Co-Opting Canada for Islam

"[The] Islamophobia industry [is enabled by] self-proclaimed Muslim dissidents, reformers and ex-Muslims [who] act as instigators and propagators of anti-Islamic narratives as well as validating and authorizing the circulation of these tropes."

"[I have] comprehensively outlined the machinations of Canada's Islamophobia industry."

"[Moderate Muslims and mainstream Jewish organizations] share political and ideological mandates that involve the demonization and vilification of Islam and Muslims and often work in concert to foment controversies and spread Islamophobic narratives and conspiracy theories."

Jasmine Zine, Professor, Sociology and Muslim Studies Option, Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario

BDS protesters at McGill University FILE PHOTO

 

Religious studies professors, sociology professors,  history professors, they dominate increasingly in Western institutes of higher learning, and bring to academia and to the public, their perspective and narratives focusing on the legitimacy of Islam as a religion of peace, while painting with a broad brush of Islamic condemnation any individual or group that dares point out that Islam today represents offshoots of extreme religious devotion wreaking havoc worldwide as Muslim terrorist groups.

Fundamentalist ideologically-driven fanatics on a mission to force the greater Muslim population to a more 'pure' and authentic vision of Islam excising all the relaxed, Western- and democracy-ringed versions of the original that may blur the stark distinction of Islamic values, precepts and mores from those of any other religion, laws, cultures or value systems. In the process, to demonstrate just how serious they are, these groups known more familiarly as Islamist terrorists rampage through non-Muslim and Muslim societies alike, intent on vengeance against those failing to place Islam on the pedestal demanded for it.

In a country like Canada which, like any other has its home-grown bigots and racists, but which is not even marginally culturally and socially racist, the current government has been pleased to demonstrate its progressive credentials by describing Canada as a 'racist country', and with this attitude from the executive branch of the federal government, it is hardly surprising that Muslim academics feel free to slander the country and to accuse Canadians of anti-Islam bias described as "Islamophobia", a term coined by the Muslim Brotherhood after the public impact and reaction stemming from the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.

Even more shocking is the presence of a growing number of mosques throughout Canada, reflecting the growing number of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East bringing their social culture, religious devotion and Islam-inspired system of justice with them, and where in the mosques incendiary messages of hatred against others are frequently spewed. It has been those messages that have been responsible for recruiting Muslims to the concept of jihad, persuading some to go abroad to fight alongside terror groups like Islamic State.

Yet with all this activity of fanatical Muslim terrorists cutting a swath through the Middle East and Africa with their agenda of slaughtering non-Muslims and Muslims alike in the performance of their martyrdom missions in jihad, people like sociology professor Zine feel free to preach against "Islamophobia", condemning the general population, both non-Muslim and moderate Muslim who abhor the violence engendered by some of the Islamic texts and hadiths along with interpretations of the Koran inimical to peace between people, as "Islamophobia".

Professor Zine recently released a report she titled The Canadian Islamophobia Industry: Mapping Islamophobia's Ecosystem in the Great White North, where she gives insights into "how Islamophobia manifests and is purveyed: in Canada"; a totally skewed perspective of anti-Msulim bigotry in Canada, besmirching wide groups of people as racist, inclusive of Canadian Muslims who practise a moderate Islam. 

Raheel Raza, president of the Council of Muslims Facing Tomorrow, a rational, intelligent and moderate movement within Canada representing the interests of integrated Muslim-Canadians, has been singled out by Professor Zine for special condemnation. Raheel Raza points out that the term "Islamophobia" has no clear definition, unlike the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's antisemitism definition; clear and concise. She points out that Islamophobia is meant to connote heresy.

Ms. Raza also speaks of the mosques that were found to be spreading radical messages, with links to known terrorist groups, for spreading 9/11 conspiracy theories, for refusing to denounce terrorist attacks; indeed promoting them as reflective of the faithful committing to martyrdom on behalf of upholding Islam's sacred injunction to its faithful to spread the word of Islam, committing to proselytizing. What also takes place is hateful attacks against others in the community. 'Solitarity with Palestinians' sees radical groups in Canada mounting slanderous attacks against Israel and Canadian Jews.

