Like many of you, I have spent last night and this morning in front of the TV, like a person watching, in slow motion, a railroad train approach a school bus stalled on the tracks. I have been waiting for someone to tell me why. What wounds or vicious extremist lies or precarious mental health prompted a young man to kill six Muslims who were praying. These were people engaged in one of humankind's most profound acts: thinking and speaking across the distance between our flawed humanness to some meaningful force larger and more capacious than our daily lives. That force could be anything: a belief in kindness, a commitment to the well-being of our communities, a dedication to the exploration of ideas, or any of the many gods we have conceived of to represent the best of ourselves.
An explanation is not forthcoming. So I think I will offer instead some juxtapositions.
First, about sixteen and a half years ago, the west's ill-advised meddling in Middle Eastern religion and governance came home. We have a long history of intervening in Islamic countries; the attack on New York City and Washington D.C. on September 2001 was a response to those ill-conceived interventions that has been followed by terrorist attacks at home and abroad. Then George Bush invaded Iraq and executed Saddam Hussein, giving birth to Islamic State. The Department of Homeland Security now has a workforce of 240,000 people and in 2011 was given funding of $198.8 billion.
On the same day when 6 people died in the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Centre, Donald Trump was signing yet one more executive order beginning his ban on Muslims in the United States. Once again, he was not paying attention to details, but simply indulging in whim, probably violating international law and the American Constitution in the process. He has created chaos for families who are living apart and has given the Muslim world one more piece of evidence that the west has declared war on Islam. Why he has done this escapes me. First, as I will tell anyone who will listen, more people die of weather than from terrorist attacks, yet we invest much more in Homeland Security than we do in building a green economy. So this act isn't about the safety of Americans. Perhaps it is about appealing to the darkest desires of the people who elected him so they won't notice when he and his billionaire cronies make poor Americans even poorer. Perhaps it's part of his disturbing narcissism: anyone who is not like me deserves what they get. I think in some ways it is the response of a deeply unsatisfied man who drank the high-test capitalist kool-aid, and didn't find it satisfying. Both psychologists and economists will tell you that if your goals are extrinsic--money, power, status--there is never enough of these things to allow you to feel nourished. He has done exactly what he wanted--placing a ban on Muslims coming to the United States--but do you see him smiling? If so, does that smile look like the grin of an alpha-male chimpanzee?
I want to name those six men, whose biographies provide a kind of United Nations of Islam--men who were fathers, husbands, uncles, sons; men who worked for universities and the Quebec government, men whose raison d'etre was to welcome and to help other, men who created the foundations of their communities: Azzeddine Soufiane, Khaled Belkacemi, Aboubaker Thabti, Mamadou Tanou, Ibrahima Barry, Abdelkrim Hassane.
And then I want to juxtapose September 11, 2001 and our reaction to it with our outpouring of sympathy for these men, their families, and their communities across Canada. Did you think, in your rage and fear after 9/11 that you would be pouring out your grief for 6 innocent Muslims?
Something has happened, and I do not think it has merely happened in Canada: there have been similar demonstrations of sympathy for these men and their families in London and Paris.
Us versus them. Since the days of our simian ancestors, this worldview probably accounts for much of the evil we have done to others. We saw, with horror, that Donald Trump aroused that outlook in people who feel they have been left behind and who sought someone to blame that fact on. They can't blame a changing world--one that has shifted from the creation of steel to the creation of technology--because it is impossible to turn back time. Time is a moving target, much too huge to be brought down by puny human effort. Much easier to blame the Mexicans, the Muslims, African-Americans.
But at the same time, countless people participate in the human effort to make the human rights umbrella protect more and more groups. In the time since 9/11, Gay Pride parades have grown to mainstream events and gay marriage legalized. The Truth and Reconciliation Report has been accepted by the government. And there are Canada-wide and world-wide vigils for these six men. It seems to me that despite the efforts of Donald Trump and Alexandre Bissonnette, humanity is determined to continue working ethically and imaginatively until all people of good will are under that protective umbrella with fellow members of the human family. And like most families, we are laughing and hugging and telling our stories and singing our songs.
We mustn't congratulate ourselves prematurely. Until this attitude is extended to Indigenous Peoples, until they have clean water, sound and meaningful educations, decent housing and economic opportunities on and off reserve, until the suicides stop, until missing and murdered aboriginal women are a distant memory, we are not finished.
But we can keep on the way we began. Be curious rather than judgmental about others. Keep asking why. And when you meet resistance, ask why not.
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