Canada's Al-Shabab Threat

Canada has distinguished itself and continues to do so, by accepting more than its share of the world's miserable refugees seeking haven, along with immigrants migrating to these shores from all manner of troubled countries of the world. Within Canada, those who have suffered, who have been forced by circumstances beyond their control - intra- and inter-country warfare, internal political, religious and ideological human-rights violations, poverty - to migrate elsewhere, find new opportunities to advance to a decent future for themselves and their offspring.

There are some ethnic and religious groups who experience a more difficult time integrating into mainstream Canadian society than others. People from cultures and religions not readily assimilable and for whom the transition from the familiar to a new beginning represents a difficulty they cannot surmount. For them, the hope is, as it has been in the past, that the newer generation will find its place within the new society and become comfortable with it, representing themselves as positive social elements.

Civil strife and famine in Somalia has been ongoing for decades. Somalians fled their country by the tens of thousands, and Canada now hosts roughly 200,000 Somali-Canadians. The United States has a similar immigrant demographic. Somalia has proven itself to represent a new militant-Islamist front and recruitment of North-American-born youth of Somalian extraction for membership in extremist religio-militant groups has become a problem.

A U.S. Congressional committee holding hearings on recruitment to jihad of home-grown potential terrorists has heard from a Somali-Canadian, Ahmed Hussen, president of the Canadian Somali Congress, that Somali-Canadian youth are extremely susceptible to the enticement of jihad. The Committee on Homeland Security hearings, studying radicalization within the U.S. Muslim community heard from Mr. Hussen that Canada also has a problem.

Somali youth born in Canada and the United States have travelled to Somalia to join Al-Shabab where they receive extreme militant training and commit to fighting the interim government in Somalia. The fear exists that, intimately knowledge of North America and its institutions and its cities may propel these jihadi youth back to the cities of their birth, to deploy themselves as suicide bombers on a destructive mission here.

Ahmed Hussen described the exploitation of dissatisfied Canadian Somali youth by recruiters through mosques and Muslim social agencies that have been infiltrated by a jihadi element. "A minority of them become alienated and fall victim to a narrative that turns them against Canada and the United States, the very countries that have sustained them and also gave refuge to their parents as they fled the brutal civil war in Somalia", he wrote.

"This dangerous and constant anti-Western narrative is fed to them by radicals in our community who do not hesitate to use these vulnerable youth as gun fodder in their desire to establish a base for the al-Qaeda terrorist group in Somalia." Previously, Somali-Canadian groups and their leaders have been critical of the government of Canada for not pursuing an agenda that would successfully turn their youth away from jihad.

But if the Canadian government turned its security agencies toward restraining presumed recruiters and their assumed victims in a vigilant attempt to apprehend the growing tide of recruits to terror, they would need to establish lawful means to do so. And were the government to crack down they would be accused of human-rights abuses against Somali-Canadians, by the very Somali-Canadians who have placed these demands on the government of Canada.

Until and unless recruiters and their recruits are apprehended, not on suspicion, but with evidence that they plan and mean to conduct terrorist activities, it should be the focus of the Somali-Canadian community and their various organizations and their mosques to teach their young, to turn them away from violent jihad. This is where the initial and most important initiative lies. An intimate and forceful community initiative to inspire their youth with values commensurate with those of the West must be undertaken.

And the question is, why is the Somali-Canadian community, which purports to be so concerned about their youth turning against the country that succours it, not invested in turning that particular tide? Canada has outlawed Al-Shabab, because of official concerns regarding the recruitment of Somali-Canadian youth. With adequate proof of intent, some jihadi-aspirants have been arrested.

Mr. Hussen's claim that government is required to support community leaders who encourage integration and commitment to the rule of law assumes that this is not already the case. Canada's commitment to official multiculturalism does attend to some of that recommendation. The Somali-Canadian community is not prepared to drop its cultural-religious underpinnings, after all, to opt for complete integration.

But it should be prepared to take full responsibility for what it teaches its young, the values with which it infuses their youth, including the necessity of achieving a good, in-depth Canadian education to enable them to find useful and meaningful employment and to appreciate the opportunities for advancement within Canada. Finding fulfillment in that direction, not in religious extremism.

This is what Somali-Canadian groups are in fact, as citizens of Canada, obligated morally to accomplish on behalf of their own, and in compliance with Canadian expectations of new citizens.