Role of Muslim Media in Canada

 Among other things, it’s usually noticed that some stakeholders conveniently use the media to promote a negative image of ‘Islam and the Muslims.’ This means that the media actually does have the power to tailor public opinion as needed to satisfy the vested interests.

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 “The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” (Malcolm X)

However, the unfriendly attitude of main stream media towards the Muslim population of Canada is thought provoking.

Despite the fact that terrorism has no religion, the fingers are usually pointed towards the Islamic community. The problem is whenever some unfortunate act of terrorism occurs; the religion of ISLAM quickly becomes the “focus.” And most of the time, the media hype turns out to be nonsense. Obviously, the blame goes to the involved media for promoting hatred against the Muslims.

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In the past, besides name calling, the labels like Islamic terrorism and Islamic bomb have led to cause the sickening condition of “Islamophobia” among the non Muslim communities. Maybe, the anti-Islam propagandists have temporarily succeeded in isolating the targeted Muslim community, but the truth can’t be buried so easily.

Furthermore, the substandard opinion articles or breaking news involving the Muslims do attract a large number of derogatory remarks from the racists under the “comment sections” of popular newspapers of Canada. The (anti Muslim) abnormal behaviour irritates the community.

Consequently, the painful sentimental gap between the peaceful Canadian Muslims and the other Canadians keeps widening.

Despite all this, the media has certain principles of ethics to follow in order to remain competitive in the market through maintaining credibility. In fact, a successful journalism has to be conscientious because presenting the distorted facts is a complete “no.” Most importantly, competition among the media businesses is in a desperate need of giving the truthful information by being objective and balanced in reporting.

As the Muslims are legally entitled to proceed in an organised manner to protect their faith, the Muslim media too is equally entitled to publish literature to give the true picture to the general public.

Certainly, biased journalism does nothing but poison the raw minds against Muslims. Unfortunately in some cases, the non Muslim media appears to be anti Muslim when giving misjudgment without in-depth knowledge about the practicality of Islam. An inadequate presence of Muslim media adds to fuel further desperation for the Muslims. Because, the presence of mischievous elements in the media threatens the formation of logical public opinion.

And, some insufficiently qualified media individuals pose a threat when representing the Muslims for a number of reasons - including ignorance, discrimination, poor knowledge of Islam, or their total inability of interpreting Islamic teachings in the proper context.

Whether it is radio, television, newspaper or internet, the media has the capacity of connecting and bridging communities.

Beyond doubt, internet is gold mine of accessibility enriching the minds positively or fueling negatively – all depending on what you really look for through face book, twitter, blogs, emails, and the list goes on and on. Bottom line is Muslim media should strive harder and harder to achieve the goal of nation building based on truth but avoiding the evil input.

On the contrary, when the media is biased and focused only on commercialization, it becomes irritating for intelligent audience. Ironically, most of the people become addicted to watching TV without realizing that time is money which they are wasting unnecessarily. The worried Muslims are really concerned about their obligation towards the society they live in. This would let the deprived people move forward to live among non Muslims with equality.

Several communities of different ethnicities have their own media to safeguard their interests. Similarly, the Muslims are looking for a decent way out of the ongoing frustrating situation. They are becoming active more than ever and getting closer to helping the main stream media.

Fortunately, the Muslim media of today has genuine encouragement to become more and more assertive with an improved degree of confidence. In other words they are more involved and getting closer to be competitive even in the commercially focused media market.

Better late than never, the Muslims are comfortable to troubleshoot the negative status quo through their own electronic and print media. They are catching up gradually and hopefully would be able to free the Canadian audience of Islamophobia.

In addition to the print media, a daily Muslim presence in the broadcast media and the internet would correct the anti Islam feelings among the non Muslim Canadians. Once Muslim media is in full force on daily basis, the Muslim youth would definitely be encouraged to benefit, preserve and strengthen their Islamic identity.

Thankfully, several media people of integrity understand the essence of journalism. The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) publishes “Islamic Horizons,” Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) publishes “The Message” and there are many other publications by different mosques. Also, there are Monthly, Bi Weekly or Weekly News Papers and several other publications by Muslim Students' Associations.

Since, the mainstream media has been unable to address the issues of different communities equally; therefore, a daily basis English Medium Muslim TV, radio including all other publications would only enable all communities to understand what Islam really is!

The Muslim community of Canada is fully entitled to enjoy equality & justice when it comes to their unattended or mishandled issues.

On the other hand, the Canadian non-Muslim community deserves to find out more to re-establish their view point of the great religion of Islam.

Removal of liars from the main stream media will encourage establishing a true level playing field.

Muslim media with integrity & full Islamic knowledge is better positioned to publish/broadcast for the benefit of all Canadians. Nevertheless, presenting true image of Islam as a religion of peace, tolerance and justice remains a challenge for Muslim media indeed.

Last of all, utilizing Muslim friendly apparatus, pro-Islamic media advocates may go ahead with repairing the tarnished image of Islam. Regularly airing of the constructive interfaith dialogues can be further fruitful.

"Canada's Image at Risk!"

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The pandemic of “global economic recession” is a reality which is adversely affecting almost all nations. Similarly, Canada despite its natural resources, a sound socio-economic set up, and a good ‘political system’ also is vulnerable as the sitting government is not efficient enough to deal with it appropriately.

