A few days ago, a painful anniversary passed by — the anniversary of the extremist attack that targeted a Muslim family in the city of London, Ontario, which claimed the lives of many of its members.
This anniversary undoubtedly stirred feelings of fear and anxiety about Islamophobia once again and reminded everyone of the importance of solidarity and working to eliminate its causes, because Muslims are by nature lovers of life and others, and without any doubt, they reject violence and extremism.
In this context, the Canadian federal government had a positive stance on the matter, as it announced its intention to appoint a representative to follow up on this file, who has the necessary experience and works tirelessly to raise recommendations to officials about the developments of this issue, and to set a vision for what can be done to avoid the recurrence of such incidents in the future or even to establish a realistic and logical work strategy that removes the fears of Muslim communities and makes them more integrated, creative, and reassured regarding this great challenge.
Immediately after this announcement, signs of a different kind of fear appeared, and a race to apply for this position began according to each one's vision, as there are those who possess great experience and those who see it as an opportunity for self-realization.
This matter made me reflect more and more on the scene, as since coming to Canada until today, I have been hearing about Muslim community leaders, but in truth, I have not seen leaders; rather, I have always seen some brothers searching for a role within the scope of their rhetorical or material capabilities and others, away from the true components of leadership — conscious and keen on the interests of their communities on one hand, and possessing comprehensive thought and broad vision to analyze the problem and work on finding real solutions before it occurs honestly and credibly, and within what serves the public interest.
On the other hand, a few days ago, I participated in a meeting of the Finance and Development Committee at the municipal council of the Canadian capital, Ottawa, to participate in presenting the city’s strategy to reject hatred and combat racism, and the topic of Islamophobia was present. In my speech before the esteemed audience of councilors, the city mayor, and several colleagues who contributed to bringing this strategy to light and worked diligently throughout a full year without fatigue or boredom, with great care, cooperation, and utmost respect for all the multiple perspectives shared in such important meetings that resulted in vital and qualitative work of great importance — not just for display but as an approach that requires effort to implement and a spirit of responsibility and sincere zeal to make it a tangible and real matter.
In this participation, I said that I came to speak and participate to clearly indicate that society needs to reject hatred and refuse racism and to consolidate the principle of justice and equality among all segments of society without favoritism or discrimination, on all levels regardless of origins, color, religion, culture, and identity.
Yes, I raised the issue of Islamophobia from a perspective different from what some look at; I insisted on speaking in one voice, avoiding talking in two languages and playing the victim role to gain sympathy or theorize to achieve goals limited to a narrow group with intersecting interests, and only for a limited time. Therefore, I called for diligent, continuous, honest, and sincere work to find radical solutions to remove all the declared and undeclared causes of such a terrifying matter!
Yes, Islamophobia is a terrible issue and requires a radical solution based on the logic of comprehensive openness to discussing all the causes of this matter courageously and boldly and working on removing them, not just raising awareness from outside of it and waiting for subsequent incidents to make it rich material to bring the Muslim back to the forefront again within the targeted model that requires sympathy as some leadership advocates try who portray Muslims as chaotic, not within the creative and participatory model involved in the process of building, renaissance, sustainable development, and readiness to contribute to building ambitious communities seeking a bright future that characterizes every member of society without exception.
Here, as I am used to stating my opinion as it is without embellishments, I say that if the language of disagreement and hypocrisy remains the prevailing feature among those who call themselves Muslim community leaders, the situation will not improve, and there will be no real opportunity to find constructive and logical solutions that create a sense of security and safety for these communities and are applicable, as the principle should be to build on restoring the internal house as a priority and agree on nominating and supporting the qualified personality to be a point of consensus, not competition, disagreement, or conflict, to carry this responsibility honestly and be worthy of it, not to add another number to star-chasers at the expense of the pains, aches, aspirations, hopes, and dreams of an entire community.
Many of the models that claim to represent the leadership of the community, unfortunately, represent part of the problem and absolutely lack the components of the solution because they are selfish seekers and breathless after fleeting stardom and achieving personal interests, and perhaps compensating for a deficiency, as they apparently do not want to see others and do not know the meaning of love, participation, openness to all, and the importance of community partnership. Rather, they may have become accustomed to exploiting opportunities to devour whatever is available to the community and divert it to serve limited agendas without offering something significant to this community.
The Muslim community that fears Islamophobia must know how to choose its leadership and break free from the dependency mantle on leaders who tremble in facing the truth and are incapable of providing an innovative community leadership model and logical solutions that work on its unity, cohesion, advancement, and investment in its members to elevate its status.
This arrogance and dominance exercised by some of these leadership advocates represent an abnormal behavior that leads to a lack of role models, whether intentionally or unintentionally, perhaps aiming for intellectual invasion, misinformation, loss of community confidence in its abilities and self, to control it and obscure its participation in decision and choice. Consequently, this will be one of the pillars of community isolation to continue living in fear and anxiety and deepen the gap between these Muslim communities and the societies they live in, which will lead to an accumulation of negatives, and thus, it is not surprising that Islamophobia exists!
Therefore, I do not believe there is an escape from consciously thinking about how to meet and agree on nominating a personality capable of working diligently, honestly, and sincerely, to create a unified environment that speaks one discourse befitting and suitable for the aspirations of this creative community capable of presenting a creative human model to affirm the cultural mosaic that Canada enjoys and protects the Islamic community from the challenges of Islamophobia!.