Truce or Bust
Uh oh, the Canadian Islamic Congress is ready to bargain. All right, that's placing too generous an interpretation on their offer. Um, offer? Well, perhaps ultimatum. Wait a minute, wasn't that what had originally occurred? The Canadian Islamic Congress issued an ultimatum to Maclean's magazine to begin with, over the Congress's ire that the publication had published opinion items they claimed to be (huff-huff) Islamophobic?Causing them to file grievances with The Canadian Human Rights Commission, the British Columbia Human Rights Commission, the Ontario Human Rights Commission? They originally offered the magazine the option to hand over the magazine's editorial, publishing, artistic determination to the Congress to enable the Congress to respond to the offending article in a manner they saw fit. Their generous offer to Maclean's had been refused, and that's why the Commission-option was undertaken.
What is it with these news and magazine groups, anyway, that they're so unwilling to allow freedom of expression, er rejoinder, to those to whom their original publication has given offence? Freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of association, should have their limits according to the Congress, and that limit was broached when a perceptive writer examined world occurrences, reached a conclusion and stated his view.
Thus exercising his right to freedom of expression. Said writer "sold" his writing to a certain source. That, after all, is the way free-lance writers, journalists, newspapers, magazines and other news and information disseminating media work in tandem. The writer has a story, the magazine is interested, and business is conducted. The writer does not approach the editorial board of a magazine and insist that they must publish his piece - or else face his wrath.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission, while dismissing the case as out of their jurisdiction, tongue-lashed Maclean's and author Mark Steyn for the simply 'odious' depiction of Muslim future potential, as an intolerable human rights abuse. Quasi-judicial overseers of the balance between inalienable individual rights and the quality of mercy inherent in pushing a pen alongside an unpleasant reality, fancy themselves the defenders of the underdog.
But the Canadian Islamic Congress, which fancies itself the singularly authentic and authoritative voice of Muslims within Canada, is quite able to look after its interests without the intervention of soft liberal socialists who can see no wrong in a community that refuses to censor or to de-link themselves with fanatical Islamists' violent activities targeting their own as often as they do the infidel.
It's solidarity, brother, between those who pose as moderates while robing themselves in the zeal of fundamentalism, and those who take fundamentalism beyond the barely tolerable and into the realm of fascistic ideology linked to jihad. And if it sounds to the casual onlooker fairly sanctimoniously righteous for a group to insist on their collective right to censor free speech, that's only because it is.
So, if Maclean's will simply agree to roll over and play dead: "We're not going to say how long [their rebuttal] it's going to be, but it has to be long enough, and give the opportunity to be able to properly give a reasoned, analytical approach to the 5,000 word article [by Mr. Steyn]", explained Faisal Joseph, lawyer for the Congress. "Right of response" is obviously on their side; hurt feelings to be appeased. Write a letter to the editor. File a law suit. Put money where the bark is.
Although the Congress is still smarting over the nasty "Islamophobia" with which they have characterized the 2006 article, The Future Belongs to Islam, they will allow their hurt feelings to be appeased. As long as Maclean's agrees to publish the Congress' response with no editorial fuss, the Congress will no longer insist on controlling the art design and will not expect "unfettered" editorial control.
The response must be "long enough" and "mutually agreeable", and they can do business in a civil manner. Oops, and they will no longer demand that Maclean's proffer a financial contribution to a race relations charity. (Amusing beyond belief; a religious group which has seen nothing amiss in commenting publicly upon the suitability of killing Israeli civilians, since they can be viewed as "the enemy", giving a lesson in human relations.)
Upon which agreement the Congress will be prepared to withdraw their complaint lodged with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. Else, be aware, that one of the recommendations to come out of the Tribunal's adjudication in the case, might very well be that the magazine will be ordered, in any event, to publish the partially-scripted response. Grab this generous opportunity and run with it!
You go, 'Bro, chirps up the leader of the federal New Democratic Party. Writing the Congress to convey sympathy on behalf of his party, assuring them that the NDP "appreciates the battle you are waging against mainstream media's portrayal of Muslim Canadians." Wot? From where I sit the media has gone out of its way to portray mainstream Muslim Canadians in the kind light they deserve.
Canadian media write of all manner of occurrences, and when it comes to terror threats from without or within the country, they have a vested interest in reporting on any such stories. When that terror has been directed against the Sri Lankan community, against the Chinese community, against the East Indian community within Canada, the media has been up front and centre, reporting for the edification of all Canadians and in sympathy with those targeted.
And when the Canadian media report of terror attacks abroad that take the lives of Muslims by violent acts committed by other Muslims, or by Muslim jihadists against westerners, or home-grown Muslim "activists" whose loyalties to Canada have been shunted aside in the greater need to support holy jihad, they write about that too.
The Canadian Islamic Congress will simply have to look elsewhere to obtain free nation-wide advertising. They might start by cleaning up their image, by behaving responsibly as Canadians able to identify the socio- and religious psychopaths in their midst. Isolating them, and making efforts to turn them around in their jihad-trajectory.
Not supporting them and in the process making news that informs Canadians and offends their Muslim sensibilities.
Labels: Canada, Conflict, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ Friday, May 02, 2008
<< Home