timeimmortal

Ezra Levant was apparently invited to speak at a human rights caucus meeting at the U.S. Congress yesterday. That’s pretty cool, and certainly a much-deserved honour for one of the men who has been at the forefront of the human rights/freedom of expression debate in Canada, and who has himself been made to appear before one of the many HRCs that operate within this once-proud country.

In particular, it is interesting to read his interpretations of the words of the Second Secretary of the Embassy of Pakistan, one Asma Fatima by name, on the nature of the thrust by Islamic elements world-wide to see criminalized any form of “defamation of Islam”…which, as Mr. Levant goes on to explain, basically amounts to an effort to criminalize blasphemy against Islam.

But the single most revealing comment I heard all day about this matter was from a State Department lawyer on the panel (whose name I wish to confirm before publishing it.) She has done meticulous research on the Muslim campaign to ban criticism of Islam, and has helped develop the U.S. response to the idea in international legal forums.

She went deep into the issue: she looked at the Arabic word used by Muslim diplomats when describing the “defamation of Islam” that they sought to illegalize. She consulted scholars of Arabic who confirmed for her that the particular legal phrase had been coined very recently, especially for the international diplomatic campaign — and that, when discussed domestically, Muslim countries used the real Arabic words they mean: the traditional words for blasphemy.

So, I suppose, Fatima was following the old diplomat’s dictum after all. She was very honest about her goals — stopping people (especially other, moderate, Muslims) from criticizing Islam. But her dark art was to re-classify her censorship in the Western legal term of “defamation”, instead of the more honest classification of “blasphemy“.

If Muslim diplomats the world over were to lobby for international and Western laws against blasphemy, that would likely trigger a reaction — not just from those who believe in Christianity, Judaism, etc., but from atheists, too, who might not go quietly into a merger of mosque and state. But calling blasphemy by the word “defamation” (and making up a special new word to mislead the proposed law’s targets), makes sure that fewer alarm bells in the West will ring. It transforms an attempt to Islamicize our entire legal system into merely another lawsuit amongst countless others. That’s the diplomatic sleight-of-hand that Fatima was peddling.

Which is basically what most of us freespeechers have been observing all along: the thrust of e.g. the human rights complaints against Maclean’s, and against Mr. Levant, as well as silly contrivances such as the enterprising individual who claims to hold the copyright on any and all graphical depictions of the (false) prophet Muhammad, are all part of a larger scheme. And that scheme, methinks, is to work within the legal frameworks of Western nations — nations that in the past have resisted the spread of the Ummah — to make any and all criticism of Islam, or of the actions of Muslims, criminal.

…I know that a lot of the guys I worked with in restaurant kitchens would make a point of frying every last bit of this guy’s food in bacon grease.

A Pakistani man accused of killing his daughter five days after she filed for divorce to end her arranged marriage wept in court Tuesday, telling a Clayton County magistrate he is innocent.

“I have done nothing wrong,” Chaudhry Rashid told Chief Magistrate Daphne Walker through interpreter Younis Farhat. Farhat said Rashid speaks primarily Urdu and Punjabi.

But police say Rashid, 54, used a bungee cord to strangle Sandeela Kanwal, 25, early Sunday morning in the family’s Utah Drive home in Jonesboro.

Rashid, who is being held without bond, told the judge he wanted to observe his Muslim beliefs in the Clayton jail. He wants to follow a diet that forbids the consumption of pork in any form and requires other meats are prepared according to Islamic rules.

Sorry, Mr. Rashid, but you just brutally murdered your own daughter because she didn’t want to stay married to whatever man you sold her off to. About the last thing you get to do is dictate the menu that is served to you; indeed, what food you do receive is a courtesy.

Over in Pakistan, the friends and family of one of the London Tube bombers have gathered at his grave to celebrate his life and “martyrdom” (read: murder/suicide).

Remember what is happening here: people are gathering to cheer and celebrate the life of a man whose final act was to participate in a suicide-bombing attack that killed 52 people and wounded over 700. And they are gathering to celebrate that bodycount as well.

What’s perhaps even more shocking in all of this is that England sent the terrorist’s body home for a proper burial; whose bright idea was that?

Hugh Folk writes in with his thoughts on the events described in this article.

Read everything you can on the Fordson High School page, and see if you can deduce from what’s there that Fordson is 95% Arab of Muslim (some of the Arabs are Christian and some of the Muslims are something else. I have read nothing that the Muslims are trying to turn Fordson into a madrassah (religious school). As I read the press, the minister was approaching the Muslim wrestling team members and trying to convert them. He also claimed he was trying to convert everybody. Muslims don’t proseletize and don’t permit their children to apostocize. I doubt if apostates are murdered in Dearborn, but in Pakistan for sure. The coach may or may not have enabled the minister to approach the kids. He may or may not have refused to meet the Muslim parent’s demands. You are right in calling for the coach to sue.

