timeimmortal

Apparently, they think that the male puppet isn’t getting a fair shake from Muslim Canadian Congress head Tarek Fatah.

And after some obligatory digs at the MCC, Muneeza Sheikh and Naseem Mithoowani launch into a lengthy defence of themselves, fellow sock-puppet Khurrum Awan, and what they claim is their human rights complaint against Maclean’s magazine.

But here’s the most incredible part, for me: they manage to utterly avoid any and all mention of Jew-hater Mohamed Elmasry, the actual plaintiff in the proceedings against Maclean’s, despite discussing in detail the reasons the complaint was brought. What is more, they have yet again wasted another opportunity to appear in a major national publication with yet another re-iteration of the same tired claims they always articulate.

They could have, you know, published an excerpt from the response they are ostensibly demanding the right to publish…which they claim is all they want in the first place. It is strange, O Reader, that they failed to do this.

They also say a few other things worthy of mention:

And that is our point; anti-Muslim prejudice is growing because of pieces like the one that Maclean’s published, and that led to our human rights complaints, in a context where there is an absence of Muslim (or other) voices to challenge the material in question.

Actually, no: what stokes anti-Muslim prejudice is not an absence of Islamic voices in any particular media forum, either to affirm or to challenge other printed material. What stokes anti-Muslim prejudice, more than anything else, is when Muslim themselves attempt to trample on the rights of Canadians by, in essence, demanding that the government (or, in this case, an unaccountable government agency) wrest control of the publication of a private magazine from the hands of those who are, by law, its actual owners and editors.

The limitless free speech model — that the solution to harmful and hateful speech is more and better speech — does not work for minority communities, and our complaints illustrate that: Maclean’s still refuses to publish a response to just one of over twenty articles that even the condemned as Islamophobic.

As is their right, given that they are (again) a private company.

The limitless free speech model is beautiful precisely because it does work for both the majority and the various minorities; indeed, the fact that Awan, Sheikh, and Mithoowani have managed to publish quite a large number of articles in various newspapers (notably the National Post) demonstrates that they, despite being members of a minority, are not being denied anything.

What doesn’t work, if anything, is the way that in this particular instance, the minority community in question is doing one of two self-ruinous things:

1. When given the opportunity to publish an article, the sock puppets can only think to re-iterate previously-made statements for the umpteenth time, when they could be using the space they are given to…say…publish the latest installment in their witty, scathing, and comprehensive response to the Steyn article.
2. The rest of the time, said community (or, at least, those who claim to speak for it) spend all their time demanding that the Canadian government hand over control of a private newsmagazine’s content to them.

Dear sock puppets: you’ve been given plenty of opportunities to publish your side, and have wasted them all. Also, if you claim to represent every Muslim in Canada and if, in fact, you are correct in that claim, you should have no problem raising sufficient private funds to begin your own newsmagazine in which you could do nothing but publish anti-Mark Steyn articles to your collective hearts’ desire! That you have done nothing but repeat the same claims, which most of the rest of us now have involuntarily committed to memory, suggests that your motives are other, and then more sinister and repressive.

So please shut up about debates and responses, because you’ve squandered every opportunity to engage in or deliver both.

And yes, I’d be this mad at you even if you weren’t Muslims.

And that is why free speech is not limitless in our democracy.

And that is why it should be.

Section 1 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that all rights in our democracy are subject to reasonable limits.

And those reasonable limits are: incitement. The Steyn article was not that.

The Supreme Court of Canada (not a bunch of Islamists*) properly recognized that free speech is not limitless in upholding our criminal and human rights laws regulating hate speech.

Because judges, like Allah, are infallible and never make mistakes!

In imposing these limits, the Supreme Court noted that hate speech undermines the equality rights and multicultural heritage guaranteed in our Charter.

So when Mohamed Elmasry made that remark about Jews over the age of 18…?

* Islamists? Maybe not. Dhimmis? Well…

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

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.

Jason Kenney all but flays Osgoode Hall sock puppet Khurrum Awan in this scathing letter, chastising him for his association with Mohamed Elmasry.

I’m almost tempted to wonder how long it will be before someone tries to file a human rights complaint against Mr. Kenney?

