Staff/Community Rallies Behind ‘Hijab Day’ Professor

14 April, 2007

More than two hundred students, faculty and community members attended an event yesterday in support of Professor Muriel Walker, who was recently targeted by a hate crime. The Hamilton Jewish Federation, Hamilton Council of Canadian Arabs, Hamilton Muslim Association and North American Spiritual Revival prepared a joint statement to be distributed at the rally.

A long list of speakers condemned the anti-Muslim and sexist graffiti found spray-painted on Walker’s office door last Tuesday. The vandalism crudely referred to Osama bin Laden, as well as the words “raghead lover” -- a term used to describe people who wear head scarves or turbans.

The act was a presumed backlash against the ‘Wear a Hijab Day’ organized by Walker at McMaster University in Ontario to sensitize people about the reasons some Muslim women wear the hijab and the challenges they confront as a result. The French literature professor who moved from France 15 years ago is not Muslim.

Professor Walker told her supporters yesterday she is more interested in action than words.

Talk is nice as long as it isn't just lip service,” said Walker said she was heartened by yesterday’s huge show of support but added the graffiti incident was only the latest and most dramatic example of anti-Muslim behavior she has witnessed on campus.

Walker had been targeted by people on campus before. She had been told on several occasions “by colleagues and people around” that she shouldn’t openly support events like the “Wear a Hijab Day” she organized last week.

She told The Globe and Mail: “I was told that I would always be remembered as a crazy leftist who supports fanatical terrorists.”

“This equation that Arab equals Muslim equals terrorist . . . is very, very alive here, unfortunately.”

Many among the speakers at yesterday’s rally, who included representatives from student and labor groups, faculty, administration and local politicians, pledged to continue mobilizing against racism on campus.

“I’m not so concerned about what happens today as what we do tomorrow,” engineering professor Yaser Haddara told the crowd. "How are we going to change the mentality that gives rise to hate? Something substantial has to come out of this."

Andrea Rowan of the Jewish Students Association described the Jewish group’s shared experience with hate-motivated vandalism.

“Our (office) door itself has been sprayed with anti-Semitic slurs and on two separate occasions we have had to have our door repainted.”

She repeated the phrase heard several times throughout the event: “An attack on one is an attack on all.”

Acting Detective Sergeant Chris Kiriakopoulos of the Hate Crime unit says police have not noticed an increase in the number of reported incidents at McMaster but added such crimes are generally under-reported.

Fear of retribution and a lack of awareness of the support available from police may keep victims from coming forward.

Police are continuing their investigation, studying forensic evidence and interviewing potential witnesses.

Sources:

Dana Borcea, “Action needed, not words” Hamilton SpectatorApril 14, 2007

Paul Morse and Mohsin Abbas, “Students, staff rally against attack” Hamilton Spectator 13 April 2007

Unnati Gandhi, “McMaster professor was targeted before, she says” Globe and Mail April 14, 2007