Evidence of meeting #43 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was islam.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you. That's all the time we have. You can pick that back up in a future round.
Mr. Scarpaleggia, sir, you have seven minutes.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There's obviously a lot of food for thought here. I would like to go back a bit. I'm trying to understand as best I can what each witness is advising.
You're asking for a strategy of containment, not interference. Going back in time now, how do you view President Bush's war in Iraq? How do you view that in terms of your analytical framework that you've put forth here today? Was it a good thing, a bad thing...?
11:50 a.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Well, if you're asking me about the events of 2003, I would say that it was a necessary thing. It was a necessary thing to get Saddam Hussein and the regime changed, as it was in Afghanistan, and it was done with the full understanding or the belief that once this dictator, this tyrant, was removed, the suffocating people of Iraq would begin to breathe once again and, with the support of western democracies, they would move forward.
To some extent they did that, but what was not anticipated, unlike the previous experience of regime changes in the world, and there are a number of them.... I come from a part of the world where a regime change took place. If it hadn't taken place, genocide would have continued. That was in 1971 in the war between India and Pakistan. The Indian military went and—
11:50 a.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
The point is, what was not anticipated was how the Arab world would react and also how the west would react.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
I'm just curious as to how your focus on non-interference relates to what you think of that situation.
11:50 a.m.
Founder, Muslim Canadian Congress
I would differ with my colleague here. I think the 2003 intervention was a catastrophe. It undermined the moral authority of many of us who spoke. It was a mistake for which we are paying a very huge price.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
—but thank you. I appreciate the comment. It's useful.
I'm really interested in radicalization in Canada. We know, for example, that the RCMP works with imams. It works with mosques to try to root out or discover certain individuals who may be going down the path of radicalization. We've seen some imams basically turn over or turn away some individuals who had some very radical ideas and might have been quite lost in their thinking. Do you think the RCMP is doing enough within these programs that are meant to liaise with mosques?
Also, I was reading the other day that there are radicalized individuals in prisons and that perhaps efforts in prisons to de-radicalize these individuals should be upgraded. That's one question. I'm also very interested in your thinking about how an individual, a young person who essentially becomes a convert and who has no Muslim roots or antecedents, becomes infected by something they see on the Internet. In your mind, how does that work? I think we're all trying to figure that out, because that in many ways seems to be what Canadians are concerned about.
From both of you, actually, I'd appreciate your thoughts on those aspects of radicalization and what the government can do to counter that phenomenon in Canada.
11:55 a.m.
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, As an Individual
Very quickly, on the question of the RCMP and police forces across Canada, the public outreach program, in my opinion, is highly questionable and problematic. The public outreach program has been an outreach to the very groups that carry the virus of Islamism, that preach the ideology of Islamism. I'm talking about public outreach to the mosque imams, the various Islamist organizations, student organizations like MAC, the Muslim Association of Canada, ISNA, and so on.
We have a situation in the country where our public institutions are inviting these people in to instruct us as Canadians on how we should behave in terms of dealing with minority religion, in terms of gender, and so on and so forth. I think that's a lesson to be taken.
11:55 a.m.
Founder, Muslim Canadian Congress
I would suggest to you that it is one of the major mistakes made by the current administration in authorizing what is called “de-radicalization” which, in fact, is radicalization. We have an incident where someone working very closely with the RCMP took it upon himself to go to Qatar, meet with the leadership of the Taliban and then come back over here and pose with the single-finger salute, on camera, including the mother of the dead jihadi who converted to Islam and died in Syria.
Unless and until this very racist and stereotypical image of what is a Muslim is changed, you will never be able to meet Muslim architects, Muslim comedians, Muslim engineers, maybe even Muslim strippers. You will not even know what 90% of Muslims look like. The only people all political parties reach out to are those who “look like” Muslims, who dress up that way, who have an obsession with facial hair or the covering of hair, and who dress up as if they are living in Saudi Arabia. People like Salim or myself are just not ugly enough to be considered authentic Muslims. So we are never approached. In 14 years, the RCMP has never talked to any one of us, despite the fact I've been writing a column. He's an author, I'm an author. No, the only Muslims the RCMP and CSIS talk to are those who lie to their face, feed them 30 nights in Ramadan, and then win them over. We are being fooled.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much.
That's all the time we have for the first round. We're going to suspend for one or two minutes.
Professor Aoun, thank you very much for joining us.
We'll just suspend so we can get the next teleconference in.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
I just want to welcome, joining us from Falls Church, Virginia, Ayad Jamal Aldin, who is the former deputy of the Iraqi Parliament and also a scholar. Glad that you could join us.
We're going to get you to make some opening comments. We've been in session now for about an hour and we're going to finish off the last hour. We've got a couple of other guests here so sir, I'll turn it over to you for your opening remarks and then we'll continue with our second round of questioning and continue on for the next hour.
Sir, the floor is yours.