 

Children hold anti-Israel signs at the al-Quds Day at the Alberta Legislative grounds in Edmonton (Credit: Facebook: Radical Citizen Media)

The BDS movement, Israel Apartheid Week and Al-Quds Day creates divisions between Canadians of various origins and cultural heritage. Islamists in Canada have infiltrated Canadian universities, as student groups mount verbal and violent conflicts against their Jewish counterparts. Muslims are prone to complaining about Islamophobia and attacks against Islam and Muslims in Canada, yet as Statistics Canada and police reports point out, Jews are the single most-persecuted religious/ethnic group in Canada through antisemitic attacks, followed by Blacks, and then Muslims. And it is Muslims who lead the way to antisemitic attacks.

Al-Quds Day Rally in Toronto, 2022. (Credit: B'nai Brith Canada)

Viva 'Progressive' Canada!

"The federal government must recognize the exclusive role provinces and territories have over the management of our non-renewable natural resource development or risk creating a Constitutional crisis."
"[Bill C-48 in particular] will have detrimental effects on national unity."
"Bill C-69, as originally drafted, would make it virtually impossible to develop critical infrastructure, depriving Canada of much-needed investment."
"Our [provincial] governments are deeply concerned with the federal government’s disregard, so far, of the concerns raised by our provinces related to these bills. As it stands, the federal government appears indifferent to the economic hardships faced by provinces."
"Immediate action to refine or eliminate these bills is needed to avoid further alienating provinces and their citizens and focus on uniting the country in support of Canada’s economic prosperity."

"Our five provinces and territory stand united and strongly urge the government to accept Bill C-69 as amended by the Senate, in order to minimize the damage to the Canadian economy."
"We would encourage the government of Canada and all members of the House of Commons to accept the full slate of amendments to the bill."

Premiers Doug Ford (Ontario), Blaine Higgs (New Brunswick), Brian Pallister (Manitoba), Scott Moe (Saskatchewan), Jason Kenney (Alberta), Robert McLeod (Northwest Territories)

"I think it's absolutely irresponsible for conservative premiers to be threatening our national unity if they don't get their way." 
"The fundamental job of any Canadian prime minister is to hold this country together."
"Anyone who wants to be prime minister, like Andrew Scheer [leader of the Conservative official opposition], needs to condemn those attacks on national unity."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has no one to blame but himself for the current strains on national unity."
"He has claimed the fundamental responsibility of any Prime Minister is to bring the country together yet his actions point to the contrary."
"He’s pushing legislation widely criticized by most provinces, industry groups, prospective investors in Canada and Indigenous leaders as clear violation of provincial jurisdiction and a profound threat to [the] future of natural resource development, economic growth and prosperity in our country."
"His government’s legislative actions have caused more division in Canada than we have seen for years, and today’s comments only further inflame those tensions."
Jason Kenny, Premier, Alberta 

The Hibernia platform in Newfoundland's offshore is one of the province's offshore facilities. (HMDC)

Well, actually, it's not just Conservative premiers -- who represent over fifty percent of all Canadians -- and whose provinces' natural resources have buoyed the Canadian economy since Confederation that have run afoul of the federal Liberal government's action plan on the environment clashing head on with resource development, since signatories to a previous letter sent to Trudeau were former Liberal premier Rachel Notley, and leader of the Alberta Liberals, David Khan. Furthermore, an Angus Reid poll found 50 percent of Albertans are so enraged over the federal government's stance on resource development in the oilfields they would support secession.

In Saskatchewan, over half the population would consider secession, according to an Environics poll, reflecting the evisceration of both provinces' plans for petroleum resource development that have gone awry as international investment has dried up in response to the federal government's slow and steady withdrawal from support of the oil industry, not to mention its deep-sixing of critical oil pipelines to deepwater ports for export abroad, preferentially leaving Canada's huge oil deposits untouched, a gift to strident environmentalists who prefer it that way.

A sign is located near a Trident Exploration natural gas well near the community of Didsbury, Alta. Trident blamed low commodity prices and a lack of export pipeline capacity, among other reasons, for shutting down this week. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

The wealth generated to date by the oil and gas industries in Canadian provinces, including Newfoundland and Labrador, and particularly Alberta for many decades in tax transfers to the federal government paid the lion's share of 'equalization payments' to Canada's so-called 'have-not' provinces to ensure that all provinces in Canada would be able to offer equal services to all Canadians no matter where they live. With the Liberal government's steady encroachment on the Alberta government's responsibility for its natural resources, and its continual imposition of new environmental bills effectively halting extraction and pipeline activities, employment has plummeted and revenues along with it.

