After Ontario Massacre, President Biden Must Confront Global Islamophobia
By Huzaifa Shahbaz
On Monday, five members of a Canadian Muslim family went out for a walk in London, Ontario. Four of them never returned home.
According to Canadian law enforcement, an anti-Muslim extremist deliberately crashed his car into the family at an intersection, killing a 74-year-old grandmother, a 46-year-old father, a 44-year-old mother, and their 15-year-old daughter, nearly wiping out three generations of a single family.
The driver, Nathaniel Veltman, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder, as well as one count of attempted murder for targeting a nine-year-old boy, who was the only member of his family to survive the attack.
In a Monday press conference, London Police Chief Steve Williams told reporters that the investigation revealed that this was an “intentional act” and that the family was “targeted for their Islamic faith.” The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) called the incident a “terrorist attack.”
Sadly, this heinous murder is shocking but not surprising. The attack is the latest in a series of anti-Muslim hate crimes in Canada. From 2015–2019, NCCM tracked more than 300 incidents, including more than 30 acts of physical violence.
The massacre of six worshippers at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec in January 2017 was one of Canada’s deadliest mass shootings in recent history. In March 2019, a Muslim woman wearing a hijab was knocked unconscious in a Mississauga drug store parking lot.
All of this has occurred as some Canadian politicians have weaponized and even legalized anti-Muslim bigotry. In Quebec, a bigoted government “banned teachers, schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors and other public sector employees from wearing religious symbols while at work.”
Yesterday’s anti-Muslim hate crime in Ontario, two hours away from Detroit, should serve as a dreadful reminder to the United States about the lethal danger of anti-Muslim bigotry. Islamophobia not only manifests itself in hate crimes across the border or overseas. It permeates American institutions through harmful and hateful policies supported by wealthy anti-Muslim propaganda machines. It must be stopped.
Here are four steps that the Biden Administration can take to immediately address the growing epidemic of Islamophobia in our nation and around the world.
- Say Something. Take a Clear and Vocal Stance Against Islamophobia.
Being vocal about anti-Muslim bigotry matters. Islamopobia is an international and interconnected problem; the shooter who attacked a mosque in Quebec had followed prominent American anti-Muslim extremists on social media. The killer who massacred New Zealand Muslims in Christchurch parroted Islamophobic rhetoric popular in America and Europe.
Yet as of Tuesday morning, the Biden Administration had not condemned or even commented on the murder of the Canadian Muslim family in Ontario. This is a surprise; even the Trump Administration offered a vague statement after the New Zealand mosque massacre in 2017. It’s also worth noting that the Biden Administration quickly and vocally condemned a reported increase in anti-Semitic incidents a few weeks ago.
By condemning anti-Muslim bigotry when it arises in such a horrific fashion, President Biden can send a clear message to the public that the voices of hate will not be allowed to flourish in our society
2. Create a Special Envoy to Study and Combat Global Islamophobia
President Biden should immediately respond to the Muslim community’s call for his administration to establish an office of the special envoy to monitor, study, and implement policy to combat Islamophobia, modeled after the special envoy to combat anti-Semitism.
Anti-Muslim bigotry has spread across the world in recent years, endangering Muslims in Austria, Burma, the Central African Republic, China, France, India, Israel, Kashmir, Sri Lanka and so many other places around the world, including the Middle East, where corrupt secular dictators funded by the United States weaponize Islamophobia to suppress domestic activists.
Our nation has a unique opportunity and a moral responsibility to help expose and counter anti-Muslim bigotry. By establishing a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia, our nation can begin to turn the tide against global Islamophobia.
3. Stop Supporting and Defending Anti-Muslim Policies
Again, Islamophobia does not merely manifest itself as offensive hate speech or random hate crimes. Islamophobia manifests as government policy around the world, including the United States.
Although President Biden ended the most visible example of government-sanctioned Islamophobia, the Muslim Ban, the administration has not taken action to end other Islamophobic policies. In fact, the administration is actively defending some of the policies.
Under President Biden, the Justice Department has taken up and continued the Trump Administration’s legal effort to ban California Muslims from suing the FBI for spying on them after 9/11. Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted the Biden Administration’s request to hear the case.
The Biden Administration has also continued to defend the terror watchlist, the no-fly list, and immigration policies at the border that disproportionately impact Muslims, such as forcibly searching and confiscating cell phones from American travelers. The Biden Administration has also continued to send military funding to governments that weaponize anti-Muslim bigotry to silence dissent, including Egypt.
Point being, condemning Islamophobia is not enough. The Biden Administration must take action to end systemic, government-sanctioned Islamophobia.
4. Hold Tech Companies Accountable for Allowing the Proliferation of Anti-Muslim Hate Groups
The Biden Administration should call on tech companies to strengthen and equally implement their policies against hate speech. For years, Facebook has done a terrible job of containing the growth of anti-Muslim hate groups on its platform. The company’s own internal audit found that “Facebook has created an atmosphere where ‘Muslims feel under siege’” on the platform. Facebook groups serve as platform for the escalation and transmission of anti-Muslim rhetoric with potentially lethal outcomes.
Our government must not wait for horrifying events like the attack in Ontario before pursuing meaningful changes to counteract all forms of hate. Islamophobia is an international crisis that is poisoning societies with deadly consequences, as we saw in Ontario yesterday.
The United States must address the epidemic of Islamophobia both domestically and internationally before another Muslim family falls victim to this virulent form of hate.
Huzaifa Shahbaz is the Research & Advocacy Coordinator of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.