Noon
Ayad Aldin Former Deputy of the Iraqi Parliament, As an Individual
Greetings. I'd like to thank you for inviting me to attend the Canadian Parliament.
In fact, the world today is very occupied with counterterrorism, and it is obvious that many countries are contributing to the fight against terrorism in Iraq and Syria specifically.
Counterterrorism is currently focused on one group of terrorists: ISIL or ISIS. As for the rest of the terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria, it doesn't seem that anybody is confronting them. In my estimation, the problem is that we have a war against an armed group, but unless we all take the initiative and come up with a definition of terrorism—a legal, specific, and clear definition—this is not enough. Terrorism is not only the armed groups that are outside the law but also an ideology and a doctrine. It is obvious that the United States, as well as many other countries—approximately 60 countries—are bombarding ISIL, but there are thousands of mosques and other media like TV, radio, newspapers, and websites that continue to produce terrorists. What would push somebody—a young man who lives comfortably in America or Canada or Europe or anywhere else—to go and fight in Iraq or Syria? What would push a young man to go and commit a suicide operation in Iraq? What would push a young French man to go and conduct a suicide operation in Iraq or Syria? The motives are religious, cultural, and intellectual. This is why I say that terrorist culture and the jurisprudence and doctrine of terrorism are what produce terrorists who fight here or there. Unless we confront the terrorist ideology, we will not be able to stop the strong wave of terrorism that is attacking our world.
There are oil-producing countries that are also producing terrorism through their mosques, their institutions, their universities, and their media. The social culture is also producing terrorism in those countries. Those terrorism-producing countries are protected by the United States and its allies. So there's something that's not clearly understandable here. Why would America and its allies attack ISIL but protect the producers of ISIL? Why are they focusing only on ISIL, but they're leaving the Jabhat al-Nusra or the al-Nusra Front, which is the twin brother of ISIL? Why attack ISIL but overlook the Taliban in Afghanistan and Boko Haram? There are many names for one product that is Islamic terrorism. Unless we can specify and define what that terrorism is.... Not all Islam is terrorism, but there are cancerous points in Islam that have to be dealt with in order to stop the production of terrorism at its roots. Lastly, attacking those armed terrorists is not enough. We also have to define terrorism, to have a legal definition, and focus on intellectual, cultural, and religious terrorism in order to uproot it.
Thank you very much.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much for your opening remarks.
We're going to continue on with our second round, beginning with Mr. Hawn and then Mr. Dewar.
February 3rd, 2015 / 12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair
Thanks to all of you for being here. Shukran.
Mr. Fatah, I'm going to start with you and then go to Mr. Mansur afterwards. The Russians, the Germans, the Japanese, and the Chinese, all those people, or the vast majority, are peaceful, law-abiding people, but that didn't stop those regimes from collectively killing hundreds of millions of people in history. The vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding people. Some say that 10% of them are the limit of the violent minority. Of course, that's about 160 million people, so it's pretty significant.
I recently listened to and chatted with a woman named Karima Bennoune. I don't know if you know her. She's Algerian. She grew up in Algeria. Her father and her family were activists against fundamentalism. They paid the price. She is now a law professor at the University of California, Davis. Her point was—as my point has been to Muslims I know—that unless the majority peaceful Muslims start taking part and standing up to the violent minority, we're all screwed, including them. She has written a book called Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here, which I'm in the process of reading. It's about the stories of 300 or so people, mainly women, who are actually on the front lines in those Muslim communities all over that part of the world and who are actively fighting that.
What can we do to encourage those kinds of people, and not just Karima Bennoune, but the people she talks about, to take up that fight within that community? Because if they don't do it within that community, it's not going to happen.
12:10 p.m.
Founder, Muslim Canadian Congress
Let me give you my impression of the Canadian Muslim mosaic. Our best estimate, as to who is saying what, comes from the survey done just after the Toronto 18 terror trial, in which 12% of Muslim Canadians thought the Toronto 18 were justified in the terrorist action they had planned.
Within the Muslim community we have very few academics or men of the cloth like our wonderful representative of the Iraqi government. It's such a pleasure to hear him. I wish there were more people like him. There are very few who are fighting for a separation between religion and state.
There are hardly any Muslim leaders who can stand up and say that the doctrine of armed jihad is disastrous for Muslims—forget about non-Muslims. Our problem comes from the inability of the western intelligentsia to deal with us as normal human beings.
I'll give you an example. Just two weeks ago, The New York Times produced a full-page ad by 23 Muslims from around the world, including former members of Parliament, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a retired lieutenant commander, and Naser Khader, who was a Danish MP, all of them declaring that the concept of the Islamic State is redundant and a challenge to modernity, and that if we don't fight it, we're doomed. There was not a single media outlet that wanted to talk to any of the Americans who signed it.
