Wednesday, July 1, 2026
To our Canadian readers and friends...
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
PVV leader Geert Wilders: We have to reclaim our streets!
Following a football match, rioters in Paris went on a rampage in the French capital, looting shops setting cars on fire, attacking, even firing at police officers.
Videos and television footage showed that many rioters had an immigrant background. It is a scene Europeans have become all too familiar with – not just in France, but all over the continent.
In the past decades, Europe’s ruling elites have allowed millions of immigrants from Africa and the Islamic world to settle in our midst. Some of them hate their host country to the extent that they want to destroy it. They loot and vandalize, assault and rape, and even murder.
Leading politicians – such as Emmanuel Macron in France, Rob Jetten in my own Netherlands, Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels, and many others in their ivory towers – think that people do not notice what is going on. But they do notice, and they are deeply worried. They want the chaos to stop. They also realize the root cause of our societal break-down: Mass immigration by people who contribute absolutely nothing to our societies and reject our cultural values.
While our cities begin to resemble war zones, our governments continue their march of folly. In my country, the authorities want to force literally every municipality in the Netherlands to house a quota of asylum seekers. These fortune seekers, many of whom are young men, are being lodged in hotels, holiday resorts, former schools, former army barracks, even on cruise ships.
I have called on the Dutch people to resist – firmly, but always in a non-violent manner – the establishment of centres for asylum seekers in their neighbourhoods. I have recently begun a nation-wider resistance tour, visiting local communities where the authorities are planning new asylum centres.
The response has been overwhelming. The mainstream media do not report on the protests because the demonstrators are peaceful and law-abiding. It is not our people who go rampaging in the streets, ravaging their neighbourhoods! We are not conquerors like the thugs in the streets of Paris; we defend our homes. We do not destroy our communities; we love them.
We do not loot our neighbours; we protect them. We do not harass and attack our women; we stand up for them. It all boils down to the culture of love that drives the patriots defending Europe, versus the culture of hatred that drives those eager to to destroy it.
Societies cannot exist without a shared set of moral values. Since the 1970s, governments, aided by supranational organizations such as the EU and various UN bodies, have begun to impose a doctrine of relativism and multi-culturalism, opening Europe’s doors to literally millions of foreigners who have little in common with us. As a result, Europe has slowly transformed into Eurabia.
No one can deny that the neighbourhoods with the largest concentrations of Islamic newcomers are the most prone to violence. Mass immigration by people from cultures that have not been shaped by the basic forces of European civilization has eaten away at law and order, the foundation of our free societies.
Mass immigration has also created a new electorate for political parties. The “mainstream” parties actively search for the Islamic vote. This phenomenon has become increasingly important because the Islamic population has continuously grown, thereby becoming a power broker in elections.
Political parties compete with each other by giving in to Islamic demands, such as an anti-Israeli foreign policy, the prosecution of so-called "Islamophobic" individuals, and the abandonment of entire neighbourhoods to Islamic gangs, which the police are instructed not to "provoke."
It is urgent that patriotic politicians organize a national wave of peaceful resistance. We demand an immediate asylum stop, encouragement of remigration, and compulsory remigration of criminal migrants. Europe is still ours. If we want to keep it that way, we have to rise up en masse. Non-violently but firmly and with determination, we have to reclaim our streets. If we do, we can still win. The time to act is now.
Monday, September 30, 2024
Matt Taibbi stands up for free speech at "Rescue the Republic"
Thursday, July 29, 2021
VIDEO: Stephen Harper & Joe Lonsdale on over-reaction to the "pandemic and economic crisis" and the illiberalism of "wokeness"
Thursday, March 11, 2021
UPDATED: Two more countries (European & Asian) ban the burqa
- "In Switzerland our tradition is that you show your face. That is a sign of our basic freedoms." — Walter Wobmann, member of the Swiss People's Party, the biggest political party in Switzerland.
- "Some Muslims also understood that the niqab is a clear symbol of radical Islam." — Jean-Luc Addor, member of the Swiss People's Party.
- "Saying yes to the ban on veiling is saying no to a totalitarian ideology that has no place in a democracy." — Saïda Keller-Messahli, founder and president of the Forum for a Progressive Islam (!!!)
