– by Rob Rolfe
A single sentence in a moving farewell message to Sharif Rahman by a friend of his from the Muslim community contains this one telling sentence:
I’ve always prided myself in being composed in the face of hate and in the toughest situations but I’ve had enough, enough of this madness, enough of sweeping things under the rug.
The outpouring of grief and sadness throughout the Owen Sound community for Sharif and his family has been remarkable and heart-warming. It is an indication of what kind of a man Sharif was, and an expression of shock over the violent assault that ended Sharif’s life and has left many people in downtown Owen Sound feeling both fearful and discouraged.
Yet, for all the genuine grief and generosity expressed over the last week by residents of Owen Sound, I feel there is a lack of leadership here, in the failure of elected officials especially to address an unspoken horror at the core of this situation: that a Muslim man of South Asian heritage (Bangladesh) has died at a time of anti-Muslim racism (in Canada, not only here), and just as the demographics of Owen Sound and the region are rapidly changing.
The mayor of Owen Sound spoke eloquently two years ago when he praised a well-attended Black Lives Matter march in Owen Sound as a potential turning point in fighting systemic racism (after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis).
Last week, in his message concerning the fatal assault on Sharif Rahman, the mayor stated: An attack like this on one of our business community members is an attack on the entirety of the community.
This statement was fine, as far as it went. But what was left unsaid is that an attack on a Muslim man, a generous and community-minded member of the South Asian community, and a person of colour, is also an attack on our whole community.
Had the mayor and/or City Council done so, this would have sent a powerful and inclusive message to everyone here, especially to newcomers, many of whom are not feeling truly at home, or integrated in a significant way into the daily life of Owen Sound.
Concurrent with the Sharif Rahman tragedy, the mayor of the nearby Town of South Bruce Peninsula was caught on an audio tape disparaging a local First Nations community in clearly racist language.
This mayor had promised a more co-operative relationship with Indigenous communities in his recent election campaign.
In that election, he defeated the town’s previous mayor, who many regarded as being hostile to Saugeen First Nation over the Sauble Beach land dispute.
The new mayor has since resigned, leaving the local First Nations with another example of how hard it has become to trust any of the town’s elected officials.
All of this speaks volumes on the distance we all need to travel – on issues of First Nations rights, and racism in general – to become the region and nation so many of us imagine ourselves to be.