As a result, at the White House summit on violent extremism that's taking place on February 18, not a single one of those 23 signatories has been invited by the White House. The reason comes back to two things. There is the complete absence within the Muslim world of secular, liberal, non-religious Muslims as partners with orthodox conservative Muslims, as a moral compass rather than as a political force. On the other hand, those that you say wish to support...completely dismiss anyone who looks like my daughter, who works on CBC TV as a reporter, or my wife or my sisters, or my eight nieces, because none of them look like Muslims. If you cannot determine this racist bifurcation of the Muslim community as the pious and the impious, if that's a word, of the true Muslim and those like the professor and me, or the imam from Iraq, as the heretics.... If you don't do it, we have a catastrophe racing towards us.
I'll conclude with one thing. Please do not dismiss as frivolous the idea of educated Muslims who believe that this is a transit lounge, that the world has to come to an end before life itself can begin. Most people I talk to dismiss me for that, but this is true in every home, from the child going to a madrassa who is taught that. You'll have to be on the side of those who say “separation of religion and state” and “women's equality” and who say that if women are sent to the back they will not go to that mosque. The day you do that, we'll win.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you.
That's all the time we have, Mr. Hawn.
We're going to move over to you, Mr. Dewar, sir, for five minutes.
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our guests.
I want to start with a question for our new guest, Mr. Jamal Aldin, a former deputy in the Iraqi Parliament. With the rise of Daesh, some people within Iraq have had grievances, and whilst maybe people in Mosul and others weren't fully supporting Daesh, they were certainly sympathetic. Some people would claim that this was a result of the alienation of certain Sunnis and also that it was an issue of governance and inclusion. Certainly that's the point of view of our government, and I share the view that there should be more inclusion.
I was in Iraq in 2006 and I took part in a forum on federalism—which was a bit controversial at the time—and the idea was to have more inclusion. Pluralism was something that was talked about, which I believe should be talked about more. As one of our guests said, it can't come from us; it obviously has to come from those within the country.
In what ways can Canada help support governance and support strengthening what I think is a good idea, which is pluralism and fair representation? It seems to me that right now Daesh is taking advantage of the alienation that exists. How can Canada help with governance and capacity building within Iraq?
12:15 p.m.
Former Deputy of the Iraqi Parliament, As an Individual
Thank you. To answer your kind questions, I would start by saying that the public opinion, the culture, and the legal infrastructure in Canada are not easy to duplicate in Iraq or Syria or other places because there are cultural differences and we have to understand and appreciate those differences.
I was an advocate of democracy and liberalism and the peaceful transition of authority. However, time has shown the failure of democracy in our countries. There is a religious and cultural and intellectual structure that refuses democracy, and the rising tide of terrorism in our regions is due to the weakness of the central dictatorial state. To be honest, perhaps we have our differences. After all the experiences I have seen in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, and Afghanistan, I have given up on what is called democracy. Democracy is not good for those people. What suits those people is dictatorial, military, German-style rule following Atatürk's model. Atatürk has had the only success in changing an eastern or a middle eastern society, Turkey, into a nearly western society. The Atatürk experience of secular and military dictatorship is the only one that has worked.
If we try to use something like the Canadian system of democracy and human rights.... Human rights are for those who respect human rights. How are you going to give freedom to those who do not respect human rights, who want to kill you? Please bear with me.
In the Middle East, ISIL has not done anything outside of Islamic jurisprudence. When ISIL killed people and sold their wives, that was not something new. Sunni jurisprudence and Shiite jurisprudence both agree that Yazidis have no right to live. Either they embrace Islam or they die. The jurisprudence, Sunni and Shiite, believes that atheists have no right to live. Either they embrace Islam or they die. In the jurisprudence of both Sunnis and Shiites, a Muslim who abandons his Islam should be killed. All Muslims welcome a Christian who converts to Islam, but the reverse would lead to death.
So there is a cultural structure, an intellectual structure, and Islamic jurisprudence has all these structures. You've never heard a Muslim saying that to kill a Yazidi is illegitimate, even the al-Azhar Islamic institution never said that, despite the fact that it is a moderate institution, which I respect. They all say that those Yazidis in Iraq should either embrace Islam or be killed. You know how the jurisprudence, Sunni or Shiite, divides human beings into Muslims, who have the right to live; Christians or Jews, who have the right to live but who are to be treated as half-citizens or second-class citizens; and others, who have no right to live. That applies to Chinese and to other people who are considered atheists.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing here today.
With regard to the aspect of containment, of course everybody is aware of the situation in Ukraine with Russia, and aware of how the European countries have come together, and the North American countries have come together to impose sanctions. Of course, the sanctions go only so far when you have a country like Turkey that ignores the sanctions and supplies Russia. There's no control over the sanctions if you break with your partner people and partner countries.
Mr. Fatah, during your talk you mentioned specifically that Turkey should be removed from NATO. Does this have something to do with why France and some other European countries were cool towards bringing Turkey into the European Union? Is it related to that? And why would you say that about Turkey? Do you have specifics regarding how it is supporting the terrorists that we should all know about?