The politicization of terrorism
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Summary
Candice Malan talks about the politicization of terrorism in Canada, and the reaction to the London, Ontario attack that left 4 dead, including a 9-year-old boy, and a 15-year old girl, in critical condition.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show.
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Today, on today's episode, I want to talk about the politicization of terrorism that
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I'm talking, of course, about this absolutely horrific attack that took place on Sunday
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evening in London, Ontario, where a driver drove his truck into a family, killing four
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people, including a 15-year-old girl, and leaving a nine-year-old boy in hospital in
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critical condition while his entire family is dead.
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London police have said this attack was premeditated and deliberate, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
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has said that this is an act of terrorism, as the family was Muslim and they were dressed
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There is nothing worse in my mind, absolutely nothing worse than the killing of children,
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especially in Canada, especially Canadian children.
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And look, I'm generally opposed to the death penalty.
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I don't think that the government should have that kind of power.
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But in cases like this, I think it was just absolutely despicable when it comes to killing
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I think that we should just throw the book at this despicable man, that we should lock
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I don't care about any of the other circumstances.
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And what we're seeing in response is just an absolute outpouring of support for this
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community, of love, of compassion, of solidarity.
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Canadians are rightly upset and angry that this would happen in our country.
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We want to make sure that newcomers and that all Canadians feel safe in our communities and
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We especially want new Canadians and newcomers to know that one deranged young man who committed
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an evil act does not represent the broader Canadian community.
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In fact, the broader Canadian community loathes this man and is completely against him.
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For example, Canadians universally condemn murder and we universally condemn crimes that seem
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But that is not what I want to talk about on the program today.
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What we're seeing in the media and by politicians specifically on the left and how they are reacting
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So almost immediately after the news came out and the details were learned, the left-wing
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media pounced and they started declaring that conservative politicians and conservative
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Now, what many in the media and many politicians started pointing to was something called M103,
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which was a 2017 liberal motion which sought to condemn Islamophobia and conservatives
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There was just one conservative who voted for it and that was Michael Chong.
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Now, this is what the Toronto Star wrote in their story about this attack.
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As politicians across Canada express their sadness over this weekend's fatal attack on
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a Muslim family in London, Ontario, community leaders are asking some of them to explain why
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they opposed a federal non-binding motion condemning Islamophobia in 2017 and to explain their
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And so since everyone's talking about M103, I think it's worthwhile to go through what
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the actual issue was when it came to that motion, why conservatives were against it.
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And to the Toronto Star, there hasn't been an apparent change in position.
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You can show sympathy for a Muslim family that was killed and you can condemn it and you can
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find it abhorrent without wanting to get into the political debate about the term Islamophobia.
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It was a politicized debate about that one word, that one word Islamophobia.
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And it's also worth noting that the liberals at the time were deliberately creating a wedge
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issue and the media being the media completely misrepresented what the issue actually was and
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So at the time, many conservative MPs, as well as conservative commentators, myself included,
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opposed the language in the motion that term Islamophobia was never defined.
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The word itself is obviously very controversial.
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And to many, the word doesn't mean bigotry or hate or an irrational fear of Muslims.
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It means that the religion and the political doctrine are sort of out of bounds in terms
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of criticism, which is the case in most Muslim countries in the world.
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So Raheel Raza, who is a Canadian activist and the founder of the moderate Muslim group Muslims
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She said, the term Islamophobia was coined after 9-11, you don't have to take my word
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on it, it's all electronically available, by an operative of the Muslim Brotherhood, who
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actually said, and is quoted to having said, that they would throw this term out there so
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that there is no questioning, criticism, or any kind of discussion about Islam and Muslims.
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So Raheel Raza was just one of countless Canadian Muslims who opposed M-103.
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Tarek Fatah, another one, he's my colleague over at the Toronto Sun.
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He says, quote, I hope to make the MPs realize that if they include the word denouncing Islamophobia
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in their proposals, they will infringe on the inalienable right of Muslim Canadians to
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critique their own religion, as has been the rich tradition that has been stifled by mullahs,
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Fatah was one of the organizers of a group called Muslims Against M-103.
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They hosted an event that was attended by several high-profile Muslim activists.
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We are entrapped by the use of the term Islamophobia, which is not clearly defined.
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As I read and reread the text of the motion M-103, I can agree with the overall intent,
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but without the use of the term, because Islamophobia can and has been used to confuse the masses
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So conservative MPs were taking their lead from these Muslim activists, and they therefore
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opposed the term Islamophobia, but not necessarily the intent behind the motion, and that was
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why conservative MP Scott Reid simply asked the liberals to remove the controversial term
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Islamophobia, and instead replace it with the more concise term, anti-Muslim bigotry.
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And if they would have done that, the conservatives would have been happy to support the motion,
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but they didn't because they were trying to create a wedge issue.
