Update on Hope and Optimism

The link I provided in my comment: "This is how Levant should be thinking, and not 'optimistically' finish off his incomplete mission" at my post on Wednesday leads to an incorrect link (the up-to-date list of my HRC posts). I should have linked it to Levant's own post which he simply titles "Why I'm Optimistic" where he confesses that he has "never been more optimistic" on the fate (negative) of the HRCs and his contributions to that effect.

This relates better to my critique on my Wednesday post. I think that Levant's narrow focus on the HRCs and ignoring or downplaying the overall picture surrounding them shouldn't be cause for optimism, since that is a work only partially done. I hope now that my Hope and Optimism post reads a little more coherently.

The Politics of Revolution which Temper and Harden the Breast

Paul Belien, Vice President of the International Free Press Society, has an article up in the Brussels Journal about Kurt Westergaard's reception at Yale and Princeton. After I heard Westergaard present his story at Princeton, we shared a ride back together to NYC, with members of the IFPS, and one of the things I said to him was "What I found really sad about your account is that in your speech you said that this was 'just another day at work,' and then all this happened to you."

Belien writes about the hostility and complete lack of empathy the Princeton and Yale students had towards Westergaard, who has to live in a barricaded home and under 24-hour security for the rest of his life.

It is surprising, and disheartening, that young people cannot even feel any sadness that a member of their society (at large, yes) has to live under such inhuman conditions. Yet they are ready to stand by a foreign god and his foreign followers, something which has nothing to do with them, their history or even their current life, except to be part of the liberal ideology which they so readily espouse.

Here is a quote from Burke's excerpted book I read on my trip to New York:

The worst of these politics of revolution is this; they temper and harden the breast, in order to prepare it for the desperate strokes which are sometimes used in extreme occasions...This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man, that they have totally forgot his nature.

Hope and Optimism

Ezra Levan't optimism, which I wrote about yesterday, reminds me of the hope that Lars Hedegaard talked about on Michael Coren's show a couple of weeks ago. When asked by Coren if there is any hope, Hedegaard replies "Of course there is hope, there's always hope."

I agree in an abstract sort of way there is always hope. But, in a country that cannot set its immigration laws without the EU either dismantling or modifying them, I find Hedegaard's optimism for Denmark to be on the same level as Levant's for Canada. Hate crime is already part of the criminal code in Canada, and Section 13 has not been revoked yet, and many say that Harper's Conservative government won't do anything about it.

So, freedom of speech, dismantling of the HRCs, these are the missions of these men. At the end of the day, all the effort they make, all the hope and optimism they have, may just go up in smoke because of the systemic barriers to those missions.

Mark Steyn's Lucidity, Although He Doesn't Get It Quite Right

He writes at The Corner:

[T]he superficial fluffily benign language of multiculturalism that comes so naturally to our rulers provides a lot of cover for the shriveling of free speech...

As Canadians have discovered, liberty is lost very quietly and quickly. And trying to get it back is slow and painful — particularly at a time when artists, universities, publishers, and others who congratulate themselves incessantly on their truth-telling courage find increasingly pre-emptive self-censorship the better part of valor.

Steyn, like Kevin Michael Grace, thinks the biggest problem is voluntary self-censorship. Well, yes that is probably true in the case of the ultra-liberal elites that Steyn uses as his examples. But, I doubt that the majority of ordinary people really do self-censor, but are coerced into self-censorship instead.

As I've said many times before, dismantling (or merely battling) the Human Rights Commissions is only the beginning. There is so much ingrained in society now that allows HRC-type events to occur. My favorite is the myriad of free legal aid services available for poor, minority complainants who can still go to a real court and sue those they deem racist or discriminatory. All kinds of similar subversive activities take place all the time.

So, Ezra Levant has to think about what his real battles are. It is well and good to eradicate kangaroo courts, but the problem lies much deeper than that.

