Whoppers and Deceit

"I'm not falling into your trap, brother. It's not (about) the Muslim community. It's about violence. It's about radicalization. It's about many, many communities who are witnessing (radicalization) and demanding that they want to be part of the solution. ... Frankly, it would be a very big mistake to focus on one community (over) others. What we are doing is providing tools so that parents, no matter where they are coming from, or teachers or volunteers have some tools to work with if they are facing a situation. But it has nothing to do with a community."
"We’re not freaking out here. We’re saying (for) many many months we have to work on the ‘live together,’ and the ‘live together’ is to have a balance between openness and vigilance."
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and Montreal Police Chief Marc Parent CBC

"We think we do have a problem. We have our kids going to die in Syria and for the parents of those kids, this is a catastrophe. ... This is a problem that we have to face."
"How can they call what they are doing prevention? The phone line goes straight to the police. It is OK to have security, but don't call it prevention. That is not serious."
"Radicalization is due to discrimination and actions that make people feel rejected by their own society. Islamophobia, racism and discrimination push people toward radicalization, because they feel they don't belong to their own society; they feel a greater sense of belonging to a terrorism group 9,000 kilometres away."
Haroun Bouazzi, co-president, Association of Muslims and Arabs for a Secular Quebec

Verbal gymnastics and ingenuous circumlocution is the politically correct order of the day in denying the obvious. Tying himself into a pretzel of denials against the backdrop of Islamist terrorism threatening to invade Canada at a more ramped-up pace to the point where public security agencies tasked with protecting the country from the violent plans of Islamofascists are stretched too thin for effectiveness, yet anxious not to appear anti-Muslim, Montreal's Mayor Denis Coderre had his antennae up and his blustering response prepared.

The country has a problem, the province has a problem, the city has a problem, and its Muslim families either have a problem or are part of the problem. Whatever, the primary responsibility of families, mosques and clerics and community organizers in the Muslim community is to take charge of the radicalization process that is enrapturing their young men and women who have grown up with the Koran and the qualities of mercy described therein, for whom the appeal to violent jihad seems irresistible? Connect the dots ....

But, isn't it typical that people will defend what they believe, that is enshrined in their minds, clouding their will to be enlightened. The 'discrimination' of which Mr. Bouazzi speaks in echoing the feelings of Canadian Muslims emanates from the non-Muslims who observe the actions of pious Muslims preferring the method of violent jihad as a tool of prosetylization in their haste to bring about a worldwide caliphate. The threats to peace and security that pop up around the world wherever Muslims congregate cannot be ignored.

Place responsibility and blame where it is due, rather than scapegoating people who feel threatened by violent jihadist Islamism. Death suddenly appearing out of nowhere does focus the mind. In acknowledging that the Muslim community has a 'problem', go a little further and address the problem with meaningful action, to counteract the messages that have been mesmerizing Muslim youth and impelling them to the kind of activities that their parents fear will lead to their deaths. While leading to the deaths of innocent non-Muslims and sectarian-clashing Muslims as well.

"In the present context, my concern is that this hotline will be inundated by people who are anti-Muslim. It will be like in the olden days when people were asked to denounce anyone who could be a Communist. How will they weed out the real threats? What will be the checks and balances to ensure people are not falsely accused."
"You have to wonder if it was well thought out, because the community partners were not there ... We do have to combat violence and terror, but we have to be careful when every week another report about Muslim wrongdoing is in the news. I worry this will create a frenzy, and increase paranoia. I think it was a serious faux pas, reflecting haste and a lack of cultural sensibility."
Fo Niemi, executive director, Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations

Well, yes, there is always the danger of cranks coming forward and there is always the danger of wrongly accused, and there is the danger of increased fear, but consider what it is that creates it: ongoing violent attacks undertaken by Muslims and converts to Islam against those whom they believe are out to do harm to Islam in a religious community already consumed by paranoia, but of a type deliberately infused in them by clerics and recruiters to jihadist movements within the community and over the Internet.

"Things are going to move very quickly. The phone line is up and running and the city is acting fast in creating this prevention centre. That should reassure parents and teachers and others that we are taking care of this", assured Jocelyn Belanger, a radicalization expert and an academic in the psychology department at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, one of the partners in the tip line project. "It’s a great thing that the city and the SPVM are taking the lead on this."

The staffing of the hotline for the Radicalization Prevention Centre by Montreal police constables, he assured, was a temporary measure. As the centre spins itself into action, the hotline is meant for parents, teachers or others reporting concerns over individuals in possible danger of radicalization to be put in touch with helping professionals. "What propels people to join radical groups is a quest for personal significance. They want to be someone who counts, who matters, who is respected. If you alienate them … isolate them, this quest for significance is awakened."

"You need to provide these people with vocational education, with jobs, you make sure they are connected to a positive social network. They are usually people who want to change the world; they see injustice and this motivation can be channelled into something positive. Eighty per cent of the lone wolf style attacks can be thwarted. How? Because in 80 per cent of those cases, peers or teachers or family members knew the person was plotting something. This can save a lot of lives.”