Dr. Zafar Bangash at FWS

Last week FWS was the host of Dr. Zafar Bangash. Dr. Bangash is a noted Islamic movement journalist and commentator and a leader of the Muslim community in Ontario, Canada. He is the director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), and the president of the Islamic Society of York Region, a suburb of Toronto. Bangash is also imam at the Islamic Society of York Region's mosque and community centre in Richmond Hill, Ontario. He is the former editor of Crescent International newsmagazine.

Dr. Bangash came to our faculty on Saturday, 7th of October. He started his speech by giving us some information about Canada, its government and people. He introduced Canada as a good example of a middle level power which has influence on the world stage. However, he believed that Canada was also an imperialist power wanting to project its military power. As an example he said that Canada had actually entered the Second World War two years before the United States.


Canada is the second biggest country in the world and as Bangash said its population is divided into three categories. The English and the French comprise the first two categories and the third category consists of immigrants from different parts of the world such as Eastern Europe, India, Pakistan, China etc. About the government, Canada has a British style government and now the conservative party is in power, said Bangash. The present prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, as Bangash noted is more extreme than Bush in his policy and unfortunately hostile to Muslims. He said that Muslims had been targeted in Canada especially after September eleven but still he believed that the situation of Muslims in Canada was much better than the Muslims in the U.S., England and France.


The other issues which the Canadian journalist referred to were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the involvement of the Canadian government in those wars. Canada was not directly involved in Iraq as a result of the massive protests against the Iraqi war in Canada. However, its navy and officers were involved in supporting the U.S. military continued Bangash. In Afghanistan, there are 3000 Canadian soldiers but 60% of the population is against the presence of Canadian military in Afghanistan. However, as Dr. Bangash mentioned, the present government of Canada still continues to follow the extreme policy of George Bush. Canadian government also supports Israel and has declared Hamas as a terrorist organization. So, overall Muslims are not treated well in Canada although Canadian people are not hostile toward Muslims like the government. In fact Canadian people are fair- minded and an average Canadian is more decent than a British or an American, said Bangash. He pointed out that the Canadian society is quite tolerant since there are many immigrants there.


Zafar Bangash also talked about some Muslim Canadians whose rights had not been protected by the Canadian government. At the end, Dr. Bangash answered a few questions. A question was asked about how Canada has been able to project the image of a peaceful country despite the fact that its government does not have that peaceful attitude. As an answer Bangash referred to two prominent figures who very much contributed to this peaceful image of Canada. They are Lester Pearson, the 14th prime minister of Canada who won the Nobel peace prize in 1957 and Pierre Trudeau, the 15th prime minister of Canada whose motto was “reason before passion”.


Zafar Bangash came to our faculty for the second time on Sunday and we were hosting him in our ethnicity class. He came there to talk about Canadian identity. He described Canadian society as a mosaic in which you can see the English, the French and people from other parts of the world. Native Canadians, the original inhabitants of Canada, are not very much in number said Bangash. They are about one million people and live in poor conditions away from the major cities. They have their own government and Canadian law does not apply to them. Bangash stated that Canada has a multicultural society in which people are encouraged to retain their own identity. However, there is a problem here. People do not know what Canadian identity exactly is.


The main clash in Canada is between the French and the English at political, cultural and linguistic level, said Bangash. The French feel that they are overwhelmed by English culture and most immigrants to Canada tend to speak English. So to retain their own identity, the French are striving for Quebec’s independence and they encourage immigrants to learn French. Regarding the influence of American culture on Canadian culture, Bangash believed that Canadian culture is more influenced by English and French cultures rather than American culture.


Finally, Bangash described Canadian people as relaxed, self-deprecating and moral people who also have unique literature, art and cinema.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zafar_Bangash
http://www.crescenticit.com/
http://crescent-online.net/editorials/15-zafar-bangash.html