The multiculturalism that Steyn writes about is being fueled by our high immigration rates, and that is part of where the problem lies. Certainly, homosexuals, feminists, the disabled and other "victimized" HRC complainants exist, but then, I attribute that to rampant liberalism, which is the same liberalism that allows multiculturalism to fester.

This is how Levant should be thinking, and not "optimistically" finish off his incomplete mission.

Salim Mansur Writes a Book on Islam and Ignores Parts of the Koran He Just Doesn't Like

Salim Mansur, associate professor at the University of Western Ontario and columnists for several national papers, has just published a book on Islam titled: Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim. His book is excerpted in two articles at the National Post, here and here.

Mansur makes an incredible statement in this quote below excerpted from his book. It is absurd because it is coming from someone who professes to be a Muslim, and who must have at some point read the Koran.

The Koran's command about there being no coercion in religion was cast aside [during the skirmishes between Muslims soon after Mohammed’s death], and Islam in its Arabian environment came to be inseparable from the power and sweep of the sword.

This clearly defies explicit verses by the Koran where, according to Robert Spencer’s latest book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran "Muslims have the responsibility to fight the Infidels (4:89, 2:191, 9:5) and subjugate the People of the Book under the rule of Islamic law (9:29)."

Not only are Muslims mandated by Koranic verses to subjugate (Spencer doesn’t say coercion but subjugation, but isn’t that just splitting hairs?) the infidels, but the message in the Koran is clear; it is a book of subjugation, of bringing everyone into the religion of Mohammed. Such totalitarianism is surely a precursor to violence, since if everyone has to be Muslim, then those that have no desire to be Muslim can only be forced to do so.

I don’t know what version of the Koran Mansur reads - his version could be lost in translation - and what type of Islam he practices (he calls himself Ismaili, who profess to be the "peaceful" Muslims, which then means they don’t agree with the Koran, which means they are not Muslims – that circular argument we have with "moderate" Muslims).

But the danger here is that his book will be widely read by the Canadian public eager to call Islam a religion of peace, and who now have it on record, by a "Muslim" no less, that it is indeed so.

Another dangerous book that shouldn’t be on the shelves in our bookstores.

Spencer's Absurdities, Again

Robert Spencer was recently interviewed on Frontpage Magazine, where he talks about his new book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran. As usual, Spencer is adept at quoting Koranic verses and explaining them to some extent, and I believe he has made tremendous contributions in that regard. But there’s always a catch to Spencer’s interpretations, despite his diligent scholarship.

Spencer talks about the Arabic nature of Islam, and how the Koran needs to be read and understood in Arabic only – the language of Mohammed. All Muslims, irrelevant of their native tongues, have to recite the Koran in Arabic. Spencer mentions a funny (and poignant) quote from a Pakistani Muslim in his interview who says "I am very proud of my religion, and have memorized almost all of the Koran. And one day I plan to get one of those translations and find out what it means."

Now this gives Spencer license to say absurd things. It is as though Spencer is unable to believe his original – factually sound – findings, but has to make up his own interpretations instead. Perhaps that is why Mohammed wanted his Koran read in Arabic only, as "lost in translation" is a phrase that comes to mind, and of which Spencer is frequently guilty.

This is what Spencer says about the dangers of "peaceful" Muslims not understanding the Koran:

[W]hen the Koran is not immediately understood – and its seventh-century Arabic can be difficult even for native Arabic speakers – those who believe in it understand it by means of how it is preached and presented in the local mosque. If the imams there do not preach hatred of Infidels and the necessity to fight and subjugate them, then these probably won’t be live ideas in the minds of the devout – and such has long been the case in many areas of the world.

At the same time, however, the Koran says what it says, and so jihadist movements do point to chapter and verse to attempt to recruit peaceful Muslims to their cause, and to justify their actions within the Islamic community.

I suppose the biggest mystery about Islam could be how it has remained latent for so long, mostly stuck in Middle Eastern and South Asian countries, and parts of Africa. There is no mention of outright jihad in the past several centuries, until it suddenly came to full force in our era. In Spencer’s view, this could be because imams "there" - as Spencer ambiguously refers to non-Western Muslim lands - had decided in previous centuries not to emphasize the jihadist verses to their non-Western followers.

