By Barry Ellsworth
HAMILTON, Canada
In the wake of two recent terror attacks on Canadian soldiers, a “social experiment” was conducted to test Canadians’ attitudes toward Muslims.
The “social experiment” was set up to find out whether Canadians blamed Muslims for the Oct. 22 cold-blooded murder of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo. The alleged killer had recently converted to Islam.
In the test, an actor playing the role of a bigot suffered a bloodied nose after attempting to stop a “Muslim” in traditional dress from boarding a bus in Hamilton, Ontario, the hometown of Cpt. Cirillo.
Those watching the exchange between the Muslim and the bigot were unaware the episode was being recorded.
“This is based on the events that happened in Ottawa,” Omar Albach, a student at York University in Toronto, says at the beginning of the video that was posted to YouTube, and as of the time of this writing hads received more than 2 million views.
“We’re going to see if people feel safe to be around Muslims or people who look like Muslims,” Albach says in the video.
“Muslim” actor Zakaria Ghanem is berated by “bigoted” actor Devin Giamou.
Giamou approaches Ghanem as he waits along with several other people at a bus stop, telling him to take a different bus because, considering his garb, he might be concealing a bomb.
That brings a strong reaction from a bystander. “You can’t stereotype and judge people by their clothes,” the unidentified man says. “Or their nationalities or anything else. You know what I mean? What happened there (in Ottawa) was an incident of fanatics.”
Another bystander told the bigot he could just as likely be a terrorist just as the Muslim.
A woman tells the bigot that the Ottawa shooting was “awful and tragic, but I don’t think that’s any reason to persecute some just because of what they are wearing.”
Things got out of hand when two men at the bus stop in front of the Jackson Square shopping mall became incensed when Giamou tells the Muslim to leave.
One of men punched Giamou in the face, leaving him with a bloodied face.
At that point Giamou throws up his hands in defense and declares, “This is a social experiment.”
Albach, who served the cameraman for the experiment, said that during the filming there was not a single negative comment toward the Muslim.
It was a different story, however, in Cold Lake, Alberta, on Oct. 23.
The front windows of the Cold Lake Mosque were broken and the words “Go home” and “Canada” were painted in red on the mosque’s outside surface. The incident occurred one day after Cirillo was killed and three days after the murder of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, who was run down in Quebec by another “lone wolf” terrorist.
“The writing hurts,” said Mahmoud Elkadri, a director of the mosque. “Cold Lake is our home. Canada is our home.”
Soon after the incident was reported, Cold Lake residents responded with gifts, flowers and posters of support, and a group gathered with graffiti remover, media reported. They scrubbed the offensive words away and joined arms to sing “O Canada,” the country’s national anthem.
“I will thank everyone,” Elkadri said. “They ensured for me that this is my home.”
He added that he had received calls of support and sympathy from Canadians across the country and that it made him “forget about the windows and forget about the writing.”
The funeral for Officer Vincent will be held Saturday in Longueuil, Quebec.
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