SMOKERS’ CORNER: FEAR AND LOATHING IN BRITAIN

Nadeem F. Paracha 

Published August 18, 2024 

DAWN

Illustration by Abro

From July 30, deadly riots erupted in Britain when three young girls were stabbed to death in a quiet seaside town of the country. Britain’s far-right groups took to the streets when rumours of the murderer being a Muslim asylum-seeker spread, especially from social media platforms such as X. The murderer is actually a Rwandan youth who is a British citizen. But this didn’t stop far-right leaders from milking the rumour.

The riots were largely pitched against Muslims. But this is not the first time this has happened. However, till the 1980s, violence between white far-right groups and non-whites in Britain was often described as “race riots.” In these, far-right gangs fought pitched battles against immigrants from Caribbean countries and from South Asian regions.

It was from the late 1990s onwards that race riots in Britain increasingly began to be seen as violence between far-right groups and Muslims — especially after the 9/11 attacks in the US, and a spate of terrorist attacks by militant Islamists in Britain. Consequently, incidents of Islamophobia, too, witnessed a manifold increase.

Yet, even the roots of anti-Muslim riots in Britain can be found in the history of race riots in the country, despite the fact that the violence then was largely aimed at non-whites and not against Muslims alone. One of the first major ‘race riots’ in Britain took place in 1919. White working class men and soldiers returning from the First World War, began to attack non-whites for ‘usurping’ their jobs. The Chinese community suffered the most in these ‘riots’. It wasn’t religion but race that was the target.

Although far-right groups in the UK have initiated hostile attacks against Muslims for decades, could the recent ‘race riots’ prove to be a tipping point for both the rioters and Muslims in Britain?

This would remain the case across the decades till the 1990s. In a 2016 essay, Palestinian Professor Emeritus at Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium Bichara Khader wrote that immigration was not a serious issue as such in Europe till the mid-1960s. In the 1950s, large numbers of immigrants from Caribbean countries, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa began arriving in various European cities.

As European economies boomed, these immigrants were seen as vital contributors to this boom. It was only when the economies began to contract from the early 1970s that the term “migration problem” gained increased usage. Yet, it was still not linked to a “Muslim problem” as it is today.

The economic turmoil of the 1970s triggered vicious riots. These were explained as ‘race riots’ because they involved white far-right ‘hooligans’ on the one side, and non-whites on the other. The reasons were economic. The far-right accused their governments of allowing non-white immigrants to “steal white jobs.” It really wasn’t a clash of cultures as such — or not yet.

Till the early 1980s, Muslims in Europe were not very exhibitionistic about their faith. For example, their lifestyle in Britain mirrored that of white working class men, who would work all day in factories and then gather in pubs in the evenings for a drink. But, once settled, Muslim men began to marry women from their home countries.

They then brought them to Europe, even though it wasn’t uncommon for some to marry European women as well. According to Khader, most of the women who came as wives were from rural and peri-urban areas of South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. They had been influenced by Islamist social movements that were initiated in their home countries from the mid-1970s. The influence of the wives changed the settlers’ attitude towards their community’s ‘cultural values.’

This attracted an influx of Muslim preachers, who began to set up shop in various European cities, especially in Britain. They were particularly appealing to the second-generation of British Muslims, especially from families that had failed to be fully assimilated by European integration policies.

This generation began to adopt the ideas proliferated by the preachers. The second generation used these to invent an identity for themselves, as Muslims in non-Muslim countries. Consequently, the presence of veiled women and mosques grew. This is when the “migration problem” began to be seen as a “Muslim problem”, triggering episodes of Islamophobia.



The chaadar, niqab and hijab were vigorously promoted by the preachers among the women of Muslim diasporas in the West. Men, too, were encouraged to adopt an “Islamic look” by letting their beards grow. From the 1990s, ‘multiculturalism’ began to be championed by most Western countries.

It was closely linked to the rise of neoliberal economics, which aimed to construct a global, interconnected economy. This meant that a Muslim community (in the West) didn’t have to completely immerse itself in the secular values of the West, as long as it was knitted to an integrated economy and remained productive.

But what happens when such an economy begins to struggle? A publicly asserted cultural identity, especially that of a diaspora, becomes that much harder to be accepted. It often comes under scrutiny, and criticised for being purposely ‘alien’ and even provocative.

After economies in Europe and the US began to come under stress in 2008, the number of complaints against Islamophobia increased. A majority of Muslims, who had adopted the identity that was first formulated by Islamist evangelical groups, found themselves in a quagmire. The way they looked, or publicly practised their faith, had been accepted by a multicultural West, but now this was changing.

The result was the electoral rise of populist far-right groups and the growth of anti-Muslim sentiment. Even though, according to most surveys, this sentiment is not widespread as such, it does get magnified online during riots or when Muslims are actually involved in any violent activity.

It is believed that non-Muslim immigrants in the West have gradually succeeded in pragmatically integrating themselves in the cultures of the countries they are settled in, but the Muslims have not. What’s more, this has been the case even in wealthy Muslim countries. For example, countries such as the UAE have imposed visa curbs on citizens of some Muslim-majority countries who want to work there. The UAE government has complained that workers from these countries are not willing to appreciate UAE laws against certain political and religious activities.

All this is not to suggest that white far-right groups have a point. They are simply using the Muslims as scapegoats, to divert attention from their own miserable failings. For example, Brexit, which was championed by these groups, has rapidly shrunk Britain’s economy and influence. But it is also high time for the Muslims in the West to realise that the zeitgeist of multiculturalism has eroded, and that they should accordingly refigure the way they exhibit their Muslim identity.

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 18th, 2024

The dispute over the Islamic veil in Russia

by Vladimir Rozanskij

Moscow is debating the possible ban on wearing the Niqab proposed by deputies and opinion makers who insist on the need to curb extremist tendencies, recalling how in several Central Asian countries this measure has existed for some time. Mufti are divided among themselves, while some members of United Russia are also against it, fearing repercussions in relations with the Islamic world.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Discussions have been going on for weeks in Russia over the possible ban on wearing the Niqab, the Islamic veil that covers the entire face leaving only a slit for the eyes, often associated with the fundamentalist current of Wahabism. It was the president of the Human Rights Council, Valerij Fadeev, who once again proposed the ban, supported by various deputies and opinion leaders who insist on the need to curb extremist tendencies among Muslims throughout the country, even though the Ministry of the Interior has not provided any statistics to support these fears.

The issue of the Niqab, moreover, also divides the Muslim community in Russia, and religious leaders simply rule out restrictions on the Hijab, the bare-face veil. The Kprf communists have announced that the draft law on the ban, which envisages at least a 15 thousand rouble (150 euro) fine for any form of face covering, has already been sent to the government for official consideration. Fadeev said he was 'disturbed that so far the Niqab has not been banned in Russia', whereas in several Central Asian countries such a restriction has been in place for some time. The politicians intend to discuss the issue directly with the leaders of traditional Islam and regional authorities.

