timeimmortal

Grace and I went to see the fireworks last night, and while we were waiting (Edmonton fireworks never start on time, except on New Year’s) for the show to begin, we got to talking about the state that Canada was in. In particular, Grace wondered what, exactly, the men and women Canada has sent to fight in e.g. Afghanistan are really fighting for. Obviously, they’re fighting to establish and preserve the Agfhan government…but what is it about Canada that is worth their sacrifice?

There’s a lot about this country that’s pretty great, to be sure. We are (more or less) a democracy, and Canadian citizens enjoy a reasonable degree of freedom, especially when compared to other nations in the world. The climate is decent (it’s been hot, lately, but one expects that in summer…and a couple strategically-placed fans around the apartment seem to at least partially mitigate the worst effects thereof). We are a fairly prosperous nation, with a good economy. And evidently, there must be something about Canada that thousands of immigrants every year see as being worthwhile — why else would they uproot themselves and, in many cases, their families and move here from halfway around the world?

At the same time, though, there’s much about Canada that is anything but great. We are tragically soft on crime, and far too many unborn Canadians never see the light of day due to the fact that abortion law in Canada is practically non-existent; in most jurisdictions, it’s perfectly legal to terminate a baby at pretty much every stage of development prior to actual birth. Our culture, in pace with most Western cultures, has slipped further and further down the well of moral depravity, especially in regard to various sexual “preferences” and “lifestyles”. And while we are ostensibly a free people, that freedom can be (and has been) severely curtailed in many instances — thanks to human rights commissions, even human rights that Canadians supposedly possess as per the Charter that is the foundational document for this nation’s governance have been stripped away to suit the whims and demands of activists and the too-easily-offended.

And Grace and I came to the conclusion, standing there waiting for the fireworks, that about the best we could reasonably say about Canada is that it’s a good place to live, but that it could be better. And we both came away wishing that we didn’t have to think about the country that has been our home in such terms.

Over in Europe, and in the U.S. as well (and probably here in Canada, although it has not yet been publicized to any extent), a “rape epidemic” is in progress, as more and more immigrants from various (primarily Islamic) nations come to the West and attempt to impose their values onto the predominant culture. Most recently in Brussels, Belgium, the example of a woman who was assaulted for not wearing “the veil” (e.g. the hijab) can be found, over and over again. In the U.S., there is the recent example of the Said sisters, two honour killing victims. In Canada, we have the sad case of Aqsa Parvez, also an honour killing victim.

In a way, this sort of thing shouldn’t come as a surprise to us. Beginning with Pierre Trudeau’s attempt to re-invent the image of what Canada was, our societal attitude has moved steadily leftward, toward the socialist and multicultural ideals that are now so pervasive in every aspect of Canadian society. And somewhere along the line, we lost something — we lost confidence and courage, specifically. We now lack the confidence and the courage to say to those who immigrate here that they have come to a nation that does not necessarily follow the ways of “the old country”; indeed, we have bent over backward to reject all the many positive things about Canada’s founding heritages in a misguided (and ultimately false!) effort to pretend that every culture in the world is equal.

And yet we know that not every culture is equal, and that some cultures are, frankly, barbaric or inferior by comparison to our own. Any culture that would give sanction to a father to murder his daughter solely on the basis of her style of dress has no place in Canada, until and unless it is willing to give up that aspect of itself. And people from that culture have no place in Canada until and unless they are willing to give up that aspect of their heritage. To claim that such views can somehow be wedged into the “cultural mosaic” of Canada is, ultimately, to give the culture of Canada over to its destruction.

Even more that just rejecting those imported cultural attitudes that are incompatible with what Canada stands for, however, Canada needs to work to re-elevate itself about the level of “it could be better.” Canadian society needs to stop being so limp-wristed where dealing with crime is concerned. It needs to stop being so permissive where sexual immorality is concerned. It needs to stop encouraging its people to be thin-skinned complainers by providing them a forum (in the HRCs) to effect government-mandated financial ruin on those with whom they disagree. And along the way, it might just do well to add the right of private property into the Charter.

