Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2024, pp. 68-70
Canada Calling
By Candice Bodnaruk
“I AM TELLING a story about how wearing a head scarf can be literally dangerous,” writes Monia Mazigh, in her new book Gendered Islamophobia: My Journey With a Scar(f), recently nominated for a Governor General’s Award. While Mazigh’s previous works were all published initially in French, her second language, this memoir is in English because, for her, French represented the language of the colonizer.
“France is probably the only country that really demonizes the scarf and Muslim women who wear it,” Mazigh said. She explained that France’s condemnation of the hijab is part of its politics.
Mazigh is also the author of Hope and Despair, the story of her husband Maher Arar’s 2002 ordeal when he was deported from Canada to Syria, tortured there and held without charge for over a year. She has also written two novels and is currently working on a third.
Mazigh, who lives in Ottawa, was at the Winnipeg International Writer’s Festival recently and sat down with the Washington Report to discuss what motivated her to pen her most recent work and the ongoing challenges Muslim women face, not just in North America, but globally, including what she calls “the normalization of hate.”
“I think there is a sense of urgency to share this story,” she explained. The rise in Islamophobia and the Quebec City Mosque shooting in 2017 led her to pen Gendered Islamophobia. She is hearing that more and more people, especially women, are victims of Islamophobia.
Mazigh was born to liberal Muslim parents and raised in Tunisia. She said her parents were baffled when she began to wear hijab in her 20s. At the time she also felt her own country was pushing her away—as Tunisia had previously banned Muslim women from wearing headscarves in the 1980s and had also engaged in “unveiling campaigns” against Muslim women. Tunisia “put obstacle after obstacle after obstacle until I said it makes no sense, I can’t really grow up, keep learning or be the person that I wanted to be and at the same time keep my spirituality, keep my identity, and when I came to Canada, yes, that was really because I thought that nobody was going to make these obstacles for me and there won’t be a system that is going to push me aside,” she said.
Mazigh believes that the Islamophobia Muslim women experience when wearing the hijab silences, disregards and “others” them, which she calls “gendered Islamophobia.”
Ironically, Mazigh explains, she moved to Canada in the 1990s thinking she would find freedom, only to soon realize she was expected to remove her head scarf in order to be accepted and that few people she met at the time supported her choice to wear hijab.
The book includes chapters focused on a woman’s day-to-day experiences of Islamophobia: “Hijab and Employment,” “Hijab and Public Transit,” and “Hijab and the Media.” In “Hijab and Politics,” she touches on her own experience running for the federal New Democratic Party in the 2000s.
“I want to draw attention to the fact that our laws, media, politicians and institutions have contributed to this phenomena,” she writes near the end of Gendered Islamophobia.
She writes that in Canada people see her headscarf and immediately make assumptions about her political beliefs, not just her religion, and she points out how women are judged based on their clothing and appearance.
“The head scarf is not only hated, it also gives those who are Islamophobic a ‘green light’ to act upon their ideas, so I think women are doubly punished for being women and for being Muslim,” she explained.
In Gendered Islamophobia she argues that Islamophobia and the plight of Muslim women—who are at what she calls “the front end” of hate because they wear hijab—is not an issue for Canadian Muslims alone to carry. It is like all forms of racism—the business of all Canadians.
CANADA’S APPROACH TO CANADIANS DETAINED IN NORTHEASTERN SYRIA “DISASTROUS”
Human Rights advocate Alex Neve described the arrival of four members of a Canadian humanitarian delegation to visit Canadians detained in a camp in northeastern Syrian in August as a “stunning moment.” The detainees, many of whom had been living there for over five years, believed Canada had all but forgotten about them.
The delegation is calling on the federal government to begin providing consular services to the 23 Canadian detainees who remain in the camp.
In a recent telephone interview with the Washington Report, Neve reported that until the delegation had arrived, no representatives from Canada had visited the detainees. The Federal Court of Appeal ruled in May 2023 that Canada is not required to repatriate the male detainees.
He described the circumstances the detainees are living in as “warehousing” and called the detention camps today’s version of Guantanamo Bay, except that Guantanamo Bay had around 800 prisoners, while tens of thousands of people are detained in northeast Syria.
“More than half of the prisoners are under the age of 14, but it’s kind of the same premise, let’s tar everyone with the same broad, general accusations of being supporters of terrorism,” he said.
During their time in the region, the delegation interviewed four women, mothers of young Canadian children, and two men. They’d hoped to meet with nine men. “These are men who have had no contact with their family members or with Canadian officials for many years, so it was obviously a big breakthrough to have that opportunity,” Neve explained. He added the delegation is very concerned about the welfare of the seven men the delegation was denied access to.
Neve said the women told them they were worried about their children’s access to health services. He called the conditions in the camp “excruciating” and said women are worried about safe drinking water and having enough food to eat. Detainees are also living in very tight, congested conditions without heat. Neve noted violence and intimidation from other camp residents are also issues.