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They kept in that controversial word, knowing that conservatives would be against it, and
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knowing that they could use that to repeat the lie that conservatives are bigots, and
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of course the media, being the media, are all too happy to play along, play dumb, and repeat
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that idea that conservatives didn't condemn Islamophobia because they're just bigots,
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That's that, and that's what the media decided to run with, and then, again, we're seeing
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it this week in the aftermath of this attack, repeating the same lie that the conservatives
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didn't support that one motion because they are bigots.
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And now it really doesn't help, by the way, when conservative politicians are suddenly
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more than happy now to use this politicized term Islamophobia, which we've seen this week
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What they're really doing is validating the left-wing narrative that they have had a change
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of heart, or that the conservative position somehow in the past was wrong, that it was rooted
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That really doesn't help anything to go back and say, hey, efforts like the niqab ban, efforts
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like creating a hotline to help abuse children who are the victims of cultural violence, like
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honor killings, that creating resources to help them really just stems from dog whistle
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The reality is that those efforts are taken to do community outreach.
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Most of them came from requests from within the Muslim community, and that was why they had
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those kind of efforts, not because there was some kind of hatred.
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So when the conservatives concede and say that, yes, we were bigoted in the past, all
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they're doing is seeking strange new respect from the media, and they end up validating
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the unfair characterizations pushed by the left-wing media and also throw fellow conservatives
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And speaking of throwing fellow conservatives under the bus, there's another narrative coming
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out of this attack, which we've seen so much in recent weeks.
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Anytime there's any kind of a big news story, we fall back on this same narrative that Canadians
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We've seen it left, right and center in the past few months and years, this idea that all
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So we had a conservative out in London validating that.
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Jeff Bennett, who is a 2014 candidate for the Ontario PC Party in London West, he unleashed
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a tirade on Facebook condemning the city of London, Ontario as racist.
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Now, I see people expressing shock that a racist terrorist would drive his truck into the pathway
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I knocked on thousands of doors in the very neighborhood this atrocity occurred.
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The terrorist may have been alone in that truck on that day, but he was not acting alone.
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He was raised in a racist city that pretends it isn't.
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Now, of course, the left-wing media is applauding this individual as brave and courageous for
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turning on conservatives and saying the same thing that the left says about the country,
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If you're a conservative and you suddenly want the respect of the media, all you have to
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do is throw your side under the bus and repeat the very worst accusations about conservatives
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And then all of a sudden, suddenly you're a star in the media.
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I'm not saying there aren't, but the classification that this was all done, but the idea that all
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You can see that now by the outpouring of love and support for Muslims in the aftermath.
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If Canadians were truly these awful racist people, you wouldn't see that.
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You would see people, you know, being indifferent or celebrating, which really you're not seeing
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that other than maybe in the darkest quarters of the internet.
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By and large, Canadians are good people, good-hearted, and they're not racist.
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Now, it's really unfortunate that this PC candidate was trying to blame the broader community
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in London, saying that this stemmed from a group of people that wasn't just one individual
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You know, that's basically the opposite of what we're usually told.
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When it came to the Danforth shooter who unleashed his deadly rampage in Toronto, he killed
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Even after ISIS took responsibility, even after we learned that this individual attended
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a radical Muslim mosque, and even after it came out that his parents had told two different
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His mom and his dad said opposite things when it came to his mental health background, as
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well as the stories about where he had traveled to and whether he had gone to terrorist hotspots.
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What the media said was, A, don't blame the broader community.
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It was only mental illness, nothing to do with his ideology.
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They said that that would be playing into what ISIS wants.
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And finally, the police initially refused to name the perpetrator, and the media were
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They refused to show pictures of this individual.
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Well, this is kind of the opposite of what we are seeing now.
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The police named the individual right away and said it was deliberate.
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Media were posting pictures of this guy, not just now as a 20-year-old, but finding pictures
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There was one image of him when he was like 15 years old, and no one's talking about whether
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or not he was mentally ill, and everyone's saying that he must be a right-wing extremist
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and that he must have been influenced by conservative media and conservative politicians.
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And who can forget, in the instance of that Danforth killer, the media actually urged Canadians
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to embrace the killer's family and to reach out and support them.
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Of course, none of that's happening with the media right now.
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The left-wing media is more than happy to politicize this tragedy.
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They're more than happy to use it as a club to beat conservatives.
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Look, this country is heading in a very dangerous direction, and the liberal government is more
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than happy to take advantage of a gruesome attack to push their own radical agenda.
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They did this exact same thing last year after the massacre in Nova Scotia.
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They used the emotion and the fear of that attack to push through sweeping legislation
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to ban legal firearms, and I'm sure they'll do it again if we let them.
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I'm Candace Malcolm, and this has been The Candace Malcolm Show.