This is an accepted version of this page Tarek Fatah (Punjabi/Urdu: طارق فتح; [t̪aɾɪk fətah] / [fəteh] 20 November 1949 – 24 April 2023) was a Pakistani-Canadian journalist and author.

I am one of Salman Rushdie's many Midnight's Children: we were snatched from the cradle of a great civilization and made permanent refugees, sent in search of an oasis that turned out to be a mirage.

In an opinion piece published in Toronto's Now Magazine, Fatah wrote that he decided to leave the NDP because of the establishment of a faith caucus which he believed would open the way for religious fundamentalists to enter the party.

[13] However, after Rae's defeat by Stéphane Dion, Fatah condemned similar racial and religious organization activity in the Liberal Party, arguing in a Globe and Mail editorial that Tamil, Sikh, Kurdish and Islamist Muslim leaders had engaged in "blatant efforts to wield political muscle," "bargaining the price of their cadre of delegates" and creating a "political process that feeds on racial and religious exploitation.

"[14] "I respect the diversity of Canada," he wrote, "but I want to celebrate what unites us, not what divides us into tiny tribes that can be manipulated by leaders who sell us to the highest bidder.

[16] In a 2015 Toronto Sun column, Fatah wrote that he would be voting for Conservative leader Stephen Harper in the 2015 federal elections, while still calling himself a social democrat.

He said that many Muslim groups, and he himself, have recommended curbs on immigration from countries that harbour Islamist sympathisers, similar to policies promised by Trump.

[32] He rejected antisemitism as incompatible with Islam and had supported Israel's right to exist and Zionist projects; he had however called for an end to the "illegal and immoral" Israeli occupation of Palestine and anti-Arabism.

[33] In 2003, Fatah broke with Irshad Manji in an article in the Globe and Mail in which he repudiated the thanks she gave him in the acknowledgment section of her book The Trouble with Islam.

[36] Fatah had criticized the partition of India, calling the division of the country tragic and lamenting that his homeland of Punjab was sliced in two by the departing British to create the new state of Pakistan.

[37][38] In a discussion hosted by The Globe and Mail in 2007, Fatah claimed that "most of the Islamic radicalism that you see today stems from the empowering of Saudi based Jihad groups that were funded and backed by the U.S. and the CIA throughout the Afghan war against the Soviet Union.

"[39] In response to the 2017 Quebec City mosque shooting, Fatah endorsed the discredited conspiracy theory that Muslims had participated as perpetrators in the attack that killed six people.

[42] In November 2011, 60 Muslim groups and two dozen imams endorsed a statement that called for action against domestic violence, condemned honour killing as a notion that had absolutely nothing to do with Islam.

However, the commission criticized the newsweekly for publishing articles that were inconsistent with the spirit of the Ontario Human Rights Code, and doing serious harm to Canadian society by promoting societal intolerance and disseminating destructive, xenophobic opinions.

[45] In December 2008, the Toronto Star suggested that Prime Minister Stephen Harper appoint Fatah to one of the vacant seats in the Canadian Senate.

[46] Toronto Star's senior editor Bob Hepburn wrote that Fatah is "A prominent spokesperson for secular and progressive Muslim issues who would bring a much-needed unique perspective to the Senate.

[55] Because of his continued pattern of spreading "fake news" on Twitter, especially in "sectarian lines", some critics have argued that he is an external agent who wants to create "communal disturbances" in India.

[59] In 2017, Chicago based Indian Mufti, Yasir Nadeem al Wajidi challenged Fatah for an academic debate anywhere in the world.

"[66] Wahida Valiante, president of the CIC, told The Globe and Mail that Tarek Fatah's views are diametrically opposed to most Muslims.

[67] Fatah wrote to the RCMP to complain about the CIC's article claiming that it "is as close as one can gets to issuing a death threat, as it places me as an apostate and blasphemer.

[72] Published by McClelland & Stewart in October 2010, it won the 2010 Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Book Award in Politics and History, by the Koffler Centre of the Arts.