Download Barbieri, William A

Memory, Belonging and Identity: Crosssections of
Muslim Canadian Existence after 9/11
Nergis Canefe, Ph.D
Department of Political Science, York University
(prepared for the Memory and Migration Workshop,
September 14-16 2006, York University)
Abstract:
What is it like to be a Muslim living in the West in
general, and in Canada in particular today? How
different is the current Canadian experience in
comparison with that of the Muslims who lived in
Western countries one or two generations ago?
Could we talk about a unified ‘Muslim experience’ in
the West with reference to the 'war on terror' political
rhetoric and practices, or, are there noteworthy
differences among the Muslim communities that
should be taken into account in judging their present
predicament as a wide-spread religious minority?
This paper attempts to answer some of these
questions with reference to the life-stories,
experiences and traumatic memories of refugee
1
scholars and public figures who arrived in Canada in
their adulthood. It then re-contextualizes these
experience within the larger framework of who
Muslims are perceived and treated by the Canadian
society at large, and how at odds the refugee
experience can be with these generic perceptions of
what a Muslim looks like, behaves like, and what
Muslim Canadians can contribute to the society
above and beyond their communal commitments.
The paper acknowledges the fact that historically,
this is not the first time that conflicts have arisen
between Muslims in the West and the societies within
which they came to constitute minorities. Neither are
Muslims the only minorities, or indeed a diaspora in
the making, that suffer from public scrutiny, legal
discrimination, and societal pressure. However, the
work presented here is indicative of the phenomenon
that there are novel dimensions to the way that
Muslims are treated across all Western democracies
despite local variations and internal differences. This
monochromic treatment, in turn, proves particularly
costly for refugees with traumatic memories accrued
in traditionally Muslim societies and who risked their
lives to ensure change in their original homeland as
well as a new understanding of minority membership
in their adopted one.
2
Introduction
This paper aims to explore aspects of transnational
identity formation among Muslim refugees and
migrants in Canada. I agree with the current
interdisciplinary agreement that a process that can be
dubbed as ‘transnational identity formation’ is indeed
taking place in the diaspora. However, my work
also contends that there are aspects of the local and
the contextual settings, in particular the conditions
regarding the reception of migrant communities, and,
the legislation and protection of minority rights that
directly affect the lives of Muslims in the West. As
such, these are at least as important as the
transnational dimension and should be addressed
accordingly. The visibility of Muslims in the public
eye, choices available for different communities and
individuals in terms of their economical, political,
social and cultural livelihood, and, what kinds of
struggles they have to endure in order to be regarded
as full and participants citizens are key aspects of
identity formation, or perhaps better stated as
reformulation, of Muslims in Canada.
3
In this work, the rethinking of this complex web of
relations between homeland, diaspora and identity is
rendered possible through an explicit focus on how
memory guides political and social action as well as
an individual’s sense of what it means to be an ethnoreligious and in come cases also a racial minority.
Assumptions of a shared sense of ethnic
consciousness, a sense of distinctiveness, common
history, the belief in a common religious and a
sustained perception of the homeland left behind do
not always apply when the minority in question is
defined across national, cultural, regional, linguistic,
gender and class lines. In the following pages, I will
also explore the concept of integration and the way it
can function both as a source of privilege as well as
a source of discrimination.
Fear of Muslims, Islamophobia, is embedded in
stereotypical assumptions and pronouncements
regarding selected customs and, above all, the
presumably uniform fanatical or violent tendencies of
Muslim leaders and their followers. The most crucial
point of Islamophobia is the claim that these
supposed alien qualities and attributes will eventually
come to be implanted in the Western body politic
itself unless liberal democracies take urgent
precautions. Meanwhile, those who suffer most
directly from such prejudiced practices are not only
4
pious Muslims who entertain a strong communal
vision. This antagonistic vision according to which
Muslim minorities are depicted as intrinsically
antithetical to the Western democratic ethos hits
perhaps the hardest those who struggled for the
establishment of democratic practices back in their
home countries and arrived to Canada and elsewhere
in the Western world as political refugees.
