Mark Steyn, Last Straw?
Free speech and the Canadian Islamic Congress.
Steyn of Maclean's: Busted?
As soon as word got out last week that the Canadian Islamic Congress was planning to haul Maclean's magazine and author Mark Steyn before three Canadian human rights tribunals for the offence of subjecting this country's Muslims to "hatred and Islamophobia," the thing went viral, as pretty well anyone could have predicted.
In New York, alarms rang non-stop at the rightist National Review. In Britain, sensible pleadings emanated from the leftist Guardian newspaper. A recent column in Jewcy, an otherwise intelligent and deservedly popular American web magazine, was headlined: "Toothless Canada Borrows Crescent Fangs."
For all this, we could just blame Steyn, a prolific, witty and incorrigibly conservative writer because the fulcrum of the current rumpus is an excerpt from Steyn's book, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. Its weirdly Malthusian thesis more or less holds that Muslims are taking over the world and Europe will soon be peopled only by guillotine operators and women wearing tents instead of proper clothes. The excerpt was published in Maclean's under the headline "The Future Belongs to Islam," and it appeared in October 2006.
But the Canadian Islamic Congress says the book excerpt was the last straw, just "one in a string of articles that are anti-Islam and anti-Muslim," written mostly by Steyn and by his fellow columnist Barbara Amiel, that Maclean's published between January 2005 and last July.
In the 70-page "Maclean's Magazine: A Case Study of Media-Propagated Islamophobia" that forms the basis of the Canadian Islamic Congress case, Maclean's is charged with "engaging in a discriminatory form of journalism that targets the Muslim community, promotes stereotypes, misrepresents fringe elements as the mainstream Muslim community, and distorts facts to present a false image of Muslims."
The congress announced it was filing complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. Which caused a lot opinionators to become unhinged.
This ain't the USA
Let's leave the caterwauling to other people, take a deep breath, stay calm, and have a look at what's really new and really disturbing about all this, and what isn't new at all.
We'll start with what isn't new.
Canada is not the United States. We have no First Amendment here. Canada's Constitution affirms our rights to free speech, but we've never had such cause to be so afraid of our government that we wet our trousers at the suggestion that it's okay to reserve to the state some authority to limit free speech.
Hate propaganda, the low to which the Canadian Islamic Congress now accuses Maclean's and Steyn of having stooped, actually does cross the Canadian "free speech" limit, and strays into what Canucks have long considered criminal conduct. So we haven't suddenly fulfilled the fears of Yankee paleoconservatives and degenerated into Soviet Canuckistan. We've actually been like this for several decades already.
It was the Canadian Jewish Congress that first put the hate-propaganda proposition to the House of Commons, formally, in 1953, and hate speech was finally prohibited by the Criminal Code, after much parliamentary deliberation, in 1970. The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld the prohibition's constitutionality more than once since the promulgation of the 1982 Constitution Act.
Also, for a long time now, Canadians have regarded the much-dreaded principle of "multiculturalism" as an important value that is properly taken into account when we ponder thorny questions about our fundamental rights, including the right to freedom of speech.
This is not a proposition found only in weird post-modernist scholarly journals. Multiculturalism has been official federal policy in Canada since 1971. More importantly, the affirmation of multiculturalism as a defining national characteristic is entrenched in Canada's Constitution. It's been there for a quarter of a century.
Tribunal rules
So, the Canadian Islamic Congress, "in order to protect Canadian multiculturalism and tolerance," as it claims, is engaging in a time-honoured Canadian tradition by seeking a legal disposition of the question about whether Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine have committed the offence of waging propaganda against an identifiable group, in this case, Muslims. Right?
No. Not right. And this is the part that's new, and not just a tiny bit disturbing.
The Criminal Code prohibits any incitement of hatred against any identifiable group that is likely to result in a crime. It also prohibits the willful public promotion of hatred against any identifiable group. Break this law and you could find yourself in prison for up to two years.
But the Canadian Islamic Congress isn't using the Criminal Code to go after Maclean's and Steyn. Any reasonable person who reads the 70-page brief that forms the basis of its complaint will see why the case is being taken to human rights tribunals instead. It's because there's absolutely no way a criminal charge would hold up.
The Criminal Code's hate-speech provisions make plain that you can't be busted for statements that are true or for the expression of an honest opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a religious text. Statements relevant to the public interest and for the benefit of the public, and reasonably believed to be true, are free and clear of the hate-crime law.
