Mark Steyn's and Maclean's Travail

If the entire situation was not serious enough to threaten the most basic entitlements of free speech in Canada, it would be stringently and ironically amusing that Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress and one Naiyer Habib have undertaken to manipulate a system of social redress against human rights abusers to their particular ends.

Mr. Elmasry and his cohorts see nothing amiss in threatening the human rights of Muslims who deplore his fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. Mr. Elmasry and his colleagues feel confident in expressing public contempt for the issue of safety and security of Jews who have been tainted with the broad brush of supporting Israel.

But their feelings have been dreadfully bruised by magazine articles pointing out the obvious; that Muslim thinkers like themselves, dedicated to strident militancy as a religious right, and whose political/religious agenda does pose an actual threat to the stability of liberal democracies being spelled out in the public arena remain a troubling presence.

They take offence at a simple detailing of events engineered by jihadist-inspired Muslim fundamentalists. Claiming that by setting out these details, the author and the magazine that published the article are unfairly categorizing and smearing the entire Muslim collective.

As though they reside in a reality vacuum, in blithe ignorance of jihadist-engineered calamities that have been imposed upon the Western world. As though the perpetrators had nothing whatever to do with Islam, expressing brutal interpretations of Islamic values and acting out their violent agendas.

In their arguments before the B.C. Human Rights Commission, their lawyer Faisal Joseph claims aggrievement that author Mark Steyn expresses admiration for a Muslim comic, yet disparages the entertainment value of a mediocre CBC-produced television sitcom.

Similar grief is expressed by the vexing reality of bloggers posting Islam-deleterious remarks on the Internet as though that too is a fault whose ownership rests with Macleans and Mark Steyn, rather than a result of legitimate fears foisted upon people by violent jihadist attacks.

The latest entry into the B.C. Human Rights Commission hearing is the acceptance of an expert witness in the guise of a lecturer at Carleton University's School of Journalism, Dr. Faiza Hirji, who portrays herself as "an expert in analyzing stereotypes in the media".

Her speciality being the portrayal of Muslim minorities. In that context, as a feminist, she has turned her critical eye to entertainment pieces such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and music and video productions by Queen Latifah. So, as a qualified expert in Muslim stereotyping in the media, she read from "copied and pasted paragraphs" of the article in question, setting out her objections to the messages she has interpreted and quantified.

References to incidents in Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, along with the attacks on the Twin Towers were direct stereotyping attacks on Muslims in general, according to this expert opinion. "I detect some sense of stereotyping...there is a clear sense of threat conveyed by the presence of Muslims in Western society".

Right. Unsettling, destructive, vicious and murderous attacks against Western targets did not occur, and if they did, they were not prosecuted by Islamist jihadists. All these events were blighted mirages imagined by paranoid Western troublemakers. One might imagine Muslims being horrified by the blight of consciousness this represents on their religion, that they would denounce and distance themselves from these events, publicly and honourably.

This kind of noxious self-righteousness on the part of huffy Muslims of a fairly orthodox bent, against the media or any one in the public eye who merely states the obvious, with no intention of claiming that these insanely bloody attacks represent the wishes and aspirations of general Muslims is offensively counter-productive.

What these officiously enabled social dissidents have managed to do is turn our freedoms upside down. In claiming that these statements of the obvious, of actual occurrences, of the seeming inability of some portions of the Muslim population to stifle their hostility, to reside in peace within a pluralistic society harms the human rights of all Muslims is disingenuous at the least, and borders on the socially destructive.

If their right to seek and demand redress to an imagined slight tramples on my right to free speech that exudes reality and expresses neutrality, they've managed to trump my legal rights at no cost to themselves.

Their cynical manipulation of Canada's human rights tribunals - quasi-judicial bodies whose original intent was to protect the rights of minorities - resulting in the truncation of legal rights enshrined in the Constitution speaks volumes to the mischief they've been allowed to wreak on society.

While Muslims have no monopoly on violence, and the greater preponderance of Muslims would shrink from such provocations as this group has embarked upon, let alone participating in violent jihad, a solid minority living in Muslim-dominated countries abroad express a tolerance for jihad.

A tolerance that has no place whatever in Western liberal democracies. Just as the flouting of the rules of civic engagement exercised by those involved with the Canadian Islamic Congress has no place in civil discourse in Canada.