Tarek Fatah
National Post
"Surrounded by suspicion and ambivalence, Ottawa Muslims wonder, When will we belong? And on whose terms?"
This was the sub-headline that appeared above Saturday's Ottawa Citizen feature report about Muslims in the Capital Region. The author suggested in several places that Ottawa Muslims were victimized by the society around them -- or felt victimized, at any rate.
For instance, this passage: "Many Muslims are ... nervous about living among their suspicious Ottawa neighbours. Will they have to abandon Islam to be accepted?" According to the author, all 30 or so of the Muslims who were interviewed asked some variation of the question "When will we belong?" -- the premise being that they don't belong yet.
I have been to Ottawa numerous times and have close interaction with Muslim Canadians. Never once have I heard them say that they felt victimized.
This is, after all, the same city that elected the country's first Muslim MP, Liberal Mac Harb, in 1988. The city has a Muslim MPP: Yasir Naqvi represents the downtown core in the Ontario legislature. The city has numerous Muslims who have run for political office in elections, people such as the Green Party's Dr. Qais Ghanem, the NDP's Monia Mazigh and others such as Ed Mahfouz and Noor Qadri.
I decided to call some Ottawa Muslims to find out for myself what they felt about their depiction as a community living in fear.
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