The Grand Mufti of Moscow, Ildar Aljautdinov, warns that a ban that is too direct could lead to tensions in society: "These attempts may appear to be a violation of the secular norms of law and the constitution, which guarantee all citizens of Russia the freedom to profess their religion, and to observe its canons". United Russia deputy in the Moscow Duma Ildar Gilmutdinov, head of the Federal National and Cultural Autonomy of the Tatars, spoke in favour of the Niqab, warning in turn that a ban could make Russia's relations with the entire Islamic world more difficult.

A member of the Human Rights Council, Kirill Kabanov, a long-standing supporter of the strict line on migrant issues, reacted to these statements by claiming that 'for traditional Russian Islam, this type of clothing is not at all natural', and that its recent spread is nothing more than 'a provocation by radicals, who have a hostile attitude towards us and our country, and are alien to our traditions and our world'. He, too, recalled that in Central Asia the Niqab and even the Paranja, the veil that completely covers women's bodies, is not allowed, and Kprf deputy Mikhail Matveev believes that 'first of all we need an official pronouncement from religious leaders on what clothes are appropriate for Muslims in Russia'.

Some recalled a speech by President Vladimir Putin in 2012, in which he argued that "the Hijab is not part of our culture, part of our traditional Islam, why should we take on traditions that are foreign to us?" Aljautdinov replied that 'if the decision of the ban really helps to protect the lives of our citizens, curbing the growth of Islamic extremism, then we will all support it, but this argument must be supported by real data'. It was the deputy interior minister, Andrej Khrapov, who responded to these appeals by noting that 'there are no clear signs of a radicalising trend in Islam in Russia'.

Other religious leaders, such as Kamil Samigullin of the Islamic administration of Tatarstan, also affirm that 'the ban is an attack on Muslims', while the Mufti of Volgograd, Kifakh Mokhamad, supports the proposal, recalling the recent attack on Krokus City Hall, pointing out that 'the Niqab is not a religious attribute, but only a habit of some Muslim societies, which has no reference to Sharia law'. Some propose to leave the decision 'in the hands of the governors, depending on regional traditions', and from many quarters it is reiterated that the key issue is not the (unproven) danger of radicalism, but rather to 'avoid the growth of Islamophobia' in Russia, which often becomes a form of repression of migrants.

 Religion Hub

France’s headscarf ban in the 2024 Summer Olympics reflects a narrow view of national identity

Laïcité, which historically upheld individual freedom, denies minority rights today, as seen in the ban on French athletes wearing hijabs at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

May 30, 2024

By 

Armin Langer

(The Conversation) — The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris have sparked a discussion about whether female Muslim athletes who wear a headscarf should be allowed to compete.

In September 2023, the International Olympic Committee, upholding freedom of religious and cultural expression for all athletes, announced that athletes participating in the 2024 Paris Games can wear a hijab without any restriction.

French athletes, however, are bound by France’s strict separation of religion from the state, called laïcité. French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said that French athletes would be barred from wearing a hijab during the Paris games to respect this commitment to the principle of laïcité.

Human rights organizations argued that such a ban infringes upon the religious freedoms of Muslim athletes, perpetuating discrimination and marginalization. The United Nations human rights office stated that “no one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear, or not wear.”

This debate highlights the conflict between laïcité and the right to express one’s religious beliefs. As a scholar of European studies, I know about laïcité’s impact on sports, politics and society in general. In my view, laïcité, which historically upheld individual rights and freedoms, increasingly denies minority rights today, as seen in the ban on French athletes wearing hijabs at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Laïcité yesterday and today

Before the 1789 revolution, France was an absolute monarchy, where religion and the state were deeply intertwined.

The close relationship between the French monarchy and the Catholic Church began when King Charlemagne was crowned by the pope in 800 A.D. Over the centuries, the church became very powerful, owning land and controlling education and health care. It formed strong political alliances, with many nobles holding top positions within the church.

After the French Revolution succeeded and the monarchy was abolished, the revolutionaries still resented religion for its long relationship with the crown. They saw the church as a source of unfairness in society and wanted to reduce religion’s influence in public life and push their ideas of freedom, fairness and unity.

They nationalized church properties and introduced secularism to create a separation between religious and governmental affairs. Since then, France has maintained laïcité as one of the republic’s core value

The evolution of laïcité in France coincides with significant demographic shifts in the latter half of the 20th century. As France transformed into a diverse nation with various religions and ethnicities, including a significant Muslim population, the interpretation and application of laïcité faced new challenges. With millions migrating from former French colonies in northern and western Africa in search of economic opportunities, France now hosts the largest Muslim community in Europe, comprising about 10% of its population. This demographic change has sparked debates about the role of religion in public life and the extent to which laïcité should accommodate religious diversity.

While laïcité was originally introduced alongside principles such as freedom and equality, as times changed, so did its meaning. Initially, laïcité meant keeping religion separate from the state. Lately, however, it is often interpreted to mean that citizens should refrain from showing their religious identities in public.

This shift has led to bans on religious symbols in public schools and spaces, disproportionately affecting Muslim women who wear veils.

A debate about the Olympics – and beyond

Activists and scholars have argued that today’s laïcité poses a threat to both human rights and religious freedom. In their view, it promotes a narrow view of republican values and national identity, rejecting diversity and unfairly targeting Muslim women who wear headscarves.

Laïcité can be seen as discriminatory because it often treats Christian customs as just part of everyday culture, while it treats visible signs of other religions, such as the hijab worn by some Muslim women, as unacceptable. This means Christian symbols and traditions are more easily accepted, but non-Christian ones are often not allowed.

It is also important to note that Christian traditions focus mostly on beliefs, which are private, while Islamic and Jewish traditions emphasize practices, such as wearing headscarves, that are visible. This means laïcité affects people differently, often more strictly targeting visible signs of non-Christian religion

A 2023 survey showed that almost 80% of French Muslims believed that their country’s secular laws are discriminatory. Research shows that laïcité disproportionately affects Muslim girls from marginalized communities, perpetuating social inequalities. For example, the ban on headscarves in schools forces Muslim girls to choose between their education and their religious beliefs, leading to feelings of exclusion and isolation. This policy can also hinder their academic performance and personal development, limiting their future opportunities.

Banning hijab for players

French Muslim athletes have faced challenges on the field for a long time. For example, in 2023, the French Soccer Federation decided not to adjust meal and practice timings during Ramadan, even though it occurred during a break when there was no competition.