Interestingly, in the development of a Muslim civic
consciousness in Western liberal systems, this latter
group is as vocal and dedicated as the clerics,
community activists and leaders, albeit the fact that
their numbers are substantially smaller. Far from
revealing ambiguous loyalties or unbridgeable
cultural chasms, those who carry the burden of a very
painful memory of their homeland from which they
were exiled tend to explore new forms of
multiculturalism while working through complex
networks of global human rights advocacy at the
transnational level. As such, they pose a challenge
both to the old-fashioned compartmentalized model
of multiculturalism, and, to the new take on Muslim
minorities as threats to liberal democracy.
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Are Canadian Muslims a Diaspora?
The concept of 'diaspora' indeed seems to provide a
relevant framework for making sense of current
formations of identity and political strategies in the
context of contemporary flows of migration.
However, a critical overview of the evolution of the
concept reveals that religious minorities do not by
their nature constitute diasporas. Instead, it is more
accurate to argue that Muslim minorities in Western
democracies today are reshaping their identities and
gradually forming interwoven but multiple diasporas
rather than always functioning as a unified and wellorganized one. The developments in interpretation of
the religious sources (ijtihad) demonstrated by the
dynamic conflict in the reinterpretations of the
Quranic Revelation among Muslim minorities in the
West is certainly an important aspect of this ongoing
process. However, equally relevant is the adaptation
as well as questioning of traditional modes of
behaviour carried over from home countries as
immigrants and refugees face new sets of social
issues and individual dilemmas leading to the
questioning of the possibility of a complete
consistency between established belief and normative
behaviour patterns. This latter kind of complexity
finds its best expression in the creation of new forms
of subjectivity through the development of collective
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memories pertaining to one’s religious identity as
well as one’s homeland. In this, members of Muslim
'communities' stumble against the acceptance of the
legitimacy of internal as well as external/inter-group
pluralism. This struggle is directly reflected in the
tensions that arise during the controversies that take
place amongst the secular or at least privately
religious public intellectuals, and, movements and
organizations whose leaderships strive for control of
codes of meaning and symbolic boundaries that
define migrants who primarily arrived from countries
where the majority religion has historically been
Islam.
Diaspora, as a venerated concept, has a strong
presence in our current political and intellectual
discourses also because it refers to things we do not
feel equipped to come to terms with yet. However,
the deployment of diaspora as an analytical category
in explaining aspects of the contemporary
immigration experience does come with a multitude
of problems. Focusing peculiarly on the ethnoreligious axis of homelands and abroad, theories of
diaspora tend to overlook the necessary
transgressions of the national. They can also easily
lose sight of the new dynamics and topography of
membership in recipient states and hybrid forms of
membership. Perhaps a more productive perspective
7
can be achieved by focusing on specific practices that
provide the content for current practices of
citizenship and membership in Western democratic
political communities. I suggest this in the light of
the increasing decoupling of formal rights and
identities, and, in recognition of the increased
tendency towards particularistic claims in public
spheres and their paradoxical legitimation through
universalistic discourses of personhood as opposed to
peoplehood.
However, a further complication arises here due to
the fact that diasporas are commonly assumed to
have unmatched and historically immune political
and mobilizational powers. Organisationally,
diasporas are defined as those conglomerations that
are characterised by a chaordic structure and by a
shared sense of moral co-responsibility. Ultimately,
the expectation is that one would fail to find a
guiding hand, or indeed a command structure that
organises the politics, the protests, the philanthropic
drives, the commemoration ceremonies or the culture
centers. My position in response to such a perception
is that such a take on diasporas is at best a dangerous
romanticization of the concept. This is not to negate
the internal complexity of diasporas or the uneven
patterns of their expansion at an international scale.
