Thank you for inviting me.
As-salaam alaikum.
The peace and blessings of God be on all of you.
I would like to start by recognizing this committee of justice and human rights on behalf of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at. As an imam of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at Canada, I would like to offer our heartfelt regards and thankfulness for giving us the opportunity to share our thoughts on this important pertinent matter.
There is no doubt that over the last decade we have seen an exponential rise of hate crimes in our society. When we look at the statistics around terrorism, gang violence and gun violence, we see a general albeit worrying upwards trend. Similarly—and sometimes overlooked—with the dawn of the Internet and social media, we have seen a stark rise in online hate speech and violence as well.
To start off, we can quickly discuss what hate speech really is, as was mentioned earlier as well. Where do we draw the line between freedom of speech versus hate speech? Hate speech refers to abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group.
To put into perspective how dangerous this is, according to a Maclean's article, online hate speech rose 600% in Canada. Some of the words they monitored to demonstrate this rise are #banmuslims and #whitepower. Most recently, we are all aware of the rise of Islamophobia, which has hit home in Canada in Quebec City and led up to the Quebec City mosque attack. There had been a surge in mosque arson and vandalism across Canada and eventually it led to this attack. As recently as last week, in London, U.K., a right-wing extremist, Steven Bishop, pled guilty to a plot to carry out a bomb attack at the Baitul Futuh mosque, which is one of Great Britain's largest mosques belonging to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at.
Ahmadi Muslims believe that free speech is a sacred freedom, insofar as it provides an indispensable flow to a human's thoughts and is a force for good. Hate speech and ideology designed to cause harm and grief must not be allowed to use the disguise of freedom of speech.
We all recognize the imminent and very real threat of hate speech. How can we solve it? Is there a way to solve this problem by putting together a 30-, 60- or 90-day plan? Most probably not, and that's because this effort is not about bending heads. It's about changing minds.
To combat the rise of hate crimes online and in person, we need to respect our differences and to continue stay true to our notion of acceptance. Ignorance breeds suspicion, fear and anger. Familiarity breeds understanding, compassion and love. When people come together and find out how similar we are, it is only then that we can truly have feelings of sympathy, understanding, compassion and love. This is the way to combat hate. We need to open our doors and our hearts. We need to interact with one another with unconditional love. We need to recognize the rights of one another.
To truly combat the rise of hate crimes, we need to accept that this is not something that will be fixed overnight. Rather, it is something that will require a daily and regular struggle, which will help shape the way we think and interact with one another. Once we start to truly embody the profound saying of “love for all, hatred for none”, only then can we can start to tackle the rise of hate crimes.
Together, we are stronger than any one individual. Love is much stronger than fear. Fear demands that we think of ourselves as somehow separate from one another. By coming together, our common bond increases our capacity for love to be dominant and allows us to live together in peace and harmony.
Thank you.