How Islamophobia is driving young Canadian Muslims to reclaim their identity

LayaBehbahaninever questioned herCanadiannessuntil a recent incident at theVancouver airport.

The 31-year-oldlecturer at SimonFraserUniversity inBurnaby, B.C., was born in Iran and moved to Canada when she was 13. While goingthrough the passport check afterreturning home from a trip, shesaid, she was pulled aside by a border services agent and questioned about her religion and why she frequentlytravelsoutside the country.

At one point,Behbahanisaid,theagent asked her: "How Canadian do you really feel?"

"It made me stop and wonder, 'Why would you ask me that? Would you ask someone without aheadscarfthat question?'" she said.

The majority of young Muslims in CanadafeelMuslimfirst and Canadiansecond,anEnvironicsInstitute surveyreleased Wednesday suggests.

Some experts suggest that's becauseyoung Muslim Canadians feelastrong societalpressureto have toanswer for violenceperpetrated by extremists in the name of Islam and are struggling toreclaim their Muslimidentity for themselves.

Among young respondents who said their citizenship and their faith were important parts of their identity,61 per cent said beingMuslim was the most importantpart of their identityandsixper cent saidbeingCanadian was the most important. Twenty-six per cent said both were important.

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Most respondents'very proud' to be Canadian

Behbahani'sexperience of being singled out because of her religion was shared by about a quarter of the survey respondents in her age group. Twenty-six per cent of those age 18 to34 said they have experienced discrimination because of their religion and 24 per cent because of theirculture or ethnicity.

The Environics survey,based on phone interviews with 600 Muslims across Canada,found that more than eight out of10 Muslims are "very proud to be Canadian."

Their biggest complaint about living here? Overwhelmingly, Canadian winters.

But asked if they are primarily Muslim or Canadian, young Muslims answered that they are Muslim first, even if they were born here, as themajority of young respondents were.

ForBehbahani, the finding isn't surprisinggiven her own experience at the Vancouver airport and similarundue scrutiny that many Muslim Canadians say they facewhile going about their daily lives.

"As Canadian as you feel, when individuals acting in the capacity of the government do things like this, it sends a very loud message that, 'No, you're not one of us.'"

Shaking the stigma of extremism

The Environics survey released Wednesday isa follow-up to oneconducted 10 years ago, and while thememoryof the Sept.11, 2001, attackson the U.S. by al-Qaeda militantsis not asfresh today as it was then, its effectsstill resonate, the 2016 survey suggests.

'Being asecuritizedpopulation under suspicion in Canada is really the dominant experience that we've had.'- AzeezahKanji, legal scholar

"The angst of 9/11 has faded, but public concerns about the cultural integration of immigrants are growing, and Muslims continue to be viewed with discomfort, if not suspicion, by some," the survey concluded.

The reason for thatis no mystery toRahamatullahSiddique, 25, a Calgary business consultant who runs the Own It Institute, a non-profitorganization that provides outreach services for newcomers,youth and other community members.

"We see certain extremist groups associating their acts with our religion that's really created a stigma," he said.

Many young Muslims in Canada feel saddled with aresponsibility to have to answer for violent attacks carried out in thename of Islam, saidToronto-based legal scholarAzeezahKanji.

"Being asecuritizedpopulation under suspicion in Canada is really the dominant experience that we've had,"Kanjisaid.

Identity under scrutiny

AssyaMoustaqim-Barrette, 27, of Oakville, Ont.,says she and her peers feel they are being judged based on the actions of Muslim extremists.

"On the one hand, you have people in certain parts of the world that are calling themselves Muslim and doing horrific actions on the other, you have Canadians making conclusions based on that,"Moustaqim-Barrettesaid.

"It's a hard place for a young Muslim to be in."

The pressure to answer for violent attacks carried out by Muslim perpetratorshas driven some young Muslims to pull away from their faith and others to try to recapture it, saidUniversity of Toronto political science lecturer Katherine Bullock.

