Right, Left and Centre: The Politics of Some Canadians: The Jihadi That Never Was - by Dave Jaffe: Chapter 29: Part One.

  The Jihadi That Never Was - Part One

    You don't expect to find a real live jihadi on the west island of Montreal, and in fact you may not. Khalid claims to live on the west island and also claims that he wanted to go to Syria to fight the Bashir al-Assad regime. Yet he never did. Still, he did try to change his life.
    Khalid is living in Quebec's most English speaking area - or one of them at least - in a mostly French-speaking province. He's a Moslem, a tall brown-skinned man in his late 20's. He also lives in a province where Moslems aren't exactly liked. "I thought Islam would be my saviour," Khalid says. Yet this wasn't always true. He came to Quebec City as a five year old from the Middle East. His father was a stern person who didn't like to discuss politics. His mother had a more gentle streak to her. Both his parents were middle class immigrants. His mother was trained as a nurse and his father had been a pharmacist. Yet in the snowy winters of Quebec City and its sweltering summers , they had to look for other jobs.
    The family moved south to the Montreal area. Even here, times were tight. His father ended up running a Dollarama-type store while his mother worked as a food server. Khlalid studied in school, learning English and French. Yet studying weighed him down. His sister Fatima thrived in school. He didn't . He dropped out of high school in the eleventh grade and was soon hanging out with a gang of wanna be's.
     Like the other gang members, Khalid started to smoke marijuana, drink alcohol and steal. "My son is a crook," his mother said when she found some expensive shoes in his bedroom closet. "You'll soon be in  prison, unless you shape up." Khalid didn't shape up. He was arrested by the police for theft and spent a month in prison. Then he was released and drifted back to the two bedroom apartment he shared with his family. As he gazed at the wall of the living room where he slept every night, he wondered what he'd do now? And what would he do with his entire life? He tossed and turned on his single bed but no answers came for a while.
     Then the answer turned up on the Internet. There he discovered a chat line of young people who were Moslems. The chat line may have been a recruiting station for jihadis. "Stop smoking," the young men on the line told him. "Stop drinking alcohol. Read the Koran and follow the way of Islam." Of course, the Islam the site was preaching was not a typical Islamic creed. It belonged to a fanatical strain of Islam called Salafiism.