Editorial: Speaking the truth is no offence to Muslims

It is perhaps understandable that Muslim groups in Canada feel upset with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s remark last week that suggested radicalization may be occurring in mosques.

They no doubt feel tarnished by the strokes of such a broad brush, especially when many have expressed their own concerns about youth being radicalized. However, Harper’s remark — that “it doesn’t matter what the age of the person is, or whether they’re in a basement, or whether they’re in a mosque or somewhere else” — merely reflects what a 2013 report from CSIS also stated.

The National Post obtained a copy of the CSIS report under the Access to Information Act. The report notes that Canadian mosques led by imams with hardline views are promulgating Islamist ideology, but adds radicalization is happening “at a large number of venues.”

“Radicalization is not limited to religious centres,” the report, Venues of Sunni Islamist Radicalization in Canada, states, adding it can happen in prisons, online and through foreign travel. As well, the report states, family members can radicalize relatives: “Parents have radicalized children, husbands have radicalized wives … and siblings have radicalized each other.”

In Calgary, jihadist convert Damian Clairmont, who was killed a year ago fighting with ISIS in Syria, attended a radical study group held in an apartment near the 8th & 8th Musallah, where he often prayed. Some other members of his group and attenders of that mosque went overseas, as he did, to fight with radical groups, two of whom also died. While there is no direct evidence that Clairmont and the others were radicalized at the musallah or an affiliated mosque, former Mount Royal University sociology professor Mahfooz Kanwar has said he’s heard hateful things being preached at a local mosque against the West and non Muslims.

And Calgary police Chief Rick Hanson has stated some Muslims have alerted him to the fact that certain people in this city are exerting a bad influence on some young Muslim men. Indeed, three years ago, the Muslim Council of Calgary’s website feature, Ask the Imam, exhorted a single mother to “instil hatred for this (western) culture and its ways” in her children. This same organization has also invited radical imams to speak to their youth, like Bilal Philips, who preaches that gays should be stoned to death.

Some imams have stepped up to the plate on this issue — for example, it was an imam who alerted the RCMP to the terror plot to bomb a VIA Rail train travelling between Canada and the U.S. However, the Canadian Muslim Lawyers’ Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims say they’re “deeply troubled” by Harper’s statements and they want an apology.

The prime minister has nothing to apologize for. No doubt these organizations are also deeply troubled by the radicalization happening in Canada, and they should be directing their energies to finding ways to prevent it, rather than wasting time complaining about our prime minister speaking the truth.