Even if the teachers have tenure and a union to protect them against managerial abuse, as a annual employee who is nontenurable the only hope he has is to exhaust his remedies at the school board and file within 90 days a complaints with the Michigan and antidiscrimination agency and the EEOC. If they don’y sue, they will give him a right-to-sue letter and he can bring suit under CRA64 Title VII and Sec1981. It sounds like a clear cut case of religious discrimination. The principal and school have no defense. I don’t think he has a suit against the complaining parents, unless they lied or exagerated his supposed offence, in which case he colde sue for slander. There should be an ACLU or some right wing Christian legal defence org. He had better hope that that it doesn’t reach the Supreme Court. They believe employers can legally do just about anything they want.

By the way, to infer that anyone with an Arab name is a bigot is bigotry itself. How about “Barack Hussein Obama?”

Selah.

For the record, O Reader, I did note that “I’m not the least bit surprised that a school principal with a name like Imad Fadlallah is an anti-Christian bigot.” Is this bigotry in turn? Some might say so — suffice to say that I intend no bigotry with the remark; it was instead a weary exclamation brought on by yet another example of what appears, both on the surface and after further analysis, to be a more or less clear-cut case of Islamic anti-Christian bigotry.

That’s not to say that anyone is trying to turn Fordson “into a madrassah,” and at no time did I make such a claim. But I agree with Hugh, and he apparently with me, that this was a case of anti-Christian discrimination on the part of, at least, the faculty of the high school, and possibly some of the parents. Yes, the assistant coach did proselytize, but that is hardly something for which the head coach can be punished, until and unless it can be proven that he actively encourage the evangelism.

As to the comment about Muslims not engaging in evangelism, personal experience suggests that the truth is other than what is stated above by Hugh, although he is more or less correct about the fact that apostasy is not permissible. As to whether anyone in Dearborn has been murdered for apostasy, I cannot say, and wouldn’t care to. Then too, I wouldn’t be surprised if such a case came to light.

As to Barrack Hussein Obama, well, that is his real name, is it not? Yes, I use it on the site, in the same way that I always use Hillary Rodham Clinton’s full name. The reason for this has to do with the function of the Wordpress tagging system, not out of any particular desire to highlight a particular aspect of a person’s name. I could simply call him Barrack Obama, as has become the norm, but I don’t want to add more redundant tags to the already massive number of tags I have designated on the site here.

I still hope the coach sues.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

This is the question that bothers Peter Hitchens this week, and it’s a good one to reflect on given the recent confrontation with police had by Christian preachers Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, who were told by police officers that the area in which they were handing out literature was a Muslim community, that their evangelism was a “hate crime,” and that if they returned to the area ever again and were perchance beaten…well, they’d already been warned.

A police constable who was present during the incident in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham is also alleged to have told the preachers not to return to the district.

It comes amid growing concern over the development of Islamic ‘no-go areas’.

The preachers, Americans Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, are demanding an apology and compensation from West Midlands Police.

They say their treatment breaks the Human Rights Act, which guarantees freedom of religious expression.

The preachers, who have the backing of the Christian Institute pressure group, say they will take the force to court for breaching their human rights if they don’t receive an apology.

They have accused the officer, PCSO Naeem Naguthney, of behaving in an ‘aggressive and threatening’ manner. A complaint by their lawyers said he interrupted as they spoke to Muslim youths about their beliefs.

Mr Abraham, 65, who was born a Muslim in Egypt and is a convert to Christianity, said: ‘He told us we were trying to convert Muslims to Christianity and that that was a hate crime.

‘He was very intimidating and it concerns me that somebody holding his views can become a police officer, albeit at PCSO level.’

Mr Cunningham, 48, a fellow American Baptist missionary, said: ‘He realised we were Americans and then started ranting at us about George Bush and American foreign policy.

‘He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said he was going to take us to the police station.’

At any rate, Peter Hitchens — the sane Hitchens brother, mind — muses thusly:

Why did we have to wait for Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, born and raised in Muslim Pakistan, to remind us that, as he put it, ‘the beliefs, values and virtues of Great Britain have been formed by the Christian faith’?

Just as important, why did we have to wait for him to urge us to do something about restoring that faith before we either sink into a yelling chaos of knives, fists and boots, or swoon into the strong, implacable arms of Islam?

Most of our homegrown prelates are more interested in homosexuality or in spreading doubt about the gospel or urging the adoption of Sharia law.

Then again, why did it take the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to explain to us that our parliamentary system was the best guarantee of liberty in the world and to remind us of the courage and valour of our people in war?

