It’s Muslim kids, not parents, who are embracing a politicized Islam – by Natasha Fatah
This summer, thousands of people will become new Canadian citizens. Many of them will be Muslims. They have come to Canada from every corner of the globe and, like my parents did 24 years ago, they will make this peaceful, progressive nation their home.
My parents left behind Pakistan and chose Canada for the same reasons many other Muslim immigrants came here 20, 30 or 40 years ago: for democracy, freedom, stability and modernity.
And herein lies a common misconception amongst “mainstream” Canadians: They’re convinced that, in the average Muslim household, it’s the parent who represents conservatism and tradition, and the Canadian-born children who are modern and fighting against this oppression. This is a falsehood.
Many of our parents, who immigrated here from Muslim countries in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, did so specifically out of their respect for Western values. Elder Muslims may be modest and socially conservative in their personal lives. But, by and large, the parents in Muslim-Canadian households believe in the core values of this society. Their values systems were not based on religion but on political freedom and the desire to separate religion and state.
It’s their children – in desperate need for identity – who have turned to conservative, hard-line and politicized Islam for the answers. This trend to embrace a politicized Islam has led to bloodshed in many parts of the world and is growing rapidly – and going unchecked – in Canada.
There are exceptions to the rule. We saw just a few years ago what happened to Aqsa Parvez, the Mississauga teenager who paid the ultimate price when she refused to wear the hijab. Her life was taken away by her family’s “honour killing.”
But, as most young hijabis will defiantly tell you, “it’s my choice to cover my hair.” If they’re making that choice for themselves, then it’s a choice their mothers from India, Turkey and Uganda rejected.
When the Toronto 18 were arrested, they weren’t middle-aged men – they were young guys. At the Islamic “conferences” where hatred against Jews, Hindus and homosexuals is preached in Canadian cities, the attendees are university students, not senior citizens.
I’ve spoken to many parents in the Pakistani and Somali communities who’ve “lost” their children to the jihad. Fathers, in tears, because they haven’t seen their sons for weeks. Convinced their boys have been recruited to Pakistan’s Taliban or Yemen’s faction of al-Qaeda or to Somalia’s al-Shabaab youth movement. Mothers who’ve watched their Canadian-born children turn into angry, militant Islamists.
And here I must stress something: There’s a difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion, a faith, as beautiful and as flawed as any other, which can be practised as liberally or as conservatively as we choose. Islamism, however, is a doctrine that uses Islam as political ideology, mandating sharia law, armed jihad against all non-Muslims and, ultimately, a domination of Islamism over the West. It’s this Islamism that’s seizing young Muslims.
I’ve attended two universities in Toronto and, at both, joined the Muslim students associations. I was told to sit behind the men, not next to them. That it would be better if I covered my hair. That sharia is the optimal way to resolve personal, legal and political issues. I was even told that, when filling out a form, the ink from my pen should not touch the ink of a “brother’s” pen. Is this the modernity and freedom that brought my parents here?
Muslim youth have fooled themselves into believing there was a golden age of Islam they’d like to bring back to Canada, a golden age that could bring us all into the Dark Ages. And their parents don’t know what to do.
Islam is the religion I practise and the reason I wanted to join the Muslim students association. Islamism is the ideology spreading throughout our campuses, and the reason I left the group.
Source: The Globe and Mail
It is the good assessment of the situation, it is not only in Canada, it is all over. To analyze this, I think, we have to see the Muslim world since 1980s. Before 1980s nothing like this but after that the money was inducted in Pakistan to organize the extremists by Saudis and Americans against the war of Russian in Afghanistan. Present is the result of that promotion of extremism; and world is facing the problems and consequences today. As far as the glory of Islam is concerned, it is in the books and in the minds of religious people but nothing to do with the present situation because Muslims are far away from education, research, democracy, human dignity and values, so, it is a wishful dream which can’t be materialized with present systems in Muslim world and with the present thinking in Muslim youth.