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Thursday, December 17, 2020
Keep your mind alive! Free online courses from Hillsdale College
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
VIDEO: Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson & Friends talk about the New World Order, political Islam and the indoctrination of our children
I'm pleased to repost a brand new video in which LLTT interviews award-winning international journalist, educator, author and consultant, Alex Newman, who discusses the New World Order and the agenda of chaos. Also appearing is Tanya Gaw, co-founder of Action 4 Canada, who talks about the crisis in the education of our children, who are being indoctrinated in gender ideology in furtherance of that same One World agenda.
Further viewing (for our Canuck readers): "The Conservative Party of Canada no longer represents the grassroots of our nation" - More straight talk from LLTT, posted to YouTube 6/5/19.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Alberta socialists play anti-white card, lose bigly to United Conservatives
The western Canadian province of Alberta is a lot like Texas, only covered by snow six months of the year. People wear Stetson hats and cowboy boots, even in city boardrooms. They talk about three things: oil, beef and when are the Oilers going to win something. And they drive pickup trucks, just like the blue one that Jason Kenney drove into Government House (metaphorically speaking) in yesterday's provincial election.Jason Kenney? Who he? Haven't we heard that name before? Yes! Click on the tag at the end of this story and you'll find several posts from the years when he was a cabinet minister and key player in the federal government of Steve Harpoon. He wisely jumped ship well before the election of 2015 and went home to Alberta to lead the provincial Conservative Party.
In the ensuing election, conservative Albertans made the classic mistake (Republicans take note!) of dividing their votes between the official Conservative Party and the even more rightist Wildrose Party. Result? A win for the socialist New Democratic Party, who promptly embraced the save-the-environment-and-to-hell-with-oil polices of Just-in Trudeau's Liberal federal government. Result? A new carbon tax, but no new pipelines, and four years of stagnation in the oil patch. And yesterday was the day of reckoning.
The 2019 campaign was, from the outset, a two-way fight between the pinko Kneedippers and Mr Kenney's United Conservative Party. Note the new party name. Having learned the hard way not to divide your forces, conservative Albertans supported the 2017 merger of the Conservative Party and the populist/rightist Wildrose Party and put all their blue eggs in Mr Kenney's basket. Result? A hyuge win for the UCP. As I write, with a couple of ridings still in doubt, the UCP is elected or leading in 63 seats, the socialists in 24. "Hope is on the horizon," Mr Kenney told a crowd of cheering and whistling supporters in Calgary, adding that "Alberta is open for business!"
Yesterday's vote was often framed, especially by Canada's lamestream media (Hello, CBC!) as a choice between economic priorities and social values. Since the deteriorating economy was a huge millstone around the neck of the NDP, the (now outgoing) premier, Rachel Notley, and her media sycophants (Hey, she's the last female premier!) tried to sell Albertans on her ethics, pointing to several festering scandals that dogged the UCP on the campaign trail and promising spending on health care, child care and education if her party was re-elected.
When that didn't work, she dove into the gutter, trying to portray UCP candidates as racist, Islamophobic, anti-LGBTQ, and the latest pejorative "white nationalist". Result? Didn't work! Mr Kenney continued to back one candidate (an evangelical pastor) who compared homosexuality to pedophilia in a 2013 sermon. Mr Kenney also refused to kick out candidates who questioned the "science" behind climate change. Apparently Albertans, unlike the wimpy denizens of Toronto and Ottawa, aren't overburdened by white guilt, and are sick of being hearing lectures on environmentalism and "inclusivity" from the likes of Ms Notley and her turban-wearing federal counterpart Jugmeat Singh.
Lessons for conservatives on both sides of the world's longest (and sadly) undefended border: Support each other, and stand united! And don't be afraid to show your true colours. Even in Canada, there are hundreds of thousands of voters who have not yet taken leave of their senses, and can still tell the difference between the lefties' promised utopia and the strong and free society in which decent, hard-working people can live a good life, free from the rule of Big Brother!
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
VIDEO: "The Fight of Our Lives" opens in Toronto March 26th - Follow links for other locations and how to get tickets
THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES - Defeating the Ideological War Against the West
is a hard-hitting new documentary film by Gloria Z. Greenfield that examines the internal and external threats facing the West. The cast of distinguished scholars and experts trace the emergence of anti-Western ideas and movements, and their subsequent penetration into Western academia, politics, and society. This powerful documentary conveys eloquent messages of determination, focus, and calls to action. Here's the trailer.
THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES - Defeating the Ideological War Against the West
has its Canadian premiere in Toronto on March 26th at the Odeon Cineplex Empress Walk Theatre, 5095 Yonge Street, North York, ON M2N 6Z4. Ms Greenfield will answer questions after the screening.
Click here to get your tickets. If you're not in the so-called Greater Toronto Area, please share this with family and friends who live there, and click here for information about when you can see THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES in your area... even if you live in Jerusalem!
Many thanks to Agent 6 for the heads-up!
Thursday, April 20, 2017
"Australia first!" - Oz to introduce values tests for would-be citizens
While announcing the end of an overly generous temporary worker programme, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the time had come to "put Australia first." The current immigration process, he said, was mainly "administrative" while the citizenship test is largely "a civics test." The current multiple-choice questionnaire tests a person's knowledge of Australian laws, national symbols and colours of the Aboriginal flag, but Mr Turnbull said it was not adequate to judge whether a person would accept Australian values."If we believe that respect for women and children and saying no to violence...is an Australian value, and it is," he explained, "then why should that not be made a key part, a fundamental part, a very prominent part, of our process to be an Australian citizen? Why should the test simply be a checklist of civic questions?"
The new citizenship test will include questions about whether applicants have sent their kids to school, whether they go to work, and whether they think it's consistent with Australian values to become part of unruly gangs. "We’re standing up for Australian values and the parliament should do so too," said the PM.
On the question of language, Mr Turnbull said basic English would no longer be sufficient to become an Australian citizen under the new test. New applicants need a minimum level 6.0 equivalent of the IELTS (International English Language Testing System), and will only become eligible for citizenship after four years as a permanent resident, up from one year. He told reporters in Canberra, "I reckon if we went out today and said to Australians, 'Do you think you could become an Australian citizen without being able to speak English?', they’d say, 'You’re kidding. Surely you’d have to be able to speak English.'" Just like the gentleman in the drawing at right.*
"What we are doing," Mr Turnbull said, "is strengthening our multicultural society and strengthening our values." Turnbull told reporters in Canberra. “Australian citizenship should be honoured, cherished. It’s a privilege."
* Note from Ed: Australian English is a dialect, or at least a variant, which is unintelligible to non-residents of the Antipodes. It is sometimes known as "Strine", from the way native speakers pronounce the RSE "strain". You can look it up in The Oxford Companion to the English Language.
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Catholic prelates warn of dangers of Muslim immigration
Most Rev. Dominik Duka, Archbishop of Prague, said, "If there is migration that is unprepared and without any prospects, the whole society may disintegrate." He said that immigration must be subject to reasonable controls, which would "take into account not only the well-being of the afflicted, but we also necessarily protect the population of the host countries."
"The experience and current state of immigration in Western European countries are a sort of warning," the prelate added. "This is not any problem of the past five years, this is a problem of several decades." The Chairman of the Czech Bishopric Conference went on to say that "throughout the history of mankind, unregulated migration invariably brought violence, wars and an economic, cultural and social downfall."
Most Rev. Stanislaw Zvolensky, Archbishop of Bratislava, added a special concern about the massive influx of Muslim immigrants, noting the number of terrorist attacks by groups claiming Islamic motivation. "The facts can logically result in the conclusion that the bigger the Muslim community, the higher the likelihood of violent acts."
The prelate added that the influx of refugees was likely to affect Europe. "The arrival of thousands of migrants from the Muslim world can basically alter our civilization," he said. "We may not sustain the encounter primarily for demographic and cultural reasons in the course of decades." The countries of Western civilization had Christian roots, he explained, but the influence of Christianity on Western culture and society is on the wane.
Source: "Prague archbishop warns of uncontrolled migration", Prague Daily Monitor, 22/2/17. Walt's emphasis.
Further reading: "There Can Be No Living Together", by Jim Goad, Taki's Magazine, 20/2/17.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Muslim journalist admits Mark Steyn was right
Nearly ten years ago, Mark Steyn wrote what would prove to be a best-selling book entitled America Alone. Although Mr Steyn's opus has pride of place on my working library bookshelf, I never got around to reviewing and recommending it in WWW. Click here to read a review by blogger Tim Challies. Mr Challies admits to borrowing a summary of America Alone's main points from yet another blog, so I'll borrow his.