Lacking efficient export capabilities leaving Alberta to the use of trains to transport fuel to market rather than pipeline transfer, has made the province vulnerable to accepting pricing well below market value, a huge loss both for the province and for federal coffers for a government which has been profligate in other measures of spending for social welfare programs. Much like Quebec which has ever since equalization payments have been handed out, receiving the largest percentage of transfer payments to any province, enabling it to provide social programs far in excess of its own prosperity level.

Little wonder the petroleum product provinces are up in arms over the injustices they are now undergoing at the hands of the federal government. Justin Trudeau's agenda has been underhandedly undertaken, and it has impoverished the provinces that have been the engines of economic growth for the nation. He has alienated western populations by ignoring the needs of their provincial governments and putting huge numbers of people employed in the petroleum industry out of work. He is single-handedly managing to reverse the prosperity that Canada's potential promises.

And he has the unmitigated gall to charge those provinces' leaders with harming Canada's interests, with injuring national unity. We have this Liberal government to thank for social-improvement projects so dear to 'progressives' where euthanasia is now legal in Canada, as is the gateway drug to harder drug consumption at a time when the country is reeling under the ubiquity of overdose deaths, and where divisions have taken place in society over the narcissistic 'feminist' imperatives of Justin Trudeau.

A government which hands out millions in tax dollars to Islamist jihadis, and grants citizenship to convicted terrorists, while refusing summer employment funding to any organizations failing to unreservedly support abortion with no restrictions, and penalizing those in academia who refuse to use gender-neutral language in reference to LGBTQ2 demands. More, much more, all of it headache-inducing and heart-breaking for a unified Canada.

Do Unto Others....

"It was really a night of horror. We went to all the hospitals. We thought maybe he was under the wrong name, because he didn't bring his ID for the quick trip to the mosque."
"In the end, it was only at 4 o'clock the next afternoon that we got the confirmation that he had died. And it was as if our lives turned upside down."
"My father was totally passionate about his scientific work. But behind the man of science was a man with a really great sense of humour."
"Hate blinds us, so we don't see clearly anymore and we think that the other person is the enemy. When really, he or she is just a person like  you. They're a human being with faults and qualities, goals and achievements, with their own story."
"So the lesson is that, for example, we wrongly think that all Muslims are Islamists, but here we have a clear example of people who lost their lives but they weren't Islamic extremists. They were just ordinary citizens."
"I dare to hope that it was just an isolated act. I dare to hope that having seen this horror, which was so widely publicized, it will affect people's perceptions."
Megda Belkacemi, 28, Quebec  City lawyer

The police officers emerge suddenly from the mosque carrying a body toward the paramedics. There is a bullet wound in his head. No pulse. (Mathieu Belanger/Reuters)

One's heart goes out to this woman who lost her father last year in a random, single-attacker act of brutal, incoherent violence when a 18-year-old university student , Alexandre Bissonnette, launched his personal hatred against Muslim Quebecers at prayer at the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Centre mosque, killing six people and injuring another 19 worshippers, the attack that killed Ms. Belkacemi's father, university professor Khaled Belkacemi of Universite Laval, the same university that the attacker attended.

The 10,000-member Muslim community of the city was understandably traumatized.The entire community of the city, non-Muslims and Muslims alike, reacted in disbelieving shock. And sympathy was extended to the Muslim community from all quarters, from municipal and provincial and federal authorities, to other faith congregations, to ordinary people on the street, their neighbours in mourning. Empathy at such times has healing powers. Everyone said they would dedicate themselves to combating hate.

But then polls indicating adverse views of Muslims in Quebec "bumped back up when we re-engaged discussions about the niqab" (full face veil), according to president of the Association for Canadian Studies, Jack Jedwab. "No matter how you slice it, these debates that we have around values are a catalyst for building on people's negative sentiments", he elaborated. In October, Quebec's Bill 62, barring people who conceal their faces from giving or receiving government services, and debates over the rights of religious minorities commenced anew.

