Defaming, Threatening Critics of Islam
"Why are only Muslims mentioned by name?"
"It's not the government's responsibility to babysit just one community."
Raheel Raza, president, Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow
"You don't need extra regulations or motions to combat racism."
Peter Bhatti, chairman, International Christian Voice
"It's not that without this motion, nothing is being done."
"The government does an awful lot, an awful lot on this file."
Father Raymond de Souza, Catholic priest, newspaper columnist
"Racism is something you can't legislate against, per se, because it begins in the mind."
Jay Cameron, lawyer, Justice Centre of Constitutional Freedoms
"We're not following the motion [M-103] word for word."
"We're not having to slavishly follow anything in this motion."
Hedy Fry, chair, House of Commons heritage committee
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| Liberal MP Iqra Khalid (center left) introduced a successful motion calling on the federal government to condemn and battle "Islamophobia" last February. |
The ill-informed, ill-advised and ill-directed motion M-103, controversially passed in the Canadian House of Commons, represents an anti-Islamophobia motion introduced by Liberal Member of Parliament Iqra Khalid in December of 2016. Its introduction as an "Islamophobia" backlash met a wall of resistance, not only from the opposition Conservatives in Parliament, but from Canadian society in general.
That any perceived criticism of Islam, its tenets and its actors is identified as racist and "Islamophobic" is a perverted invention to silence critics of a religion found wanting.
The first scheduled hearing coming out of the motion requiring such hearings on racism and in particular emphasis on the specious "Islamophobia" has now taken place inviting responses purportedly to accept recommendations on combating racism. How racism conflates with criticism of Islam is beyond debate, for Islam has nothing to do with race, but with a religious ideology.
It is Islam, and not discrimination against various ethnic groups that practise it that is at the crux of the public's perception that the religion fosters violence among its faithful.
But to say so is to leave oneself open to the gratuitous and demeaning charges of Islamophobia, a defaming smear meant to silence critics of Islam's call to jihad, its sermons that emphasize the superiority of Islam over all other religions, the shortcomings of unbelievers and the contempt in which Jews and Infidels are held as being offensive to Allah.
Passages in the Koran and the Hadith; sayings of the Prophet Mohammad; are rife with injunctions to violent jihad as a fundamental obligation to Islam.
Some of the witnesses appearing before the committee outlined what may conceivably occur were criticism of Islam to be banned in Canada, making it a federal offence to give offence. A law that would delight the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, an influential Islamic clique in the United Nations that has been agitating for years for it to be made unlawful with attendant penalties, to criticize Islam.
Mr. Cameron pointed out that M-103, if made into law, might stop Canadians from criticizing female genital mutilation, as an example.
The opposition Conservatives' attempt to have the motion altered to remove "Islamophobia" as its lead position, and reinterpret the motion to express concern with all forms of racism and discrimination against any targeted group, religion, ethnicity or community was outright rejected by the Liberals and by the presenter of the motion, Pakistan-born Liberal MP Iqra Khalid.
Who rejected anything that would not explicitly mention Islamophobia, rather than calling for a study of say, religious discrimination altogether.
The 'Islamophobia' debate is really part of a global, inter-Muslim conflict, fought for centuries.
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"....Muslims, who have formed an organization called "Muslims Against M-103," believe Canadian MPs are getting the wool pulled over their eyes.
This issue is really part of a global, inter-Muslim conflict, fought for centuries.
One in which academics, theologians, secular Muslims and Muslims of minority sects have suffered everything from ostracization, to stoning, to beheading, by those who define Islamophobia in one way when speaking English, and much differently when speaking Arabic, Urdu, Persian or Bangla.
In the Indian subcontinent, for example, the word Islamophobia is roughly translated as "Islam Dushmani" or being the "Enemy of Islam."
Muslims who oppose Islamists feel we are targeted by M-103, that its primary purpose is to drown out our voices when we denounce the polygamy, female genital mutilation, child marriage, honour killings, armed jihad and racial discrimination pervasive wherever "Islamophobia" is banned in the Islamic world.
We who fled the Islamic world to escape the tyranny of falsely being called "Islamophobes" and make Canada our home, now find our enemies have hunted us down.
While Islamists complain of Islamophobia, Muslims mock Christians and Jews when we read the opening verse of the Qur'an (Sura Fatiha) during our daily prayers.
Fatiha is the equivalent to the Lord's Prayer in Christianity, where we ask Allah to put us on the "right path", not on the path of "those who have incurred your wrath" (Jews) and "those who have gone astray" (Christians).
As for other faiths, and atheists, at every Friday congregation, the mullah prays to Allah, asking him to help Muslims defeat the "kafirs" (non-believers).
Will the heritage committee declare any religious prayer asking for a Muslim victory over other religions hateful?
This would appear to mandated by M-103, which calls on Parliament to "recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear," and develop a government-wide approach to reduce or eliminate systemic racism and religious discrimination.
If "Islamophobia" is ever declared a criminal offence in Canada, I will be the first to defy that law and go to jail to protest it."
Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and columnist at the Toronto Sun, is a Robert J. and Abby B. Levine Fellow at the Middle East Forum
Labels: Canada, Islamophobia, Parliament
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, September 28, 2017
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