A letter sent to the Globe and Mail and (surprisingly?) not published:
Michael Valpy (Young increasingly shunning religious institutions, Dec. 15) writes of an increasing lack of interest in formal religion on the part of Canadian youth. It is striking that, while he refers to “churches, synagogues and temples”, the words “mosques” and “Muslims” do not appear in the story.
Mark
Ottawa
Further to this post on Americans’ liberties,
TSA snakebitten
……
…
the conclusion of a column by George Will,
…Disproportion is the common denominator of almost all of life’s absurdities. Automobile safety is important. But attempting to maximize it would begin (but by no means end) with forbidding left turns.
Bureaucracies try to maximize their missions. They can’t help themselves. Adult supervision is required to stand athwart this tendency, yelling “Stop!”
Again, Buckley: “Every year, whether the Republican or the Democratic Party is in office, more and more power drains away from the individual to feed vast reservoirs in far-off places; and we have less and less say about the shape of events which shape our future.”
The average American has regular contact with the federal government at three points – the IRS, the post office and the TSA. Start with that fact if you are formulating a unified field theory to explain the public’s current political mood.
and of a post by Paul at Celestial Junk:
…Over on this side of the world we’d rather grope 5 year olds, cover cancer survivors in urine, humiliate flight attendants, and suspect the very pilots who are ultimately responsible for the passengers being groped than offend one single person who triggers a profile alarm.
Next thing you know, terrorists will be launching fake or poorly planned attacks just to get a kick out of how we submit ourselves to ever more monkey-brained security methods … if they haven’t already.
As for me, the TSA grope and porn-fest is just another example of how divorced from reality progressive elites are. They hold a world view, that no matter how illogical, must be adhered to. Pounding square pegs into round holes is, in the end, the only thing that progressives do well.
Beside Paul’s video links, I’ve also just seen some video on the networks of the groping; it really is de trop.
Mark
Ottawa
IRI warns against Canada travel
IRI’s [Islamic Republic of Iran] Foreign Ministry has warned Iranian nationals against traveling to Canada as the new wave of Islamophobia is sweeping across the North American country.The ministry issued a statement on Tuesday, cautioning Iranian citizens who plan to visit Canada to take precautionary steps.
The statement warns that the wave of Islamophobia in the Western countries has expanded its reach and is claiming new victims as a number of Muslims, especially Iranian nationals, have been deported under different pretexts, while Ottawa actively hinders Iranian nationals who want to seek justice through the Canadian courts, IRIB reported.
Many Muslims, particularly Iranians, are deprived of their social and political rights…
Via Brian Lilley at the Toronto Sun. Another headline, from 2007–have things really gone downhill here that fast for Iranians?
Iranians seek refuge in Canada
Predate: Michael Petrou, at his Maclean’s blog, also links to the original story.
Update: What our government says about travelling to Iran:
The ability of the Embassy of Canada in Tehran to provide consular assistance to Canadians who are arrested or detained is very limited. In some cases, Iranian authorities have not permitted the embassy to have consular access to detainees. Canadian travellers should therefore register with Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.
Dual Nationals
The Government of Iran does not recognize the Canadian citizenship of Canadian-Iranian dual nationals. As a result, Iran does not allow the Embassy of Canada in Tehran to provide consular assistance to an Iranian-Canadian in difficulty.
Numerous cases have been reported of a Canadian or dual-national woman being stranded in Iran or mistreated by her Iranian husband or a male member of her family. Women in difficulty should know that the Embassy of Canada in Tehran cannot intervene in family matters.
See Section 8 of this Travel Report for more information on dual nationality…
Mark
Ottawa
Remember this stems (other than the photo) from our government, not raging “Islamaphobes”:
Islamist groups seek ‘parallel society’ in Canada: report
A newly released intelligence report says hardline Islamist groups want to build a “parallel society” in Canada, which could undermine the country’s social cohesion and foster violence.The de-classified Intelligence Assessment obtained by the National Post says extremists have been encouraging Muslims in the West to reject Western society and to live in “self-imposed isolation.” The report focuses on groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which do not advocate terrorist violence but promote an ideology at odds with core Western values [their official sites in English here and here respectively, what do they say in Arabic?].