This decision effectively prevented Muslim players from fasting and led to notable departures, such as Lyon midfielder Mahamadou Diawara leaving the France under-19s camp. Other French players, too, left French professional sports. Basketball player Diaba Konate also opted to pursue her career in the United States because of the French ban on wearing the hijab.

In 2004, France prohibited religious symbols in public schools, including the hijab, Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans and large Christian crosses.

The nonprofit Human Rights Watch criticized it as an unjustified restriction on religious practice. In 2010, France extended the ban to face-covering headgear in public places, including the burqa and niqab, which are garments worn by some Muslim women that cover the face and body. Last year, France banned the abaya in schools.

A ban on cultural pluralism?

The hijab debate extends beyond the realm of sports, touching upon broader issues of identity and belonging in multicultural societies. For many Muslim women, the hijab is not just clothing – it is an expression of religious identity and empowerment.

Banning it from the Olympics could be seen as limiting their freedom of expression and denying their right to fully engage in society while staying true to their religious and cultural backgrounds.

France’s ban on religious symbols in official sports activities highlights the struggle to balance religious freedom with national values. This becomes especially complicated in the Olympics, where athletes’ individual expressions clash with their roles as representatives of their countries.

(Armin Langer, Assistant Professor of European Studies, University of Florida. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Muslim, Jewish voters leaning away from the federal Liberals as Gaza war grinds on: poll

CBC
Thu, May 16, 2024 

Protesters for Gaza gather outside a downtown hotel in Toronto, the planned location of an event for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on Friday, Mar. 15, 2024. (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press - image credit)


A new poll suggests Muslim and Jewish voters are leaning away from the federal Liberals in voting intentions — a possible sign that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's efforts to straddle gaps in public opinion over the Israel-Hamas war are falling short.

The new poll of voting intentions by the Angus Reid Institute says the federal NDP is leading the Liberals among Muslim voters 41 per cent to 31 per cent, while the federal Conservatives are beating the Liberals among Jewish voters 42 per cent to 33 per cent.

"This does feel to the Liberals, in terms of their outreach around diaspora politics, to now be a fairly untenable situation," Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, told CBC News.

"The Jewish diaspora is now saying, 'You haven't gone far enough in condemning Hamas and condemning the violence and stopping antisemitism in Canada.' And you've got pro-Palestinian voters and populations, many of whom are Muslim, obviously saying, 'You haven't gone far enough to condemn the Israeli Defence Forces for its counterattack in Gaza.'"

The data shows only 15 per cent of Muslims polled say they would vote for the Conservatives, while just 20 per cent of Jewish voters say they would support the New Democrats.

Protestors are seen on Parliament Hill during a pro-Israel protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Monday, Dec. 4, 2023.

Protesters attend a pro-Israel rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, Dec. 4, 2023. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)

Kurl said that under Trudeau's leadership, the Liberals have made a concerted effort to appeal to Muslim voters since 2015, when the Conservatives under Stephen Harper ran an election campaign that included controversial promises like a ban on the niqab and a "barbaric cultural practices" tip line.

An Environics Institute poll looking back on that election found 65 per cent of Muslims who said they voted cast their ballots for the Liberals, while only 10 per cent voted for the NDP.

"We saw the Liberals go out and court Muslims in Canada to vote Liberal," Kurl said.

She said the Liberals appear to be feeling the fallout from trying to appease both Muslim and Jewish voters since Hamas's attack on Israel of Oct. 7, 2023. Israeli officials say up to 1,200 Israelis were killed and 253 were taken hostage in that attack. Health authorities in Gaza say the Israeli military operation launched in response has killed almost 35,000 people.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre addresses the national Conservative caucus on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024. The Conservative Party of Canada raised more than $35 million during Pierre Poilievre's first full year as leader — and the federal Liberals brought in less than half that amount.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre addresses the national Conservative caucus on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

Asked at a news conference Thursday about his party's apparent slide among Muslims and Jewish voters, Trudeau defended the Liberals' approach and accused the other parties of picking sides while he has been striving for unity.

"To put it in political terms, I think it's important that there be at least one major party in this country, in our democracy, that has both lots of Jewish MPs and lots of Muslim MPs," he said, adding that he will continue to advocate for a two-state solution and a ceasefire.

In December, CBC News reported a group representing influential Canadian Muslim donors was leaving the top donor ranks of the Liberal Party, citing Trudeau's disinclination at the time to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The government started to call for one a few days later after that announcement.

In February, hundreds of mosques and Muslim organizations co-signed a letter telling Canadian MPs not to appear at mosques during Ramadan unless they were willing to openly call out Israel for "war crimes" or demand the government stop sending weapons to Israel.

The Liberals have pointed out that they have not exported lethal aid to Israel since the start of this latest conflict and also voted in favour of a heavily amended NDP motion that called on Canada to "cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel."

That motion outraged many Jewish-Canadians. "We are deeply disappointed that the Liberal government has chosen to effectively sub-contract Canadian foreign policy to anti-Israel radicals within the NDP and the Bloc Québécois," the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said in a media statement at the time.

No party leader making a dent with either group

Angus Reid also polled respondents on their opinions of Trudeau, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. Fifty-one per cent of Muslims said their opinion of Trudeau had "worsened recently," according to the Institute, while a similar share, 47 per cent, said the same about Poilievre.

Forty-seven per cent of Muslim respondents said their opinion of Singh had not changed.

Among Jewish voters, 49 per cent said their opinion of Trudeau had worsened; a slightly lower number, 38 per cent, said the same of Singh. A quarter of Jewish respondents said their opinion of Poilievre had improved, but 31 per cent reported the opposite.

By law, the next federal election must be held by October 2025.

As with most recent polls since last summer, this latest one shows the Conservatives would be in a comfortable position to form a majority government if an election were held today.

Kurl said the data held no big surprises, given recent events. "You just see the hill that the Liberals now have to climb, or call it the corner they have painted themselves into," she said.

Editor's note: The Angus Reid Institute survey was conducted online from April 19-23, 2024 among 3,459 Canadian adults who are members of the Angus Reid Forum. A probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

From April 19 to May 9, the Institute also polled 166 Canadian Muslim, 164 Canadian Hindu, 165 Canadian Jewish and 118 Canadian Sikh adults online. These samples are not included in the general population sample.

Haroon Siddiqui’s My Name is NOT Harry

Memoir of a Toronto icon

by Eric Walberg / March 29th, 2024

Haroon Siddiqui’s 2023 memoir, My Name is Not Harry, is a dazzling journey through Indian Sufism, pre-partition Muslim-Hindu harmony, the horrors of partition, a leap across the ocean to the middle of nowhere (sorry, Brandon Manitoba), finally finding his home at the Toronto Star, from whence, back to central Asia (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India during the tumultuous 1979+), hobnobbing with media and political stars, stopping for heart surgery, all the time building and defending his new multicultural faith, adding his own distinct, Muslim flavour to what it means to be a Canadian. A whirlwind tour of the 20th-21st centuries, as if by a latter day Muslim Christopher Columbus, one meant to try to undo the five centuries of imperialist horror that Columbus unleashed.

