I first heard about the Pittsburgh tragedy at the Edmonton Islamic Academy of Learning as we were about to begin a day of dialogue between Christians and Moslems. Hearing the news of these horrible killings was like receiving a kick in the stomach. Like all shocks it was disorienting and confusing and, as always, there was that most inadequate of questions – Why! We had our moments of silence but it was some time before I could be present to my dialogue partners.
Read the entire reflection here.

John Borrows is Anishinaabe from the Chippewas of the Nawash First Nation on the shores of Georgian Bay in Ontario. He is the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria Law School. The Canada Council for the Arts named Borrows the 2017 Killam Prize winner in Social Sciences for his extensive research in Indigenous law.

This must be condemned unequivocally in the strongest of terms.

We are aware that voices of hate have made dangerous inroads into Canada, including here in Winnipeg at Islamophobic rallies several months ago, as well as ugly graffiti that is again popping up like poisonous mushrooms with messages of antisemitism, white supremacy and death threats 

Our condemnations must be accompanied by action.

There is no room in Canada, or elsewhere for groups such as the KKK, La Meute and the Proud Boys whose messages communicate pure hate. Such is the very opposite of what our country must stand for, especially in this our 150th year when Canadians are called to look objectively, and not uncritically, at our history, and together work to build a better future for all Canadians.

Manitoba Multifaith Council promoting interfaith, multifaith dialogue and understanding, and engaging some 20 faith communities and associations, calls on faith leaders, educators and activists in Manitoba and across Canada to condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, white supremacy and indeed all forms of racism in their congregations, assemblies, schools and associations 

Belle Jarniewski

President, Manitoba Multifaith Council

Reading this article, we are left feeling that Brian Giesbrecht is equally misinformed about Islam as he is about the history of residential schools and its tragic legacy (as evidenced by his many articles on the subject). Rather than correctly defining Islam as a religion, he attempts to convince us that the most extremist and fundamentalist versions such as the philosophies of the Islamic State group are in fact "Islam."

We would expect Giesbrecht, in consequence of a long and distinguished career on the bench, to avail himself of all the evidence available and weigh it judiciously before rendering such a sweeping and condemnatory verdict on the world’s second-largest faith, the insights and intellectual attainments of which are far too numerous to even begin to list here.

Does Giesbrecht suggest Muslim women in Canada do not have equal rights or are endangered? The rosters of law, business and medical schools, and universities in general, suggest otherwise. He generalizes that "a person who renounces Islam is... liable to the death penalty," yet Muslims right here in Winnipeg have done so, and other Muslims still associate with them.

The French government’s 2016 Report on Racism, Antisemitism and Xenophobia, published by its Commision nationale consulatative des droits de l’homme (National Human Rights Advisory Commission), provides us with a concise definition of Islamophobia worth bringing to our attention as "a systematic hostile attitude towards Muslims, people perceived as Muslims and/or Islam." It similarly defines anti-Semitism as "a systematic hostile attitude towards Jews, people perceived as Jews and/or their religion."

Understood in this light, Motion 103 calls upon the government to condemn a systemic hostile attitude toward Muslims and Islam. It asks the government to "recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear," and to request for the "Commons Heritage Committee to study how the government could develop a government-wide approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia, to collect data to provide context for hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities."

Fear-mongering reflects and contributes to intolerance and lack of knowledge. Giesbrecht certainly has the "right" to criticize certain extremist forms of Islam, as do many Muslims, but none of us has the right to be Islamophobic, as that is something entirely different and unacceptable.

Belle Jarniewski
President, Manitoba Multifaith Council, Winnipeg

In the weeks that followed, sporadic anti-Muslim protests have continued. The anti-Muslim protests which took place this weekend in several Canadian cities, including Winnipeg are an attack against every Canadian. On March 1st, an Islamophobic letter to media outlets threatened to detonate “small artisanal explosive devices” at Concordia University to injure Muslim students, presenting perhaps the most shocking among recent events.  An explosion of Antisemitic acts across Canada and the United States has likewise continued:  swastikas carved in snow, in university classrooms, and on automobiles; more than100 bomb threats to Jewish community centres, schools and synagogues; the desecration of Jewish cemeteries; a bullet fired into the (empty) classroom of a synagogue.

