Truth from a Canadian Muslim leader

Tarek Fatah, Communications Director of the Muslim Canadian Congress, writes an eye-opening article in the Toronto Star(!). Good on him. And good on the Star.

Three years ago when Kuwaiti Islamist scholar Tareq Al Suwaidian told a Toronto crowd that "Western civilization is rotten from within and nearing collapse ... it (the West) will continue to grow until an outside force hits it and you will be surprised at how quickly it falls," he was lustily cheered by the nearly 2,000 young Muslim men and women.

I was deeply offended by the hostile remark, but the thunderous approving applause of the young audience simply stunned me. All I could do was muster the courage and stage a polite walkout.

That day I resolved to fight this hostility toward the modern nation-state and Western civilization that was engulfing a section of Canadian Muslim youth; one that was being fanned by the leadership of the traditional Muslim organizations and Islamic radicals who took inspiration from the ruling elites of Iran and Saudi Arabia...

While the overwhelming majority of Canada's Muslims have been stunned by this development, few can honestly deny that they had seen this coming.

For years, some of us have been incessantly talking and writing about the growth of this extremist phenomenon, this contempt for secular parliamentary democracy and non-stop berating of Muslim youth who become "Canadian" and warnings to them that they will be punished in the hereafter if they do not adhere to the barren version of Islam where joy itself is a sin.

In the last five years, we Muslims have had more than our share of terrorism done in the name of our faith. Whether it is terrorist attacks in India or the hundreds of simultaneous bombings in 300 cities of Bangladesh; whether it is massacres of Muslims by Muslims in Iraq or the genocide of Muslims by Muslims in Darfur, the traditional leadership of the Muslim community responds repeatedly in a similar manner: abject denial.

Every tragedy that has befallen the Muslim world has been labelled as an American or a Zionist conspiracy. The conspiracy stories have gone from the ridiculous to the absurd...

During the discussion [on TVOntario's Studio Two], [Ali] Hindy claimed he knew eight of the accused. According to his analysis, the suspects may have been involved in military training to fight a jihad overseas. He went on to say that when young Muslim men come to him asking to go overseas to fight, he discourages them and tells them to fight their jihad "here."

Flabbergasted, host Paula Todd asked him, "Why? What do you mean?" Cornered, he took refuge — like so many Muslim clerics who encourage jihad, take when trapped — in philosophy: "By jihad I mean the inner jihad ..."

Mark C.

Damian adds: Fatah's article and his organization say a lot of things that need to be said by moderate Muslim leaders - which is why I was disappointed by his support for CUPE's proposed boycott of Israel (and his endorsement of Desmond Tutu's borderline anti-Semitic theories about the power of the "Jewish lobby") and the simplistic conspiracy theorizing in his last parahraph:

It is ironic that Muslim extremists are portraying themselves as anti-imperialist when, in fact, Al Qaeda and the Taliban are nothing more than a creation of the CIA. Muslims need to recognize that the agenda of these extremists is a cult of hate and fascism, not one of advocacy for their community. [emphasis added]

Posted by markc at June 7, 2006 10:52 AM