Source: The New York Times
By
TORONTO — On Sunday night, a gunman opened fire in a mosque in Quebec City, killing six people and wounding eight. Our prime minister, Justin Trudeau, called the shootings a “terrorist attack on Muslims.”
Worshipers gunned down in a mosque — people here more readily associate such news with the United States than with Canada. That this happened in Quebec City has shocked many of us, myself included.
An incurably optimistic Canadian, I long believed that Canada would be immune to anti-Muslim hysteria. I was mistaken. This attack has been a long time coming.
The first inkling came after Sept. 11. Until then, I was just another Canadian journalist. After that, I was seen only as a Muslim, my identity reduced to my religion. The confusion, or deliberate conflation, of terrorist extremists with ordinary, law-abiding Muslims meant laying a collective guilt on all Muslims.
Categories: Bigotry, Canada, Mosque, North America, The Muslim Times