It is true that kids living is western countries are embracing ultra conservative Islamic ideology and they seem more radical than their elder generation, but it is continuation of a legacy they have inherited from their elders; their elders have those beliefs and forwarded them to the youngsters. There could have been reasons as to why youngsters are still carrying same ideology.
Being someone who has migrated, I myself have experienced this community which does not feel comfortable with ‘western’ ethos, and they become more conservative in their private lives and over-protective towards their children to save them from ‘evil’ and ‘alien’ culture which is not ‘theirs’. Hence if a parent was still a moderate in public life, their self realization of ‘responsibility’ and efforts to ‘save’ their children are resulting in an ultra conservative young generation, some of these efforts are sending pupil to Islamic schools, instead of encouraging mingling with others taking them to community centers for social and physical activities where they only hear words ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’, not encouraging family relations with ‘outsiders’ and keeping it in the ‘community’, keep on feeding children that they are different, that are muslims so they should not follow the norms others have been following, it is bad to wear this, it is bad to do that, no we do not do this because we are muslims, we always do this and that …………….., if you keep on giving this dose to a kid, result would be a grownup with doubts and contradictions.
More problematic is creating their own ghettos, selecting an area, building a mosque, an Islamic school, a community center and shops specially the halal food shops, and then encouraging people to move there is a typical behavior. These ghettos of Muslims harbor children which are cut off from host society, they are raised inside a box protected and do not see outside world until reaching teenage, by then they carry ultra conservative ideas fed by the clergy in school and madarsah. That clergy has its own interest, to keep people as ‘aliens’ is their survival; those who encourage this ‘ghettoisation’ they make millions in property, they build successful business and earn on the future of the children of community.
It is time these ‘migrants’ should reassess themselves and their host society, they should teach their children to be children of the country they are born in, to be brothers and sisters of their country fellows. They must learn to realize the real reasons and reap real fruits of their presence in an alien society, those reasons are economy, progress, values, multiculturalism and fruits are growth, education, living standard, health, democracy, communication, diversity and much more. They must raise their children as normal citizens not as aliens in their own country, they must realize that their children do not belong to the country they left, what they left is what they sacrificed for a better future, and they themselves sacrificed it it is naive to bring their children back to same, this nostalgia creates the ego and honor-shame behavior which is major issue of Muslims living in western countries.
“My parents left behind Pakistan and chose Canada for the same reasons many other Muslim immigrants came here 20, 30 or 40 years ago: for democracy, freedom, stability and modernity.”
Oh yes, her father served Saudi monsters before coming to Canada for democracy, freedom, stability and modernity.
To say that Islam is as “flawed” as any other religion is incorrect, for the reason that religions don’t have the flaws but rather the followers of that religion are the flawed ones.
On that note, I also feel that you, like many other Pakistani’s who immigrate, make Pakistan and other Muslim states sound like they are not progressive/forward thinking. Many of you haven’t even been back to your homeland, and have lost touch with your roots.
Good point, but pretty biased.
her father served Saudi monsters before coming to Canada
Wait who M Baloch? Are you talking about Tarek Fatah?
Instead to “Nip it in the Bud”, Canadian government become silent spectator for such ongoing abnormal propensity. West has the power to play with fire in other parts of the world but apparently failing to understand the devastating consequences of carrying “lit coal” in their own pocket.
This is real life story of a Muslim mother not covering her hair in all her life until she had no choice but to cover her hair while accompanying her covered teen daughter.
Can the author compare, Muslim children of immigrant parents with Hindu or Sikh children of immigrant parents ..
Why only Muslim children are radicalized and how other religious/ethnic groups are not ..
What are factors and why only Muslim children..
I completely agree with the author ! This trend is being seen across the world, whether its a muslim majority country or muslim minority country. Even if you look at Pakistan, the elders might be humble and socially conservative, but, its their grand children who are politically radicalized and who take “muslim” as a political and national identity rather than Islam as their religion, although they might be sometimes increasingly un-orthodox in their private lives.