by Francella Fiallos

There was a moment during the Oct. 22 shootings at the National War Memorial and Parliament Hill where the streets were completely vacant.

Normally, downtown on a Wednesday afternoon is packed with commuters, bureaucrats, shoppers, tourists, and street vendors.

But the shooting, which led to the death of reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and the suspect Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, prompted officials to lockdown the heart of the capital.

The incident even gained international attention. American media giants CNN and MSNBC picked up on the story, speculating whether the shooter had affiliations with the well-known extremist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

We now know that he acted alone and was not in connection to ISIL or any other terrorist network.

As time passed many Ottawans capitulated to post-shock hysteria and deeply racist sentiments popped up all over the country.

Mosques were vandalized and imams were required to issue statements denouncing the attacks lest they be suspected of vindicating the shooter and his intentions.

There was some light in the darkness. In Cold Lake, Alta., where a mosque had been defaced by racist and xenophobic graffiti, members of the community banded together to erase the hateful messages and replace them with those of solidarity.

However, the fact that the first instinct of homegrown or naturalized citizens who had lived in Canada for most of their lives — as was the case of Zehaf-Bibeau — was to further marginalize the Muslim community is appalling. And yet, the marginalization and discrimination of racialized people is so deeply rooted in the nationalistic rhetoric which flourished in the days following the shooting, that the vandalism and its motivations simply get ignored after its 15 minutes in the spotlight.

Undoubtedly, the death of Cirillo was tragic. He was only 24. He had a young son back in Hamilton.

This sudden, terminal violence, however, is something that is a daily reality for many marginalized communities around the world, including here in Canada. It is a reality that many Indigenous women have to encounter — or suspect encountering — every single day: there have been more than 1,000 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women over the past 30 years.

Cirillo was given a proper funeral back in Hamilton, with all party leaders in attendance. He was honoured. He was called “Canada’s soldier.”

These women, who are young and old, who are mothers, daughters, and sisters, are just a statistic in the eyes of many leaders. They are not given a proper burial. They are not referred to as heroes.

They are ignored and then forgotten.

When an Indigenous woman is brutally murdered in the streets of Winnipeg, the downtown area doesn’t go into lockdown. People continue to carry on as if nothing happened, and if we and our institutions continue to remain silent, instead turning our attention to state-approved tokens of belonging, it is almost as if nothing had.

This article first appeared in the Leveller, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Nov/Dec 2014).