The fear is if the untreated economic “ailment” is allowed to continue, Canada could be facing a social “derailment” faster than thought previously. Furthermore, the rising Canadian dollar, slowing economic activity, a large number of retiring baby boomers, high cost of local manufacturing, sky-rocketing prices especially those of the real estate and inflationary prices of daily use items are only a few of the challenges. What if deflation too takes over! God forbid - that will be too deadlier.

On top of all this, the poor grades, as recently evaluated by the CBC (Conference Board of Canada) http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/hot-topics/econforecast.aspx,

indicate that the country has performed way below the general expectation. This means a poor performance automatically adds further fuel to the dangerous quagmire of the ongoing failures as a consequence.  Hence, Canada has failed to maintain its traditional high score among its competitors.

Struggling to stay afloat between grade “A” to grade ”D” when compared with other developing countries is not a pleasant sign at all. Apparently, a “D” grade on the poverty rate for working age people, and a grade “C” on child poverty-income inequality & gender equity - does indicate a deep trouble ahead for wealthy Canada, yet there is a lot of room to play for improvement.

Naturally, the economic slowdown has a significant negative impact on the score cards.  For example, Ireland fell from the top of the class in last year’s report to the bottom this year. Other countries suffered a significant loss as well including Finland which has a ‘nine spots drop’ in the assessment.

But on the contrary, Austria gained nine spots, while Australia and France rose by “six places” each.

Clearly, six countries still rank above Canada.

Frustrating of course is the wealthy Canada’s “D” gradation regarding the working-age poverty and “C” gradation on child poverty & income inequality. Indeed, this has triggered a major disappointment among nervous Canadians.

Historically speaking, Canada used to be an amazing place to live for the majority of Canadians, but now it is only good for mostly those who work for the government, banks, the law field, and education and health industries.

Most probably, the Canadians face a major job loss due to extensive outsourcing of manufacturing industry to third world countries.

Consequently, the unemployment is on the rise so is the inflation: Yet, It’s believed, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. However, Canada does stand a fair chance, as there is a ray of hope because many immigrants with valuable expertise and higher education are interested to land in Canada. The trend is good for self generation of socio-economic betterment.

Good news is when it comes to “acceptance of diversity,” Canada still hangs on to the top position among the group of 17 (used by the CBC). Surely, it’s a good example for other countries to follow.

Nevertheless, the sad part is there exists a difficult condition of unproductive immigrants/refugees who are bilking the system through fake claims. And, thousands of unskilled immigrants/refugees (fake or genuine) tend to settle in major cities. This has overburdened the limited availability of subsidised public housing facilities, as there is no room left in our social housing projects for the Canadian born who are genuinely in need of such facility. Though, the Canadian residents are entitled to a number of economic and social benefits, they should sincerely focus on contributing economically at least. Maybe, it’s a social fabric that needs to be strong enough to promote social justice leading to sustainable economic results.

With regard to future employment growth, the CBC has made several recommendations to ensure an “employment friendly” environment:

Keep older workers in the labour force by reducing early retirement incentives, ending age discrimination by eliminating legislative and structural barriers for those who choose to work beyond age 65 in case of the currently retiring  baby boomers, adopting more flexible working conditions, and improving attitudes toward older workers.

Education funding should receive higher national priority ensuring that universities and colleges have the sufficient financial resources to go ahead with their respective programs. Focus should be on continuing education and training.

Get only good immigrants through improved immigrant selection criterion: That should include proper processing, reforming credentials recognition, and strengthening intergovernmental and “public and private sector” coordination within the minimum time frame.

Other problem is with current regime’s narrow minded approach and its naive right-wing ideology which keeps pushing Canada to bend backwards. Canada can’t afford to be a loser due to wasting precious time and resources. The government and the official opposition must work hand in hand to find a viable solution best suited to the nation.

Since the immigrants have proved to create import and export investment opportunities to and from other lands quite successfully, they should be applauded and the ones with extra ordinary talents are the precious assets for Canada. Unfortunately, the employers due to lack of “recognition-ability” usually fail to take full advantage of such brilliant immigrants.

Furthermore, the employers and their public sector partners in government are actually obligated to address the issues of immigration through improved policies and practices. But without an effective action plan, our economic performance is bound to fail as our global competitiveness falls below an acceptable level.

Thus, there is no doubt in my mind as facilitating opportunities for immigrants is imperative for an overall good of Canada.

Improving the processes to create new products and services, would essentially lead to the desired growth for any gainful business.

Since the foreign workers with high skills bring with them extensive experience, and most of them perform well as creators, innovators, so it’s important for the Canadians to sincerely welcome the new immigrants as well as recognise the existing ones as valuable assets.

Moreover, through the provincial nominee and guest worker programs, employers have a great opportunity to play a vital role in hiring immigrants as well as the potential immigrants.

It’s up to the employers to offer hand in settling workers and their families, and help them with the language skills needed to perform jobs. It’s a good idea to go ahead with implementing “integration programs” within the workplace enabling immigrants to fully adapt to fit into Canadian workplaces.  Hopefully, a combined team work consisting of the public and private sector will help revive the real image of Canada  (famous for  always welcoming immigrants). 
At the end of the day, Canada’s competitiveness will significantly go back up to the previous level or even higher.