But at the mercy of the human rights tribunals where the Canadian Islamic Congress wants them summoned, Maclean's and Steyn are not assured of any recourse to the defences the Criminal Code's hate-speech provisions provide.
The Canadian Islamic Congress isn't engaging in an entirely groundbreaking strategy -- tribunals have been used in hate-speech and incitement cases before, to useful effect, against Nazis, white-power lunatics, holocaust deniers and gay-bashers. But filing these sorts of complaints with human rights tribunals is a growing trend, and it's pushing the tribunals into terrain they weren't built to traverse.
Acts, not opinions
You could say the Canadian Islamic Congress is steering the tribunals into a swamp more forbidding than any they've traveled before.
The human rights codes that quasi-judicial human rights tribunals operate under in Canada were initially written to address acts, not opinions, and were expected to address only the most narrow restrictions on speech, such as advertisements or job postings that clearly discriminate against ethnic and religious minorities. As a rule, the thornier questions of fair comment, or intent, or truth, don't matter. What matters most is simply cause and effect.
The Canadian Islamic Congress has instigated three separate proceedings under three separate human rights codes against a 102-year-old national magazine over the publication of an excerpt from a book, thereby inviting the tribunals to trespass upon free-press rights well beyond their competence. British Columbia's human rights tribunal has already scheduled hearings for next June.
This entire escapade is not just a threat to Maclean's and Steyn specifically but to journalists generally, and also to pamphleteers, bloggers and just about anyone who might occasionally express a public opinion on a subject of public interest. It also threatens to invite the wrath of the Supreme Court of Canada, which should be expected if Maclean's and Steyn find themselves forced to fight this all the way up. The result could cause great harm to the credibility and the legal clout of human rights tribunals across the country.
From Zundel to here
Alan Borovoy, the widely-respected general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and a key architect of Canada's first human rights commission, saw this coming seven years ago. Back then, he warned of the very real free-speech threat we're now staring in the face.
It's one thing to go before a human rights tribunal with a hate-speech complaint against a dangerous crank like Ernst Zundel, Borovoy said back then. Zundel is a fascist, and he was successfully prosecuted under Canada's Human Rights Act for inciting hatred against Jews. He fled to the United States, got deported back to Canada, was confined for a while under a security certificate, and was then sent back to his fatherland where he was tried, convicted and jailed earlier this year.
"But a wise concern for human rights must address not only current cases but also longer-term implications," Borovoy told a 2000 gathering of the Canadian Association of Statutory Human Rights Agencies. "In short, who else could be targeted under these statutes?"
Well, now we know.
The question isn't whether we like Maclean's, which has taken a decidedly pugnacious turn since editor Kenneth Whyte took over as editor in March 2005. Neither is it about whether suppressing hate propaganda is a good idea. It is a good idea.
The question is whether human rights tribunals can sort through the necessary cacophony of utterances and statements in a free and open society in order to police vigorous public debates for commentary that is "likely to expose" religious, ethnic or other minority groups to hatred, contempt or discrimination. And the answer is they can't, and they shouldn't. That's not what they're for.
Besides, human rights tribunals aren't competent to assess intent to foment hatred or contempt, much less define what these terms mean, and they aren't obliged to guarantee the defence of truth. The Canadian Human Rights Act, for instance, fails to allow for either the truth or reasonable belief as a defence.
But in the realm of public discourse, truth matters, no matter how old-fashioned this sounds, and no matter how many post-structuralism discussion parlours will banish you for saying so. The truth that matters isn't some metaphysical notion of truth, or the kind of magical truth that is said to be culturally-dependent, but the commonplace kind that is revealed by objective facts.
The free expression of opinion also matters, and sorting out the intelligent opinions from the rubbish ones requires a robust and free "marketplace of ideas" in which opinions flourish or wither according to the good sense of the people.
The 'likely to expose' clause
Certainly the marketplace is no utopia, and in Canada, it may well be that the news media is providing an especially dystopian ideas marketplace, as author and journalism professor Marc Edge has forcefully argued, most recently here in The Tyee. But that doesn't get us away from the peril of giving human rights tribunals the job of telling us which ideas are permissible, and which ideas aren't.
Last year, in the middle of the "Mohammed cartoons" controversies, Borovoy again warned about the perils that lie on the road the Canadian Islamic Congress is now so boldly marching down.
In a multicultural country like Canada, journalistic analysis, commentary and even pedestrian news reportage, on any number of global conflicts and controversies, will inevitably result in the publication and broadcast of things that are "likely to expose" some people, sooner or later, to somebody's hatred or contempt, on the basis of their religious beliefs, ancestry or place of origin. To take all that in, human rights tribunals would have to apply "a more general restriction against the transmission of certain news or opinion," Borovoy said. "Hardly the role we had envisioned for human rights commissions."
It's hardly what Canadians had envisioned for multiculturalism, either.
When pollsters ask Canadians what they think of multiculturalism as a bedrock national value, most of us say we like it even better than hockey. We haven't had to be bludgeoned by political-correctness police to think this way. It comes naturally to us, and as uber-pollster Michael Adams has found, we're quite happy with it, thanks. Yes, we worry. And by "we," I'm including the 700,000-plus Muslims that the Canadian Islamic Congress claims to speak for, nearly 90 per cent of whom are foreign-born. Statistics Canada data and Environics polling results show that most of us think new immigrants aren't adopting Canadian values fast enough. But most of us also think that even though Canada has the highest rate of immigration of any country on earth, we're still not taking in too many immigrants.
Newcomers continue to face a range of problems, including racism, but the vast majority of recent immigrants say they're happy they came and they're better off for coming. Their kids are actually doing better, economically, than children whose parents were born here.
Nine of every 10 Canadian Muslims say they're proud Canadians, and almost as many think Canada is headed in the right direction. They explain their optimism in ways no different than anyone else: This is a free and democratic country and it's a pretty friendly place, besides.
Canada's multicultural strength
There are serious problems with Islamist radicals in Canada. The Muslim Canadian Congress -- which is routinely badmouthed by the Canadian Islamic Congress -- has had to point this out, time and again.
Still, this is not Britain, with its radical core of Islamists bullies, where Westminster foolishly grants official-voice status to radical imams, and where the mayor of London is happy to roll out the red carpet for misogynists and homophobes. This is not France, with its rioting banlieues and its weird rules against headscarves and crucifixes in the classrooms. And this is not the United States, where paralysis sets in almost the minute a public debate involving race or immigration begins.
These countries are better than us, in many ways. But in matters of multicultural harmony, Canada rides shotgun to nobody.
The Canadian Islamic Congress says Maclean's magazine is trying to drive a horrible wedge between Muslims and everyone else. It says Maclean's is "attempting to import a racist discourse and language into mainstream discourse in Canadian society."
If that's true, the magazine is doing a lousy job of it. The sinister plot is clearly not working.
But the Canadian Islamic Congress can say what it likes.
It's a free country.
Related Tyee stories:
- Death of a Liberal Delusion
Reviewed: Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma - When Preachers Spew Hate
Calling in cops and lawyers won't affirm the cherished values Sheik Kathadra violates. - Endangered Free Speech
Eroded by 9-11 fears and anal retentive pussyfooters.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
gramscian
13-12-2007
Glavin soft-peddling Maclean's far right turn
Also, one has to take issue with Glavin's casual description of the sharp right turn Maclean's has taken since the former National Post head moved over to the magazine:
"Maclean's, which has taken a decidedly pugnacious turn since editor Kenneth Whyte took over as editor in March 2005."
Perhaps the adjective/euphemism pugnacious ("inclined to quarrel or fight readily; quarrelsome; belligerent; combative") needs to replaced by repugnant ("distasteful, objectionable, or offensive").
samwagar
13-12-2007
Steyn
Steyn is a dink and Macleans is a reactionary rag, however neither is guilty of inciting hatred.
But there is a annoying tendency to pander to the no-neck fundies so long as they aren't Christians - the Sikh terrorists and the Islamic jihadists are somehow seen as "anti-Imperialist" and thus good guys by reactionary leftists. This is just stupid and unthinking politics. And the Tyee is to be commended for not buying into that (while remaining solidly progressive).
The enemy of my enemy is often still my enemy - the jihadis would imprison me, and kill my gay friends - they don't like George Bush and neither do I but so what?
NicS
13-12-2007
Crying Wolf?
I recall almost 6 years ago speaking to a muslim friend about 911. She expressed fear about where the western world, the US and Canada specifically would be going politically and how muslims would be affected. I called the 911 terrorists a bunch of camel jockeys and she accused me of being a right wing conservative. Essentially, a cowboy. Which was my point from the start. George Bush is a cowboy and the 911 terrorists are camel jockeys. They are more or less cut from the same fundamental and simplistic cloth.
