My Quebec includes Muslims, excludes racism

My view of Quebec and Canada includes Muslims.

No one should decide who should live or who should die.

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Free food for those who can't pay

This eatery downtown Montreal has been getting a lot of publicity lately when someone noticed they claimed to feed people who couldn't pay for free. So someone tried it out, and found that yes, they were well fed and treated kindly. Story went viral and I'm reposting it  for 2 reasons.

One the owner of the eatery is Muslim, two, I know that someone who reads this blog might benefit from knowing there is somewhere he can go and get free food, different from place that serves the homeless.

Here's story:

This twit proudly wears her "Canada" Tshirt

But the Canada she thinks she lives in is NOT my Canada.  This twit thought it was ok to go attack unprovoked a young Muslim woman with a small child in a supermarket!!!!! Why is it that people think it's that someone who looks different from them should be attacked or that they don't belong?

The best I read yesterday was shared by one occupy acquaintance who witnessed it in an IGA in the Pointe yesterday.

Overseen at the IGA:
White woman: Does it get hot like this?
Black man: *shopping*
White woman: *louder and slower* DOES IT... GET HOT LIKE THIS?
Black man: ...Excuse me?
White Woman: *exasperated* Where you're from. You know. AFRICA.
Black man: Ma'am... I'm from Verdun.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I had Haitian neighbours 50 years ago in Montreal North. Blacks are not new arrivals in Montreal or in Canada, the first one visiting came with Samuel de Champlain, and there have been communities formed since the late 1800's in Montreal. 

Same with Muslims, some Lebanese and Syrian Canadians have been in Canada since the late 1800's as well. Canadian Muslims in the past were less likely to be visibly Muslim but the past 10 years more Muslim women have adopted the Hijab.  It never occurs to anyone that some Muslims are born in Canada and some non Arab Canadians can also be Muslims because they decided to convert. 

One of the stupid things I saw yesterday was this Good for the woman to remind this idiot that he's the idiot in this location. 

Similar story shared was a Native American speaking Lakota to someone and being told "THis is the United States of America, speak English" 

Poor little french Politician.

We were visited in Quebec by a French politician of extreme right. I was pleased that no one in Quebec really wanted to meet her.

She's a bigot and a racist.  She's going on and on about how our multiculturalism will be the death of our nation.  Well that's her opinion. What she fails to realize is that this country was build on immigrants and refugees. We are NOT an homogeneous white country. We are a country that had multiple founding nations and that also includes a vibrant indigenous community.

We are not post colonial Europe.  It blows my mind that all those close-minded Europeans are all upset that migrants from Africa and the middle-east are at their door. However when they were actively colonizing all those nations and stealing as much resources as they can, they didn't seem to find it such a big deal. Well what did you think would happen?  You've destroyed their country and their lives and now they are at your door asking you to help.

It blows my mind that white folks in Europe want to ship all the refugees home. Well perhaps if you want to send people home you shouldn't destroy their homes ....?

This policy that the EU has adopted to return refugees to Turkey in exchange for "real refugees" vetted by the UN is moronic. People are already there......

Also it's sad that half of those refugee camps in Europe are mostly DETENTION CENTERS.  I really hope that the people who decide these sub human policies are never stuck being refugees themselves.....

Once last note.... the anti-Muslim retoric must stop. We don't condemn all catholics for the pedophine priests, we don't condemn all Christians for the KKK... why blame all Muslims for DAESH?

Is it the 1940's ?

No wait, today is 2015.

Someone should inform Donald Trump. "The Donald" seems to espouse racism we thought we had eliminated after the 2nd world war.

It amazes me how many people support this twit. His stance on Muslims, wanting to ban them from America is about as clever as Germany's ban on Jewish people. It won't finish well for anyone.

Personally I have no problems with Islam.  I have problems with Fundamentalist Muslims but I have problems with Fundamentalist anything.  And I definitely have problems with anyone trying to shove anything down my throat, especially religion. Don't tell me who I can pray to.


Also imagine that, I'm not a follower of the great 3 religions. I haven't been a Christian since the age of 6, my mom isn't Jewish and I've never converted to Islam, but if I had to choose out of the 3 I would probably choose Islam.    However often I'm more caring about people then those who found or have religion. Imagine what that says about me. I'm not nice to others because Jesus tells me to, I'm nice to others because I believe in being nice!

