Islam on Trial

From Magic City Morning Star


Islam on Trial
By Michael Devolin

Myles Kantor has written, "A people's true character emerges as a majority. And when they lived as majorities over Jews, the peace-loving adherents of the Koran distinguished themselves with repeated viciousness and persecution." I have written elsewhere that a religion cannot be accurately judged by the behaviour of its exceptional personalities but only by how it manifests itself within the masses of those that adhere to its tenets. In this respect the religion of Islam has proven to be an insalubrious ideology. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why, whenever reports of terrorism and violence are mentioned in the press, one inevitably thinks of Muslims and Islam. This phenomenon is not to be blamed on Muslims in particular or on those who cogitate toward such conclusions, but rather guilt should be affixed precisely to the religion of Islam as being the solitary source of such terrorism and violence and, consequently, such mass paranoia.
By now it should be obvious to anyone following the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal hearing regarding certain of Mark Steyn's publications in Maclean's magazine from his controversial book America Alone that Islam is on trial here and not Mark Steyn. Mark Steyn's offence, if one can wrestle beyond the tedious language of the plaintiffs, is that he writes truthfully about Islam and that hateful and violent behaviour more often than not attributed to Muslims the world over. The censorship and litigious habits of Islam's champions and the darker, malefic aspect of the religious ideology they defend are the issues of the day here and not the person of Mark Steyn or Maclean's magazine.
Islam is on trial in Canada because ordinary Canadians have long ago noticed that the atrocities associated with terrorism being perpetrated in places of conflict all over the world are committed by Muslims in the name of Islam. Hence we are concerned, and logically so, that these same atrocities might someday take place on Canadian soil. This concern is not an example of Islamophobia, as Barbara Hall of the BC Human Rights Commission contends; rather this is a quite unremarkable example of national prudence and self-preservation.
Why is it a crime to be afraid of a faith group whose religion [Islam] designates Jews as the descendents of swine and monkeys and forbids friendships with and affection toward "non-believers"? Why is it a crime to be afraid of a faith group whose zealots feel jubilant about recording the beheading of innocents like Daniel Pearl on video? Although Canada's various human rights commissions would condemn many Canadians as being Islamophobic for saying so, many Canadians perceive such intransigent jubilance as peculiar to the religion of Islam.
Sam Harris writes, "Nothing explains the actions of Muslim extremists, and the widespread tolerance of their behaviour in the Muslim world, better than the tenets of Islam." Terrorism is only partially the crime of the terrorist; in a much greater degree it is an explanatory manifestation of Islam. Sophists like the Toronto Star's Haroon Siddiqui and the unctuous BC Human Rights Commission are presently attempting to obfuscate the malevolent reality of Islam by making it a crime for Western journalists like Mark Steyn to articulate into print this same reality.
Simply put, the BC Human Rights Commission and Haroon Siddiqui are interested only in censoring the truth about Islam. You can tell the world that Islam is responsible for Algebra and some really neat architecture in India, but you cannot opine to the world that Muslim suicide bombers in Gaza relish killing Jewish children in Israel because their Koran tells them that all Jews are inherently evil. "You will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to the faithful are the Jews..." (Koran 5:80-82)
Far from putting Mark Steyn's veracious book to the test, the BC Human Rights Commission is putting Islam and its apologists to the test: if censorship of the truth about Islam, as narrated in Western media, is translated into law, then Canadians will know for certain that Islam has something ominous to hide behind that censorship. The Yiddish proverb is true: "A trick is clever only once."
Haroon Siddiqui has written recently in the Toronto Star that, "Beyond the law, there's self-restraint. Most media exercise it every day. We do not publish racist cartoons and anti-Semitic rants." This is true in Canada, Mr. Siddiqui, but let's make known to all Canadians the type of "racist cartoons and anti-Jewish rants" found in media outlets and newspapers in Middle Eastern countries where Islam is the predominant religion. Let's see how Islam manifests where Muslims are the majority and Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians are the minority. This is a veridical example of Islam. This is the Islam many Canadians are afraid of. This is the Islam presently on trial in British Columbia.
Written by Michael Devolin© Copyright 2002-2008 by Magic City Morning Star