Why Jagmeet Singh Didn’t Tell His Heckler That He’s Not Muslim

This week, Canada elected its first leader of a major political party that hails from an ethnic minority. His name is Jagmeet Singh and he became the first leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada.

This by itself is a remarkable development. Especially given the political climate we are in now, and the highly charged and prejudicial atmosphere that has developed over the last near-two decades. What makes this an awesome story is the kind of person that Singh has thus far demonstrated himself to be.

Last month at a campaign rally, Singh was accosted by an angry heckler yelling that she is an advocate for women and children and accusing Singh of supporting Sharia law and the Muslim Brotherhood. “We know you’re in bed with Sharia,” she said. “We know you’re in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The heckler later posted a Youtube of herself stating that she wasn’t a racist and that her objection was about policies that Singh supports or would support as a political leader.

This tale is not about the details of why the heckler heckled. It is not about what policies Singh supports or not support. It IS about how he handled the interruption.

Our first instinct would be to tell her, “what’re you talking about, I’m not Muslim”. I know mine would’ve been. Indeed, Singh is a Sikh, an ethnic group that, due to their turbans and beards and brown skin has often been mistaken for Muslims by racist aggressors in North American and Europe and have been targets of bias attacks.

But that’s not what Singh said. His response to the heckler was simply, “we believe in love and courage,” and “we don’t want hatred to ruin a positive event,” as the woman left on her own free will. He continued with “You know growing up as a brown skin turban bearded man that I’ve faced things like this before and it’s not a problem, we can deal with it,…there’s going to be other obstacles that we’re going to face and we’re going to face them with love and courage.”

Why not simply deny what the woman was saying – which would’ve been factually correct for him to do? Here’s his answer to this question in his own words:

“Many people have commented that I could have just said I’m not Muslim,…in fact, many have clarified that I’m actually Sikh. While I’m proud of who I am, I purposely didn’t go down that road because it suggests their hate would be ok if I was Muslim. We all know it’s not. I didn’t answer the question because my response to Islamophobia has never been ‘I’m not Muslim.’ It has always been and will be that ‘hate is wrong…Despite this person’s anger and hate, I told them that we loved them, respected them, and would protect their rights.”

It is too early to see what kind of politician Mr.Singh is and what kind of leader he will become. But the ethos that his response embodies to this heckling incident is, simply put, awesome.