Now We Can Read Arabic

Just as I predicted, Arabic script is now presented to us without the English translation.

Here is a photo of a halal sign I took on the window of a kabab shop on the busy Yonge street. This is no "ethnic" restaurant. This is your regular fast food pita-with-fillings shop. I suspect the writing is exclusive to Muslims, but I just think it is part of the gradual indoctrination for non-Muslims and non-Arabs to recognize Arabic words and script.

What are they preparing us for? To read the Koran? I said it here first!

A Rough Transcript of the Debate on the Counter-Jihad Movement

I listened to the very interesting hour-long debate between Lawrence Auster and Supna Zaidi at the event organized by ACT! For America (which I blogged about here).

This debate, which also included the participation of audience members, occurred after each presenter finished a prepared speech, and answered questions from the audience.

Mr. Auster began his challenge to Miss Zaidi by saying:

What I heard over and over again was wishful thinking. Your position is, I think we ought to have standards, I think Muslims should not impose their faith on others, I think there ought to be moderate mosques, I think people should not yield to the power of jihadist Islam. These were all your personal opinions the way you would like things to be. The reality is that is not the way Islam is.

And from this introduction, below are what I considered the pertinent points of the debate, which I have divided into segments. Some of it is directly transcribed from the audio, most of it I've simplified in my own words.

You can go to the Unofficial Lawrence Auster page and scroll down to "Who belongs in the counter-jihad movement?" and "The Debate" to hear the whole debate, which I do recommend, partly to hear the debating style of Miss Zaidi, who I found cleverly rebutted several arguments, but who at the end of the day was unable to see the fallacy of her argument of plucking this moderate Muslim out of the thin air of her imagination. I found this inability strangely stubborn, as though some personal stance was at stake. Maybe if she started to acknowledge the violence and aggression of her religion, it might make her less religious, or even renounce her religion altogether?

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Organizing moderate Muslims

Z. We need to organize the moderation of Islam.
A. How long will moderation [reform] of Islam take?
Z. A couple of decades.
A. So we should let these people in, work on them for 50 years [until they're moderate], in the mean time they’ll do what they do?
Z. Screen them both at immigration level, and their schools, mosques and those individuals once in the country.
A. Still not enough. What if they don’t do what they say [or do what they don’t say]? Robert Spencer has finally said that screening is ineffective, and all Muslim immigration should be stopped. Why should a country allow people in with such huge problems in the first place?

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Who are the Islamists and who are the Muslims?

A. Are sharia believing, jihad believing Muslims objectively Muslims?
Z. Yes.
A. Then why do you call them Islamists?
Z. All Islamists are Muslims, all Muslims are not Islamists.
A. The net effect of this is saying that Islam is not the problem, but only Islamism is the problem. This weakens a society’s ability to defend itself from the dangerous form of Islam.

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A private vs. a public religion

Z. You should be satisfied with practicing your faith at home – in private.
A. Real religions are not just private.
A. The real Islam by its very nature is public, social, political – the real Islam is not just private.
A. Miss Zaidi is trying to create something that has never existed except in the
individual private realm and try to act as though this can become the common Islamic practice for most or all Muslims.
A. Shall we gamble our society on this wishful thinking?

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Is Sharia different in different situations?

Z. Sharia is an intangible; it means nothing, it illustrates itself in different ways depending on the generation or the century.
A. Spencer completely disagrees. The fundamentals of sharia are the same in all the Islamic splinters, they may differ on details.
A. This is a typical liberal argument – "there is a lot of diversity in Islam, you don’t need to worry about it". They do this to distract people from the essence of Islam.
A. There are all types of conflicts within Islam, does that mean that there is no such thing as Islam?

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What to do about the aggressive Muslim presence

A. The general trend of Western societies is to yield gradually to Muslims’ demands.
A. The inevitable dynamic happens where Muslims’ sharia-mandated aggressiveness and Westerners' acquiescence results with Muslims getting more and more power.
A. Separation of Islam from the West is the only solution to counter their sharia-commanded aggressiveness and Westerners' inevitable acquiescence.

A Preliminary Review of Supna Zaidi's Speech and Q&A

The presentations on Islam organized by ACT! for America with Lawrence Auster and Supna Zaidi is now on Youtube. There are four parts to the videos: one each for each presentation by Mr. Auster and Miss Zaida, and two more for a question and answer period for both presenters. The debate between the two apparently has been recorded as an audio, and will be made available.

