Racism?

Bouncing around the web can often lead you places you never intended to go. I read most of the blogs in my list simply for the entertainment value. Some only entertain while others can truly provoke deep thought from time to time.

I was following some links from Desitalk. She is a proud Canadian and so am I, so I thought I would check out some of the "I am Canadian" links she talked about in her blog. Being interested in other Canadian bloggers led me to a site called Canukistanian. I was pleased to notice that this site was from Brantford, Ontario which is very close to my home town and the owner is, I presume, a police officer. But then I started reading some of the postings. One such article left me cold and shocked. The article discusses the apparent fact that Marc Lepine, the man responsible for the massacre at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, was born a Muslim by some other name. Which is all fine and interesting but the conlusions the author (Jack Davies) jumps to are completely unreasonable.

The worst atrocity that Canada has ever experienced -- perpetrated by a youth raised in a Muslim family and taught to hate all women. Tell me again about peaceful Muslims!

He goes on to say:

I have Canadian values and MUSLIM is NOT part of that picture -- especially if it reflects the violence against women perpetrated by "Marc Levine"(sic) -- a Jihadi bent on conquest!

There is the part that shocked me. How can an officer, sworn to protect and serve ALL members of society, harbour such a poor feeling towards one religious group? That's an awful big brush he is using. He may think he holds Canadian values, but if his values do not include all religions and races then he is missing the point as to what Canada is all about (I will save that for some other post).

Now, to Mr. Davies credit, he does go on to say police officers need to know what they are dealing with when they enter a situation. I agree 100%. If the suspect is a confirmed militant, extremist, psycho, whatever, the responding officers really do need this information. And perhaps they even need to know what type of the aforementioned nut-jobs they are i.e. Muslim, Christian, Jew, etc. But the religion on its own is not a category which defines the type of perpetrator an officer is dealing with.

I really hope Mr. Davies has oversimplified his statements. I really hope he just neglected to say "Muslim Extremist" wherever he actually wrote just "Muslim". Because I believe that the vast majority of Muslims ARE peaceful and ARE good people.