She then said something that I didn't disagree with altogether and that she may not have realized was risky on her part. That "the world is tired of hearing about the Holocaust". Risky also because my grandparents on one side were immigrants to Canada as a result of the Pogroms in Eastern Europe around 1900 and they also had, I had, relatives that died in the Holocaust.
My friend immigrated to Canada in the seventies and it was more or less as a refugee. I was born here. She was traumatized by her ordeal and as a result has issues, is very sensitive to criticism of her culture and understandably so.
This story by Terry Glavin reminded me of my muslim friend. It also made me think that if every time the Canadian Islamic Congress has a problem with what someone writes or says about their culture, they complain. Well eventually, people will start accusing them of just "crying wolf".
Just like my Muslim friend was tired of hearing about the Holocaust. We may end up getting tired of people crying wolf, even when the cries are more legitimate.
nightbloom
13-12-2007
Samwager, good post. I
Samwager, good post. I agree wholeheartedly.
Good on the Tyee for demurring from this particular bandwagon.
The thesis of Mark Steyn's book has been roundly attacked on all sides (right and left). The free trade of ideas is something which groups like the CIC must acclimate themselves to (and join, without resorting to statist fatwas). The multi-culti ticket goes both ways.
The CIC represents a demographic that is simply going to have to learn to accept criticism and alternate points of view. Period. Every other group has.
Why doesn't it use its energies to help Muslim families adapt to multi-culti Canada more smoothly - families like the one in T.O., in which a daughter is now dead for not wearing her hijab to school (both her father and brother have been criminally charged). Now that's a proverbial beam in the eye right there.
Tulip
13-12-2007
One problem...
Interesting piece, and likewise, I would tend to err on the side of free speech but I have one problem with what was said.
"It's one thing to go before a human rights tribunal with a hate-speech complaint against a dangerous crank like Ernst Zundel, Borovoy said back then. Zundel is a fascist, and he was successfully prosecuted under Canada's Human Rights Act for inciting hatred against Jews. He fled to the United States, got deported back to Canada, was confined for a while under a security certificate, and was then sent back to his fatherland where he was tried, convicted and jailed earlier this year."
You say that as if it were some self-evident fact, that being a fascist, a racist, a homophobe or any other such affiliation or persuasion was something that was worn like a stamp on the forehead.
I've had the dubious pleasure of having a free subscription to Maclean's and the first few times I came across articles and op-eds written by Mark Steyn one couldn't help but laugh. They were so hilariously twisted, vile and out of touch with reality that it was difficult to believe that the man was actually serious. Surely, he was some caricature -- a Canadian Colbert, in print, perhaps? No such luck however.
What I'm trying to say is, let's not be so quick to dismiss the "soft fascism" of Steyn because we are likewise concerned about the implications of the what the Islamic Congress is doing.
While I am gravely concerned about the possible dangers that may come to free speech as a result of this case, I certainly wouldn't complain if, at the least, the courts found it worthy to denounce Steyn as a bigot and a lunatic without actually passing any real sentences down. One can hope.
Booker
13-12-2007
Insults
In this case I would have to say "a plague on both their houses". Mark Steyn and the Canadian Islamic Congress deserve each other.
Of course it would be worrying if the Human Rights tribunals did not dismiss the complaint. We'll have to see how the tribunals respond.
Protection from being insulted is not a human right. The proper course of action would have been to ask Maclean's for space to make a point-by-point rebuttal of Steyn's silly screed. That's how free speech works.
Ingmar Lee
13-12-2007
"We Should Nuke Iran"
Well, it goes both ways. Bnai Brith is already actively bothering the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal with frivolous complaints to squelch criticism of Israel. Earlier this year, the Victoria-based Peace, Earth and Justice News website ( www.pej.org ) came under attack by Bnai Brith via the CHRC for publishing articles by respected progressive writers such as James Petras, Jostein Gaarder, Israel Shamir, Gilad Atzmon, Virginia Tilley and others. The PEJ BOD, in a state of terror of being labelled as "anti-semite" immediately disappeared the articles, and has since stopped publishing any articles which are critical of the State of Israel. The complainant, Bnai Brith BC's Mr. Harry Abrahms even went so far to name an article which had been redacted from a particularly rabid article written by Michael Coren and published in the Toronto Sun with the title, "We Must Nuke Iran"[http://www.torontosun.com/Comment/2006/09/02/1795204-sun.html]
The PEJ writer simply replaced every reference to "Iran" with "Israel." This word-for-word redacted article was sufficiently appalling to Mr. Abrahms to inspire his complaint to the CHRC. Although I find Terry Glavin's continuous Zionist rants here to be disturbing, I concur with him that using the CHRC to address such complaints is abusive.
