Opinion Ladha: Being a Muslim does not make one a terrorist

So, two Muslims are apparently responsible for butchering a British soldier on a busy London street. One of the men’s justification for doing this sickening act: “The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day.”

Another terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, justified his action by saying that “when you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims.”

When I read these pronouncements of self-appointed Muslim spokesmen, I get really, really mad. Who has given these so-called Muslims the right to speak on behalf of the whole community? Are they representatives of any recognized Muslim group or organization?

via Ladha: Being a Muslim does not make one a terrorist.

Columnist Ladha shares thoughts about a multi-languange Canada | The Anchor Weekly

A reader wrote a letter to one of the local daily newspapers recently complaining about “Italian or Spanish-speaking men speaking their native language loudly” at a shopping mall.

The letter writer, who was irritated by their behaviour, asked them if they were Canadian citizens, to which they said yes. “…being a Canadian citizen means speaking English or French; Canada is a bilingual only,” he told them.

The men continued speaking in their language which infuriated the letter writer who yelled at them” You want to speak your language, go back to your country. You are obviously immigrants that don’t remember why you came to Canada; to start a new life, you two did.”

This is a typical behaviour.

via Columnist Ladha shares thoughts about a multi-languange Canada | The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News.

Columnist Ladha on Kenyan elections | The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News

Kenya, one the three east African countries, is facing its greatest challenge when goes to the polls on March 4. The country has had a violent past as far as elections are concerned. When President Mwai Kibaki was elected in 2007, chaos erupted and 1,200 people died in tribal violence.

via Columnist Ladha on Kenyan elections | The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News.

Columnist Ladha questions Obamas gun control plan | The Anchor Weekly

Politics makes strange bedfellows, as they say. A classical example of this is the U.S. where the nation is divided in coming up with gun control proposals. Hardly a week goes by when there is loss of life somewhere in the U.S. and the longer political bickering continues, the greater would be the loss of life.

The debate on gun control sparked by the loss of 20 children and six teachers in Newton, Connecticut, has hardly subsided when we hear there has been shootings and loss of lives in two schools.

via Columnist Ladha questions Obamas gun control plan | The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News.

Columnist Ladha disproves many myths about Muslims | The Anchor Weekly

“The Muslims are coming! The Muslims are coming!”

This used to be the battle cry and anti-Muslim euphoria gripping Europe and the U.S. as aftermath of 9/11 started to sink in.

Lot of generalizations have been made about Muslims, popular misconception among them being that about the effects of Islamic immigration, the beliefs, activities and growth rates of these new arrivals. Writers, authors and commentators have been advocating frighteningly common theme that the Muslims were invading the West and that due to their high birthrate and religious beliefs, they would take over western countries.

via Columnist Ladha disproves many myths about Muslims | The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News.

Opinion Mansoor Ladha: Indian Spring that was long overdue

10 January 2013 - The 23-year-old Indian rape victim, whose name has not been released by police, has been compared to Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set off the Arab Spring – the term given to a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests. There are strong indications that her tragedy could mark a turning point for gender rights in a country where women are often scared to leave their homes at night and where sex-selective abortions and even female infanticide have wildly spread.

More http://www.theanchor.ca – The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News.

Mansoor Ladha: Cruising the Panama Canal

Mansoor Ladha is a Calgary based Journalist, author and travel writer.

Engineering marvel striking up-close

The captain’s voice, heavy with a Dutch accent, came on the loudspeaker to say our ship would be arriving at the Panama Canal at 6 a.m. the following day. Armed with my Canon and telephoto lens, I arrived on the upper deck, where there were already about 100 people, photo fanatics of every description, gathered.

The ship, Holland America’s Statendam, had to wait briefly to let the pilot from Panama come aboard to guide the ship through the canal.

Click here to read more:
http://digital.calgaryherald.com/epaper/

Columnist Ladha on Tanzania and President Julius Nyerere | The Anchor Weekly

Idi Amin of Uganda gave all Asians in East Africa a wake-up call in 1972; if you live in Uganda, we don’t want you because you are not black. So he expelled Asians, some of whom were third generation born in Uganda, 90 days to leave the country, virtually penniless.

via Columnist Ladha on Tanzania and President Julius Nyerere | The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News.

Mansoor Ladha: Palace on Wheels

‘Sahib, would you like omelette for breakfast?” the steward on the Palace on Wheels asked me. “Are yaar (my friend), I eat omelettes in Canada all the time. I would like puri and shaak (Indian pancake with potato curry)!”

“No problem, sir! I can make it in no time,” he said and vanished in the kitchen. In about 10 minutes, I was served a typical Indian breakfast of puri and shaak and treated royally. Continue reading – vancouversun.com

Mansoor Ladha: Society should respond to girls’ cry for help

Two important incidents have happened recently, which attracted national and international attention and both the incidents dealing with girls. In both cases, the girls involved have been courageous enough to highlight the problems facing them. It’s like a fight between David and Goliath and as the saying goes when two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers.

Read more The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News.

Mansoor Ladha: Sad, yet memorable stories of new Canadian writers

It was a great honour to be invited by an editor of a book publisher to write about how I came to Canada. Her proposed project was to invite 36 other writers, novelists, poets, journalists and scholars to write about how they came to Canada.

Their fascinating stories, expressed with joy and humour, have been published as a book entitled, The Story That Brought Me Here: To Alberta from Everywhere, edited through the hard work of a former Edmonton Journal reporter, Linda Goyette, and published by Brindle & Glass.

via Sad, yet memorable stories of new Canadian writers | The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News.

Mansoor Ladha: Uganda invites Asians to return home – Calgary Herald Digital

Forty years ago this month, the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of the country’s Asian population, who had lived in the East African country for more than 100 years.