This is not what British leaders say or even think, not least because they are busy pulling the constitution to pieces.

It is not what our children are taught in schools.

In fact, any expression of national pride is viewed with suspicion by the state, by the education system and above all by the BBC.

It was not always so. Half a century ago, we had churchmen, broadcasters, academics and military men who thought it normal to love their own country, normal to support the Christian faith which made us what we are, and were willing to defend it.

The question of what happened in the years between is one of the most interesting in history.

I suggest reading the whole thing — it isn’t terribly long, but is a good summation of just what has gone wrong with modern Britain.

There was a time when the British had the gumption and courage to stand up to all manner of menaces, internal and foreign alike, and when the British people took pride in their nation. Those days would seem to have expired, as Britain sinks more and more into two separate chasms: that of rampant, primitive and violent Islam in its immigrant communities, and that of demoralized, nihilistic secularism everywhere else. And the latter does not have the desire, strength, or courage to resist the advance of the former.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Lois writes in with regard to this article, which itself was a response to a Reader Mail denigrating my

I thought “Paki” was short form for Pakistani. Perhaps Ms. Gill is Canadian, not Pakistani. I am Ukrainian and I have been called a “Bohunk”. I don’t see it as a slur. Maybe you can see my point. Someone thought they could get a rise out of people by defacing a sign with what they thought was a racial slur. Well, they got what they wanted.

I am sure it won’t be the first time any one of the candidates gets a shot from the public in one way or another. Maybe if the defacer had splashed “woman” across the sign it wouldn’t have gotten so much attention. There was a day when woman were not recognized as persons. This is all era specific and we are in the midst of cultural changes.

Focus on the good and look forward.

“Paki” is considered a derogatory term, although it is usually considered somewhat more offensive than the term “Bohunk.” People also tend to be more reserved about using the term “Paki” than they are about using the term “Bohunk.” Maybe that’s because us Bohunks have white skin? Yes, that last sentence was a bit glib of me.

I do think that Lois makes a good point, though, when she notes that she doesn’t personally consider the term “Bohunk” to be an offensive slur. And that’s the key here — words only have power to offend us if we let them. That would be an interesting lesson for the folks at the HRC, and for the various people who file complaints there. Something someone said offends you, eh? Pity that…don’t be offended next time. If you think about it, O Reader, completely disarming a person of their ability to offend you — no matter what they say — is several times more significant a victory than any dollar amount demanded, or any apology forcibly extracted, by an HRC ruling.

I think that the racist slur painted on Aman Gill’s election sign was just what Lois suggests — something to get a rise out of people. And I too think it succeeded…because people decided to get offended by it. This is a pretty elementary principle — if people want to get a rise out of other people, and if the other people oblige them by regarding a particular piece of vandalism as risible, then the cycle will continue. And no amount of policing will correct that — in fact, if all of Edmonton rose up in protestation of Racism, it would only embolden the vandals to continue painting their detestable slogans on walls and election signs; that very reaction is what they are looking for by doing what they do.

If we want to stamp out racism, we have one option as a city and as a people: don’t let it get to us. Get thicker skins, and refuse — utterly, completely refuse — to be offended by anything that is designed to deliberately offend us. We need not be a nation of weaklings; we could be a nation of devout men and women, a strong and proud people.

This is a damn hopeful sign:

Peshawar, Pakistan - Fed up with violence and broken promises, voters in Pakistan’s conservative northwest have thrown out the Islamist parties that ruled the province for five years - a sign that Pakistanis rejected religious extremism in a region where al-Qaeda and the Taliban have sought refuge.

Instead, voters in North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, gave their support in Monday’s national election to secular parties that promised to pave the streets, create jobs and bring peace to the turbulent province through dialogue and economic incentives to the extremists.

“They didn’t do anything for the people,” Bokhari Shah, 65, said of the religious parties. “They have done nothing to help the people, and we are afraid to even come out from our homes because of all these bomb blasts.”

…

Vast areas of the northwest were transformed into a war zone, where more than 80,000 Pakistani soldiers sought to crush a burgeoning Islamic insurgency. U.S. officials say al-Qaida has regrouped in the lawless area and extended its reach into the rest of the province and beyond.

Much of the trouble occurred in the autonomous tribal areas, which are administered from Islamabad rather than by the provincial government.

But the religious parties headquartered elsewhere in the northwest wield considerable influence in the tribal region, in part through funding religious schools linked to extremist groups.

Powerless to stop the militants, local police stood by as tribal leaders opposed to the Taliban were assassinated and owners of video and music stores received threats to close their businesses or face death.

“They made false promises. They said they would give us education, food and jobs, but they didn’t give us anything. They were all lies,” said retired soldier Mohammed Akram Shah. “I am from a village of more than 30 homes and we don’t have any electricity even after five years.”

