Feb 24, 2017
The threat of domestic terrorism is real. The attacks we’ve seen in Canada, America and Europe comes far more often from our own citizens and legal permanent residents than refugees or foreign visitors. Simply locking the door to our country won’t end the danger. So how should we meet this threat?
Canada is one of the world’s first true multicultural societies. Here is an experiment like we’ve never seen before—that we can bring people from all over the world and build a cohesive society through shared common values enshrined in our constitution. There is no guarantee this experiment will succeed. It depends on expanding our human instincts from trusting those who look like us and who worship like we do to include and trust those who don’t look like us and who don’t share our faith. Can we bind ourselves together instead with lofty ideals of equality of races and faiths? That has been our promise on paper.
History shows us we’ve been here before. During WWII Canada was at war with Japan and Germany. Even then we were a country of immigrants with many Japanese Canadians and German Canadians. It was natural that they should fall under suspicion. For most of the war the Allied victory was not certain. Canada and our allies were under enormous stress. We feared domestic sabotage and terrorism, which would damage a vulnerable country fighting overseas. In this environment we interned thousands of Japanese Canadians along with some German Canadians. German Canadians in Ontario felt sufficiently worried about how their loyalty seemed to other Canadians that the very German city of New Berlin, Ontario changed its name to Kitchener.
Why did we lock up these Canadians who had little connection to the countries they immigrated from? Simply put, we did not trust them. We did not trust that they could leave behind old allegiances for new ones. On the surface this is a reasonable solution, but it implicitly undercuts the promise of this country. Blanket suspicion of a race or faith says that when push comes to shove we still only trust those who look like us or worship like we do. It signals that we are perhaps not ready to leave our old notions of community for new ones.
That of course is exactly the argument that Islamic radicals use to persuade vulnerable Canadians to their cause. They argue that even though you live next to your neighbours, work with them, go to school with them, play with them—that they are not your kind. That it’s okay to kill them because they are not your community.
The alternative is not without risks. To trust our Muslim neighbours carries the risk that some may carry out terrorist attacks. Canadians may die at the hands of other Canadians. Are we prepared to die for the ideals in our constitution? That is not an academic question. We are all on the front lines of this fight. Nothing in this world is free. This is the price of an open equal society.
This does not mean that we must offer ourselves as sacrificial lambs to terrorists. We must continue to be vigilant and track internal threats as they appear, but we should recognize that our governments, for all their power, are not all powerful. No matter the strategy they employ they cannot stop every attack. Homicidal thoughts can lurk in lone wolves that give no indication of their murderous intent until it’s too late.
I recognize that I am writing about terrorism from a quiet corner of the world. I have no idea what it’s like to live in Paris, Berlin, or Istanbul where bombs and terrorist attacks can go off. Where the crush of the refugee crisis is ever present. Those are strains against the fabric of society for which I have no experience.
But I do know that the manner by which we wage this fight matters. If we become monsters to fight monsters then our victory will be a Pyrrhic one. We have the moral authority in this fight—that is our strength. Our cause is just. Theirs is not. If we cede this ground we will no longer be the good guys, but simply the most powerful guys.
Do our actions always reach the high ideals set forth in our constitution? No, but it says something about our country that this is what we aspire to. Even if we fail that is okay, this fight carries a huge psychological burden. We will keep striving. We will keep fighting with fortitude, patience, measured responses, trust and decency. The arc of history is long.
Medicine Hat News. February 24, 2017.