“I'm just as shocked as anyone about how our young people could be led to such crimes. I can't even imagine why. We live in what is arguably the greatest country in the world. It's not perfect but it's far better than many other places.”
Mississauga-Brampton South MP Navdeep Bains is scratching his head, like the rest of us, when it comes to trying to figure out how at least five of our residents — kids who were mostly born here and went to school here — end up with their pictures plastered on the front page of newspapers across the world as the new face of terrorism.
This is by far the most disturbing thing about the charges that have set us all back on our heels: that they involve second-generation Canadians who walked the halls of Meadowvale Secondary School, played on our soccer fields and hung out at the Meadowvale Mall.
The overwhelming urge is to ask: How could they? How could they betray the faith that we, as Mississaugans and Canadians, put in them when we welcomed them to a new land, a new life and endless opportunity they would never have in their country of origin?
It's also the key question to answer if we want to truly protect ourselves from this threat. We can't do that with security cameras and passports at the border.
Why does immigrant Navdeep Bains come to Canada, become one of us and get himself elected to Parliament, while others become isolated from our collective experience and become unwitting fodder for zealots purporting to be religious men, who want to wreak revenge on innocents for the sins of the western imperialists?
“If we had those answers, we could probably prevent this kind of thing,” Bains said from Ottawa this morning. “People do become isolated. There's so often a feeling of alienation at this age. Young people are vulnerable and impressionable on a lot of these issues. These are things we must address as a society.”
These were typical young men going through the impossibly difficult time of life between childhood and adulthood. These are youngsters looking for a purpose in life, wanting to see the world in simplistic terms, who are shaped by the cavalier violence and cruelty that permeates so much of our culture from video games to the school yard, and desperately seeking an identity and some action that transforms the mundane routine of their daily lives into the thrillers they see on the big screen. They are the natural prey of fanatics.
Ironically, it is their parents who are often the most shocked at the secret lives their children lead as (potential) teen terrorists. Fueled by a passion to make their children's lives better than their own, the parents work two or three jobs, provide the Internet connections that allow their kids to sign up for Bombmaking 101 with a couple of clicks of the mouse, and insist that their children remain devout.
Unwittingly, they provide the kindling that makes for an incendiary match with radicals who assume the parental role and are only too willing to fill the gap left behind by the absentee parents and fuel the teens' desire to see the world in terms of black and white, right and wrong, East versus West. Life is a game and only one side can win.
So, how do we protect our children?
With the usual weapons that seem so frail and useless. By engaging each other. By really talking to our children. By ensuring that our communities are welcoming places that tolerate difference. By denying the fanatics' lies that we don't care about what happens in the rest of the world. By continuing to lead our lives in confidence that no matter what horrors people execute in the name of their chosen cause, human values of love and respect will ultimately prevail.
Doesn't quite seem enough, does it?
Comments (2)
The Mississauga Mews is not amusing.
Posted by Irene Gabon | June 13, 2006 1:17 PM
Posted on June 13, 2006 13:17
Good morning, John.
re: your article "Terror lives within" you wrote:
"The overwhelming urge is to ask: How could they? How could they betray the faith that we, as Mississaugans and Canadians, put in them when we welcomed them to a new land, a new life and endless opportunity they would never have in their country of origin?"
John, the same question could be asked about our politicians -- "How could they betray the faith that we, as Mississaugans and Canadians"?
Let's try that paragraph again.
John, the same question could be asked about our politicians -- "How could they betray the faith that we, as Mississaugans and Canadians"?
Perhaps you've answered an emphatic "Yes, you're right!" to that question.
Perhaps you've immediately exploded with laughter (like I would've).
Faith runs both ways. Canadians' faith in Immigrants and Immigrants' faith in Canada --as in Canada, the Institution (Federal, Provincial, Municipal).
Municipal example from right here in River City --retrieved from mississauga.ca:
"DATE: November 18, 1999
TO: Mayor and Members of Council
FROM: David S. O'Brien, City Manager
SUBJECT: Mississauga Strategic Plan (2000) For the Next Millennium -
Report on Comments
MEETING DATE: November 24, 1999
"MISSISSAUGA CRIME PREVENTION ASSOCIATION
(MCPA)
Comments - In a letter dated September 10, 1999 (see Exhibit 5),the MCPA offers several comments on the Strategic Plan....