I can't say much about the actual debate until I hear the audio. I think that is the interesting part (for me, at least, since I have been blogging about Mr. Auster's recommendations for how to treat Muslims in the West in a few blogs now). I don't think there ever has been a debate between someone who doesn't accept the term (or the person) "moderate Muslim", and the other party proclaiming to be a real-life moderate Muslim. Even the eminent Islam critic Robert Spencer, who has of late announced that Muslim immigration should be stopped, still cannot quite accept that his Muslim acquaintances are part of the violent, jihad-supporting group that much of Islamic history seems to point towards.

Until the debate is available, here are a few thoughts and comments (and a question here and there) on Miss Zaidi's presentation:

- Miss Zaidi says that without affiliation with mosques or Imams, movements Muslims such as herself try to initiate - a moderate approach to Islam - would be futile. But, aren't mosques and Imams the last place to go for moderate view points, and if they are behind it, won't the movement become other than moderate - i.e. radical? Doesn't that put into question the whole possibility of organizing large groups of Muslims as moderates?

- She talked extensively about her country of birth, Pakistan. When describing the modern history of Pakistan (actually, all of Pakistan's history is modern), doesn't it show that the country seems to be getting progressively less moderate? Isn't that the historical progression of all Muslim countries? Even Turkey, which had a secular government for the last sixty years or so (a very short period given the country's long history), is now beginning to slowly denounce its secularism, by the popular election of a conservative president who is a "former Islamist", and whose wife is wearing the formerly banned hijab in public.

- Is America to be the Islam reformer, where due to its cultural and political institutions, it seems to help people like her to pursue their quest for moderate (reformed?) Islam? As I mentioned above, almost all countries with Muslim populations haven't been able to advance that proposition. Why does she think America will be able to do it?

- She worries about her 1-year-old nephew's influences when he's a young adult and wishes to associate with other Muslims, who might have a radicalizing effect on him. I doubt that a Greek Orthodox or an Israeli Jew who immigrate to America would have such concerns about their younger relatives. Why is Miss Zaidi worried about hers? Isn't there something in Islam that underlines violent means for disseminating the faith that is making her worried? So, is Islam (or are Muslims) ever really moderate?

- Finally, I am surprised at her dismissal of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) - which I've blogged about here. ISNA is a virulent organization, working under the radar, but which is fully immersed with other organizations which advocate jihadi-like violence when confronting Western (and other) antagonists.

I look forward to listening to the debate. I am sure Mr. Auster will be generous and considerate towards Miss Zaidi, but at the same time, I don't think he will let inconsistent and unclear outlooks by Miss Zaidi pass over unremarked.

Debating a Moderate Muslim

Muslims who desire to appear moderate (or at least in opposition to what are perceived as radical, fundamentalist Muslims) have various ways of describing (or rationalizing) their positions. Here is one such argument from Tashbih Sayyed, a newspaper columnist and writer:

Tashbih Sayyed, a secular Muslim (or ex-Muslim, I’m not sure which), found the passage in the Koran that says, "There is no compulsion in religion," and decided that he would make that his view of Islam; meaning that he was ignoring the fact that the passage was abrogated by the Medinan suras, which call for endless war against, killing of, and terminal scalding and flaying in hell for those who reject Islam.

Here's more on the recent debate on Islam with Lawrence Auster and Tashbih Sayyed's daugher, Supna Zaidi, who is the assistant director of Daniel Pipe’s Islamist Watch and who calls herself a moderate Muslim. The debate was organized by ACT for America during the weekend.

I think this is the first time anyone who doesn't accept the term "moderate Muslim" has debated a self-ascribed moderate Muslim. But the crux of the debate (or speech) is Mr. Auster's recommendations for what to do about the dangers of Islam. Such an approach at looking at Islam - what to do about its dangers - is gaining more attention, and ACT for America has a useful set up where such issues can be discussed and disseminated to a wider public, hopefully conservatives and liberals alike.

The Canadian Coptic Centre's Imposing Warning Sign

The Canadian Coptic Centre, in Mississauga, Ontario

While driving through Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, I saw the most formidable church I have ever seen. Not even the Cathedral of St. James, in Toronto, comes close, at least in size and prominence.