1) In the ongoing conflict between the West and Islam, both the demographics and the will to power favor the Islamists. That a country like Spain, with a birth rate of 1.15 children per adult women, will extinguish itself in a few generations, while immigrants from countries such as Pakistan (birth rate 4.53) will move in to fill the vacuum.
2) As an aggressive, unassimilated minority edges closer to a majority (as in France, with an estimated 30% Muslim population in the under 20 age group), the character of the democratic institutions will become more closely aligned with Islamic law and culture.
3) The post-Christian welfare state is largely to blame for the pessimism and failures of will demonstrated by Europe.
4) America represents the primary exception to this trend, if only by degree, and that only a concerted effort to save our society stands a chance of reversing these trends.
Howls of indignation and accusations of racism and Islamophobia followed the publication of America Alone is overseas in connection with research for a new book. But his decade-old bestseller America Alone as surely as Eid-al-Fitr follows Ramadan. Among those calling for Mr Steyn's head were two columnists for the Toronto Sun, Tarek Fatah and Farzana Hassan. As their names suggest, both are followers of the Prophet.
Recent events, including the Orlando massacre of nearly half a hundred people by another follower of the Prophet, seem to have prompted Mr Fatah to have another think. Here's the the beginning of his column, headed "West bowing to radical Islam", in today's Sun.
Almost 10 years ago, Maclean's magazine published an essay by Mark Steyn titled, "The future belongs to Islam".
In it, he suggested, "the West is growing old and enfeebled, and lacks the will to rebuff those who would supplant it."
It was an extract from Steyn's then best-selling book America Alone, where he concluded, "It's the end of the world as we've known it..."
There was an outcry among Canada's Islamists, who took Steyn and Maclean's to the Ontario and British Columbia Human Rights Commissions.
My fellow Sun columnist, Farzana Hassan, and I wrote a rejoinder in Maclean's titled, "Mark Steyn has a right to be wrong."
Today, I recognize, Steyn was right and I was wrong.
If you felt it was unfair of me to mention the Orlando massacre in the paragraph introducing the excerpt, please understand that it was the deliberate coverup -- by the FBI, the lamestream media and the liberal elites up to and including Hellery and the Prez -- of Omar Mateem's religion and motive that prompted Mr Fatah to write what he did today. Here's how he puts it.
If there were any doubts the West is abdicating its responsibility to stand up for Western values, the amateur attempts by the FBI to cover up the Islamist nature of the Orlando attack, removed them.
At first, the FBI refused to even mention the fact the Orlando jihadi was inspired by ISIS, but after criticism, released the text of his 911 calls, but not the audio.
It replaced the word "Allah" with "God", despite knowing precise words matter in truth-telling.
It was clearly an attempt to make the attack appear homophobic, not Islamist.
President Barack Obama and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton deflected attention from the obvious Islamic nature of the terrorism to a debate about gun control.
Mr Fatah concludes, and Walt concurs, that "Orlando was an act of Islamic terror and of Islamofascism, a doctrine of hatred towards the West and what it stands for, including LGBTQ rights.
It holds secular liberal democracy in contempt, hates non-Muslims, degrades women and is racist towards non-Arabs, especially black Africans.
It is a supremacist death cult that has the end times as its ultimate goal."
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
VIDEO: Pope Francis honours Hollywood lefties
Mr Ferrara's article was written before the latest egregious example of Francis the Humble's pandering to the liberal elites. I refer to a ceremony held at the Vatican on Sunday in which the Pope bestowed his "Olive Award" on three Hollywood stars -- George Clooney, Richard Gere and Selma Hayek -- who are all activists in the promotion of environmentalism, gender ideology, gay rights and suchlike liberal secular humanist claptrap.
One of these paragons of virtue claims to be a Buddhist. The other two are apostates -- lapsed Catholics -- or, I should say, not just "lapsed" but actively anti-Catholic! Listen to what The Remnant's Michael Matt has to say about them and about why the Pope is taking a leading role in destroying our Western Christian culture.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
America's Founding Fathers opposed unrestricted immigration
President Obama claims that restricting immigration in order to protect national security is “offensive and contrary to American values.” No-limits liberals have attacked common-sense proposals for heightened visa scrutiny, profiling or immigration slowdowns as “un-American.”