He relishes slaying the dragons of bigotry he encounters, starting with

*Winston Churchill, the racist. He who had labelled Indians ‘a barbarous people’, ‘a beastly people with a beastly religion’, ‘the beastliest people in the world next to Germans’. Who exacerbated the 1943 Bengal famine that had killed millions by insisting that Indian rice exports for the allied war effort not be interrupted. He who had called Gandhi ‘a naked fakir’ whom he wanted ‘bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi and then trampled by an enormous elephant with a new viceroy seated on its back.’

*Even the Toronto Star‘s iconic Gordon Sinclair, who won fame in the 1930s with his dispatches form India – ‘the pagan peninsula’ with its ‘wild and woolly Hindus’, Brahmins, the supreme high hooper-doopers of this impossible land’, ‘scrawny, underfed untouchables’, impossible-looking beggars’ and ‘yowling idiots’. In tune with those times, [the Star] still going ga-ga over Sinclair well into my own time.

*On Iran, the only Muslim ‘experts’ and commentators on TV and in print were anti-revolution or anti-Khomeini, authenticating the worst of western prejudices. Anything different, such as mine, must have been a welcome novelty, brought to them by Canada’s largest newspaper.

*On 9//11, Rushdie see below.

One of those should-haves of his life as dragonslayer was at the annual press gallery dinner in Ottawa, where he hosted Solicitor General Robert Kaplan. When they were walking to dinner, Kaplan started waxing eloquently about his love for India and yoga but his dislike of Muslims! He assumed that being from India I could only be a Hindu. What a testament to power the Zionist Jewish mindset had/has over even a proud Muslim like Siddiqui. But bravo, Harry (sorry, Haroon) for owning up. That’s the great thing about him. He lives his multiculturalism, which means meeting the other on his/her grounds, looking for the middle ground, not stoking enmity.

Iranian Ayatollahs, Afghan communists

He shines on the thorniest issue, one of which confronted him soon after arriving at the Star, when he was sent off to Iran in 1979. Speaking Urdu (close to Persian) and fully versed in Sunni and Shia Islam, he was able to make sense of the chaos, making his way to Qom to visit Ayatollah Madari, Khomeini’s rival, who lived just down the maze of alleys from Khomeini, who was already commanding the revolution from his modest home there, rather than Tehran.

He was told it was impossible to meet with Madari, even for a Canadian Muslim, but when he revealed that he’d just come from Tabriz, where Madari’s People’s Republican Party followers had risen up against Khomeini, rejecting the Islamic state constitution, Madari relented. Madari wanted a secular state and ‘the sovereignty of the people’ not a person. He answered every question patiently for nearly two hours. That was his only interview in the wake of the revolt. It would be his last. He was placed under house arrest until his death six years later.

He also met with Morteza Pasandideh, 82, Khomeini’s older brother, who was quite jovial. Siddiqui admired them all for their stress-free lives, their inner peace all, living productive lives into their 80s or 90s. Qom is famous for sohan halwa (sweet sweet) made with pistachios, almonds and butter. Back in Toronto, he asked John Ralston Saul to taste and guess which enemy country it was from. Whatever it is, it could only have been made by a great civilization.

He toured the now-occupied US embassy and chatted amiably (sympathetically?) with the students about how they had pulled off the siege, overpowering the bulky Marines. They said their resolve got strengthened after seeing a large-size picture of Khomeini on a dartboard and several crude cartoons of Khomeini from American and British newspapers in the embassy. At Christmas they made cookies for their captives. An American priest who had come to perform the Christmas Mass said: We should be grateful that we are in a Muslim country and there are not drunk guards. Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor told him: There are no anti-Canadian feelings here. No one has indicated any inclination to leave Tehran. There’s no panic. When he met Taylor later, he said: Mr Taylor, you’re a great liar. Taylor: That’s what I got paid for.

After an exhausting year in Tehran, the Soviets invaded (came to the assistance of) secular revolutionary Kabul and he was ordered to get there asap. But first he flew to the Iranian border and crossed into Afghanistan to meet a local tribal chieftain, who told him, ‘We’ll kick the bastards out.’ How to get there legitimately? Pakistan? Better India, which had good relations with the communists in Moscow and Kabul, so off to New Delhi and the Afghan embassy. Indira Gandhi never condemned the Soviet invasion. (How wise in retrospect.) In Kabul he was told not to go anywhere and only communicate through an official guide. Ha, ha! He snuck out the back door of his hotel, spoke to a soldier in Urdu, said ‘Canada’ and quickly found a local driver.

He credits Canada’s reputation for peaceful relations, a well-known eye clinic in Kabul. Off to (Shia) Herat where he heard Long live Islam, Long live Iran! He bought a Russian fur cap but was told never to wear it in public or he might be shot. He left via Pushtunistan to Jalalabad, Pakistan, where he met the legendary 91-year-old frontier Gandhi Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who like the Siddiquis had protested the division of India. He was ailing but contemptuous of Soviet attempts to appease religious Afghans. Everything in Afghanistan is done in the name of religion. But this is a political religion, not the religion of Islam and Allah and Muhammad. Communism has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with the stomach. The Russians knew this and tried to convince the Afghans that they could keep their religion, but it was too little, too late. The Russians refused to try to treat their Gandhi, fearing if he died, they would be accused of killing him.

He pressed on to the Khyber Pass, the route for a stream of invaders – Cyrus, Darius, Genghis Khan, Alexander, the Mughals. Tribal chief Mohammed Gul told him: if the Iranians can knock off the Shah and the Americans, we certainly can kick out the Russians. He saw that resistance was beginning to jell within weeks of the Soviet occupation. It took a decade for the Soviets to depart, the US and allies, including Canada, taking double the time to conclude that Afghans have both the courage and patience to bleed any occupier dry.

This being the days before internet, getting copy out required ingenuity. Siddiqui would go to the airport on the days Indian Airlines came to Kabul, meet the crew and cajole/tip them into taking copy and dropping it off at the Reuters news agency in Delhi for forwarding to Toronto. He also went on the day Pakistan International Airlines came just in case. Later he was told everything came, sometimes twice. He met Brzezinski in Peshawar (!) but he wouldn’t give Siddiqui the time of day.