Katherine Bullock on Young Canadian Muslims

8 years ago

Duration 0:42

Director of Research at The Tessellate Institute Katherine Bullock on how young Canadian Muslims are reclaiming their identity

Bullock, research director atthe Tessellate Institute, was a partner in theEnvironicsstudybut acknowledges the numbers don't tell the whole story.

"A lot of youth have felt let down," Bullock said, stressing that her comments stem from her research,not the survey itself."They feel their Canadian identity has been put in question - as if their citizenship depends on the whim of the government.

"To be a Muslim in Canada today is to be a person of scrutiny."

'Proud to be both'

Yet for many Canadian Muslims, trying to find where theirMuslim identity ends and theirCanadian onebegins is a senseless exercise.

Montreal-born ArdenMaaliq, 25, sees no reason to choose.

I don't see any conflict. I'ma Muslim.I'm Canadian.I'm proud to be both.- RahamatullahSiddique,25, student

"To be Canadian or at least this is what they tells us is to be proud of multiculturalism, and that would mean embracing yourMuslimness,"he said.

Siddiqueagrees:"I don't see any conflict. I'm a Muslim.I'm Canadian.I'm proud to be both."

On the whole the survey revealed older and younger Muslim Canadians were divided on the question of their identity. In the60and older age group, almost twice as many respondentssaid theyfeelCanadian first than in the 18-34 age group, despite most of the older respondentsbeing immigrants.

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Behbahanithinks that's likely because older generations still remember the difficult circumstances they left behind whencoming to Canada.

"I feel like because they've had to earn it, they perhaps identify more as Canadian than Muslim," she said.

As part of the survey, non-MuslimCanadians were also asked how proud they are of their Canadian identity,but fewer of them said they were proud to be Canadian.

"As a population made up mostly of immigrants (many having arrived in the past decade), Muslims truly stand out as being among the most enthusiastic group of Canadian patriots," the survey found.

Kanjiworries that that greater degree of patriotism actuallypoints to a disturbing phenomenon.

"I really do think it's a product of the tremendous pressure that's been placed on the Muslim Canadian community to declare itself not a fifth column in Canada to prove itself loyal,"Kanjisaid.

"Are we constantly asking other communities to prove their patriotism?"

More engaged citizens

ForKanji, the fact that younger Muslims identify primarily as Muslim suggests they are comfortable enough with their place in Canadian society that they can be critical of it.

Having grown up here, they recognize their rights and liberties but also have a deeper awareness of not onlyIslamophobiabut racismagainst other populations, such asblacks oraboriginal people,Kanjisaid.

As a result, "They're saying, 'No, I'm not going to acquiesce to the demand to sideline my Muslim identity in order to declare myself a patriotic Canadian,'" she said.

Carleton University professorKarimKarim, who heads the school's Centre for the Study of Islam,thinks the key question going forward is "how as a society we aremarginalizingand alienating people."

"Being under the threat of discrimination, of being perceived in a negative light that has an impact on how you see yourself,"Karimsaid.

Behbahanihas felt the impact of that firsthand.

"We've constantly been made to respond to these attacks and the assumptions about us and our identities," she said.

But paradoxically, she says, the pressure to dispel stereotypes about being Muslim has forced her to learn more about Canadian laws and policies making her a more engaged citizen as a result.

"As we've learned more about ourselves, we've also learned more about what our society stands for," she said. "So, in a way we've become more Canadian."

Thesurvey was based on phone interviews with 600Muslim Canadiansconducted between Nov. 19, 2015, and Jan. 23, 2016. A probabilistic sample of this size would yield a margin of error of +/- 4 per cent, 19 times out of 20.A telephone survey of 987 adult non-Muslim Canadians was also completed between Feb. 6 and 15, 2016.A probabilistic sample of this size would yield a margin of error of+/- 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.