"When you witness an evil act, you should stop it with your hand." Citizenship Learning and Engagement of Muslim Youth Activists in Toronto, Canada

This thesis is about being young, Muslim and politically engaged in contemporary Toronto, Canada. Young Muslims attempting to come to terms with the complex and contradictory promises of Canadian citizenship must confront what it means to "be Canadian"—a national identity marked by historical legacies of oppressions, and shaped by ideals of western liberal democracy. Post-9/11 Canada is marked by intensified suspicion and repression of Muslims and those who “look like” Muslims. This thesis examines how 18 young people, ages16 to 29, who self-identity as “Muslim” and “activist” learned “to reflect and act upon the world in order to transform it” (Freire, 1970). Through life history interview methods, this study attempts to capture how the participants had come to their political activism, critical experiences of learning inside and outside of schools that they understood as influential in shaping their political subjectivities and practices, the range of issues of injustice that concerned them, and the various actions they took to address those issues. The young Muslims expressed concern for and acted on access to quality affordable housing, police brutality, gender-based violence, Islamophobia and other forms of hate, and the question of Palestine. Their actions included creating safe spaces, (dis-) engaging formal systems of governance and public authority, providing public education, producing cultural narratives, and engaging in various forms of direct action. Their voices and stories maintain centrality throughout this work. This thesis is based on a broad definition of “education” that encompasses formal and non-formal education and informal learning. It is also based on the premise that “all education is citizenship education.” It demonstrates how the young Muslims’ multiple learning experiences in families, neighborhoods, communities, youth subcultures, social movements and school--embedded in histories of war and migration—enable them to name and to take action to transform the concrete situations of oppression that impact them and their communities. Particularly important for the young Muslims were the cultural and political spaces in which they were able to critically and collectively explore and question their lived experiences, identities, and binding solidarities.Ph