Interview on CBC Radio

Trevor, thank you very much. And yes, as Trevor mentioned, we have more now on the horrific news coming out of London, Ontario, a 20 year old man has been charged with four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder after a hit and run on Sunday, the vehicle struck a family of five, killing four of them and seriously injuring a nine year old boy. It's now being investigated as a hate crime with London police believing that the family was targeted, because they were Muslim. Abraham Hindi is an Imam in Mississauga and the director of the Ukraine Institute, which is a Muslim Think Tank, which combats Islamophobia. And Mr. Hindi has been good enough to join us now on the

line for more Good afternoon.

That's an interesting, thank you for having me. Thank you very much for taking the time with us. Mom, first off your reaction to the news today.

You know, I think like many people just felt really sick to the core by hearing about this. And, you know, seeing the community as well received this news, I think we're feeling

just a great mixture of of pain, significant pain and fear, just, it's unconscionable to think that, you know, a family peaceful family, trying to live like everyone else and go for a walk like everyone else wouldn't even do that in peace and insecurity in this country. And speaking of the community, of course, you're based in Mississauga, what have you been hearing from within the community as everyone attempts to process today's news?

Yeah, I think, you know, all of us. And, you know, I found out that some friends of mine or even, you know, relatives of the victims, but I think all of us are just, you know, just the idea that this is a family that's dead. And there's only one of them left, an eight year old or nine year old boy. And they look like us. And they dress like us, and they believe like us. And when we see them, we really see like, it's one of our own family. And that somebody out there, and I'm sure there's many others like him, when they see us, they think that we shouldn't exist, that we should be killed just because of our faith, or our dress or our skin color. And I know that's very uncomfortable,

maybe for a lot of Canadians to hear. But unfortunately, it's the truth. And so a lot of this is just us grappling with that, with that fact, and feeling this mixture of pain and fear. And people reaching out to me saying, I don't know that I could go for a walk now or do I need to keep looking over my shoulder because of because of this. And so, you know, there's a lot of mixed emotions and mostly emotions of just incredible pain and worry about the future as well. The National Council of Canadian Muslims is calling us a terrorist attack and asking the Canadian government to consider terrorist charges. What do you make of that?

I think it's warranted. I think if, you know,

there's been other attacks in which, you know, vehicles have been used as weapons and intending to, you know, cause damage to people for the social or political reasons, and we treat them as terrorism attacks. And I think that that's true here as well. And you know, we don't want the law to be applied equally and absolutely should be applied here. Because this isn't simply a murder. This is someone who was a police said it was premeditated. He decided he wanted to kill Muslims, he wanted to drive fear and terror into an entire community in this country. And that's the definition of terrorism. Mustafa Farouk is the CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, I just want to

read you some of what he had to say, and I'm quoting here, this loss of a family, the loss of a child in our community because of Islamophobia. This is a sorrow that will run deep for a long time, but let that sorrow be a ground where we can stand for justice and stand for change. And climate change needs to happen right now, in your view.

Well, you know, I think first of all, the country has to accept this. I mean, I am not sure, you know, we've said so many times, that xenophobia is real, that it kills. And I'm not sure that the message has sunken with Canadians in general. And I say this with pain because I love this country. And I was born here. But it was only a few years ago that there was a comeback to the mosque massacre, where somebody walked into a mosque and killed six people who are praying and kneeling. A year ago, in Toronto, there was a caretaker outside of a mosque and someone walked up to him and stabbed him and killed them. There have been dozens of attacks against Muslim women across this

country. We keep saying whenever these incidents happen, we keep saying, Hey, this is in Canada, in indecision in London, Ontario. This isn't Quebec City. This isn't this isn't Toronto. But it is because it keeps happening over and over. So if we don't want it to be us, we really don't want it to be who we are. And we have to actually have to take change against this. And I think that that goes from the top to the bottom from our political leaders, our civic leaders down to you know, every Canadian needs to realize that this is a real problem. You know, there were white supremacist rallies, anti muslim rallies that were happening in London, Ontario. So somebody's a young 20 year

old guy who decides that he wants to

to mow down and kill the Muslim family that doesn't come out of a vacuum. And all of us have to take ownership and realize that that's that that's the reality. And if we want justice for this family, if we want the nine year old boy to grow up, you know, feeling like this country really felt sympathetic to what he's going to go through his whole life and really have his back. And we have to be people who make sure that that something like this doesn't happen again. If not, through a horrific incident like this, or any of the multitude that you just mentioned, or the ones that we haven't mentioned, what will it take for the reality of Islamophobia to be accepted by those who

aren't accepting it?

I don't know. I honestly, there just isn't a part of that. That makes me feel that at a loss because, you know, this type of, of loss of life, just, you know, it's horrific, and we can't look away. You know, if people can manage to look away from something like this, I don't know what will take us out of a slumber like that. It was only years ago where politicians refused to even use the word Islamophobia to acknowledge the existence. So I hope that in the aftermath of this, they don't look away that they realize that they have the debt to this nine year old boy is going to grow up without a sister without a mother and a father, and grandparents that three generations of his

family are wiped off in a single day that we feel indebted to him.

And we make sure that we actually work against this nomophobia and racism and all types of xenophobia that exists in our country and not pretend that it doesn't exist.

Mom, Hindi thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us this afternoon. We so appreciate it. Thank you. I just Ebrahim Hindi who is a Mississauga mom, chairman of the Muslim Council of Peale, and director for the Ukraine Institute.