Are.You.Canadian? (II)

Two columnists get to basic issues.

1) Jim Travers in the Toronto Star:

...this is a domestic problem with offshore roots, not just a foreign problem manifesting itself at home. If the allegations are true and the plot more than a fantasy that became a conspiracy, we are under attack from ourselves...

In pursuing multicultural tolerance, Canada has been negligent in reinforcing essential, common-denominator values. Most of those are self-evident: human rights, the rule of law and the understanding that one person's freedom ends where another's begins.

These are all-defining and remain easily powerful enough to make this country a magnet. But what's slipped through cracks is that being Canadian requires a commitment passed from generation to generation.

Stripped bare of rhetoric and religion, politics and ethnicity, citizenship requires putting the national interest first.

To their shame and often for partisan advantage, politicians have been blinking when influential communities and interest groups fall below the threshold of what it means to hold a share in a nation of 33 million. As this weekend's events compellingly argue, that blindness is not sustainable.

In celebrating its differences, Canada must also protect the values that map the perimeter of its shared and evolving space. Along with all levels of government, every community leader, group and ethnic fragment shares responsibility for deciding what is acceptable and exposing what won't be tolerated.

Canada chose long ago to be the world in one place and, happily, that choice is not reversible. But the tougher decisions remain ahead for a country that must forge cohesion as immigration continues to rise and becomes even more diverse.

2) Rondi Adamson in the Christian Science Monitor:

Aly Hindy, a high-profile imam in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, called the arrests "an attack on the Muslim community." He went on to say that, "We are abusing our boys for the sake of pleasing George Bush." Rather than speaking out against extremism, or entertaining the notion that perhaps his country's security forces know what they're doing, Hindy called the charges against the men "home-grown baloney."

Even moderate Canadian Muslim groups, willing to show faith in Canada's justice system, are mitigating their statements. The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) praised the work of Canada's spy agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But then they scolded the Canadian government for not funding "academic research to diagnose this serious social problem and provide scientific solutions to it." A scientific solution to Islamofascism? Bring it on.

The group also chastised Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper for portraying events "as a battle between 'us' and 'them.' " Following the arrests, Mr. Harper stated that "we are a target because of who we are. And how we live." One wonders - do the members of the CIC not consider themselves part of the "we" Harper referred to, when he spoke of Canadians? If so, that is indeed revealing.

The Muslim Canadian Congress fared only a tad bit better. They praised the police, and expressed dismay that members of their community might be guilty as charged. And then they managed to blame President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and even Harper for the fact that any such terror cells might exist. So far, only the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN) has managed to issue a condemnation of terror, and praise of the police, without tacking on a "but," a "Bush," or a "Canadian troops in Afghanistan."

I was happily surprised at CAIR-CAN's press release. I shouldn't have been. We must expect that Western Muslims will wholeheartedly condemn Islamofascism, without any conditions placed on that condemnation. Without that, we may reach a point of divisions too deep to mend.

Mark C.

Posted by markc at June 6, 2006 11:34 AM