The title and kicker for the physical edition of this article were accidentally changed from what was originally planned for publication and do not represent the work of the author.
By: Humza Khan
Stephan Paddock’s actions of firing into a crowd of 22,000 concertgoers from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, carrying out the most devastating shooting in US history has traumatized the world.
In addition, the media’s refusal to dub Paddock as a terrorist has ignited an important debate regarding the definition of terrorism.
My goal in writing this is to shed light on the debate surrounding the definition of terrorism and to suggest that there is a major problem of inconsistency in the labeling of individuals as terrorists.
Additionally, I aim to show the importance of debate in formulating a clear definition of what constitutes an act of terrorism and a terrorist.
If you Google the names Dylan Roof, Adam Lanza and now Stephan Paddock, and compare these with names with names like Omar Siddiqui Mateen, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Rizwan Farook, you will quickly realize that all of these men committed similar atrocious crimes intended at targeting and terrorizing the civilian population.
Where you will see an apparent difference, however, is how the media insisted on referring to Roof, Lanza and Paddock, and many others like them, as “lone wolves” or “shooters” while referring to the latter group of Muslims as “terrorists” and “jihadists”. This discrepancy has led me to question the definition of terrorism and to show the importance of labeling both groups of people the same.
Referring to the actions of Muslim men as “terroristic”, while simultaneously referring to same actions of westerners as “acts of pure evil” (as quoted by Donald Trump in the immediate aftermath of the Las Vegas Attack) is highly problematic.
The statements largely made by the media and by governmental officials directly and wrongfully reinforce the “us versus them” dichotomy by wrongfully reserving only the actions of Muslims as terroristic.
I distinctively remember going to McDonald’s the day after the Las Vegas attack and looking at the front page of the Toronto Sun with the heading “Act of pure evil”.
The same evening, I came across the heading “Terrorist attack in Edmonton”, referring to the stabbing of a police constable by Somalian refugee, Abdulahi Hasan.
My goal is not to suggest that Omar Siddiqui Mateen and others alike are not terrorists, but rather to suggest that the similar actions of Paddock should also have earned him the title of a terrorist because failing to do so strengthens the “us versus them” dichotomy and clouds the definition of terrorism.
The statements largely made by the media and by governmental officials directly and wrongfully reinforce the “us versus them” dichotomy by wrongfully reserving only the actions of Muslims as terroristic.
What I find rather interesting about the Las Vegas case is that the State of Nevada under the sections 202.4415 and 202.4439 of the Nevada Revised Statutes explicitly define terrorism as and terrorist as the following:
Terrorism: “any act that involves the use or attempted use of sabotage, coercion or violence which is intended to:
(a) Cause great bodily harm or death to the general population; or
(b) Cause substantial destruction, contamination or impairment of…”
Terrorist: “A person who intentionally commits, causes, aids, furthers or conceals an act of terrorism or attempts to commit, cause, aid, further or conceal an act of terrorism”.
From a legal standpoint, it is quite evident that Paddock’s actions of firing 281 rounds in 30 seconds in a crowd of 22,000 civilians earn him the title of a terrorist.
More importantly, however, is that even if we chose to call Paddock a lone wolf it is imperative that we also label Omar Siddiqui and others alike with the same label to ensure legitimacy and consistency.
As a graduate from the Justice, Political Philosophy and Law program at McMaster, one of the more valuable things I learned in my program was to critically evaluate information and arguments instead of taking them at face value.
It is this message that I leave you in reading this, to evaluate and analyze complex information and arguments that you see before blindly accepting them.
As informed McMaster students, and the leaders of tomorrow, it is our duty and responsibility to ask hard questions and debate complex issues and only then come to conclusions.
I urge you to critique and evaluate my opinions above, to debate openly with other students, because it is only through such discourse we can come to understand the complexity of these problems and become more informed in our opinions.
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By: Saad Ejaz
Thousands of Canadians across the country have sought to show their support for the victims of the Quebec City mosque shooting, as the country struggled to understand how it became a setting for the tragic events on Jan. 29.
On Jan. 30, as the flags in front of the Burke Science Building flew at half mast, McMaster University students, bundled against the cold, stood in solidarity to mourn the lives lost in the Quebec City Mosque shooting.
Dareen El-Sayed, the co-president of McMaster Muslims for Peace and Justice, says the tragic events were a shock.
“It was a lot closer to home – it was home,” said El-Sayed.
