Time Immortal

A short piece, but worth the read:

No one who works for the [National Post] is unaware that many Muslims feel antipathy toward a newspaper that is officially pro-Israel and, in practice, generally skeptical of Canadian multiculturalism. It seems to occur to none of them to muck in and start up their own Daily Jihad that reflects the opposing views. Perhaps the Muslim world just doesn’t have enough oil wealth sitting around idle to underwrite such a thing. Maybe they’re content with the way the good old [Toronto Star] handles the task. Whatever the case, you’ll notice [Khurrum Awan] uses the “national” scale attained and defended by some media as an argument that they must, in essence, share the wealth. Because they’re successful, and have shown themselves capable of reaching out to readers who hold many different political and personal philosophies, they are required to cede the editorial judgment that led to that success, and abandon their own operating philosophies in favour of becoming mere venues for identitarian argument.

To say nothing of the fact that Awan et. al. have been claiming, from the start, that they just want a change to publish their side of the story, that they just want a debate. Well, they’ve had opportunities for both, in many other media outlets and even on live television.

And they have either attempted to flee from each such opportunity, or have used the opportunity only to repeat claims already made.

To the Osgoode Hall students in particular, Mohamed Elmasry in passing, and anyone who currently thinks that Islam and its adherents are getting an unfair shake in all of this: we’re calling your bluff. You are lying through your teeth and squandering every opportunity which is being generously presented to you that would enable you to obtain exactly that which you claim to want. Your repeated failure to take advantage of these opportunities speaks volumes about your true agenda of censorship of legitimate criticism of Islam, which is both a violation of a basic human right of all Canadians and something which, frankly, doesn’t belong in Canada in the first place.

So shut up already, or else actually do what you claim you came to do.