Views of Islamophobia at home and in the world

As the details of the massacre that took place in Canada in recent days come to light, it has also become clear what kind of Islamophobic frenzy the country is under threat from. The victims of the incident are indeed a family of 5 of Pakistani origin, but the real target of this terrorist violence directed at them is Canada itself, as a country and a society. The details that have emerged about the attack are truly chilling. In the city of London, in the province of Ontario, a van driver who drove his vehicle into pedestrians on the sidewalk caused the deaths of 4 people, one of them a 15-year-old girl, and the serious injury of a 9-year-old boy.

Mustaa Farooq, president of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), recounts that a man, after getting into his vehicle, saw a Muslim family walking along the road and decided that they did not deserve to live. The attacker did not actually know his victims. The first diagnosis that formed in his mind about them was only that they were Muslim.

In fact, in 2017 there had also been a mosque attack in Quebec City in which 6 people died and 5 were wounded, and thus Muslims in Canada had become familiar with Islamophobic violence. When Farooq says that all such attacks are terrorist attacks aimed at Canadian soil and should be treated as such, he is in fact also referring somewhat to a social principle to which the Canadian state is most sensitive.

Canada is known as a place where multiculturalism policies have reached a higher level than anywhere else in the world. So much so that there is even a special ministry of multiculturalism to assess the demands of different ethnic and religious groups and to regulate the expansion of their spheres of freedom. Since its population rests entirely on immigration from abroad, this is in fact a matter of sheer existence and survival even for Canada.

Canada has no choice but to represent multiculturalism at the highest level. Any kind of ethnic or religious hatred that threatens the fabric of multiculturalism dissolves the whole mortar of the country and razes it to the ground. That is why, while providing an atmosphere of freedom that will ensure that Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, indigenous peoples, Jews, Christians or Muslims live their beliefs freely in the country, without prejudice to their freedoms in this regard, there is a thoroughly institutionalized sensitivity to ensuring that this is arranged in such a way that it does not at the same time destroy social stability.

The real test of the Canadian model, which has also been the source of a great deal of philosophy and literature on multiculturalism, has in fact come over tolerance toward Muslims. Canada, which has successfully tested the limits of its tolerance and its multicultural model with respect to all other groups, is seen to have fallen into a serious crisis before Muslims: it cannot prevent the rising Islamophobic discourse and actions.

In fact, the way to prevent actions runs through treating discourse as a form of action too. In an environment where even criticizing Israel's murderous aggressions is immediately branded as anti-Semitism and condemned, the hate speech that fanatical enemies of Islam spread on every occasion about Muslims and about Islam is treated within the scope of freedom of expression and is not subjected to any control or even criticism. To the extent that this situation fuels violence and enmity toward Muslims, it is certain that it poses a serious survival problem for Canada, and, to the extent that it has similar claims, for the US as well.

Admittedly, while we complain about Islamophobia in Canada or in non-Muslim countries, we continue to encounter, right under our own noses, an even worse Islamophobic discourse and action.

The act of Eray Çakın, who delivered a punch attack on Neşe Nur Akkaya, a headscarved academic sitting in a park in Nişantaşı, and her girlfriend, saying "We don't want people like you here. Go somewhere else, go to Gaziosmanpaşa," is like a warning that we must look for and settle Islamophobia in our own country before Canada, the US or Europe. Though, for years the ban on the headscarf, a hallmark of Islam, was enforced in this country, and what was that if not typical hatred of Islam? This ban did not remain a mere practice; a series of discourses accompanied it. All the discourses resorted to in order to legitimize or explain that ban ultimately did nothing but feed hatred of Islam underneath.

Whether we should enter this subject by saying that the attacker, who in his mind probably coded Nişantaşı, self-appointedly, as the center of contemporary life, represents the most archaic hooliganism through his behavior, is futile. In Turkey we have always seen that the enemies of Islam who, in all their splendor, deem themselves worthy of the label "contemporary-secular" display, on such occasions, with the most primitive and vulgar personality traits, the crudest and most savage behavior toward women. The mentality that sees itself as having the right to dictate to women what to wear and what not to wear, and forces women to comply, did even this cowardly for years, hiding behind the shield of the state's rules.

This mentality, which we give thanks has been left behind in Turkey, recurs like a zombie when it finds the opportunity, and when it recurs it reminds us again of its whole crude, vile, Islam-hating ugly face.

There is an element of fear in Islamophobia; unfortunately this is a naming that can excuse it at some levels. Yet here the attacker has no air of being frightened. With his crudeness, his aggressiveness and his belligerence, on the contrary, he is a personality who spreads fear. May God not give him the opportunity.