5 Years Later: Quebec Mosque Shooting
What happened on January 29, 2017?
January 29, 2017, marks the day where Ibrahima Barry, Mamadou Tanou Barry, Khaled Belkacemi, Aboubaker Thabti, Abdelkrim Hassane and Azzedine Soufiane were killed in a hate-motivated attack rooted in Islamophobia, racism and white supremacy.
Alexandre Bissonette, a Canadian white supremacist terrorist, was armed with a rifle and a pistol when he walked to the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City and gunned down the six victims, leaving an additional five critically injured and a further nineteen injured. He promptly fled the scene before turning himself in twenty minutes later.
The attack spurred conversations about the blatant Islamophobia, xenophobia and racism that continues to exist in our country.
What is Islamophobia?
Islamophobia: The dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force
Xenophobia: The dislike of or prejudice of foreigners/foreign things, particularly people from different countries.
In the last five years more Muslims have been killed in targeted hate attacks (fueled by Islamaphobia) in Canada than in any other G-7 nation. The data also shows a rise in hate-fuelled crimes over the past decade:
A Coordinated Effort to Insight Hate
The terrorist was known online as an internet troll inspired by many right-wing extremists. When investigating his online presence, it was found that he obsessively visited Ben Shapiro (an extreme right-wing internet personality) and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's accounts, regularly sported a "Make America Great Again" cap and searched for Donald Trump 819 times across social media platforms. His dive into extremism seemed to have been spurred by a visit from France's far-right National Front Leader, Marine Le Pen, who intentionally implied a false link between immigration and militant Islamism.
It's important to understand this context because sometimes domestic terrorists get painted as 'bad eggs' when in reality there is a concentrated effort towards breeding this sort of xenophobic, white supremacy-rooted bullshit that further divides people and insights into acts of violence, such as, but not limited to, the mosque attack in 2017.
What is our government doing?
We're going to start this by saying whatever our government is doing clearly isn't working. The Mosque attack happened in 2017 and then a few short years later we had a terrorist attack in 2021 against a Muslim family in London Ontario.
Yes, it is important to dedicate a day in remembrance of the victims of this attack, but it doesn't tackle or address the root of the problem: our systems.
Canada likes to brag about being a mosaic of different people, cultures and ethnicities. It's important to be proud of that because Canada's population is only increasing because of immigrants coming to Canada. We need that diversity in order to continue as a nation and one of these growing communities is Muslims.
But you can't have people come here, use them to bolster our economy and brag about our diversity, and not ensure a safe and just society for people to live in.
If we want to stop the violence and discrimination against Muslim Canadians, we're going to need to take systemic action against alt-right rhetoric and Islamophobia.
When laws like Bill 21 (no religious attire may be worn by some public service roles) in Quebec passed, we have to take decisive action to end them. As a reminder, Bill 21 is in direct violation of our charter rights, and it disproportionately affects Muslim women.
It's also important to note, that while terrorist attacks that result in murder make the news, what often doesn't is the ongoing hate crimes and violence against communities that are traumatic but not lethal. After both the Mosque Attack and the London Ontario act, there was an increase in violence and harm against visible Muslims, reiterating that these are isolated incidents but rather a systemic issue we need to combat holistically and immediately.
What Can We Do?
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) has outlined 61 recommendations for all levels of Government to address Islamophobia in Canada, developed in consultation with hundreds of thousands of Canadian Muslims across the country.
These include:
Designated funding for a National Support Fund for Survivors of Hate-Motivated Crimes
Study of the failure of national security agencies to deal with white supremacist groups
Commit to robust consultation with Canadian Muslim storytellers, artists, filmmakers and content creators to guide the allocation of funds and build capacity
Institute a provincial Hate Crimes Accountability Unit in all provinces
Ensure municipalities provide dedicated funding for local community-based antiIslamophobia initiatives.
Very few recommendations have been addressed so far. We must use our collective voice to ensure our government commits to every single one of these recommendations.
Media and public response
Almost as disappointing as the government's response was that of the media (specifically the CBC), which only gave FIVE minutes of airtime to the incident the night it happened. This contrasts the hours of live coverage for the London, England Borough attack that occurred just months later.
Canadians, on the other hand, were appalled and several community advocacy groups such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), Canadian Muslim Forum (FMC-CMF) and Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East (CJPME) started campaigns to raise awareness on Islamophobia.
On social media, the hashtag #IRememberJanuary29 was used to reach as many people as possible, and after four years, the Government finally dedicated January 29 as the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Quebec Mosque Attack. About damn time.
#GreenSquareCampaign
It goes without saying that every Canadian should have the right to go on a walk with their family, go shopping, attend their place of worship, wear what they please and enjoy recreational time without fear of being attacked. As of now, in 2022, this is not the reality for many Muslims across Canada.
The Green Square Campaign by NCCM remembers the victims and survivors of the Quebec City mosque attack annually in the week leading up to and on January 29th.
Next Steps
January 29 is a day of mourning, a day of remembering and a chance for all of us to show up for our neighbours.
Watch "The Mosque: A Community's Struggle" to hear stories from victims of the Quebec Mosque Shooting
Wear your Green Square, use NCCM's green square filter and update your virtual background to remember the victims and survivors. Visit https://www.nccm.ca/greensquare/
Email your elected officials on all levels of Government and demand change to address Islamophobia as outlined by the NCCM
See the template on NCCM's website and;
Follow @nccm_community for continued education, advocacy and letter-writing campaigns
Sources: OHCHR, The Conversation, The Canadian Encyclopedia, NCCM, CBC, January 29, Newswire
