Unapologetic: Read an excerpt from the memoir by pathbreaking Indian-Canadian journalist Haroon Siddiqui

What was it like for an immigrant Indian Muslim to write about Canada, in Canada, in the 1960s, and after 9/11? A chat with bishop Desmond Tutu holds clues.

I asked Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa what he thought of… guilt by association. In that 2002 conversation, he was characteristically passionate and to the point:

Christians would resent it very, very deeply if they were characterized by some of the weird fundamentalists in our camp. They would resent it very deeply if it is said that we are like the people in Northern Ireland who have been at each other’s throats seemingly forever.

The Crusaders were Christians. Is that a justification for saying that Christianity is an aggressive religion?

Who was responsible for the Holocaust? Because some Christians did that, would we then say that Christianity is a violent religion?

Fascism — where did that come from? Europe. Nazism? Europe. Colonialism? Europe.

Does that justify our saying that all of that was due to Christianity? Apartheid was supported by one of the major Christian churches in South Africa. Do you then say, “Ah, Christianity is responsible for all this racism?”

(Excerpted with permission from Unapologetic by Haroon Siddiqui, published by Southside Books; 2026)