Polling Bigotry

What a shock, who might have imagined such results. But then, you never know about people, they can be so irrational, so unreasonable, so discriminating and bigoted. Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies found it "disturbing" evidence that racism remains a problem in Canada, that people hold such obviously discriminatory views.

An online poll of over fifteen-hundred Canadians commissioned by the Montreal-based ACS and Toronto-based Canadian Race Relations Foundation, highlighted as well that Canadians view the Internet as a leading conductor for racist views. Over half of all those who responded to the poll indicated their belief that Muslims cannot be trusted.

A equally significant number responded that it was their feeling that if discrimination against Muslims occurs, it is the fault of Muslims themselves. What a finding. What a reaction.

Ayman Al-Yassini, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, felt the results offer increased reason to promote inter-faith and inter-culture relationships for the purpose of bridge-building "among different communities" to wage war against discrimination. Of course, it is the fact that waging war against non-Muslims by fanatical Muslims that is the base of these suspicions.

Hostility begets suspicion, does it not? It is the reaction of those who wish to defend themselves against the prospect of becoming a victim from those whom one never quite knows whether they harbour distinctly ill feeling and sinister motivations that spurs the average Canadian to feel distrust of a religion that has distinguished itself as inspiring violence in its followers.

One needn't look too far afield to find more than a few instances of Islamist-inspired terror plans conceived and prospected by native-born Muslim-Canadians. It is difficult to conceive of individuals worshipping a merciful god whom the peace-minded among them declare to be a god of peace, but the radicals feel calls upon them to violent jihad emanating from our midst. But they do.

Therein lies the motivation for the mistrust. Canada is still fortunate; the number of those who are eager to demonstrate their dedication to violent jihad as devout Muslims remain relatively few. Islam, from Iran to Pakistan, Iraq to Somalia, Sudan to Nigeria, hosts fanatical Islamist sects eager to take the lives not only of their co-religionists whose brand of Islam is unsatisfactory to them, but the lives of kuffars as well, to please Allah.

In Nigeria the Boko Haram terror group that does its killing mostly in the majority Muslim north, makes no secret of its intention to impose Islamic sharia law across the country that is split equally between Christians and Muslims. "We are certain we will dismantle this government and establish Islamic government in Nigeria", proudly proclaimed their spokesman, Abu Qaqa.

In France, a French-born man of Algerian extraction who travelled repeatedly to Afghanistan to be trained as a terrorist, embarked on a blood-curdling killing spree, murdering three young Jewish students, the father of two of the children, and three members of the French military of North African origin. He is a young man who has no wish to martyr himself, but who planned to slaughter many more before he was caught.

In Iraq over thirty bombs struck cities and towns across the country on Tuesday, killing 52 people, wounding around 250, in a clear demonstration of the indelible fact that the major sects of Islam, Sunni and Shia, are so imbued with implacable hatred for one another that they regularly embark on missions to slaughter as many as they can manage to, instilling additional fear and loathing, one for the other.

In Syria, the Alawite (Shia offshoot) regime has discharged its well-equipped and -trained military on an ongoing mission to destroy the defences of the Sunni protest movement, inclusive of their militias, and the civilian population that supports the uprising, in a demonstration of a government that has issues with dissent, but none whatever with the wholesale killing of its own.

With this kind of constant reportage of world affairs - and far more than what has been above cited - how could most people come to any conclusion other than that it is abundantly clear that from among the Muslim community there are those who cannot be trusted?