Time to talk about terror

Editorial

Israel can sometimes seem very far away. Even though Canadian Jews tend to keep the Jewish state close in mind and spirit, most Canadians view Israel much as they view places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti. We know we should care, we have a vague idea of who's involved and we wish those people could just get along with each other.

But with the vast array of issues facing us on a domestic front, from a deteriorating public health care system, a pension plan destined to collapse under the weight of retiring baby boomers, lack of funding for education and almost anything else, to say nothing of $250 million federal tax dollars allocated by who-knows-what-means, Canadians have a lot to distract us. So it was with the usual sense of vaguely concerned nonchalance that most Canadians met the news this week of a Canadian intelligence report suggesting Canada is a prime location for fund-raising and organizing on behalf of overseas terror organizations.

The report was given to the National Post under terms of the Access to Information Act, with some segments censored. Among the statements in the report, which was titled Threats to Canada's National Security, was the assertion that Canada's "open and tolerant multicultural society, which includes large, identifiable ethno-religious communities from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia ... makes this country distinctly vulnerable to infiltration by international terrorists."

This sentence cuts directly to the biggest challenge facing Canada in its fight (if one can call it that) against international terrorism. It goes to the root of our self-identity and challenges our ability to continue to assume the best in each other and ourselves.

Most Canadians view the actions of terrorists as something that happens far away. Thankfully, that has so far been largely true. Even New York City, to a Vancouverite, can seem a long way off. Moreover, a large segment of the Canadian population has concluded that terrorism aimed at the United States, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, have to do with American foreign policy and little, if anything, to do with Canada.

But the infidels are not limited to Washington and New York. The decadent idolaters who are the targets of Islamic fundamentalists are not defined by their country's foreign policy, but by the refusal to acknowledge the strictest forms of Islamic law. Most television viewers, therefore, fall into various categories of the despised, as do women who don't know their place, men who don't worship according to Islamic traditions and, well, almost everyone in North America. Though consistent, organized terrorism has largely been limited to Israel and a few other unfortunate victim-states, Canada is not held in high esteem by Islamists, either. If the terrorists are permitted to succeed against their primary enemies, they will soon enough set their sights on those second and third on the list.

The challenge Canadians face in acknowledging our vulnerability is, first, to change the way we view ourselves. The Canadian self-image is of a country either too benign or too minor for terrorists to bother with. This is a dangerous bit of self-delusion.

Further, the idea that terrorists are using Canada solely as a place from which to launch attacks on far-away places seems naive. Terrorism is an opportunistic weed and will grow wherever it can.

But how do we go about challenging our tolerant, multicultural state to confront the potential for terrorism within certain identifiable communities? How do we maintain our vision of an accepting, pluralist state while singling out certain communities for special intelligence attention?

These are difficult questions that go right to the heart of Canada's national identity. Yet we have not even begun the conversation over how these questions should be asked, let alone answered. Outside the intelligence community, few Canadians have been willing to approach these issues. We need to begin that discussion, because to defer it any longer means the decisions will continue to be made behind closed doors.

National security –- ours and the countries to which we may be exporting terror – requires us to address the possibility that a terror infrastructure exists within our country. Yet we should learn lessons from the American experience of the past several years as well, which is that a fine line exists between preserving the freedom and pluralism that help define our nation, and the equally grave potential that we can smother these values while trying to save them.

We do not have the answers to these existential questions. But we must at least begin to ask the questions.

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