"This obsession with focusing on the religious clothing has really harmed our community because it really tends to exacerbate the differences, versus highlighting all the similarities and all the joint sentiments of community-building and wanting to participate equally in our societies", stated Amira Elghawaby who volunteers with DawaNet, a Muslim group based in Mississauga, Ontario which has provided Quebec City Muslims affected by the mosque attack, with support. She is also the the former director of communications at the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

A Hamas flag carried by an anti-Israel demonstrator on Parliament Hill, July 22, 2014 (Photo: Martin Sampson)

The National Council of Canadian Muslims was formerly known as CAIRCan, an affiliate of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) in the United States, an influential lobbying group with connections to the Muslim Brotherhood whom they support, and with Hamas for whom fundraising was carried out. As a U.S. court had it: "The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine ("IAP"), and with Hamas." Under Canadian and American law, Hamas is a designated terrorist organization.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims, along with its American parent, promote the fiction of "Islamophobia" to counter any questions relating to their mission in the West, their values and their adherence to Sharia law. Any individual or group questioning Islam and its jihadist tradition, particularly in view of the decades of terrorist attacks that have accompanied the migration of Muslims to the West and the dysfunctional breakdown in Muslim-majority countries with the incursion of fundamentalist Islam, is shamed, blamed and named as "Islamophobic". 

"I thought that after January 29, 2017 [date of the attack on the Quebec City mosque], the racist atmosphere would decrease. But on the contrary, it has exploded."
"Movements that used to be hidden, like La Meute, now march openly in the streets and appear in the media."
"The massacre has had a paradoxical effect. I expected things to calm down, especially after the extraordinary support we [the Muslim community] received from the public in the days that followed, which still continues. But instead, we're seeing these racist groups come out into the open."
Rachid Raffa, 68, former president of the Quebec City mosque

They see two more lifeless bodies. The prayer room is thick with white smoke and the acrid smell of gunpowder. (Francis Vachon/Canadian Press)

On the other hand, when groups of Muslims attend rallies or protest marches, Hamas flags can be seen along with placards urging boycott-divestment of Israel. At such protests posters slandering Israel and Jews as oppressors and killers of Palestinian children are commonly seen. Muslims and those identifying as supporters of the Palestinians at Canadian universities mount verbal and physical attacks against their Jewish student counterparts. They are not labelled Judeophobes, though their anti-Semitism is recognized and deplored -- by Jews.

The Muslims thus engaged are sending their own messages of racism and hatred, the very actions they rail against that they insist they are victims of. They point out rising incidents of "Islamophobia", and yet Statistics Canada has registered a decrease of anti-Muslim incidents, while those targeting Jews has seen a marked increase. Anti-Semitic incidents in Canada, as elsewhere in the West where Muslims have migrated increasingly toward, are on a definite rising curve, reflecting the impact that Islam has on its relations with non-Muslims and Jews.

"It was a terrible shock and we kept wondering 'Why us? Why us?'. We're just citizens who live quietly. We don't do harmful acts to society. On the contrary, we're builders, we're hard-wrking people. Why did it happen to us?' When you connect a Muslim with international situations, you start to see that person as a monster. We need to make ourselves better known, to show what we bring to society, in terms of work, in terms of culture, in terms of recreation, and as dynamic participants."

"We're working very hard to answer that quest, 'Why us? Why did our bodies come under a hail of bullets? When we meet people, we feel they sympathize with us over January 29. People come and shake our hands in the street or at the shopping centre. It's not all of society that is racist and Islamophobic, no, no, it's just a very small portion. But that small portion makes a lot more noise than the silent majority that is kind, that is good, that consists of normal citizens."
Boufeldja Benabdallah, co-founder of the Quebec City mosque

Well, facts speak otherwise, in fact. Muslim youths are disproportionately taking up space in Canadian prisons for common crimes of violence, drug and weapons smuggling, gang activities and murder. And in the prisons their brand of Islam leaning toward murder and mayhem finds a ready recruiting audience. Mr. Benabdallah expresses mystification over reactions to Muslims in society and that in and of itself is mystifying, given their disruptive actions in petty and not-so-petty criminal activity, in agitating for terrorist groups, in discriminating against other members of society and bringing their hostile attitudes toward Jews from their countries of origin to the countries they migrate to.

There appears to be little introspection amongst Canadian Muslims in the aggregate, but for a small core of Muslims who do what they can to rescue Islam from the dungeon of despair in the actions of the fundamentalists who are easy recruits to jihad and terrorism. Speaking of those who question Islam, who take umbrage at the very notion that Canada needs a national anti "Islamophobia" day, and to criminalize "Islamophobia" speaks to the agenda of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's unstinting efforts to persuade the United Nations to make it a crime to practise "Islamophobia".

When Muslims speak of racism and anti-Muslim sentiments and label those who relate Islam with the endless tide of jihadist attacks and terrorist atrocities taking place around the world, "Islamophobia" they make use of a tool of those like the Muslim Brotherhood -- another outlawed organization recognized for their terrorist roots and incitements -- to 'guilt' touchy-feely Westerners who cringe at being identified as anti-Muslim or racist, and in the process force upon them the self-defence of attempting to mollify and concede and intervene and support.