Following the Iraq-Iran war, he was disgusted that western media ignored the poison gas supplied to Iraq by American, German, French, Dutch, Swiss and Belgian companies. On the Iranian front line he hid from Iraqi snipers and marveled at how soldiers dying from gassing were rushed from the front to Tehran hospitals. He was appalled by Khomeini’s hitman, a sadistic prosecutor Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali, the hanging judge. Later in Paris, he met Bani Sadr, the first president, who had been impeached and fled the country disguised as a woman in a chador, in an Iran Air Force jet piloted by a sympathizer. He laments that US hostility prompted Khomeini to restart the nuclear program begun under the Shah, after ending it as unIslamic.

Siddiqui’s credo

I must admit, I’ve become jaded about multiculturalism. Toronto is now mostly first or second generation immigrants. Our culture feels shallow and American now. I find the turban-wearing Uber electric scooters grazing me unawares on bike paths frightening, and pointless, as they ferry onion rings to lazy people with too much money. I bemoan the lack of interest in Canadian history, our struggle to define an identity that’s not American. Most immigrants really would prefer big, rich, warm America to Canada and would have no problem if the US decided to invade. What has happened to Canadian culture?

But then I’ve become equally jaded about our heroic history. We are all immigrants, in the case of the paleface, mostly riff-raff, having decimated our poor brown natives. The post-WWII immigrants from brown countries like Siddiqui’s India/ Pakistan are mostly university-educated, the elites of their countries, so they really are a step up from my Irish-English-Swedish peasant ancestors.

But then, I find that equally disturbing. We stole the land from the real Canadians. Now we steal the intellectual wealth from poor countries. Sure we’re richer; the imperialist ‘centre’ is always richer. Our Canadianism was and is still a fraud. So, white flag, hello multiculturalism, for better or worse. But one that should give first place to our natives as the real owners, spiritually, of the land. And no more stealing, whether it be minds from ‘over there’, or land here or ‘over there’. That means Israel, our ‘best friend’, according to PM Harper in 2013 and PM Trudeau in 2015.

Siddiqui is unapologetically for mass immigration and has no time for the ecological problems that mass migration entails. He boasts having visited India 50 times in 40 years, not to mention his other peregrinations. That grates. Yes, brown/black is just as good as white, but what’s holding us together anymore? I don’t know, but I’m happy for Siddiqui, who at least has helped Canada transform from a country of bigotry and chauvinism to … a nice, tame, bland cosmopolis.

His journey through the swinging ’60s into the terrible ’20s is an upbeat panorama of not only Canada at its peak of popularity and feel-goodness, but, reading between the lines, also the decline of Canada, its loss of feel-good innocence transformation into an unapologetic toady of US empire. He took pride in being Canadian when Ambassador Taylor helped US hostages escape Tehran in 1980, when Chretien refused to go along with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but it’s been downhill since then, with Harper’s disastrous commitment of Canadian troops to Afghanistan, his open Islamo- and Russophobia, his worship of Israel. While Trudeau has welcomed Syrian refugees (and now Afghans, fall out from Harper’s war), he did not fulfill his pledge to renew relations with Iran, despite the Iranian exile community’s pleas. His Russophobia is pathetic. Multiculturalism is looking mighty threadbare.

Yes, following Trudeau senior, Siddiqui’s credo is that all cultural communities have ‘the right to preserve and develop their own cultures within Canadian society’, which he notes is the ethos of India, best articulated by Indian novelist Shivaram Karanth: There’s no such thing as Indian culture. Indian culture is so varied as to be called cultures. But what has happened to India’s multiculturalism under arch-Hindu nationalist Modi?

Star Foreign Editor Jimmy Atkins (R) with Star chair John Honderich, South African President Nelson Mandela & first lady Graca Machel, Star editorial board editor Haroon Siddiqui.

Free trade, Sikhs, Laïcité

Siddiqui gets along with everyone, doesn’t drink or smoke (anymore), a model Muslim in the House of War.¹ He traces his ancestors to the first caliph Abu-bakr Siddiq, and second caliph Umar al-Khattab al-Faruq. A worthy disciple of the Prophet Muhammad, the multiculturalist par excellence.² The fearsome Bee (Star editor-in-chief Beland Honderich) famously got along with Haroon. Siddiqui started from scratch in Brandon (no halal, no yogurt in 1968), then the Star, rising quickly through the ranks to foreign correspondent, front page editor, editorial page editor, and finally columnist, all the time the only Muslim in mainstream Canadian media.

He and the Star were against Mulroney’s ‘free’ trade pact with the yankee devil, realizing it was only good for fat cats. He has acted as a public spokesman explaining the problems of all immigrants and BIPOC,³ an acronym he promotes. He highlights the racism which feeds on the changing demographics from white to nonwhite, recountiing a Tanzanian immigrant pushed onto Toronto’s subway tracks, crippling him, and the existence of a KKK chapter operating openly in Toronto.

The case of Sikhs is thorny. Sikh Canadians were mostly quietist, but when Sikh separatists were ejected from the Golden Temple by Indira Gandhi in 1984, she was assassinated, and Sikh separatists blew up an Indian Airlines plane full of Hindu Canadians in 1985. This still ranks as Canada’s worst such tragedy, but was downplayed by the Canadian government with the investigation bungled by the RCMP, as anti-Sikh/ Hindu racism grew. And it continues, the latest being a hit job on a (Sikh separatist) Canadian, openly, by India’s militant Hindu nationalist government. Multiculturalism is easily abused and hard to defend.

To their credit, the Sikhs in Canada have bounced back, entering politics (Justin Trudeau boasted more Sikhs in his cabinet than Modi), joining the RCMP, police, army, working hard, being good citizens. The bad apples didn’t spoil the whole barrel, though Sikhs have no use for India, and they really did capture the lackluster leadership convention of the NDP out of nowhere in 2017. The unlikely NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has been earnest, if not inspiring.

How does this multiculturalism pan out? Quebec separatists don’t like immigrants much, as they are not interested in living in a parochial, xenophobic province, and have enough trouble learning passable English, let alone Quebecois. They voted en masse against independence, and the pesky Muslim women want to wear hijab or worse, niqab. Vive la laïcité. Quebec has chosen to copy France’s punitive banning hijab and other restrictions. Still, English and French get along.

Tribalism, French vs English, Sikhs vs Hindus, Buddhists remains strong. That contrasts with Muslims, who quickly drop their ethnic identity for universal Islam and Canadianism (84% cite being Muslim and 81% cite being Canadian as their primary identity),⁴ as I’ve noticed at Muslim conferences, where a truly united nations reigns. That brings us to Jewish Canadians vs Muslim Canadians, the most tragic stand-off of the past century. Siddiqui doesn’t go to this forbidding territory. On the contrary, (wisely) he has spoken to Bnai Brith and Canadian Jewish Congress gatherings and kept a low profile as a Muslim Canadian. As the sole prominent Muslim journalist here, he was operating in enemy territory, as his encounter with Kaplan confirmed.

