A One-Way Dialog

 

 
Vincent J. Curtis


17 Nov 14

  

On July 13, 2011, columnist Mark Steyn wrote a piece entitled “How Unclean Was My Valley", which concerned the use of a high school gymnasium for Friday worship services by the school’s Muslim students.  Steyn observed, among other things, that such services were contrary to School Board policy which forbade religion services being conducted on school property and on school time.

 

In passing, Steyn remarked upon a difference between famous Canadian author Pierre Berton, and his less famous son, Paul.  At the time, Berton fils was publisher of the London Free Press and was noted by Steyn for his Islamophilia.

 

Since then, the younger Berton has moved on to bigger and better things and became the publisher of the Hamilton Spectator.  His noted Islamophilic ways must continue, as it was disclosed in a guest opinion column that a public forum and discussion would be held in the Spectator’s auditorium by none other than the Muslim Association of Hamilton.

 

I regarded this as a somewhat alarming development.  I served on the Hamilton Public Library Board from 1996-1999.  In that period, the Muslims Student’s Association of McMaster University applied to make use of the main library’s auditorium, ostensibly for an exposition of Islamic culture.  The recommendation was to turn down the request, as the previous year an exposition similarly described turned into a rather obnoxious effort at proselytizing Islam.  The actual event was dishonestly not as described in the application for use by the MSA.

 

On the Board at the time was a rather elderly member of Pakistani origin and a Muslim himself.  When he heard of the application he immediately became fearful.  He asked that it be recorded in the minutes that was not present for the vote on that agenda item.  Afterwards I asked him what the problem was.  He informed me of the then just developing Islamic supremacist movement in Canada and he said the MSA was a manifestation of that movement.  As a Muslim, he would have been a particular target of their wrath if they became aware that he was complicit in the thwarting of their aims.  He would not support them, and he would not be known to have opposed them either.  He regarded them as dangerous to him.

 

Upon reading the fact that the Spectator would host a Muslim-oriented event, I sent the editor something like the following:

The Spectator is going to have its hands full when it hosts the open discussion and forum planned early next year by the Muslim Association of Hamilton.  Mentioned at the end of the article written by Dr. Raza Khan, the forum will be an up close and personal encounter with Islamic supremacism, and with Islamic proselytization.

There is no difference in aim between Islamic supremacism and Islamic extremism or radicalism. What is notable about Islamic extremism or radicalism is the use of violence to achieve the end of Islamic supremacism.  Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are supremacists that are not violent, while al Qaeda and ISIS are supremacists that employ violence.  Each of those groups aim at the imposition of Sharia law; they simply use different means.

Since Dr. Khan was born and raised in Hamilton, there is no justification on the basis of culture for the jarring turns of reason he employed in his article.  These turns of reason bear the hallmarks of a Muslim Brotherhood spin piece that are used to beguile westerners who don’t want to be troubled with harsh truths.  He will not advocate violence, but he will justify anything that advances the cause of Islam.

You can see that in his article.  He seems to condemn the violence of ISIS, Boko Haram, and al Qaeda but then excuses their violence as a natural response to the violence suffered by Muslims at the hands of westerners and the Israelis.  The people who have called the Muslim Association of Hamilton concerning the murder of Cpl Nathan Cirillo have done so not to condemn or threaten as one would expect but, apparently, to seek understanding and to pay homage to Muslims and Islam.

His condemnation of ISIS, Boko Haram, and al Qaeda seems significant, but only to the uninitiated. Unless the condemnation of ISIS, Boko Haram, and al Qaeda was for heresy and for fraudulently misrepresenting Islam, the ‘condemnation’ is empty of meaning to Muslims.  This ‘condemnation’ was a turn for westerners, and is a well-understood tactic in the world of Islam for which there are specific terms of art.  He could be condemning them for bad table manners.

One also needs to understand who is ‘innocent’ in the eyes of a Muslim fundamentalist.  To every Muslim, and apostate is not innocent, despite the injunction against no compulsion in religion.  To Muslims in general, infidels are not innocent.  To all Muslims, between an infidel and a Muslim, the Muslim is the innocent party.  When you see a Muslim fundamentalist employing the term ‘innocent’, bear in mind what that term means to a Muslim not to a westerner.

The conversation Dr. Khan says he wishes to have will consist of a one-way talk of proselytization, for the meaning of Islam is “to submit” and a Muslim is one “submitting.”  Since he is a Muslim and the western interlocutor is not, it is the interlocutor who has to submit.

Islamic supremacism is all about the imposition of Sharia law, even in Canada.  So long as the Muslim community remains weak in Canadian society, we have no fear of violence from them here. We should however be under no illusions.  The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is quintessentially a statement of western values, and Sharia law is utterly in conflict with those values. Islamic supremacism, which seeks to impose Sharia law, should not be tolerated by those who value the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Charter.
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Meanwhile, an old passage written by Winston S. Churchill in The River War has been making the rounds:

 

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!
Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia
in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many
countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods
of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the
Prophet rule or live.  A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and
refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity.  The fact that in Mohammedan
law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as
a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the
faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion
paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.  No stronger retrograde
force exists in the world.  Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant
and proselytizing faith.  It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising
fearless warriors at every step, and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the
strong arms of science, the science against which it (Islam) has vainly struggled,
the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”  

Churchill’s quotes were taken from the volume: Sir Winston Churchill; “The River War”, first edition, Volume II, pages 248-250, published by Longmans, Green & Company, 1899.

 

This passage occurs in the first edition, which consisted of a two volume set of nearly 1000 pages.  The book was revised, edited and shortened for a one volume version that was originally published in 1902, and the above passage did not make it into the revised version.  The book was revised to make the book more of a history and so as not to bore the reader with Churchillian philosophizing.