No Critical Examinations Allowed

[Adam's Apple]

Stand By Steyn
by Robert Spencer, Human Events
12/19/2007

The Canadian Human Rights Commission and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal have begun proceedings against Mark Steyn, author of America Alone. They are responding to complaints from the Canadian Islamic Congress about an excerpt from the book that was published in the Canadian journal Maclean’s. “The article,” the CIC claims, “subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt,” and was “flagrantly Islamophobic.”

for full article:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24033

 

[RetiredGySgt]

There is no freedom of speech in Canada or Britain for that matter. A while back a guy was put on trial in Britain for the horrendous misdeed of quoting passages from the Islamic Koran. He was charged with a hate crime as I recall. Notice though that No Muslim is cited for the same when citing those passages in their scriptures, in Britain.

This is waht you get when you create "thought" crimes and claim written words or thoughts are so offensive they can be actionable in court. What next? Book Burnings?

 

[Said1]

Utter nonesense. Mcleans isn't a jouranl. It's akin to People magazine.

 

[Adam's Apple]

What is nonsense? There has not been a lawsuit filed in Canada against Mark Steyn due to an excerpt from his book published in Macleans that the Canadian Islamic Congress found highly Islamophobic?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

What is nonsense? There has not been a lawsuit filed in Canada against Mark Steyn due to an excerpt from his book published in Macleans that the Canadian Islamic Congress found highly Islamophobic?

The magazine is NOT a Journal, is the argument presented, meaning claiming it is in the lawsuit is ignorant. Probably necassary for the law in question to apply.

 

[Psychoblues]

Any critical examination of your situation, rsg, and you'd probably have to go to work and actually earn a living.

 

[Foxfyre]

This is reminiscent of the Salmon Rushdie incident almost two decades ago, and we should be reminded of the outrage against the Danish cartoonist accused of insulting Mohammed. We can continue to cower under the wrath of militant Islam and allow it more and more power in the name of some fuzzy concept of political correctness, or we can choose to expect everybody to be reasonable and play by the same rules.

This piece has some age on it, but it sums up the situation pretty well I think:

Rushdie remains critic of fundamentalist Islam
Cyril Belaud | London, United Kingdom
16 October 2006 11:08

More than 17 years after Iran's late spiritual leader Ruhollah Khomeini launched a fatwa against him, British writer Salman Rushdie remains firm in his criticism of fundamentalist sects of Islam, fearing they will make the West surrender its values.

"We're all living under a fatwa now," the 60-year-old author, who is of Indian origin, declared last week in a long, open interview with the British daily the Independent.

"You can see the fatwa as the overture to 9/11 [the September 11 2001 attacks in the United States]," he said.

"It's not a direct line. Maybe you could say it was not the same piece of music. But in some way it was a harbinger -- a small thing before a big thing. The first crow, you know, flying across the sky."

On February 14 1989, Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, condemned Rushdie to death following the publication of his book The Satanic Verses, judged to be blasphemous. In 1998, the Iranian government committed to not applying the fatwa, but various groups regularly affirm their intention to honour it.

"I've tried, quite hard, as an act of will, to put it behind me, because I don't want to carry that weight around," he said of the religious decree, which made him aware of his own "worthlessness", and for a long time led him to live a reclusive lifestyle in constant fear.

"The warring halves of the world -- East and West -- were also the warring halves of my soul," said Rushdie, who was born to a wealthy Muslim family and educated in England.

Rushdie, who rejected Islam as a youth, but whose grandfather, a fervent believer, remains "the model of tolerance", does not hesitate to denounce religious fanaticism.

The radicalisation of Islam worries him. This week, he entered without hesitation the debate raging in Britain over the point of the veil, declaring that "veils suck". For him, the veil "is a way of taking power away from women".

In his interview, he said he feared that "the good guys are losing the battle within Islam. There's no question. The Islam that now exists is not the Islam that I grew up with."

He despairs that too many reasonable people decline to see the true nature of Islamic fundamentalists and instead consider terrorism as the just reward for the evils caused by the West.

"It's one thing to criticise the way in which the American government is behaving, or the British government, and I have a lot of criticisms of that -- in fact, nothing but criticisms," he said.

"But it's another thing to fail to see that an enemy actually exists and is extremely serious about what he wishes to do."

A solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will not bring about a change to the ambitions, he said.

"It's not what they want. What they want is to change the nature of human life on earth into the image of the Taliban ... They do not represent the quest for human justice. That, I think, is one of the great mistakes of the left."

He said he was scared on September 11 2001, while thinking: "It's a shame that 3 000 people had to die for something pretty obvious to get through people's heads."

The US is not the saviour in the face of Islamic fundamentalism, in Rushdie's view, because he has "never seen great power as having a moral dimension".

He fears that the West will, in 25 years, regret its "surrender", because "in the name of tolerance and acceptance, we tied our own hands and slit our own throats": referring, for example, to the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper that ignited the fury in the Muslim world after they were published a year ago.

"When people ask me how the West should adapt to Muslim sensitivities, I always say -- the question is the wrong way round," he said.

"The West should go on being itself. There is nothing wrong with the things that for hundreds of years have been acceptable -- satire, irreverence, ridicule, even quite rude commentary -- why the hell not?" -- AFP
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?area=/insight/insight__international/&articleid=286855

 

[Said1]

What is nonsense? There has not been a lawsuit filed in Canada against Mark Steyn due to an excerpt from his book published in Macleans that the Canadian Islamic Congress found highly Islamophobic?

Yes. And American Idol is still stupid. Oh, and the stories in the Enquirer are REAL. Words to live by.

 

[jillian]

This is reminiscent of the Salmon Rushdie incident almost two decades ago, and we should be reminded of the outrage against the Danish cartoonist accused of insulting Mohammed. We can continue to cower under the wrath of militant Islam and allow it more and more power in the name of some fuzzy concept of political correctness, or we can choose to expect everybody to be reasonable and play by the same rules.

This piece has some age on it, but it sums up the situation pretty well I think:

Rushdie is so worried about the fatwa that he was at the next table from us at a restaurant not all that long ago.

Although the fatwa may have been issued not because of his criticism of Islam but because Satanic Verses was a really awful read.

 

[Said1]

Rushdie is so worried about the fatwa that he was at the next table from us at a restaurant not all that long ago.

Probably did wonders for books sales (where not banned.....LOL?)

Although the fatwa may have been issued not because of his criticism of Islam but because Satanic Verses was a really awful read.

I'll vote to let him live if I can have my money back.

 

[jillian]

Probably did wonders for books sales (where not banned.....LOL?)

Heh... don't think he'd have sold 10 copies otherwise.

I'll vote to let him live if I can have my money back.

Sounds fair to me!

 

[Dr Grump]

There is no freedom of speech in Canada or Britain for that matter.

And there is in the US? Try wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt to a rightie political rally...

 

[Angel Heart]

And try wearing a right wing one at a liberal fest. It goes both ways on that one.

 

[Angel Heart]

Heck for that matter, try having a Marine licence plate around a hippie lawyer.