Canadian imams express solidarity with Indigenous people Indigenous Rights News

Toronto, Canada – “We should all feel the pain of the indigenous community here … because we have seen what imperialism does to our countries at home,” said Aarij Anwer, imam of the Muslim Mosque in London, Ontario, in a prayer broadcast live on social media on Friday. .

On Friday, Anwer was one of 75 imams in Canada, offering condolences and expressing solidarity with Indigenous people after the discovery of unmarked graves in more than 1,000 homes today in forced assimilation organizations known as residential schools.

The Canadian Council of Imams and Justice for All Canada led a coordinated effort to raise awareness. In a statement, the imams wrote: “The discovery of hundreds of graves of innocent children – who have robbed families, abused, tortured and starved them in the name of European imperialism – has left us in anguish of grief and shame.”

In prayer, Anwer called on his Muslims to express solidarity with the natives, telling the story of his grandfather who fled Delhi after the British-sanctioned division in India and Pakistan in 1947. “You all have similar stories, I can guarantee that,” he said. “So if a community were to feel the pain of imperialism and colonialism and savage assassination, we would have to be ourselves. Therefore, our sympathy for the indigenous people should be even greater, their supporters should be even more so, because we know what that feels like.”

From the late 1800s to 1996, Canada forcibly removed 150,000 Indigenous children from their homes and kept them in organizations run by church workers, cutting their hair, and banning them from speaking their languages ​​or cultivating cultures. Many suffered physical and sexual abuse. They were tortured in an electric chair, starved and subjected to food experiments.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), in a year-long study documenting thousands of surviving stories, described the institution as a “disease incubator” where many children died of tuberculosis. Some died from exposure after escaping from prison-like conditions; some died in the fires because they were ignored by institutions to prevent children from fleeing to conduct fire drills or put out fire escapes.

The TRC identified 4,100 children who died in schools, although experts believe the actual number is much higher. The goal of the institutions was to kill indigenous culture in order to make land and resources available to the settlers. The TRC concluded that the practice was a “cultural genocide”.

Anwer said he felt compelled to act on a human level and that his faith commanded him to be with the oppressed and against the oppressor. “He should be disgusted with everything he reads about this,” Anwer told Al Jazeera. “They saw these people as sub-human beings, our indigenous family.”

Anwer said many Canadians are still unaware of the level of cruelty committed in these organizations. “I don’t even remember reading it at school,” he said on the phone Friday. “I remember reading all these facts about D-Day, the Confederacy, John A. Macdonald, but I think it was just a footnote in the history books, even if it was mentioned. As Canadians, this calculation of dark history was built in this country we have to do it.

“It’s not something we clean under the rug,” he added.

On Friday evening, Taha Ghayyur, executive director of Justice for All Canada, gave a sermon at a mosque in Mississauga, Ontario. When he explained what had happened in the “schools” of the residences, some of the audience nodded, others seemed upset and some opened their eyes in surprise. Ghayyur said people approached him later to indicate that they were aware of the latest discoveries in mass graves, but did not know why this was happening.

“It has to start with awareness, and that’s why recognition is the first step,” Ghayyur said. “Symbolically, it is a very powerful expression of religious leadership.”

Ghayyur said Muslim communities could be linked to this – Palestinians and Rohingyas as far as the Uighur community. He said Uyghurs in Canada told him that they were “recovering” from experiences in the Xinjiang mass detention camps when they met the Canadian-based “schools”.

Addressing indigenous communities, Ghayyur said: “We share your pain – we don’t know your pain – but we would like to be in solidarity with you there.”

“We are with them because they have been wrong,” Anwer said at the mosque on Friday. “And, as a community, we need to find the courage to oppose the status quo that allowed this to happen.”