First, Spencer needs to provide concrete evidence that imams never preached jihad in non-Western Islamic countries until contemporary political issues, which he calls terrorism, started to occur. But, second, and more likely, surely they didn’t need to put that aspect of Islam front and center, since jihad had been accomplished successfully with the Islamization of these countries.

My interpretation of this resurgence of jihadist preaching – non-peaceful preaching, as Spencer would call it - is that Islam has reached a new phase, where it has now entered the West filled with infidels, including Christians and Jews. The jihadist component of Islam has to click in naturally to Islamize, or at least fight and subjugate, the infidels in these countries, as it is written in the Koran. Peaceful preaching is no longer sufficient, and the jihadist mode is necessary for the great task at hand.

This is why I wonder about Spencer’s true understanding of Islam, despite his many years studying it. He can read the words, but misses the meanings, it seems to me. I wonder if Spencer reads the Koran in the original Arabic, and if not, perhaps that is why he cannot understand Mohammed’s glorious message as presented in the Arabic (true) Koran. Or maybe some infidels just don't get it, which is perhaps why so many countries fell so swiftly and quickly to the mighty sword of Allah.

There is a warning here, somewhere.

Westergaard's Bombshell, So To Speak...

The YouTubes of Michael Coren interviewing Lars Hedegaard and Kurt Westergaard are up [here]. Here is another interesting part of that interview for me. Michael Coren, who is a proponent of the "moderate Muslim," and who has many Muslim friends – all moderate, I would imagine – asks Westergaard the following, with Westergaard’s unexpected (to Coren) response:

[This section is around the 1:40 point in part 3 of the hour-long interview].

Coren: Did you hear from many Muslims who said to you: “I don’t like the cartoon, but I do defend you right to draw it and have it published.”?

Westergaard: Well I heard from many Muslims who didn’t like the cartoon, but they didn’t accept it as a part of the debate in a democratic society, in a secular democratic society. I was always greeted with curses. It’s very difficult, I think, for a Dane today to discuss a matter if the arguments from the other side are curses: "Go to hell and stay there, and so on."

Now, there is a fraction of a pause on the part of the agile Coren, who then fluidly goes on to ask Westergaard how he heard about the dangers to his life.

This is fascinating. I don't think Coren has a list of questions he follows to a "t." He is too independent and enjoys arguing too much to reduce his questions to pre-determined sequences. The most interesting follow-up question to Westergaard’s dramatic revelation would have been: "Why do you think no Muslim defended your actions?"

But, such an approach would have blown Coren's thesis that "moderate" Muslims exist out there, and would have directed the argument into another, much more fruitful, discussion. Of course, this didn't happen, and won't happen any time soon with Coren.

Muslims in the West: A Simple Case of Cause and Effect

Kurt Westergaard and Lars Hedegaard - President of the International Free Press Society - were on Michael Coren's show tonight in a pre-taped interview. Most of what Hedegaard and Westergaard said is found in various other interviews, some on YouTube. But in this particular interview, one thing stood out for me.

Hedegaard, discussing the ambushed Western world by Muslims, started talking about the unique circumstances of our age when non-Muslim countries are being forced to adhere to Islamic principles and laws.

I've always thought that it was strange that the Danes were forced to follow Islamic mandates, and had to fight to publish their own stories (and images) in their own papers and books, in their own country. How could a Western country be under the thumb of Islamic laws?

Well, that is exactly what Hedergaard commented upon, giving examples of other harsh representations of Mohammed in, for example, Dante's Inferno. This depiction never unleashed the kind of furor we see now. The point is, in that era, Muslims did their own thing in their own regions, as did the European countries. The two regions were as far apart geographically as culturally.

The problem now is not that Europe (or America and Canada) is especially aligned, or close, to Muslim countries; there is still a big disconnect. The problem is that Muslims have entered Europe (and the Americas) in such large numbers that they are dictating the rules of the game. They are turning Western countries into their own.