squishy
13-12-2007
Rebuttal
Booker:
Yes, Maclean's should have offered space for a point-by-point rebuttal. From what I understand, they did, but the CIC wanted to go one further and get more space, unedited. Maclean's said no to that, hence the complaint.
Booker
13-12-2007
Really
If that's true then it shows them to be political idiots. But that's their right.
nightbloom
13-12-2007
Tulip - I wouldn’t
Tulip - I wouldn’t classify Steyn as a fascist – soft-core or otherwise. He’s a provocateur, like many others in the media on all sides of the political spectrum, albeit a little more witty and titillating than most. He’s not above facetious arguments, and makes unbridled use of mendacious juxtapositions to “illustrate” his arguments (just one example: his attempt to illustrate Europe’s slow-motion cultural death by citing native birth rate stats alongside the alleged wholesale conversion of Europe’s ancient cathedrals and basilicas into mosques and gay dance clubs. The illustration is perverse, funny and apparently intuitive, but is it actually true?). He's just another player in the game of public suasion, of the same genus as those described by Julien Benda long ago in his Trahison des Clercs.
Steyn's thesis is a vulgarized, politically expedient version of an argument that’s been circulating for years – one first inaugurated long ago by Oswald Spengler. Do civilizations die when they become severed from their cultural taproot? Do civilizations undergo a lifecycle, and does this life cycle end when a culture’s wellspring, its creative genius, dries up? Is Western civilization now reaching the end of its creative cycle, and is (post)Modernism a harbinger of this inevitability? Has the West ceased by be in a state of “becoming”, and entered a state of “become” – a boutique facsimile, an embalmed husk of its former organic self? Or are we just on the cusp of another creative synthesis which we can’t see yet?
If I understand the general vein of Steyn's argument, he's saying we’re at the end, that a void is opening up, and that this void will be filled by the creative energies of a newer, more vigorous, un-decadent cultural force (Islam).
dr evil
13-12-2007
Macleans?
Macleans magazine...is that the one with the recent Andrew Coyne question on the cover.
" Is it time to bomb Iran"?
Gad....
nightbloom
13-12-2007
Mark's riposte
Here is Mark Steyn's blogpost in which he addresses the charges:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzgzNmFmODNmNDJkMWYzMTdkYjlkNDI2ZTA2NmI1ZTU=
Verbose, as always. He's likeable, even when he's disagreeable...and in this case he's right:
G West
13-12-2007
Steyn
Steyn is just a tiny bit funnier than David Horowitz - who occupies more or less the same place on the spectrum and challenges the 'doctrinaire' left at campuses all across America. These two are no more representative of the conservative point of view than the CIC is representative of mainstream Muslim opinion in my view.
A couple of extremists sniping at each other on the margins of civil discourse.
In the end, not very different from Ezra Levant's attempt to boost subscriptions and sales by re-publishing the 'Danish' cartoons and poking his finger gratuitously in the eye of Canadian Muslims something over a year ago. Just because you can scream ‘FIRE’ in a crowded theatre doesn’t mean you should….
One hopes that Maclean's doesn't suffer the same fate that Levant's little journal did.
Steyn seems to be running out of places willing to even publish his stuff...PITY!
earthwind
13-12-2007
Macleans magazine
In my part of the world (British Columbia), sensible people read Macleans magazine only when they are at the dentist's or doctor's office. I rightly associate the magazine with bodily pain and ailment. The magazine seems like a hideous right-wing joke, a perversion of the very act and purpose of literacy, a platform for polemical and parochial Central Canadian pitbulls. Fortunately I am in good health and my teeth are good for a year or two.
nightbloom
13-12-2007
Steyn's a genius at polemic.
Steyn's a genius at polemic. It's his job, and he's excellent at it. He says the unsayable without technically saying it, and gets away with it. Journalism students take note. We live in an age in which the "men of letters" dominating our discourse are hired guns mustered to conduct "hits" on political targets. The left is just as bad as the right in this regard. Don't hate him because he's good at it. Now all the hit-men (left and right) have to rally to his defence lest their own mercurial livelihoods come under threat. Someone needs to explain the game to the CIC.