Solidarity with all our Canadian sisters -

     

 

Hey Harper, do I matter now?

Indigenous women are fighting for the right to be safe and in control of our own bodies, and instead of launching an inquiry to uncover the systemic racism that caused an epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women, Harper attacks our Muslim sisters for what they choose to wear.

PM Harper, it's my body, my clothing, and MY decision. You will not distract me from issues that actually matter to me as a Canadian.

In solidarity with our Muslim sisters.

Thank you Lena Aittauq and Karen Kabloona for launching this social media campaign.

#doimatternow #MMIW #deadcat #cdnpoli #elxn2015 #elxn42 #polcan
My friends feel free to take your own pics and post with the #doimatternow hashtag!

Post updated:

p.s. I hope our current MP Leona Aglukkaq takes note of this campaign and pushes for an inquiry.

p.p.s. My friends, please VOTE. Even if you don't like any of the candidates, even if you don't know who to vote for. The only way politicians at the national level will actually care about indigenous issues is if there are votes at stake. They won't bother to do anything for us if it doesn't win them any votes no matter what they do. Voting by eenie meenie miney moe is better than not voting at all.

Refusing to vote is not protest, it's giving up!

author/Facebook page:

Alethea Arnaquq-Baril 

 

Time to pack the kids and run!

Oh BOY Muslims are going to take over Texas. It's obvious! First they ask for a cemetery, and just wait a few months and soon Sharia law will be all over Texas, because Muslims are going to take over!!!

Read here:

I'm really scared. How long will it take before they come to Canada with their cemetery plots planning to take over our countries and our laws and replace them with Sharia!

/End Sarcasm. The idiocy of the American South has no bounds!!!

ISIS - Those fools have little in common with ISLAM.

Interesting article I read on Huffington Post this morning, Did prophet Muhammad warn us about ISIS?

Women and Islam.

This woman is very articulate and explains why as a feminist she converted to Islam. People seem to find it ludicrous that a western woman would convert to Islam but she makes a good case for it.

I'm not looking for a new religion, and my research into Islam was done back the summer of 2006. However I had concluded back then that Islam was not the issue when it came to women's rights or treatment.

I've met articulate intelligent independent women who embrace Islam, both here in Montreal and in my travels in the middle-east.  

They can still hide it.

Sadly it seems that isolated communities where men and women aren't allowed to freely interact are often those that inflict the worse abuse on its members.

My life would really suck if I had to live with only women and rarely got to interact with men. To me it's normal that society be mixed. And just like there are bad men there are bad women. And just like there are bad Christians, there are bad Muslims and bad Jews.. just to harp on the "big 3".

While the Catholic church is mostly in the news about it's pedophile priests of the past, and Islam ends up in headlines because of it's fundamentalist "taliban" style members, and the whole fear of Islam since 9/11 in the west [it was communism that used to scare people 60 years ago], but how often do fundamentalist Jews end up on the front page of a news paper here ? Which brings me to this article.

Something I've believed for a long time.

As a rule I hate all fundamentalists,  be they Christian, Pagan or Muslim. 

Notice the shift in the protests?

Last year, many countries in the Muslim world were still involved in Arab spring protests. They were asking for their rights and freedoms. This seems to have changed in some countries like Tunisia and Egypt, where the angry protests are now against a film no one has seen!!!  It's so far just a trailer on the internet. But all the anger that should probably go against the problems in their country is now aimed squarely towards the west.

It's obvious those who put this trailer up want to inflame the those who would get offended at this sort of thing. I don't know who's behind it, but it's really turning part of the Muslim world against the west and this is bound to have a backlash for us Canadians.

It really sucks because the level of hatred showed in some of these protests is disproportionate to a movie. I mean 4 lives were lost in Libya and the people who died had nothing to do with the movie trailer. I mean going to a protest and saying all those who offend Islam should be beheaded makes me wonder what kind of world we live in. You want others to respect your religion and prophet how about respecting other people's right to have an opinion too? 

Some people like pushing buttons

Some yahoo in the US decided that it would be a good idea to be offensive to Muslims with a movie. The trailer has been around online since mid july but was recently translated into Arabic for maximum effect.  Sadly for some reason, large crowds of Muslims in the middle east like storming the US embassies to get the point across. Sadly for the  US ambassador to Libya it was fatal.