Islamist Exceptionalism and Privileges of Victimhood

"Islamophobia refers to fear, prejudice, hatred or dislike directed against Islam or Muslims, or towards Islamic politics or culture."
Toronto District School Board definition of Islamophobia.

"The debate about “Canadian values” — started by Kellie Leitch, one of the candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party — erupted into the predictable insinuation that she was racist, xenophobic and guilty of the ultimate offence of the times: Islamophobia."
"Fortunately, for her, it did not take long for the question of Canadian values clashing head on with medieval beliefs to erupt when the Globe and Mail on Tuesday reported on how a number of Muslim families in Toronto had taken their children out of music classes, insisting they 'cannot allow their children to be in the same room where musical instruments are being played'."
"The story revolved around Mohammad Nouman Dasu, a Quran teacher at Scarborough’s Jame Abu Bakr Siddique mosque, who led the campaign to ban Muslim students from being exposed to music.
It wasn’t just him. The senior imam of the mosque, Kasim Ingar, told the Globe and Mail: 'We [Muslims] here believe that music is haram [forbiddenl]. We can neither listen to it, nor can we play a role in it."
"Imam Ingar, who also heads the Scarborough Muslim Association, added: 'We do not compromise with anyone on the clear-cut orders and principles conveyed by the Prophet [Muhammad]'."
Tarek Fatah, Journalist, The Toronto Sun

Dear Prime Minister:
Re: Designating January 29th as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia
On behalf of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), I am writing to you about the upcoming first anniversary of the Quebec City mosque attack that will take place on January 29, 2018.
One year on, Canadian Muslim communities are still reeling from the devastating terrorist attack that claimed the lives of six Muslim men worshipping in their mosque – fathers, husbands and sons – and gravely injured many others. For the first time in Canadian history, a place of worship was targeted by a horrific act of violence solely because the victims were Muslims.
The question on so many minds is how do we prevent such a violent hate-motivated attack targeting Canadian Muslims, or any other religious community, from ever occurring again?
With the rise of far-right extremist groups that continue to threaten the safety of Canadian Muslim institutions and congregations, it is critical that our elected leaders stand firmly against Islamophobia and the agents of bigotry who aim to foment hateful division between Canadians and their fellow Muslim citizens. We must not allow voices of hate, even ones that may initially appear to be on the margins, to permeate our public discourse and damage our social fabric.
As you have eloquently stated, in these difficult times we must always remember the bonds of unity as Canadians and protect the diverse and open nature of our society.
To that end, we call on your government to designate, by order-in-council or by proclamation, January 29th as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia, on or before the first anniversary. This call is supported by a host of other Canadian Muslim organizations and community partners, listed below.
Such a designation will enable Canadians to collectively remember the victims of the attack and to enhance public education about the perils of hate, bigotry and Islamophobia.
We look forward to your response to this important issue. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ihsaan Gardee
Executive Director
National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM)

Azzedine Najd and his wife Fadwa Achmaoui look at the memorial near the site of a fatal shooting at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City on January 31, 2017. Reuters/Mathieu Belanger

One thing invariably leads to another ... give them an inch and they'll ask for a mile ... these old adages in observation of human nature and group identity agendas have never rung more true than with Islamic organizations and groups within non-Muslim societies agitating for exceptional recognition reflecting the very reality which they set conveniently aside, that Muslims following strict Koranic codas are never amenable to living under secular laws that prevail in most non-Muslim countries. 

Groups that argue they speak in the name of national Muslim communities such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims (CAIR Canada) which once urged for Sharia law to be recognized and given equal status to Canadian law, and which later orchestrated a motion brought by Liberal MP Iqra Khalid to parliament to "condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination", and to follow up by mounting a government study to document hate crimes against Muslims in Canada, now have another goal.

The NCCM or as it was once known before a name change, as CAIRCan, has written a request to the prime minister to have the federal government declare January 29 to be the first anniversary of an attack on a Quebec City mosque that killed six worshippers and injured others, naming it a "National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia". This is the same group that obligingly gave the 'appropriate' wording to a definition of Islamophobia for the Toronto District School Board's guidebook to Islamic Heritage Month.

You might ask why the Toronto District School Board would even have a guidebook to Islamic Heritage, much less recognize a month set aside for that purpose. But doing so would reveal your ignorance about the power of lobbying, and the overwhelming aura of political correctness that has assailed all educational institutions in Canada, from elementary schools up to post-secondary institutions, identifying any who question Islamic precepts and Muslim behaviour as "racist".

In the Muslim community anywhere in the world there are notable instances of 'honour' bullying and sometimes killing of girls and women who have disobeyed the injunction to be 'modest', to cover their hair with a hijab, not to associate with boys or men other than family, for to do so is seen as dissolute, dishonourable, injurious to the reputation of the family, the tribe, the religion and the culture. But the Muslim community takes umbrage at mention of any such atrocities.

Just as it gathers itself indignantly into victimhood when the connection is made as it must be, between Islam and injunctions to jihad leading to terrorist attacks both within the Islamic community when sectarian brutalities and killings occur, and without the Islamic community targeting the West, its culture, its politics its values, its very existence in martyrdom attacks. To mention any connection between Islam and terrorism is tantamount to Islamophobia, racism, discriminatory hatred writ large.

Why it has been so relatively simple a task for groups such as the NCCM to guilt Western societies into silence over Islamist excesses and violent attacks is one of those mysterious episodes of human nature gone awry, that those who have much to answer for insist that others do the answering. Canada acknowledges with sincere empathetic sorrow that a sole individual acted on a psychotic impulse to enter a mosque and kill worshippers.

This horrific event represents a one-off; not a terrorist attack, but an attack by someone clearly unhinged for reasons unknown to the public. And this man will stand trial for his dreadful misdeed, but the entire population of the country has no need to do penance, at the behest of the NCCM. Remembrance of the event will be sharp within the Muslim community, and it will fade within the rest of society as other wretched events move in to take its place in our consciousness.

The NCCM is Islamic-centric and it is understandable they wish to keep their memory alive. Due to their agenda to make inroads into the Canadian consciousness, politics, society at large to view Islam as exceptional, a memory fog would be well suited to make Islamist crimes against society opaque and forgotten, while the view of Islam as a martyr to non-Muslim misunderstanding of it as a religion of peace requires the rectification of highlighting the Muslim community as persecuted.

It is not, necessarily, any more than the gay community, the Jewish community, the Black community and the Asian community. The latest figures released by Statistics Canada register a diminished number of anti-Muslim events in Canada, while anti-Semitic incidences have risen. In no small part due to the venom expressed by the increasing number of Muslims who migrate to Canada bringing with them their tradition of anti-Semitism bolstered by passages in the Koran, refreshed at Friday mosque sermons.