Women fight hate of Islam
By Emma Davis
Members of Ottawa’s Muslim and non-Muslim communities spent an evening brainstorming ways to battle hate in the city at an anti-Islamophobia conference on Feb. 9.
More than 130 people attended the City Hall event, held by the City for All Women Initiative, a non-profit group that advocates for women’s issues in Ottawa and four other cities. Attendees were split into six groups to discuss how Islamophobia impacts education, employment, health, and other areas of women’s lives.
“What we’re really hoping to create is dialogue,” said Suzanne Doerge, director of CAWI. “To create space where Muslims and people from other traditions are able to vocalize and share.”
The event was held less than two weeks after the Quebec City mosque shooting and in the aftermath of U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban, which has since been overturned pending a court battle.
The ban targeted citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries.
A lot of the suggestions at the Islamophobia conference were policy-based. The education group supported mandatory anti-oppression training programs for teachers and students. The group discussing employment endorsed using anti-Islamophobia training programs developed the National Council of Canadian Muslims’ for Ottawa workplaces.
According to Chelby Daigle, a guest speaker and coordinator at MuslimLink.ca, events discussing Isalmophobia can sometimes be treated like lectures
“The problem is sometimes that when they set up these things, it’s just like, ‘OK, I’m going to teach you about Islam 101,’” said Daigle. “The truth is that I don’t need to teach you about my religion — I need to teach you how my identity is being affected in a certain context, and that’s a context you might have influence in.”
After coming to the event, Stephanie Nadeau said she will be incorporating some suggestions into her job as the curator of public engagement at the Ottawa Art Gallery.
“I’m just staring to form ideas around social events that might actually just be bringing people together in Ottawa,” she said. “We want to favour people from diverse backgrounds, because my organization is mostly white women.”
However, every group said ending Islamophobia starts with ending ignorance about Islam.
“We can’t have one Muslim friend or even one Muslim contact try to represent an entire community of 1.6 billion people,” said Stephanie Roy, a group leader and creator of Muslim blog LoveGodDiversity.ca. “I think it’s important to reach out as broadly as possible . . . on a daily basis.”
The event included multiple guest speakers from Ottawa’s Muslim community who discussed the struggle against Islamophobia in the city. Poet Roua Aljied performed a spoken-word piece about fighting oppression as a Muslim woman in Ottawa, and keynote speaker Hanneen Al Hasoon of the NCCM recounted being berated for her religion on the University of Ottawa campus.
“Islamophobia does exist in Ottawa,” she said. “It does exist and we need to stop hiding behind the lie of multiculturalism to ignore it.”
Hindia Mohamoud, a conference attendee and the director of the Ottawa Local Immigrant Partnership, an immigrant aid organization, said she has also been on the receiving end of Islamophobia. She explained that her hijab makes her, and all visibly Muslim women, easy targets for attacks.
“We are citizens of Ottawa, and like everyone else, we want to have the good life, a peaceful life, an active and productive life,” she said.
Though the event was partially in response to the debate over Islamophobia in the United States, Doerge said the purpose of this conference was to discuss Canada’s downfalls.
“We can point our finger at Trump, but we also have a lot to learn about ourselves,” said Doerge. “We need to not fool ourselves that Canada is different.”