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.

Montreal massacre redux

Since this is the 20th anniversary of an iconic mass murder in Canada, it seems obligatory for bloggers and media types to say something about it.

On December 6, 1989 a young man, called Marc Lepine, entered a post secondary institution in Montreal, separated an engineering class into males and females, sent the males out of the room and proceeded to gun down the women. He then wandered through the school shooting other people at random, but mainly targeting women. Eventually, after killing 14 women and wounding 14 others, including four men, he killed himself. He left a suicide note indicating that he wanted to kill feminists.

Over the years, a lot of explanations have been given for his behaviour, all of it centering on a psychological explanations.

His actions spurred feminists to use the anniversary of the event as a kind of a club to draw attention to violence against women. It also led to tightening of gun ownership laws.

One of the things almost never mentioned, however, is the role religion might have played in this. This is interesting because it is common to find that feminists ignore the plight of their fellow women who suffer injustice at the hands of religion, especially Islam.

Marc Lepine was a name that he adopted when he was 14 years of age. Up to that point, he had been known as Gamil Gharbi. His mother was French Canadian, a professional nurse. His father was an Algerian immigrant, a Muslim Arab. By all accounts, the father was not a “regular go to the mosque” Muslim, but he certainly grew up in a Muslim household and culture in Algeria. He despised women and treated his wife and children abysmally, making sure that the children also were deprived of a close relationship with the mother.

He eventually abandoned the family and the mother went back to work as a nurse to support the family. That is when Gamil changed his name to Marc and adopted his mother’s maiden name as his last name.

Twenty years ago it is not surprising to find that nobody would have considered the religious influence in this matter. Yet, even today, accounts of the events fail to offer any religious angle.

This is what Nonie Darwish has to say in her latest book, Cruel and Usual Punishment about the impact of Sharia law on the role of Muslim males.

According to the rules a man is not to take his wife into matters of any importance, he must not reveal his secrets, he is not to tell her the amount of his property, in case she exercises her built in bad judgment to influence him and cause him ruin. He is also not to give her an excess of affection lest she gain power over him. Simply put, a husband is not to trust his wife nor ever show her much love.

A man’s role in the home has been narrowed down to that of the feared disciplinarian and controller. According to codified Islamic Law: The Prophet said, “Hang up the whip where the members of the household can see it.”

It may well be that Lepine’s father didn’t attend the mosque, but his behaviour in the home would suggest that he well understood the law of Islam.

To what extent did his “role model” activities shape Lepine’s attitude to women?

Perhaps feminists would care to dwell on that.

Western conundrums for Islam

The next time persons claiming to be Muslims wish to launch actions with human rights agencies in Canada, claiming discriminatory practices or that they are offended by some artistic expression, perhaps the officials should pause before pouncing on the complaints and remind them that Muslims are forbidden to submit disputes to human rights commissions. These bodies, as they are constituted in Western societies, are considered evil by Islamic scholars because they purport to grant rights (such as homosexual rights) that are forbidden under Sharia law.

Muslim disputes are supposed to be satisfied in Sharia courts, which are the only pure tribunals, and which is a bit of a problem if the other party doesn’t agree to submit the issue to the Islamic judges.

Muslims would seem to have little choice, if they want to abide by Islamic law, but to suck it up.

In October, 2007, the National Post carried a story about a Toronto mosque advising Muslims to shun non-Muslim holidays and to dissociate themselves from non-Muslims. Recently, the Toronto Star wrote about the same mosque continuing this nasty advice. These statements, which equated non-Muslims with evil and wickedness, were referenced on the mosque's website through links to Islamic rulings.

I further noticed, in scanning Muslim websites, the frequent use of the term “kaffir” or “kafir” and its plural “kuffar” used to describe non-Muslims. Since 1934, western societies have decried the use of this expression because it is considered a racial slur, the equivalent of the more familiar “nigger.”

I find such a reference to people like me objectionable, and I don’t know why I should be tolerant of a religion that writes horrible things about me on the Internet, that names me by one of the worst racial slurs in our culture, attributes evil to me, causes Muslims to hold me in contempt, and instructs the faithful to avoid befriending me.

I also wonder why Canadian human rights investigators sit on their thumbs when such hateful information is only a few keystrokes away and has twice in 13 months been brought to their attention through major newspapers.. They certainly don’t waste any time when somebody has something to say about homosexuals. And, they don’t even have to resort to their favourite pro-active entrapment procedures, like they do with basement Nazis, by pretending to be Muslims and posting their own contemptible thoughts on Islamic sites.

I could send in a human rights complaint about this myself, but, unfortunately, I happen to believe that Muslims have a perfect right to say these terrible things about me and I don’t believe in the human rights agencies either. In my way, I am as pure as the Muslims and, despite their contempt for me, we do agree on the inappropriateness of such a forum to deal with these matters.

But, frankly, if Muslims expect to be embraced by western societies without reservation, they need to clean up their act and stop calling non-Muslims contemptuous names.