America’s Founding Fathers, I submit, would vehemently disagree.
Our founders, as I’ve reminded readers repeatedly over the years, asserted their concerns publicly and routinely about the effects of indiscriminate mass immigration. They made it clear that the purpose of allowing foreigners into our fledgling nation was not to recruit millions of new voters or to secure permanent ruling majorities for their political parties. It was to preserve, protect and enhance the republic they put their lives on the line to establish.
In a 1790 House debate on naturalization, James Madison opined: “It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours. But why is this desirable?”
No, not because “diversity” is our greatest value. No, not because Big Business needed cheap labor. And no, Madison asserted, “Not merely to swell the catalogue of people. No, sir, it is to increase the wealth and strength of the community; and those who acquire the rights of citizenship, without adding to the strength or wealth of the community are not the people we are in want of.”
Madison argued plainly that America should welcome the immigrant who could assimilate, but exclude the immigrant who could not readily “incorporate himself into our society.”
George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, similarly emphasized that immigrants should be absorbed into American life so that “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.”
Alexander Hamilton, relevant as ever today, wrote in 1802: “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”
Hamilton further warned that “The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others, it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils. It has been often likely to compromise the interests of our own country in favor of another.”
He predicted, correctly, that “The permanent effect of such a policy will be, that in times of great public danger there will be always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone will weaken the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader.”
The survival of the American republic, Hamilton maintained, depends upon “the preservation of a national spirit and a national character.” He asserted, “To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens the moment they put foot in our country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty.”
On Thursday, a bipartisan majority of U.S. senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee adopted a stunningly radical amendment by Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., to undermine the national interest in favor of suicidal political correctness. The measure would prevent the federal government from ever taking religion into account in immigration and entrance decisions “as such action would be contrary to the fundamental principles on which this Nation was founded.”
This pathway to a global right to migrate runs contrary to our founders’ intentions as well as decades of established immigration law. As Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., pointed out in a scathing speech opposing the Leahy amendment: “It is well settled that applicants don’t have the constitutional right or civil right to demand entry to the United States. … As leaders, we are to seek the advancement of the Public Interest. While billions of immigrants may benefit by moving to this country, this nation state has only one responsibility. We must decide if such an admission complies with our law and serves our national interest.”
Put simply, unrestricted open borders are unwise, unsafe and un-American. A country that doesn’t value its own citizens and sovereignty first won’t endure as a country for long.
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
VIDEO: Ron Paul: Is Islam about to engulf Western civilization?
My posts on the clash of civilizations should not be misinterpreted as war propaganda. I am all for defending North America and Europe, by force of arms if necessary, from the Muslim invaders. And I agree with the Donald that there should be no more Muslim immigrants -- not any!
However, I am totally opposed to making war on the Islamic terrorists in their own land. I have written dozens in which I argue that "the coalition of the willing" has no business in the Middle East and Africa. [What about the oil business? Ed.] I believe that all the trouble in those reasons stemmed from the misguided and demonstrably failed foreign policy of the Paranoid States of America, beginning with Bush I's First Gulf War.
Instead of invading the sandpit, and raining death from the skies on 1000 innocent civilians for every jihadist, we should be defending our homelands by stopping the immigration of aliens who cannot and will not assimilate. Leave the Islamic extremists to fight their own Muslim civil war. Our task should be to rebuild our own economy and society.
Here's a new video from Ron Paul, making the same point more eloquently.
Recommended reading: A War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq, by Paul William Roberts. Raincoast Books, 2004
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Western and Muslim societies "irreconcilably different", poll finds
Whether it’s the rise of Islamic State zealots, the killing of free-speech advocates in Paris and Copenhagen or disputes over niqabs, the polling, done by Leger Marketing, shows Canadians share in the growing global anxiety about sectarian conflict. 63% of Canadian Protestants, 62% Jews, 60% of Catholics and 46% of the non-religious believe Western and Islamic societies cannot be reconciled. Even 42% of Canadian Muslims believe the contrast between the West and Islamic cultures is too great to be bridged.
