Confronting Racism

Three days after Floyd’s death, Alia Jeraj, an educator in Minneapolis, penned an open letter urging her fellow Ismailis to work against racism. It spread on social media. When it reached Salima Versi, a psychotherapist in Edmonton, she seized the call to act. Working with three others, she created an anti-racism course for members of the Ismaili community.

Versi is among a growing group of politically engaged Ismailis grappling with racism around them. Across Canada, these volunteers and professionals are bolstering the anti-racism movement by working to change attitudes among family, friends, colleagues and society at large.

These change-makers draw inspiration from the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which has called attention to police violence and fatal shootings against Black Americans since 2013, and sparked global activism. In Canada, BLM activists have focused on police violence against Black and Indigenous communities and pushed Canadians to speak more openly about race. In doing so, the anti-racism movement  sheds light on systemic racism, which refers to ways institutions and cultural practices create and reinforce racial inequities. Systemic racism can be explicit, such as a law denying the right to vote to a racial group, or more hidden, such as a hiring or admissions process that subtly favours certain groups over others.

“There is genuine desire to look at how we are dealing with these questions [as Ismaili Muslims],” says Taleeb Noormohamed, a member of the Aga Khan Council for Canada’s Social Justice Task Force (SJTF). 

Formed in the wake of BLM protests in June 2020, this task force serves as an extension of the Council’s Diversity and Inclusion portfolio, working to create dialogue about equity and justice in the context of Ismaili tradition and institutions. It has hosted panel discussions on equity, inclusion and social justice as a means to inspire change.

“We refer to them as curated safer spaces where we can have these conversations, perhaps engage in what we call ‘productive discomfort,’” says Shelina Kassam, a critical race scholar at the University of Toronto and a task force member.

Versi relates to anti-racism through the lens of pluralism—the principle of recognizing, valuing and respecting human diversity. The concept has been held up as an important ethic by His Highness the Aga Khan, who established the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa to help create a world where human differences are celebrated and diverse societies thrive. 

“[His Highness] is very clear that pluralism is a process and not a product,” explains Versi. “It’s not something that you achieve. It is a way we do things, a practice in the world.”  

... The goal  is to cultivate a “culture of inclusion, equity, [and] justice” baked into everything that is done within the community ...

Kassam and Noormohamed note that, although issues of racial justice have been magnified over the past year, and the SJTF has recently been founded, these issues are intrinsic to the Ismaili tradition.

“The commitment to justice is not something that is imported to Muslim communities,” says Kassam, whose ultimate hope is that the SJTF will no longer be needed as a working group. The goal  is to cultivate a “culture of inclusion, equity, [and] justice” baked into everything that is done within the community, she says.

Noormohamed emphasizes that the task force finds value in its role as a “thought partner” for the community, seeking responses to social injustice in the public domain and our private lives.

In  response to the injustice enacted upon Black victims of police violence, Versi teamed up with three other Ismailis to create an online anti-racism course geared towards South Asian Khoja Ismailis, particularly those who migrated to Canada from East Africa. Participants explored their own experiences—and trauma—related to race, whether they had experienced being a person of colour only in Canada or fled Uganda as refugees when South Asians were expelled from the country in 1972. The team hoped to tie a link between personal experiences and broader issues of racism in society.

Facilitators then introduced participants to issues related to racism in Canada, including colonization and the displacement of Indigenous peoples; the history and aftermath of the residential school system; and police violence against Black and Indigenous people. They also discussed how the colonial legacies of East Africa have impacted the Khoja worldview. 

“My mom [who grew up in East Africa] had a number of realizations,” Versi says. “She has come to see how strong the racial divide was in her upbringing. For example, she mentioned that the flats that were closer to Black neighborhoods were considered to be less desirable than those to white ones.”

“There’s a difference between not being racist and being anti-racist. To be anti-racist is to actively recognize and work to change the systems that are in place."

Participants felt inspired to make changes, says Versi. Two doctors pledged to integrate race into evaluations of patient well-being. Versi’s mother, the eldest participant, felt moved to sign a petition for the first time. It raised concerns about biased RCMP practices that lead to violence against Indigenous peoples. 

Sofia Alani, one of the co-creators of the course and a project manager at a non-profit in Edmonton, explains people of colour may find themselves wrestling with their relationship to racism in society and the social structures that reinforce it. The course offered an opportunity to reflect on  these issues.  

“There’s a difference between not being racist and being anti-racist. To be anti-racist is to actively recognize and work to change the systems that are in place,” she says. “A big part of that is being willing to come to terms with your privilege and to give up your privilege.”