Citizen Khadr

It is most certainly a problem of immense proportions.  People from cultures, heritage, religions and parts of the world that are so adverse to Canadian values that it might seem obvious that they would not represent good candidates to adapt to the Canadian way of life.  The hope is always there that even if the adults will not adequately adapt and adopt Canadian values, their offspring will.  But this is proving to be a faint hope, all too often.

Simply put, as much as Canadians wish to welcome others from around the Globe, and are ready to accommodate differences, this must be a reciprocal arrangement.  And all too often it is not.  All too often the parents of families are determined to ensure that their offspring are not tainted by values and cultural attributes that are alien to their own, and they make every effort to keep their original values and social mores engrained within their children's futures.

This results in quite a lot of alienation, with the young people feeling an obvious confusion and mental-social conflict.  Integration is shunned and hostility to the prevailing social context of people accepting others within a pluralistic society as equals.  Except that it is felt by some societies, to be insulting to their values to be accepted as equal to something they shun and feel contempt for.  Such is the description of the Khadr family's reaction to the values and priorities of the country they migrated to.

Khadr senior, Egyptian by birth, made certain that his sons and his daughter knew their birthright, and honoured their original culture and were pious Muslims in a fanatical sectarianism.  This family, an extended one with grandparents, parents and their children all living in Canada and valuing some aspects of what the country has to offer; primarily universal health care and social welfare services, rejected the balance of what the country has to offer.

This was and is a family still residing in Canada; those who were absent for a prolonged period having returned, for whom other sects of Islam represent an assault upon the purity of their religion.  Like Ahmadi Muslims who, when they speak of their religion helping them to promote the seeking of knowledge - and urging humankind to respect God's creation, promoting morality, goodness and the noble qualities of humanity - mean it and live it. 

They pose no conflict within society, nor threat to others.  Their presence becomes part of the Canadian mosaic.

Omar Khadr, like his brothers, was taken by his firmly devoutly fanatical parents to Afghanistan where they were instructed to pay attention to their jihadi instructors so they could become members of the proud and honourable team of al-Qaeda, battling the Crusaders who fought against the Taliban.  Omar Khadr was trained as a jihadist and he took to that training fulsomely; it represented his heritage.

Sympathizers enjoy speaking of him empathetically as a 'child soldier', when he was neither.  There are a good many Canadians who have no wish to welcome this man irrespective of the fact that he holds Canadian citizenship, back to this country.  There should be a provision whereby the government can legally retract citizenship, remove it from those who do not deserve that privilege.

We do so for those proven to have lied about their criminal backgrounds when entering the country.  We should have the legal means through enacted legislation to do likewise with those who come into the country on certain pretensions, then reveal themselves to be deliberately and with malice aforethought, inimical to the health, welfare and security of the country and its population, in the due course of time.

As did the Khadr family.  They should all have their citizenship revoked.