The recent arrest of four young men in Ottawa has been portrayed by the media and by some security analysts as a brand new threat: the radicalization of youth. The typical terrorist is no longer a sombre looking foreigner or an immigrant with a heavy accent immersed in martial arts -- instead he is a middle-class family man, funny, "well integrated," and well educated that you can never detect or almost never...
First of all, this trend in the portraying of "Muslim terrorists" is not new. In reality, it has been in circulation for many years by North American security analysts; after all, didn't we forget that most of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack were from middle- to upper-class families with university educations and who entered the U.S. with legal paper work? What about the 18 young men arrested in Toronto in June 2006? Weren't they all young men fresh out of high school or attending university, weren't they born and raised in Canada? Didn't we speak at that time about the "homegrown terrorists?" And who were the persons who committed the London Underground attack? Weren't they good family men with young children?
So what changed this time? Why do we have the impression that this time it is a new type of presumed terrorist that we have deterred? Aren't we simply trying to make the net a little bigger by including with each arrest a new sort of individual? In January 2003, Time magazine ran a story about the different sort of terrorists in Canada. I remember two of them very well: Maher Arar, a Canadian telecoms engineer who ended up being cleared, and Mohamed Harkat, an Algerian refugee whom the government was unable to prove to be a threat to the security of Canada seven years after his arrest, and who is still awaiting a decision about his case.
What I found misleading and quite dangerous to our social cohesion is this simple reduction of a complex and ambiguous problem: that is to reduce terrorism to a simple journalistic attempt to convince us of the existence of a rational portrait of "the terrorist."
This atmosphere created by the hype will definitely lead to an increasing mistrust and suspicion between Muslims as well as to more suspicion with the rest of the society. This will also create more division inside the Muslim community where the dichotomy will be even stronger between "good" Muslim and "bad" Muslim. The recent appeal from the public safety minister, Vic Toews, is no more than a nod in this direction. He suggested that leaders from Muslim communities should approach the government if they have information that threatens public safety. As if the leaders of the Muslim community have more powers for spying on young people than the RCMP or CSIS, or as if he is insinuating that the Muslim leaders are not doing enough to discourage their young members of being involved in terrorist acts.
The radicalisation of youth can't be understood and then stopped if we continue to see it as a Muslim problem. It is a globalized phenomenon affecting most countries. Our government didn't take any concrete steps since the arrests of the trial of the Torontonian men. Did they create a youth centre to educate Muslim and non-Muslim men about the danger of terrorism? Did they fund programs to speak against terrorism and present alternative models to follow for young men? Unfortunately, for now the government seems to be only interested in investing more money on spying on its citizens and spreading suspicion.
Monia Mazigh is a human rights activist. She is the author of "Hope and Despair: My struggle to free my husband Maher Arar." She lives in Ottawa.
Links:
[1] http://rabble.ca/print/news/2010/09/guess-who-next-terrorist-your-neighbour-next-door#comment-1177628
[2] http://rabble.ca/user
[3] http://rabble.ca/user/register
There are many people of different faiths, or non-faith in Canada. And terrorist activities needn't have any religious basis. Examples are the Squamish Five, or Earth First, who were far-left groups dedicated to the destruction of property. The Tamil Tigers, ETA, the PLO, Babbar Khalsa and the IRA are secular-nationalist terrorist organizations, aiming for political autonomy in their ancestral homes. However, there is only one form of strictly RELIGIOUS terrorist grouping in Canada: Islamic terrorism. Here, the aim is to inflict damage on the secular state, with a global goal of establishing an Islamic theocracy. In Canada, as in most of the world, Salafi Islam is the particular sect that is exclusively associated with Islamic terrorism.
Canada has had Muslim citizens since the early 20th Century. Most have been members of moderate sects, which have accepted being members of a secular, liberal-democratic society. In the aftermath of events in post-colonial Africa (i.e., ethnic cleansing of non-Africans), Canada also accepted a large number of Ismaili Muslims, who are extremely liberal in their practice of Islam (treating the Qur'an as a nuanced document subject to 'layered' interpretation, rather than being followed literally), as well as following Anglo-Western cultural norms. Islamic radicalism was never a problem with any of these groups. However, there has been a steady influx of immigrants from Gulf States, where Salafi-Wahhabi Islam is the only legal sect. Thanks to Saudi petrodollars, Salafi Islam has also spread to Pakistan and India, as well as countries like Bosnia, and thither to Canada. Most converts (or 'reverts,' in Salafi parlance) to Islam enter via Salafism. A growing number of mosques in Canada are funded by Saudi Arabia, as well as the Muslim Students' Associations present on every campus. The Imams who staff these mosques and serve as campus chaplains are trained at Salafi madrassas.
Despite the public denounciations against terrorism by Salafi Imams like Mohammed Elmasry, Ali Hindy and Syed Soharwardy, Salafi organizations practice taqiyya and have different speeches prepared for the non-Muslim public (anti-jihad) than their flocks (pro-jihad). Sometimes Imams slip up and reveal outright seditious beliefs in public. Both mosques and groups like the MSAs have served to facilitate meetings between like-minded jihadists. This is a fact. You will NEVER find a group of men advocating armed jihad at an Ismaili mosque, or any other non-Salafi organization.
Poverty or some alleged sympathy for fellow Muslims isn't really the reason young Muslim men embrace Islamic radicalism and violence. Usually, it's some life crisis (bereavement, a health crisis) that makes people more religious. In this state, young and newly-religious men are easy targets for al Qaeda-type groups.
There are some particular behaviors that loudly destinguish would-be Islamic terrorists from secular Muslims, or any other Canadian. Attire is a major tipoff: shorn hair, long beards, sharwar kameez and taqiyah, extreme coverings on female relatives and wives (not mere hijabs, but niqabs, or burqas) and refusal to physically, or socially interact with women. The latter point is important, as it was one of the red flags which lead to CSIS and the RCMP to investigate the Ottawa cell. In the case of an imminent attack by a Muslim terrorist, there are further alerts: reciting the Shahada, depilation of visible body hair and the wearing of the normally haram perfume.
There have been--and continue to be--many problems with the RCMP. However, the risk of terrorism is something to take very seriously. One of the intended targets of the Ottawa cell was the Montreal Metro system. 7/7 provides a grim reminder of how horrific such an attack could be. This is not a matter of stigmatizing one religious group, but being wary of particular behaviors in that group, in young (20s-30s) males. It is not a question of "us vs Muslims," but everyone vs religiously-motivated terrorists. If you think you see or hear/read something worrisome, including seditious internet postings, contact 1-800-420-5805. You might end up saving your own life.