Love Over Fear
This photograph was taken on the 4th of February 2017 at Jack Poole Plaza in Vancouver at the Rally against Islamophobia. The purpose of the rally was to show support and foster a positive dialogue following the murder of six Muslim men while praying at a mosque in Quebec City and the rise of Islamophobia hate crimes against Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. Vancouver’s Olympic cauldron is centred in the photo as it was lit on Saturday evening to honour those who were killed last Sunday. Around it shows thousands of people gathered together at Jack Poole Plaza a venue chosen for this event as a symbol of perseverance and social justice. The waters behind Jack Poole Plaza are the exact waters the Komagata Maru was docked. The Komagata Maru incident is an example of the Canadian government’s deliberate, exclusionary policy designed to keep out ethnicities with whom it deemed unfit to enter. These justifications were entrenched in racist and ethnocentric views of “progress” and “civilization,” which all supported the view that Canada should remain a “White Man’s Country”. The 376 passengers – Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus from Punjab – were refused entry and sent back with the same xenophobia we see today.
On a global scale, the rally was also a response to President Donald Trump’s “Muslim Ban” where in which he barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for a period of 90 days. (Rothwell, 2017) He claims that his “extreme vetting” system will help keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the US. Sherene H. Razack discusses the Anti Terrorism Act in her book “Race, Space and the Law” and attributes the fear of the unknown as a catalyst for these policies. Razack writes that the purpose of the Anti Terrorism Act is to “sort out who is a terrorist and who is not” (Razack, 2002) and how it is argued that “[r]efugees… must be given time to learn respect for Canadian culture, and original citizens must be given time to know who they can trust.” (Razack, 2002)
The image also shows a number of protest signs, some reading: “I am human too”, “My Canada includes all faiths” and “We were all immigrants once.” It was this last sign that struck me as of particular significance in regards to the theme of “Nation and Citizenship.” It is extremely important we recognize that the immigrant experience is deeply woven into the fabric of our country’s creation and really the only people who are not immigrants are First Nations peoples as Canada is a nation built on Settler Colonialism. Sherene H. Razack discusses the history of colonialism in Canada in her chapter “When Place Becomes Race” where she discusses the production of the white settler nation. Razack presents the three phases of nation building, discussing first how throughout history it has been seen that “Europeans are entitled to the land” (Razack, 2002). This first phase is also inclusive of the Indigenous erasure and conquest of “empty, uninhabited lands” or “terra nullius.” (Razack, 2002) She then discusses the second phase when more European settlers arrive and “the settler colony becomes a nation,” (Razack, 2002) populated by “white men of grit.” (Razack, 2002) Razack then discusses the third and final phase of European nation building where “the land once empty and later populated by hardy settlers is now besieged and crowded by Third World refugees and migrants.” (Razack, 2002) This phase haunts Canadian nation building and is still evident today. The violence and hatred that sparked the violence and shooting at the mosque in Quebec is a continuation of violence that goes into Nation building, Razack writes “a quintessential feature of white settler mythologies is the disavowal of conquest, genocide and slavery and the exploitation of the labour of people of colour.” (Razack, 2002) While some images and representations of Canada such as diversity and multiculturalism are uplifted others are erased, such as its history as a white settler nation built on violence and discrimination.
References:
“The “Incident”.” The “Incident” | Komagata Maru Journey. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
Rothwell, James. “Everything you need to know about Donald Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ .” The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017.
Sherene H. Razack. “Introduction: When Place Becomes Race,” in Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society, ed. Sherene H. Razack 1-20 (Toronto Between the Lines, 2002)