On election day, voters showed they had had enough.

Pakistan was shaping up to be a major flashpoint in the global war against terrorism. Weakened by assassinations and the mistakes of its rulers, it became a place where Islamist parties and jihadists had almost free reign, where bombings, honour killings, and Taliban-strict sharia were becoming the norm. It looked very much like Pakistan might well and truly be headed for the dubious and dangerous distinction of being the first truly nuclear-armed Islamist state, especially in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

And to be fair, Pakistan is not out of the woods yet. The Islamists will not take kindly to this defeat, and there will likely be many more acts of terrible violence perpetrated against the people and politicians of northern Pakistan. But it is still a step — a major step — in the right direction, and deserves nothing less than the full and enthusiastic support of Western nations and the people thereof.

Apparently, the glorious religion of Islam allows for marriages to be conducted via telephone. That’s right, folks — a guy in Toronto can get married to a girl in Pakistan in a five minute long-distance call, and after the exchange of a dowry (it’s easier than ever to send money over the Internet!) the marriage is legal — at least according to Islamic law.

Long-distance telephone marriages can be dialled up under Sharia law and then used to sponsor loved ones into Canada, Muslim leaders say.

Two Muslim leaders have told the telephone marriages are permissible under Islamic law and require two witnesses and imams here and abroad to conduct the vows, which may have the bride in Pakistan and the groom in Toronto.

Once completed, a marriage certificate is obtained abroad legitimately in Muslim countries and can be used by the groom for sponsoring his new wife to Canada, one Mississauga imam said.

Mumtaz Ali, of the Canadian Association of Muslims, said he conducted a telephone marriage between a student in Toronto and his about-to-be wife in India.

“He was a university student and couldn’t leave,” Ali said. “It is a civil contract and the vows were conducted over the phone.”

A marriage certificate was obtained and the student was able to sponsor his wife to Canada, he said.

The vow takes less than five minutes and a dowry is exchanged to seal the ceremony, Ali said.

‘NOT WIDESPREAD’

“These telephone marriages are taking place but are not widespread,” said the former lawyer for the Ontario attorney-general’s office. “The parties must know each other and have developed a relationship. Most of the times the couple have been introduced by family members,” Ali said. “In many cases one person may not be able to leave the country.”

Imam Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, of Ja’ffari Islamic Centre, in Toronto, said: “These marriages are perfectly acceptable under sharia law … the marriage certificate is taken to the Canadian embassy where it is recognized.”

Well, that’s nice, Mr. Rizvi. But sharia is not the law in Canada, and there is no reason why these “telephone marriages” should be viewed as legal in Canada, even if they are perfectly legal in other countries or barbaric legal systems that hail from the 7th century.

Perhaps I’m just being old-fashioned, but I’m of the opinion that if you can’t either be man enough to get married whilst in the same room as your wife-to-be, you shouldn’t get married. If, for whatever reason, you can’t afford to fly out to where your wife-to-be is situated so as to be wed to her, then you shouldn’t go ahead with it. I mean, if you don’t even have the money to fly to…India or Pakistan or wherever…then how the heck can you afford to support your wife and family in the first place?

Oh, right…claim additional welfare benefits, I forgot. This is blatant parasitism — nothing more. And Canada shouldn’t allow it. Oh, that’s not to say that Canada has any ability to dictate what sharia law does and does not stipulate (pity — we could at least overhaul the inability of Muslim law to differentiate between hair and breasts*), but Canada does have every right to dictate whether or not it accepts as valid the stipulations of sharia law. I think the proper response to these telephone marriages is a simple one as well: “you can live with your new wife, sir, in the country which the marriage certificate was issued in. Or you can live in Canada and spare us the farce.”

Still, there’s one advantage men who get married this way have: they can get divorced by text message if they get bored with the phone wife. I wonder…does sharia permit a Muslim man to marry his limit of four wives all by phone? Or does he only get one?

(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: FreeMarkSteyn)

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

* I bet that gets really confusing when it comes time to feed babies…

Yup, must be Friday.

The Sunday Times points to medical research which finds that although British of Pakistani origins account for 3% of total births in Britain, they nonetheless account for one in three children born in Britain who suffer a genetic illness.

The Telegraph states that more than 55% of British Pakistanis are married to their first cousins. With the high incidence of shared recessive genes leading to birth defects and congenital illness, the only explanation for the rise of such conditions is through inbreeding, much of which has gone on for generations.

It is estimated that the chance of an unrelated couple having the same variant gene that causes such disorders is 1 in 100. Within first cousin marriages, these rise to one in eight. It stands to reason that if the parents of the couple themselves belong to a line of individuals who “traditionally” engage in cousin marriage, the odds of having a birth with recessive disorders would increase further still.

