‘Police’ in Arabic on Canadian Cop Cars Angers Canadians and Americans #HummusHaters
With all the anti-Arab bashing we see in the news every week, Arab America is determined to expose those who discriminate against our community. We will recognize those who vilify the positive influence and contributions Arabs have made to the fabric of American society. And we will use hummus as our weapon. By naming those who vilify the Arab American community as #HummusHaters, we can express our culture positively while showing intolerance to bigotry.
BY: Nisren Eadeh/Staff Writer
photo source: drrichswier.com
For a long time, Canada has had a reputation of being polite, safe, and downright friendly. But a recent story of #hummushaters coming from London, Ontario seems to be contradicting that reputation.
Since 2009, police in London, Ontario have included the word ‘police’ on the sides of cars in Vietnamese, Polish, Farsi, Mandarin, and Arabic. These languages were chosen from Statistics Canada, which determined the most frequently used languages in Ontario. Although Arabic has been on the police cars for eight years, the mere presence of the word is suddenly outraging people.
On May 30, a Canadian man named Martin Cohen from Quebec shared two images on Facebook of the Arabic word ‘police’ on London cars. He was outraged because not even French was included on the cars, which is an official language of Canada. Using caps lock and many question marks, Cohen expressed his disgust with whoever allowed Arabic to be on police cars.
The post has over 23,000 shares and 2,700 likes. Comments on the post from other angry Canadians include:
“Islam is of the Devil.”
“I believe they need to learn English & perhaps French.”
“That explains why there was Isis on bus on Friday!”
“I’m offended!”
One day after this post made it to Facebook, Dr. Rich Swier, a conservative American blogger, said his two cents about the situation. In his post, Swier said: “To see the Arabic language becoming an official provincial language in Ontario instead of French is unconscionable.”
Swier is obviously very misinformed because no, Ontario is not making Arabic an official language, nor any of the other languages present on police cars. Swier refers to a letter from one of his Canadian readers as proof that “the Islamization of Canada” is real. The reader from Ontario wrote:
“Are we in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Syria??? The fact that the decals are on the car in the first place should be insulting and disturbing to all Canadians… What do these words say? As a Canadian who speaks one of the two official languages I have no idea… Why do we keep bending over backwards and selling out our true Canadian culture for a small minority of the population. You come to this country then assimilate. Learn our language and our laws. If you don’t like it then leave.”
After posting this clearly ignorant and intolerant person’s views on the Arabic language and Arab immigrants to Canada, Swier then posted the London police department’s phone number and urged his readers to call the station.
The London Police Department said they have been flooded with calls this past week from people screaming at them about the language sticker. Ontario placed these language stickers on cars as part of an inclusion campaign for the various ethnic groups throughout the province because Canada is a country formed by immigrants.
Needless to say, not all Canadians have earned the reputation of being polite and downright friendly, but there’s a simple solution: hummus. This delicious dish not only satisfies hunger, but also educates people on Arabs. For one, not all Arabs are Muslims, and the biggest Muslim countries in the world are in Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India), not the Arab World. So how is it that Arabic word for “police” can Islamize Canada? Well, it just can’t.