There’s another face to Islamic extremism, one filled with tears, not hate.
The heart-wrenching documentary film of Christianne Boudreau, mother of a dead 22-year-old Islamic State fighter from Calgary, arrived in Ottawa Saturday, part of a cross-country tour by the Extreme Dialogue project, to reduce the appeal of all forms of extremism among teens and young adults. A second slick film explored the hate-filled radicalization of Daniel Grant, a former white supremacist.
The effort is led by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in Britain, with funding from the federal Kanishka Project. Packages of educational resources to accompany the films and other details are at extremedialogue.org .
Boudreau’s son, Damian Clairmont, was killed fighting in Syria in January 2014, about four years after he converted to Islam. She soon found, as the mother of a “terrorist”, there was no place to get help with her grief, anger and similar fears for her younger son. She is now one of the country’s most vocal advocates for a more nuanced approach to anti-radicalization that doesn’t simply demonize individuals.
Here is a condensed version of Boudreau’s question-and-answer session Saturday following a showing of the film.
Q. How did you get from the anger and the blame to saying, “I am going to find out how to prevent this from happening to other families?”
A. In the beginning, there was an awful lot of hate, the emotion is so strong, you don’t know where to put it. And I only had one avenue, there was nobody there to support me, we had no outreach, we had nothing. I found myself looking in the mirror and not liking who I was beginning to see. That’s not the way I was raised, that’s not the way I believed. I believed you can’t put a label on any group of people or any organization, that you have to look at each individual’s heart.
Once I realized I was turning into something I didn’t like, I became clearly focused to change that and to start looking at how I could release the emotion in a positive way.
Q. What sort of supports do these families need?
A. In our government and with the victim’s services’ policies, especially when anything happens to anybody overseas, we get left to the wayside, there’s nothing. What a lot of people look at is the one person who committed the act; they don’t look at the rest of the family and they don’t look at all the other ripple effects. I have a younger son, he’s now 11; I couldn’t access any services for him. And with the way our system is, that helps push these kids to go or to join these organizations; I could see he’d be a prime candidate for this. It’d be very easy to say, ‘I want to be like my brother,’ because he idolized him.
(The ordeal) was a huge impact (on her family), but people forget all about us, they just focus on the one who’s travelled or gets involved in these crimes, and we’re left to pick up the pieces alone.
Q. You’ve broken that stigma and come out (and spoken to media). What has been the benefit?
A. My father said, “You can leave it alone and let everybody else fill in the blanks and create a sensationalized story and demonize your son, or you can take control and try to get a positive message out.”
Q. Why do you think (redemption for extremists) is an important message to be imparting?
A. People give up on people way too easy. We all make mistakes growing up, we have strange ideas, there are huge gaps with what we intellectualize and where our emotional maturity is. And those gaps lead us to a very lonely place, and without humanity and reaching out to one another, this is how everybody gets lost.
(Damian) was very curious, was looking for answers and feeling frustrated that nobody understood or could see what he could see going on in the world as far as injustice, and he had a heart for protecting especially women and children. (He) didn’t see our civilization and society doing enough to stand up for those rights and wanted to do something immediate.
Q. Why were you not able to see that your son was (becoming radicalized)?
A. I had no knowledge, no education and no understanding of any of these extreme movements. It’s not like the red sirens are going to go off saying this is what it is. If we’re connected with our children in any way, something doesn’t feel right and it can manifest in anything, whether it be depression leading to suicidal behaviour, whether it be getting involved with gangs or any other movement, you can see that they start disconnecting from their usual social side or they’re expressing anger and frustration. At that point, instead of trying to fix it (alone) because we’re afraid of being judged as a parent, we need to start reaching out for that help and advocating for our youth and fighting to get that help and help for ourselves, too.
Q. How do you feel about the new anti-terrorism legislation (Bill C-51)? (The sweeping bill, now awaiting Royal assent, contains no provisions or funding for de-radicalization efforts.)
A. It’s very dangerous the way that it’s being presented. I’m not saying that certain laws aren’t there to protect us, I’m saying they’ve left it wide open to use their own interpretation (of) what is useful for them, and it can fuel the fire and spark more anger and frustration if things aren’t clearly defined (and) based on suspicion.
(It needs) something to balance it out and support these families, and intervene and have youth resources in place — and jail is not always the solution.
imacleod@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/@macleod_ian