MMPJ’s event on Monday held a Maghreb prayer outside of Burk Science Building to take a stance to remember the victims of Sunday’s attack.
“The people who were killed were killed while they were in the mosque while they were going to pray… and our response to standing and taking that time to first of all stand in solidarity and secondly grieve and mourn...would be through prayer,” said El-Sayed.
A prayer was also held in the McMaster University Student Centre, where McMaster president Patrick Deane spoke in solidarity.
“The tragedy of the victims is fundamentally an incomprehensible reality… I don’t know how you get your mind around such things nor should one ever have to,” said Deane.
All week long, messages of hope and support for the stricken community have ranged from vigils, to open-podiums, to forming a “ring of peace” around local community mosques.
The attack took place amid protests around the world after the U.S president Donald Trump enacted a travel ban on seven Muslim majority countries.
“For a leader of a country to be saying these things – what kind of bar does that set for everyone else?” said Youssef Khaky the president of the McMaster Muslim Student Association.
El-Sayed cited the focus on crimes done by marginalized groups in comparison to others as a key issue.
“In each community there is the good and the bad. What is ironic is the fact that if an act may have come out of a marginalized community… the emphasis on the bad compared to other communities is much bigger… it is crazy how a crime can be labeled in two different ways based on the ethnicity of the person who committed it… contrary to being framed as a one person incident,” said El-Sayed.
Member of the McMaster Muslim Student Association, Anas Alwan, pointed to the current political dialogue for being a part of the climate fostering hostility towards Muslims.
“We need to recognize the need to identify that this is a problem that exists and need to look within our campus to find a solution that best fits the problem,” said Alwan, alluding to events earlier in the term when students on campus booked a Mills Memorial Library study room for a ‘Ku Klux Klan’ meeting and the neo-nazi posters on campus in November.
The events held by MMPJ have emphasized the prospect of being unapologetically Muslim. This means representing the Muslim identity regardless of what is going on around the world.
"It is crazy how a crime can be labeled in two different ways based on the ethnicity of the person who committed it..."
Dareen El-Sayed
Co-president of McMaster Muslims for Justice and Peace
“When we hear about these attacks, what we stress is that these types of things will not scare us and these things will not make us shy away from portraying our Muslim identity to the world,” said Walid Abdulaziz the co-president of MMPJ.
Following the events in the past few weeks, McMaster has recognized its multicultural and inclusive community open to all students.
“We need to keep our eyes on what is at risk, and the importance of playing our parts to defend the values of inclusiveness and mutual support… the university will defend those values and every member of the community with everything at our disposal… that has to be said over and over again… I hope everyone regardless of how they are affected by the Quebec events or by what is going on will turn to the university for support,” said Deane.
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As the refugee crisis continues, with thousands of people fleeing crisis in the Middle East. Canada has been proactive in taking steps to accept Syrian refugees despite citizens’ concerns over security after the horrific Paris attacks orchestrated by ISIS. While it is in Canadian spirit to be accepting and receive these refugees with open arms, there is also the appropriate way of doing so. Trudeau has faced criticism regarding his original plan to bring in 25,000 Syrians by the end of this year, with 51 percent of Canadians disapproving of his plan to settle Syrians across Canada. Since the backlash, Trudeau has backtracked but not necessarily in the most diligent manner. The new refugee settlement plan consists of accepting 25,000 Syrians by the end of February 2016, but the most controversial and illogical aspect of the new plan is the rejection of unaccompanied or single straight adult men.
In an interview with CBC, Trudeau claims that Canada will not be accepting single adult men right away because he claims that the most vulnerable should be given priority. While he says this decision is not final, his statement raises the question of whether vulnerability is really the reason for this decision? If it is, then are these young, single men not more vulnerable to recruitment by ISIS? If one of Canada’s goals is to put an end to ISIS’ terror, then openly discriminating against single Syrian men is not the best way of showing support. In fact, this decision could have serious implications in terms of who ISIS chooses to target during their enrolment process, because the men who feel excluded by a country that claims to be all-embracing may be more inclined to find a home with the terror group. This is not as far-fetched an idea as it may seem, considering the propaganda ISIS uses to draw men and women in. They are made to feel wanted and accepted. This new adjustment to Trudeau’s plan is short-sighted and illogical because it can be argued that single men are just as vulnerable as single women. Perhaps their vulnerabilities manifest differently, but they exist nonetheless.