Canada needs to be worth fighting and dying for again — it needs to be more and better than it is now, if for no other reason than to give purpose to the sacrifices it demands of its men and women in uniform. Is it really worth the sacrifice, to die for a country that could be better?

It’s Wednesday, and Muslims are offended again. This time, the object of their ire is a new advertisment for the Tayside (that’s in Scotland) police force which advertises the service’s new phone number for “non-emergency” calls.

The advert in question, pictured below, features a cute little puppy sitting in a policeman’s hat. And owing to the fact that dogs are considered unclean in Islam, this postcard advert “has sparked outrage from Muslims.”

Yes. This image:

…has sparked outrage.

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.

Strangely, I’ve not heard any news of Muslim outrage over the blatant discrimination and oppression of women that is evident in e.g. the following:

(for reference: that’s a picture of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the woman who is apparently his wife — Iran’s “First Lady”, so to speak)

Also lacking: Muslim outrage over e.g. the honour killing of Aqsa Parvez and other daughters of Muslim parents over essentially trivial matters (Aqsa herself was murdered for refusing to wear the Islamic headscarf, the hijab).

It’s bad enough that the Muslims complaining about this advert don’t have the presence of mind to realize that they are a minority group with no intrinsic right to force their views or beliefs on anyone else, let along on the society to which they have come. As Mark Shea points out, they just “can’t seem to get it through their infantile heads that the rest of us are not obliged to bother our heads about their particular cultural taboos.”

Dundee councillor Mohammed Asif said: ‘My concern was that it’s not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards.

‘It was probably a waste of resources going to these communities.

‘They (the police) should have understood. Since then, the police have explained that it was an oversight on their part, and that if they’d seen it was going to cause upset they wouldn’t have done it.’

I usually give up alcohol for Lent, O Reader, and I usually try and observe the tradition of eating fish on Fridays during that time as well. A lot of Catholics do the same. How many of us, do you suppose, have ever expressed “outrage” that bars continue to feature happy hour specials and deals on steak sandwiches on Friday evenings? Yeah…didn’t think so. And while I’ve heard more than a few hilarious jokes from Jews about the impact of eating pork on one’s mental prowess, how many Jews do you suppose have ever expressed outrage over seeing coupons for bacon in the flyers that get delivered to their houses on a weekly basis?

But evidently, Muslims in and around Tayside evidently are not familiar with the concept of maturity in faith.

And the police are apologizing for this? Where’s that Scotch spirit? Where’s that Celtic fire? Where is someone — anyone — with the courage to say to Mr. Asif and all the others who have filed complaints about this advert: “This is Scotland. Sod off and deal with it. The advert stands, your grubby traditions be damned.”

Update: There is hope!

Mr Asif’s comments have won little support among the public or Dundee’s Islamic community.

Last night Mahmud Sarwar, trustee of the Scottish Islamic and Cultural Centre and the Dura Street mosque, appealed for calm.

He said he had no problems with the postcard and called on homeowners and local businesses to display them as it is in the public interest.

“I’ve not heard anything about that from members of the community,” Mr Sarwar said.

“I was round some shops today and at the mosque and nobody has said anything about it.”

Mr Sarwar said that religious sensitivities would prevent him from displaying the postcard on a building of religious significance but there was nothing to stop them being displayed in shops.

“There is not a dog—it is just a picture,” he said.

More like Mahmud Sawar, please!

ERS writes in with her thoughts on the upgraded charges now faced by Waqas Parvez for his role in the killing of Aqsa Parvez, his 16-year old sister, for the “dishonour” she brought to the family by refusing to wear an Islamic headscarf.

This is a nice turn of events. I hope, in the end, justice is served in this case.

Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
“Reclaiming Honor in Jordan”
http://www.redroom.com/author/ellen-r-sheeley

It is a nice turn of events, O Reader, and the hope that justice will be served is shared by many. It is through cases like these that Canada is given the opportunity to stand up and say “we do not want this here.” That’s an opportunity we need to take at times.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Following on the heels of the news that Muhammed Parvez will be charged with first degree murder for the honour killing of his daughter, Aqsa, after she refused to wear the Islamic hijab, comes more good news.

A Mississauga man is now facing a first-degree murder charge in the 2007 death of his teenage sister.

Waqas Parvez, 27, was originally charged with obstructing police after his 16-year-old sister, Aqsa Parvez, was strangled in early December at her Mississauga home.

Another bit of justice for a girl whose life was cut short all too soon. Here’s hoping the Canadian justice system doesn’t fail us now.

Ellen R. Sheeley writes in with a quick comment on this article and the father of murdered Canadian girl Aqsa Parvez.

I hope this man is prosecuted to the absolute fullest extent of the law.

Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
“Reclaiming Honor in Jordan”
http://www.redroom.com/author/ellen-r-sheeley

I think that is the hope we all share, Ellen. One doesn’t think highly of the criminal justice system in Canada, but there is hope that Aqsa’s father will be duly punished for his beastly crime.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Sadly, in Canada, we don’t usually imprison people “for life” or deport them when they get out again. But this is still the right thing — it’s the heaviest charge that can be leveled against Muhammed Parvez for his crime: the honour killing of his daughter after she refused his wishes that she wear the Islamic hijab.

Erf writes in with a concern over this article and the way I approached it.

Why do you keep assuming Islam fundies have some sort of monopoly on insanity? If there’s any reason to believe the murder was some kind of honour killing, it’s not in the linked news reports. There are a lot of reasons why people kill other people, even men killing their own daughters. Some of them even have nothing to do with religion.

It seems like you immediately jump to the conclusion that insane Muslims are behind every act of violence that bears even superficial resemblance to the actual insane Muslim violence (of which there is sadly no shortage). This is not reasonable. Not all crazy people are Muslim, dude. In fact, most aren’t.

There are approximately three types of murderous crimes that I gravitate toward for blogging material. One is murders perpetrated by persons of a nihilistic/militantly atheistic bent (which I typically analyze from the perspective of conformity between the act and Darwinistic philosophy), one is murders perpetrated by Christians (which I denounce and criticize harshly, especially if they are attempting to use Christian theology to justify the act), and one is murders perpetrated by Muslims. This latter category is a fairly common theme around here for two reasons.

Firstly, I don’t assume that Islamic fundamentalists have any monopoly on insanity, although to be fair I do think that Islamic fundamentalists perpetrate way more acts of violence and murder than to Christian fundamentalists. About the worst most Christian fundies will do is…you know…demand that we teach young earth creationism or intelligent design in science classes. Or bake cookies. Once in a blue moon, some idiot with a Bible will get it in his head that he should off an abortionist or something, and when that happens I think the only proper response is to denounce the act as being antithetical to the Christian message in the clearest and most distinct terms possible.

On the Islamic side of the equation, it’s harder to take the text of the Koran, or Sharia law (which is basically an exegesis of the Koran), and use those to condemn acts of murder committed by Muslims or in the name of Islam in the same way that one can use the Bible and the Catechism to condemn murders committed by Christians or in the name of Christianity. Depending on how strictly one interprets the Sharia, things like honour killings are easily justified, as is discrimination against — or persecution of — apostates and infidels.

Secondly, while I am sometimes wrong (the recent bombing of a real estate agent in France is a decent example) in “jumping to the conclusion” that some Islamonutter was the perpetrator of a violent act that bears some or all of the usual hallmarks of violent acts that have, in the past and in other places, been attributable to Islamic terrorists and thugs, I find that I’m right more often than not.

