Even though the American media has virtually ignored our terrorist story here in Canada since they are consumed with the Donald Drumpf saga, a lot of press has been written about it locally during the last few days and one article in particular stood out for me.
London has a large Muslim population (5%) and terrorism suspect Aaron Driver was well- known at the London Muslim Mosque, where community members were aware of his extremist views and tried to change them by showing him “the warmth of Islam,” a mosque official said Thursday. (Mosque leaders also informed London police that he had been attending the mosque.)In the following article there is a piece that is particularly disturbing and I have highlighted it in bold script!
“We didn’t want to turn a blind eye . . . We tried to get him engaged in the community, engaged in the mosque to show him a wholesome environment,” spokesperson Nawaz Tahir said. “But he didn’t want to hear it. He had very strong political views.”
Despite voicing support for terrorist tactics and organizations such as ISIS, Driver didn’t do anything to indicate he would become violent, Tahir said.
“There was nothing to suggest that he was progressing or becoming more radicalized or that he was going to take his views and turn them into physical acts of aggression or attack.”
When the RCMP confirmed Driver had been killed Wednesday in Strathroy during a terrorism investigation, that news — and reports he planned to explode a bomb in a public place — came as a shock, Tahir said.
But the mosque has to take some responsibility for Driver’s path to the fundamentalism that became dangerous later on, said a former Muslim and friend of Driver, Ahmed Chams. “I believe them in that they tried to counsel him. But it is a double-edge sword,” Chams said.
In every large Muslim community, and mosque, there are conservative thinkers who spread a message that can appeal to young people struggling to make sense of the world, he said.
“If you ask so many Muslims do you support ISIS, they say no. But then you ask about specific policies, ‘What do you think of gays? What do you think of atheists?’ and all their policies tend to sound like ISIS. There is this strain that teaches people to hate gays, to hate atheists, to hate apostates, to hate non-Muslims, to hate Muslims who are not quite up to standard.”
Counselling one man is fine, but the Muslim community has to deal with the entire strain, Chams said.(Folks, I have said repeatedly that Islam needs a "Reformation" much like the Catholic church had 500 years ago! -Ed.)
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