QUEBEC – A leading Canadian Muslim rights group has invited a group of Quebec Muslim youth to learn about Islamophobia and how to counter hate.
“I feel like there is a really one-dimensional perception of Muslims: they’re all really conservative, they’re very insular, they keep to themselves.” Rudayna Bahubeshi, who works with the InSpirit Foundation, told CBC on Saturday, November 19.
Bahubeshi, is one of the students who attended the event organized by the National Council of Canadian Muslims.
The event, held on Saturday, was intended to help young Muslims push back against negative stereotypes.
For Bahubeshi, who is not a visible Muslim, as she does not don the hijab, her religion isn’t immediately identifiable at first glance.
“I don’t necessarily come into spaces and receive those same reactions as perhaps the veiled women in my family do, and that’s also really troubling because we have very similar politics,” she said.
Rudayna Bahubeshi (left) and Shazlin Rahman (right) are both Muslim women working with the InSpirit Foundation.
The case was not the same for Shazlin Rahman, who also works with InSpirit.
Young Rahman says that teaching young people about stereotypes and how Muslims are portrayed in the media is an important part of the national conversation.
“We are always put in a position of defending ourselves,” she said.
“The diversity is really vast in Canada and I’m a part of that diversity.”
Speaking out against Islamophobia brought death threats to Haroun Bouazzi, co-president of Muslim and Arabs for a Secular Quebec, who was invited to speak at the workshop.
He’s been vocal in the media for several years addressing issues of Islamophobia, saying he received thousands of hateful messages online, including death threats.
Haroun Bouazzi is the co-president of Muslim and Arabs for a Secular Quebec. (CBC)
“I went three times to the police for very specific and clear death threats like, you know, ‘a bullet between your eyes’ or people who would like to stone me to death or hang me,” he said.
“And in all these cases, so far, no one has been convicted for any crime.”
Fear was even increasing after the unexpected win of new American president-elect Donald Trump.
“Our politics are echoing a lot of the same hate and the same troubling ideas, whether it’s Kelly Leitch’s discussions of wanting to one-on-one interview all immigrants, to ensure everyone has Canadian values,” said Bahubeshi.
Attending the event, Nadia Naqvi, a high school science teacher and second generation Canadian, said she chose to stay positive, and embody the change she wants to see.
“I use my tools as a mom, as a teacher, as a productive member of society who wants to move forward and continue to live in Canada that is my home — not make it my home, it is my home,” she said.