More G&M 'Diversity' Fairy Dust Fails to Cast a Spell

"There is no one Islam," harrumphs Montreal filmmaker Omar Majeed, one of a "new generation of Muslim Canadians" which, according to the Globe and Mail, "is tackling identity and religion through art." Here are but a few examples of the artists and their wares:

Sabrina Jalees is a lesbian comic of Pakistani-Swiss heritage who grew up in Toronto, now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her girlfriend, and likes to joke that when she came out to her parents she was worried her Muslim father would force her to take 10 wives. Yassin Alsalman is a Montreal rapper known as The Narcicyst who uses the aggressive language of hip hop to denounce the heavy hand of U.S. Homeland Security and the war in Iraq, his parents’ homeland. Boonaa Mohammed is a spoken word poet of Ethiopian extraction who celebrates Islamic history in his work – when he is not teaching at an Islamic school in Scarborough, Ont.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a generation of Muslim Canadian artists has emerged that addresses identity and religion through art – and whose members are quick to identify themselves as Muslims, no matter how tenuous their adherence to Islam.

“Maybe it would be easier if I just took photographs of Muskoka,” says Alia Toor, a Toronto visual artist born in Pakistan and raised in Canada, “but that is not who I am.”

Instead, Toor has created work about security and religion: She belongs to an artistic community shaped by the terrorist attacks and the wars that followed them.

“I learned about terrorism from CNN,” Mohammed says, explaining his urge to counter unrecognizable stereotypes by writing celebratory poetry about Islamic heroes and values.  

“After 9/11 you were either brave enough to wave the flag and declare yourself and be proud of your faith or you just shrivelled up and tried to blend in. There was this joke: Mohammed turns into Moe.”...

Don't think the casualties of the Danish "Moe"-'toons tumult are laughing over that one, Alia. (Sorry, was that "stereotyping"?)

Update: Spoken word poet Boonaa Mohammed's "War on Error"; the Narcicyst's P.H.A.T.W.A. (get it?):