Terrorism and multicultural politics

by John Thompson

06/02/03

Ballots over bullets? There is a dimension to the threat posed by terrorism that few Canadians ever consider, but it might be the most dangerous aspect of them all.

Terrorists don’t skulk around in isolation, they need backers and funding; all of which is generated by support organizations and co-believers who can sustain them. The IRA couldn’t have survived without Sinn Fein, and the Animal Liberation Front would be inconsequential if their cause wasn’t sustained by dozens of animal rights groups. As some terrorist groups have grown into global networks, their front organizations and support structures have become equally complex and international.

There have been cells of a number of terrorist organizations in Canada — like the Babbar Khalsa members who downed the Air India flight and killed 329 people (154 of whom were Canadian citizens), or Ahmed Ressam’s Al Qaeda cell in Montreal. What is much more common are the support groups that back terrorists, and the present a profound threat of their own.

Since the late 1970s, moderate Canadian Sikhs have had to endure the militants of the Babbar Khalsa who have sought both to dominate Sikh life here, but also to use their community’s resources to pursue their war in the Punjab. The Tamil Tigers have an almost complete hold on many aspects of Tamil community life in here in Canada (and Toronto is now the world’s largest Sri Lankan Tamil City). A new arrival from Jaffna will find that his immigrant settlement services, job training agency, cultural centres and Tamil language news media are all run with the specific blessings of the Tigers’ Canadian front organizations.

Immigration, Heritage and Citizenship funding are also paying for a plethora of cultural agencies and groups in the Muslim community — dozens of which are affiliated with the Muslim World League, which is the open arm of the Wahhabi sect that motivated al Qaeda and has been inspiring Islamic fundamentalism around the world.

Front organizations are not filled with stupid people. Rather, they have activists: dedicated and inspired workers who have submitted themselves to their cause and ideology, and who seek every possible means to advance it. And here is where Canada is beginning to face a real problem.

Most people who are largely content with their lives pay little attention to politics, leaving the field open to the ambitious. As a result, politics, at all levels, can easily be dominated by the activists and the ideologues. University students in the 1970s and ‘80s might remember how, when few students paid attention to student council politics, Trotskyites and sundry other Leftists gravitated there to pump university money into their favorite causes. Now, especially as events in September 2002 so clearly indicated at Concordia University, Radical Palestinians (and the usual Far-Left boneheads) are running the show there, and were busy endorsing terrorist groups when not staging riots of their own. This is penny ante-stuff compared to what happens elsewhere in Canada.

At the coming Federal Liberal convention next November, casual observers should look for huge numbers of Sikhs — perhaps 15% of all the delegates from a community that comprises less than 1% of all Canadians. Worse still, many of these delegates will be from that faction of the Sikhs that support the Babbar Khalsa and other terrorist groups. Some of the Sikhs that oppose these factions also gravitate to politics, but are more commonly found in the NDP and the Alliance party.

One should look for large numbers of Canadian Tamils, almost all of whom are supporters of the LTTE. The Tigers’ front organizations are dedicated in cultivating political links, especially with the Federal Liberals. This investment is paying dividends.

While our Federal Government has passed a number of stark measures to limit support for terrorism in the country, these are only applied against specific listed groups. Babbar Khalsa (which has killed more Canadian citizens than all other terrorist groups combined) is not listed as a terrorist organization. The LTTE is also not listed.

Our Muslim community is growing fast and is somewhat disunited, but the activists within the Fundamentalist and Palestinian communities have taken note of the LTTE and Babbar Khalsa’s successes and seem to be following their example. One should look at Ottawa’s long delay in adding Hizbollah and the al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade to the list last winter. Worse problems than this will appear in future.

The wholesale entry of terror group supporters into political life is a sad comment on multiculturalism, and threatens the basic institutions of our nation.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca