the hopes and dreams of simpletons…

So I’m looking out for coverage of last weekend’s Islamophobia conference at Masjid as-Salaam in Burnaby, and I find this wee summary. Not a bad, if loaded, summary, focussing mostly on why a guy like Greg Felton would’ve been there, which is a good question because he certainly wasn’t on any of the promotional material and didn’t really seem like he wanted to be there anyway, although I left before salaat so I didn’t hear him talk. So anyways, I’m peeking through the comments and all of a sudden I’m drowning in epic fail. Check it:

But does a self-professed peace activist like O’keefe understand how he is a “useful idiot” for murderers? Do they understand that a renewed Caliphate and the kind of economy and science it would support would have to entail first a mass die off and a return to some kind of medieval order? O’Keefe must have some inkling. But what about the 150 ordinary mosque members who just showed up for a talk on “Islamophobia”? Are these people, our neighbors, best considered an “enemy”?

This from a BC hack called truepeers. He goes on to say he’s not quite there yet to call me his enemy–for which I’m eternally grateful, because I’ve no idea what I’d do if he did.

And then, from an apparently unemployed schoolteacher named Dag:

I understand that it’s probably more difficult and even physically dangerous for Muslims to stand publicly against the likes of Elmasry, given the nature of Islam, given the nature of jihad, so I won’t claim all “moderate” Muslims should stand against him and his likes in public. But I do stand and cheer for those among our friends who will take the risk of physical violence or even death to do what can be done to stand up against jihad and Left dhimmi fascism. Maybe, if enough of us stand firm in public, some day Muslims will find the same courage. There is hope.

Brave, dim Dag–keep cheering, dear brother, for those people intrepid enough (apparently more intrepid than you) who suffer themselves unto the swarthy hordes to stand up to dangerous BadMen like Mohamed Elmasry. Fight on, keyboard soldiers, fight on!

islamophobia: what it is and how not to deal with it

So I went to a conference held at Masjid As-Salaam in Burnaby on Friday called Islamophobia: What It Is and How to Deal With It.  Speakers were Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Dereck O’Keefe of rabble.ca, and Khurram Awan, one of the legal team that took Macleans to the Canadian, Ontario, and BC Human Rights Commissions for Islamophobic publications.  And no big surprises.

One thing I did take out of it was a better understanding of why Br. Khurram did what he did.  I’m virtually convinced now that it was out of frustration–they couldn’t get Macleans to apologize or to admit wrongdoing, or to publish a rebuttal, so they took it to court.  I get it now.  But I agree with him even less now.

Look, I don’t want to come down too hard on my brothers.  I get where they’re coming from.  But if Macleans Magazine wants to degenerate itself into a reactionary Neocon bullet-point mag, let them, and let the market decide whether or not it wants to consume that kind of swill.  If the market is happy with that product, and–here’s the kicker–if the Muslim community and its friends can’t field a saleable alternative, the Government ain’t the solution.

I understand that the Canadian Islamic Congress doesn’t agree with that position, and they’ve got a lot of their political capital invested in a position precisely its opposite, so I don’t blame them for that.  But the way I see it, there are three potential social scenarios we’re facing here in Canada:

1. The people of Canada can’t stand us Muslims and are willing consumers of Macleans/CanWest neocon Islamophobia.
2. The people of Canada are relatively ambivalent about Muslims and consume Macleans/CanWest neocon Islamophobia because they don’t really care–but they don’t really buy it, either.
3. The people of Canada don’t really agree with Macleans/CanWest neocon Islamophobia and don’t really buy it, and what we’re really watching isn’t a series of potent strikes against Islam and Muslims, but rather the death-spasms of redundant media trying to shock-and-awe its way back into Canadian hearts and minds.

Whichever it is, litigation won’t help.  What will is ensuring Canadians at least have access to entertaining and informative commentary that offers a true (or at least truthy) picture of what Canadians’ Muslim neighbors believe and do.

on ezra levant, mark steyn, and the canadian hrc

Okay, I’ve had dozens of requests from people–media, advocacy groups, etc–looking to get a soundbite on the current tizzy about Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, and their current tussle with Canada’s Human Rights Commissions. Until now, I’ve been politely refusing comment, saying that the Muslim community as a whole probably has a mosaic of individual opinions on the subject and it’s unfair to ask lil ole me to speak to it. I’m starting to lose hope that that’s the case. So let me give out one Muslim’s opinion:

Ezra Levant is a mealy-mouthed jerk. Mark Steyn is an ill-educated clown who realised some time ago that genocidal musings about the sand people was a more profitable line of inquiry than reviews of musical theatre. And neither of them have done anything that should cause any government anywhere to interfere with their right to free speech. In simpler terms, being a jerk or a clown isn’t against the law, and nor should it be. They’re not yelling “Fire” in a crowded theatre–”Sandnigger” maybe, but there’s no crime in that.

I let this opinion slip in a private conversation. “But what about our rights?” was the predictable reply. What rights? The right not to be offended? We don’t have that. No, this person was thinking about our freedom of religion, which we do have. But I fail to see how insulting my spiritual sensitivities, which both Levant the turd and Steyn the clown have done, infringes on my right to practice my religion. It makes me angry that these two neocon shills are given licence from the conventional media to bring the stupid as prolifically as they do. But again, making me mad isn’t against the law.

Levant, that inconsolable boob, really pulls on our heart strings as he bitches about the process he’s undergoing in his latest column in the Globe and Mail. He’s asked about his intentions. And, curse the little bugger, he makes a powerful point: His intentions, his private emotions, thoughts and feelings, aren’t any business at all of the government. I firmly believe he’s full of crap when he tells the world he was only interested in fleshing out the news story when he made the decision to publish the insulting, demeaning cartoons from the Jyllands Posten in his now-defunct print magazine the Western Standard. He did it to insult the Muslim community, and to provoke a response, in which he was successful, in order to keep his magazine alive, in which he was an utter failure.

I don’t want my government investigating either Levant or Steyn, because I don’t want to live in a country where I can’t say what I want for fear of insulting or offending someone. I feel so strongly about it, I’m half-tempted to donate to Levant’s legal fund, and probably would if it were zakat-elligible. I hate the fact that Imam Sowahardy and the Canadian Islamic Congress have decided to make these two utter goofs into heroes of liberty.

What the CIC and Imam Sowahardy seem to oppose is exactly what I want, and exactly what I would argue the vast majority of Canadians want, which is an open marketplace of ideas. Put Steyn and Levant in that marketplace, and put reason, common sense, facts, and truth in opposition to them, and they’ll fail. Ask their customers, the thinking public, exactly why they should go to an obvious racist with a high-school education who used to write about show tunes for “informed comment” (and we’ll use that phrase loosely) on multiculturalism, and ask them to give that comment the credence it deserves, which is exactly none. Levant’s inconsequential little rag has gone bust, so the marketplace has already spoken to him. Fighting words with government bureacracy doesn’t work, and we don’t want it. I don’t think the Canadian Muslim community is prepared to live in a world in which it does anyway, and if it is, and that’s what it wants, I’ll fight it every step of the way, because I need an open marketplace of ideas.

And that’s what the spirit of freedom calls for–the freedom I, as a Canadian, cherish and want for myself. That freedom allows us to add our own input into the debate, and if we do, and are smart enough at it, these two media darlings, bastions of liberty, will sink. But if Canada tries to drown them in a pool of Kafka-esque bureaucracy, they’ll just bob, like turds, to the top.