But as for "fascist", that's all so much hot air.
G West
13-12-2007
Good at it????
I'm not so sure of that - Finding a place to spout polemic is pretty important too.
There aren't many places left in Canada (and few in Britain either anymore) where Steyn can get a hearing.
As a drama critic I've always found him entertaining and amusing - as a social commentator his agenda almost always outweighs the logic in his writing.
The CIC is no more representative of Muslim Opinion that the Canadian Jewish Congress is of the views of most Jews in this country any more.
Both organs have been taken over by zealots.
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2007/09/25/1348/
nightbloom
13-12-2007
It's so ironic. The nabobs
It's so ironic. The nabobs of the liberal press must defend Mark Steyn. They have no choice. If this moves forward, it pits the freedom of the press against the mandate and scope of Human Rights tribunals. The Human Rights Tribunals can't win this one. This whole kerfuffle could really change things.
Maclean's Editor-in-Chief Kenneth Whyte illustrates the breathtakingly overbearing and self-righteous sense of multi-culti entitlement which motivates some of the complainants:
"We told them we didn't consider that a reasonable request for response. When they insisted, I told them I would rather go bankrupt than let somebody from outside of our operations dictate the content of the magazine. I still feel that way."
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20071204_165238_4452
jmcp1749
13-12-2007
Macleans is offensive
Macleans is over a 100 years old, eh. Big deal. Both sets of grandparents, my parents and at least one of my siblings subscribed to 'Canada's Newsmagazine' as if it was their duty as citizens to do so.
And perhaps it was, for most of those hundred years. No longer! If it still does, it shouldn't be allowed to proclaim itself thus. The slimeballs' weekly diatribe, maybe.
Me, I stopped reading Macleans shortly after Steyn started writing for it. The word I use for the viewpoints it, and other members of the Conrad Black Ops Media such as the National Post, champions is actually repulsive, not offensive.
I say good on the CIC for taking Macleans to howsoever many Human Rights tribunals it's doing. It's their right as much as it's Macleans right to publish Steyn and his buckets of bilgewater. I'm just astonished the magazine hasn't gone out of business yet.
Actually, now that I think about it, that it hasn't is what's worrying.
snert
13-12-2007
If it's permissible.....
....to slam Christianity then it's permissible to slam Islam. The word hatred is becoming overused and will start to lose it's impact.
Chris H
13-12-2007
A Maclean's Subscriber
Being a Maclean's subscriber, I would say that Steyn is one of the least interesting writers that the magazine employs. His analysis on any topic is always biased to his right-wing, neocon beliefs, and he's pretty predictable too. His ability to say unpopular and horrible things by never really coming out and saying "it" is more cowardly than genius. The principle is the same as it was with Doug Collins: the question isn't whether he has a right to give his opinions, but whether a publication should give him a platform to say it. Good editors wouldn't allow simple profanity to grace their pages, and they shouldn't let obscene thoughts like Steyn's into their magazines either.
nightbloom
13-12-2007
Snert, the media's
Snert, the media's double-standard when it comes to religious critique is appalling and even sickening. Especially when you consider how quickly the media rolled over in the wake of the cartoon fiasco, and continues to demonstrate a deference to Islam while never missing an opportunity to portray Christianity and Christians as somehow fraudulent and evil. It invites the deepest cynicism regarding the motivations behind such editorial policies.
Incidentally, Mark Steyn has posted a complete resource with links regarding the complaints against on steynonline.com:
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/782/36/
Tulip
13-12-2007
Of course not...
No one is suggesting Maclean's has violated anyone's human right. Nor has Mark Steyn. I think the overall consensus here has been that this is, by and large, a fictitious and largely baseless case.
But I think the real chasm in the conversation is between how we see Steyn himself, although, that may be an entirely irrelevant question. Nightbloom and several others have attempted to portray the man as the right's Oscar Wilde but frankly I don't see it.
The man certainly isn't witty, unless by witty you mean hilariously alarmist and ignorant of history. Least of his whole spiel on the Bosnian war in his book, whereby he essentially proceeds to justify acts of genocide on shoddy statistical information.