Another explanation could be that Trudeau’s exclusion of single men is for security reasons. There is a great concern among many Canadians that a mass movement of Syrian refugees into the country could allow terrorists to slip under the radar. Yet, while it may be more common to see male ISIS members in online propaganda videos and on the ground initiating attacks, it is wrong to assume that single men are the most high-risk. Even though the Canadian government has not directly said that this is the reason for excluding single Syrian males, it surely sends a questionable message. Not only is it wrong to discriminate against single men, while men who have families are welcome, it is naïve to think that these men are the only ones capable of working for ISIS undercover and spreading terror in Canada. In fact, one of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks was 26-year-old female Hasna Aitboulahcen, who also opened fire on police when they approached her flat, with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Experts have said that the risk of a terrorist getting into Canada during refugee settlement is slim, but even if it is a concern it should not manifest itself as discrimination against one gender over the other. The reality is that yes, there are risks associated with accepting a large number of refugees in a short period of time. However, a better way of responding to Canadians’ criticisms is to extend the timeline of Syrian integration into Canada. They can still be protected abroad during the process, but there is value in ensuring the settlement of refugees is done in a safe, controlled manner without leaving one group in the dust with no firm promise of acceptance in the near future.
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By: Alex Zavarise
The principal goal of terrorism is to spread fear through violence, attempting to induce irrational decisions in scared individuals or groups. The attackers (especially those with political aims) will often identify certain demands, anticipating that the individuals involved will make a reckless decision and comply in order to regain a sense of control. Terrorists put individuals in high-stress situations, hoping to benefit from their distress.
It is gross. It is sick. It happens every day.
In 2014 there were roughly 13,500 terrorist attacks in the world. That’s around 37 attacks per day. On Nov. 13, 2015, there were three terrorist attacks in Baghdad, Beirut and France, and two earthquakes in Japan and Mexico, but the Internet only seemed to care about France. Similar to the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris this January, social media exploded with tweets and statuses showing support for the victims and their families. The hashtag “Pray for Paris” trended worldwide the night of the attacks, garnering over 2.5 million tweets. Support online for the other tragedies did not receive the same amount of attention, with Beirut only receiving about 90 thousand tweets that night, followed by Baghdad with 82 thousand.
Why do certain countries receive an outpouring of support during tragedies, while other countries are largely disregarded? Iraq, for example, fell victim to roughly 3,400 terrorist attacks in 2014 alone, whereas the U.S. experienced fewer than 30. You can imagine which received greater coverage.
This Friday major media outlets, such as BBC, CNN, CBC, and even the Vatican reported almost exclusively on Paris. News outlets are supposed to report on the news. All of it. The front pages of the world’s newspapers mourned for Paris — news of Baghdad, Beirut, Japan and Mexico could be found amongst the game highlights, classifieds, and crosswords. Even urban landmarks were altered to show their support. The CN Tower, World Trade Centre, and Wembley Stadium are among the many buildings that changed their lighting to red, white and blue — the colours of the French flag. The purpose? To show solidarity and support for France. Nothing for Baghdad, Beirut, Japan or Mexico. And what of our world leaders? British PM David Cameron, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and former PM Stephen Harper, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and U.S. President Barack Obama are among the many leaders to release statements of support for France. Donald Trump also weighed in, but his comments were — in classic Trump fashion —insensitive and self-serving. None took the time to speak about Baghdad, Beirut, Japan or Mexico.
So why does France get such a show of solidarity? Why are the other tragedies of the day not newsworthy? Why are news outlets allowed to pick and choose what story gets the most airtime? Is it important to report on Paris? Yes. Were the events in Paris a tragedy? Absolutely. But the tragedy in Paris on Nov. 13 was not the only major tragedy that occurred that day, even though the world seemed to think so. It is important to report on all tragedies, and show support for all victims.
Photo Credit: Associated Press
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By: Sarah Jama
The first time I travelled out of Canada was in December of last year, when I went to Ecuador for a festival. I was randomly selected for a search four times before I got onto a plane to Houston, and randomly selected for a search another two times before I got onto a plane to Ecuador. I travelled with ten other people, but was one of the two people in my group of friends to be searched at all.
The two of us were the only coloured ones. The searches were so extensive that security put on rubber gloves and picked through my hair with her fingers, and my walker was taken aside and scanned multiple times, maybe for hidden compartments. I was born and raised in Canada and I told them I was Canadian, but it didn’t matter. According to airport security, I was more likely than my white friends to be a terrorist or drug transporter.
