Most of these points are argumentative, which is reason enough why they shouldn’t be the subject of legal hearings. But Assertion #2 – that it is “very easy to find a Muslim university student from a prosperous and educated background ready and willing to engage in an act of terrorism” – is worth mulling over. How easy is it?
In the course of the 2008 Presidential campaign, Senator John McCain, with his usual glibness, maintained that in the fight against radical Islam “scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs.”
Really? Even as a theoretical proposition, trusting the average North American college education to woo young Muslims to the virtues of the Great Satan would be something of a long shot, even if one does not draw as one’s mentor Sami el-Arian or Ward Churchill, or – lest we forget – Mohamed Elmasry, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress and engineering prof at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. But one doesn’t have to be theoretical about it: There’s plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme “extremists” are those who’ve been most exposed to the west – and western education:
Who was the cell leader of the 9/11 slaughter?
~ Hamburg University urban planning student Mohammed Atta.
Who led the plot to behead Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl?
~ London School of Economics graduate Omar Sheikh.
Who was Jemaah Islamiah’s “Demolition Man”, the most wanted terrorist bomber in south-east Asia, and the murderer of many western tourists in Bali?
~ Adelaide mechanical engineering student Azahari bin Husin.
Who was arrested in South Carolina in a car packed with explosives?
~ University of South Florida graduate student Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed.
Who killed dozens of commuters in the July 7th London Tube bombings?
~ Leeds Metropolitan University business management graduate (and Hillside Primary School “learning mentor”) Mohammad Sidique Khan.
Who murdered the Dutch film director Theo van Gogh?
~ Nyenrode College student Mohammed Bouyeri.
Who is the head of al-Qaeda?
~ Former Oxford summer school student and punter of the River Thames Osama bin Laden.
To repeat the point made above: It’s not about Pushtun goatherds living in caves. It’s about the appeal of jihad to well-educated, middle-class, westernized Muslims. If only John McCain were right, and we could hand out college scholarships to young Saudi males and get them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies. But right now western education is second only to western welfare systems as a facilitator of jihad.
EXHIBITS #9-19
“Depicting Saudi Arabia in a negative light”
THE REMAINING exhibits in Messrs Awan, Ahmed and Simard’s and the Misses Skeikh and Mithoowani’s “case study” of Maclean’s Hall of Shame include several columns by my colleague Barbara Amiel. Barbara has been battling Canada’s “human rights” commissions since their inception, and is more than capable of seeing off this assault, and the ones that will follow. However, the concluding “hate crime” in the Canadian Islamic Congress isn’t a column or polemic at all, but a straightforward piece of reportage called “I Begged To Confess”. Written by Steve Maich, it tells the story of the repeated rape and torture of a Canadian citizen, William Sampson, in a Saudi jail. As with much of the other material, it’s in the context of a new book – a memoir by Mr Sampson about his experience. Here’s what the Osgoode Hall geniuses say:
This article is written for the purpose of promoting a book that depicts Saudi Arabia and Muslims in a negative light.
And “depicting Saudi Arabia in a negative light” is now a crime in Canada?
Well, it will be if the five authors of this report get this way. As a crude display of political muscle, what they’re doing at least has a kind of logic. Harder to understand is the reaction of chaps like Garry J Wise, a Toronto lawyer who’s taken an interest in the CIC’s “human rights” complaints and has been quoted on the story in The Washington Times. His shtick is very consistent: Mister Moderate, dean of the let’s-strike-a-sensible-balance brigade; nothing to see here, nothing to worry about, folks. “My impression,” he writes, “remains that the complaints against him [Steyn] are dubious, politically motivated and extremely unlikely to succeed.” This thing’ll work its way through the system, and at some stage toward the end of this year or maybe next year, the Canadian, British Columbia and Ontario “Human Rights” Commissions will all decide that Maclean’s and I should be “acquitted”, and that will demonstrate that the system “works”.
That may make sense from a lawyer’s viewpoint. But it’s not how the world operates. As evidence of how the process is ultimately “fair”, Mr Wise cited a 2002 case from Saskatchewan, in which the HRC ordered both The Saskatoon Star Phoenix and Hugh Owens to pay $1,500 to each of three complainants who had objected to the Star Phoenix’s publication of an advertisement by Mr Owens. The advertisement quoted some of the sterner Biblical passages on homosexuality. Actually, it didn’t “quote” them. It merely listed the relevant chapter and verse:
Romans 1:26
Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13
I Corinthians 6:9
Nonetheless, that was enough for the HRC, which relieved the parties of nine thousand bucks for “exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule”.
However, as Mr Wise pointed out, four years later the Saskatchewan Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, and he evidently regards this as a satisfactory outcome demonstrating the robustness of freedom of expression in Canada. He’s right, in an extremely narrow legal sense. But in real terms what’s the consequence of Mr Owens’ four-year struggle? I would invite Mr Wise to attempt to place the very same advertisement as Mr Owens with The Saskatoon Star Phoenix today. They won’t take it. They’ve learned their lesson. So, regardless of the appeal, the practical consequence of the Owens case has been the narrowing of the bounds of public discourse in Canada.
I would expect the same consequence from an “acquittal” in these cases, which is why neither Maclean’s nor I want one. Yet Mr Wise thinks we should be proud of a system which takes four years to determine whether a Canadian citizen and a major provincial newspaper are permitted to cite passages from the world’s all-time bestselling book. What’s offensive is not the accusations of Dr Elmasry and his sock puppets, but the willingness of Canada’s pseudo-courts to take them seriously. To modify Pierre Trudeau, “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Unless you’re tucked up reading a copy of Maclean’s.”
It is especially important for the press to remain free to “depict Saudi Arabia in a negative light” because the Saudi subversion of western institutions is ongoing and insidious. For example, in 2004 Britain’s Serious Fraud Office launched an investigation into allegations that the arms manufacturer BAE paid huge bribes to Saudi princes. In December 2006, Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, flew to London to see Tony Blair, and shortly thereafter the Prime Minister leaned on the SFO to shut down the fraud investigation.
What happened? The Guardian takes up the story:
Saudi Arabia’s rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.