Update: Let’s see how well Scribd handles this:

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

And then on trumped up charges, by the sound of it:

A human rights group says a 24-year-old Syrian blogger has been convicted and sentenced to three years in prison on charges of undermining the prestige of the state and weakening national morale.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press on Wednesday, The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria condemned the verdict issued the day before as “outrageous” and called for Tarek Bayassi’s immediate release.

In a way, is what is happening in Canada all that different from this circumstance? Under the guise of protecting human rights, are not the human rights commissions basically punishing those whose words go against what the HRCs — in their capacity as organs of the Canadian state — deem to be acceptable?

In a sense, are not people like Ezra Levant and publications like Maclean’s magazine being accused of in some way undermining the prestige of the state for their refusal to, say, subscribe to the “look the other way” multi-culti attitude that the likes of Mohamed Elmasry and his Osgoode Hall sock puppets are counting on the rest of Canada to demonstrate, and which the CHRC is demanding that all Canadians demonstrate?

The difference is only in degree. Syria jails bloggers who publish things that the state deems unseemly. Canada just forces them to a) pay a steep fine, in addition to the legal fees they incur, and b) cease saying what they have been saying.

In the wake of the embarrassing actions of Mohamed Elmasry’s three Osgoode Hall law students (read: sock puppets) and the cowardice they displayed when faced with the prospect of having to debate Mark Steyn three-on-one, Maclean’s has responded to the attempt by Faisal Joseph and the Osgoode trio offer a non-settlement (read: shakedown) disguised as a settlement offer.

To sum up, Maclean’s has basically said thus: “we’ll tell you where to shove that offer.”

Ezra Levant has an excerpt of the text of Maclean’s response to the offer:

The time to discuss reasonable replies to Mr. Steyn’s piece was after the article was published and before the human rights actions were launched. For Maclean’s to agree to any “settlement” with quasi-judicial proceedings under way would be tantamount to an admission of wrongdoing on our part when we have done nothing but practise responsible journalism.

It would also be improper and damaging to the integrity of Maclean’s, and a troubling precedent in Canadian media, for us to agree to negotiate the content of our magazine in return for the withdrawal of quasi-judicial legal actions and relief from punitive costs of defending those actions.

Moreover, any settlement at this point would have to be approved by human rights authorities in Ottawa, and would thus involve an implicit acceptance on our part of the jurisdiction of human rights commissions to regulate the content of print media publications in Canada. That is an unacceptable precedent.

We believe that a sincere attempt to settle this matter would have involved a direct and timely approach to Maclean’s rather than a press conference and public ultimatum eighteen months after the publication of Mr. Steyn’s piece. But rather than approaching this magazine for the purposes of conciliation, Mr. Joseph and his clients publicly impugned our journalists at a press conference, tactics sharply at odds with their stated goal of reaching an amicable resolution.

While we have no interest in negotiating with the CIC for the withdrawal of its complaints, we remain committed to fostering free and open discussion of important public issues. Maclean’s would be pleased to host a public debate at a neutral venue between Mr. Steyn and Mohamed Elmasry, head of the CIC and the complainant in both the B.C. and federal investigations. The debate would cover issues raised by Mr. Steyn’s original article as well as the CIC’s decision to resort to human rights commissions. We are sure that such an event would be interesting and informative, and we would publish a transcript of the debate either in the magazine or on our website.

Of course, Mohamed Elmasry is never going to accept the challenge to a debate, lest he again be exposed for what he is: a hateful, anti-Jewish bigot and apologist for terror. Still, it’s a pleasant pipe dream to imagine Mark Steyn tearing in to the man the right-of-centre blogosphere has come to know as “Elmo.”

This is a good, principled stance that Maclean’s has taken: they refuse to be intimidated by the human rights apparatus in Canada, and refuse to recognize the authority of the abrogation of basic human rights that the HRCs in Canada truly are. Likewise, they’re calling the bluff of Elmo, his sock puppets, and his flashy lawyer. It’s a “come and get us” attitude that I think Colonel Maclean, especially, would be very proud of.

Certainly, I’m a little bit prouder to be Canadian for having read it.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

They’ve been demanding a “debate” for months.

