Barbara Kay: “Ayatollah-prescribed fatwas are so pre-9/11″
tagged America Alone, Barbara Kay, Burger King, Canada, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, HRC, human rights, human rights commission, Islam, Jonathan Kay, Maclean's, Mark Steyn, New York, SLAPP, Stanley Kurtz and Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation
Easy to see where Jonathan Kay gets his skill with the written word from:
Ayatollah-prescribed fatwas are so pre-9/11. Nowadays, as liberal elites rush prophylactically to ward off charges of tolerating “Islamophobia,” the fatwas (in all but name) against damn good books like Mark Steyn’s America Alone aren’t bruited in mosques; they issue forth from human rights commissioners.
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Many Canadians believe the nation’s human rights commissions (HRCs) are motivated by high ideals and good intentions. But in conspiring to silence what a handful of Muslims deem “hate speech,” these good intentions are paving the way for the hell of global “soft jihad.”
The soft jihad is gradualistic and law-abiding, but no less desirous of Islamic domination of the West than its violent counterpart. Soft jihad strategy exploits liberal discourse and weaknesses in our legal system to induce guilt about a largely mythical “Islamophobia.”
The list of complaint-triggering speech offences is long in all Western countries, and ranges from the trivial to the politically existential: A decoration on a lid of ice cream distributed by Burger King offends because it resembles Allah in Arabic script; Fox Entertainment’s drama 24 portrays South Americans, Bosnians, Germans and Muslims as terrorists, but only Muslims complain; a Turkish lawyer sues an Italian soccer team because the red cross on their jerseys reminds him of the Crusades.
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One way or another we must stop the fatwa industry in its tracks. Begin with removal of speech-regulation from the HRCs’ legal mandate. Build on that with legislation that imposes costs and damages on litigious third parties who seek to chill journalists.
Canada should also pass legislation imitative of the U.S. Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) law, presently active in 24 U.S. states, which disallows harassment of those writing on matters of “public concern,” as well as the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, a New York state initiative that will combat libel tourism.
The HRC crisis is not a tempest in a teapot. Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, says: “I don’t think it’s too strong to say that the [HRC] complaint against Mark Steyn is a totalitarian document.”
It is therefore no exaggeration to say that Levant and Steyn are fighting for the defining ideal of Western civilization which, once lost, would spell the beginning of the end of all our other freedoms.
Freedom of speech/expression is the cornerstone human right in truly free societies — without it, all the other rights we enjoy will crumble. And in their zeal to protect the smaller rights, the HRCs will destroy this most important right unless we are able, somehow, to reverse their course or cast them down.
