"A distinctive and insightful perspective on being Muslim in the post-9/11 world." -- Charles Taylor

Veteran Toronto Star editor Haroon Siddiqui, brown and Muslim, has spent a life on the media front lines, covering conflicts both global and local, and tracked rising xenophobia.

Canada has no official culture. It follows that there's no standard way of being Canadian, beyond obeying the law. Toronto Star editor Haroon Siddiqui shows how Canada let him succeed on his own terms.

Coming from India in 1967, he didn't do in Rome as some Romans expected him to. He refused to forget his past. He didn't change his name, didn't dilute his dignity, didn't compromise his conscience or his dissident views. Championed immigration and multiculturalism when that was not popular. Upbraided media colleagues for being white-centric, Orientalist. Pioneered cross-cultural journalism, bridging divided communities. Insisted it was un-Canadian to use free speech as a licence for hate speech. Opposed the limitless American war on terror, the invasion of Iraq, the long war on Afghanistan. Exposed how liberals could also be narrow-minded and nasty.

Here he shares such journalistic forays into the corridors of power, war zones, and cultural minefields. He also takes the reader along his personal journey from British colonial India to the evolution of Canada as the only Western nation where skin colour is no longer a fault line.