Enlightening Canadians on things Islamic

More important, he wrote engagingly about Muslims in Toronto, which hosts the largest Iranian emigre community after the US, mostly in ‘Tehronto’, a mix of pro- and anti-Khomeini, but able to live peacefully, all agreeing that the Canadian government nonrecognition of Iran and boycott is bad politics for everyone. His appreciation for this ‘great civilization’ contrasts with the negative press that Iran uniformly gets here.

Siddiqui realized quickly that Canadian media coverage and commentary ‘smelled of American propaganda’ and the US and allies were inflicting too many horrors on Muslims and Muslims lands. In 1988, the US warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian civilian airliner killing 290, prompting Bush I to boast: I will never apologize for the US. I don’t care what the facts are. Instead, Washington awarded medals to the captain and crew of the Vincennes. Did any other mainstream journalist note this then or now? He refused to blacken Islam after 9/11. Now a columnist he wrote his third post-9/11 column ‘It’s the US foreign policy, stupid,’ causing a storm of letters to the editor, a majority ‘thank you for saying it’.

Ismailis came in 1972, expelled by Idi Amin of Uganda, joined later by Ismailis from Kenya and Tanzania. Self-reliant, educated, entrepreneurial, they inspired the Aga Khan to build a museum of Islamic culture in Toronto in 2014, the only such museum in the West. Ironically it was officially opened by arch-Islamophobe PM Harper. We celebrate today not only the harmonious meeting of green gardens and glass galleries. We rejoice above all in the special spirit which fills this place and gives it its soul. But then, to Islamophobe Harper, Ismailis are Islam-lite, not considered real Muslims by most.

There are two chapters dealing with the ummah: Cultural Warfare on Muslims, and Harper and Muslims (In his ugliness, he was well ahead of Trump – and more effective). Some particularly painful episodes he covered:

*Harper invited (till then terrorist) Modi to Canada in 2014 when first elected, accompanying him to Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver,

*He established an office of religious freedom, which he unveiled at a Mississauga Coptic church. He announced the position of a new ambassador of religious freedom at the Ahmadiyya mosque in Vaughan, defending Christian and other minorities in Muslim nations, doing nothing for Uighurs, Rohingyas, Shia in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

I could go on – I haven’t even got to the Rushdie circus – but I urge all Muslim Canadians, no, all Canadians, to read for yourselves. Siddiqui provides an excellent survey of all the post-9/11 Islamophobic nonsense, especially in Euroland.

The West has discredited democracy by allowing anti-Islam and anti-Muslim discourse to be one of our last acceptable forms of racism and bigotry. It’s in this milieu that Rushdie and the Rushdie affair have thrived. Has Rushdie been exploiting western prejudices or has the West been using him as a shield for its own prejudices? Or is this a case of mutual convenience?

Having rid ourselves of Harper, how quickly we forget the pain when it stops. As it has under Trudeau Jr. For all his silliness and US-Israel fawning, Justin Trudeau is true to his father’s legacy, and undid much of Harper’s bigotry, especially relating to Muslims.

We should be wary of letting the unrepentant Conservatives take back Parliament Hill. However, I don’t think it’s possible to relaunch the Harper take-no-hostages Crusade. 9/11 (whoever did it) is what motivated me and many more to become a Muslim, and October 7 is now rapidly expanding the Muslim ummah, especially in the West, the heart of the beast. The trouble for the Harpers is that the more Islam and Muslims are reviled, the more Muslims (re)turn to their religion. But then that’s the way of imperialism, creating its enemies, stoking them, as Israel did with Hamas, thinking they can then pick off the ‘terrorists’, ‘mow the grass’.

Siddiqui draws from his experience surviving partition in India, adhering to Shaykh Madani’s view that ‘there is too much diversity within Islam for democracy to work, that an Islamic state would inevitably be authoritarian.’ Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran are the leading examples. The best protection for peoples of faith was a democratic state that stayed neutral between faiths and advanced mutual respect.⁵

The Harpers accuse Muslims of being unwilling to integrate. Canada, Britain and the US are shining examples of the opposite.

*In the 2021 federal election 12 Muslims won seats. Two hold senior Cabinet portfolios: Omar Alghabra and Ahmed Hussen.

*In Britain, in 2019, 19 were elected. Sadiq Khan has been mayor of London since 2016.

*Humza Yousaf became first minister in Scotland in 2023, the first Muslim to lead a western nation. When Khan was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council at Bukhingham Palace in 2009, it was discovered there was no Quran in the palace, so he brought his own and left it as a present to the Queen.

*In the US 57 Muslims were elected in 2020. Keith Ellison, the first member of the House was sworn in on a copy of the Quran owned by President Jefferson, who had bought an English translation out of the ‘desire to understand Islam on its own terms.’

*Arab and Muslim entertainers, stand-up comedians, writers, actors, Little Mosque on the Prairie …

*To welcome Syrian refugees arriving in Canada, Ottawa French public schools joined to sing Talaʽ al-Badru ʽAlaynā,⁶ which went viral on YouTube.

Siddiqui’s openmindedness and lack of prejudice are his not-so-secret weapon, able to find common humanity where western propaganda serves up bile. To no small degree, thanks to Haroon and other new (brown) Canadians, Marshall McLuhan’s global village is a reality at home, the most successful heterogeneous experiment in human history.

ENDNOTES

• 1
  Dar al-harb vs Dar al-Salam, House of Peace, referring to the Muslim world.
• 2
  Quran16:13 And all the [beauty of] many hues-which He has created for you on earth: in this, behold, there is a message for people who [are willing to] take it to heart.
• 3
  Black, indigenous, people of colour.
• 4
  Half of Muslim Canadians consider their ethnic identity as very important. Statistics Canada, ‘The Canadian Census: A rich portrait of the country’s religious and ethnocultural diversity,’ 2022.
• 5
  Siddiqui, My name is not Harry: A memoir, 392.
• 6
  (طلع البدر) nasheed that the Ansar sang for the Islamic prophet Muhammad upon his arrival at Medina from the (non)battle of Tabuk.

Eric Walberg is a journalist who worked in Uzbekistan and is now writing for Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo. He is the author of From Postmodernism to Postsecularism and Postmodern Imperialism. His most recent book is Islamic Resistance to Imperialism. Read other articles by Eric, or visit Eric's website.

PHOTO ESSAY

 Syria's Al-Hol camp: child inmates and false identities

Paris (AFP) – The al-Hol camp is the largest of two in northeastern Syria holding the families of Islamic State fighters.