Sharia is thus no longer confined to Muslim countries, but is being forced upon non-Muslim countries as well, with, of course, the full intention that these non-Muslim countries become Muslim eventually.

The problem is serious, but the solution is simpler. Rather than continuously confront the determined Muslims within their own countries, Europeans, and North Americans, need to find ways to reduce their numbers and their strength so that sharia doesn't become an overriding (or competing) reality. The more Muslims there are, the stronger they become, and the more demands they will make on their host countries to embrace their culture, society and religion. The cause and effect is quite logical, really. Now, it is time to do something about the cause.

Ezra Levant and Kurt Westergaard: Fate

It looks like all the forces are joining together to convene at the right time and right place. Westergaard has been in Toronto around the same time that Ezra Levant is testifying before Parliament on the Human Rights Commissions' abuses. The common factor is of course the cartoon, which has irrevocabley changed Westergaard's life, and which cost Levant three years of his life and much money out of his pocket.

Jonathan Kay, the Feeble Spokesman for the National Post

Jonathan Kay has written a report on Kurt Westergaard's visit at the National Post. Only the last sentence is worth quoting, and taking apart. Kay writes:

I don't blame Canadian politicians for courting Muslim voters, or any other ethno-religious group. But I'd urge them to think about Westergaard's test when they do so. Welcoming newcomers into our society in exchange for their embrace of liberal values is the essence of the Canadian social contract. Welcoming them without any conditions at all, on the other hand, means living behind steel doors.

Kay's ignorance and liberalism is at display for all to see. Muslims will enter Canada with "conditions," and once they enter under the false promises of keeping these "conditions," will resume their natural activity of being Muslims.

Kay is of course advocating assimilation - or policies that demand assimilation of immigrants. But, no true Muslim will want to assimilate into Canadian culture. In fact, his very religion prohibits it. So Kay, behind his rose-colored glasses, is essentially condemning us to live behind steel doors for eternity.

Plus, one final point. What does Kay mean by "I don't blame Canadian politicians for courting Muslim voters, or any other ethno-religious group."? What feeble logic, and spineless argumentation. Isn't it the job of a journalist, who has the benefit of freedom of the press (so far), to make stringent demands on leaders and politicians? In every little way, the liberalism of Canadians, even within the so-called right-leaning National Post, becomes painfully evident.

Freedom in Denmark?

I've had a hectic, but thoroughly enjoyable, trip to New York City, where I attended events relating to the Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, who drew the satirical portrait of a turbaned Mohammed with a bomb. The events I attended were at Princeton University, and later on at a private Manhattan residence mentioned here.

Westergaard is an elderly man in his mid-seventies, who walks with a cane, and who has a soft-spoken voice and a gentle demeanor. He is the last person one would expect to be embroiled in this kind of affair. Yet, that fateful day, which he calls "just another day at work," sealed his life forever, with armed guards now protecting his every move.

I would just like to comment on the Manhattan event. The group I was with in Princeton kindly asked me to join them after the Princeton trip to the Manhattan residence, which was right in front of the grand Plaza Hotel at the entrance of Central Park. The view from the apartment was spectacular - it was not facing the park, but rather the twinkling lights of the New York skyline (we arrived there when it was dark, and later than expected because of awful traffic getting into the Lincoln Tunnel). There was nice wine, delicious hors d'oeuvres and a beautiful home, but the topic was extremely serious.

After Westergaard made is introductory speech, there were the usual comments and questions about freedom of speech, the bravery and persistence required of Westergaard to refuse apology for what he "did," the terrible state of events with the ever-growing numbers of Muslims, and hence possibilities for retaliations like the one against Westergaard, etc.

I'm afraid I lost my patience at one point and interrupted a concerned woman who kept dwelling on the awfulness of everything. I started asking if there was any figure like the Netherlands' Wilders who has emerged in Denmark. For some reason, the gist of my question was not understood, so I succinctly asked what Denmark was doing about preventing Muslims from entering the country.

