Terrorism: now made in Canada

The RCMP says they’ve saved lives by thwarting a terrorist plot on Canadian soil, but our values of openness and diversity may have been dealt a fatal blow

We’ve known since the Toronto 18 terror convictions that there were Canadians among us eager to do their fellow citizens harm. But what’s striking about the suspects netted by the arrests in Ottawa and London this week is that they are not marginalized, disaffected radicals, but by all accounts well-educated people who were thoroughly integrated into Canadian society. So integrated that one of them sang on Canadian Idol, the footage of which is likely the most bizarre document of the so-called war on terror.

The arrests are “a shock for Canada,” says a Globe and Mail editorial, because we’re “an open, integrated society that likes to think its openness protects against violence and radicalism of all kinds.” The editorial doesn’t actually offer any evidence of why we should continue to believe in this idea in the wake of these arrests, but it’s clear to the Globe that “the answer is not to become less open” and begin targeting Canada’s Muslims as potential terror suspects. After all “trust is what makes Canada work.”

To the National Post’s Lorne Gunter, this logic ignores some basic, if uncomfortable truths. Namely, “there is no escaping the fact that, at this particular moment in history, most of the terrorists who mean to do us harm are Muslims.” Given that fact, it “would be foolish … for our security services to devote equal time to non-Muslims.” Gunter’s not suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists, but he does say “(r)esponsible Muslim leaders should show their disgust for the radicals among them by … expressing their contempt for radicalism via the media.”

Gunter may be unaware that, as the Toronto Star points out, “Muslim clerics in Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and other centres rang in the New Year with a forceful fatwa, or religious ruling, denouncing attacks on Canada.” Or perhaps Gunter is aware, which brings to light a vital question. If we’re going to ask Muslims to speak out against radicalism to prove their own moderation, how can we tell when they have spoken up loud enough and for long enough to evade suspicion?