OPINION: Dangerous ideology and moral Corruption meet in Canada

This opinion article was written by Charles Asher Small.

As a student of politics at McGill University in the 1980s, the spectre of Apartheid South Africa loomed large in my consciousness. I was shocked that in my lifetime, a society based on racist ideology with roots in European Nazism still existed. These were the very same twisted ideas that justified the extermination of the Jewish people just 40 years earlier, haunting my grandparents’ generation. After extensive research, I came to understand that the African National Congress, under the leadership of the iconic Nelson Mandela, was committed to not only dismantling Apartheid but also creating a democratic society where all citizens, regardless of race, gender, or religion, would be equal under one legal system. I then became deeply involved in the anti-apartheid movement and was eventually named Chair of the ANC Solidarity Committee of Canada, collaborating closely with the ANC leadership in Canada and globally.

Fast forward another 40 years, and I find myself astounded by how far the ANC has strayed from its original goals, embracing elements of an ideology that reflects disturbing racist and even Nazi-inspired thinking that was once the antithesis to the anti-Apartheid movement I and other Canadians dedicated ourselves to. Just this week we discovered that Naledi Pandor, the ANC South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, was a featured speaker at the Toronto convention of the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), a group that has promoted extreme homophobic, misogynist and antisemitic ideas and policies.

In 2022, a featured speaker at MAC’s Toronto conference, Mohammed Rateb Al Nabulsi, a radical Syrian cleric, advocated a mandatory death penalty for homosexuals. In 2023, MAC invited Islamic scholar Nashaat Ahmed to address the conference despite revelations in the National Post revealing he had openly prayed for the Jewish people to be eliminated, along with “all others who support them in countries around the world,” and had suggested support for the Islamic State. MAC contends that this was a misunderstanding based on translation.

Beyond the controversy that often surrounds their conferences, MAC is noteworthy as having openly expressed its support for, and adherence to, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the teachings of its founder, Hassan al-Banna. While specific mentions of the Brotherhood have been removed from MAC’s website in recent years, ties to the Islamist group and its ideology remain unchanged. MAC is currently the subject of an audit initiated by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) which has found that it was non-compliant in its “advancement of an unstated non-charitable collateral purpose,” specifically, “the Muslim Brotherhood organization.” Considering that the MAC receives millions of dollars in donations and tuition fees each year, owns tens of millions of dollars in assets and real estate, while also benefitting from generous federal funding ($800,000 in 2022 alone), the accusations facing the MAC are serious and should be taken seriously.

The CRA has also noted MAC’s prior role, up to 2013, in providing resources to the now-defunct International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN). IRFAN’s charity registration was revoked in 2011 after an audit found that it had sent more than $14.6 million to Hamas, a registered terrorist organization. The CRA audit also noted that some of MAC’s “most prominent members, directors, and officials were either involved in IRFAN-Canada, or a network of charities that appear to have been used to propagate and fundraise for Hamas in Canada,” activity that remained in place “well after the revocation of its status”. MAC has challenged the audit as being systematically Islamophobic, but federal lawyers have argued that MAC has failed to raise any credible evidence showing that it was unfairly targeted, nor did the CRA conduct its audit in a manner that treated the MAC differently than it would any other charity. We cannot simply ignore the fact that a major Canadian charitable entity has been promoting Muslim Brotherhood-linked ideologies and even at times directly supporting terrorist entities such as Hamas – and had largely done so with impunity. The normalization of the rhetoric being promoted in Canada by MAC and others is damaging and dangerous. There must be greater accountability where seemingly legitimate institutions are promoting such hateful ideologies, especially when they benefit from considerable federal funding while doing so.

Given MAC’s ideological bent, it would, at first, seem incomprehensible that the ANC would endorse such a rejection of principles of tolerance, inclusivity, and democracy. However, Naledi Pandor’s participation in the upcoming MAC conference represents just another step in her and the ANC’s acceptance of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.

Pandor has been extreme in her anti-Israel rhetoric and has, at the same time, fostered close relations with Hamas and Iran and the ideologically linked Qatari Regime. In August 2023, for example, Iranian Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian and Pandor co-chaired the 15th South Africa-Iran Joint Commission of Cooperation in Pretoria, after which they signed a cooperation agreement between the two countries.

Ten days following Hamas’ brutal October 7 slaughter of innocent Israeli citizens, Pandor spoke on the phone with Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’ political bureau. Following their conversation, Hamas released a statement in which Pandor affirmed South African solidarity with the Palestinian people and with Gaza in the “Al-Aqsa flood battle,” the Hamas term for the October 7 massacre. On the same day, Pandor justified the Hamas massacre, saying, “we recognise the desperation that leads to actions of this nature. I don’t know whether we can condemn it [the Hamas atrocities]. I don’t have sufficient information on who the responsible parties are.”

The long list of Minister Pandor’s overt bias has similarly been reflected in the policy implemented by her office, including recalling South Africa’s ambassador and diplomatic mission to Israel and calling its actions in Gaza “genocide”. This occurred a mere month after the October 7 attacks, and only days into the Israeli military’s initial ground operation against Hamas in Gaza. She has since openly accused Israel of the murder of women and children while calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to make arrests of senior Israeli officials. In March, Pandor reportedly announced that South African citizens who serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), or alongside them in Gaza, would be arrested when they return home. The foreign ministry added that those with dual South African-Israeli citizenship could be stripped of their South African citizenship.

Minister Pandor’s inclusion in this week’s MAC convention therefore sends a clear message as to the direction of both MAC and the ANC. While perhaps not wholly unsurprising given the attendees of past MAC events, it is particularly troubling to know that this trend will continue to gain pace at a time when coherent dialogue and expression of constructive ideas is most needed in such forums, and most absent.

As someone who once championed the ANC’s noble cause, I am appalled by its association with antidemocratic, sexist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic ideologies. The betrayal of Mandela’s legacy and the ANC’s descent into moral corruption are distressing developments that demand urgent rectification.

Charles Asher Small is the Executive director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) and the former Chair of the ANC Solidarity Committee of Canada