[Applause] when I was still an extremist I celebrated the 911 attacks when the news came in over the radio that a plane had hit a building the first thing that came out of my mouth was God is great Allah abbar now you see extremists are made and not born in my journey as a middle class Muslim kid from Canada began at a Quran school that I attended every day of the week every weekend the boys were on one side the girls were on another side and both of us would be rocking back and forth in
front of wooden benches reciting the Quran by rote not understanding a word of what we were reciting if you made a mistake you were slapped you were beaten you were put into a stress position and and this is where I was first introduced to the concept that religion is something violent of course the public school that I went to during the day was the complete opposite of this environment the boys and girls mixed it was a nurturing caring environment you weren't slapped if you made a mistake and this contrast would lay the foundation for an
identity crisis for my identity crisis that would manifest later on in high school I wasn't bullied in high school school I wasn't picked on we were one of the cool kids but one day when my parents were gone overseas I had a house party and unbeknownst to me my father had told his brother my uncle to check on the house while he was gone so as a teenager who has this party happening and all the friends are over in the middle of the party my uncle walks in and he begins yelling and screaming telling everyone
to get out he grabbed me by the Scruff of my neck he says what have you done You' have shamed the family you have Dishonored and defiled the home people pray here he said you're bringing these people here to do these things he called up other uncles who came to the house sat me down surrounded me and berated me over and over making me feel so guilty over what I had done and so I told myself that the only way for me to to salvage what was left of my my credibility my reputation in the
family and in the community was to quote unquote get religious so I took a 4mon trip to India and Pakistan and as I was walking about a rural area I saw these men who look like religious men and I approached them to seek some wisdom from them they were not religious men and I don't know if they had wisdom to impart on me but they said to me like if you want to bring about change in the world then you have to do it through Jihad you have to do it through the AK-47 and when
I returned back to the mosque that I was staying at they followed back with me they let me fire their AK-47 and I was bit by the Jihadi bug they were to me the heroes that I heard about that we read about in the books of old Warriors of Islam Companions of the Prophet I then returned back to Canada and manifested this mentality internally and externally recruiting other young people to the cause we saw ourselves as vanguards of the faith Warriors ready to Vanquish our enemies by any means necessary of course while though although I
initially celebrated the attacks I quickly realized that I could not reconcile my understanding of religion with what I had seen and witnessed I resolved that I would go to Syria to study Arabic and Islamic Studies I sold my belongings I took my wife and my two young children at the time and I left but what I found in Syria was not what they showed me on the brochure I saw a real police state I thought back to the country that was from Canada and I thought hey maybe this isn't such an oppressive state after all
uh I could gather as I liked I could rail against the government as I wanted nobody was going to black bag me and disappear me but most importantly the Islamic University that that I attended I met a young Islamic scholar who would challenge my interpretations I spent a year and a half with him we went over chapter and verse of what extremists use cherry-pick and mutilate the understanding of Islam I came to realize that my interpretations were completely wrong but I was also disillusioned with what I had seen in Syria and with a newfound understanding
of the religion returned to Canada in 2004 of course the first week I was back in the front page of the paper was a young man who had been arrested on terrorism charges in connection with the London bomb plot that young man was from my Quran school that I attended as a child he was my friend that used to sit next to me so I contacted the security intelligence service I thought this has to be a mistake I wanted to give a character reference for the family it's good family but it was out of their
hands it was in the courts but of course after that phone call an hour later I was sitting across the table from an intelligence agent intelligence officer who of course recruited me to become an undercover counterterrorism operative or as I saw it doing my Islamic duty to protect innocent people now I can't talk about the intelligence assignments that I did infiltration operations but my last assignment would become the most public assignment and I traversed over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police integrated National Security enforcement team and gave testimony in five legal hearings over four years
and one of the things that I noticed and observed when while I was undercover is the presence of converts in these groups and the the reality is the vast majority of converts who become Muslim actually become better Muslims than born Muslims and it is also true that those who come from a generally dysfunctional background are more vulnerable to recruitment by violence extremists or the women and the girls that are being lured over by Predators who have this idea that they're going to meet their Jihadi Prince on the other side girls who are cooped up at
home who can't have functional gender interactions with boys so they stay at home and they find their boys online line and so they can get their piece of I candy so what I'm going to do is try to chart the process by which an individual goes from quote unquote normal to Violent extremist it's just a clarification of terms radicalization is a process a process by which an an an individual comes to believe that violence in public spaces is acceptable once that person accepts that they are an extremist and when they act on that they're a
violent extremist so first and foremost basic psychological discourse on nature versus nurture and this is how we grow up observing and absorbing from our parents and from our societies around us but as we come as we become more self-aware certain things start to pop up in our lives that we become interested in so whether it's geopolitics or the idea of deprivation so when you're a young kid 15 years old watching Jihadi videos of your people being abused assaulted persecuted oppressed mutilated killed you begin to feel deprived or if it's an issue of identity and belonging
or ideology extremist ideology where really it's fascistic in the end my way or else the second phase is where people become active in some kind of social movement or or social protest community and when you join a group you are more likely to do things that you would not do as an in as an individual think back to when you were 15 16 things that you did because your friends told you to do it I know I remember but the third category is what really resonates in this context of behaviors observable behavioral changes that you
can see in people that will indicate that this person is going to become a violent extremist or is most certainly vul able to recruitment by violent extremists the question now is how do we reverse this trend I went through a period of deradicalization after spending time with a with a Sheikh who could explain to me the meaning of the of the verses of chapter and verse with what we see today with young children young boys young girls something needs to be done there's a role for government to play for communities to play for Faith communities
to play for just regular average men and women to play Break the stereotypes remove the labels think past and look past my journey has been emotional intellectual and deeply spiritual I've traveled thousands of miles interacted with and learned from thousands of people and I know that I stand stronger today knowing that that I have a deeper understanding of the complexities of religion of extremism and of the world we live in today thank you very much