Amin maintained he had a dream in which God told him to expel Asians from the country. Amin’s dream became a nightmare for Asians, who were given 90 days to leave the country.

In August 1972, 60,000 Asians became stateless, penniless and destitute. They had to flee the country of their birth, sparking the largest Asian exodus in African history and creating a diplomatic crisis.

More:
http://digital.calgaryherald.com/epaper/

Columnist Lahda on newspapers | The Anchor Weekly

It was the first Sunday I didn’t have my favourite newspaper to read. The Calgary Herald had decided to stop publishing the Sunday edition starting August 5.

Out of habit, I woke up and opened my front door to pick the paper, but there was no paper. I was disappointed because it was my daily ritual to pick up the paper every morning and have my first cup of tea while reading it. Now I have to drink my cup of tea without the paper.

As a staunch newspaperman, I even buy newspapers when I am traveling or on vacation. It’s a habit that I have formed and cannot get rid of it so easily. I have read English newspapers in countries from Singapore to Sydney to quench my thirst for news and information.

via Columnist Lahda on newspapers | The Anchor Weekly – The Chestermere Lake News.

Mansoor Ladha is a Calgary-based journalist and author of A Portrait in Pluralism: Aga Khan’s Shia Ismaili Muslims.

Mansoor Ladha: Ignorance is what fuels fear of Muslims

I was distraught to learn that half of all Canadians believe Muslims can’t be trusted.

Fifty-two per cent of Canadians said “not at all” or only “a little” when asked if Muslims can be trusted. However, 48 per cent responded that they trusted Muslims “a lot” or “somewhat.” Seventy per cent of French Canadians, who usually have stronger negative views than English Canadians, expressed little or no trust in Muslims compared to 43 per cent of English-speaking Canadians.

The poll results should disturb the Muslim community because this indicates how their fellow Canadians perceive them. The Muslim leadership should look for reasons why they are not trusted and come up with some concrete solutions to the problem.

via Ladha: Ignorance is what fuels fear of Muslims.

World events spark local author to write book on Ismaili Muslims

A couple of major world events prompted Mansoor Ladha to write his book.

The first was 9/11: the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

The second was the publication of a series of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark which drew angry responses from Muslims around the world.

“They kind of pressed all Muslims in a negative limelight,” says Ladha, of Calgary, whose booked is titled A Portrait of Pluralism: Aga Khan’s Shia Ismaili Muslims.

via
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news
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Author pens book on the Aga Khan- by Mario Toneguzzi, Calgary Herald
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Opinion Mansoor Ladha: Boycott looming if Colombo’s not on track

Canada will boycott the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), scheduled in Sri Lanka in 2013, if Colombo does not improve its human rights record. Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued this ultimatum during the last CHOGM meeting held last year in Perth, Australia.

Harper has demanded better human rights accountability and a stringent reconciliation program with the island-nation’s Tamil population.

“We are looking for a number of things from Sri Lanka. We’re looking for action on the events around the conflict in that country. We’re looking for action on refugees and displaced persons. And we’re looking for action on political reconciliation,” Harper said in an interview.

via Boycott looming if Colombo’s not on track.

Opinion Mansoor Ladha: Muslims need to leave their veils behind

Many Muslims, and some non-muslims, will not agree with me when I applaud Jason Kenney’s move to ban niqabs and burkas when new immigrants take their oath of citizenship. The niqab nonsense has been going on in Canada for quite some time now with the arrival of Muslim immigrants who like to bring their baggage with them. Kenney, the minister Citizenship and Immigration, is right. The oath of citizenship — an oath of loyalty to the Queen and her successors, to obey the laws of Canada and to fulfil the duties of being a citizen — should be taken seriously. And everyone should know openly who is taking the oath — not with hidden faces and behind masks — and if they are actually uttering the words at all.

Source: digital.calgaryherald.com/epaper/

Ladha: After 50 years, Tanzania is an African success story

A third generation Asian, I fled Tanzania in the 1970s, running away from President Julius Nyerere’s socialist policies. I was part of the Asian exodus that resulted from Nyerere’s nationalization policies, whereby Asian businesses, farms and even homes were taken over by the government without compensation.

Nyerere even nationalized the country’s leading English daily, The Standard, where I worked as features editor, forcing journalists to take out party memberships as a prerequisite to keeping their jobs. That’s when I decided to leave my beloved country, arguing I should keep my job because I am a good editor and not because I have a political party membership.

I vividly remember Dec. 9, 1961, as I watched with great joy and emotion, amid shouts of Uhuru, Uhuru (freedom, freedom), as the Union Jack was lowered for the last time and the new green, black and orange flag of the new nation, Tanganyika, was raised.

via Ladha: After 50 years, Tanzania is an African success story.

Article: Visible minority term loses usefulness, by Mansoor Ladha

According to the recent report released by the Association of Canadian Studies, the term “visible minority” may have outlived its usefulness in Canada. So am I “an invisible minority” now?

As a member of the visible minority, one has to get used to whatever label that the majority of society gives you. When I lived Africa, we were branded as Asians. Whether you were born in Africa of third generation parents, or visiting Africa from India or Pakistan, anyone with brown pigmentation was branded as an Asian.

More:
http://docs.google.com/

Opinion Mansoor Ladha: African free-trade plan must be supported

A historic agreement aimed at creating a free-trade zone uniting 26 African countries and establishing Africa’s biggest trading bloc was announced recently in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The proposed free-trade area would encompass the South African Development Community, the East African Community, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, with a population of more than 600 million people and a combined domestic product of $1 trillion.

More at the source:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/
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