LONG READ

Issued on: 18/03/2024

A girl walks through the al-Hol Islamic State camp in northeastern Syria 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP


Run by US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), its population spiked at more than 70,000 as the coalition began tightening its grip on the last IS holdout in Baghouz late in 2018.

Iraqis have always been "the dominant nationality" in the camp, with their numbers at one time reaching 30,000, according to Doctors Without Borders.

At its height, 11,000 "foreign" women and children -- that is non-Syrian or Iraqi -- were held there.

After the defeat of the "caliphate" in March 2019, countries across the world slowly began repatriating their nationals. Many Europeans were transferred to Roj, a smaller and better-kept camp close to the Turkish border that today holds 2,500 people, more than 2,140 of them foreign.

The sprawling 320-hectare al-Hol holds more than 43,000 people from 47 countries including France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey and Tunisia -- 21,500 of them children, according to the latest figures.

Iraqis are the biggest group (20,144), followed by Syrians (16,710). Two thirds of the 6,612 "foreigners" are children under 17, according to the camp administration.
13-year-old brides

Kurdish security forces and the SDF guard the camp, with a Kurdish civil administration overseeing the camp. Dozens of United Nations agencies and international and local NGOs provide health, water, sanitation, education and protection services.

Women walk past a dress shop in the Iraqi and Syrian sector of the al-Hol camp © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

But the camp's overall management is handled by the US group Blumont paid for by the US State Department, with France also funding some humanitarian assistance and improvements to the infrastructure.

The camp is divided into two parts. Syrians and Iraqis live in the main camp, with "foreigners" held in the high-security "annex" that is cut off from the main camp.

Camp officials say many of the foreigners have not revealed their nationalities or given false ones.

Many marriages in the main camp -- where some 3,000 men live -- are to minors, including girls as young as 13, according to humanitarian workers.

Since the Kurdish-led administration does not recognise child marriage, they are not registered, nor are their children.
Two girls point to the sky -- a gesture often used by Islamic State -- in the al-Hol camp in Syria where the families of IS fighters are held © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Many men take second wives. These marriages are also not recognised. As a result, the camp "bursts with unregistered children", a humanitarian worker said.

© 2024 AFP

Sins of the fathers: Children of IS left to rot in Syria camp

Al-Hol Camp (Syria) (AFP) – Ali is 12 and has survived things no child should see, spending half his life in what amounts to a prison camp for jihadist families in an arid corner of northeastern Syria.


Issued on: 18/03/2024 - 

Child of the caliphate: A girl in the vast al-Hol Islamic State camp in northeastern Syria 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP
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He knows not to dream of freedom. Instead he fantasises about having a football. "Can you get me one?" he said, as if he was asking for the Moon.

Five years after the fall of the Islamic State group's brutal "caliphate", tens of thousands of women and children linked to the jihadists are still being held by the US-backed Kurdish forces in camps rife with violence and abuse, with seemingly no clear plan of what to do with them.

More than 40,000 inmates -- half of them children -- are cooped up behind the barbed wire fences and watchtowers of the windswept al-Hol camp run by Washington's Kurdish allies.

The children of the jihadists' failed project live out a grim existence in tattered, tightly packed together tents with little water and limited access to sanitation. Few go to school.

Many have never seen a television or tasted ice cream.

Some boys are taken from their mothers by the guards once they reach 11 in violation of international law, a UN expert found, with the Kurdish authorities claiming it is to stop them being radicalised.

They admit the jihadists still exercise control in parts of the camp through fear, punishments and even murder.

One former inmate told AFP that IS paid pensions to some widows.

Even Ali is old enough to be terrified of them. "They enter tents at night and kill people," he said.

"It's not a life for children... they are paying the price for something they didn't do," an aid worker told AFP.

The al-Hol camp ballooned as the coalition and its allies in the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) closed in on IS's last bastion in eastern Syria, putting an end to their five-year reign of terror marked by beheadings, rapes, massacres and enslavement.

Women in niqabs walk past a fence at the al-Hol camp in Syria where thousands of families of Islamic State fighters are still held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

When the extremists were finally defeated in March 2019, families of suspected jihadists were trucked north to al-Hol from the last holdout in Baghouz.

Five years on, dozens of countries are still refusing to take back their nationals with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi -- whose soldiers guard the Western-funded camp -- calling it "a ticking time bomb".

– 'Acute deprivation' -

AFP interviewed IS widows, aid workers, security forces and administration employees in the difficult to access camp, including inside the high-security "annex", the camp within a camp where "foreign" and more radical women and their children from 45 countries are held apart from the "local" Syrians and Iraqis.

Some asked not to be named for fear of what might happen to them.

To complicate matters, some 3,000 men are held with the women and children in the Syrian and Iraqi sector of the camp. Some are ordinary refugees, but suspicion lingers over others detained by Kurdish fighters as the caliphate collapsed.

Not even the guards venture into the rows of tents at night unless they are carrying out a raid.

The huge dusty camp -- first built for refugees fleeing the wars in Iraq and Syria -- dwarfs the nearby town of al-Hol, with its small houses and narrow streets.

The vast Al-Hol camp in Syria holds more than 40,000 people -- all but 3,000 women and children © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Its thousands of white tents are crammed so closely together that it is almost impossible to walk between them without bumping into something.

Privacy is nonexistent, with the communal kitchens and toilets squalid and insufficient, say humanitarian workers who provide some basic services on top of the food aid on which the inmates survive.

Behind the camp's high fences, kids roam dirt roads, bored and frustrated, some throwing stones at visitors. A blond boy blinked at the camera and then drew his finger across his throat to mimic a beheading.

Most children do not go to the makeshift schools. Instead they try to earn a little by carrying water, cleaning or fixing tents for those whose families wire them money.

Others work in the camp's market, or trade their food aid.

"Al-Hol is a suffocating place for children to live and grow-up," said Kathryn Achilles from Save the Children.

They "have endured acute deprivation, bombardment and have now been in the camp for almost five years. They need more," she said.
'We'll be left here'

"How can our children dream if they've never seen the outside world?" a mother of five held in the high-security annex reserved for foreign women and their children told AFP.

A girl walks behind her mother through the vast al-Hol camp in northeastern

 Syria © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Two thirds of the annex's 6,612 inmates are children, according to the camp's administrators.

The 39-year-old gave birth to her youngest child in al-Hol after fleeing Baghouz in 2019 after her husband -- an IS fighter -- was killed there.

Like all of the women in the camp, she was covered head-to-toe in a niqab and black gloves, a thin slit in the face covering showing her wide, dark eyes.

Although the niqab is banned in the smaller Roj camp holding IS members' families close to the Turkish border, women in al-Hol told AFP they would not dare to take it off, fearing punishment from hardliners.

