Imams in Canada express solidarity with Indigenous people Indigenous Rights News

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

On Friday, Anwer was one of 75 imams across Canada who offered condolences and expressed solidarity with the Indians after the discovery of unmarked graves, which now number more than 1,000, in institutions of forced assimilation known as residential schools.

The Canadian Council of Imams and Justice For All Canada led the coordinated outreach effort. In a statement, the imams wrote: “The discovery of hundreds of hundreds of graves of innocent children – stolen from their families, abused, tortured and starved to death in the name of European imperialism – has left us asleep in pain and shame. “

During the prayer, Anwer called on his fellow Muslims to show solidarity with the natives, sharing the story of his grandfather fleeing Delhi after the partition of India and Pakistan sanctioned by the British in 1947 “You all have stories similar, I can guarantee you, ”he said. “Therefore, if any community feels the pain of imperialism and colonialism and a brutal assassination, it should be us. And that is why our sympathies for the natives should be even more, our support for them. it should be even bigger, because we know how it feels. ”

From the late 1800s to 1996, Canada forcibly removed 150,000 Indigenous children from their homes and kept them in institutions run by church personnel, who cut their long hair and banned them from speaking their languages. or practice their cultures. Many were physically and sexually abused. They were tortured in an electric chair, starved to death and subjected to nutritional experiments.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), in an investigation that took years to document thousands of survivors’ stories, described the institutions as “disease incubators” where many children died of tuberculosis. Some died as a result of exposure after escaping prison-like conditions; some were set on fire because, to prevent children from fleeing, institutions ignored instructions to conduct fire drills or install stairs.

The TRC identified 4,100 children who died in schools, although experts believe the actual number is much higher. The purpose of the institutions was to kill the indigenous culture 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 because his faith commands him to stand by the oppressed and against the oppressor. “It should upset everyone who reads about it,” Anwer told Al Jazeera. “They saw these people as subhuman, our indigenous family.”

More than 1,000 unmarked graves have been found across Canada, including 751 at Marieval Indian Residential School near Grayson, Saskatchewan. [Shannon VanRaes/Reuters]

Anwer said many Canadians still do not realize the level of atrocity committed in these institutions. “I don’t even remember reading this at school,” he said by phone Friday. “I remember reading about D-Day, the Confederacy, John A. Macdonald, all those numbers, but I think it was just a footnote in the history books, even if it was mentioned. As Canadians, we must face this calculation of this dark history on which this country was built.

“It’s not something we sweep under the carpet,” he added.

On Friday afternoon, Taha Ghayyur, executive director of Justice For All Canada, delivered a sermon at a mosque in Mississauga, Ontario. As he explained what was going on in the residential “schools,” some people in the audience nodded, others looked annoyed, and a few opened their eyes in surprise. Ghayyur said people approached him later to express that they had heard about the recent discoveries of mass graves, but that they had no idea why this was happening.

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

Ghayyur said Muslim communities can relate to this, from Palestinians to Rohingya to the Uyghur community. He said Canadian Uighurs told him they were “reliving” experiences of mass detention camps in Xinjiang when they learned about residential “schools” in Canada.

Addressing the indigenous communities, Ghayyur said, “We share your pain, we do not know it, but we would like to be there in solidarity with you.”

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





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