Section 9.1 - The MCPA suggest is that Objective 9.1 which reads "To create a corporate culture that emphasizes customer service, innovation and creativity" should also reference "integrity and accountability". They feel that "adding these words would allow the document to encompass crime prevention initiatives within the City administration itself". This is a positive suggestion and Objective 9.1 should be amended to
read:
• "To create a corporate culture that emphasizes customer service, innovation, creativity, integrity and accountability."
Think about it, John --The City of Mississauga didn't come up with "integrity and accountability" on its own. These two vital values had to be suggested from the outside!
From the same document:
"Finally, reference is made that "the overall tone of the document is somewhat cold and remote" and there is not enough emphasis to a commitment to be "socially - conscious and citizen - (or resident) oriented (as opposed to merely consumer-driven)"."
That means as far back as 1999, the MCPA believed that the "Mississauga Strategic Plan (2000) for the Next Millennium"--did not provide "enough emphasis to a commitment to be "socially - conscious"
Imagine, that The City's prized Strategic Plan needed "integrity", "accountability" and "commitment to be "socially - conscious" to be suggested by an outside advisory group.
And John, an excerpt from one of your own articles regarding the City of Mississauga:
"Not satisfied to have Wahl's complaint so summarily dismissed, the City saw the opportunity to deter all future municipal malcontents (can you say Donald Barber?) by asking Wahl to pay its legal costs of $8,795.16.
It was a punitive and vengeful move that can only have a chilling effect on citizen appellants. What message does it send to ordinary Joes who disagree with council, but don't have the means to hire professional planners and lawyers to state their case on appeal?"
Let's see what we have so far... a municipal government that:
-needed to have "integrity and accountability" added to its Strategic Plan (2000).
-had a Strategic Plan (2000) that in the opinion of the MCPA didn't provide "enough emphasis to a commitment to be "socially - conscious"
-has a League-of-Lawyers ready to descend "punitive(ly) and vengeful"(ly) on citizens who "disagree with council".
-has "an award-winning" mississauga.ca website trumpeting its core values of integrity, accountability and commitment to social issues.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAhhaaaaa*SNORK*hhhhh!!! (Please forgive me.)
And that's just our local government. What could we dig up about our Provincial? Federal? And I mean not just what we could research in the media. But REALLY dig up if we had true access to their filing cabinets, hard drives and Post-It notes?
I've been following this Homegrown Terrorist thing quite closely. That scene in Brampton with the helicopters must've played Primo on CNN not to mention FOX NEWS. And *WHEW* a good thing that this foto-frenzy is all staged waaaaaay up there in Brampton! (The City of Mississauga won't have to remove "Canada's safest city" from its press releases.)
And that beheading threat made against the Prime Minister that's one of the allegations?
John, who among us hasn't been so outraged at the betrayal of a politician that we didn't harbour some fantasy? Why I can think of a to-remain-nameless politician's Mission Statements right now...
I must confess, John, that when I'm really outraged, I will draw a cartoon of a naked, anatomically-correct corpulent body, and scan it. Then through the magic of Photo Shop, cut-and-paste the to-remain-nameless politician's head onto the cartoon body. Then I scour GOOGLE Images for the most appropriate hat I can find...
http://www.hatsinthebelfry.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/u5502gobbler-300.jpg
(*SIGH* I needed that...)
I'm sure you've heard about those Wyoming crazies hunkered down with tinfoil hats believing that a tinfoil-precaution will protect them from their government's mind-control-secret-coercion rays.
...those dudes may not be so crazy after all.
John, the more I learn about --about stuff, the more I've concluded that it just might be that we have far more to fear from the hypocrisy of our own governments than we do about any skulkers skulking around in fatigues in cottage country.
Last thing, John?
You write:
"Unwittingly, they provide the kindling that makes for an incendiary match with radicals who assume the parental role and are only too willing to fill the gap left behind by the absentee parents and fuel the teens' desire to see the world in terms of black and white, right and wrong,"
"desire to see the world in terms of black and white, right and wrong,"
John! Why in one elegant phrase, you've just managed to precis not only the far-right American political agenda but also the entire U.S. foreign policy!
Signed,
Your appreciative reader,
The Mississauga Muse
Posted by The Mississauga Muse | June 7, 2006 9:40 AM
Posted on June 7, 2006 09:40