Mark Steyn gives them the opportunity to debate — three of them against just him.

Do they take the offer? No, they run for the hills.

More and more, it seems that the Osgoode Hall law students, all of them mere sock puppets for Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress, are not telling us the whole truth. The issue is not just one of debate, nor is it one of a “right of response” (which doesn’t actually exist).

More and more, the issue seems to be about controlling the infidel.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

The former may exist. The latter, as Mark Steyn points out, does not:

What the west calls “moderate Muslims”, Islam regards as apostates. Sometimes, as with Dr [Wafa Sultan], they’re atheist apostates; sometimes, as with Miss [Irshad Manji], they’re lesbian apostates; and sometimes, as with Magdi Allam, they’re Christian apostates. To Islam, it doesn’t matter which branch of apostasy you opt for: As the Prophet [Muhammad] puts it, “Whoever changes his Religion, kill him.” All four principal schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree. So do the 36 per cent of young Muslims in Britain who believe apostasy should be punished by death. But, to the west, which branch of apostasy has most appeal to Muslims is an interesting question.

There are two main reasons why I feel myself compelled to take such a hard-line stance against Islam, its false prophet, and the various violent excesses of many who hold to that religion. The first, of course, is that Islam is, itself, a false religion, and is worthy of opposition on those grounds alone.

Equally, though, I cannot comprehend how one could view Islam as being in any way compatible with Western, Christian-founded ideals like human rights, equality before the law, equality before God, and other fundamental tenets of what we call “freedom.” In Islam, none of these things exists. There is no free will; there is only the will of Allah. There is no equality; there is Sharia. There is no freedom; there is only submission.

And ultimately, there is no love either; there is only hatred. Whether that hatred is directed at the Jews or at those who are not sufficiently “Islamic” in their character shifts week to week, but the hatred itself is ever-present.

On the one hand, Magdi Allam’s conversion is bad news…on the other hand, it’s good news in that it suggests the most effective strategy against a resurgent, radicalized Islam may be the oldest of all — an evangelizing Christianity.

The response of Europe to its progressive Islamicization has been a predominantly secular one that has sought to push Christianity even further toward the sidelines. In Canada, Muslim lobby groups (like the Canadian Islamic Congress, headed by terror-supporter Mohamed Elmasry) use human rights commissions to silence and censor those who dare to articulate any views that holds Islam suspect. In America, CAIR attempts to do the same through the civil courts.

And for the most part, when the West has roused itself to push back, it has done so through secular avenues. And while it is good to meet the enemy on the battlefield, whatever form that battlefield might take, it is not enough to merely win at the secular side of the game, because that is the distraction, the feint. And indeed, becoming too entrenched in a secular response to Islam will be our undoing, because Islam’s advantage is its ability to proselytize into the void that secularism leaves in its wake.

A strong, expanding religion like Islam can only be met, and subsequently thrown down, by a strong, vibrant religion that exists in opposition to it. Traditionally, this has been Christianity.

And so it must be, again.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

On the Left writes in to correct our thinking, O Reader.

Check your facts folks. Mark Steyn IS NOT A PARTY TO THE COMPLAINTS - therefore HE HAS NO LEGAL BILLS!! HE IS FREE TO WRITE WHATEVER HE WANTS - This proceeding has been initiated against Maclean’s Magazine for publishing Islamphobic material - 20 articles over a year and a half without a single counterview response - The issue is about targeted communities to have the right to respond.

Allow me now to correct On the Left’s thinking.

Yes, Mark Steyn might not be a party to the complaint — the complaint itself is filed against Maclean’s magazine — in the sense that he doesn’t have any legal bills to pay, but he is a party to the complaint in the sense that it is his article, The Future Belongs to Islam (October, 2006) which forms the core of the issue for the Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohamed Elmasry, and the Osgoode Hall law students that he uses as his sock-puppets.

Indeed, Mark Steyn himself spells it out rather well in this article, in which he explicitly states that the complaint is against Maclean’s, and that the key reason for the complaint is the “Islamophobic” article that he penned (which was really just an excerpt from America Alone, his best-selling book).

