Tuesday digest

(This issue continues to deserve its own treatment. More later.)

Canada's largest newspaper has said the following in an editorial today:

Clearly, there are simple truths arising from the weekend events, most notably that all 17 of the people arrested are Muslims. Our important efforts at cultural understanding cannot disguise that fact.

Around the world, Muslim extremists have launched numerous terror acts. Many invoke Islam as a justification for their violence. And they have often hit Western targets on the grounds that our society and our way of life are an affront to Islam as they perceive it. In England, a few radical Islamic religious leaders have even openly called for acts of violence.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed this issue when he said Canada is a target for such extremists "because of who we are and how we live, our society, our diversity and our values. Values such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law; the values that make Canada great; values that Canadians cherish; values that citizens like you are willing to defend."

Canadians of all ethnic and religious backgrounds are justifiably proud of the civil society we have created in this country. And Canada has benefitted greatly from having welcomed immigrants from around the globe.

But there are fundamental values expressed in our Charter of Rights that are not negotiable, that represent who we are as a society. As Harper rightly said yesterday in the House of Commons, "terrorists and the people they represent stand for nothing but hatred."

In the coming days, Canadians must strive to avoid a possible backlash to the arrests. To do that, the onus will be on all of us. But the key will be the Muslim community itself. Individuals must accept responsibility for developments and alienation in parts of the diverse Muslim community.

To prevent a backlash on a scale that has occurred in parts of Europe, parents and friends, and community and educational and religious leaders within the Muslim community — as well as the greater Canadian society — must be ready to challenge the extremists in their midst.

If we are to move forward as a nation against terror attacks, all Canadians — Muslim and non-Muslim — must realize we are in this together.

Thing is, I'm not quite sure just how "diverse" the Muslim community is. The ringleader of the group was a community leader who was in charge of prayers at the local mosque. In fact, he alleged that Canadian soldiers were raping Muslim women in Afghanistan at this mosque. Sure, the local MP spoke out against him, but did anyone else? What was an extremist like him doing in a position of leadership anyways?

Then we have Dr. Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress who is on record stating that all Israelis over 18 are a legitimate target for Palestinian terrorists. His organization, which boasts Khadr family friend and Scarborough imam Aly Hindy of "homegrown baloney" fame as a past president, is advocating a government-funded study in between finding excuses for Muslims to not participate fully in mainstream Canadian society:

... (p)ost 9/11, Canada has created an extremely challenging environment for Canadian Muslims and increased the urgency of accelerating their smart integration movement. Imported extremist religious and political ideologies from their countries of origin are still dominant in some Canadian communities and are hindering smart integration. The result, in some cases, has been division, fragmentation, increased isolation and, in a few instances, destructive fanaticism.

In response to these challenges, many post-9/11 Canadian Muslims are trying to break away from such ideologies because they are simply not an appropriate or constructive fit for the time and place in which we live. Because the civil liberties of Canadian Muslims are eroding, they feel that they cannot afford to follow the road of either assimilation or isolation.

How about instead of spending more taxpayers' dollars on social research, we start making the case for the West a little more aggressively instead of looking for explanations which fit nicely into the Trudeaupian multicultural framework so that we can keep pat ourselves on the back a little more amid platitudes about how we are going to be even more "tolerant"?

I'm afraid the reality of the situation is a little closer to this:

A Canadian Muslim friend who lives in Ontario told me recently that he has been unwelcome in his local mosque since the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York. His fellow Muslims have blackballed him because he made public statements critical of the hijackers and of al Qaida and the Palestinians and supportive of the US and Israel. He informed me that while in absolute numbers, mosque attendance in Canada has dropped since Sept. 11, those who continue to attend are fervent in their devotion to jihad against the Western world.

That is, the Muslims who have been forced from the organized Canadian Muslim community are those who believe in Muslim integration in the West while those who remain within that community are radical separatists who cannot abide their pro-Western Muslim brethren.

My friend and his fellow pro-Western Muslims are doubly ostracized. Not only are they rejected by their fellow Muslims who decry their denunciations of jihad, they are also rejected by the intellectual and cultural elites in their countries who insist on apologizing for jihadists in the name of multiculturalism and anti-racism.

I am of the view that even if most Muslims may be uncomfortable with violence, at the same time, they'll tell you that they can understand what may lead someone to embrace violence as an option because they share the same grievances (Israel, anti-terrorism legislation, etc.).

They are also are encouraged by the Canadian establishment to not assimilate but to retain the culture, traditions, and belief systems of the places that they emigrated from. This means that a person like the ringleader of the group, who was seen tearing down election signs and angrily saying that Muslims shouldn't participate in Canadian elections because they are illegitimate according to the faith's beliefs, can more easily attain a position of influence where he can radicalize and recruit impressionable young men to his cause.

Ask yourself how welcome a Muslim like Irshad Manji would be at your local mosque. She's the only Muslim since 9/11 who has talked about the need for Muslims to take some responsibility for the excesses of modern Islam without excuses, and look at how she's been ostracized by the leadership of the "religion of peace".

It's time that we make it clear once and for all that multiculturalism has limits. People who come to Canada should be told that if they can't accept the values of equality of the sexes, acceptance of differences, and most importantly, free discussion and debate (which involves pointed and potentially offensive criticism like the kind Manji offers) rather than violence as a way to resolve issues, then they don't belong here. If you are willing to live within those parameters, we're happy to have you, but if not, perhaps you ought to think about settling somewhere else. And if you're already here and can't abide by those parameters, you will be held accountable.

That's the kind of message we need to send loud and clear right now.