The Canadian Coptic Centre is a colossal building with some eight or nine cupolas. Its church was consecrated as the Church of Virgin Mary and St. Athanasius in 1989.

A few miles down the same road is the Al-Farooq Mosque, an unassuming building for now, but with plans for a $6 million expansion.

Copts in Egypt have suffered constant persecution from their Muslim conquerors, and in fact, the antagonism and violence against them in Egypt seems to be growing. Many Copts here in Canada know of this experience first hand. What a shock it must have been for them that just down the road is a mosque, relatively small and innocuous for now, but with the promise of huge expansions.

Al-Farooq Mosque was established in 1987, as the first mosque in Mississauga. The Canadian Coptic Centre's Church of Virgin Mary and St. Athanasius was consecrated just two years after, although its property had been bought in 1982, when construction continued for another eight years.

Now, this is speculation on my part, but it looks like the mosque came later (established 1987, says its web site, whereas the Coptic church started construction in 1982 which was completed in 1989). So, surely the Copts, in retaliation to what looks like the antagonistic presence of their age-old enemies, continued to expand this cupola-rich church to ward off, and to warn against, their new Muslim neighbors?

What more can they do? If they talk too negatively, they will be harming the “freedom of religion” mandate of Canadian society. And Muslims will never let them get away with it. To me, the best they could come up was to build their imposing building, both to protect themselves (spiritually), and to warn their Canadian host country of the dangers they had to flee, literally in life and death situations. And that the same could happen to them again, and in fact to anyone in the path of the single-minded Muslims.

I hope people are listening.

Are Canadians a Cowardly Bunch?

A review of the presentations in London, Ontario, on the HRC by Levant, Shaidle, and Mansur

I don't think this photo was necessary
(read last section below).

I've posted here the presentation in London, Ontario, by Ezra Levant, Kathy Shaidle and Salim Mansur, where I normally post on information related to Islam, because the topic: "Human Rights Commission, Useful or Obsolete" relates both directly and indirectly to Islam.

Levant, as I've blogged before, was caught in the Human Rights Commission (HRC) nightmare when he published the Mohammed cartoons three years ago. Shaidle has written a book called The Tyranny of Nice, also dealing with the HRC. And Mansur presents a Muslim's perspective on the HRC.

The videos are available at Levant's website. Levant's presentation is in Part 2 of the videos, and begins at around the 23-minute mark.

Levant's impassioned speech was actually a pleasure to listen to. I agreed with his premise that Canadians are not a cowardly bunch, and he cited for example the World Wars, and the mission in Afghanistan. This is as good a time as any to bring up Canadian courage.

Levant's pugnacious start was in response to Shailde's challenge that the HRCs got so far ahead because of complaisant Canadians. But part of the problem with the HRCs is their undercover nature. They pounce on unsuspecting business owners, teachers and Christians (let's face it, the religious people they attack are Christians), who then, under the shock of losing their jobs and businesses make a "deal" to avoid further harassment. So, I disagree, and that rather than being complacent, people are shell-shocked into silenced.

The other point Shailde made was that the HRCs are a "typical" Canadian knee-jerk reaction of one-upmanship on the Americans, who had their lunch counter protests and a full-blown Civil Rights Movement.

Yes, this may be partially true, but the era of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. was part of a strange global radicalization towards the left, which Canadians also participated in.

Shaidle frequently references some kind of Canadian Envy towards the U.S. which she says dictates many of the policies and developments made in the country. I actually disagree with this very strongly. It is normal that Canada react to the U.S. on many levels, just being close to the border makes this inevitable. But, many of the ways the country has shaped itself is a purely Canadian exercise.

Even the apparently complacent reaction to the HRCs is reminiscent of the matter-of-fact attempt of a country trying to keep many diverse (in the real sense) elements together at its inception, including a French minority, a British presence, and even the very first Prime Minister whose Scottish background forced him to interact with a "colonial" Britain, similar to the way his own Scotsmen had compromised back in Scotland.

So, yes, there is nothing wrong in saying that Canada is a land of pragmatic compromise, with an acute awareness of diversity. These were the loopholes that the HRCs managed to wiggle themselves into, to foment their destructive setup.

