Zafar Bangash is a Pakistanian journalist who lives and works in Ontario, Canada. His magazine is Crescent which is the only Islamic magazine in Canada to represent Islam and goes worldwide.
We had two meetings with him. The first one was publicly in conference hall and then on the next day we had him in our class.
In the first meeting which was our first encountering with him, he started his speech friendly and also a bit jokingly asking us "Have you ever heard of Canada?" Then he explained why he asked the question and said according to a survey in some universities in America many of students did not know that Canada is their neighbor.
To continue the interesting lecture, he referred to the meaning of power (the ability to do what you want to do and the ability to influence others to do what you want to do) and then attached it to the recurrent issues. And said Canada has a middle power. And Canada is totally related and dependent on the United State and has a strong trade with it. The government of Canada did not involve officially in Iraq war because the people disagreed and protested, but it supported the United States military and economically anyway. And about 60% of people are opposed to involvement in Afqanistan.
The population of Canada is divided to three category including English, French and the third group which is immigrants from all around the world, like China, eastern Europeans, Pakistanis and Iranians who consist 20 thousands of the population.
Canada is even more extremist than George Bush. The reason why the government of the Canada is taking a hostile side toward Islam is that the Right party which is minority is in power, but the left party which is more moderate has been divided to three group and because of this division they cannot take a united position and win the rival in election.
He described the people of Canada generally decent and good, but asserted that it is the government that has taken a very hostility view to Islam and all of its related concepts like Iran and Hamas and Hizbollah. It supports Israel policy and has a pro- Israel policy. A Canadian journalist, Paul Martin, who had met saied Hassan Nasrollah narrated a false statement on behalf of him, that Hizbollah would attack Israel all around the world and would not confine to the geographic Israel. Then when another journalist, Ian Macdonald, asked him about the evidence of his allegation, Martin was upset and just left the interview.
The other evidence he brought to show the pro-Zionist policy of Canada was when Israel bombarded Khayam camp and the U.N headquarter in Lebanon and the major of the U.N troops, a Canadian officer, was killed. The prime minister instead of attacking the Israel had made an excuse for them and said they were defending themselves and the guilty was the major who shouldn't be in there.
Zafar also said that most of the media are influenced by Zionist lobby like Toronto Star and Toronto Son. They attack Muslims but Muslim community is well stablished and has a better position in compare to other similar organizations in the Europe.
The next day we had him in our Ethnicity class. He talked about Canadian Mosaic, i.e, different colors of people living in that country. One million out of 20 million of the population is native. They have self government but live in very bad conditions. Most of them are alcoholic and smuggling cigars.
A comparison between America and Canada, according to Bangash may lead us to these points:
In the United States you go to a melting pot but in Canada you can keep your own language, religion and culture, e.g if you want to study your own language, government would provide it for you. This is a multi cultural country that by law all ethnic groups are considered equal.
The people of Canada are more relaxed but in the America they are more tensed.
The people of America are arrogant because of the attitude of being super power but in Canada they are not so. Also the violence in American society is more than Canadian fellow.
He said that the government is interested in increasing population, so every new baby to a couple would be welcome and paid for it till 18 years.
About the language, he said all the federal organization should provide their documents both in English and French. Apart from Qubeck, Menetoba, and Novesqushia are French speaking provinces. And for encouraging students to learn French, they are provided with 500 $ to do so.
He concluded that apart from apparent hostility of the state, it is a good place to live.
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