So while Steyn may not be on the hook for legal bills, he has a horse in this race all the same. After all, had Maclean’s not run his article, Mohamed Elmasry wouldn’t have had anything to complain about. Oh, sure, there are a handful of other articles, some of which (if memory serves) might even just be letters to the editor, but they’re all garnish. Steyn’s article is the main issue here, and without that there wouldn’t be enough material on which to base a complaint.

Now, as to the whole thing about “targeted communities to have the right to respond,” precisely where in the is the “right of response” outlined and detailed? I realize that leftists do rather enjoy inventing new and previously unheard of rights for those they deem to be minorities (since, in the soft bigotry of low expectations that most leftists engage in, those minorities need these rights because they would otherwise be unable to help themselves, the poor darlings), but no Western nation has ever enshrined in its constitution the notion that a person has a “right to respond” to a published article.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Ontario Human Rights Commission has dropped the case against Mark Steyn and Maclean’s magazine, but one should be wary of calling this a victory too soon. Reading the commission’s statement on the matter, their only reason for not proceeding with the case is a jurisdictional one:

Denying a service because of race or creed can form the basis for a human rights complaint. However, the Ontario Human Rights Code does not give the Commission the jurisdiction to deal with the content of magazine articles through its complaint process.

Of course, Maclean’s didn’t deny “service” to Mohamed Elmasry (the plaintiff in this case, not to be confused with the four Osgoode Hall law students he uses as sock puppets) on the basis of his race or Religion; service was denied because Maclean’s is a private enterprise and wasn’t in the mood to be told that it must allow a rebuttal to be printed.

And, as Mark Steyn notes, the commission seems also to have convicted Maclean’s and himself, at least in terms of organizational opinion:

While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and indeed any racialized community in the media, such as the Maclean’s article and others like them, as being inconsistent with the values enshrined in our human rights codes. Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism.

That first sentence is a laugh, isn’t it, O Reader?

Ah, well — one expects the sort of petulance that drips from ths commission’s statement from…I don’t know…adolescent girls on the cheerleading squad. It’s shameful that a government department would engage in such verbal cheap shots. Then too, there are a couple of positives to be derived from what we see here. Firstly, of course, this is one less human rights complaint that Maclean’s and Mark Steyn are going to have to fight, and that is a good thing in and of itself. And as a bonus, for what it may be worth, the has now put down in writing their commitment to freedom of expression. Whether they believe that or not, it might be something they can be held to in the future.

Kathy finds a gooder — a Muslim (presumably Canadian?) blog complaining thusly:

In order to understand why Canada’s HRC has no ears for Canada’s largest minority, Muslims, because HRC was brain-child of a Jewish lawyer, Abe Borovoy - and has a history of Zionist-Jewish domination.

Okay, let’s look past the atricious spelling and poor grammar. After all, the guy describes himself as an industrial/power-generation engineer. And as we all know, engineers aren’t usually gifted with eloquent use of the English language, especially in print.

(Note: that statement is sardonic; my writing is just fine, thank you very much, and I’m an engineer as well)

Let’s look at the content of his statement, shall we? Muslims, he asserts, are unable to have their complaints heard by the human rights commissions in Canada, because the HRCs — found by a Jewish lawyer — “has no ears for…Muslims.” This explains why the Jew Mark Steyn and the Jewish newsmagazine Maclean’s is currently taking noted Muslim scholar Mohamed Elmasry and four Muslim Osgoode Hall law students to the Canadian Human Rights Commission (and the , and the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal) for their refusal to allow Steyn & Maclean’s to publish a rebuttal to a written piece by Elmasry that the plaintiffs are calling “anti-Jewish.”

Oh, wait, sorry, I turned on the sardonic filter again. Let’s reiterate!

Muslim scholar and terrorist supporter Mohamed Elmasry is the one taking (the non-Jewish) Mark Steyn and (the not particularly Jewish at all, really) Maclean’s magazine to the CHRC for their refusal to allow Elmasry and others to publish a rebuttal to a Mark Steyn piece that appeared in Maclean’s discussing the prospect of looming global Islamification, which Elmasry and the four Muslim Osgoode Hall law students that he uses as sock puppets assert was “anti-Muslim.”

Yes, Canada’s HRC has no ears for Canada’s Muslims — that’s why the most high profile case in front of the CHRC has a Muslim plaintiff!

