[Editor’s note: ‘ Homegrown Radicals: A Story of State Violence, Islamophobia, and Jihad in the Post-9/11 World ,’ out now from University of Regina Press, takes as its focus the post-9/11 rise of Islamophobia, surveillance and the ‘new discourse of jihad’ emerging in part from state violence being enacted against Muslims overseas. In this excerpt, which opens the book, University of Manitoba researcher in Islamophobia Youcef Soufi receives an unexpected call from the RCMP. The Americans, the detective tells him, have finally nabbed a man — one of three ‘homegrown radicals’ — who had left Soufi’s Winnipeg Muslim community ‘a mess’ when he disappeared nine years prior.
] July 2016. I am walking through Ottawa’s Parliament security. My phone rings: “Private number.
” It’s the third time that someone blocking their number has tried to reach me. I wonder who it could be, what they want. I answer hastily and slightly nervously: “Hello.
” Join us and celebrate the future of art and design. Show opens May 7. “Hi, is this Youcef Soufi?” “Yes.
” “This is Detective Paul from the RCMP in Winnipeg, I’ve been trying to reach you. I’ve left voice mails but you haven’t gotten back to me.” The Royal Canadian Mounted Police? I start to think about all the possible reasons why Canada’s national police force might want to talk to me.
I haven’t murdered anyone, and last time I checked, I don’t sell or do drugs. Did I accidentally do somethi.