Jack Jedwab, vice-president of the ACS which commissioned the Leger polls, called the findings "a huge blow to interfaith dialogue". He said the belief of a majority of Canadians that the West and Islamic society are locked in inevitable antagonism echoes the thesis of Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of Political Order. Way back in 1992, Prof. Huntington predicted -- correctly, as it turns out -- that people’s cultural and religious identities would be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.
The Pew Research Center keeps track of such things. Its new report -- "Latest Trends in Religious Restrictions and Hostilities" -- confirms that worldwide social hostilities involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012 and have remained basically stuck at that level.
Almost three in four global citizens, Pew reports, live in countries where religion-fuelled conflicts run the gamut from vandalism of property and desecration of sacred texts to violent assaults resulting in deaths and injuries.
What are the worst countries in the world for sectarian conflict? According to the Pew index, India shares that distinction with... wait for it... Israel. Next on the "Very High" list are the Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Indonesia, Egypt, Central African Republic, Iraq and Kenya.
What is the link which connects all the countries -- saving perhaps Sri Lanka -- on the list of "Very High" social hostility index? No prize for guessing that they all have Muslim majorities or large Muslim minorities.
What should we in North America learn from all t his? The polling done for the ACS revealed Canadians' concern about religion-related conflict is leading many to yearn for tighter border restrictions and less immigration from Muslim countries such Pakistan, Nigeria, etc etc etc.
Asked whether governments should deal with security concerns by "making it more difficult for people to come across national borders," 68% of Canadian Catholics agreed. So did 62% of Canadian Protestants and Jews, as well as 51% of the non-religious. Even 42% of Muslims agreed.
The two Leger polls of 2000 Canadians, including 500 born outside the country, were conducted in 2013 and 2014. They have an accuracy of plus or minus 2.9% 19 times out of 20. In general the polling results did not show marked differences between the responses of native-born Canadians and immigrants. Even the new-comers know a problem when they see one... even when they're part of it.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
"Culture wars" in Canada? Really?
As Walt explained in "Multiculti types horrified as Charter of Québec Values bans religious headgear", the law mooted by the Parti Québécois government of Pauline Marois would have prohibited the wearing by public servants in public places of religious dress and symbols, including the Jewish kippa, Sikh turban and kirpan, large Christian crosses, and the hijabs, niqabs and burqas favoured by some Muslim women.
If you're not sure about the difference between hijab, niqab and burqa, check out "Hijab, niqab, burqa -- what's the difference?". (That post from 2010 is near the top of WWW's all-time most-read list.) Or just study this illustration below, which includes the chador, something like a hijab extended to a full cloak.
To the consternation of the English-speaking chattering classes and the usual celebrants of diversity, polling consistently showed the proposed charter a winner with French-speaking Québec voters. But there were other issues -- a sluggish economy, corruption and (as usual) separation -- compared with which religious headgear seemed unimportant, and the PQ government went down to defeat, and with it the charter.
All was quiet for the next ten months, until the Federal Court of Canada struck down a regulation, introduced by then Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in 2011, banning the wearing of the niqab or any other face covering while taking the Oath of Citizenship.
An immigrant from Pakistan had sent home for a bride -- as is "normal" for the clannish south Asians -- and brought to Canada a devout Muslim lady named Zunera Ishaq. In due course Ms Ishaq applied for citizenship and passed the examination ("What's a 'double-double'?") in November 2013. When it came time to take the oath, she objected to the requirement to remove the veil at the citizenship ceremony it is unnecessary for the purposes of identity or security. Worse than that, she said, it's a public event and her face would be seen by strange men.
Immigration officials subsequently offered to seat Ms Ishaq in either the front or back row and next to a woman at the ceremony, but she refused the arrangement since the citizenship judge and officers could still be male, and there could potentially be photographers at the event.
The upshot was that the ceremony was deferred and Ms Ishaq brought suit. Mr. Justice Keith M. Boswell ruled that "To the extent that the policy interferes with a citizenship judge’s duty to allow candidates for citizenship the greatest possible freedom in the religious solemnization or the solemn affirmation of the oath, it is unlawful."
Fair enough. Freedom of religion seems to be covered by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms embedded in the Canadian Constitution. But... is the wearing of the niqab (or hijab or burqa) a requirement of Islam? No! It is just a cultural practice, the custom in certain parts of the Muslim world -- Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and places where "freedom of religion" applies only to Muslims, and not all Muslims at that!
