Faith
and the Media
He says the Congress tackled media coverage first because it is the number
one problem for Canadian Muslims. "There's quite a bit of bias in the media,"
he said. "We're trying to rectify a situation that's been going on a long
time without being refuted.''
Mr. Malik, an economist and retired public servant, said Islam is a
peaceful religion but the media run stories about Muslim "terrorists''
so often that Canadians come to believe all Muslims are dangerous. Because
of that, Canadian Muslims are frequently insulted and viewed with suspicion
even in their own neighborhoods.
"I don't think we need to be psychotic about it, but this image has
to go,'' he said.
The Congress surveyed the coverage of Muslims by the Citizen
and four other newspapers over the last six months and charged that the
media are fostering hatred against Muslims by frequent references to "Muslim
terrorists.'' And that's just one of a number of signs that Canada's Muslim
community is maturing and demanding fair treatment from the media, government
and the public.
Over the last three years, Muslim activists have been lobbying Hollywood
for better treatment in upcoming films, intervening with school boards
for female students' right to wear a head scarf, and even going to court
in a (failed) bid to force the Ottawa Board of Education to schedule professional
activity days on the two major Muslim religious holidays.
One of the new activists is Sheema Khan, with a doctorate from Harvard
and a job as a research scientist with a biotechnology company. In her
spare time, she has launched an Ottawa office for the Council of American
Islamic Relations to monitor media stories and take complaints of discrimination
against Muslims. She has campaigned on behalf of Muslim students who felt
they were unfairly refused entry to community college programs, and launched
media letter-writing campaigns. One example was her protest against the
the stereotyping of a Muslim taxi driver in CBC Television's comedy show,
Air Farce.
Ms. Khan said she first went to bat for fellow Muslims four years ago
when a Montreal high school principal ordered a female student to go home
because she wore a head scarf to school for religious reasons.
"None of the (Muslim) institutions spoke out and many of us found ourselves
in a vacuum.''
Ms. Khan started by writing letters to the editor about the situation
and moved on from there.
"I don't see this as a mission. I just did it to address a need that
arose. And I'm staying with it, because people said we needed it.''
Ms. Khan said one of the reasons for the new Muslim activism is the
growth of a generation of Canadian-educated Muslims.
"We know the system. We're more at home than our parents. We're just
participating in the fabric of Canadian society,'' she said.
Mohamed Elmasry is one of the 100 Muslim leaders across the country
who helped found the Canadian Islamic Congress. He hopes it will do for
Muslims what the Canadian Jewish Congress has done for Jews: eliminate
unfair treatment on the basis of faith or ethnicity.
"We feel the media don't treat Islam and Muslims the same way as Christians
and Jews.," he said.
As part of its campaign to combat media stereotyping of Muslim, the
Canadian Islamic Congress has also protested an upcoming Twentieth Century
Fox film, The Siege . The film centres on the detonation of a bomb in New
York City by Middle Eastern terrorists, and the resulting internment of
American Muslims in detention camps.
The film is due to be released in November, and although producers say
Muslim protests in both the U.S. and Canada have persuaded them to soften
some of the film's images, the basic plot line remains unchanged.
The United States has a Muslim population that is 10 times as large
as the Canadian Muslim population, which has been estimated at about 450,000.
And even there, Muslim voices have been largely absent from national debates
until recently.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council of American Islamic Relations
in Washington, D.C., said his group and others have been formed over the
last four years because of the needs of Muslims concerned about not only
media portrayals of Muslim, but also about discrimination in hiring.
In a report issued this week, the Washington group detailed more than
280 incidents and experiences of anti-Muslim violence, discrimination,
stereotyping, bias and harassment. The incidents included termination of
Muslim women employees who wished to wear head scarves as well as problems
encountered by Muslims who felt a religious obligation to pray during work
or school hours. The one category in which the number of reports decreased
was violence and harassment against Muslims, which hit a high in 1995,
when some media and government sources initially (and wrongly) suggested
Middle Eastern terrorists were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing.
Mr. Hooper said his organization and other Muslim groups have been working
with public institutions, corporations, media and the entertainment industry
and are beginning to see some results.
"We see less of these kinds of thing, and when we do see them, they're
resolved more quickly.''
Mr. Hooper said the formation of groups like his and the Canadian Islamic
Congress ``is simply a sign of the growth and maturity of the community.
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Last modified: 29 October 1999