“Even if the use of violence is not outwardly expressed, the creation of isolated communities can spawn groups that are exclusivist and potentially open to messages in which violence is advocated,” it says. “At a minimum, the existence of such mini-societies undermines resilience and the fostering of a cohesive Canadian nation.”
The report was written by the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, which monitors threats to Canada’s national security and is composed of representatives of CSIS, the RCMP, Foreign Affairs, National Defence and other agencies.
It was circulated internally last year after Hizb-ut-Tahrir invited Muslims to a conference in Mississauga, Ont., to discuss the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. A copy of the document was recently released under the Access to Information Act…
An article, their “most read”, from Hizb ut-Tahrir; note the use of the “J” word instead of the “Z” one and draw your own inferences:
The Jewish war machine
Mark
Ottawa
Why, for pity’s sake, did the Mickster ever become a Canadian politician? From a review in the Times Literary Supplement of a book of Bruce Chatwin’s letters:
…Perhaps the single most wonderful letter in the volume is not by Chatwin at all, but by Michael Ignatieff. After visiting Chatwin near the end when his hypomania was at its peak, Ignatieff wrote a loving farewell note about a visit which left him, he said,
“full of dark and strange thoughts. You seemed in a realm of exultation – extreme physical dilapidation seems to have sent you shooting up into the sky with the angels . . . Over it all hung an unmistakable air of Nunc Dimittis . . . It is quite possible that you experience this apparent frenzy from inside some deep calm . . . But those who love you – and see only the outside – see someone haunted and in breathless pursuit. I’m not sure it is among the offices of friendship to convey my sense of foreboding and disquiet at how I saw you. I may just be expressing a friend’s regret at losing you to a great wave of conviction, to some gust of certainty, that leaves me here, rooted to the spot and you carried far away. In which case, I can only wave you onto your journey.”..
Today the Mickster we see appears little more than a sock-puppet spouting some puerile backroom boy’s sound bytes. A pity indeed. Have I seen a good mind of my generation effectively destroyed? And how can he stand the company he must now keep beats the Patagonia out of me.
More here about William Dalrymple, author of the review. This book of his, From the Holy Mountain describing the increasing decline of Christianity in much of the Levant, is superb. It is telling that Christians in Syria, under a secular Ba’athist regime, do best (more on Christianity and Islam in the Middle East here and here). Another book of his, The Last Mughal, about the final end of the great Muslim empire in India through the Mutiny, is also well worth the read.
How Christianity is faring elsewhere in the Middle East these days:
“Iraqi Forces Storm a Church With Hostages in a Day of Bloodshed”
Iraqi Christians living in fear as 11 bombs explode in Baghdad, killing five
…
In a statement the Islamic State of Iraq justified the massacre in the cathedral by claiming that the Coptic Church in Egypt was holding two women who have converted to Islam. It said: “The Ministry of War in the Islamic State of Iraq announces that all Christian institutions, organisations, centres, leaders and followers are legitimate targets for the Mujahedin [holy warriors] wherever they can find them.”..
One awaits the denunciations from imams in Canadian mosques, or from Canadian Muslim organizations. At least the Globe and Mail has now taken serious notice.
Post just grew.
Mark
Ottawa
England and Wales today:
Mohammed, the nation’s (secret) favourite name
According to the official version, Oliver is recognised today as the most common name for baby boys. But the official version is disguising the truth.In fact, in all its various spellings, Mohammed is now the favourite name for newborn boys in England and Wales.
Although Oliver has overtaken Jack after 14 years, when variations of the Islamic Prophet’s name were included it came top for the first time, given to 7,515 boys, compared with 7,364 Olivers.
Even without variant spellings, Mohammed was the most common boy’s name in the West Midlands and the fourth most popular in London. In the South West, however, it ranked 145th. It was 16th overall.