Also, what is it with Muslims and the tendency to jump, almost instantly, to the belief that everything is a conspiracy by the Jews?

Finally, the Borovoy behind the formation of the HRCs was Alan Borovoy, whose first name is Alfred. I don’t know where our blogging industrial/power-generation engineer gets the name Abe from…maybe he just needed a Jewish-sounding name and went for the first one he could think of?

Update: Welcome, Steynians and 5FoF readers! To answer Kathy’s question more directly, I don’t know if it’s something about engineering as a discipline, or if it has more to do with the sort of person who is attracted to the discipline as a whole. To describe most of my male classmates as social misfits (or, in some cases, nearly autistic) would be a very charitable understatement. Most of the women, for some strange reason, were normal enough.

Update II - The Quickening: Mark Steyn points out that the crazy only gets better from the already auspicious start above — was the good Reader aware that Pope Benedict XVI is a Zionist plant in the Catholic hierarchy?

Ezra Levant draws attention to an interesting coincidence:

Here is a letter in the Toronto Star from Ali Mallah of the Canadian Arab Federation, supporting human rights commissions and their arrogation of the powers of political censors. It’s signed by the vice-president of the Canadian Arab Federation.

…

Say, that wouldn’t be the same Canadian Arab Federation that, at the last Liberal leadership convention, smeared Bob Rae because his wife was Jewish? Or the same Canadian Arab Federation that denounced Gerard Kennedy when he criticized the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah? The same Canadian Arab Federation that supports boycotts against Jewish businesses in Canada?

So a hater named Syed Soharwardy uses the Alberta Human Rights Commission to persecute the Western Standard;

A hater named Mohamed Elmasry uses the Ontario, B.C. and Canadian Human Rights Commissions to persecute Maclean’s magazine;

And now the hateful Canadian Arab Federation weighs in to defend these commissions as necessary.

Anyone see a pattern here?

Not that this really comes as any surprise. Islamism does have a very appreciable ability to adapt its tactics to the “lay of the land,” and in this case the Islamist agenda is being advanced in part through the human rights commissions (HRCs) in Canada.

It’s a known fact that when a majority of society aligns against some tenet of sharia law, the advocates for that Islamic bigotry will beat a hasty retreat (as CAIR recently did down in the States over the issue of Muslim cabbies refusing to give service to blind persons and their “unclean” guide dogs). It is to the advantage of the Islamists, then, if it is made illegal and punishable by fines to criticize Islam or the various barbarities of Sharia law — into the sudden silence, the radical imams and politically-minded advocates can inject all the misogyny and cruelty of their beliefs without any fear of opposition.

Update: Welcome Steynians!

Mike — or Mike Savant, as his email address would suggest his full name is (don’t worry, Mike, I won’t post it here) — writes in to “clarify” the “facts” of the complaint filed against Mark Steyn and magazine.

I think many people do not understand why a complaint was filed against Macleans Magazine. The following YouTube link provides an interview from Khurrum Awan *himself* [Oooohh...aaaah... - Ken] on the Mike Duffy Live Show explaining the facts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeenAJx-Zjk

I would encourage the reader to watch the above-linked video; it’s an interesting re-hash of things already known.

At the core of the complaint, Awan’s big beef is that he found the excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book America Alone to be “Islamophobic”, and full of errors and assertions about Islam and Muslims, and the aims of said same on the global stage. He and his compatriots demanded of Maclean’s equal space to publish a rebuttal (free from any editorial oversight) to Mr. Steyn, a demand which Maclean’s refused since — as an independent company — they are free to choose what they do and do not publish. Lacking sufficient evidence for a formal court charge of discrimination or dissemination of hatred, Awan et. al. filed a human rights complaint with four (I think it was four) different HRCs — the national one, and three provincial tribunals as well (two of which have taken the case).

