The arrival of Omar Khadr on Canadian soil was long overdue. It is the right thing to do and justice has finally been served. This saga has put our values and principles to the test.
Many people have cried out loud to ban him from the country altogether. They were willing to abandon our judicial system and throw our values in the garbage bin. Their personal views and prejudice has blinded them from treating the case with a sense of balance, objectivity, fairness and justice.
His faith and the ethnic community he belongs to did not help him either to win sympathy in the wider society or even from his own government. To be a Muslim these days is double jeopardy. It is a crime itself in the public arena where you are convicted beyond reasonable doubt and you are guilty until proven otherwise.
If the exact scenario surrounding this young man was applicable to another child who belonged to a different culture, the perception might have been quite different. If he for instance was the son of the Prime Minister or the cousin of the Governor General, we would have witnessed a different movie altogether.
The same people who are advocating for closing the doors on him would have changed the tone altogether. They would have protested day and night to make sure justice is served. They would have portrayed him as a young child who deserves sympathy from everyone. A child is a child, they would have argued.
These people who are upset to see the government's move to bring him back to Canada should learn to accept the reality of our system. The system should be applied the same to everyone whether the person in question is someone we like or not.
If they still find it difficult to accept the reality of having the government fulfilling its obligation towards one of its citizens, then they can try to get help from therapists to overcome the difficulty they are going through.
They can train their minds into believing that the young man is not Omar Khadr. He is rather Joseph Smith and is their relative who is caught in difficulty abroad. Once they train their minds to have a different perception of him, their psychological trauma will settle down. They will be able to reconcile the difficulty they are having and they will treat him like everyone else.
What this young man has gone through leads me to question whether I am still considered a real Canadian. If I, or someone like myself, go through an ordeal overseas, would I be looked at differently by my fellow Canadians and treated like someone who doesn't really belong here?
Learning from the Omar Khadr saga, I am fearful and uneasy. In spite of been granted citizenship, I feel that I am somehow judged as someone else -- perhaps a second class citizen.
The only reason why this young man got the treatment he got from the government and also the general public is due to being different. In spite of his citizenship and being born here did not help him get a fair share of the system.
I wish we wouldn't lie to each other anymore. We should not keep each other in the dark. We should develop a more transparent system to reflect the reality of who we are and where we stand when it comes to our sense of belonging.
Perhaps there should be first class, second class and even third class Canadian citizenship. At least we would know who we really are and each person would know what to expect. I am neither a supporter of this young man nor a fan of the extreme ideology of al-Qaeda. As a matter of fact, al-Qaeda has murdered more Muslims than anyone else. They don't even consider me as a true Muslim.
I am pro justice and fairness. That is why I crossed miles and oceans to come to Canada because of its system that is based on justice and freedom. But I am greatly disappointed the way this lad has been treated all along. I feel that there is a lot that need to be done to overcome prejudice and to be able to live up to our own principles which have built this country and made it envy to the entire world.
People come here not because of what Tim Horton's has to offer; not to watch hockey or listen to Celine Dion. They have made Canada their own home due to the judicial system that we have. This Khadr saga has shown our hypocrisy which we should all be ashamed of. While we sing the slogans of equality, such words did not show any significant meaning towards this man who deserved fairness irrespective of who he is or the faith he belongs to.
we, as a country had an opportunity to stand up and fight for Omar, right from the start, bring him here and argue in Canadian courts his innocence or guilt, but instead we let the US walk all over the rights of a Canadian citizen and made us all look weak.
i hear people complaining about how his family only likes our health care, it's sad, but at least thats something they like, growing up i had a step grandmother who was german that hated everything about Canada that didn't have German ties, i had an Irish grandfather that hated anything catholic, to the point of embarrassment, my point is , being a free country we have to take the good in people and the bad, thats Canada.
Or, in the case of the Khadr clan, free health care!!!!!
The Taliban creates vipers out of children and their Canadian apologists count the number of rattles on the viper tails and say "a baby snake is innocent". It is a snake. A snake that was meant to grow up and shoot bhurka clad women on Afghan soccer fields. Spit acid in the faces of girls going to school. Behead prisoners and send the videos to Al Jazeera.
That's who Omar Khadr is.
I like immigrants. Every one in America came here as immigrants, yes even the native peoples came as immigrants originally. Our country can be stronger with immigrants. But it can be weakened when newcomers refuse to leave their old conflicts and hatreds behind. A custom? That is another thing. I asked a gentleman if he was warm enough one cold day. He showed me how underneath his traditional tribal dress he was wearing long johns, jeans, undershirts, down vest, and rugged boots. The outer gard was for show. To indicate his custom. Ok. To each his own.
But what happens when you immigrate to Canada then take your family offshore to continue old battles or worse, bring them here? Are you not just hiding while expanding the war? And isn't that terrorism? Isn't hiding amongst the civilian population, disguised as a non combattant, then striking when least expected at the most vulnerable target the very modus operandi of a terrorist? If not what are they?
I said you write interesting questions. You might consider both sides of the equation rather than dismissing the objectivity of anyone who disagrees with your views.
It's not about getting benefits and legal protections you didn't have in your country of birth, although these are rights you now have as a Canadian.
It's also about advancing Canadian culture and society and helping to create a peaceful co-existent, live and let live society of tolerance.
Muslims get a lot of suspicion because the loudest voices amongst you rail against the very things we value in Canada and in our immigrants.
People come from all over the world and buy into our mosaic and work hard and make a nice life and contribute to the richness of what is Canada. No one worries that a whole community is secretly trying to destroy Canada or make it into a reflection of the country they left. Not so with the most vocal elements of the Muslim community.
Our values are criticized. They seek to insulate themselves against mainstream Canadian society instead of adding to it. And there is passivity to the extremist and potentially violent elements within it.
We don't worry about Chinese immigrants bombing our subway. Or Indians. Or Africans. But we worry when we see a visibly religious Muslim person on the subway.
Before you accuse us native born Canadians, perhaps you should ask yourself why this is.
Get a life!
Seeing all Muslims as a threat is racist. But seeing a member of the Khadr family as a threat? That's prudent, not racist.
And as for the Muslim community's complicity in tolerating extremism in their midst...it's a fact. Indeed, some of the most vocal critics of the hypocrisy of the Muslim community in this regard are members of the community themselves!!
That's why Canadians are ambivalent about Khadr. Where will he go when released? To his family? At what risk?
Yes, our judicial system operates to release people when their sentences are complete, but our judicial system was created with a European (Anglo-Franco) mindset and cultural context in mind. It was not created with a risk of Islamic fundamentalism in mind.
People are scared of Muslims because of 9/11 and because of the horrors of the Arab world in terms of violence, oppression, repression, and the cultural sayings like "Death to....". We've seen train commuters in Madrid, commuters in London, and innocent workers in NYC murdered all in the name of Islam by Arabs and Pakistanis. How can you blame Canadians for being Islamophobic in these circumstances?
If you want to understand our feelings, think about how Arabs think about Jews and Israelis? Not so lovingly. And why? Because they associate all Jews and all Israelis as oppressors and murderers of Palestinians.
So before Muslims accuse non-Muslims of unjust Islamophobia because of what they've witnessed of the Muslim world, rightly or wrongly, they should look at themselves and examine their own anti-Semitism (you know what I mean) and their own anti-Americanism.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/30/bangladesh-muslims-attack-buddhists-quran_n_1926544.html