Montreal Perspectives
By Jalaluddin S. Hussain
Canadian
Muslims for Jerusalem's Visual presentation: impressive and emotive!
Nadira Mustapha, Outstanding Muslim Canadian
Woman
Nadira Mustapha's visual presentation entitled, "Al-Quds, as the
barometer of the Muslim Ummah", was an impressive and emotive
experience. Held on Sunday, February 6, 2005, at the Concordia
University Hall Building, in downtown Montreal, it was an eye-opening
account of her trip to the Occupied Territories, in the Winter of 2003.
While basing herself in the West Bank, she travelled to the refugee
camps, hospitals, mosques and churches, in the cities of Jeruasalem,
Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarem, Bethelem and Jericho.
Fullfilment of a dream
It was a fulfillment of a cherished dream for her, because after
having already visited Mecca and Medina, she very much wanted to visit
the third important holy site of
Islam,
namely,
Masjid Al-Aqsa.
It is, unfortunate and tragic, however, that even after 54 years of
Israeli
occupation, with never-ending forced expulsions, home-demolitions,
land confiscations, harrassments, ethnic segregations, seizure of
identity papers and denial of religious freedoms, the militant and
martyrdom-seeking
Palestinians
are still fighting on, this unequal, Goliath-versus-David war.
Nadira Mustapha is a doctorate student in Islamic Law at McGill
University's Institute of Islamic Studies and is also the President
of the Canadian Muslims for Jerusalem (CMJ) organization.
In order to support the objectives of this pro-active Montreal Muslim
organization and to get to know more about it, readers of
New Trend
are encouraged to go to their website at:
www.cmjerusalem.org
and also give them their feedback, by e-mailing
cmjerusalem@yahoo.ca.
What Canadians think about the Palestinian struggle
In the February 2, 2005 column, entitled, "Canadians don't share
Ottawa's pro-Israel tilt of Paul Martin's federal government",
Jeffery Simpson of the Globe and Mail, expressed his frank opinion
about the recent celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the liberation
of the prisoners of Auschwitz. He also mentioned, in his article,
about the recernt findings of a Study of Canadian Attitudes
Towards Israel, conducted by Government Policy Consultants (GPC),
an Ottawa firm, for the recently-created Canadian Council for
Israel and Jewish Advocacy. This GPC Study reported, besides other
things that, "the Palestinians are viewed as the underdogs and the
Canadians traditionally identify with the underdogs." It is also
important to note that whatever the Canadian Jews may believe about
the Canadian
media,
only 11 percent of Canadians really think that the
media
is biased against Israel, while more than 33 percent believe that
the Canadian
media
is against the Palestinians.
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2005-02-21 Mon 17:23ct
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