andyt andyt:
I wonder what it is that makes younger Muslims the most religious. It would be interesting to contrast that to younger non-Muslims. Are they also more religious than older ones?
Well, I'm glad you asked! There just happens to be a second part of the survey that asked those questions too.
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Some experts suggest that's because young Muslim Canadians feel a strong societal pressure to have to answer for violence perpetrated by extremists in the name of Islam and are struggling to reclaim their Muslim identity for themselves.
Among young respondents who said their citizenship and their faith were important parts of their identity, 61 per cent said being Muslim was the most important part of their identity and six per cent said being Canadian was the most important. Twenty-six per cent said both were important.
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"On the one hand, you have people in certain parts of the world that are calling themselves Muslim and doing horrific actions … on the other, you have Canadians making conclusions based on that," Moustaqim-Barrette said.
"It's a hard place for a young Muslim to be in."
The pressure to answer for violent attacks carried out by Muslim perpetrators has driven some young Muslims to pull away from their faith and others to try to recapture it, said University of Toronto political science lecturer Katherine Bullock.
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"To be Canadian — or at least this is what they tells us — is to be proud of multiculturalism, and that would mean embracing your Muslimness," he said.
Siddique agrees: "I don't see any conflict. I'm a Muslim. I'm Canadian. I'm proud to be both."
On the whole the survey revealed older and younger Muslim Canadians were divided on the question of their identity. In the 60 and older age group, almost twice as many respondents said they feel Canadian first than in the 18-34 age group, despite most of the older respondents being immigrants.
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Behbahani thinks that's likely because older generations still remember the difficult circumstances they left behind when coming to Canada.
"I feel like because they've had to earn it, they perhaps identify more as Canadian than Muslim," she said.
As part of the survey, non-Muslim Canadians were also asked how proud they are of their Canadian identity, but fewer of them said they were proud to be Canadian.
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"As a population made up mostly of immigrants (many having arrived in the past decade), Muslims truly stand out as being among the most enthusiastic group of Canadian patriots," the survey found.
Kanji worries that that greater degree of patriotism actually points to a disturbing phenomenon.
"I really do think it's a product of the tremendous pressure that's been placed on the Muslim Canadian community to declare itself not a fifth column in Canada … to prove itself loyal," Kanji said.
"Are we constantly asking other communities to prove their patriotism?"
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"We've constantly been made to respond to these attacks and the assumptions about us and our identities," she said.
Muslim survey graphic 2
But paradoxically, she says, the pressure to dispel stereotypes about being Muslim has forced her to learn more about Canadian laws and polices -- making her a more engaged citizen as a result.
"As we've learned more about ourselves, we've also learned more about what our society stands for," she said. "So, in a way we've become more Canadian."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/environic ... -1.3551465
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