Its popularity was “symbolic of Britain’s diversity”, said Dr Justin Gest, an academic at Harvard and the London School of Economics, and author of Apart: Alienated and Engaged Muslims in the West…
Wonderful thing, that diversity:
Multikulti kaputt!
Mark
Ottawa
Excerpts from a very good piece by Reuel Marc Gerecht in the Washington Post, do read it all:
Juan Williams, the truthful dissident
Did journalist Juan Williams, who was fired Wednesday by NPR, show unacceptable insensitivity or unforgiveable stupidity when he expressed anxiety about Muslim airplane passengers during an interview with conservative TV host Bill O’Reilly? Free speech shouldn’t guarantee immunity from the standards of basic decency, but Williams’s comments were hardly a firing offense. We would all be better off — Muslim Americans first and foremost — if we could have a more open discussion about Islam, Islamic militancy and what Muslims, here and abroad, think it means to be Muslim…
Williams was wrong about the likelihood of a Muslim in traditional garb being a terrorist — Muslims who wear Western clothing and speak English with Marxist-Islamist vocabulary are vastly more likely to be suicide bombers in the West than a devout Muslim in an abaya or thobe or Pakistani shalwar qameez. But while his manner may have been clumsy, Williams was right to suggest that there is a troubling nexus between the modern Islamic identity and the embrace of terrorism as a holy act.
…Fundamentalists emphasize the inner spiritual jihad — an idea rooted in the Koran — as essential to combat moral turpitude. The distance between the inner spiritual jihad and the external violent one regrettably has been covered by many Muslims — far too many to call radical Islam a fringe movement. Violent militants have locked on to the age-old Islamic legal tenet dividing the world between the “House of Islam” and the “House of War,” where infidels rule, and often turned it into an offensive weapon — such as turning wives, sisters and daughters, whose honor men have lived to protect, into suicide bombers — that runs roughshod over other traditional Islamic teachings.
…So far, it’s unlikely that Muslim self-criticism — our ultimate salvation from Islamic holy warriors — has improved under Obama. Judging by the satellite channel Al-Jazeera, a vibrant hodgepodge of all things Arab, the opposite current, fed by Western self-doubt, appears to be gaining force. By being nice, we suggest that nothing within “Islam” — by which I mean the 1,400-year-old evolving marriage of faith, culture and politics — is terribly wrong. By being kind, we fail to provoke controversy among Muslims about why so many Muslims from so many lands have called suicide bombers against Western targets “martyrs” and not monsters. Worst of all, by being considerate we fail to echo the great Muslim dissidents, deeply religious men such as the Iranians Abdolkarim Soroush and Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, who see that something has gone very wrong within their country and their civilization. The president would do well to be more nuanced in his outreach to the Muslim world, giving more sustenance to those who see its systemic problems…
Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and author of the forthcoming book “The Wave: Man, God, and the Ballot Box in the Middle East.”
An earlier post on Mr Gerecht:
There may be much to criticize about Islam…
Meanwhile “Controversial Author Mark Steyn” (his full name, it would appear) is encountering PC and Muslim problems in our London:
And so it begins…
Gotta love some of those moderate Muslims.
Mark
Ottawa
…but is Sharia law in itself an existential threat? Excerpts from a piece by Reuel Marc Gerecht (via Terry Glavin, read this relevant post):
…I’ve spent a lot of time sitting with Shiite and Sunni clerics who were teaching Sharia and opining about daily life, and such schooling didn’t strike me then, and still doesn’t, as a good laboratory for terrorists, which is why, I suspect, so few terrorists have had any proper clerical training. A rigorous Islamic education may make you a killjoy, but it doesn’t make you a terrorist. If the empirical record tells us anything, it’s that a skimpy Islamic education combined with a mediocre—even a decent—Western education seems much more likely to produce an explosive mix.