"It is a bitter life, and what's worse, they say we'll be left here," the mother lamented, with the authorities starting to build new sections where each tent will have its own toilet and kitchen.

Jihan Hanan, the head of the camp's civil administration, confirmed that the work was being done "because the camp may be in place for the long term".

She admitted life was "difficult for residents, but it's also difficult for us given the security situation."

Murder and sexual abuse

But it is what is happening to the children that most worries humanitarian organisations.

In 2022, two Egyptian girls, aged 12 and 15, were murdered in the annex, their throats cut and their bodies dumped in an open septic tank.

Rana, a Syrian girl, was shot in the face and shoulder in 2022 by armed men who accused her of having a child out of wedlock when she was 18.

"They kidnapped me for 11 days and hit me with chains," she told AFP.

Other children are being sexually abused and harassed, a health worker told AFP. In three months in 2021, she treated 11 cases of child sexual abuse.

A girl hugs her mother at the al-Hol camp in Syria where the families of IS fighters are held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Some cases were children abusing other children. "They may not know they are hurting each other," she said, adding that a child who abuses is likely to have been a either a victim of sexual assault or witness to it.

Children in al-Hol have seen or heard murders as well as "shootings, stabbings and strangulations on their way to buy food from the marketplace or while on their way to school," Save the Children said in a 2022 report on the camp.

The trauma triggers sleeping disorders, bed-wetting and aggressive behaviour, it said.

"I try not to let my kids socialise to keep them out of harm, but it is almost impossible because the camp is packed," said Shatha, an Iraqi mother-of-five.

"Every time my kids go out, they come back beaten."

Yet keeping children confined to their tents was tantamount to holding them "in a prison inside a prison", a social worker told AFP.
'Coming for my son'

Every mother AFP spoke to in al-Hol -- particularly those in the annex -- were terrified about their boys being taken from them and sent to "rehabilitation centres" by the guards.

The high-security camp within a camp contains women from 45 countries including France, the Netherlands and Sweden, with large numbers from Turkey, Tunisia, Russia, the Caucasus and the Central Asian republics.

Security forces regularly take boys over 11 from the annex in night raids or sweeps of the marketplace, a policy a UN expert condemned as "forced arbitrary separation".

Boys in the 'foreign' section of the camp are removed from their mothers aged 11 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Zeinab, an Egyptian mother, said her 13-year-old son was taken away from her a year ago. Now she worries it will soon be her 11-year-old's turn.

"I can't sleep at night. When I hear sounds outside, I fear they are coming for my son," she said.

Some mothers hide their boys from the guards in holes and trenches or prevent them from going outside.

"Some boys may have turned 20, but we don't know where they are hiding," a member of the security forces admitted.

Authorities say they take the boys to protect them from "sexual abuse" and a "radicalised" environment.

The Pentagon told AFP that it was aware that some youths were removed "to both youth centres and detention facilities" but said "we keep the well-being of children at the centre of our policies and encourage local authorities to ensure their actions consider the best interests of children."

IS cells

Kurdish forces have long warned about IS cells in the camp, with a spike in murders, arson and escape attempts in 2019. Rifles, ammunition and tunnels have also been found in regular security sweeps.

A Syrian woman who fled the camp in mid-2019 recalled how an IS member known as Abu Mohamed would visit widows monthly and pay them $300 to $500.

Diehard: A woman in the Al-Hol camp points to the sky -- a gesture long associated with the Islamic State

 © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

"He used to come in a security forces uniform and promise that the group will return," she said.

In the annex's squalid marketplace, women pore over the few available pieces of meat through the slits in their niqabs, while others haul away bottles of water and rugs in three-wheeled carts or on makeshift sleds made from cardboard attached to a rope.

Seeing journalists, some raised a gloved index finger to the sky, a gesture frequently used by IS signifying the "oneness of God".

While many women are repentant, others don't hide their continued allegiance to IS.

IS "are still here, and they have a stronger presence in certain sectors of the camp," according to Abou Khodor, a 26-year-old Iraqi man who has been in the camp for seven years.

He complained that diehards from IS's last bastion in Baghouz had "ruined" the camp. But one of the women captured there said it was more complex.
'Death does not scare us'

"There are supporters of IS, and those who have become even worse," she said. Others, however, "don't want anything to do with it anymore."

Women stand next to a fence at the al-Hol camp in Syria where Islamic State fighters' families are held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

At a protest over searches in the camp earlier this year, one woman was filmed shouting at the guards, "We are here now but one day it will be you!

"The Islamic State is not going away, even if you kill and beat us... Death does not scare us."

But an Egyptian woman was seen urging calm, saying, "We don't want problems."

Such is the mistrust that some women resist being treated with what they call "Western medicine" leading to outbreaks of disease, most recently of measles.

Women and children in the annex also have to get permission to go to the health centres outside the camp, and it sometimes takes "days, weeks or even months" for less critical cases, according to Liz Harding, head of Doctors Without Borders mission in northeastern Syria.

"Fear, movement restrictions, insecurity and lack of emergency services at night" was cutting them off from care, she added.

Some smuggle in medication and at least one woman performs clandestine dental procedures, which has led to cases of sepsis.

"She doesn't have the tools, but there is no other dental care," a Russian woman complained.

- Huge burden for Kurds -

The grim desperation of the situation weighs heavy on the Syrian Kurds running the camp. Many lost comrades to IS militants whose family members they now have to guard.

A Kurdish security forces member patrols the al-Hol camp in Syria where the families of IS fighters are held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

"It's a major problem... a burden both financially, politically and morally as well," the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces Mazloum Abdi told AFP.

Humanitarian groups in the camp said children should not have to live in such conditions and insist they should not be defined by their parents' actions.

"Mothers want their children to go to school, to grow up healthily and hope they won't be discriminated against because of all they have experienced," said Save The Children's Achilles.

Kurdish authorities have repeatedly urged countries to repatriate their citizens, but hold out little hope of it happening anytime soon. Hanan, the camp's civilian chief, said many "nationalities have no one asking about them".

Asked by AFP what it plans to do with the women and children, the Pentagon said "the only long-term, durable solution for the residents... is the return or repatriation of displaced persons to their areas or countries of origin."

While Iraq has started slow but successful repatriations, thousands of Syrians are stuck in al-Hol awaiting tribal sponsorship to return to areas under Kurdish control. For now, a return for those from Syrian government-held areas looks impossible.

"We wish everyone could go home," Hanan said. "We don't intend to lock anyone up and leave them."

Behind the wire: A boy plays with a mesh bag over his head in the al-Hol camp holding the families of IS fighters in Syria 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

But it was little comfort to a Russian mother of two who told AFP she felt the world had abandoned her and her children.

"There is no place to go. There is no solution," she said.

© 2024 AFP