Once again ISIS has struck deep in the heart of Europe -- in Brussels, the headquarters for the European Union. The ISIS inspired and sponsored terrorism is a clear and present threat to Western Europe and North America -- a threat made more likely and heinous because of a population willing to strike at its own citizens in its own countries.
Belgium's fractured society, intelligence and policing network is being blamed for the ability of ISIS to so easily carry out the recent terror. France is not known for such fractured intelligence and policing network, yet it suffered the brutal terror attacks of November 2015.
The lack of integration of the Muslim population in France or Belgium is being blamed on the general intolerance of Muslims, lack of good schools, poor neighborhoods, inadequate transit and lack of jobs and skills training.
But the more dangerous and often neglected part of the potent mix is the Wahabi brand of Islam being taught in the local mosques in Western Europe and North America, liberally funded by Saudi Arabia since the early 1970s. The impact of this funding and promotion of the virulent form of faith were documented by an expert on migration and integration with the Berlin Social Science Center in a study of the Muslim populations in several Western European Countries in 2013. Prof Ruud Koopman's findings blew the lid on the brewing cultural poison in Europe's Muslim populations: 60 percent of the respondents rejected homosexuals as friends; 45 percent thought Jews to be untrustworthy; about half the respondents believed the West was at war with Islam to destroy it.
It is difficult to pinpoint specifically why so many Muslims born and bred in Europe developed values almost at total variance with other Europeans. But the splintered Belgian society and intelligence apparatus neglected this reality. And places like the Molenbeek became ghettos not only physically isolated but also dangerously distant in values and culture.
There are pockets of Canada where one sees the beginnings of such Ghettos. But our better minds continue to tell us we have no such problem in Canada. The facts contradict this easy assurance: Toronto 18, Martin Rouleau, Zehaf Bibeau, CP Rail plotters and others. And we should remember the bungling by the RCMP and CSIS in the Air India 182 investigation!
Perhaps part of the reason we continue to be in denial in Canada is because our self image as a kind and fair society leads us to believe it can't be true of our Canada or at least it shouldn't be true. Europe is Europe. After all we are Canada -- the land of a different kind of multiculturalism from that of Europe. Above all it is not a problem that is conducive to easy analysis and it is uncomfortable to talk about it. One can easily be labelled an Islamophobe.
But being unable to understand or afraid to acknowledge this phenomenon mustn't lead us to ignore the problem as did Europe until confronted and awakened by the Al Qaida and ISIS inspired terror in the name of their twisted Idea of faith.
We have had born and raised in Canada perpetrators of terror and we have about 180 of our young men currently in the ranks of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Some others have returned to Canada.
We do have a significant problem in Canada. Here is hoping that politicians, the powers that be -- even if they do not publicly acknowledge the problem -- are working hard to prevent Canada's Paris and Brussels.