To the surprise of many, the Harper government has decided to appeal Mr. Justice Boswell's decision. A spokesthingy for Citizenship and Immigration Canada said, "New citizens are obliged to confirm their identity when taking the Oath of Citizenship, which is sworn or affirmed in public. It is simply common sense to require removal of facial coverings or other items that hide new citizens’ mouths from view. The oath, knowledge and language tests, as well as years of residency, are among the basic requirements for joining the family of Canadian citizens."
The Prime Minister himself put the case rather more strongly. Speaking in the House of Commons this week, Mr. Harper called the Federal Court's move to strike down the 2011 ban "offensive", and said, "We don't allow people to cover their faces during citizenship ceremonies, and why would Canadians, contrary to our own values, embrace a practice at that time that is not transparent, that is not open and, frankly, is rooted in a culture that is anti-women?" (My emphasis. Walt)
So there you have it. Going about with your face covered, especially at a ceremony meant to show your commitment to your adopted country, is contrary to Canadian values. Minister Kenney told CBC Radio's The House today that people should pledge their allegiance to their fellow citizens publicly and openly. (Click here to listen to the complete interview, including Mr. Kenney's waffle on whether or not Canada will continue to participate in the American invasion of Iraq.)
The government view is finding a lot of favour with ordinary Canadians -- non-members of the meeja and PC mafia -- outside of Toronto, particular in... wait for it... Québec. On the same edition of The House, an imam said the niqab isn't part of Muslim culture, but only of Saudi culture. Mr. Harper told the House of Commons that he speaks for not just the majority of Canadians, but the majority of moderate Muslims. Will the Federal Court of Appeal agree? We'll see. Meanwhile, the war continues.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Mark Twain reflects on the folly of trying to civilize barbarians
The trouble is that what we think of as civilization and civilized behaviour does not always equate or accord with concepts of the same held by the denizens of such nether regions as Africa and the Middle East. We have long eschewed cultural practices such as female circumcision and stoning people to death for adultery or blasphemy, yet these customs are still followed in places like Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan [That's enough backward places. Ed.]
This is not a new thought. Over a century ago, Mark Twain thought and wrote about the failure of the English-speaking peoples to impose their Christian religion and cultural ideals on the natives -- please forgive the term -- of places like... wait for it... Australia. As I thought about the idiocy of our "mission" to being civilization and democracy to the Middle East, I recalled a story the great American writer told in Following the Equator (1897). He describes the efforts of one George Augustus Robinson -- "The Conciliator" -- to find and bring in the last remaining natives of Tasmania, to enclose them in a reservation so that they might enjoy the benefits of civilization etc etc. And so he did, with predictable results. From Chapter 27, emphasis mine....
The Natives were not used to clothes, and houses, and regular hours, and church, and school, and Sunday-school, and work, and the other misplaced persecutions of civilization, and they pined for their lost home and their wild free life. Too late they repented that they had traded that heaven for this hell....
In a very few years nothing but a scant remnant remained alive. A handful lingered along into age. In 1864 the last man died, in 1876 the last woman died, and the Spartans of Australasia were extinct.
The Whites always mean well when they take human fish out of the ocean and try to make them dry and warm and happy and comfortable in a chicken coop; but the kindest-hearted white man can always be depended on to prove himself inadequate when he deals with savages. He cannot turn the situation around and imagine how he would like it to have a well-meaning savage transfer him from his house and his church and his clothes and his books and his choice food to a hideous wilderness of sand and rocks and snow, and ice and sleet and storm and blistering sun, with no shelter, no bed, no covering for his and his family's naked bodies, and nothing to eat but snakes and grubs and offal.
This would be a hell to him; and if he had any wisdom he would know that his own civilization is a hell to the savage -- but he hasn't any, and has never had any; and for lack of it he shut up those poor natives in the unimaginable perdition of his civilization, committing his crime with the very best intentions, and saw those poor creatures waste away under his tortures; and gazed at it, vaguely troubled and sorrowful, and wondered what could be the matter with them.