What is interesting is that, since launching this human rights complaint, Mr. Awan and his associates have had an immense amount of public exposure and media coverage, and could have — at any point — leveraged that coverage to issue their rebuttal to Mr. Steyn. True, it wouldn’t have been published in Maclean’s…but Mr. Awan could have, for example, used his time on the Mike Duffy Live show to address some of Steyn’s main points. Or he could have done it through LawIsCool, as a guest author. Or he could have started his own website (as I did some years back, for the measly sum of $7.95 USD/month) and then only appeared in public whilst wearing a shirt with the URL of said website emblazoned on it. In this era of new digital media, it is ludicrously easy for someone — anyone! — to spread any message they want to.

Come to think of it, Mr. Awan enjoys the backing and (presumably) the financial support of the Canadian Islamic Congress. I wonder, for a moment, what the CIC could accomplish if its president, Mohamed Elmasry, took a break from claiming that all Israelis over the age of 18 are legitimate targets for suicide bombers and focused the energy and financial resources of his organization into the creation of an alternative to Maclean’s, in the same spirit of entrepreneurship that led to the founding of Maclean’s a century ago. This is the West, this is a (relatively) free country — if you want to say something, found your own damn magazine and publish it! This sort of thing could have been immensely beneficial! Just think: a vibrant, active, well-written (well, not if Mr. Awan was doing the writing, but there’s always hope) magazine for the Muslim community in Canada, or maybe for all Canadians to find something in.

But did Mr. Awan and his compatriots do any of those things?

Nope.

Instead, they went whining to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and are currently demanding that, because a privately-run newsmagazine didn’t cave in to their (unreasonable) demands, they receive a formal apology in the form of several thousands of dollars.

Now, as comprehensive a reply to Mike as all the above is, there is one even more curious, and potentially amusing, detail. Binky has also written a response to someone named Mike (curious, that) who also very helpfully provided a YouTube link to Mr. Awan on the Mike Duffy show:

Sorry, Mike: ZZzzzz. We could rehash Khurrum’s stale pitch almost verbatim, and he’s had lots of places to explain his point. What’s still lacking from the chatter from the Four Elsmasry Puppets is the specific, serious, and substantial content of an ‘answer’ to Steyn & Company as published in Macleans over the past few years. As of yet, there’s just no ‘There’ there.

Yeah, we get it: you really, really, really disagree. What became clear from the comments of two Osgoode Hall students was their apparent expectation that the comfy-blanket of the modern university– speech-codes, tribunals, one-sided arguments and leftward intellectual life with no serious engagement with differing views, or the vast history of Western Civilization out of which everything arose– that the comfy-blanket should be imposed on the entire country and population of Canada, at least in the matter of criticism of Islam, or of ideas and institutions beloved by the left.

Perhaps you actually are all nice sincere diversitarian law-kids who just dream of, like, an inclusive tolerant enforced Trudeaupia, a heaven on earth– but that crazy world-view is not a solution: that’s part of the problem.

However, within your own religious community there are those who would use you to unmake Canada and rebuild the pieces in an exclusively Islamic shape. That the political left and aggressive Islamists cooperate to do so is a bad thing– and to be pointed out by Macleans columnists and many, many authors and commentators around the world, where free presses and free speech allow it– well, that’s a rather helpful and timely warning as to what is NOW happening in Europe (the motherland of Western Civilization), and what is slowly beginning to happen in North America.

As the nearly-silenced Pentagon expert Maj. Stephen Coughlin points out, this is not hate-speech or fear-mongering, but to simply describe what world-wide jihadis actually say, plan, hope for, and are all about. If the Osgoode 4 and Dr. Elmasry actually stand with Western Civ on this one, they’d do better to leave Macleans & Steyn & [Ezra Levant] alone, and get to work exposing and correcting those truly hateful elements within their own community who do espouse silencing critics, and worldwide religious war, here and abroad.

Personally, I think it’s decent advice. And Mike, just one thing, speaking to you personally: if you’re the same Mike that Binky has already dispensed with, and given what you and I both doubtless know about the essentially instantaneous nature of the interconectivity of the blogosphere…what are you doing going after the smaller blogs, when the bigger ones have already pegged you for the fool that you are? Did you think I wouldn’t be a regular reader of a blog that has now linked to this one a dozen times, and for which I have composed banner images? Did you think I wouldn’t make the connection? And did you think I wouldn’t instantly recognize just how foolish your attempt at persuasion was?