However, it is to put things in a historically sensitive
8
and politically engaged context and to give due
weight to political leadership and motivation that
shapes what eventually may emerge as a Canadian
Muslim diasporic identity.
Life Histories to be Attended
Tarek Fatah is a Muslim Canadian journalist, TV
host, political activist, and was a founding member of
the Muslim Canadian Congress. Fatah was a student
who was active in radical politics in the 1960s and
1970s in Pakistan. He was imprisoned under military
governments under the charge of sedition and
suffered extended torture and inhumane treatment as
a result. A biochemist by training, Fatah entered
journalism as a reporter for the Karachi Sun in 1970
and went on to become an investigative journalist for
Pakistani television. He was fired after the coup that
brought Zia Ul-Haq to power and fled to Saudi
Arabia where he lived for a decade. In 1987, he
emigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto. He
became involved in the Ontario new Democratic
Party. Fatah was an NDP candidate in the 1995
provincial election but was unsuccessful. In July
2006, he left the NDP to support Bob Rae's
candidacy for the Liberal Party of Canada's
leadership. In an opinion piece published in Toronto's
Now Magazine, Fatah wrote that he decided to leave
9
the NDP because of the establishment of a "faith
caucus" which he believes will open the way for
religious fundamentalists to enter the party. Since
1996 he has hosted Muslim Chronicle, a Torontobased current affairs discussion show focusing on the
Muslim community. Fatah has interviewed notables
such as journalist Husain Haqqani and author Tariq
Ali on his programme which airs on CITS-TV on
Saturday nights at 10:00 PM. From September 2006,
the Muslim Chronicle has been promoted to the
prime time spot of 8:00 PM on CTS-TV. Fatah has
also written opinion pieces for various newspapers
including TIME Magazine, the Toronto Star, the
National Post and the Globe and Mail.
In 2003, Fatah engaged in a high-profile break with
Irshad Manji in the pages of the Globe and Mail in
which he repudiated the thanks she gave him in the
acknowldgement section of her book The Trouble
with Islam. Fatah wrote of Manji's book that it "is not
addressed to Muslims; it is aimed at making Muslimhaters feel secure in their thinking." Fatah was a
founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress
in 2001 and served as its communications director
and spokesperson until 2006. In this capacity, he has
spoken out against the introduction of Sharia law as
an option for Muslims in civil law in Ontario, has
10
promoted separation of religion and state, social
liberalism in the Muslim community, and endorsed
same-sex marriage. He resigned from the MCC in
August 2006 citing concerns that his high profile as a
socially liberal Muslim had put him and his family at
risk. In 2006, Fatah campaigned to bar the Islamic
cleric Sheikh Abu Yusuf Riyadh Ul-Huq from
entering Canada on a speaking tour. This campaign
added to Fatah's unpopularity with conservative
Muslims. On June 30, 2006, he was named by the
Canadian Islamic Congress's official publication,
Friday Magazine, as one of four leading anti-Islam
figures. The article, penned by CIC leader Mohamed
Elmasry, desribed Fatah as "well known in Canada
for smearing Islam and bashing Muslims." Wahida
Valiante, vice-chair and national vice-president of the
Canadian Islamic Congress told the Globe and Mail
that "Tarek Fatah's views are diametrically opposed
to most Muslims. There is a tremendous amount of
discussion in the community. His point of view
contradicts the fundamentals of Islam." Fatah has
written to the RCMP to complain about the CIC's
article claiming that it "is as close as one can get to
issuing a death threat as it places me as an apostate
and blasphemer."
Fatah has been regularly attacked for his views,
verbally at an Islamic conference in 2003 where
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dozens of young Muslim men mobbed him while a
cleric shouted out that he had insulted the Prophet
Mohammed's name and in 2006 when he was
accosted on Yonge Street by a man who accused him
of being an apostate. His car windows have also been
smashed. On August 4, 2006, Fatah announced on
CBC Radio that he is stepping out of the limelight as
a spokesperson for Liberal Islam.