And here is the shocker. Denmark has been cutting down on immigration levels into the country even before the cartoon incident, which by 2004 had been reduced to 80% of its 2001 levels. On top of that, other restrictions have been made, including banning Danish citizens from bringing in their non-European Union wives into Denmark. This policy was mostly aimed at Muslims from bringing in their spouses from arranged marriages, who generally entered the Danish welfare programs once they came into the country.

Well, the Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ) has been repealing or amendings these policies to the advantage of the (mostly Muslim) immigrants. It was shocking to hear this enunciated during the meeting, when clearly the answer to my question had already been worked out, and to some extent the problems solved, by the Danish government. And the EU made unequivocal decisions to undermine and dismantle, or at least render innocuous, the policies of the Danish nation.

That is the current state of affairs in Europe, something unimaginable (yet) here. There is really nothing more to say. However brave and resilient Westergaard is, however much he espouses freedoms (of speech, of expression, of the press), there is the behemoth of the EU which can step in at any time and clamp in its restrictions, and demolish anything the Danish people and their goverment have decided.

There is no freedom in Denmark.

Ezra Levant's Toronto Stop

I attended Ezra Levant's presentation on the Human Rights Commissions, and the latest developments, last Saturday. It looks like this is a prolonged book tour, but he's been in Toronto before for that specific purpose, so this tour must just be a further enunciation of his ideas.

I went there not to learn anything new - in fact, he didn't say anything new from what I've read in his blog and other blogs around Canada, and of course in his book.

But, that is the crunch of this whole thing. After having exposed the HRCs as the shameless frauds they are, after announcing that they be dismantled, what else is there to say?

I actually went to spice things up a bit - although I did go in all sincerity. I wanted to ask Levant the same question I posed in my previous post: What caused this undignified scurry by Canadians to relinquish important societal and personal freedoms at what seems like a drop of a hat? Why did Canadians submit so easily? What is it in the psyche of Canadians that they allowed their leaders to establish such an institution?

I don't think Levant has answers to these questions, since I don’t think he's really thought about them. My argument has always been that we need to look at these deep societal problems in order to truly eradicate such organizations as the HRCs. I don't think that now the HRCs have been exposed, other forms of censoring free speech, and all the other freedoms, will cease. The government can continue to play a myriad of roles similar to the HRCs, one of which is to give large quantities of free (and unearned) legal services to those who bring up the kinds of grievances that the HRCs had taken care of. In fact, this already happens.

But back to the evening (sponsored by the Libertarian Party of Canada, no less). I raised my hand near the end, when Levant had said he would ask two more people before wrapping up the evening. I would have been the second, and last, but he decided to curtail the evening with the penultimate (which ended up being the final) question.

I am sure Levant saw me. I even waved my hand (gently) a couple of times to get his attention, which I did. Since I link many times to his blog, I can presume that he reads what I have written, and knows who I am – I have my photo posted at one of my blogs.

My concerns on the HRC issues are different from the other blogs that write about it, who understandably are more of a cheer-leading type helping Levant on in his battle. I also understand the Levant: a. doesn't want anyone to rain on his parade - although I do acknowledge that he has done a really great job with his dogged fight; b. probably feels he has accomplished what he has set out to do, and doesn't think anything else is required.

But, debate is the great informer (was Levant censoring me?!). I don't think the fight is over, although Levant may really not be the one to pursue it further. I thought Kevin Michael Grace might have picked up the torch, but his two-year absence from the various national debates is telling. I think his paleo part has taken over, and I don’t think he can see the light at the end of the tunnel – he says as much here:

Self-censorship has become a defining Canadian characteristic. Despite Hadjis’s brave decision, it is unlikely we will see a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend any time soon.

But someone has to start. And a well-known media figure like Grace, who has clearly thought about these issues in depth, and whose analyses I have previously agreed with, is surely the best person to continue with what Levant has started.