Bradford is said to have 75% of its Pakistani-origin marriages being between first cousins. The Telegraph mentions that Indian doctors last year published a study in Neurology Asia, which found that there was a “significantly higher rate” of epilepsy amongst the offspring of blood relatives. The study, entitled “Arranged marriage, Consanguinity and Epilepsy” by M. M. Mehndiratta, B. Paul and P. Mehndiratta, can be downloaded as a pdf document here.

arranged marriage, as I have repeatedly stressed, is closely connected to issues of forced marriage and honor violence. If Muslims who come to this country do not abandon this anti-libertarian custom for the sake of their future offspring, then perhaps it is time to outlaw arranged marriage or make it more difficult to achieve. There are plans by the government to make forced marriage easier to confront, though whether these will be successful will remain to be seen.

One one hand, we have the multiculturalist sentiment which teaches that all cultures are equal. On the other hand, we have sane people who can look at the idea of an arranged marriage to one’s cousin and say “that’s nuts, that is.”

In the past, such people would have been recognized as sane. Now we get branded as racists. Funnily, the problems we’d have had in mind when we denounced the practice didn’t go away simply because social pieties shifted.

Pace Chesterton, fallacies do indeed not cease to be fallacies, even when they become very long-lasting fads indeed.

Interesting observations:

Health promoter Pallavi Kashyap echoes this observation. The Kashyaps migrated from India to Canada 18 years ago and have a teenaged daughter. “We have to accept that our children, who are either born or raised here, will be influenced by the society they are living in. The key is to be totally clued into what is happening in their lives. We have to know them, their friends, what their interests are and talk to them about everything under the sun. It has to be an open relationship,” she says.

While there is a consensus on the need for open communication, there is no formula on how to bridge the gap between the culture that parents have grown up in and the one in which they are raising their children. “The main problem,” says Anumita Sharma, 18, who studies at York University, “is that our parents continue to live mentally in the country of their origin, whether it is India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh. They expect us to behave and dress like our cousins back home. But they do not understand that things have changed there, too, and our cousins are not as traditional as our parents think.”

She also highlights the contradiction that marks the behaviour of many first-generation immigrants. Most want their children to excel in academics and integrate/assimilate into the society but are not willing to accept the western influences.

ANGER AND DISAPPOINTMENT

Ashima Kaul, 22, recalls the anger and disappointment she felt at being unable to attend birthday parties or go for sleepovers. She fumes at the preferential treatment accorded to boys over girls, citing various examples of gender-based division of labour at home and also a stricter conduct code for girls.

“I think our parents carry their fears from back home and that is what dictates their behaviour, especially towards girls,” says Ashima.

Example:

The task of balancing the East and West is understandably an onerous one. Krishnan Swaminathan, IT professional and a father of two girls, says his challenge is to ensure that “our (Indian) culture is retained at least to some extent without conflicting with our life here”.

His comment is representative of many first-generation immigrants: “As an Indian living in Canada, I still have my values and need to fulfil my duty and bring up my daughters, get them married to an Indian boy within our culture. I don’t want my daughters to deviate and go out of our culture.” He wants his daughters to integrate well into the Canadian society and “behave like them” when they are in Canadian spaces - but within “Indian cultural limits”. He believes that is possible because the country offers an opportunity for people to occupy different spaces.

“It all boils down to what kind of person you are and I believe that children can be moulded. But communication channels have to be open. Even if it is something against my own beliefs I should be willing to listen and reason with them.” This position may be fraught with contradictions but is the predominant one.

Unfortunately, this is one of those “you can’t have it both ways” situations. Either the daughters of parents of Arab and Indian immigrants will not deviate from the culture of their parents’ homeland, or they will integrate well into Canadian society. Oh, I’ll grant that there is plenty of room for crossover…but there are also plenty of mutually exclusive ideals that exist in one, and not in the other, as well. The issue of whom to marry is a particularly good one — above, Mr. Swaminathan is quite open about the fact that he insists that his daughters not marry outside their culture, that they settle down with “an Indian boy.” You can’t impress that belief upon someone and still expect them to “behave like” Canadians, because that’s just not how Canadians look at the issue of marriage.

(It’s probably true that a majority of people marry someone who is culturally and racially similar to them, but as a general rule the “Canadian way” is that you marry the person you fall in love with and feel called to be wedded to, regardless of what country they or their parents came from, and regardless of what particular shade their skin might have.)

