Canada’s Media and Muslim Organizations Ignore Country’s First Muslim
Woman Elected to Parliament. The question is this: How could the national media miss such a historic milestone for Canada’s 600,000-strong Muslim community?
By Tarek Fatah
The recent Canadian federal elections will be remembered for a number
of seminal events: the first husband and wife team in the Commons, the
first quadriplegic MP, the first Sikh woman member of Parliament, and of
course the first African-immigrant MP from Quebec.
The national media covered these developments in detail, and today Mr.
and Mrs. Grewal from B.C., Dr. Ruby Dhalla from Ontario, Steven
Fletcher from Manitoba, and Maka Kotto from Quebec are household names in
Canada.
Lost in these accomplishments was another first for Canada. It was the
election of Canada’s first Muslim woman member of Parliament - Yasmin
Ratansi from the Toronto riding of Don Valley East. Her achievement went
completely unnoticed.
The question is this: How could the national media miss such a historic
milestone for Canada’s 600,000-strong Muslim community?
After all, Ms. Ratansi was not a new kid on the block. She first
contested a federal election in 1988, losing narrowly to Alan Redway.
Describing herself as “a business person with a strong social conscience,” Ms.
Ratansi persevered for more than 15 years to accomplish her dream of
entering Canada’s House of Commons.
It was a tremendous accomplishment, especially considering that Ms.
Ratansi came to Canada from Tanzania as a young immigrant. She is a role
model not just for Muslims, but all immigrants who decide to make this
country our home.
One can perhaps understand the media not covering this development.
Maybe it was simply an innocent oversight. How do we explain the reaction
of traditional Muslim organizations that refused to acknowledge Ms.
Ratansi’s accomplishment?
From the Canadian Islamic Congress to CAIR-Canada, from MuslimVote.ca
to Radio Islam, there was not a word, either prior to, or after June 29,
about the campaign of Ms. Ratansi.
I believe that both the media and the traditional Muslim organizations
are guilty of seeing Canada’s Muslim community through the prism of
social conservatism.
The search for the authentic Muslim has forced reporters and editors to
look for women in head covers and men in beards. When a Muslim does not
fit that stereotype, he or she is simply discarded as not a genuine
Muslim.
Traditional Muslim organizations are particularly guilty of creating
and sustaining this stereotype. Just because Ms. Ratansi does not cover
her head, she did not fit their criteria for a good Muslim woman, and
was therefore not on their list of Muslim candidates.
However, the story does not end here. There is a strong sectarian
streak in how these traditional Muslim organizations determine who qualifies
to be a Muslim and who does not.
In the weeks leading up to the election, many Muslim organizations
published a list of Muslim candidates running for Parliament. Conspicuous
by their absence on these lists were the names of Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
and sitting Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer. They were ignored because
they belong to the Ismaili sect of Islam and thus are not considered
worthy of the label Muslim.
The divisive and sectarian attitude of the traditional Muslim
leadership is not just devoted to picking and choosing who they consider good
Muslims or bad Muslims. They have now turned their attention to Muslim
culture and customs and are judging good Muslim culture and bad Muslim
culture with the media in tow.
Next month, a group of conservative Muslims has organized what they
call a MuslimFest, ostensibly to celebrate Muslim art, music and painting.
However, the organizers have barred all female performers and rejected
the use of the sitar and guitar. They have also forbidden any paintings
depicting the human face.
Organizers of the MuslimFest claim that all festivity at this event
will be Sharia-compliant. Imagine a Muslim Festival where a Muslim icon
like Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan would be barred from
performing; where Om Kolthoum would not be allowed to sing and where Mughal
miniatures would be considered satanic.
Sad, but this is what will happen. Canada’s news media is complicit in
covering the most conservative Muslims in Canada. Unintentionally,
perhaps, they have neglected the vast, silent majority of Muslims who do
not wear beards, do not cover their heads and who do not follow the
direction of imams and self-styled leaders in determining their politics.
In their search for genuine Muslims who carried credentials of
authenticity by the conservative leadership, the media overlooked Ms. Ratansi,
and failed to give her the credit she so rightly deserves as a
torchbearer for Muslims in Canada.
Tarek Fatah is host of The Muslim Chronicle, a weekly program on
Canadian TV, and a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress.
This article was first published in The Globe and Mail.