Yes, there are indeed any number of different reasons why a person might choose to kill another person, and even why a man might choose to kill his own daughter. And yes, non-Muslims sometimes do that as well. But let’s look at the evidence that we have here, eh?

Firstly, the murder happened in an “immigrant” community within the city of Malmö (the Fosie district, which which has many residents who have self-segregated on the basis of language and culture, and for whom an inability to speak the local language is often a barrier to gainful employment). While none of the sources explicitly mention Islam as a relevant factor in the immigrant community in Sweden, it does serve to note that many of the top nations supplying immigrants to Sweden are predominantly Muslim nations, with the top two being Iraq and Iran. So while its certainly a possibility that neither the murdered girl nor her murderers were Muslim, there is also a reasonable probability that they were.

Secondly, the victim was a teenaged girl, and the arrested perpetrators were her stepfather and brother. That certainly fits the classical model of an honour killing, whereby a younger girl (often a teenager) is murdered by male relatives for having impugned the family honour somehow (perhaps by chatting with a Swedish boy, something a teenager would be wont to do?).

Thirdly, there is an established pattern of these balcony-related murders — seven distinctly identifiable cases. This suggests either the work of a prolific serial killer, or else a common modus operandi among several families within communities that have higher populations of immigrants and which are culturally segregated from the rest of Sweden all around them.

So while it’s technically correct to say that there is nothing in the news reports which has explicitly said “this was an honour killing perpetrated by a Muslim family”, there are also a lot of markers and indicators that one can find upon doing some further digging. Now, admittedly, I only did that digging just now — what I said in my previous article was just off-the-cuff speculation. But based on the above, it doesn’t seem an unreasonable speculation at all.

Which doesn’t surprise, by the way, because this sort of thing has become depressingly commonplace in Europe, and may even have recently taken place in Canada. It’s completely right to note that there is plenty of “hard” Muslim violence to go around (over 10,000 terrorist acts committed by Islamist radicals just since September 11th, 2001, in fact)…but there is also an emerging undercurrent of “soft” violence in the immigrant communities of many Western nations, which follows almost in lockstep behind the rising prevalence of Islam in those communities.

And quite frankly, it has escalated to the point already that when one hears of a teenaged girl being murdered by an older male relation, one can do very little but speculate as to the probable religious creed of the victim and her murderer.

Canadian multiculturalism, failing to combat racism and Muslim-phobia, is gradually moving towards adopting faith-based multiculturalism, allowing the formation of cultural ghettoes immune from social and legal scrutiny against violations of human rights. Such politics serve the interests of conservative Muslim leaders. Enjoying the formal recognition by different levels of government, they openly reject civic norms of conduct, and preach their obscurantist and rigid understanding of ‘piety’ and ‘modesty’ to an audience that struggles to adjust to life in the diaspora. Some religious leaders indirectly supported Aqsa Pervez’s murder by warning that culture cannot supersede religion and urged that their followers should ‘convince’ their daughters to wear the hijab.

[Haideh Moghissi, professor of sociology and women�s study at York University, Toronto] and [Shahrzad Mojab, professor and director of Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto] are of the opinion that ’s case represents a revealing example of the lives of many children of Muslim immigrants who came to Canada predominantly in the 1990s, and now are coming of age. The vast majority is inevitably influenced by the dominant Canadian culture and patterns of behaviour. Many parents have no problem with this and adopt a healthy mix of broader cultural practices and those of their own. A growing number of families, frustrated by the difficult conditions of life and influenced by imported orthodox imams, however, venture the impossible task of replicating their past way of life in their country of origin. They try to force their own ‘choices’ on their children. Many of these young Canadians, particularly young girls and women, live a double life and have to hide their true feelings and submit to their parents’ imposition. �Aqsa Pervez shed the mask of compliance with the Muslim womanhood her father wanted her to wear, hence the harshest imaginable punishment in his hands,� they add.