The issue of how to dress is similar, with approximately the same considerations and ramifications. But the really important consideration in all of this is what happens when, in keeping with the values of Canadian society, a child — especially a daughter — decides to “go Canuck” and start dressing in jeans and t-shirts (and not in dresses and hijab), exercising her free right to attire herself. What is the reaction of the parents then? If the parents are still living “mentally in the country of their origin,” to what extent will they object when one of their kids does just that? To what extent will they respect Canadian values? To what extent will they attempt to impose the values of the “old country?” Will violence or murder be the result of that? Which culture takes precedence — the one left behind, or the one now all around? If the former, why was that culture left behind in the first place?

We should be asking these sorts of pointed questions of potential immigrants.

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

David Warren provides a quick, three-paragraph summation of the challenges that the Western world is facing today. In what can’t really be called a surprise (except perhaps by a progressive mind to crippled by multicultural pieties), Islam takes the lead role:

We (the U.S. and allies) are winning in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and losing everywhere else. The Syrians are now murdering independent Lebanese politicians with impunity. The pressure on Iran has been relieved. Pakistan is teetering towards a civil and military collapse from which only the Islamists can gain. Islamist demands for the imposition of Shariah, and for the legal persecution of religious minorities, have entered the mainstream of political life in countries that were once free of religious zealotry — Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia. Islamist terrorists are winning effective control over the remoter Muslim-settled regions in many countries of Asia and Africa, creating streams of Christian refugees from the southern Philippines, of Buddhist refugees from southern Thailand, of Christians and Animists fleeing south across the breadth of Africa.

Saudi-sponsored Wahabi Islam is consolidating its hold over the mosques of the West, and radicalizing the huge Muslim immigrant communities that have congregated in almost every major European city. Across Europe, and increasingly in North America (and as we’ve seen in Canada in the obscene “human rights” trials of Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant), the most radical Muslims are exploiting state multiculturalism, to score victories over free speech and win pathetic apologies from anyone accused of the thought crime of “Islamophobia.”

Islam is a broad and ancient religion — we are not discussing that, today. We are discussing instead the contemporary reality. For internationally, Islam has been morphing into a violent and puritanical cult. Yet this very large and very hard fact is being rendered undiscussable, in historical or any other terms.

And a quick note on the current state of affairs in Egypt, a concept which is broadly applicable to the whole of the Muslim world at present:

In Egypt as elsewhere, to say that “the great majority of Muslims are peaceful, unaggressive people, just trying to get on with their lives” is to utter something deeply fatuous. The great majority of Germans were likewise, in the 1930s.

As Kathy Shaidle is fond of pointing out, Paul Revere was not credited with shouting “Some of the British are coming!” And that is because he did not need to, nor did the Minutemen need to be alerted to the impending onslaught with a wordy explanation that the Redcoats about to descend upon them were not representative of the wider majority of British folk world-wide. Likewise, in World War II, we didn’t go to war against some of the Germans, or some of the Japanese.

The common thread between those two examples, which is unfortunately missing from many peoples’ analysis of the current situation of the West vs. the Islamic world, is the concept of war. Whether a war for independence, or a globe-spanning war against fascism, it’s easier to look at the historical examples above and note that while it may be true that while our forebears weren’t so careful as to classify the enemy beyond using broad cultural categories, that is explicable because of the urgency of the conflict taking place at the time. The extension of such an argument, then, is that we in the West today are not currently embroiled in a war with Islam.

Which is true, in a sense…that is, in the sense that no war has formally been declared by means of the normal diplomatic channels. But in a more important sense — objective reality — the war is already on, and has been for some time. If, under Sharia, the average Muslim (even though s/he might otherwise be a decent sort, and quite personable), regards the world as divided into two realms — that of Islam and that of harb (War) — then whether or not any Islamic nation or group has formally issued a declaration of war is irrelevant. If in fact it is the religious obligation of Muslims everywhere to “fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection,” (Sura 9:29), then whether or not any war has been formally declared is irrelevant. Under Sharia, it is the religious duty of every Muslim to strive to bring about the day when Islam rules over all other faiths and demands their submission.

And even the rather typical sidestep that some will attempt to do in regard to the opening like of the passage above — that is, make the argument that the Muslim Allah and the Judeo-Christian God are the same being, so the above passage does not apply to other monotheistic religions — is, at best, a half truth. Even if it were completely true, and even if Christians and Jews get a pass (and if one believes the rhetoric coming out of the two major players on the global Islamic scene, Iran and Saudi Arabia, there is no way that Jews will get a pass), that still wouldn’t bode well for many people in Western society, and so is still an idea which cannot be tolerated.

But here’s the thing: the Muslim Allah and the Judeo-Christian God are, theologically, not the same being. Oh, I’m willing to grant that in the final summation, they may well be the same, but unfortunately that is beyond the scope of human knowledge. And if one looks at the revelation that has come to Christianity (which inherits directly from Judaism), and if one then looks at the teachings that purportedly came to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, there is no way to reconcile the Judeo-Christian conception of who and what God is with the Islamic one.

