Vile Sun column denies Islamophobia

Bottom-feeding Sun Media columnist Tarek Fatah is at it again. In the wake of the terrorist murder of the Afzaal family in London, Ontario, Fatah pronounced that, “There is no Islamophobia in Canada”. His opinion was flagged on the front pages of Sun publications coast to coast.

 

Police have charged a London man with murder, attempted murder, and the rarely used charge of terrorism. He deliberately drove his vehicle into the family of 5 because they were Muslims. 

 

Fatah has made a career pandering to the right wing, being that necessary tool – the man of Muslim background attacking other Muslims. In 2001 he was a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Council, created to support arguments for, “Western values” and attack the broader Islamic community.  The MCC had a grand sounding name and a membership that could be counted on one person’s fingers and toes. But it served to make Fatah’s ranting seem more than the work of one very isolated individual.

 

Although he opportunistically opposed the war on Iraq, his regular attacks on, “Islamofascism” gave fuel to the drive toward war. Canada skipped that war adventure, thanks to a powerful antiwar movement. But Fatah emerged as the mainstream media’s go-to, “moderate Muslim”. He even had a regular radio show called Friendly Fire.

 

He has been repeatedly found publishing misleading and false news, and following the 2017 murder of 6 Muslims in a Quebec City mosque Fatah spread the conspiracy theory that it was the work of Islamic terrorists. No wonder Sun Media gave him a regular column and a national pulpit.

 

He has also been a prop for the racist People’s Party of Canada. He was invited speak at a 2019 election rally with Maxime Bernier in Mississauga. But Bernier had hired a gang of right-wing thugs to provide, “security”, and Fatah was detained on arrival. Somehow, he just didn’t fit in with the complexion of the crowd. Pleading his case, Fatah got into a shouting match with a noted local racist and – dare I say it – Islamophobe, which ended with Fatah whacking the man with his cane.

 

“I was told I had no ‘security clearance’ and could not enter,” Fatah told the press, recalling he was given no explanation why. “No one I asked had an answer.”

 

Such is Fatah’s talent for denying the obvious.

 

Now he is at it again…sort of. His latest column is a masterpiece of the dishonest rhetoric that is his stock in trade. There is no Islamophobia in Canada because Justin Trudeau is a Catholic and Jagmeet Singh is Sikh. And if Canada is Islamophobic, so are other very nice countries like the US of A. And if there is Islamophobia in Canada, it is Muslim immigrants’ own fault for not being willing to dump their religion and cultural traditions to match the religion and cultural traditions of previous waves of immigrants.

 

Tarek Fatah’s writing does not disprove the existence of Islamophobia. Quite the opposite, he has proved to be Islamophobia’s biggest cheerleader. But his latest column is a new low.