Jewess Will Monitor Canadians' Speech

Staff Reporter

TORONTO - Even as a child, Karen Mock always wanted to be a teacher. Indirectly, that passion led her to B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights, where she served for 12 years until last week as its national director.

On Oct. 15, Mock, who has published extensively on multiculturalism and race relations, will become executive director of the Toronto-based Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF). Her three-year appointment was announced by the office of Hedy Fry, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism) (Status of Women).

Mock’s “national and international reputation, network and expertise will contribute a great deal to our collaborative efforts to eliminate racism and racial discrimination,” Fry said in a news release.

Originally headed toward a career in the classroom, Mock’s career path took an unexpected turn when she decided in her student days that she wanted to teach teachers.

Later, as a professor of education, she included in her work the impact of culture and ethnicity, which was related to the research she did for her doctorate in psychology.

“Before there was a field called multicultural, anti-racist education, I included it.” Her student teachers needed to be able to change their teaching styles to address the diversity of students’ cultural backgrounds, she explained.

Twelve years ago, Mock felt the time was right to make a career move. She was drawn to the League in part because of her teenage involvement with BBYO and the Anti-Defamation League, but also because “it was a pivotal time. Just as there was a move to more define the field of anti-racism … it was my way of ensuring that anti-Semitism would be on the agenda.”

Now she feels it is again time to move on to a third phase in her career. “I feel I have made my contribution here.”

At the League, Mock had what she described as a “very collegial relationship” with the CRRF. The foundation was formed in 1996 as part of a package of redress from Ottawa for Japanese Canadians relating to their treatment in World War II (part of which included a $24 million endowment for the foundation). In her capacity as League director, Mock oversaw two CRRF public education projects.

Sitting in her B’nai Brith Canada office surrounded by books, plaques, anti-racism posters and boxes, Mock said that although it was early to say what her priorities would be at the CRRF, she would be building on its prior work, helping the foundation to gain a higher profile and fulfil its mandate of providing leadership and serving as a clearinghouse and source of information and resources.

Karen Mock

Mock believes the recent terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, combined with the impact of the United Nations World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa that immediately preceded it, will “intensify the work that needs to be done … it was a wake-up call for those who were skeptical about the connection between hate speech and terrorism and violence.”

Despite her familiarity with the issues, Mock, who chaired the advisory committee on Canada’s preparations for the conference, was as shocked as anyone by the events of Sept. 11.

“I knew of the culture of hate and the teaching of hate that was going on in some extremist groups, but I don’t think any of us imagined that there would be a planeload of people used as a suicide bomb. This had gone beyond imagination into the surreal.”

One of the first things she did professionally following the attack was to reach out to beleaguered Muslim organizations in Canada and to state publicly that, no matter what, it isn’t right to stereotype any group. “I think [the terrorism and the atmosphere at the Durban conference] show the importance of continuing the work of intercultural and interracial dialogue – real dialogue, not just lip service,” she said.

However, she said, if there’s “a group that’s determined to kill you, I don’t think that you sit down and dialogue. It has gone beyond that.”

It was a shock and disappointment to her that even colleagues in non-governmental organizations can become “swept up in the impact of some of the propaganda, and the line between legitimate political discourse and racism/anti-Semitism became blurred.”

Most immigrants, she added, have come here not to promote terrorism but to live a life free of persecution, as did her own eastern European grandparents.