Quebec mosque shooting left invisible scars, young Muslims say

Ghita Lahbabi was a 15-year-old high school student on Jan. 29, 2017, when news of the Quebec City mosque shooting spread through her community.

Attending an Arab-Muslim school in Montreal, she remembers the tension that reigned as police visited in the next days to reassure everyone it was an isolated event.

A gunman fuelled by hatred toward Muslims had entered the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City and coldly killed six people and wounded 19 others. In all, he left 17 children fatherless.

Students as young as 11 had to grapple with the horror of what happened. Many feared the school, or others like it, could be targeted next.

“It was really a big shock, because I didn’t think there could be such hatred, or Islamophobia, in Canada,” said Lahbabi, now a law student at Université Laval.

“It was the first time I was ever really scared,” she added. “I remember thinking, maybe I’ll be next. Or that it could happen to my father, mother or a friend.”

Last year, when the legal chapter of the massacre reached its conclusion at the Supreme Court, many felt it was a turning point. Leaders in the community now say there is hope the next chapter can begin in earnest.

But whatever progress is made will not change the profound impact the shooting had on Muslims across the province.

Beyond the victims and their families, it left a generation of young Muslims grappling with their sense of security, identity and belonging — a struggle that continues six years later.

Ideally, said Samira Laouni, there would be no need for what’s known as Muslim Awareness Week, a yearly campaign that aims to help Quebecers learn more about the Muslim community.

And for a moment in early 2017, it felt like it wouldn’t be required. One day after the shooting at the mosque, a memorial in Montreal drew a crowd so large it left organizers speechless.

Families of all backgrounds stood in the bitter cold to honour the dead and denounce what took place. Empathy, kindness and recognition were all palpable.

“We were drowning in sorrow,” Laouni recalled, “but to see so many people there, even parents with babies and newborns, that solidarity made us forget our sorrow.”

From there came the idea to launch the awareness week, now in its fifth edition this year. Laouni co-founded the campaign.

Though there have been steps in the right direction since then, Laouni remains unsure whether people fully grasp the extent of the scars the attack caused.

Families were left devastated and the lives of Muslims across the province were altered, in ways big and small. This was especially true, Laouni said, for younger people still figuring out their place in society.

“It was a turning point for a lot of youths,” Laouni said.

“There was a lot of depression and students dropping out of school. A lot of revolt,” she added. “Still today, every time there is an incident in the news, it affects them very deeply.”

Genan Zamt was a 21-year-old volunteering for a local Muslim-led charity in 2017. She remembers exactly where she was when she first learned of the shooting.

Zamt and two other others were driving back from visiting a camp when she opened her phone and saw the news. They sat in silence in the car, unsure how to react.

The extent of the violence and the hatred displayed were shocking, she said. Even more upsetting was how the attack appeared to be minimized as time went by, with some even sympathizing with the shooter online.

“I think what we all felt most, collectively, was sadness and mourning,” Zamt said.

“Mourning not only for the people who were killed, but also mourning for a society in Quebec where we thought we were doing OK, that there wasn’t tension (to that extent).”

On a personal level, Zamt said the shooting confirmed some of her worst fears. It came as a “reality check” that anti-Muslim sentiment was real and present, attacking her sense of security directly.

As someone who wears a headscarf, from that day on, she no longer stood close to the tracks while taking the métro, “because you never know who is around you.”

Habibatou Savadogo, a 19-year-old CEGEP student, expressed similar concerns. Only 13 at the time of the shooting, it’s the aftermath that stands out to her today.

Though she didn’t wear a headscarf back then, many of her friends did. She recalls how scared their parents were in the weeks that followed, unsure about letting their children travel to school alone while visibly Muslim.

“It’s in that moment that I started realizing having a religious belonging could be dangerous,” Savadogo said. “Even though it’s a personal choice.”

A few years later, shortly after she started wearing a headscarf, Savadogo was riding the bus when a man began hurling insults toward her. She was around 15 years old and wearing her school uniform.

What hurt as much as the insults, she said, is that no one stepped up to defend her.

Beyond her shaken sense of security, Savadogo said it’s her sense of identity that came into focus following the mosque shooting.

“I think it forced me to ask myself, ‘Who am I?’” Savadogo said.

“And in a way, it led me to really assert, or even claim, my Quebec identity,” she continued. “Because I grew up here and I am Québécoise. Whether through my values, how I speak, or how I act.”

Zamt, Savadogo and Lahbabi, the law student, all said they would like to think things have changed since 2017, but aren’t convinced it’s the case.

The passage of Quebec’s secularism law in 2019, known as Bill 21, reignited the debate over religious symbols and led many Muslim women to question their place in the province.

And though none have been as severe, hateful acts toward Muslims have continued. In the fall, Muslim women in Montreal North were subject to xenophobic insults. Earlier this month, an incident at a Verdun mosque left the community shaken.

Last year, both Lahbabi and Savadogo took part in a women’s empowerment program that brought them to Quebec City to visit the mosque.

During the visit, they met with some of the orphans left behind from the attack.

They didn’t know what to expect beforehand but were profoundly moved by the encounter. There were tears throughout, and on the bus ride home as they reflected on the experience.

“These girls were younger than I was when they lived through this,” said Lahbabi. “Yet they spoke about it with so much maturity, and so much internal strength.”

For both, it was the first time the gravity of what happened truly sank in.

The visit also served as a reminder as to why it’s important to mark the anniversary each year: to honour the victims and their families, they said, and to remember to not take what happened lightly.

Six years later, Boufeldja Benabdallah feels it’s still every bit as important to talk about what happened.

But for the first time since that day, Benabdallah, 74, feels he personally — and, to an extent, the community at large — is ready to look toward the future.

“It’s essential to not cover up what happened,” Benabdallah, a spokesperson for the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, said in a recent interview.

“But society has been compassionate and recognized we lived a terrible situation. We’ve been supported and still are. We can’t ask for more,” he added. “We can only turn the page and live with our fellow citizens.”

Last May, the Supreme Court of Canada brought the legal chapter of the mosque shooting to a close.

In a unanimous ruling, the country’s top court ruled the initial sentence Alexandre Bissonnette received after pleading guilty to the attack was unconstitutional.

The court struck down a 2011 Criminal Code provision that had allowed for his parole ineligibility period to be set at 40 years. It instead ruled Bissonnette, now 33, should serve a life sentence but be eligible for parole after 25 years.

The decision was a bitter disappointment to the community.

The mosque felt it downplayed the gravity of the multiple murders. Families said it opened the door to living with the fear of one day crossing Bissonnette in public.

Benabdallah said he hopes the finality of the ruling will at least allow the community to put the legal process behind them.

After marking the anniversary in different ways through the years, this year a commemoration will be held inside the prayer room at the mosque itself on Jan. 29.

There were practical reasons behind the choice, including the January cold and the mosque expecting fewer people to take part.

But Benabdallah said he also likes the symbolism of holding the event where the tragedy occurred — in a solemn place, he said, where peace reigns.

“Something terrible happened. Here, in Quebec, in a peaceful, non-violent country,” he added. “And yet it still happened.”

A commemoration will be held at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City on Sunday starting at 5:30 p.m. It will be livestreamed at facebook.com/commemoration.citoyenne. The mosque is also opening its doors to the public Saturday from 1:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. A vigil will be held in Montreal on Sunday, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., outside Parc métro station.

jfeith@postmedia.com

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