Oh Islam! You are just so confusing.

On the same day that I read this column by The Toronto Star’s, Haroon Siddiqui, serving up his usual pastiche of the wonderful religion of peace, and, in the process chastising westerners for their ignorance of Islam by making fun of their concerns about the niquab: “On what legal basis does a democracy ban one person's veil but favour another's bikini”, I then read this story about a Sudanese female journalist facing a penalty of 40 lashes for the crime of wearing trousers in a restaurant.

I guess Mr. Siddiqui would be in no doubt what the legal basis would be in an Islamic society for banning clothing, so that is not worth writing about.

Why does everything look so small and far away with these binoculars?

Our good friend in The Toronto Star, Haroon Siddiqui, for whom the sun only shines out of Muslim backsides, has penned one of his patented “end of era” stories about how the recent, long-planned departure of American soldiers from Iraq shows the whole adventure to be a huge imperialist failure. They were “yanked” out of the cities, says Siddiqui.

He is right about the failure, of course, just not about the empire. He is like a man who looks through the wrong end of binoculars and notes that everything seems so small and far away.

The U.S. military forces destroyed the much vaunted Iraqi military in approximately a month after its invasion, and finally put an end to Saddam Hussein’s dreams of empire (seizing territory from Iran and annexing Kuwait). Then just about every jihad fighter in Islam descended on Iraq, spurred on by Osama bin Laden’s vision of a worldwide Caliphate and the Islamic conquest of the entire globe. There were 4 years of vicious fighting, and more than 4,000 U.S. casualties, but Islam was hammered into the ground, to the point that America feels it can safely withdraw its troops.

To take a conceit from Siddiqui’s story, nowhere does he mention the 300,000 plus Iraqis that Hussein murdered or the nearly one million Iranians who died from his war. Nowhere does he mention that the vast majority of the bloodshed in post-invasion Iraq came from Muslims killing each other, contrary to the dictates of the Koran.

All sustaining liberal democracies were born from conflict, but as Benjamin Franklin once said to a citizen outside the chambers where the American constitution was being debated, “We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it.”

I am not anticipating it will fail, but if Iraq should fail as a liberal democracy after this, it will be the responsibility of the Iraqis to shoulder the blame, not the United States. And if it is Islam that dooms the fledgling democracy then I suppose we will have our answer to the question of whether Islam can truly be compatible with democratic values. Who then will Siddiqui blame for Iraq’s troubles?

Militarily, there is no way Islam can defeat the west, even when armed with the weapons of the west. That has been the case for the past four centuries. However, the peaceful invasion of Islamic immigrants to western societies may have better outcomes for dreams of Islamic empires.

Public protests in a democratic society

In a liberal democracy the right to dissent and protest by minorities is a given. It is just part of the democratic fabric we admire in our secular system.

Periodically the streets around our capital buildings get choked with farmers protesting farm policies or truckers objecting to high diesel fuel prices or over-bearing regulations. These demonstrations last a day, inconvenience other people who need to use those streets, garner some media stories and photo-ops, and then fade from memory.

With a huge immigrant population, Canada has been treated to the new phenomenon of street protests over wars and injustices in far flung parts of the globe that have little relevance to Canada geographically or politically. We seem to be paralyzed by these protests. To what extent should we tolerate them?

If you go near any Chinese government building you will regularly find Chinese protestors carrying signs and handing out literature decrying the plight of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Falun Gong is a meditative spiritual movement that has been outlawed by the Chinese government. Its leaders and adherents have been jailed, tortured, and there is some evidence have even been killed for their organs. Yet, the streets are not blocked to bring this injustice to light and life for the other citizens goes on.

It could not be otherwise, because the practitioners of Falun Gong are essentially pacifists, so comparison with other grievance groups is not that instructive.

Closer to home is the relationship between native Indians and the larger society.

A few years ago, native Indian protestors began a campaign of public harassment to draw attention to various issues that were bugging those folks. In some instances, not only were roads and railroads blocked, but public and private property was damaged or destroyed. This culminated in an unfortunate shooting death of an Indian protestor by a policeman and a subsequent political firestorm over his death.

Then, more than two years ago, Indians moved in and occupied a tract of land near Caledonia, Ontario. That they were there illegally is beyond question. They have remained there ever since and the occupation has been accompanied by a kind of “wild west” string of violence, intimidation, and property damage. The Ontario Provincial Police has lost credibility because it is seen as an enabler of this illegal and violent activity.

A few months ago, pro-Hamas protestors marched in various cities to object to the fighting between Israel and Hamas. In Calgary they targeted a shopping mall owned by Jews (not Israelis). A few counter-protestors showed up. The police chased them away.

So, with all those examples of how our authorities deal with disruptive ethnic protests, sitting on their thumbs in the legislatures, and the police enabling the disruption, even in the in the name of support for terrorist organizations (financial support for which is a criminal offense in this country), what do the Tamils who wish to protest the 26 year civil war in Sri Lanka learn. They know that they can shut down Canada’s largest city and openly carry the banners of a terrorist organization with impunity.

It is in the nature of the militants to always try to push the envelope a little farther. The Tamils outraged the Citizens of Toronto when they took their children onto an elevated expressway which they closed down for some five hours.

You have to draw the line somewhere and it is time that our craven, vote-seeking politicians stopped being afraid of every ethnic minority with a gripe and started drafting some reasonable and balanced protest laws that allow democracy to run its course while protecting the rights of others, and making sure that the police enforce those rules. It would also be advisable to draft some rules regarding the safety of children in such protests and pinning responsibility on their parents.