…we shouldn’t see enemies where they are not. The Holy Law is, as it’s always been, what Muslims make of it. In the titanic struggle within Islam between those who fear modernity and those who embrace it, we would do well not to make the clergy our foes. They will go, as they always have done, where the majority of Muslims take them. Like Ayatollah Khomeini before him, bin Laden once thought that most Muslims would rise up to defend his cause. Both gentlemen were wrong. Westerners and most Muslims may not (yet) share with the same intensity and priority that many values, but we share enough to provide considerable hope that the “clash of civilizations” will end, as Grand Ayatollah Sistani no doubt wants it to, in a suspicious, at times tense, but peaceful and prosperous co-existence.
Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard.
Please check the three links immediately above before commenting. And there is still…
A very good question relating to some Muslims
Mark
Ottawa
A letter in the Toronto Star. Good on them for publishing it; one wonders if the Globe and Mail would have:
Double standard on Afghanistan
Re: Afghan governor among 20 killed in mosque blast, Oct. 9
A “massive bomb blast” in a “packed mosque” during Friday prayers in Taluqan, Afghanistan, kills 20 and wounds 35. It is just the latest in a long list of Taliban and Al Qaeda attacks against mosques and religious processions, many aimed specifically at minority Ahmadi or Shiite Muslims.
In court, the Times Square Bomber [see 3) here] calls himself a “soldier of God” who says he was “radicalized” by U.S. drone attacks — attacks seeking out the very people who bomb packed mosques. So, he is a soldier in service of those who would kill Muslims at prayer? Why will no one be radicalized by the mosque bombing in Taluqan [see second part of this post]?
A U.S. preacher threatens to burn a Qur’an and many in the Muslim world take to the streets in protest while Imams thunder about “Islamophobia” and we agonize about our “intolerance.” The preacher is easily shouted down and becomes a nobody again in no time. Everybody in the Muslim world goes back to sleep. Even a mosque bombing doesn’t wake them up.
However, if a U.S. drone had mistakenly hit that mosque in Taluqan, well, you can be sure there would be a swift reaction of outrage. At this stage is it even worth asking why the double standard [see this relevant post]?
Tony Volpe, Toronto
Via Moby Media Updates.
Mark
Ottawa
…now what about the Swedes?
1) Dutch go one way:
Coalition Deal Imminent
Wilders Signals Support for Minority Dutch GovernmentIslamophobe Geert Wilders is to provide his tacit support for a new government coalition in the Netherlands, according to media reports. The center-right Liberal Party is soon to announce a minority coalition with the conservative Christian Democrats. Wilders will not, however be part of the cabinet..
2) Swedes however seem on a different course:
Swedish PM plays down coalition with the Greens
“There is no common offer from the Alliance to create a new coalition with the Greens,” said Green Party co-chair Peter Eriksson.
…
The prime minister’s existing four-party coalition won most votes in September 19 general elections but fell two seats short of a majority of the 349 seats in parliament.Reinfeldt has vowed not to cooperate with the far-right, anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, who were voted into parliament for the first time, and has instead said he will seek support from the Greens to pass legislation…
Whilst the Ottawa Citizen talks some sense in an editorial:
Lessons from Sweden
…
It would be wrong, in other words, to say every single European who expresses concern about cultural identity and heritage is an incorrigible bigot. When Europeans talk about protecting their values, many of them are not talking about race but about civil liberties, women’s rights, the rule of law and democratic government.Obviously, those who do try to use “culture” as code for race or religion need to be outed as the xenophobes they are. But some of the concern about immigration stems from the legitimate fear that large numbers of unassimilated newcomers who don’t share western values — and who may even actively oppose them — can have a destabilizing effect on society.
Folke Johannson, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg, has argued that the Sweden Democrats’ breakthrough punishes mainstream parties for failing to address concerns about immigrants. “The same ideas and views (about immigration) exist in Sweden as elsewhere, but they have been silenced by a political establishment that made it taboo to talk about the issue [see, e.g., this post].”
Politicians in liberal democratic societies must always confront and resist those who try to introduce race-based politics. But they must also confront those who refuse to respect the cultural values of the country from which they so greatly benefit. To fail in these tasks is to foster conditions that allow intolerance to breed.
Swedes turn right, waking up?
Mark
Ottawa
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