Manitoba Multifaith Council believes that, in these difficult times, it is imperative to witness the support that faith communities have provided, are providing and will provide for one another:  funds raised by the Muslim community in the US to repair damaged Jewish cemeteries, personal messages and public gatherings which are emblematic of the growing concern that Canadians share in the face of outright racism and xenophobia.

Manitoba Multifaith Council condemns all forms of individual, targeted and systemic racism and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia and Antisemitism. 

Manitoba Multifaith Council applauds and aligns with efforts of individuals and communities to support one another, engaging our abilities, influence and efforts to effect positive change and dialogue and understanding.

The Dec. 31 hate crime that targeted a Jewish family in Wolseley referenced Nazi imagery and hateful language associated with the extermination of six million Jews in the Shoah to send its message of hate, to threaten and to instil fear. It is perhaps indicative of what has been happening all over the United States and Canada — certain limits are being transgressed.

In the wake of the American election and the rise of the white supremacist alt-right movement, references to Nazi imagery have proliferated, and the Wolseley hate crime is an example among many others in recent weeks, such as the defacement of a sign in front of Hebrew Union College Seminary in Cincinnati with a swastika or a Hanukkah menorah outside an Arizona home that was vandalized overnight and twisted into the shape of a swastika. In Whitefish, Mont., neo-Nazis have threatened an "armed march on the Jews" on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Jan. 16), in an action targeting "Jews, Jewish business, and everyone who supports either."

Neo-Nazism and white supremacy are not new ideologies that have suddenly emerged in Canada or in the United States. Ernst Zundel is well known to Canadians as a neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier, but as early as the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups made inroads into Canada. These groups never really disappear; they simply ebb and flow as events and the political climate allow.

We must be vigilant against this trend and stand together in rejecting this kind of ugliness — and I’m proud to say that in Winnipeg that is exactly what we are doing. If there is anything positive to learn (if one can even use the word "positive" when referring to a hate crime) when reflecting on this latest act: it made the front page. That signifies how deeply affected we are by this sort of ugliness. We care. We are neither apathetic nor jaded. We remain shocked by such acts of hate. As well, we support each other. Within hours, messages poured in from members of other faith communities offering support. And that is the way things go in our city whenever one of us is attacked — we stand together. Things have changed very much from the dark days of the 1930s when "none was too many."

We appreciate the efforts of the Winnipeg Police Service as they investigate this hate crime and we hope that the family that was targeted will be comforted by the response of the countless individuals who care.

Considerable shock and outrage has been expressed worldwide for the draconian behaviour of the French “fashion police” in the continental bikini/burkini affair.  The burkini, a type of discreet swimwear worn by some Muslim women to preserve modesty, was banned in 30 French jurisdictions. Claiming the burkini breached the “respect of good morals and secularism,” a Muslim woman in Nice was fined and forced to publicly remove some of her clothing.

While French officials have stated the ban was a response to growing concerns about radical Islamic terrorism, the burkini is also worn by Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women for the same reasons of modesty as well as by those who are concerned about skin-protection. There may be more ridiculous incidents of religious and cultural ignorance in history: but not many. However, there is a fine line between ignorance and racism.

One needs not travel far to witness challenges nearer to home:

In September, a kirpan-wearing Sikh was denied service in a Winnipeg Dollarama store. As embarrassing as this must have been for the gentleman in question, the circumstances suggest misunderstanding rather than malevolence.

Not so recent events at the University of Alberta, the University of Lethbridge and most recently at the University of Calgary.

On the U of A campus, a poster was circulated, directly attacking the Sikh community and the iconic turban, employing obscenities in a clear incident of hate speech.

A faculty member of the University of Lethbridge employed a Facebook account not only to deny the Holocaust or Shoah, and to suggest antisemitic conspiracy theories behind 9/11, but also to utter threats of the most infamous kind against the Jewish community.

In the third incident, about 40 posters appeared at various locations at the University of Calgary, similar to the ones at the U of A, but this time attacking Muslims.

The Manitoba Multifaith Council has existed for well over half a century to promote interreligious understanding and the building of a just and inclusive society.

We would ask both the Universities of Alberta, Lethbridge and Calgary to state publicly, and nationally, what steps they will take to prevent such vile expressions of hate in the future. We ask this because the implications of these cases are far beyond provincial in scope, and to be prepared should such incidents manifest themselves in a Manitoba institution of higher learning.

