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Author: Chelby Daigle
Source: MuslimLink.ca
I was asked to facilitate a session on the Muslim Community and Law Enforcement in Ottawa during Project Communitas‘ Weekend Workshop for young Muslim Leaders.
Project Communitas is a national project of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) which is funded by Public Safety Canada as part of the Kanishka Project. According to the Public Safety Canada website “The [Kanishka] Project is about better understanding what terrorism means in the Canadian context, how that is changing over time, and what we can do to support effective policies and programs to counter terrorism and violent extremism in Canada.” CCMW will receive a contribution of $250,458 over three years for the Project Communitas. Kanishka was the name of the plane in the Air India bombing, one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in Canada’s history.
The purpose of Project Communitas is to foster community resilience in Canada’s Muslim communities. So, what does Community Resilience mean? The Canadian Centre for Community Renewal puts it the most simply and dramatically: “Resilience – the ability to respond and adapt to change creatively and collaboratively – may be the most important quality a community needs to deal with today’s uncertainty. Unless a community develops a capacity to assess, learn, adapt, and innovate all the time, it won’t do well in the future that is coming at us. It won’t thrive (or perhaps even survive) unless it is resilient.” So what will it take for Ottawa’s Muslim community to become more resilient in the face of our current challenges?
In my session I explored the concept of community resilience in the context of Muslims engagement with law enforcement. I gave a general overview of ways in which members of the Muslim community are already engaged in “representing” the Muslim experience as advisors to law enforcement. I then unpacked the challenges inherent in trying to get an inclusive perspective on Muslims’ experiences with Canadian law enforcement. But I first highlighted that it was important that participants understand how Project Communitas was funded whenever they do outreach in the Muslim community given the level of distrust within our communities around connecting engagement with Muslims and countering terrorism. I recommended that any work they did in the community should begin with explaining how the Project was funded otherwise it could cause distrust if people find out on their own. A resilient community needs to trust its members and be transparent with one another.
I discussed how race and class plays a role in what relationships Muslims have with law enforcement. I asked participants what they saw to be the challenges Muslims face and one member clearly broken down how, for many members of Ottawa’s Black Muslim community, their concerns with law enforcement had to do with fears of racial profiling and overpolicing in low-income communities, as well as lack of proper supports for both preventing youth from getting involved in criminal activity and supporting youth while in jail and after to find a viable alternative to a life of crime. These concerns had existed since the 1990s. It was clear that this perspective was knew to many participants who came from different racial and socio-economic backgrounds and who stated that their main concern with law enforcement was overpolicing and surveillance of Muslims post 9/11. Considering that a recent Federal Ombudsman report raised concerns about the overrepresentation of Black men in federal prisons, whereas in contrast, although the impact of the war on terror has certainly been devasting to many Muslims in Canada (See Muslim Link’s interview with the director of The Secret Trial Five) numbers-wise far more Muslims are being arrested for criminal activity like drug-dealing than terrorism charges. A resilient community doesn’t overlook the challenges facing some of its most marginalized members.
This was a jumping off point for us to explore the reality that the Muslim community can’t represent its concerns to law enforcement if it does not have the capacacity to learn about itself first. I explored how, thorough my work with Muslim Link, I came to realize just how disconnected Muslim organizations are from the general Muslim population in Canada, let alone Ottawa. Muslim organizations often do not think about outreach beyond their current social network, meaning that unless you are already involved with them, you often will not be aware of what these organizations are doing. I put the same challenge to the young people present, most of whom are involved with a local Muslim organization, in particular the Muslim Students’ Associations of the University of Ottawa and Carleton, the Muslim Assocation of Canada (MAC)’s Ottawa Chapter,and the Sanad Collective. I discussed how the majority of Muslims in Ottawa are not at all connected to any of these groups and the need to develop strategies to engage these people. I also made it clear that Muslims are not engaged with these groups because they are apathetic, but more often than not they have other priorities. I highlighted the need to engage more with Musilms who are more involved with their ethno-cultural communities than their religious community as they often are actually more effective bridge-builders across faith lines (I gave the example of the Pakistani Students’ Associations which regularly collaborate with the Indian Students’ Associations and the various Arab Student groups which make effort to create a safer space for Arabs from all religious backgrounds). I also pointed that many other young Muslims are engaged in working on critical social issues and so they have prioritized that work over joining Muslim organizations. I explained that being able to connect and share resources with these other young leaders is essential for building the resilience of Ottawa’s Muslim community in order to effectively harness the talent we have available. I stressed the need for young Muslims to break out of the limitations of their narrow social networks and explore other parts of the community so that they can have a better understanding of its diversity.