The organization he played a key role in, the Muslim
Canadian Congress was organized to provide a
voice to Muslims who support a "progressive, liberal,
pluralistic, democratic, and secular society where
everyone has the freedom of religion." The
organization claims to have 300 dues-paying
members. It was formed in March 2002, in the wake
of 9/11 by a group of Toronto area liberal Muslims. It
is the only Muslim organization in Canada to ask for
a "separation of religion and state in all matters of
public policy." The group has gained prominence by
opposing the implementation of Shariah Law in civil
law in Ontario and supporting the country's same-sex
marriage legislation. The group also promotes gender
equality and was involved in organizing a Muslim
prayer session in which the prayers were led by
woman. It has also been critical of Islamic
fundamentalism and has urged the government to ban
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donations to Canadian religious institutions from
abroad arguing that doing so will curb extremism.
Farzana Hassan is the MCC's president since August
2006. The Congress suffered a serious split in the
summer of 2006 when several of its members and
leaders left to form the Canadian Muslim Union.
According to reports, the split occured over questions
of how the group engages with the broader Muslim
community, particularly its position on the arrest of
17 Muslims in the 2006 Toronto terrorism case and
objections to MCC leaders participating in
demonstrations against the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War.
Eight executive members who participated or
supported the demonstrations resigned and formed
the new CMU the next day whose philosophy of
Liberal Islam is similar to the MCC's but with an
intention to work "with and within the Muslim
community".
The MCC is associated with the Progressive Muslim
Union of North America. The Progressive Muslim
Union of North America is a liberal Islamic
organization. The group officially launched on
November 15, 2004 in Manhattan. The Progressive
Muslim Union (PMU) states that its foundation was
the result of almost two years of conversation and
collaboration between a select group of North
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American Muslims who are committed to
representing and renewing our community in all its
social, ideological and political diversity. PMU
members range from deeply religious to totally
secular, sharing in common a commitment to
learning, political and social empowerment, a
commitment to justice and freedom and a concern
and love for the Muslim community. The group is
led by its two co-chairs, Pamela Taylor and Ahmed
Nassef.
The PMU, however, remains as a controversial
organization. PMU's definition of Muslim (including
"based on social and cultural commitments"
according to PMU's principles) differs radically from
the usual Islamic definition, which is mainly based on
faith. While some Muslims on the far left have
accused it of cozying up to pro-Bush Administration
personalities,
conservative
Muslims
are
uncomfortable with its liberal positions, which
include a call to jettison those parts of traditional
Islamic scholarship that are seen as wrong according
to Western mores, as well as a call by some to
"reform" Islam by ignoring those parts of the Qur'an
that seem archaic. Other Muslims objected to the call
by some PMUNA members to define atheists with
cultural or social affinities to Muslims as "Muslims."
14
A number of the original Board members departed
the Progressive Muslim Union in the summer of 2005
due to an inability to reach agreement on a number of
controversial issues, most notably the degree to
which Progressives should engage more conservative
Muslim organizations and scholars. Former Board
members Omid Safi and Laury Silvers continue to
support Progressive interpretations of Islam outside
of PMU but taking more tradition-oriented approach.
These differences came to a head in March 2005,
when PMU endorsed a mixed-gender prayer led by a
woman imam, Professor Amina Wadud. The prayer
was co-sponsored by the progressive Muslim online
magazine Muslim WakeUp! and Asra Nomani's
Muslim Women's Freedom Tour. The event, which
was attended by about 150 congregants in New York
City and heavily covered by international media,
became a huge controversy, galvanizing both
supporters and detractors around the world.
Opponents, in particular M. A. Muqtedar Khan,
argued that reform should be restricted to social
matters, not matters of worship. Supporters, however,
asserted that nothing in the Qur'an, the Muslim holy
scripture, prevents a woman from leading mixedgender prayers, and that restrictions are based on
outmoded cultural and patriarchal notions. PMU's
15
co-chair, Pamela Taylor, reinforced PMU's position
when she joined hands with the Muslim Canadian
Congress and the United Muslim Association to be
the first woman to deliver the Friday sermon and lead
the mixed-gender congregation in a mosque on July
1st, 2005.
Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji (born 1968) is a Muslim Canadian
author, journalist, and activist. She is a feminist and
critic of Islamic fundamentalism and literalist
interpretations of the Qur'an. She was once described
by The New York Times as "Osama bin Laden's worst
nightmare".[1] Irshad is an advocate for the use of
critical thinking, known as ijtihad in Islamic tradition.
Her bestselling book The Trouble with Islam (since
renamed "The Trouble With Islam Today") has been
translated in more than a dozen languages, including
Arabic, Persian and Urdu. Manji's articles appear in
major publications around the world and she makes
frequent appearances on global media networks
including the BBC, MSNBC, CSPAN, CNN, FOX
News.[2]
Manji was born in Uganda in 1968. Her family
moved to Canada when she was four, as a result of
16
Idi Amin expelling all South Asians from Uganda. In
her book, Manji describes her turbulent youth, which
includes being expelled from her Madrasah for
questioning whether or not the Prophet Muhammad
commanded his army to kill a Jewish tribe, and an
incident when her father chased her around the house
holding a knife. Manji holds a Bachelor's degree in
History from the University of British Columbia, and
won the Governor-General's Medal as top graduate.
She has worked as a legislative aide in the Canadian
parliament, press secretary in the Ontario
government, and a speechwriter for the leader of the
New Democratic Party. She has been a national
affairs editorialist for the Ottawa Citizen. She has
hosted or produced several public-affairs programs
on television, including Q Files (CityTV), In The
Public Interest (Vision TV) and Big Ideas
(TVOntario), is President of VERB, a Canadian
channel aimed at young people and specializing in
diversity. She is also a writer-in-residence at Hart
House in the University of Toronto. Since May 2005
she has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington
Post. Manji was awarded Oprah Winfrey's first
annual Chutzpah Award for "audacity, nerve,
boldness and conviction". She is also a recipient of
the Simon Wiesenthal Award of Valor.[3] Manji has
spoken at a number of forums and is involved in the
international public speaking circuit.
17
A lesbian, Manji has argued that condemnation of
homosexuality by most strains of traditional Islam is
at odds with Qur'anic doctrine that "Allah makes
excellent everything which He creates." Her partner
is Michelle Douglas.
Manji is a friend of
controversial writer Salman Rushdie and, like
Rushdie, has received numerous death threats.
Manji has been a regular critic of orthodox Islam,
especially the treatment of women by some Muslims.
She does not wear a headscarf or chador whereas
many traditional Muslim women do observe the
hijab. She has criticized the Palestinian leadership
and the opinions of some Muslims about Israel. In
March 2006 a letter she co-signed entitled
MANIFESTO:
Together
facing
the
new
totalitarianism with eleven other individuals (most
notably Salman Rushdie) was published in response
to violent protests in the Islamic world surrounding
the
Jyllands-Posten
Muhammad
cartoons
controversy. She continues to question the historical
interpretations of the Qur'an and advocates the
concept of ijtihad, "the Muslim tradition of
independent thinking". Manji's views are also
considered by some to be anti-Arab. She has often
18
decried Arab culture for what she believes to be its
extremist interpretations of Islam. She insists Arab
power has exercised far too much influence over a
religion with such a culturally diverse following.
Many critics question the basis for her critiques of
Islam, considering her liberal, western lifestyle and
personal value system, and contend that the attention
she receives in the Western media is disproportionate
to her qualifications. Her critics claim that Manji's
popularity derives from saying what the Western
media want to hear about Islam.
