Blog 143: The Outrageous Declarations of Amira Elghawaby & Anas Hassouna

David Rand

Publication Date: 2024-09-20

The outlandish Amira Elghawaby was appointed “Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia” by the government of Justin Trudeau in January of 2023. It is noteworthy that her mandate does not bother to define just what “Islamophobia” might be, although associating it with concepts such as “systemic racism” and “racial discrimination,” as if the religion Islam were a race, which of course it is not. Thus, her duties include “enhancing efforts to … promote awareness of the diverse and intersectional identities of Muslims in Canada,” indicating unambiguously that her mandate draws heavily on falsely anti-racist ideologies imported from the United States.

Ms. Elghawaby has already made headlines several times for her tendentious statements, showing a predilection for religious privileges, especially for Islam. The Quebec National Assembly already requested her resignation in a resolution adopted on 31^st January 2023, because she had accused the Québécois of holding anti-Muslim sentiments.

Recently, Ms. Elghawaby made a statement which is even more explicit and egregious. In the context of the controversy surrounding pro-Palestinian protests on several Canadian campuses, she wrote a letter to colleges and universities across the country, dated 30^th August 2024, in which she recommends hiring more Muslim, Arab and Palestinian professors and requests a response by the 30^th of September.

Her recommendation raises several issues. Not only is a federal appointee interfering in education hiring policies, a provincial responsibility, but such a measure would be completely incompatible with the secularism of the Quebec State. If a candidate can be hired on the basis of his or her religious faith, then there is nothing to prevent firings on the same basis. Positive discrimination or affirmative action on the basis of racial identity is already controversial and problematic enough, but extending this discrimination to religious beliefs would be a serious aberration. It would amount to throwing freedom of conscience out the window and completely conflating racial identity with religious affiliation (which, incidentally, is precisely what Islamists do regularly in order to protect their ideology from any criticism).

Elghawaby’s declarations are so outrageous that, on 17^th September 2024, the National Assembly once again asked for her resignation. Furthermore, a second motion, proposed the same day, would have demanded that her position be simply abolished, but Québec Solidaire (QS) blocked it, claiming that the “struggle against Islamophobia” remains a necessity. As for Trudeau, he continues to support his appointee.

Amira Elghawaby is an agent of Islamic supremacism. Her intentions and her program are now more than obvious: to promote Islam everywhere in Canada by advocating positive discrimination in favour of Muslims, to oppose secularism and especially to oppose Quebec’s State secularism law. Those well-known persons—such as Charles Taylor and Julius Grey—who so recklessly supported Elghawaby in the past no longer have any excuse. Furthermore, the tendentious term “Islamophobia” is a trap. To fear a religion such as Islam, especially one of its fundamentalist, radical or political variants, is not irrational. On the contrary, it is prudent and necessary to be wary. Moreover, the term is used very often in connection with racism, thus promoting the unhealthy confusion between race and religion.

Another recent event in Quebec, almost simultaneous with the Elghawaby affair, is in a completely different context but with similar implications. Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge harshly criticized stand-up comedian Anas Hassouna for his statements on the radio network of Radio-Canada. Hassouna claimed that François Legault was elected premier because he “managed to make Quebecers believe that one of the most pressing problems in Quebec is that veiled women were teachers.” The comedian added that Legault, having fallen in the polls, in order to “get re-elected, he’s going to have to do something so racist that I think he’ll bring back slavery.” Hassouna accused Minister Roberge of misrepresenting his remarks but, if one listens to the radio segment, it is clear that Roberge nevertheless understood very well what the comedian was saying. Hassouna accuses Legault and Quebecers of being motivated by racism, hatred and intolerance.

Anas Hassouna is an opportunistic conformist. He repeats, in his own “humorous” way, the Islamist mythology which claims that secularism in Quebec is just a cover for the “racism” of the population. This discourse is very fashionable within certain “leftist” circles, such as QS for example. The comic adopts this mythology, perhaps because he believes it to be true, but especially because it works, it makes the bobos laugh. And just as Amira Elghawaby’s mandate is inspired by fake anti-racist ideologies imported from the USA, the mythology conveyed by Hassouna depends on American imports, especially the reference to slavery that makes no sense in the context of Quebec, Lower Canada or New France. In both cases—Elghawaby’s mission and Hassouna’s schtick—the conflation of race and religion is at the heart of the discourse.

Yes, the public declarations of these two individuals are insulting for Quebeckers. After all, Quebec’s rate of hate crimes is lower than the Canadian average. But that issue is secondary. The real problem is the antisecular propaganda conveyed by Islamists and their useful idiots. The mistrustful attitude of Quebecers with respect to those who refuse to remove a religious symbol when going to work in the public service is not prejudice. A prejudice is a pre-judgment, that is to say, an opinion formed in the absence of relevant information. On the contrary, this mistrust is a healthy and prudent judgment, an opinion informed by the reality of religious obscurantism.

The minimal measures required to begin to solve this problem are:

• resignation of Amira Elghawaby from her position as “Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia”;
• abolition of that position;
• repudiation, by the Canadian House of Commons, of motion M-103, adopted 2017-03-23, which condemns so-called “Islamophobia” and associates it with “systemic racism” and
• repudiation, by the Quebec National Assembly, of the resolution against so-called “Islamophobia” which it adopted on 2015-10-01.

As for Hassouna, since he is a comedian, we can laugh. But we do not laugh with him, but rather at him. His act is petty and racist.