CANADA: Last weekend's suspected terrorism plot has forced Canadians to question their view of themselves, writes Carol J Williams in Mississauga, Ontario
In a country that celebrates cultural diversity, a thwarted suspected terrorist plot has shattered the image that many Canadians have of themselves as more secure, more generous and more likeable than their US neighbours.
From Muslim shopkeepers in multicultural neighbourhoods such as Mississauga to intellectuals debating social policy in Toronto and Ottawa, Canadians have been forced into a disturbing confrontation with the reality that global terrorism may have found fertile soil inside their own boundaries.
"I thought this was a very safe country. That's why we came here from Pakistan," said Anjun Ahmed (54), a convenience shop owner who moved to this thriving Toronto suburb, the fastest-growing in Canada, nearly two years ago from Rawalpindi. "This is very bad. If they [the suspects] were really going to do these things, people will be afraid and won't come here."
The 17 men and youths arrested over the weekend for allegedly plotting to blow up Canadian national landmarks were arraigned yesterday on charges including participation in a terrorist group. Three also face weapons-smuggling charges and six have been charged with intent to carry out a bombing on an undisclosed target.
Like the home-grown British extremists who bombed London's underground system last July, the alleged perpetrators were mostly long-settled citizens whose families fled poverty and oppression in Somalia, the Middle East, the Asian subcontinent and the Caribbean. Like the al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists who practised bomb-making and firearms use at secret camps in Afghanistan before the September 11th terror attacks, the Canadian suspects allegedly trained at a clandestine base near remote Lake Simcoe.
And like Timothy McVeigh, whose 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City killed 168 people, the Canadian suspects had amassed ammonium nitrate - three times as much as McVeigh used for the worst-ever act of domestic terrorism on US soil.
While the men, means and methods prompted comparison to past attacks, Canadian analysts and observers were saddened that the accused plotters would want to harm their nation.
"Terrorists always try to target peaceful places because it's easier to hit a place where people don't think such things can happen," said Mohsin Ali (20), a Ryerson University engineering student who came here with his family two years ago from Karachi, Pakistan.
The attacks have quickly led to acts of anti-Muslim retaliation. Thirty windows were smashed by unknown vandals early on Sunday at the huge Rexdale mosque north of here, an incident its Guyanese founder, Omar Farouk, said Muslims were "hoping and praying was an isolated incident".
"The Canadian people are very loving and kind, equally are the Muslims," said Farouk, whose mosque is attended by nearly 20,000 and serves as a gathering place for interfaith community events.
The view of Canada as removed from the immigrant frictions suffered by its superpower neighbour may be outdated, according to Audrey Macklin, a University of Toronto law professor who specialises in immigration, refugee and citizenship affairs.
"There is a desire in Canada to see ourselves as very different from the United States. Whatever we are, we are not the United States," she said, citing the nation's more liberal immigration policy and rejection of go-it-alone military actions. Canada has declined to be part of the US-led forces that invaded and occupy Iraq.
"We're not a priority target the way the United States is but that doesn't mean we are protected. No country should be smug enough to think it's immune."
Toronto mayor David Miller gave voice to his country's collective and reluctant realisation that vulnerability to extremist violence may be a price paid by an open society unwilling to rein in its rights and freedoms.
"We didn't, as Canadians, expect this but obviously it is part of modern reality," he told CBC Radio.
David Rudd, president of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, said Canada's liberal immigration policy and generous social spending are laudable. And he has no patience with those looking for justification of any disaffection among the alleged would-be bombers.
"Certainly the political landscape of this country is very, very amenable to people from foreign countries and non-Anglo-Saxon cultures coming here and living in peace and getting ahead in their lives," said Rudd, applauding the government's emphasis on accepting the cultural individualities of newcomers rather than seeking homogenisation.
Unlike the suburban ghettos that have sprung up around major European cities, Canada's six million immigrants live scattered throughout the country of 32 million people.
They reside primarily in communities like Mississauga, a predominantly immigrant district but one where Jamaican jerk shops, Arab kebab stands, sushi bars and Indian restaurants stand side-by-side.
Yet some say Canada's very liberal, consumer-oriented and socially permissive nature may have made it a target.