Professor Haideh Moghissi
Professor Sharjad Moujab
19
Community Link: The Canadian Centre for
Victims of Torture
The Centre aids survivors in overcoming the lasting
effects of torture and war. In partnership with the
community, the Centre supports survivors in the
process of successful integration into Canadian
society, works for their protection and integrity, and
raises awareness of the continuing effects of torture
and war on survivors and their families. The CCVT
gives hope after the horror. The CCVT is a nonprofit, registered charitable organization, founded by
several Toronto doctors, lawyers and social service
professionals, many of whom were associated with
Amnesty International. They had begun to see
victims of torture in their practices as early as 1977.
Many of the victims were in the process of claiming
refugee status in Canada. The doctors saw the need
for specialized counseling for the social and legal
problems faced by this particular client group.
Lawyers, social workers and community groups saw
clients who were survivors of torture, often badly in
need of treatment by doctors and other health
professionals. The CCVT was incorporated in 1983
as the Canadian Centre for the Investigation and
Prevention of Torture. The name was changed in
1988 to better reflect the Centre's mandate. The
Centre was the second such facility in the world to be
20
established. The first was in Copenhagen in 1982. In
2003, CCVT was accredited to the International
Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT).
The CCVT has a 15 member volunteer board which
sets policy and guidelines for the operation of the
Centre. The board is elected from the membership of
the Centre at the Annual General Meeting. Currently,
board members include volunteers with the Centre,
members of the Centre's health and legal networks,
educators, former service users and community
activists. There are currently 5 Standing Committees
comprised of board members, health and legal
network members, staff and volunteers. They are the
health Committee, Legal Committee, Volunteer
Advisory Committee and the Public Education
Committee. In addition, ad hoc committees are
created as needed. Decisions of the board are
implemented by the executive committee of the
board, the executive director and the staff of the
CCVT. There are 18 full and part time staff members
whose job descriptions correspond to the areas of
service provided by the Centre.
The Centre has assisted approximately 14,000
survivors from 136 different countries since its
21
inception. Survivors include people who have been
subjected to severe torture or prolonged severe
multiple experiences of victimization; children and
adolescents subjected to torture or witnessing
violence; sexually traumatized people, particularly
women and children; seniors who have been
subjected to various types of torture; people who
have gone through traumatic exit, transit, and exile
experiences.
These
traumatic
experiences,
compounded by their disorienting effects, produce
severe physical and psychological damage. For those
forced to leave their countries, the process of flight is
usually frightening, dangerous, and extremely
stressful. Conditions of flight are terrifying and for
the refugee there is no guarantee that they will arrive
to their destination safely. A typical process of flight
for a refugee may involve sneaking through a secret
passage through the countryside, often at night, while
attempting to avoid discovery by the police or
military, living in constant fear with little or
inappropriate food, clothing or shelter. For refugees
this is a continuous period of great stress, insecurity
and fear. It is also common for many refugees to live
in refugee camps in their efforts to find refuge. For
refugees who have survived torture, the disruption of
life and any pattern of normalcy can last for years
and perpetuate periods of prolonged stress.
22
For those who remain in their countries, they may
face on-going threats to their lives and to the lives of
their families, the threat of losing their livelihood,
repeated detentions, ostracism, physical abuse, and
denial of access to public services such as health care
and education, to name a few. Cases are often
difficult and difficult to prove. Settlement staff cite
the case of a woman from Central America who
arrived in Canada after having been raped by
smugglers in the country of exile. She requested
medical assistance to attend to her injuries. One year
later, after being accepted as a refugee, she disclosed
that she had also been raped in her country of origin.
She explained that she had been mistaken for her
sister, whose husband was friendly with a death
squad, yet who had refused to join them. As a way to
humiliate him, the squad planned to rape her sister,
but they raped her instead, in the belief that they had
the wife of the "coward who did not want to join."
23
Select Bibliography
(The totality of the paper including a full
bibliography is in excess of 15,000 words; for
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author know and she will provide a full copy.)
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Barbieri, William A., 1999. Group Rights and the
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