Last week, the Fonthill branch of the Pelham Public Library hosted a panel of six Muslim speakers from the Niagara Region. Being Muslim In Canada: A Panel Discussion aimed to present Muslims from varying backgrounds who strive to positively contribute to Canadian society while preserving their Muslim identity.
Leading the panel was Dr. Mustafa Khattab, an Imam from St. Catharines and a Muslim Chaplin at Brock University. After a brief introduction, he began the discussion by addressing the most obvious concern of non-Muslim Canadians: western perceptions of a violent Islam.
“Violence is a human thing, not a religious thing,” said Khattab. “We have seen some notorious secularist ideologies, like that of Mao and Stalin, which were responsible for millions of deaths in the 20th century.”
He went on to explain that globally, most of the victims of terrorism are Muslim, and that those attacks are perpetrated by a tiny minority who more often have political or financial motivations rather than religious ones.
“The violence in the Muslim world is the natural outcome of corrupt regimes and failed foreign policies of Western powers, which value Interests over humanity,” he said. “Most victims of violence in that part of the world are Muslims, who are either killed by suicide bombs, unjustified wars, or drone attacks,”
While the discussion was always civil, it did at times get contentious.
“How can people who think everything comes from God live in a society where we think everything comes from the democratic process?” asked one audience member.
“I grew up here,” explained a bemused panelist. “Western society is all I’ve ever known. Our faith can drive our private lives and remain compatible with Canadian values.”
While there are 1.5 million Muslims in Canada, they represent a small minority in Niagara, with only around 7000 in the entire Region. The panel was put together, in part, to help dispel myths about Muslims in a community where many people may not ever have met anyone of that faith.
