Raheel Raza, Canadian journalist, public speaker, media consultant, interfaith discussion leader, and author of Their Jihad Not My Jihad: A Muslim Canadian Woman Speaks Out, spoke to an April 14 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes her comments:
Islamism, or political Islam, is the idea that “Islam is the solution to everything, that the religion dictates how everything in society, politics, the economy, and more, should be run, and where Islamist rule must be imposed on others.” “Terrorism, violence, extremism, and religious fanaticism gone wild are products of this ideological messaging.”
“The agenda of the Islamists is largely directed by the 50-point manifesto written by the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Al-Banna, in 1936.”
“The agenda of the Islamists is largely directed by the 50-point manifesto written by the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Al-Banna, in 1936.” “The ultimate objective is to destroy the West by integrating and infiltrating Western societies in order to destroy them ‘from within.’” Despite warnings from concerned Muslims and non-Muslims living in Canada, so far “the Islamists have been successful in implementing their agenda and achieving their goals.”
This activity escalated prior to 9/11. In the late 1990s Sunni Islamist extremist groups tied to Egypt, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries were involved in raising money in Canada. This prompted the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to testify before the Canadian Senate. CSIS investigations of more than fifty organizations and hundreds of individuals discovered that there “were more international terrorist organizations active in Canada than anywhere else in the world.”
In 2006, a planned terror attack to storm the Canadian Parliament and behead the prime minister was thwarted with the arrest of seventeen Muslims, including five juveniles. In 2009, Momin Khawaja became the first Canadian to be charged and convicted under the country’s Federal Anti-Terrorism Act with “financing and facilitating terrorism” in an attempted bombing. That same year, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), “a group sympathetic to jihadist ideology,” held an Ontario conference where its representatives claimed it was “incumbent on all Muslims to implement Sharia where they live” and establish a Caliphate. Lobbyists opposing HT report that its recent Ontario conference was canceled.
Among the terror entities and “entities with troubling tendencies” proliferating in Canada are individuals affiliated with the banned terrorist organization al-Qaeda; the organization Ansar al-Islam, with its reported expertise in chemical and biological weaponry, whose two leaders live in Toronto; the banned Algerian terror organization GIA, whose supporters live among the Algerian expatriate community in Canada; and the North African Salafist group Call for Combat, also banned but active in Canada. However, “the most dangerous of them all” is the Muslim Brotherhood, whose website declares as its aim the application of Islam in Canada according to al-Banna’s directive.
Islamists have also “infiltrated our educational institutions,” with Jew-hatred incidents “up by over 211 percent” targeting homes, neighborhoods, businesses, schools, and houses of worship in Canada following Hamas’s October 7 terror attack against Israeli civilians. Canadian officials and policymakers have inadequately addressed foreign funding of Islamic organizations whose “subversive agendas” fuel campus radicalization and incitement. Moreover, although there are Canadian policies that allow for freezing the assets of terrorist entities, political leaders have been “slow to implement anti-Islamist policies because of the greed for votes, political correctness, and woke culture.”
Islamists have also “infiltrated our educational institutions,” with Jew-hatred incidents “up by over 211 percent” targeting homes, neighborhoods, businesses, schools, and houses of worship in Canada following Hamas’s October 7 terror attack.
The Muslim Brotherhood affiliate Muslim Association of Canada, along with the Virginia-based Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), provided much of the $2 million dollars required to establish a chair in Islamic studies at the Huron University College, an Anglican affiliate of the University of Western Ontario. Ingrid Mattson, who was appointed chair of the college’s Islamic Studies Department, was the former head of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), “a U.S. organization that was designated by Washington as [an] unindicted co-conspirator in a history-making terror funding prosecution.” In another example, Tariq Ramadan, “reputed to be a leading” Muslim Brotherhood front person and a regular on the Iranian regime’s Press TV channel, was hosted at Ottawa’s Carleton University’s Centre for the Study of Islam.
In a move affecting Canada’s elementary and secondary schools, the Toronto District School Board voted to incorporate an anti-discrimination strategy that included the concept of “anti-Palestinian racism,” known as APR. APR, “an unnecessarily divisive” term, has the potential to silence debate and discussion within the education system and is “a distraction for more evidence-based racial inequities.” APR could establish “concerning precedents,” especially when it comes to influencing young minds.
The federal government has given Islamists a propaganda boost by funding and distributing to “government offices and school boards” a publication of the Canadian Guide to Combating and Understanding Islamophobia. The publication defines “Islamophobia” as “racism, stereotypes, prejudice, fear of acts of hostility directed towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general.” The broad brush definition “creates an intellectual sleight of hand” by conflating prejudice against Muslims “with criticism of certain doctrines or political movements under the banner of faith.”
Emboldened by the lack of pushback, Islamists “have infiltrated every corridor of power” and have infiltrated “almost every political party.” Canadian political officials, such as Liberal party leader Mark Carney, currently prime minister, and Ontario’s Member of Parliament Adam van Koeverden, have legitimized Islamists’ accusations that Israel’s defensive war against Palestinian Arab terrorism is a “genocide.”
Opposing radicalization requires a “counter-narrative” to thwart recruiters who prey on Muslim youth. The Tamil and Sikh communities have had some success controlling extremism and terrorism from within their ranks, but Islamists have spread their reach from Canada’s main cities to smaller communities and locales in the country. In a strategy to exploit native communities, Islamists spread subversive messages in these communities to manipulate “the anger and victimhood” felt in those enclaves due to native Canadians’ historical grievances.
“Fatwas, death threats, lawsuits, and a lot of hate mail” await those brave enough to publicly object to the Islamists. Muslims must speak out to tackle the Islamist problem among them.
For the past two decades, immigrants did not undergo sufficient vetting. Those who brought their “minds and affiliations and loyalty” to “extremist ideologies” from their countries of origin passed them on to the next generation. Canada, like much of Europe, has now become “a festering ground for extremists and terrorists.” In the permissive political environment that does not hold Islamist activity accountable, “they feel safe; they feel protected.”
The threat posed by woke culture, paired with the cudgel of “Islamophobia,” which silences critics of Islamism, creates a climate of fear among the silent majority of Muslims who oppose Islamism. “Fatwas, death threats, lawsuits, and a lot of hate mail” await those brave enough to publicly object to the Islamists. Muslims must speak out to tackle the Islamist problem among them. First, expose the problem by educating the masses, and then “empower for change from within.”
Failed leaders and weak policymakers who “look upon Muslims as a monolith” are derelict in reaching out to the silent Muslim minority “who can make a difference.” Policymakers, many ignorant to the “workings and the dynamics of the Islamists,” need to be pressured to “actually implement the laws.” “We need to form coalitions regardless of our politics” and lobby representatives “to make sure that our voices are heard.” This is the only way to defeat the “global virus” of Islamism threatening Western freedom.
