One law for all

The Toronto Star published an opinion by York University Professor, Harvey Simmons, a political scientist specializing in fascist movements in France. His piece was what could fairly be described as “Sharia-friendly”. The irony of a non-Muslim male making a career of decrying fascism and seeing no particular danger with legalizing Sharia in Ontario is just too rich to not write about.

Simmons was marking the 5th anniversary of the successful battle by Muslim women in Canada to defeat the proposal by Muslim male political activists to establish Islamic family arbitration councils whose decisions would be enforced through the mechanism of the Ontario Arbitrations Act – a statute that was really intended to deal with commercial matters. However, the Act was broad enough to permit religious arbitrations in the Christian and Jewish communities.

The Ontario Muslim males, who have much to gain by legalizing their doctrinaire power over Muslim females, thought, “Hey, why not us?” Why not indeed? They even got the foolish socialist politician, Marion Boyd, a former Attorney-General, to write a favourable report to the Ontario government. Funny how socialism can turn your thinking ability to mush. Shame on any woman supporting implementation of Sharia to the detriment of her sister citizens.

Professor Simmons seems to have been cooed by the blandishments of the late Syed Mumtaz Ali, the former President of the Islamic Society of Canada and the creator of the proposed “Islamic Institute of Civil Justice” that there would be nothing going on in these arbitrations that violated Ontario law. How can anybody familiar with women’s rights under Sharia accept such nonsense? There is no way the equal rights that all women enjoy in Ontario do not conflict with the Sharia.

Simmons claims:

Ironically, because religious arbitration now takes place mainly outside the scrutiny of the Ontario courts, there is no way to tell whether women are being treated well or badly in informal religious arbitrations conducted by imams, rabbis or, indeed, any other arbitrator chosen by the parties involved.

What rubbish! Women in Ontario have the right to have their family matters decided in accordance with the Family Law Act. That is where they may apply for justice and that is where they can expose any unfairness in any ad hoc religious arbitrations.

For a very good examination of the problems of reconciling the Sharia with the laws of a secular liberal democracy go to this site.

Nine years and still lying -- what a sad tribute to the victims of 9/11

This was in today's Toronto Star:

Obama described with admiration how former President George W. Bush drew a “crystal-clear” line between the attackers of Al Qaeda and the immense religion they purported to represent.

Bush helped Americans understand “we were at war with terrorists and murderers who had perverted Islam, had stolen its banner to carry out their outrageous acts,” said Obama.

“And I was so proud of the country rallying around that idea, that notion that we are not going to be divided by religion; we're not going to be divided by ethnicity ... It is absolutely important now for the overwhelming majority of the American people to hang on to that thing which is best in us, a belief in religious tolerance ... we have to make sure we don't start turning on each other.”

Nine years and counting and they still do not get it:

1) The Islamists who brought down the World Trade Centre did not "steal" Islam and did not "pervert" it. The religious prescription for waging jihad against the enemies of Allah (i.e. non-believers) is as authentic in the Islamic holy lexicon as "turning the other cheek" is in Christianity. And it is not a few of these; the estimated number of Islamists worldwide is nearly 5 times the entire population of Canada.

2) Belief in religious tolerance does not provide a moral obligation to allow religious intolerance to be suborned. Islam is not a tolerant religion. When the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defence of the United States have to appeal to an obscure nutbar in Florida to desist from his announced intention to burn Korans lest dire consequences flow around the world in Muslim countries why would the same people be castigating Americans to be tolerant.

3) Just because you may not consider yourself at war with Islam does not mean that Islam may not be at war with you.

As long as the political leaders in the western world continue to lie and obfuscate the real problem that has become more and more evident to the ordinary people that these leaders are duty bound to protect, they will continue to slide down the slope of untrustworthiness. One would think they would start changing their tunes if for no other reason than to retain political position.

Go ahead, make my day

If Islamism weren’t such a serious issue you would have to laugh out loud at Islamist’ spokespeople, like Sheik Feiz Muhammad, pictured above.

The Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, is facing criminal charges under restrictive Dutch speech laws. He said rude things about Islam and produced a short video which shows Islamic texts, Imams preaching jihad and the results of terrorist activities carried out in the name of Islam. Gilders maintains that Islam is antithetical to the tradition of liberal democracy and justice in the Netherlands and he equates some of the most egregious examples drawn from the Koran, the Hadith and the Sharia as being equivalent to the kinds of statements and arguments one would find in Hitler’s famous book, Mein Kampf. Hitler’s book is banned in the Netherlands.

As if on cue, a notorious Australian imam, Muhammad, has called for Wilders to be beheaded. This is a serious thing to say – just ask author Salman Rushdie who still has a death sentence hanging over him from the utterings of the late Ayatollah Khomeini.

Do you think Muhammad is making Gilders’ point about the nature of Islam?

Contrast this with the reaction of Christians to the news that well-known anti-Christian author, Christopher Hitchens, is dying of cancer. Many have offered prayers for his recovery.