The two academics note that it is only in recent decades that political and economic failures, imperialist policies towards Muslim-majority societies, authoritarianism, and the unresolved Palestinian issues, have given prominence to the rigid totalitarian ultra-conservative Islam. Taking this voice as the voice of Muslims is a fatal mistake with dire consequences.

As Kate is often seen to remark, most Canadians seem to think that multiculturalism means “more pavillions at Folk Fest”. And to be fair, that has been one of the outcomes of Canada’s open attitude towards the cultures of other immigrants. My neighbourhood would be that much poorer were the little Lebanese take-away not present there.

But somewhere along the line, multiculturalism stopped being about welcoming other cultures into Canada (which as a concept still implies that Canadian law and values have primacy) and became about doing everything within our power to avoid giving even the slightest impression that there is anything about Canada which we, as Canadians welcoming immigrants to our shores, see about Canada that might just be…what’s the word? better?…than the places these people are coming to us from.

And the result has been predictable: Canada has not given those who immigrate to it the necessary basis in Canadian culture so that they might properly integrate into Canadian society, so those immigrants have (in essence) ‘imported’ the culture of their nation of origin to Canada in an effort to fill in the gap.

The problem is that some of those other cultures are, for lack of any better term, rather distasteful in their attitudes, especially their attitudes toward women. And we cannot afford — nor can we tolerate — such attitudes to be allowed to fester within Canadian communities. If we do, there will be many more Aqsa Parvezes that we hear about. And even one more is too many.

(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: Kathy Shaidle)

This one in England. Predictably, the suspected killer is…Muslim.

Yeah, yeah, I know…honour killing is not a part of Islam, it’s a cultural tradition that predates Islam. That’s all well and good in theory, but guess what…here’s another case where honour killing and Islam are directly partnered. Just like the last honour killings we heard about. And the one before that.

A Muslim teenager made a dramatic plea to be saved from her abusive parents a few months before she died in what police believe was an “honour killing”.

Shafilea Ahmed was seen with injuries on her neck, an inquest heard yesterday.

The westernised 17-year-old, who wanted to become a solicitor, was frightened her parents would send her to Pakistan and force her into an arranged marriage.

After running away from home, she told a local council housing officer: “There were regular incidents since I was 15 - one parent would hold me while the other would hit me.”

Which makes sense — she was, in her parents’ view — just property anyway. What else does one do with defective property, if not slap it around a bit? Good grief, what screwed-up traditions some people have.

In September [Shafilea] enrolled to continue her A-levels at Priestley College, Warrington, and made contact with Miss [Melissa Powner]. But before they could meet, Shafilea disappeared.

Her family did not raise the alarm, but police were called by a teacher after the teenager missed classes.

Her parents put their home on the market the same day, telling a potential buyer they were moving because their daughter had brought ’shame’ on the family.

It’s an honour killing, plain and simple. Her parents, orthodox Muslims both, murdered their own daughter because she had dared to want for a life of her own choosing, instead of being married off to some (likely much older) stranger in a country she probably felt no connection to. She wanted her own life…and her sentence for that crime was to be murdered and dumped by a river.

Of course, for those who insist that this is not an Islamic issue, there is still the alternative theory that it’s the fault of the taxi cabs. For, in addition to being Muslim, the suspected murderer in this latest case was a cab driver. Coincidence? Maybe…but I see that RightGirl has now had the same idea.

Yes, of course I’m being facetious.

For all my commentators and/or readers who are of the opinion that the murder of Aqsa Parvez, and/or the double-murders of the Said sisters, might not have been a case of honour killing of errant children by orthodox Muslim parents, I present an alternative theory.

Both of the fathers — the men standing accused of murder in both cases — drove taxis. I remember that detail about Mohamed Parvez from the Asqa Parvez story (sorry, no link), and it turns out that the same is the case for Yaser Abdel Said. Maybe that had something to do with it?