CSU sees red over alleged racism

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by Craig Segal

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) says it is taking three publications to the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal for what it considers racist statements made in their pages. The defendants: The Jewish Tribune, the Canadian Jewish News and The Suburban. The articles centre around events at Concordia last year, including a student referendum that asked students whether the CSU should tell Canada to cut diplomatic and economic ties with Israel. The "Yes" side won and the CSU sent letters to the federal and provincial governments and to the UN.

The CSU objects to the use of the word Arab in the articles, which CSU Vice President Internal Laith Marouf says is a racist term because "it invokes stereotypical images." The CSU also objects to various claims about the number of Arabs at Concordia, and that they influence the Concordia student body. "It is as if to say that all the problems the Israeli lobby face in Montreal are caused by the large numbers of Arabic or Muslim students at Concordia," says Marouf.

"This is blatantly racist because it's like somebody coming and saying the Jewish leadership has infiltrated the Concordia administration," says Marouf. "If the Israeli lobby doesn't like the democracy we have in Canada then maybe they can go back to their Jewish supremacist state that they're building."

The Canadian Jewish News refused to comment. Neither of the other two publications returned calls by press time.