But, they had to get caught at some point, because the other traditions, the courage and fairness which Levant brought up, are still an innate part of Canadians' psyche.

One final thing. Shaidle opines that part of the HRC's modus operandi is to shut up the normally outspoken and vocal lower classes through an educated, upper-class elite. I have to disagree here also, since they are obviously pretty indiscriminate. I wouldn't call Ezra Levant a vocal lower class, nor does that fit MacCleans magazine, which along with Steyn, was part of a recent HRC scuffle. Nor would I classify the myriad of teachers, pastors and business owners, who keep getting the summons ticket, as lower class.

On a related, but tangential point, Shaidle and Wendy Sullivan have both posted a photo of them having drinks with friends, including two South Asians (including Salim Mansur) and one Iranian, after the lecture. This is to show that they are not "racist". I wish they didn't have to resort to this. As always, the right is reacting to the left, putting itself in embarrassing, if not unnecessary, situations (remember the I Am Sarah Palin video Sullivan did?). It was enough to have given the lecture, and that an unprecedented 600 people showed up.

Also, not to mention Levant’s very successful book tour, and his influence on a Conservative leader who plans to take on the HRC issue.

How Not to Fight the War against Islam

Ironic book title by Kathy Shaidle,
given the nature of her most recent post

I've always been ambivalent about our Canadian self-appointed conservative spokesmen, from Kathy Shaidle to Wendy Sullivan (she of the I Am Sarah Palin video fame), and even the boisterous Ezra Levant.

For all their outspokenness, I find them to be "conservative-lite". Or maybe it is the Mark Steyn Kool Aid that's influencing them (the link is to a photo at groupie Wendy Sullivan's blog with her and Steyn.)

I've put Shaidle to task about her appearance on public television, coming unprepared to speak on topics at hand (the last one was on atheism at TVO), and just spouting out a couple of irritated and angry words. I've also written about her interview with Robert Spencer on Islam, where she gave him a lot of slack.

Wendy Sullivan did the same on the Michael Coren Show, and I actually think Coren was more in the right (no pun intended) than in the wrong for chastising her.

This same group has also spent an inordinate amount of time sympathizing with Chinese minorities for an innocent gaffe that an adversarial leftist - Warren Kinsella - wrote on his blog.

And now here's Shaidle's latest post.

Ezra Levant is on a book tour for Shakedown, his latest on Human Rights Commission revelations, which he did a great job of describing here on the Michael Coren Show. Yesterday, he posted a photo of his Calgary book signing, which was nothing unusual, except I hope that he has the permission of these people to have their faces all over the internet - they could be potential HRC victims!

Well, Shaidle has picked up on that photo and uses it as a great example of...diversity! Look at those minorities in "redneck" Calgary, and how they support freedom of speech (because the whole point for this group regarding the HRC is the stifling of freedom of speech.)

She then goes on to write a completely unrelated story about that neo-con conman Conrad Black (look at all those cons!), and a cocktail party she attended, filled with elite immigrants and non-whites (Mark Steyn is also in there somewhere.) Yes, we all know what elite immigrants are really up to in Canadian politics (bringing in more immigrants.)

Well, the funny think about Levant's photo is all I see are two non-whites, or as Shaidle writes, "a black guy and an Asian dude", which doesn't make for much rejoicing, if that's what Shaidle is doing.

Also, there is no knowing why these two showed up, maybe they just want to say whatever they please, and "don't want no" Commission telling them what to do. Who knows if they really care about Canada as a nation, which is the whole point of true conservatism, I would think.

I've tried to figure out what the real purpose of her post might be. I think she’s getting a lot of flack from her readers for her sporadic “Your religion is f***ing retarded” outbursts about Muslims, and her various attacks on Toronto blacks. I think its getting to her that people are calling her "racist." She just doesn’t want to be called racist anymore, and needs her readership to keep on supporting her.

Another thing I have to mention is that she doesn't have any real idea of what she wants for Canada. As long as there are those who will violently or obnoxiously disrupt the peace, then she'll be at the forefront. She hates Islam because it is "retarded", writes about blacks and their attraction for guns and welfare, hates Warren Kinsella because he pokes fun at "conservatives".

All this from someone who wrote Tyranny of Nice, yet wants to be nice herself (for now)!

