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muslims in
"Even our loving Canadian society is not immune to what fear can provoke in the hearts of people."
News last week about the two-year study of the traffic stop data collected by the Ottawa Police were quickly dismissed by the same researchers who conducted it, as "not necessarily indicative of causation, and it doesn't prove racial profiling." So what is the point of conducting such a study if those results cannot be used to speak about racial profiling, admit its existence and thus dealing with it?
In recent years, we've seen terror attacks like the one last Tuesday become the norm. From attacks in Brussels and Paris to Turkey, Jakarta and even here in Canada, the global terror threat affects everyone -- and both Muslims and non-Muslims are not immune to it.
Recently, Quebec has witnessed very alarming anti-Muslim and anti-Islam rhetoric that has led to moral onslaught against citizens of Muslim faith. The discriminatory campaigns against any group of citizens due to their religious or ethnic background will lead to unhealthy social harmony within any society.
One of the most effective ways to counter the rising anti-Muslim sentiment is not only through words, issuing statements and being on the reactive and defensive mode all the time but through a more proactive mechanism to show what Muslims are all about. The anti-Muslim prejudice can only be countered through active participation in the society -- something I witnessed on the last day of Ramadan, at the International Muslim Organization of Toronto.
