Allison Hanes: We can not let hate tear Montreal aside

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Probably the most lovely factor about Montreal, I’ve all the time thought, is just not Mount Royal or the Previous Port or St. Joseph’s Oratory looming on its excessive perch.

It’s the numerous neighbourhoods the place a mosaic of the world’s creeds and cultures lives aspect by aspect. It’s Outremont, the place members of the Hasidic neighborhood on their technique to synagogue share the sidewalk with diners heading to a restaurant named for the famed Persian poet Rumi on the identical block because the Ukrainian Federation. It’s Parc-Extension, the place a kosher grocery retailer stands throughout the road from a mosque. It’s Côte-des-Neiges, the place the Jewish Basic Hospital cares for sufferers from all corners of the globe, in a proudly French metropolis with a big English minority.

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Some teams could dwell in their very own bubbles. And social tensions could sometimes floor. However largely all of us handle to coexist harmoniously in a vibrant metropolis that has lengthy been a haven from battle and violence.

The warfare between Israel and Hamas, nonetheless, is testing the bonds of tolerance.

Montrealers awakened Tuesday morning to seek out greater than a dozen métro stations and bus shelters plastered with posters suggesting Canada is “complicit” in genocide or scrawled with graffiti calling for a ceasefire — one more signal of a metropolis on edge.

However, most worrying, hate is on the rise in opposition to each Jews and Muslims.

Within the house of little greater than every week, two Jewish faculties have been hit by bullets, together with one which was shot at twice in 4 days, whereas a synagogue and neighborhood centre have been focused by firebombs within the West Island. Montreal’s Jewish neighborhood, nonetheless reeling from the slaughter of 1,200 primarily civilians in Israel on Oct. 7 and the kidnapping of greater than 200 hostages by Hamas terrorists, is now underneath assault at house.

This rising tide of antisemitism is deeply traumatic in Montreal, the place Holocaust survivors flocked after the Second World Battle and the place the Jewish neighborhood has roots reaching again to the 1800s. There have been sporadic outbursts of hate prior to now, however the warfare in Gaza has unleashed an unpleasant backlash.

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Montreal police are investigating potential incitement to violence by an imam throughout a pro-Palestinian rally. Simultaneous consciousness occasions highlighting the plight of Israeli hostages and the humanitarian disaster in Gaza degenerated right into a confrontation at Concordia College, the place police needed to intervene. A lecturer at Université de Montréal has been suspended for allegedly haranguing a Jewish lady. A flyer for a Palestinian solidarity protest distributed at McGill College on the eighty fifth anniversary of Kristallnacht featured imagery that was condemned by principal Deep Saini as antisemitic. Jewish-owned companies are being blasted with slurs and vandalism.

Montreal’s sizable and various Muslim neighborhood can be feeling stigmatized and threatened, as Palestinian supporters decry the horrible toll of Israel’s army operation in opposition to Hamas and name for a ceasefire in march after march. Greater than 11,000 civilians have reportedly been killed in Gaza, together with greater than 4,500 minors and three,000 girls; half the territory’s inhabitants of two million has been displaced; shortages of meals, water, gas and medication from an Israeli blockade have created a humanitarian disaster; a number of hospitals filled with the sick and wounded have ceased to perform.

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The Nationwide Council of Canadian Muslims reported a 1,300 per cent surge in hate incidents over the past month in Montreal, together with folks being spit on, girls being harassed and an Islamic cultural centre being defaced. Islamophobia, too, has reared its head.

This isn’t the Montreal I do know.

It’s regular for tragedies in far-off locations to hit near house on this metropolis. However often these calamities deliver Montrealers collectively, given this metropolis’s robust sense of social solidarity. This time, ache and anger are bringing out the worst in some folks.

The bloodshed within the Holy Land is actually heartbreaking. But it surely’s no excuse for what’s taking place right here in Montreal.

No youngster ought to arrive at college to seek out bullets within the door. No father or mother ought to need to ship their children fearing for his or her safety. No neighborhood ought to have to rent further safety to fortify their establishments. No college campus ought to let intimidation drown out civil debate. No particular person ought to really feel they’ve to cover their identification to be protected strolling Montreal’s streets. No enterprise must be sabotaged due to their proprietor’s faith.

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Montreal is just not the warfare zone, however some are performing as if it’s on the entrance line of hostilities. And that we should all guard in opposition to.

Political leaders, together with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Quebec Premier François Legault and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, have rightfully condemned the current spike in hate and antisemitic assaults on the Jewish neighborhood.

However maybe essentially the most heartening response to the tensions spilling over in Montreal got here from considered one of its most various neighbourhoods. The Heart for Analysis-Motion on Race Relations assembled a bunch of ladies from a broad spectrum of society at a Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood centre on Sunday to denounce the damaging local weather of resentment and urge folks to not let their anger fester into hate.

Montrealers ought to heed their clever phrases.

We can not afford to take tolerance without any consideration. We can not permit tensions to boil over into threats and violence. We can not let a warfare flip neighbours in opposition to one another. We should not lose sight of our widespread humanity, the thread that connects all Montrealers, regardless of our origins.

For if we will’t handle to dwell in safety and peace, how can anybody else?

ahanes@postmedia.com

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