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Thursday, July 20, 2023

Is US far right behind Canadian Muslim protests?

Some Canadian progressive media and politicians, including the Prime Minister, are blaming the American far right for recent protests by Muslim parents against school curricula. 


July 18, 2023 - "The 2023 edition of the Calgary Stampede drew to a close this weekend, but not before the national media could squeeze out one more faux scandal ... after a photo of Conservative party finance critic Jasraj Singh Hallan (MP for Calgary Forest Lawn) flanked by three Muslim Canadian men at an outdoor Stampede breakfast surfaced on social media. Two of the men were wearing matching white t-shirts emblazoned with the words 'Leave our KIDS alone'.... (One of the men in the photo was identified as Mahmoud Mourra, the administrator of the Facebook group YYC Muslims and an organizer of last month’s protest against 'forced LGBTQ indoctrination in schools' in downtown Calgary.) 

"Coming on the heels of two similar incidents earlier in the week (involving Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, respectively), the photo has spurred calls for both Hallan and Poilievre to clarify whether they agree with the message written on the t-shirts. As of Monday evening, neither man has responded to media requests for comment on the matter. The manufactured controversy also reflects a worrisome trend of left-leaning Canadian media outlets casting aspersions on Muslims communities for wrongthink on LGBT issues.... 

"A string of recent news stories have placed Muslim Canadians at the heart of an intensifying backlash against Pride events. These articles have characteristically portrayed conservative Muslim activists as wrongheaded dupes who’ve been manipulated by algorithms into carrying water for the far-right enemies of the LGBT community. The very same far-right that, not too long ago, fought against Muslim immigration.   

"One particularly condemnatory write-up, published earlier this month in the Toronto Star, called it 'heartbreaking' to see Muslim groups at the forefront of anti-Pride demonstrations. The column’s author, social and racial justice columnist Shree Paradkar, alleges, 'leaders of the white far right, sensing weakness in the solidarity of right groups' have forged a temporary alliance of convenience with conservative Muslim activists. 'Images with visibly Muslim people in their midst make for an effective cover (against claims of white supremacism),' she adds. 

"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed this framing himself last week when he was filmed interacting with a group of Muslim men at Calgary’s Baitun-Nur Mosque. 'First of all, there is an awful lot of misinformation and disinformation (on) social media, particularly fueled by the American right wing,' Trudeau tells the men. 

"'If you look at the various curriculums,' Trudeau continues, 'you will see that there is not what is being said out there about aggressive teaching or conversion of kids to being LGBT. That is something that is being weaponized by people who are not doing it because of their interest in supporting the Muslim community. These are people on the far-right who have consistently stood against Muslim rights and the Muslim community.' 

"This conspiratorial (and, quite frankly, condescending) progressive narrative strips Canadian Muslims of their agency and delegitimizes the entirely valid concerns that thousands of Muslim parents across Canada have voiced over their children being exposed to mandatory educational content that’s diametrically opposed to the teachings of their faith.   

"In dismissing the (organic) Muslim pushback against an overbearing Pride agenda as an astroturfed machination of the white-led far-right, progressives are exposing their own dim view of Muslims as a servile and easily manipulated band of nitwits. This patronizing and harmful progressive narrative needs to be called out for the hogwash that it is."

TRUDEAU’S LATEST CONSPIRACY THEORY: Says Muslim parents influenced by ‘far right’ | Toronto Sun | Lorrie Goldstein | July 15, 2023:
 

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