Much Ado About "Islamophobia" 

"This fake Islamic hijab is nothing but a political prop, a weapon of visual terrorism. It is the symbol of a totalitarian ideology inspired more by Nazism and Communism than by Islam. It is as symbolic of Islam as the Mao uniform was of Chinese civilization."
"[The hijab] is a sign of support for extremists who wish to impose their creed, first on Muslims, and then on the world through psychological pressure, violence, terror, and, ultimately, war."
Amir Taheri, author, activist, Islamic issues, Toronto

Khawlah Noman, 11,  accompanied by her brother Mohammad Zakarijja and their mother Saima Samad as she recalls a man slicing her hijab as she and her sibling walked to Pauline Johnson Public School in Scarborough on Friday, Jan. 12, 2018.   Stan Behal/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

"I turned around and I saw him with his scissors. I screamed."
"This is terrible and I do not like it. I felt confused, scared, terrified."
"What you're doing [the attacker] is really wrong, you should not act like this, and especially, I'm a kid."
Khawlah Noman, 11, 6th Grade student, Pauline Johnson Public School, Scarborough

This young girl concocted a story that she was beset by a young Asian wielding a knife that he used to slash her hijab. She informed police that she had been walking to school with her younger brother when the attack occurred, leading her when the man withdrew after she screamed, to cross the street to walk within a stream of other students approaching the school. And even so, she said, the man made yet another attempt to slash her hijab once more. When she arrived at school she informed her teacher.

Did no one, the teacher, the school principal, the police who responded, ask for collaboration by witnesses of what the girl had described? Had her brother seen anything amiss; what did he do when he heard his sister scream? As for the other children among whom she had inserted herself only to be attacked for a second time, what did they see and hear? The girl's statement as quoted above appears rehearsed, as in 'especially I'm a kid'.

Any whiff in the public sphere of an incident described as "Islamophobia" gets instant media attention. Bearing in mind that the very presence of purported "Islamophobia" is the Muslim response to the general non-Muslim's perception that Islam is a rather dubious religion of peace when its adherents run about as committed jihadists prepared to martyr themselves taking with them for presentation in Paradise proof they have killed those deserving to die.

What would inspire an 11-year-old girl to portray herself as a social martyr to the threats that boil all around her in Toronto by "Islamophobists" searching out opportunities to prey on innocent little Muslim girls? There is much made of the prevalence of anti-Muslim slurs and actions in society, but are they as serious and as numerous as Muslim communities attest them to be? Was this girl coached in her actions to elicit public sympathy for the plight of Muslims, beleaguered and detested?

According to the latest figures from Statistics Canada hate crimes committed against Muslims have decreased, and on the other hand hate crimes against Jews have risen. This episode of a young girl purportedly being assaulted in Toronto was highlighted in news media across the world. The BBC was right up there, yet a story about a Jewish schoolgirl in Paris having had her face slashed made news only in Jewish publications and the occasional mainstream media brief.

In the United States, according to A. Z. Mohamed, writing in online Gatestone: "Since 1992... anti-Semitic incidents have been higher than those perpetrated against other groups... To this day, the greatest number of reported religion-based hate crimes have been directed at Jews, and the second greatest against Muslims... in 2015... there was a sharp rise in religion-based hate crimes, particularly against Islam and Muslims. Yet even then, Jews were 2.38 times more likely than Muslims to become victims of a hate crime."

As for the United Kingdom, anti-Semitic hate crimes registered at the highest recorded level ever in 2016 with 1,078 offenses, in comparison to 938 events in 2015. According to the Guardian, the Metropolitan Police (MET) recorded "1,260 incidents of Islamophobic hate crime in the 12 months to March 2017" in London alone. And it is interesting to note that the MET's definition of "Islamophobia" is exceedingly all-embracing. To the point where Islamophobia is present when:

1. Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.
2. Islam is seen as separate and 'other'. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.
3. Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist.
4. Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a 'clash of civilisations'.
5. Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political or military advantage.
6. Criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of hand.
7. Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society
8. Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.

Nowhere does it mention that most of the attacks committed against Jews are incited by Muslims, a situation which has made life untenable for Jews in France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Austria and anywhere else that Jews have lived for hundreds of years as integrated members of their adoptive society, as a result of a later influx of Muslims to those countries as immigrants, refugees and economic migrants.

