After the deadly anti-Muslim hate crime in London, Canadians can’t look away

Now is the time to commit ourselves to recognizing and challenging Islamophobia

Last Sunday night, a Canadian family of five went out for their nightly walk, probably excited to enjoy the beautiful summer weather. A grandmother, a couple, and their two children. All of them vibrant personalities and active members of the London, Ont., community in which they made their home. All of them with much to look forward to as the pandemic-induced lockdown in Ontario finally began to ease up. And all of them unaware that a 20-year-old was planning to massacre them with his vehicle solely because they were Muslim.

A suspect was apprehended a short distance away from one of London’s main mosques, reportedly decked out in body armour. Investigators later stated that the attack was premeditated and motivated by anti-Muslim hate. The family had been targeted because they were walking in traditional clothing, thus making them a visible target for the attacker.

A common refrain in the aftermath of horrific events like these is that they aren’t representative of who we are as Canadians. Phrases like, “This isn’t us,” or “This is not Canada,” circulate widely. However, this attack is yet another wakeup call drawing our attention to the reality that hatred and violence against visible minorities is entrenched in Canadian society.

This is hardly the first attack on Muslim Canadians, or even the first case of anti-Muslim mass murder in recent history. It was only in 2017 that six Muslim worshippers in Quebec City were killed in their mosque during evening prayers. Last year, a mosque caretaker was stabbed to death on the doorstep of his mosque in Toronto. There have been countless attacks on visibly Muslim women throughout this country. Sadly, this list could go on.

These attacks do not emerge out of a vacuum. Rather they are deepseated within our cultural and political norms. According to a 2017 Angus Reid poll, 46 per cent of Canadians have an unfavourable view of Islam — more than any other religious group.

These results are corroborated in a number of other studies, including those that show that 52 per cent of Canadians believe that Muslims can only be trusted “a little” or “not at all.”

And while Canadians tend to think of themselves as far more progressive and anti-racist than their southern neighbours, that is certainly not the case when it comes to our national perception of Muslims: 47 per cent of Canadians support banning head scarves in public, compared to only 30 per cent of Americans.

Additionally, 51 per cent of Canadians support government surveillance of mosques, compared to 46 per cent of Americans.

After all, it was in Canada that, only a few weeks after the Quebec City mosque massacre, 91 MPs voted against M-103, a non-binding motion to condemn and study Islamophobia.

And it is in Quebec where Bill 21 currently operates and discriminates against people who are visibly Muslim, Sikh or Jewish, much like the family targeted in London.

The hate that drives a young man to use his truck as a weapon, to murder three generations of a family, and to orphan a nine-year-old boy is cumulative. It builds out of the years and years of silent Islamophobia which we have all allowed to fester.

I do not state these facts with any satisfaction.

I was born and raised in Canada, and I choose to raise my children and family in Canada. But these problems cannot be overcome when we are unable to even acknowledge their existence. We can no longer tell ourselves comforting lies like “this isn’t us,” when it very clearly is who we repeatedly prove to be.

My message to Canadians is simple — don’t look away. Do not look away from the nine-year-old boy in the hospital, who was told his mother, father, sister, and grandmother have all been killed.

We all owe that boy a moral debt. Don’t look away when politicians downplay the realities of Islamophobia in our country. Don’t look away when the media perpetuates anti-Muslim tropes. Don’t look away when colleagues or family members dehumanize Muslims. We’ve looked away long enough. Now is the time to commit ourselves to recognizing and challenging Islamophobia wherever it presents itself.

This is hardly the first attack on Muslim Canadians, or even the first case of anti-Muslim mass murder in recent history