I wonder if President Obarmy has ever read more of Twain than the adventures of Tom Sawyer and (maybe) Huckleberry Finn. And what about Kipling? In The Man Who Would Be King, Peachey Carnehan describes the residents of Kafiristan (real place, part of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan) as "savages, one and all". Do we really think we can turn them into somewhat darker copies of ourselves?
Monday, January 5, 2015
Why the Middle East hates the West - Part III
If you buy Walt's argument that the USA is fighting in the Middle East to protect its empire against Islamic nationalist fanatics, you might pause to consider the fate of previous empires. The Russians and "Soviets" tried twice to invade and conquer Afghanistan. So did the British, who in the first half of the 20th century considered all of the Middle East, from the Gulf to Pakistan, to be within their sphere of influence.
Going back to ancient history, the Greeks had some success in that region. Alexander the Great penetrated as far as Kafiristan, a historical region that covered present-day Nuristan Province in Afghanistan. (If you've seen the admirable movie version of Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, you'll know where I'm going with this.)
The Roman Empire, at its greatest extent, included the Holy Land, as well as Syria and "Mesopotamia" (more or less the same as northern Iraq), the very land which ISIS is fighting to take over today. That area was one of the first parts of the Roman Empire to fall. The Romans just gave up on it. They didn't know about the oil!
As Edward Gibbon tells us -- click here to read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as an e-book -- the Roman Empire imploded. It decayed and crumbled from within, doomed by its abandonment of the principles and policies that made it great. The Romans lost their respect for their gods and for decent living. They put pleasure ahead of civic duty, and gave themselves over to hedonism and excess.
The same thing happened in America, then "the rest of the West", in the 1960s. I refer to the rise of the hippie "movement" and the era of "flower power". Sex, drugs and indolence became a way of life for hundreds of thousands of (mostly white, middle-class) American youths. Such gurus of hippiedom as Timothy Leary encouraged young people to "turn on, tune in and drop out", and that's exactly what they did.
So what (I hear you ask). The toxins of those days have been neutralized by the materialism and hard times of the 80s and 90s. Yes, the drugs are still there, but you don't see all those dirty kids panhandling on the streets any more. Young people are going to school, working, having families, much as before. The hippie daze was just a blip.
Maybe so (I answer), but the West never recovered its respect for religion, its sense of community and ideals of civic duty and national pride. Mark Steyn and others have quite rightly drawn parallels with the decline of Rome and the decline of America today. See also James Burnham's Suicide of the West (Random House 1970), written at the height of the hippie craze.
What does the hippie craze have to do with the hatred of America exhibited in much of the world -- especially the Middle East -- today? It's this. How can you love or even respect a nation which does not love or respect itself?
A half-century ago, before the hippies exported their scruffy lifestyle to the rest of the world, Americans were generally respected, even admired. Foreigners had never seen Americans wandering around their streets naked and stoned, begging for spare change, epitomizing decadence. Then came the hippies.
The reaction of people in places like Afghanistan was summed up by a director of that country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, quoted by Suzanne Labin in Hippies, drogues et sexe -- translated in English as Hippies, Drugs and Promiscuity (Arlington House 1972):
The West [he said] has always been the symbol of culture, of enterprise, of civility, of power, of artistic splendor for us. And now we have the children of this West in the streets of Kabul: dressed like tramps, stretched out on tables, begging in the streets, scornful of learning, spending full-time on drugs or, at best, guitars. We have the impression that the marrow of your civilization is rotting. [Emphasis mine. Walt]
The sons of our more prominent families have traditionally had only one aspiration: to go study in the brilliant West. Now they don't want to go any more, and besides, their families -- in whom the traditions of good breeding, of order, and of respect for the traditional ways are still very much alive -- agree that their children should not go off into your world of perdition. The hippies have turned our youth away from the West.
The people of the Middle East -- "moderate Muslims" as well as Islamic extremists -- reject Western society as it now appears, dominated by what I'll call the American "culture of whatever". There is no sense of responsibility, only of "rights". There is no morality, no sense of right and wrong, not even in the Church. ("Who am I to judge?")
What is left of the "hippie culture" is the idea that anything goes. "If it feels good, do it." And, "If you don't want to do it, you don't have to." The people of the Middle East -- not to mention the rest of Asia, Africa and Latin America -- don't want their society to become like ours. Who can blame them?!









