voting and hoping for tolerance

Today's soundtrack:
"Tired of Waiting" by the Trews
"Use it" by the New Pornographers

First, read this.

I'm still trying to figure out what these recent events are going to mean to Canada (for those of you thesising, I'm refering to the arrest of 17 Canadians in regards to their alleged plot to blow up buildings, kidnap politicans, take over the CBC and, apparently, behead the Prime Minister). Possibly I need to explore my own reaction to the news. Well, I wasn't really that surprised. The word has been around for a couple years now that Canada's name was on a hitlist (long with Spain, England, the States and Australia), and it was in Spain (I think) that they (the police) found maps of subways in Canada (Toronto or Montreal, I can't remember which) in the apartments of those involved with the Madrid attacks. That the men were all from Canada, as in born-here-educated-here Canadian, wasn't a shock. Especially after the London attacks. In fact, the only thing that really shocked me was that CSIS actually managed to catch them before anything happened.

And then I started to think. Was anything going to happen anyway? With the level of RCMP and CSIS involvement as it was, how much of this terrorism was suggested and facilitated from the so-called good guys, and how much would have remained idle banter around the table?

As more news has come out, it's clear that these guys weren't exactly professionals. In fact, they appear pretty amateur. Not that we should be complacent and decide that terrorism will never hit here, but is the level of fanaticism here as high as in Europe? Miguelito and I watched the National and saw some interesting interviews with Brits and the Dutch. I tried to argue that Canada is just more multicultural and open than Europe, but was countered with examples of both British and Dutch multiculturalism. I attempted to maintain that Canadian multiculturalism was different than European multiculturalism, in that we don't require assimilation (too many Borg references to make - to the hyperbolic chambers!), but believe in the idea of a mosaic.

Then somebody went and smashed the windows of a mosque in Toronto. I wondered where this nationally-instilled idea of multiculturalism and tolerance went.

At this point, I still don't what is going to happen within our society in reaction to this. Seeing what's happened in both the Netherlands and England, I fear that road of intolerance because of intolerance. So I wikied "islam" and read up on everything I could. I started reading the Koran. There is a lot about this community that we, as Canadians, don't know. A fantastic point was made the other day, however, that Muslims are not just their religion, and shouldn't be looked at as such. There are cultures behind all this, be they Iranian, Pakistani, or Moroccan, that go beyond praying a certain number of times a day. Personally, I still don't by the line that women have to cover up because of a modesty before God, not because of sexism. The same rules used to exist in the Catholic Church until the Second Vatican Council. The difference is that within Islam, there is a struggle between maintaining the traditions and habits of their Islamic ancestors (eg: they dressed like this in the 10th century, so we're going to keep dressing like this now) and modernising without destroying the intergrity of Islam.

But this is nothing new under the sun. Tolerance is the balancing act of every religion, culture, and society.