Canada struggles with anti-Muslim hatred
What happened in London, Ontario recently is sickening and heartbreaking. Three generations of a family went out for an evening stroll, only to be run down by a pickup truck that witnesses said jumped the curb in order to strike them. Killed were a couple in their 40s, their teenage daughter and her grandmother. The couple's nineyear-old son is seriously injured.
Police say they were targeted because they were visibly Muslim, and that it was a hate crime. A 20-year-old man has been charged with four counts of murder and one of attempted murder.
Political leaders have been tweeting the appropriate words of condemnation and solidarity. Vigils are being organized. Bouquets are piling up at the scene of the crime. There were similar responses after the January 2017 attack at a mosque in Quebec City, when a gunman murdered six men and injured several others. Yet here we are again.
This latest incident has sent a new wave of fear through Canada's Muslim community, a community already on edge. Last September, a mosque caretaker in Toronto was fatally stabbed. In addition, there have been any number of non-fatal incidents, involving assaults, vandalism and insults. Only last April, shots were fired at a mosque in Rosemont. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
Police have yet to say much about the suspect in the London case. A neighbour described him as "a nerdy white kid," a loner who played video games loudly at all hours. We don't yet know whether he had ties to any hate groups, or consumed hate material online.
What we do know, however, is that Islamophobic influences are pervasive and readily available to poison impressionable minds.
In the coming days, there will be calls to clamp down on hate speech online, on violent video games that make a game of killing, and for greater mental health resources. It will be pointed out that here in Quebec, Bill 21 and much of the discourse that led to its enactment stigmatizes hijab-wearing Muslim women in particular. These are all valid points.
In the meantime, however, the immediate response must be expressions and acts of solidarity.
It should go without saying that everyone in this country should be able to feel safe, that an ordinary family should be able to go out for a walk in peace, that Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab should not be made to feel like they are taking their lives in their hands. Clearly that is not the case, so let us all speak loudly and clearly: acts of hatred cannot be tolerated.