienate "helpful" Muslims.
Finally, how reprehensible is it that Harpoon takes aim at those (Christians, Ahmadis, Bahais) fleeing persecution and genocide in Muslim lands, and disses those who have supposedly "cossetted" them, but has nothing at all to say about those who've unleashed the horror?
Pretty damn reprehensible, I'd say.
Update: My letter:
In his column about Prime Minister Stephen Harper supposedly conquering his steep learning curve about Islam, Haroon Siddiqui complains that the Conservatives have "cossetted" Christians, Ahmadis, Bahais and other refugees from Muslim lands. He further whines that some of these "cossetted" ones "openly spit hatred at Muslims."
My question for Siddiqui, who seems to have a big problem with these groups but not with their tormentors: if you belonged to a minority group that had been openly targeted for persecution and even genocide because your beliefs weren't identical to those of the Muslim majority, and you had managed to escape to freedom here in Canada, how would you feel about those who had treated you so horribly? I highly doubt that you'd be singing their praises, nor would anyone expect you to.
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