Neve explained the women have been told that the Canadian government supports bringing their children to Canada, but not the mothers. “That’s obviously a source of anguish but also trauma for both the women and the children and frankly it’s disgraceful that Canada proposes a policy that would result in mothers and children being forcibly separated from each other,” Neve said.
Neve said he would not rule out appealing the court’s decision to not repatriate the men to the Supreme Court of Canada. Neve argues racism is influencing Canada’s actions and that Islamophobia is definitely a “backdrop” in the case, noting that there is no example of non-Muslims being treated in a similar fashion.
Specifically, Neve said he has been troubled by the cases in Syria because these are lessons Canada should have learned 20 years ago. There have been numerous judicial rulings, including three from Canada’s Supreme Court, dealing with Omar Khadr’s case. Khadr was a 15-year-old Canadian child soldier detained by the U.S. in Guantanamo Bay for ten years. In 2009, Canada appealed the court order that it must repatriate Khadr and lost. The Canadian government eventually settled with Khadr, who received $10.5 million in 2017 and also an official apology.
Neve said now Canada is using the same approach that seems to say national security concerns with Muslims are on the table and human rights don’t matter.
He maintained that regardless of the circumstances Canadians may find themselves in, if they are in distress abroad and when basic human rights standards are being ignored, they expect their government to show up for them.
Neve added that Canada’s response to those who remained detained in Syria should be a “concern to all Canadians.”
“It’s just really concerning that men have been held in prison now for 5-6 years without charges or trial, no opportunity in any legal way to challenge the reasons for their detention and gain their release, no access to lawyers, no access to family visits, it’s a complete contravention of virtually all human rights laws governing arrest, detention and fair trials,” he said.
Yet Neve said behind the scenes, the U.S. and other foreign intelligence policing agencies are very active. In fact, one man the delegation interviewed said he had been interrogated around 25 times by the FBI including just a few days before the delegation met with him.
Neve suggested that politics is also playing a role in the federal government’s decision not to repatriate Canadians from the camps, noting that the Liberal government thinks it would be bad public optics. He said if the government was in any way seen to assist the detainees, all of whom have been tarred with unsubstantiated allegations of being ISIS supporters, Canada’s Conservative Party would use that against them.
“The government has decided years’ worth of human rights violations are preferable to bringing them back and letting our own justice system handle it,” Neve concluded.
WINNIPEGGERS DEMAND CANADIAN BANKS END SUPPORT FOR ISRAELI APARTHEID
Palestinian solidarity activists took to Winnipeg’s streets in mid-November to demand the Canadian government advocate for an immediate Israeli ceasefire and called out Canadian banks for their complicity in Israeli apartheid and oppression. In what was dubbed “A Walk of Shame,” participants visited four of Canada’s big banks: Bank of Montreal, HSBC, Royal Bank of Canada and Scotiabank.
The action was part of the Shut it Down for Palestine initiative, an international call to action. The action was the creation of Queers4Palestine, a group that regularly holds rallies, direct actions and disruptions in Winnipeg and challenges the alliance between the Queer community and Israeli apartheid. The group also recently held a successful picket at Winnipeg’s Boeing plant to bring public attention to Canadian weapons sales to Israel.
Scotiabank is the biggest foreign shareholder in Elbit Systems. Canada signed a $36 million contract with Elbit in 2020 for a civilian version of a military drone (see article in the January/February 2022 issue of the Washington Report).
As the group walked through Winnipeg’s downtown to their destination, they engaged in rousing chants. Participants also leafleted passerbys on the sidewalk. The event was mainly peaceful, except for a lone pro-Israel protester who followed the group waving a large Israeli flag.
Bank reaction was mixed. As soon as people stepped inside the alcove at HSBC, security seemed immediately alerted and began to lock the bank down, but not until a few in the group were able to get into the bank itself. Their goal was to give a speech about that particular bank’s role in the oppression of Palestinians.
HSBC is a major shareholder in multiple companies that sell weapons and military technology to Israel.
When the protesters visited RBC they explained that the Canadian bank owns two Israeli banks that profit and participate in illegal Israeli settlement growth.
Organizers had written a chant specific to each bank. For example, when they reached Scotiabank, they chanted “Shame shame shame on Scotiabank/Stop the drones, the bombs and tanks.”
The Scotiabank visit was the most impactful. Staff allowed the protesters to enter the bank, and one organizer was even able to stand on a table and speak to customers and workers inside the bank. The bank continued doing business while participants dropped leaflets by the ATMs.
Candice Bodnaruk has been involved in Palestinian issues for the past 14 years through organizations such as the Canadian BDS Coalition and Peace Alliance Winnipeg. Her political action started with feminism and continued with the peace movement, first with the No War on Iraq Coalition in 2003 in Winnipeg.
