Canada, Not an Imperialist? Think Again!

Saturday was a different experience. We hosted Zafar Bangash from Canada, who with his enlightening talk shed light on a different dimension of relations behind the closed doors.

"Zafar Bangash (Urdu: ظفر بنگش) is a noted Islamic movement journalist and commentator and a leader of the Muslim community in Ontario, Canada. Bangash is Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT)^[2], and president of the Islamic Society of York Region, a suburb of Toronto. He is imam at the Islamic Society of York Region's mosque and community centre in Richmond Hill, Ontario. He is a former editor of Crescent International newsmagazine, and a Trustee and formerly assistant director of the Muslim Institute, London, where he worked with Dr Kalim Siddiqui (1931-1996), the founder of the Muslim Institute and Leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain. Bangash is also co-founder of the Muslim Unity Group". (Wikipedia, zafar Bangash)

“Canada, not an imperialist? Think again!” that is what he started his speech with, that one should consider Canada as an imperialist too. Apparently, given the information that Canada is a U.S. follower, which is of course because of its vital economy-wise dependence on America, Canada seeks to attract America’s content.

This reflects itself when Canada, with its anti-Muslim hostility, helped the U.S. with military forces through Canadian Navy in America’s invasion of Afghanistan. Canada has also pursued a very pro-Israeili policy. Imam Zafar Bangash cited many critical instances of Canadian oppression on minorities especially Muslims. Paul Martin incident, being one of them, once more reassured the fact that Canada is not a trustworthy country in defending human rights. The story begins with the publication of false news by a British journalist named Paul Martin, who is a pro-Israel himself. News was quoting Hassan Nasr-o-llah , the head of Hizb-o-llah, that Muslims should not confine themselves to fighting Israel only in occupied Palestine, rather it is a must for Muslims to attack on Israelis all over the world. This news’ not being true was brought on by McDonald during a live debate with Paul Martin, who left the debate right after McDonald’s asking for evidence. The shocking thing is that Canadian government kept his fanaticism going on and refused to utter a word in the media whatsoever.

Zafar Bangash pointed out Abdullah Khadr, a Canadian citizen born and raised, that happened to be a Muslim, as a case of American barbarianism, who was shot multiple times and captured in Iraq, while he was paying his relatives a visit during summer holidays, and tortured for months at an American air force camp in west Iraq, then sent to GUANTANAMO BAY where they kept him awake for twenty some days despite the fact that he was extremely wounded and cut from medication.

Israeli capitalists, as Zafar Bangash put it, have the most proportion of shares in Canadian media and newspapers let alone the fact that some of them own a number of newspapers.

In spite of this hegemony imposed by Canadian media, surprisingly, most Canadian citizens are not against Muslims; moreover, they seem to be highly cooperative. The interesting thing is that Canadians are mostly in opposition with the country’s hostile policies, which is proven to be “keep your militaristic involvement and show yourself as a pro-peace”.

After all, Canadian Muslim Society is seemingly better positioned than the American due to the facts that Muslims have a magazine, TV debates and of course on the other hand, Canadians are fair-minded people.