In Canada, police reported 20 fewer reported hate crimes than in 2015 against Muslims in 2016 for a total of 139. The decrease in police-reported hate crimes against Muslims was the result of fewer reported incidents in Quebec (-16), Alberta (-8) and Ontario (-6). In contrast, hate crimes against the Jewish population grew from 178 to 221 incidents. Increases were seen in Ontario (+31), Quebec (+11) and Manitoba (+7). Figures supplied by Statistics Canada.

Victimhood Where None Exists : Islamophobia Charges and Gullible Fools

"The university has not had a case whee someone has had their headdress targeted."
"Our expectation is that they [hijab kits made available by the university's concerned student union] won't have to be used."
Janet Bryson, Spokesperson, Dalhousie University

"There is a level of identity and safety that comes with a head covering so when that is taken away, it puts someone in a vulnerable position."
"To then have to speak with security or police [as in filing a report of a purported attack] could be re-traumatizing."
Clark MacIntosh, Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group

"I've heard many Muslim women talking about their hijab being yanked, spat on, or even pulled right off."
"Sometimes you don't even notice it, like you're in class and someone will spit on you from behind and you don't realize it until you're fixing your hijab."
"It's the most demeaning behaviour."
Masuma Khan, Dalhousie student executive member

"We were hearing about safety concerns from Muslim students across campus", explained Dalhousie Student Union president Amina Abawajy and this would be the reason why the student union is offering emergency hijab kits. To restore modesty and a feeling of security to those women on campus who have experienced having their head coverings ostensibly rudely pulled away and span upon.

"Walking down the streets, I have people telling me not to bomb them and to go home," she said. On the other hand, she said some people welcome her to Canada, even though she was born in the country. "It seems innocent and welcoming, but what that says is that you don't look like you could be Canadian. I already heard a lot of positive feedback from the community, and personally I do feel safe knowing that these are in places such as security. We are excited that communities are stepping up and ensuring that Muslims are feeling safe."

Amina Abawajy, president of the Dalhousie University Student Union, which is now offering 'emergency hijab kits,' says she knows a number of women on campus who have told her they were victims of violence, but few decide to tell school officials. (Steve Lawrence/CBC)

The university, on the other hand, is puzzled, totally unaware that any such anti-Muslim-garb incidents have occurred. That being the case, they are further puzzled as to the need for such kits. Aren't they listening? Muslim students are being made to feel inferior, not wanted, their visible religious symbol of modesty in attaching themselves to the culture of differentiation and exceptionalism is being blasphemed!

And because of an obviously rising attitude leaning toward Islamophobia on campus, this hijab campaign has been initiated. Self-defense. It is the Muslim student community defending itself, fighting back against bigotry and hatred. Meant to make Muslim women feel safer and at the same time raising general awareness of hate crimes committed against Muslims. Harassment and violence committed against Muslim women is a vile occurrence that must be met with defiance.

The Muslim students are not alone in their lonely battle for equality and respect. The Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group has aligned with the women in designing the kit meant to be available to Muslim women who have been attacked, who have had their hijabs violently yanked off their heads. The kit comes complete with fabric, pins, tips for bystanders, a how-to guide for wrapping the hijab along with phone numbers to report such crimes.

Instructions to Muslim women, detailing how to use the hijab? Theoretically in accessing the hijab kit they are replacing their own hijab that has been stolen from them in an attack. What need would they have for sch an instruction? Tips for bystanders? Such as do the right thing and don't just stand there when a woman is being harassed or attacked ... since when do bystanders need that advice?

Surprisingly, given the confident and condemning declaration identifying Dalhousie University with a rising climate of intimidation, harassment and violence arising out of a generalized spirit of Islamophobia, none of the kits has yet been requested. As for the Halifax police who should of course be vigilant and prepared to react to such allegations of targeted violence and religious bigotry, they appear not to be.

But, as Mr. MacIntosh explained, access to these emergency hijab kits may help women feel more confident enabling them to report hate crimes they experience or witness. Even though a Halifax Regional Police spokeswoman advised she was completely unaware of any incidents such as those being described, since none have been reported.

No reports to the university administration, no reports to police, but ample condemnation of the 18,900 students attending the university who are not Muslim.

The emergency hijab kits include a piece of fabric, pins, a small guide on how to wrap the hijab and important numbers for reporting crimes. (Steve Lawrence/CBC)