So even Jews and Christians aren’t exempt from Sura 9:29, if in fact they, and Muslims, stick to their theological traditions and exegesis.

War may not have been declared, but there is a war going on, pitting the ideals of the West — which, unfortunately, few enough people in the West have the necessary courage to defend — against those of the jihad. Already, this war has claimed many lives. But mere exchanges of casualties are but a small part of any war. Territory is what matters. And, as has been pointed out on this blog and elsewhere, in many parts of the West, the West is losing ground to radicalized forms of Islam, especially in Europe. That trend may already be irreversible, as well as the trends being seen in places like Pakistan, which even now teeters on the brink of falling into Islamist hands. When nuclear-armed nations like Pakistan fall into the hands of the jihad, and when nations like France begin to adopt an ever more Islamic character — and then of a decidedly Islamist bent — what will that do for the safety and security of the rest of the Western world?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Tarek Fatah points to a troubling new trend:

It seems only yesterday that Premier Dalton McGuinty declared: “There will be no Sharia law in Ontario.” Many of us, who witnessed the medieval nature of manmade sharia laws in our countries of birth, heaved a sigh of relief back in September of 2005. We thought this was the end of the attempt by Islamists to sneak sharia into a Western jurisdiction. We were wrong.

The campaign to introduce sharia is back. Last time, the campaign took a populist approach, invoking multiculturalism. This time, the pro-sharia lobby is dangling the carrot of new niche markets and has the backing of Canada’s major banks. Such icons of the corporate world as Citibank NA, HSBC Holdings PLC, and Barclays PLC have endorsed sharia banking and have started offering Islamic financing products to a vulnerable Muslim population.

…

The origin of Islamic banking has its roots in the 1920s, but did not start until the late 1970s and owes much of its foundation to the Islamist doctrine of two people — Abul Ala Maudoodi of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and Hassan al-Banna of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The theory was put into practice by Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul-Haq who established sharia banking law in Pakistan.

Proponents of sharia banking rest their case on many verses of the Holy Koran that outlaw usury, not interest.

Verses that address the question of loans and debts include:

Al Baqarah (2:275): God hath permitted trade and forbidden usury;

Al Baqarah (2:276): Allah does not bless usury, and He causes charitable deeds to prosper, and Allah does not love any ungrateful sinner.

Every English-language translation of the Koran has translated the Arabic word riba as usury, not interest. Yet, Islamists have deliberately portrayed bank interest as usury and labelled the current banking system as un-Islamic. Instead, these Islamists have created exotic products with names that are foreign to much of the world’s Muslim population. This is where they mask interest under the niqab of Mudraba, Musharaka, Murabaha, and Ijara.

…

In the name of Islam, deception and dishonesty is being practised while ordinary Muslims are being made to feel that their interaction with mainstream banks is un-Islamic and sinful. As Mr. Saleem asks, “If Islamic banks label their hamburger a Mecca Burger, as long as it still has the same ingredients as a McDonald’s burger, is it really any different in substance?”

Sharia is a barbaric system, a fusion of Islamic religion with political ideals. It is backward and openly misogynistic (a couple of examples that I find particularly odious are (a) how males, under sharia, are free to marry any woman from one of the three major monotheistic religions…but women are permitted to marry only another Muslim, and (b) divorce is a man’s unilateral right, but women must seek their husband’s permission to obtain one). It’s also just plain silly at times. And all of this doesn’t even begin to bring into focus the punishments Sharia prescribes for adulterers (stoning to death) or thieves (forcible removal of the hand). And did I mention the part where wife-beating is permissible under certain circumstances, and subject to certain criteria?

Put more plainly: Sharia and Western principles are wholly incompatible. No person has any business demanding that Sharia become the law of this land, or of any Western nation; any person who desires to live under Sharia is welcome to move/return to the Middle East and any of the nations there which are governed by this ugly system of laws. Yes, I am aware that most such countries are unliveable hellholes. Yes, I do think there’s a connection. No, I don’t think that means what I’m suggesting is unfair.

This will not be the last attempt to sneak principles of Sharia law in the back door of Canada’s legal system, and (as was the case with Sharia courts in Ontario a couple of years ago) must be opposed in no uncertain terms. Put simply, there is no place in Canada for the sort of near-barbarism that Sharia law represents, and it must be openly and plainly communicated that not only do Canadians regard as odious the deceptive and falsehood-laden tactics of Sharia propnents in the case of these banks, but that Canadians regard as odious the very tenets and principles which these would-be bankers claim to be driven by.

Because no sane Canadian should ever desire to see Sharia gain any foothold here.