I’ve always maintained that the biggest problem with the fight against Islam is the vitriol that comes from the conservative side. Instead of name-calling, get the facts straight. Win your arguments based on information rather than rants. And you will win. Don’t give the Muslims (or liberals, or minorities) fodder for attacking you with your ill-conceived and unnecessary attacks.

Shaidle's attention in the media is purely based on her outspokenness on issues she doesn’t like. And I don’t think this makes for a very good conservative spokesman.

I definitely miss the outspoken, intelligent and erudite Kevin Michael Grace, who I hope is faring well since he's been absent from his website for many months now. We need more people who can articulate the problems, and find solutions to them. Not those who just yell at the top of their voices when they find something they don't like. Unfortunately, this is really what Shaidle is, or has become.

I wish her the best in her uneven battle to right what she thinks is wrong. But she's better off taking time to think, study and attack on foundations, rather than just on anger.

"Little Mosque" is Scraping Along While "Corner Gas" is Gone

Finally it's happened. With budget constraints looming, the CBC has cut that show with the ever-declining ratings, Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Wait, that's not exactly what's happening. The CBC isn't cutting the show per se, but is cutting down on new episodes, and showing more reruns.

That is exactly as I predicted about three months ago in my article How Canada's Little Mosque on the Prairie is aiming to take over our souls, when I wrote:

Ratings [for Little Mosque on the Prairie] are down from the premier of two million viewers in January 2007 to about 500,000 in the latest poll in November 2008. But such low ratings have never stopped the CBC from maintaining ideologically appropriate programs: left-leaning, often anti-American/anti-Western, with a multicultural angle.

Meanwhile, CTV's Corner Gas, another sitcom about life in small town rural Saskatchewan, which as far as I know has no Muslims or mosques in sight, is being canceled despite its popularity, with ratings of 1,184,000 for the week of March 24.

It wasn't budget problems that caused the show to shut down, but after six seasons as Canada's most popular comedy, Corner Gas' creator Brent Butt decided it was better to leave while still on top.

That is something the Little Mosque crowd will never do. Better to eke out ideologically appropriate "comedy" to get the masses slowly indoctrinated. After all, there are so many things to cover, and reruns just won't cut it!

Strange Allies in the War on Terror

Cropped image from Michelle Malkin's book cover In Defense of Interment.
[Click on image to see full cover.]

The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC) in Toronto started a new documentary series on March 2009 called Nikkei Flix. I had to look up Nikkei (these days, we are just expected to know obscure words from alien cultures, and if not, shame on us for not being global enough). Nikkei, according to Wikipedia are, "Emigrants of Japanese ancestry or their descendants."

The first film to kick off this series is Caught In Between, which the film's schedule proudly announced was, "Part of the programming for International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which is March 21." Better late than never.

The documentary film's official web page describes Caught in Between as a film that:

[T]races how in the wake of 9/11, two communities that had rarely crossed paths have come together in solidarity to speak out against the U.S. government’s attacks on civil rights and civil liberties. Speaking at San Francisco’s Japan Town Peace Plaza, Muslims, Arabs, South Asians, Japanese Americans, and others ... make passionate pleas to uphold our constitution and protect innocent people who are targeted as the "enemy."

The film's site further discusses Japanese American internments during World War II, and associates them with the current "War on Terrorism":

As the Arab, Muslim, South Asian communities face post-911 repression, this documentary captures Muslim and Japanese American communities revisiting the dark days of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Interviews with former internees, their children, religious leaders, citizens and immigrants from Japanese and Muslim American communities are woven together to make crucial connections between then and the current “War on Terrorism.”

Michelle Malkin's book In Defense of Interment made similar associations. But, Malkin was supporting those internments, whereas Caught In Between refers to that episode in American history as "the U.S. government’s attacks on civil rights and civil liberties."

So far, there have been no official plans (or talks) that Muslims be interred, unless one takes Malkin's attempt to suggest otherwise in her book. Malkin's book was highly criticized, and I don't think she ever brought up, or developed, that idea further.

At a crucial time in America's history, when all her citizens should be banding together to eliminate her enemies and protect her from internal threats, we have yet another ethnic group with a chip on its shoulder and full of grievances, which is actually hampering national security and siding with what is clearly the enemy. 9/11 was not an isolated event, as proceeding events have shown us, but one in a series of tactics to have Islam reign supreme.