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Sunday, June 11, 2006

Muslim-bashing dilutes our democratic values

A good article in the Toronto Star by Haroon Siddiqui:
Muslims are also told to "take responsibility" for their deviants, "root out the extremists," "weed out the radicals," etc.

How are they supposed to do that? By becoming vigilantes? Which self-appointed busybodies will use what yardstick to define "a radical," an "extremist" or "a Wahhabi?"

George W. Bush's first attorney-general, John Ashcroft, an openly Islamophobic Christian fundamentalist, proposed a program to ask Americans to snitch on fellow citizens. It was condemned as a totalitarian tool reminiscent of the old Communist states — and was dropped.

Yet, here we are, suggesting about the same thing in Canada. That some Muslims also support it does not make it any more right. They may want their own version of "liberal" Islam to prevail. Some of us might want it, too. But it is no business of the state, or the media, to take sides in theological turf wars.It is laudable that many Muslim leaders and groups are, voluntarily, offering to help in figuring out an early detection system to identify militant deviancy, especially among the young.
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