I moved to South Surrey 25 years ago with my family at the age of 10. It was a small community back then. My father was working at a local car dealership and my mother commuted to Richmond for work. I started school at Southridge, which was a very small but reputable school at the time. My school, the friendly people at the car dealership, the neighbours that would diligently watch over our house when we were away, informing us of any water leaks or suspicious activity, and the rolodex of faces you’d see at Crescent Beach or the Safeway on 16th Avenue all made South Surrey feel like a close-knit community of people who knew each other and took care of one another.
I trusted my neighbours.
But on Oct. 19, I found out they did not trust me or my family.
As the results rolled in on Election Day, we saw nail-bitingly close races across the province between the NDP and Conservative candidates. But not in South Surrey. My community overwhelmingly awarded Mr. Chapman a seat in Victoria.
I am a Muslim. My family are Muslims.
Chapman called me and my family, “an inbred, walking talking, breathing ticking time bombs … figuratively and quite literally.” He called us genetically inferior, unclean, and unintelligent and used that to justify why we should not be bringing any of my Muslim family members into the country. He said that “there is something wrong with them,” referring to me and my family because of our Muslim faith.
While South Surrey gave him a seat at the table, he looked at me and my family and all of my Muslims relatives and friends and said, “Why do we even ponder them having a seat at the table?” Could you imagine if Chapman said that about you and your family because they were Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist or because they came from England, or Poland, or Ukraine?
Would you accept his apology? Would you trust him to have your best interest? Would you fear what he would do if he had the opportunity to direct the provincial police? Or teach the same racist hatred in our schools in South Surrey? Would wonder if your parents would receive the same health care as everyone else if he had control over our heath care?
I feel as you would. Scared of and betrayed by the community that voted him in.
I wonder if what happened to the Quebec City mosque, where dozens of Muslim worshippers were massacred, could happen here. I wonder if what happened to the Afzal family, who were brutally run over by a vehicle in London, Ont. because of their Muslim faith, could happen here. I wonder when the day will come when the consistent dehumanization of Muslims in South Surrey by our leaders will lead to fatal results.
While watching the elections results roll in on Oct. 19, I learned the neighbours who I have looked out for my entire life with are afraid of me because of my faith, but more heartbreaking than that, I found out that I should have been afraid of my neighbours.
Khalil Jessa is a South Surrey resident, lawyer and tech entrepreneur dedicated to combating Islamophobia and promoting social justice.