I don't find him witty, I find him typically petulant and perpetually outraged as a white, Christian male who while running the world would love to have us believe that evil, dark skinned Arabs are about to topple the whole of Western civilization. I maintain my description as accurate: soft fascism. He's one step below Ann Coulter (on a good day).
dorothy
13-12-2007
Is there such a thing?
"Protection from being insulted is not a human right."
No, and this is why these kinds of insults fall under special categories, i.e. special terms have been coined to describe them, rahter than just a reference to breach of Human Rights. Not liking Jewish people and not caring who knows it is called 'antisemitism', and now we have 'Islamophobia', regarding dislike of Islamic people.
Does anyone know if there is a term for not liking Danes, other than the one about not trusting them when they come bearing gifts? It would interest me to know, for it is a fact that a lot of people don't. Just like there is Sharia law, there is Danelaw, and many people show outright hostility at the mention of it.
Theophilus
13-12-2007
Human rights tribunals
could deprive us of our ripest source of comedy, MacLeans and Mark Steyn. Where else can we find such great sources of derision and laughter.
If they cannot publish their stupid and laughable essays, then we will have to look south for non-Canadian idiocy.
Mencken had this taped a century ago:
"one belly-laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms."
Let the clowns publish and ridicule reign.
zalm
14-12-2007
No joy
I'm pretty sure that for a HR case on behalf of a people or a race to succeed, there has to be some evidence that the contravention of rights by the defendant actually led to some hardship on the part of the plaintiffs.
A quick google and some headlines of the past few weeks leads me to believe that things are no worse for Muslims in Canada now than they were a year ago or in 2002 when anti-Muslim fervour was in full swing. Very few mosques are getting their windows smashed, very few traditionally-dressed Muslims are being harassed, and life seems to be going on for all as it usually does.
So I called a couple of Muslim friends of my acquaintance, and confirmed same with them. Mind you, they're not on the CIC mailing list, so they could be liars, eh Rousseau?
Having not read MaCleans or the Notional Pest in many, many years, I must confess that on first reading of these excerpts, that Steyn's writing, using emotionally-loaded words in a context of conflict is guaranteed to raise newspaper sales. It does absolutely nothing for the social discourse that ought to accompany competing world views. Steyn's a teenage thug with matches trying to light a firecracker while standing in a puddle of gasoline.
Anybody who actually thinks he speaks the truth when he writes is a bigger lackwit than Steyn himself. There's no truth in a disaster - only hurt.
earthwind
14-12-2007
Why I don't read Macleans.
I only read Macleans in the safety of the dentist's chair because I don't think rabid conservatism is natural to the Canadian psyche. Chances are good that the likes of Steyn, Amiel, and Lord Black, and their acolytes and sycophants in the world of politics and journalism, will be viewed by posterity in the same light as our esteemed former prime minister, Lord (Viscount) Bennett (1870-1947)who, like Black and David Frum, had to leave Canada and its unenlightened peasantry for the more fertile soil of Britain and America, where their strange and unnatural ideological seedlings could take root. Good riddance and bon voyage! Steyn, Amiel, et al. are proselytzing in a largely unsympathetic, if not barren setting, which is probably why they scream so loud. Reading their stuff is like pulling teeth.
Budd Campbell
14-12-2007
CHRC AND FREE SPEECH
Glavin is not the first to say that Human Rights Commissions should not be tasked with deciding what is, or is not, hate speech. According to some, this function should be left to the courts alone.
In BC, there was much criticism of the case taken against the late Doug Collins by the provincial human rights commission, and I believe that particular part of the provincial HR act may have been removed by the BC Liberal Govt, but I stand to be corrected on that.
I am wondering if the Canadian Jewish Congress or B'Nai Brith has ever asked the Canadian Human Rights Commission to assess some public statement or advertisement? Personally, I think it's pretty clear that Glavin is upset that it's Muslims who are going to the Commission, not that the Commission has this power.
Jeffrey J.
16-12-2007
Author Reveals Bias
While I still value Mr. Glavin's The Last Great Sea, his efforts to analyze the dynamics between Western imperialism and Muslim discontent are woefully lacking in perspective. Western powers have helped oppress Arab nations for years.
The Ottoman Empire controlled all of Arabia for 900 years (Ottomans were Turks, who are NOT Arabs, don't speak Arabic, and are distinct from Arab culture) until WWI when the West took over the spoils of war (the Ottomans earlier approached the UK to join them against Germany but they were rebuffed!).
