Why Do Promoters of Motions and Charters Speak of Anti-Islamophobia and Those Who Oppose Them Speak of Blasphemy Law?

Sunday, 12  March 2017

You got to hand it to the   Muslim organizations, Canadian Muslim Forum (The CMF) whose president is said to be associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and the National Council of Canadian Muslims, (NCCM) formerly CAIR-Canada, which promotes itself as a civil liberties group, but is not save for a particular ideological segment of the Muslim community. Having already outlined the unsavoury history of CAIR on Tuesday, 7 March 2017 under the heading Ontario finally catches up with the Islamophobia fad, I do not propose to belabour the point.

The CMF would not take no for an answer until Parliament passed the anti-Islamophobia motion in October 2016. So did, the Quebec and Ontario legislatures each pass one and now Parliament is about to pass another motion M-103 that again focuses on Islamophobia.

Samer Majzoub who initiated the petition that led to the passing of the motion in Parliament said:
“Now that Islamophobia has been condemned, this is not the end, but rather the beginning.”
“We need to continue working politically and socially and with the press. They used to doubt the existence of Islamophobia, but now we do not have to worry about that; all blocs and political figures, represented by Canada’s supreme legislative authority, have spoken of that existence. In the offing, we need to get policy makers to do something, especially when it comes to the Liberals, who have shown distinct openness regarding Muslims and all ethnicities. All of us must work hard to maintain our peaceful, social and humanitarian struggle so that condemnation is followed by comprehensive policies.”

The CMF and NCCM brains are working. In order the avoid the kerfuffle caused  by the wording of the October 26 motion,, the second one is dressed up  with politically  astute wording that did not quite manage to fool anyone.

If this was not enough, NCCM has been soldiering on to market with cities, the idea of endorsing a charter against Islamophobia, has been successful in selling it, for far, to six Canadian cities: Montreal, Toronto, London, Windsor, Calgary and Vancouver.

In the case of Calgary, Mayor Nenshi said : “We’re very lucky that issues of hatred or xenophobia against any  group-whether Islamophobia, anti-Semitism,  anti-immigrants feeling racism, you name it-are very, very rare  and in fact met with general condemnation from the city of Calgary”.(emphasis mine)  Anticipating  a question to the effect as to what then is the present need  to endorse the Charter, the good Mayor added : ``But I also think  that this is something you’ve got to constantly be vigilant about, that you’ve  constantly got to fight  and that good decent people really have to stand up against this sort of thing.”

At all events Calgary, grandly vowed to “eliminate anti-Muslim hate crimes.”

And who drafted the charter? Yes, the NCCM. Why burden the municipal government of each city to draw its own Charter when the NCCM is only too happy to oblige by providing them with one?  Noblesse oblige.
By this time, Mr. Majzoub’s statement had obviously become the marching order. At the dog and pony show that followed the endorsement ceremony in Calgary, Hida Fidol of the NCCM said:

“It’s a step to first acknowledge that this is a challenge and this is the real issue. We can’t address the problem, if we (read: you) don’t acknowledge it exists.”

Surely this is a load of pure codswollop.  After all, the Federal Parliament has already acknowledged it in the silliest and most irresponsible sort of way. Do aboriginal peoples of Canada or the Jewish community have to paper the country with motions and charters condemning anti-First Nation or anti-Semitism in order for Canadians to know the existence of these problems and to address them?

But never mind, the NCCM is intent to march on with its plan to do just that, paper the country with anti -Islamophobia motions and charters from coast to coast.

All said and done, just how serious is the problem causing all this hyper anti-Islamophobia activity. Yes, according to the latest available figures, nationally all 99 of them, for an estimated community size exceeding 1,300,000 people-a far lower rate per 100,000 during the corresponding  period than  the rate of hate crimes committed against the Jewish community of less than 500,000 people.

Of course,  one need not be a deep thinker or acute observer of social processes, to know that motions, charters and what not are just that; pieces of paper.

And surely, the astute folks at the NCCM know this only too well.

Sheema Khan Globe and Mail columnist in her March 9, 2017 piece after analysing the events related to the killing of innocent Muslim worshippers in a Quebec City prayer centre and emphasizing to the wisdom of the words of the Imam who presided over the funeral ceremony wrote: «While Canadian Muslims are not a persecuted minority (….), events of the past weeks, should give pause for self-reflection, and an accounting of weaknesses, rather   than calls for revenge or blame. The Prophetic example (referring to the “Taif “moment described in the article) demands it. It is also time to reach out to those who exhibit hostility rooted in fear or as the Koran counsels: ‘Repel the evil deed with one which is better’…Let us recognise that some of this fear is genuine, motivated by terror attacks in Europe, the United States and here in Canada. While Canadian Muslims seek protection of their rights, they must also emphasize their love and defence of the country. Those who worry about an erosion of ‘Canadian values’ should be engaged, in an honest manner, rather than denunciation. The cultural values surrounding women, critical inquiry, freedom of expression and freedom of conscience in many Muslim countries are often at odds with prevailing Western norms Canadian Muslims must begin to have meaningful debates on how to reconcile those two worlds. What are the universal tenets of the faith that can be translated from society to society? And what are the cultural norms of the old world that must be replaced with the new? Such deliberations must be made with great care, with recognition that Canada is a diverse country, bound by shared values, as defined by our Charter of Rights and Freedom.”

