Congress of Canadian Islamists

So then, the truth is the Canadian Islamic Congress has been grossly misread and misunderstood in its persuasive intent and purpose? They're really good Canadian citizens finding a way to introduce Muslim Canadians to the concept of good citizenship and the acceptance of Canadian social values. And, as Imam Zijad Delic, executive director of the CIC says, under his tutelage, the Congress is becoming ever more Canadianized.

Which is a huge relief. Since Canada has groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah on an official terrorist list, and the Canadian Islamic Congress has, in the past, stated that these two radical Islamist militias are perfectly normal and civil outreach groups, dedicated to the advancement of Islam. There will be no further contests to encourage schoolchildren to portray Israel - in a scholarship-worthy exercise of their imaginations - as a Zionist apartheid state whose existence is a grave affront to all Muslims.

Under the CIC's previous incarnation as a social-political tool of its former president and founder, Mohamed Elmasry, the group's pernicious activism marked it as a hostile presence within Canadian society. Imam Delic, hired by Mr. Elmasry as its executive director, has, according to his explanation in the wake of his being disinvited by Minister of Defence Peter MacKay, to address Muslim History Month Canada, been patiently undertaking sweeping changes.

Complicated by the newly-revealed fact that Mr. Elmasry's successor, Wahida Valiante, strenuously (stridently?) denies any manner of 'reformist' initiatives on the part of Mr. Delic. The Canadian Islamic Congress is perfectly fine just as it is, she fumes. Mr. Delic's views on the inappropriateness in a Canadian venue of previous CIC-friendly overtures to Canadian Jews, and the media, are not shared by its executive body.

Active citizenship and an end to insular traditions, explained and sponsored by Mr. Delic, are an insult to the work and priorities of the Canadian Islamic Congress. The integrated model of Canadian Muslim citizenship is not one that appeals to Ms. Valiante, and she sturdily denies it will be implemented - not on her watch. But it is dedicated to "civil liberties, democracy and human rights".

Islamic History Month Canada, a brainchild of the Canadian Islamic Congress, as a handy-dandy inroad through Canada's sensitivity to Multiculturalism, managed to allow ingress to the deep corridors of power within government and Canada's public security institutions. Perhaps we would do well to allow the Canadian Islamic Congress to celebrate Islamic History Month Canada on its own.

And then the Canadian Islamic Congress can continue to feel confident over its insistence that Israel and the United States were co-conspirators in planning the atrocities of 9/11. And feel justified in asserting that the occurrence of the Holocaust was a figment of world Zionism in mounting a syndrome of guilt within the United Nations, resulting in the creation of the accursed State of Israel.

Back to square one.