A lot of this is why I feel bad for the 30-year-old assault-rifle collector from Pakistan who was arrested on allegations that he is a terrorist threat to Canada. Muhammad Ansari is now a person of interest in an investigation by the RCMP-led Integrated National Security Enforcement Team in Ontario.
This means that instead of just being charged for the crimes he committed, i.e. collecting rifles illegally, he is being investigated for acts of terrorism. His parents say he was a software engineer looking to escape violence in Pakistan. His friends say he is not a violent individual. There is no evidence to suggest that his hobby, though against the law, was tied to terrorism.
Terrorists exist. They attack, they hurt, and they kill. But as a black woman from a religious minority, I have to do the work of fearing terrorists and proving that I’m not one myself, leaving me in this awkward gray area. I have to be more careful about my hobbies, and careful in abiding by every single law, so that my mistakes aren’t looked at through a lens of terrorism. I have to be submissive and okay with being searched head to toe multiple times in airports before I can board a plane.
Maybe if someone had warned Muhammad Ansari about this gray area, he would have done away with his gun collecting hobby earlier.
By: Ben Robinson
In the wake of last week’s shooting on Parliament Hill it is important to try and understand what really motivated the events in order to avoid them in the future.
At first, with the limited information available, there was speculation that it must be a terrorist attack, perhaps somehow associated with ISIL. Whenever a shooting like this happens, there is a scramble in the media to try and learn as much about the people involved as possible.
But the details that are reported are not always innocuous as they seem. Michael Zehef-Bibeau, the man who shot Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, was immediately connected with a mosque that he attended three years ago. If it had been reported that he went to a certain church three years ago would that have been deemed relevant to print?
It was also reported that Zehef-Bibeau applied for a Libyan passport, not so subtly implying a connection to North Africa. It is strange that something as mundane as a passport application would be deemed newsworthy when the same article states that Michael Zehef-Bibeau's family is from Libya and that he was hoping to visit them. The limited details the press chose to focus on about Zehef-Bibeau being tied to Libya and Islam seem to be more distracting than edifying. Thus, this all too familiar characterization of “the shooter” directs readers toward an assumption that this was yet another terrorist attack by a Muslim extremist with ties to North Africa.
To explain this away with the palatable yet highly reductive motive of terrorism may ease the dissonance for those struggling to comprehend how this could happen to the “true North strong and free.” But it also leaves individuals feeling powerless to do anything. The spectre of terrorism often seems to loom too large for people to do anything other than be angry.
A recent CBC report confirmed that the man behind the shooting, Michael Zehef-Bibeau, had been arrested multiple times and on multiple occasions came forward to police asking to be taken into custody. In one instance he went as far as telling police “I wanted to come to jail so I could clean up,” and "if you release me what's going to happen again? Probably the same loop and I'm going to be right back here again.” This man was self-aware enough to know that he posed a risk to others in his current state and so for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to come forward and say “our laws and police powers need to be strengthened in the area of surveillance, detention and arrest” in response to the shootings misses the point.
There was no need for surveillance or detection in this case; Zehef-Bibeau was forthright about the support he needed from various government agencies, and he was denied. The importance of mental health funding is more apparent than ever as we now know the consequences of neglecting it. This issue was brought literally to the steps of Parliament Hill, right outside of Stephen Harper’s door. Hopefully the real story will not be drowned out amidst the cries of terrorism.
Terrorism necessitates a greater cause, something for the public to be scared of. Who is to be feared in this situation? This was not terrorism. This was a tragedy that could have been avoided. Let's put away the calls for increased police presence and begin the preventative mental health work that so clearly needs to be done. Not one, but two men died on Parliament Hill last week, and both deaths could have been avoided.
Kacper Niburski
The Silhouette
My mom always wanted big, broad, impossibly large windows.
When we moved into our new house after searching for months, that’s the first thing she said. In a subtle tone that only the stress of three childbirths and years of parenting could bring, she said that it was all so very nice – so very, very nice – except for the windows. “They’ll never catch the light,” she said.
And for the most part, they didn’t. On cloud-drunk days, the house was the center of a black hole with the slivers of ambient light being vacuumed into the corners of the windows. And on summer afternoons when the sun would stretch on a smile that beamed endlessly, we still needed a flashlight to navigate some of the rooms in the house.