I could not have possibly said it better, try as I might.

As a matter of fact, while all this anti-Islamophobia-mania is going the The Survey of Muslims in Canada-Final Report, April; 2016(synoptic version), conducted and issued by The Environics Institute with the contribution of a number of lead partners points out the following  facts:

1.    Perceptions of domestic support for violent extremism Very few Muslims believe more than a small handful of followers of their faith support violent extremists like Daesh, and this proportion has declined since 2006. Only one percent now believe that “many” or “most” Muslims in Canada support violent extremism, and the vast majority estimate that this sentiment is shared by “very few” or “none” in their community (with the “none” proportion jumping from 11% to 44% in the past decade). Opinions on this question are largely consistent across the Muslim population(p.41)

2.    Violent extremism among Canadian Muslims. Just over half say they are very (31%) or somewhat (21%) worried about violent extremism among Canadian Muslims; this overall proportion is essentially unchanged since 2006, but the percentage who is very worried is up five percentage points. Worry about violent extremism has increased modestly in western Canada, among men, Muslims 18 to 34, those Canadian-born and those who identify primarily as Muslim, while declining in Quebec, among older Muslims and those who identify primarily as Canadian. Worry about extremism is currently most pronounced among Canadian born individuals (72%) and those who have experienced discrimination because of their ethnicity (68%), and is least evident among those 60 plus (41%). (p.24)

The respondents were not asked the key question as to specifically what causes to worry so.

The NCCM does not acknowledge these facts in the context of “so-called” anti-Islamophobia campaign, nor does it issue a public statement denouncing violent extremism and the Islamists that engage in such behaviour.

Nor are NCCM, and its ideologically associated organisations interested in accepting Shema Khan’s invitation to take a moment for self –reflection and address the issues which she raises.

The end-game of the NCCM and associates is not difficult to figure out. It is

1. Plaster these motions charters and whatnot across Canada.

2. Hope and watch for the number of the “so-called” Islamophobic hate crimes go up even, if slightly.

My bet is that the number and the rate of these crimes will go up one way or another.

How can I possibly be so sure? Well, because   it is not difficult to do that. Having got a degree in criminology, researched the issues and problems in crime recording and reporting and co-authored some publishing on the subject (cf. with André Normandeau: The Measurement of Crime and Delinquency in Canada Acta Criminologica Volume 1 (1968), pp. 133-162 (final report); and, Manual for  the Construction of a Crime and Delinquency Index in Canada, Department of Criminology, Université de Montréal, 1966, 20 pages)

First, you impugn the reported figures by arguing “le chiffre noir” (the black number). It is well established that all offences are not reported. The ratio of reported to the unreported ones depends, among other things, on the nature/seriousness of the offence and type of offence. Hence in general, the probability of reporting murders is close to  but not quite 1/1.On the other hand, the  general probability  of reporting, purely sake of illustration, say  rapes tend to be lower; let’s say the ratio is 5/10. The difference between 5 and 10 is called the dark number.

So, the numbers and rates of crime, can be raised, inter-alia, by  

a)    playing on the black number strengthening the argument by arguing the reluctance of the victims to come forward by reason of age, religious sensitivities, cultural mores, shame and whatnot.

This is accomplished by (i) setting up city and/or province wide  hotlines  to help witnesses and  victims to report incidents  of hate crimes of a particular category and then (ii) challenging  the accuracy of the recorded numbers by showing that those are lower than the actual numbers, and

b)    impugning the police crime data recording system and put forward arguments, based on existing published studies, which police under-reports crimes by say 20% due to systemic problems or personnel’s shortcomings.  

After going through their road show, NCCM and confederates will turn to the Liberal government and say: Look we tried our very best to address the Islamophobia problem and so did you and it did not work out. The only left to do is to amend the Criminal Code to insert   the indictable offence of blasphemy with a hefty prison term to go with it. 

And this brings us to the question raised in the title: Why then do promoters of motions and charters speak of anti-Islamophobia and those that oppose it speak of Blasphemy Law?

Those who oppose the motions and charters and anticipate the scenario described above do so either because they are reformist Muslims, who have either already have  been  there and seen that, or being familiar  with the thinking  of  Islamists, they  simply know what the game is all about.