(Unrelatedly, though, I’ll try not to feel too much of a swell of pride that a phrase which I may have coined is being used in the title of a column in a national newspaper (even if it is just the Globe & Mail).)

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

That’s why you go to an HRC: because your case is not good enough to stand up in a legitimate court of law. And because you don’t want to invest your own time and money, but would rather the taxpayer provide officers to do the paperwork, and pick up the tab. Instead, you want a slam-dunk way in which you can victimize someone you don’t like, by playing the victim yourself, without any financial or legal consequences, except to him. �human rights� commissions were designed to provide just this service, for the use of persons who are both litigious, and lazy.

Since Imam Soharwardy’s training is in Shariah — in and in Pakistani madrassahs — he perhaps needs advice on getting protection from a Canadian court against his own HRC problems. For women from his mosque — the Al-Madinah Calgary Islamic Assembly — have brought an HRC complaint against him. They allege that he discriminates against women, to the point of uttering abusive language, ignoring their questions, making them sit at the back of the hall, threatening them physically and verbally, pushing them out on the streets, and finally, pursuing them with obscene and threatening letters and phone calls.

Poor Imam Soharwardy. He should argue, that if any of these complaints were substantial, the women could have gathered evidence and made formal criminal charges. Harassing women is a serious charge, in this country, and physically abusing any human being is against existing laws that have been on the books since time out of mind. He should himself allege, that these women in his mosque chose an HRC because they weren’t very sure of their case. The imam should seek an injunction against the women for harassing HIM. Unless, of course, he’s not very sure what might emerge in that court, in the course of his own action.

He misses mention of another action Imam Sohawardy took toward Ezra Levant, after a public debate between the two men. Levant won the debate, defending his publication of the Muhammad cartoons, and Sohawardy went to the police to demand Levant’s arrest (apparently unaware that over here, unlike in Saudi Arabia, the police don’t arrest folks what “offends” Islam — not yet, at least) — there are no Canadian muttawa.

But his basic point is sound: cases heard by the HRC are those which, on their own merits, have no hope of standing up in a court of law. Nor should they, because the law does not (should not) mete out punishments on those who have transgressed against only the feelings of another — it is not a crime to make someone feel upset or offended.

The second point made is also sound: the HRC can, does, and will turn against everyone in due time. Syed Sohawardy made use of the HRC to level his complaint against Ezra Levant, and is in turn being hauled before it by female members of his mosque. He used it, and it has turned on him now. This is an Orwellian farce we can expect to see played out again and again until such time as human rights commissions are just a bad memory in a distant history. Until such time, pace Mark Steyn, the tiger will eat not only those on whom it is unleashed, but those who unleash it as well.

Relatedly:

For suggesting that NATO forces should intervene in Pakistan, the leader of Canada’s is taking a lot of flak. Rightly so, given that his statements were not only hypocritical (given his advocacy for a Canadian military withdrawal from Afghanistan), but also highly offensive (from a diplomatic standpoint).

“He has managed to, in one breath, demonstrate his complete ignorance and poor judgment about the most important foreign policy issue for Canada, while at the same time insulting a critical ally in the war on terror,” said Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity.

Mamoona Amjed, press attache to the Pakistan High Commission in Ottawa, also issued a sharply worded statement, saying Dion’s comments show a lack of understanding of on-the-ground realities, and insisted no foreign troops would be allowed to operate in the country under any circumstances.

It also said Pakistan is an equal partner in the fight against terrorism and is doing all it can to counter insurgent activity on its soil. “The price paid by Pakistan being a frontline state cannot be undermined by certain irrational comments,” it concluded.

Dion said he was “very, very surprised” by the way his comments were reported.

He insisted that all he was saying is that NATO countries should apply diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to have its military deal more forcefully with Afghan insurgents who take advantage of the porous border between the two countries to evade NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, if Stephane Dion does not know the difference between “NATO forces” (his words, not mine) and a diplomatic mission, he’s even less qualified to be a leader than he has ever seemed to be.

NATO is a military alliance, not a diplomatic entity. That’s basic knowledge for a Social Studies student in high school. It should be basic knowledge for any man (or woman!) who wants to become Prime Minister of Canada, as well as for any man or woman who leads a national-level political party in Canada. When someone talks of sending “NATO forces” into a region, he or she is not talking about diplomatic envoys; he or she is talking about troops and tanks, airplanes and (if applicable) warships.

It speaks, I think, volumes about just how unfit for his leadership role Stephane Dion truly is that he made these comments in the first place, and that he is now attempting to backpedal by hiding behind the lie that he was talking about diplomacy. Does he suppose we’re all gullible morons? Or does he genuinely have such a poor understanding of international politics and treaties that he doesn’t know what NATO is?