Living there for a year, I decided to come up with a solution myself. Though I think of my six-year-old self as a boy soaked in sunlight rather than cloaked in darkness, back then I raced towards my mother with bundles of paper and drawings. On an avalanche of disordered sheets of white, I presented my mom a design that would brighten up her day in all senses: a glass house.
I told her to imagine it. Imagine that the windows wouldn’t be a subset of the house, but they’d be it entirely. Imagine that every day the sun would greet her and me alike with a rosy glow that warmed our feet and toes. Imagine that in all directions the light would be reflected and reflected again from all angles. And imagine that in doing so, the rays of sunshine wouldn’t be blocked by the house but instead pass through it. We would be sunlight entirely, a single point on a wave of yellow, and our house would be lit up daily.
Poring over my scribbles and doodles, frantically pointing to one warped blueprint after another, my mom gently smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “But not now. Maybe later.”
At first, I was dismayed at her hesitance. Here was the life she craved, one with windows for walls, one where light flooded rather than trickled, where every day would glow unimpeded, and where no matter the location, everything would be illuminated in sunshine. It was perfect not simply because it was what she wanted, but because it was so much more than that.
But through the same nuance she used to veil her original disappointment in the little mousetraps we had for windows, she was trying to tell me that a glass house is not what she wanted.
Only 20 years later, after a flurry of facial hair and braces and etching out my own individuality, did I learn why. The revelation occurred on June 9, 2013 (and refreshed yesterday with leaks regarding Australia and Indonesia) during a breakfast of eggs and coffee. As the light dripped through our windows and I scrunched around food while watching television, I learned of the National Security Agency’s indiscriminate collection of nearly all forms of data and metadata both foreign and domestic, and more importantly, what my mom was trying to tell me.
Born in Socialism Poland and raised there her entire life, my mom was stressing to a six-year-old Kacper that while light is important, it is not all-important. There are curtains for a reason, and there will be days when they will have to be drawn, when the light glinting through the glass is overbearing, blinding even.
Though my mother experienced an iron curtain in Poland and though I may be reading into her subtlety with too academic of an interest, I feel that underpinning her words was the innate idea of privacy. Living under a longstanding, parasitic tradition of invasive dictators who minutely scrutinized the actions of the masses for their own political gains – from compiling long, arbitrary dossiers or tracking citizen’s movements with intense vigor – my mother’s experience under a quasi-totalitarian regime led to a deeply ingrained belief of modern-day privacy that is both physical and digital.
The NSA, I feel, have worked against this belief through apparently, though certainly clandestine, democratic means. While arguing against the legitimacy of these constitutional claims is a case law consideration, the important fact is that our private lives have been invaded into for the supposed public good. By allowing analysts to track, chart, dissect and determine relations through our digital data, we are fighting terrorism by ensuring that we aren’t terrorists ourselves.
This, of course, is horseshit. Forgetting that little data serves to support the claim that terrorists have been foiled by such dragnet collection and that politicians and NSA supporters alike have refused to divulge the extent of the mass surveillance, the spy agencies have succumbed to full-blown myopia. Instead of standing as a vanguard against terror, they have wrought it. By collecting all, people begin to self-censor themselves. They may no longer keep a domain of individuality where they are free to influence themselves from other parties and instead comply with some broader mandate. In the act of being charted up, analyzed, and held hostage by their opinions, they may no longer be autonomous.
The freedom that was supposed to be guaranteed through mass surveillance is limited in the degenerate pursuit of it. For though the intentions were good, if they were trying to stop the vulnerability against a global threat by surveying all, they have failed because everything has become dangerous; if complete surveillance was a means to ensure hope against fear, then those same invasions – the fear-inducing perversions that senseless violence can cause – have become commonplace; and if it was avoid the sacrifice of liberty in the hopes of security, then they have lost both.
For no matter what is said, the terrorists won when we became them.
My friends shrug indifferently at these revelations. They say they aren’t doing anything wrong so they need not worry. But I don’t think so. To be guilty before being considered innocent is a slippery slope. Besides not knowing a concrete definition of terrorism or the certain key words that will result in flagging and further government scrutiny, I think back to my mother’s nuance and my crayon-scribbled glass house and I am reminded that the moment you open the window to the world, you’ll catch a cold.
No matter the amount of light that shines, you’ll no longer be private, you’ll no longer be yourself, and one day – maybe after you’ve been scrutinized, judged, and deemed a threat, and it’s cloudy and rainy and thunder is on the way – you’ll pray for blinds.