Update: Oh. My. God. Mike…could you at least have tried? Do I mean so little to you? There you go flirting with that tramp Binky, and when he spurns you, you turn around and send me exactly the same love note? But seriously, dude…are you even trying?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Apparently, Ezra Levant was interviewed on CTV Newsnet a while ago, and the follow-up interviewee was one of the four Osgoode Hall law students currently at the center of the Mark Steyn/HRC fracas, Khurrum Awan.

Evidently, it didn’t go well for Mr. Awan.

Most of Awan’s comments were the same ones he and the rest of Elmo’s Kids have been offering for months. But Awan said something bizarre, for the first time that I’ve heard. He claims that human rights commissions “are not government bodies” and that “it’s completely false… to say [their penalties] amount to government Censorship.”

Huh?

Every human rights commission in Canada is part of the government. They were each created by a government law, directed by government appointees, funded by government budgets, staffed by government bureaucrats, and their orders have the force of the government behind them.

There are two possibilities here: Khurrum Awan is really that bad a lawyer, or he’s lying through his teeth. It’s hard to believe that, even with its affirmative action programs, Osgoode Hall Law School would admit someone so thick as to support the first possibility, or if they did, to graduate him. I believe the second possibility is more likely true: that, like his boss Mohamed Elmasry, Khurrum Awan will say anything and do anything to promote the cause of radical Islam and to undermine our Western freedoms. If that means lying to CTV and its viewers about the nature of a human rights commission, why, that’s just a little bit of taqiyya.

(Taquiyya, so the Reader knows it, is a practice in Islam wherein it is acceptable to lie to a non-Muslim if by doing so one is able to advance the cause or influence of Islam)

Levant also raises the possibility of whether the AHRC might become an election issue in Alberta (a contact who works at Hansard tells me that a writ may be dropped within another couple of weeks). One can only hope that this will be the case, although I share Levant’s reservations about the Stelmach government.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

(Make that: Mohamed “All Israeli civilians over the age of 18 are legitimate targets” Elmasry.)

It seems that Mr. Elmasry sought a meeting with Stephen Harper; Harper, being a sensible sort, is not returning his calls.

The leader of the Canadian Islamic Congress is complaining that the Harper government won’t give him the time of day. Good for the Harper government.

The Muslim community in Canada is a large and a diverse one, with many voices. Government leaders, however, are right to exercise judgment in deciding which of those voices to engage with. Just because a group claims to speak for “Muslims,” or has the word “Islamic” in its title, does not give it instant legitimacy.

This applies, incidentally, to any ethnocultural association. Anyone can make businesscards and letterhead, and present themselves as the official representatives of this or that demographic. Sometimes, though, these community “leaders” represent mainly themselves, and in fact might advocate for issues that, paradoxically, are against the interests of the people for whom they presume to speak.

<p.A few years ago, Mohamed Elmasry did Muslims no service when his comments on a television show were widely interpreted to sanction violence against all Jewish Israelis over the age of 18. The episode even drew the interest of police — some alleged that Mr. Elmasry’s remarks had crossed the line into incitement — but no charges were laid.

Mr. Elmasry apologized and said he had been misunderstood, but the whole affair damaged the Canadian Islamic Congress. Does Mr. Elmasry really expect that, today, Stephen Harper is going to have him over for dinner at 24 Sussex Drive, especially when there are so many other Muslim and Arab organizations in Canada that represent a more moderate and constructive perspective? Indeed, several Arab-Muslim groups, to their credit, were quick to distance themselves from Mr. Elmasry’s comments about Israelis.

Mohamed Elmasry is a clanging gong, to use the imagery from Corinthians — he’s essentially the voice of radical Islam within Canada, and an apologist for what amounts to genocide against the people of Israel. He (hopefully!) does not speak for the majority of the Islamic community in Canada, and is really nothing more than what is colloquially called a ’shit disturber’ whose only purpose seems to be to try and censor anybody who even makes the slightest peep about Islam and the excesses of some strains of that religion both in Canada and abroad.

It doesn’t help matters that his organization, the CIC, is the one spearheading the absurd human rights complaint against and Mark Steyn.

Harper owes this man nothing, especially not any sort of official recognition that might confer undue legitimacy onto Elmasry and his organization.