On June 8th, five members of the Afzaal family were out for their evening walk when 20-year-old Nathaniel Veltman rammed the family with his pick-up truck, killing four of them, wiping out a young boy’s grandfather, mother, father and sister in a matter of seconds. Officials added that there was good weather and high visibility conditions when the black truck was seen mounting the curb on Hyde Park Road at around 20:40 local time on Sunday. The suspect was also wearing body armour and a type of helmet, showing that this was a premeditated, calculated attack and Veltman got into his car that Sunday morning with the intent to cause serious harm.
The incident has sparked shock and outrage from the international community, as well as residents in Ontario. One witness told CTV news that she had to shield her daughter’s eyes from the bodies. The fact that the incident took place with numerous witnesses, in daylight and around other members of the Muslim community who were also out on their daily walks shows how much hate and anger people feel towards the Muslims. “It could have been me,” that’s the thought that rings in the residents of Ontario’s ears and the stark reality that billions of Muslims around the world face.
Madiha Salman was a 44-year-old mother of two. In may 2009, she was preparing to begin her master’s degree in environmental engineering at Western University in London, Ontario. Over her 12 years in London, Madiha pursued a career in engineering. She earned her master's degree and was on the cusp of completing a doctorate. She was dedicated to environmental preservation and worked on the removal of toxic industrial chemicals from soil and groundwater- her innovations are still used in the field today. Madiha was a mother, a wife, a student and an engineer. She was a woman who was the only female in her undergraduate class of 174 students in Pakistan, a woman who moved to Canada for a better future, a woman whose neighbours praised her for helping with carpooling and cooking meals when they were unwell.
Madiha’s husband, Salman Afzaal, was a 46-year-old father of two and he worked as a physiotherapist at an elderly care home. Jeff Renaud, the administrator at the Ritz Lutheran Villa care home, stated that he received an email from a resident's family member, who said his elderly uncle had loved Wednesdays - the day Salman would come to see him. He was a man who risked his life when he cared for people’s mothers, fathers and grandparents during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yumna Afzaal was finishing ninth grade at Oakridge Secondary School. She was described as an, “internal gem,” a studious and bright young girl who Principal Asad Chaudhry could not remember getting into any fights or altercations during her five years at school. Approaching her final year at the Islamic School, Yumna proposed painting a mural on one of the building's empty walls, turning a blank wall into something she and her peers could be proud of. She persisted despite the pandemic, returning to school last summer to complete the project, often with her parents in tow. Yumna said she wanted the space-themed mural to be her "legacy" at a place she loved so much, Chaudhry said.
Salman Afzaal’s 74-year old mother, whose name has not yet been released, was also on an evening walk with the family on 6th June when 20-year old Nathaniel Veltman struck them with his vehicle. Fayez Afzaal, the couple’s nine-year-old son was hospitalised but has no serious injuries.
Five victims. Three generations. One hate crime. This tragedy cannot be treated as an isolated incident, it highlights the consequence of islamophobia and the false narratives that western media and politicians have attached to the Muslim community.
Imagine that. Imagine a world when a man isn’t even afraid to get caught when he kills an entire Muslim family in broad daylight. It doesn’t matter to him that he’ll spend the next decade rotting in prison for four murders, as long as he served his purpose and got rid of the supposed, “Muslim terrorists.”
A 2016 census found that London - a city about 200km (125 miles) south-west of Toronto - is growing increasingly diverse. One in five people was born outside of Canada, with Arabs being the area's largest minority group, and South Asians coming in a close second. This is not the first and probably will not be the last time that Canadian Muslims have been under attack. In January 2017, a Canadian man fatally shot six worshippers at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, and seriously injured five others. The perpetrator was sentenced to life in prison. Canada's deadliest vehicle-ramming attack happened in 2018, when a self-described "incel" (involuntary celibate) ploughed his van into a group of pedestrians in Toronto, killing 10 people.
The high number of incidents just like this one reflect the negative stereotype that western media and politicians have concocted about Muslims that has fuelled white supremacy and hate crime. During his presidency, Donald trump bought islamophobia to the highest office in the land, with rhetoric’s like “Islam hates us” and policies such as banning the entry of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, hence reinforcing the idea that Islam is a threat to the U.S. It was only two days ago that an attacker punched a man and two women in New York City on an anti-Muslim attacking spree. However, the Canadian family attack shocked many people because a lot of the time the nation is viewed as a more tolerant, liberal place.
Muslims aren’t safe when they’re praying in mosques. They aren’t safe when they’re out on their evening walks. So the question comes to mind: where are they safe? What will be done to protect them? The continuous Islamophobic tone of the media and politicians needs to change, that is the only way that we can work on changing the attitude of people and make them come to realise that the negative stereotypes that surround the Muslim community are simply not true. The victims of this incident were real people, a real family, three generations who were wiped out because of this stereotype. So remember this, not all Muslims are terrorists, most are like this family, with so much love to give until one man decided that they didn’t deserve to live anymore. Until the narrative changes there’s not a lot can be done to protect Muslims. So when another terrorist attack does happen, we’ll all look at our televisions, at our phone screens, maybe we’ll say it to ourselves before we sleep, “it could have been us.”
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