All of this is critical for effectively engaging with law enforcement as advocates for Muslim Canadians. I quoted from an article in Police Chief Magazine by Angus Smith, Senior Special Advisor in the National Security Section of Public Safety Canada. Smith writes:”Networks of influential community contacts have a tremendously important role to play in terms of both day-to-day community relations and crisis response and management. It can be difficult to know who, exactly, speaks for or represents communities of concern. Some community leaders are gateways; others are gatekeepers who can foil even the most concerted attempts to reach out to the right people.
Reaching out to the wrong people—self-styled leaders and spokespeople who have no real credibility—can exacerbate the very tensions that a prevention of radicalization strategy is trying to alleviate. Again, it is critical that any prevention strategy is advised by comprehensive understanding of community dynamics and of the pressures that at-risk members of those communities face.”
I asked the participants if they wanted to be gateways or gatekeepers. People can be gatekeepers even just by not making the effort to expand their own social network of Muslims beyond those in their own organization, mosque, or neighbourhood. Outreach is key and so is being curious and being humble enough to know that you can’t represent a population of over 70,000 (estimated population of Muslims in Ottawa-Gatineau) without any outreach and consultation.
And connecting to Muslims outside of their social networks was already happening at the workshop itself which included a number of participants who I know personally and are really some young Muslims to watch.
Stephane Pressault is the coordinator of Project Communitas and is also the co-founder of the Sanad Collective. He has been in media recently due to the fact that he knew John Maguire casually as a fellow student involved in the University of Ottawa’s Muslim Students’ Association, a young Muslim convert from Ottawa who joined ISIS and sent a video urging Muslims in Ottawa to join or attack their fellow Canadians. They had both converted to Islam around the same time. Why Stephane and John’s journeys with Islam have taken them down such starkly different paths is what researchers into the Canadian Convert experience are trying to work out in an initiative also funded by the Kanishka Project.
Sarah Musa was the volunteer lead for Ottawa’s workshop and is currently on the executive of the Carleton University Muslim Students’ Association. She is a spoken word poet and student of Human Rights at Carleton University. We are also neighbours so I have watched her grow up and continue to be impressed by her talent, wisdom and determination. If you wish to learn more about her, check out Muslim Link’s video profile of her work here.
Fartousa Siyad is part of the team Specs & Veil which has developed a series of hilarious YouTube videos about the second-generation Somali Canadian experience. Their work has drawn attention from academics as they were invited to present at an education conference at Brook University and recently went to New York to receive several awards from UNICEF’s Youth Video competition.
Aaida Mamuji, who recently finished her PhD in Public Administration, is a competitive boxer who was profiled by the Ottawa Sun in 2014 and regularly runs Women’s Fitness Boxing Classes in the community.
Miriam Katawazi regularly writes for Muslim Link and is a journalism student at Carleton University where she is also a member of the executive of Carleton University’s Muslim Students’ Association. She is also active in Ottawa’s growing Afghan community and is particularly interested in issues around civic engagement.
Idil Abdulkadir is a Mathematics teacher at Woodroffe High School in Ottawa’s West End who has also studied with the Ta’leef Collective in the US. She recently spoke about the education challenges facing Somali Canadian students at the 2015 Awakening: Reviving the Spirit of Somali Youth Conference.
Hafsa Cherid is a scientific researcher in the field of microbiology, biochemistry, and immunology. The focus of her current study is HIV. But she is also actively involved with the Muslim Association of Ottawa (MAC). Being able to work with young Muslims from a diversity of academic and professional backgrounds is key to building Muslim community resilience.
Arwa Ishak is an aspiring personal trainer who has a vision for empowering programs for women supporting healthy choices around nutrition and physical activity. It is important that we support young Muslims to pursue a variety of career paths as this is essential for Muslim community resilience as we need people from our community with expertise in a diversity of fields. Arwa is also just a lot of fun, as you can see in this CBC video interview about hijabs shot at Nasiye Fashion Store in Ottawa’s West End. Resilient communities need to know how to have fun.
I look forward to seeing what Ottawa members of Project Communitas develop in order to improve community resilience in Ottawa.