We have managed to achieve a reasonable balance or rights with labour protests and strikes, so why should ethnic minorities be treated differently than we treat our labour unions?

George Jonas's take on Obama's election and democracy

The ever interesting George Jonas has a thought-provoking column in today's National Post.

Canadian Federal Election Post Mortem

The Conservatives

Stephen Harper ought to get used to governing with a minority government. Canadians are never going to give him a majority. Some of the most productive or well-run governments in Canadian history were minority governments: Lester Pearson’s (federal) and Bill Davis’s (Ontario) tenures come to mind. Harper should shelve his dreams of a majority and try and make his government the best damn minority this country has ever seen.

Conservatives just don’t get Quebec. Making the dinky arts funding cut (1.5% of the overall budget) made the difference between the Tories getting a majority and a minority. That was one of the most expensive funding cuts in history. Politicians are cynics by nature and they underestimate the pride of the people. Quebecers turned away from the federal Liberal party under Paul Martin when they discovered that huge money had been spent in that province on cheap gimmicks, like flags, in the belief that they would forgo their national aspirations. One would have thought that the Liberals’ chief political opponents would have picked up on that pride issue.

The Bloc Quebecoise

It is a shame this happened because, before the Harper blunder, the Bloc Quebecoise looked like it was going down the toilet as an irrelevant political force. If any party deserves to be relegated to the ashcan of history it is the BQ.

The end of climate change

This election also proves that we have turned the corner on climate change as a gathering political force (thankfully). Dion’s carbon tax had no resonance with the voters; the Green Party did not elect a single MP, including its leader, Elizabeth May, despite the fact that she garnered enormous publicity and was a bit of a media darling throughout the campaign. As a percentage of the popular vote, Green garnered no more than 7%. I had looked forward to the Greens bleeding votes from the NDP, but the only party that bled votes was the Liberals to the NDP.

Environmental activist, David Suzuki, has said he looks forward to the day the Green Party disappears from the electoral landscape. I don’t agree with much that Suzuki says, but I do on this point.

The New Democratic Party (God, how I wish it would change its name!)

I have to hand it to Jack Layton. He ran a hell of a campaign for the NDP. I don’t care for Jack and I have twice worked for a Liberal candidate who opposed him even though I am not a Liberal, simply because it was Jack running for office. He picked up additional seats and kept the popular vote at a respectable 18%. Keeping his guns focused on Harper and ignoring Dion, except bringing up the fact that Dion kept Harper alive for so long in Parliament, was a shrewd move.

I was sorry to see that Jack’s wife, Olivia Chow, kept her seat. It was nice to see Tony Ianno’s wife, Christine Innes gave her a scare, however.

Lisa Raitt

Finally, I should give a nod to Lisa Raitt, who knocked off the bumptious Garth Turner (well named, turned from Conservative to Independent to Liberal). I chuckled when I read Lisa’s website, with her “Coal Miner's Daughter" shtick; a gentler, kinder, Sarah Palin. But, unlike Palin, Lisa is very smart and knowledgeable. She is energetic, enthusiastic, and will be a good politician and representative for the Halton riding. I hope she gets a cabinet post – Transport might be right. Harper is thin on talent, so he should take a good look at Lisa.

In my corporate career, I took pride in mentoring people. Several left the corporate nest and have done well for themselves ever since. Whether they recognize it or not their successes have something to do with the opportunities and training I endeavoured to give them in their early years. I recently had lunch with a former protege who is doing good business as a coach and motivational speaker. She had forgotten that she used to be terrified of public speaking until I trained her and put her in charge of projects that required public speaking.

Lisa was another golden find. She had a bright prospect ahead of her as a Bay Street lawyer and was leaning in that direction, but I told her that her career would be better served working in the corporation that I then ran because of the broad experience it would offer, especially the political side of the place. I remember telephoning her in London, England, when she was working at the Inns of Court to make my pitch. She took my advice and now she is a fully-fledged member of Parliament (time to start those French lessons, Lisa, in case you know what).

May she have the wind at her back.

Some day I will have to drop her a line about my favourite federal issue, reforming the odious Section 13 of the Canada Human Rights Act.

I hope somebody in Lisa's entourage takes the time to telephone CTV and inform Lloyd Robertson of the correct pronunciation of Lisa's last name. It isn't as if he never heard of Bonnie Raitt.

Democracy and low voter turnout

Finally, a word about democracy. Much hand wringing goes on at election time over the low voter turnouts. I haven't seen the stats for this election, but I have seen and heard a number of pundits and commentators suggesting that there should be some sort of skills test to license people to vote, or that informed people would have an extra vote. TVO Ontario's The Agenda, with Steve Paikin, devoted some time to this subject last night.

This is all rubbish.

One citizen and one vote is the requirement to be called a democracy in the 21st century. I see the the low voter relative to informed voters in the same light as I see high fuel prices relative to carbon taxes. Why impose carbon taxes when high fuel prices are forcing behavioural changes that a carbon tax is supposed to encourage? Similarly, the people who do not vote are also the people who are not informed about politics, politicians and social issues (otherwise they would vote). The democracy marketplace is self-regulating in that sense and requires no bureaucratic interference. Those who don't vote get to be governed by those who do -- so what is the problem?

Australia has a high turnout (95%) because it is a legal requirement to vote. You are fined $50 if you don't vote. Are the voters in Australia better informed than Canadians who vote? I haven't seen any studies that would suggest so. Is Australia better governed than Canada? I think not.