Crescent International
Heavily diluted coverage of the news that a training facility at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) southeast of Calgary had a fake mosque constructed for so called simulation purposes, shows how the anti-Muslim and anti-Islam narrative is a systemic problem.
The CBC report of December 10 said the CFB Suffield base commander Lt.-Col. Stephen Burke said the structure is part of a simulated village built in 2006.
In his statement the colonel explained that no live ammunition was used at the training facility.
Really? Should that be considered enough to wash away the severity of the act?
The colonel’s claim has not even been verified by an independent third-party source.
A simple specified Google search of the headline reveals barely a three-page result, mainly consisting of reports carried by second tier news outlets, along with some social media postings.
One does not have to be an expert to understand the broader context of what the structure was intended to instill in the minds of soldiers training at the Canadian military base.
Considering that Muslims are the only minority which has faced mass murder in Canada simply due to their religious identity, the lack of broader coverage and deeper conversation about the recently surfaced news is appalling.
Unfortunately, it is not surprising.
If the Canadian armed forces base utilized a structure of worship specific to another faith, it is not far fetched to think that the reaction of condemnation and an apology would come from the highest echelons of power.
Also, the reaction of the Muslim community in Canada to the news of a fake mosque on a Canadian military base has been quite timid.
Apart from the standardized condemnation recycling the mainstream terms like ‘shocking’ and ‘unacceptable’, there has been no impactful attempt to widen the conversation and examine the latest news within the framework of systemic Islamophobia.
Just suppose if were reported that a military base in some Muslim country had used a place of worship of another religion to instill the reality factor of hostilities among its troops, Islamophobic headlines concealed under the veneer of free speech would circulate for weeks.
While among many NATO member countries, Canada is often projected as a more tolerant place for Muslims.
This is only true if compared with far more anti-Muslim locales like France or Poland.
Thus, it is easy to stand out in positive light when the benchmark is so low.
In March 2017, a poll revealed that 23% of Canadians wanted a ban on Muslim immigrants and nearly half of respondents had an unfavorable view of Islam.
The terrorists who killed Canadian Muslims in Ontario and Quebec, did not become anti-Muslim overnight.
Anyone with some sense of objectivity would notice that an anti-Muslim narrative is a standardized bias among many so-called mainstream and respectable Western media outlets.
With widespread anti-Muslim narrative beaming out of academia and media circles in Western societies since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Muslims cannot afford to condemn manifestations of bigotry via dry press release type statements.
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