To the business community of Manitoba, we offer our support in advancing interreligious understanding in the workplace.

Among our plans for the near future is the establishment of the Winnipeg Interfaith Business Initiative to encourage greater understanding of religious imperatives in the workplace.

We welcome all inquiries.

For more photos please see Events

We acknowledge and confess that all too often in the course of human history religious communities of all stripes have betrayed the founding impulses of their communities. We pledge yet again to stand by the conviction, as stated in many of our religious traditions, that within Creation all human beings are made in the image of the Divine; and that consequently, the image of God in all humans implies that each person has “infinite value, equality and uniqueness.” (Rabbi Irving Greenberg).

We hold these convictions to be universal human values, regardless of race, religion, orientation, or nationality.

We call upon all Manitobans, whether people of faith or no faith; we call on people of good will everywhere to:

• Resist superficial analysis of these tragedies and the religious implications of each;
• To suspend judgement concerning motivations and meaning in the face of apparent meaningless;
• To refrain from xenophobic suspicion of the other;
• To pursue open dialogue amongst people of differing religious traditions and ideological positions;
• To seek always and everywhere to be agents of reconciliation, instruments of peace and understanding in contrast to the demagogue urgings of those who would pervert religious faith or human ideals to the demonic ends of hatred and bigotry;
• To embrace complexity in all aspects of the human adventure.

We urge the leaders of our province and our nation to recall the provisions of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which recognize the integrity and liberty of religious expression and to apply that recognition to all policies of our province and nation, whether domestic or global.

We remember, soberly and hopefully John Dunne’s conviction that “no (one) is an island,” and the wisdom of the late Rabbi Harry Joshua Stern that we will have “one world or no world.”

In Montreal, a pregnant young Muslim woman was assaulted and knocked to the ground by two teenage males. In a Toronto mall, a second young woman was roughly handled by an adult  male while in the presence of her two young daughters.

Manitoba Multifaith Council sees a direct link between these increasingly vicious attacks to last weekend's comments that risk employing religious symbolism and identity as wedge issues among Canadian voters.  We call all political leaders to a higher level of political discourse.

Setting aside our common religious injunction in whatever form to “love our neighbour”, these elected officials and others are concerned only with dividing our neighbours.

To date, the Courts are having none of this; as religious leaders of many faiths, we concur with the courts and their interpretation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for all Canadians.

MMC recognizes that it is beyond our competence – and beyond wisdom – to engage in the political arena in a partisan manner.  But these are issues of human decency; of religious integrity; of religious liberty; of the security of persons.

MMC does not take sides on the merits or otherwise of any particular religious symbol, including the niquab.

MMC will stand up for our fellow citizens who have been  subjected to abuse, and now to violence.

MMC deplores and condemns any and all violence and incendiary language committed on the basis of religious garb or symbols, and we commit to standing by our sisters and brothers of all faiths – and none.

MMC fears that such ignorant and intentionally cruel, cynical and divisive language may yet issue in death.

Heeding the Irish Statesman, Edmund Burke, we will not permit evil by doing nothing in the face of evil.

Manitoba Multifaith Council calls upon persons of good will of all faith groups and none to stand together for liberty and justice for all.

What is MMC?

The Manitoba Multifaith Council (MMC) is a registered non-profit corporation founded in 1969 to afford faith communities a unified voice in speaking on matters of common concern.

In what areas is MMC involved?

Education

• Builds bridges of understanding between faith communities and within the broader society.
• Provides the community with information and resources on world religions.
• Serves as a forum for interfaith dialogue.

Spiritual Health

• Provides spiritual health information and programs.
• Consults regarding spiritual care services for individuals in public health care institutions.

Corrections

• Promotes spiritual care for persons in the criminal justice and correctional system.
• Gathers organizations and individuals together to reflect and act on criminal justice issues.

Community Relations

• Builds relationships with government, media, related organizations, faith communities and the larger public

How can I get involved?

• Visit the website to learn more: www.manitobamultifaithcouncil.ca.
• Participate in an MMC event.
• Become a member. Membership is open to individuals and faith groups who share MMC’s vision.
• Join a committee, to help MMC’s work in different sectors.