Neither are Iranians (Persians) of Arabic descent. They aren't even Semites, but are the original Aryans.
The West then invaded most Arabic countries to take their oil and control their sovereignty. It is against this backdrop that writers like Glavin must commence their inquiry. And to identify anger, frustration and extremism in such circumstances is a no brainer. It doesn't mean extremists are "friends". It does mean that we identify who has the power to change the dynamics.
Most Arab groups are virtually powerless, and thus resort to the tools of the powerless. The West, meanwhile, has the most powerful military the world has ever seen, yet describes these impoverished countries as "monsters" ready to annihilate the West at any moment.
This is patently ludicrous, and is a standard ploy when a bully demonizes their victims.
As the US (and now Harper's regime) ramps up its anti-Arab rhetoric, it is no wonder groups like the CIC will react.
I look forward to Mr. Glavin taking on an analysis of CanWestGlobal or the Financial Post's role in shaping public policy.
G West
16-12-2007
Since confrontation and ad hominem attacks
Since confrontation, name calling and ad hominem attacks against Muslims in general appear to be having little positive effect relative to establishing peaceful and amicable relations between the neo-con community and the 'extremist Muslim' faction here in Canada perhaps another tack is in order.
Far be it from me to suggest that Vladimir Putin might have something to teach us...but, I think this is worth considering.
The Russian Federation - having found that killing Muslims in Chechnya is pretty bloody and heavy work - seems to be moving in another direction altogether.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/world/europe/17hajj.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
I wonder if Mark Steyn would approve - or would he suggest such a program would merely encourage the 'problem' to breed a little faster...ushering in more nearly and more rapidly the demise of western culture under a sea of swarthy invaders as the procreate their way to a majority.
G West
16-12-2007
errata
Last sentence 'the' should be 'they' ...
...ushering in more nearly and more rapidly the demise of western culture under a sea of swarthy invaders as they procreate their way to a majority.
shahbandar
17-12-2007
Sticks and Stones
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me. False! Words are more powerful and damaging than weapons. And the question might be, is Macleans using its words to do harm?
Unfortunately there is plenty of evidence that the "new" Macleans is tool in the arsenal of violence. Their recent cover (Dec. 10) which literally screamed off the shelves "BOMB IRAN", and the article within, were unmistakably designed to promote the killing of Iranians. Just as the U.S. media has blood on its hands in cheerleading for the disastrous, criminal invasion of Iraq, we must recognize that Macleans is crying for blood in Iran.
Whose interest is being served by Macleans when they promote the vilification of Muslims and the killing of Iranians? Not hard to guess. The question then becomes how Canadians can protect themselves from the powerful control that Macleans and their ilk have in the CanWest group over our media. They are undermining our democracy and even threatening our lives. If this is not a human rights issue? Where else can we go to seek protection from this threat?
Des Emery
17-12-2007
Mark Steyn
I'm 74 years of age. I started my subscription to Maclean's Magazine over fifty years ago. I just canceled my subscription last month. The comfort of familiarity had turned into the unrelenting irritant of inconsequential rant signifying nothing over the past few years, and the death of a good read finally prompted me to let the buggers go. My biggest regret is the loss of Air Miles associated with subscription renewals. Ah, well, I'll survive.
jcolvin
17-12-2007
Taking a page from bnai brith
Sounds like the CIC has merely taken a page from the book Bnai Brith wrote. For instance last year Bnai Brith took PEJ to the Canadian Human Rights commission for a series of "anti-semitic" articles on their web sight. What's sauce for the goose...
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/loonies-tune-out-bnai-brith-shuts-down-peace-activists-in-canada/
refedmel
18-12-2007
human rights commission
Lots of rhetoric about Steyn and Islam - all a smokescreen. What is terrifying here is that any group can bring up charges based on opinion, and, most important, it is a verifiable fact that the HRC considers "the truth" as not a viable defense.
For all you that get warm and fuzzy over 'rights' and 'multicults', best check out the record of HRC - it is an abomination of 'star chamber' decisions.
If you pride yourself with those so called canadian values, best take care - hard earned rights can vanish over night. That is why every whacko group in the country just loves the HRC - established law, rights and particularly the right to be innocent until proved guilty are all waived in the all consuminig, messiah like devotion to political correctness, which is nothing more than a tool to contol the Sheople of Canada.
The HRC is the most dangerous institution ever formed since the creation of the Inquisition. Those that forget history will suffer its repeat.