MRFA Statement on Islamophobia and the Murder of Four Members of a Muslim Family

On June 6 four members of a Muslim family in London, Ontario, were brutally killed because of their faith and ethnicity.  One young child survived what has been called a premeditated terrorist attack. This was a horrific act of Islamophobia and white supremacist violence. We grieve with our Muslim and South Asian colleagues, friends and community members and extend our condolences to the family. 

We must confront and challenge all forms of Islamophobia that have been normalized for too long in Canada. The backdrop to this weekend’s horrific act of white supremacist violence is well known to us: the endless ‘war on terror’ that has been waged in the Middle East, the niqab ban in Quebec, and legislation that attacks racialized Black and Brown Muslims and refugees. 

The MRFA recognizes this act of violence was fed and fuelled by the growing crisis of white supremacist heteropatriarchal colonial violence in our society. As an association we are committed to confronting and challenging it. We will organize against it as educators and as allies with our Muslim colleagues, family members and community.