Barring Entry to Canada

The topic under discussion, for which those interested in the conversation would be gathering to hear the notorious U.S. citizen, Florida pastor Terry Jones, was billed as: "Islam is not compatible with Western society".  The statement is its own response.  For to enrage the Muslim ummah is to invite misfortune, calumny, destruction and death upon unbelievers - and Muslims alike. 

So, then, if a religion has such a stranglehold on followers' unbridled emotions of outrage and vengeance, is it compatible with Western society where such violent responses are unheard of to perceived insults?  And if and when anything similar does occur, it is considered the act of a sociopath?

This does not and should not result in a universal declaration that all Muslims who have make a deliberate decision and choice to immerse themselves in a culture other than a traditional Muslim culture where every facet of every minute of every day from the most pedestrian occupation to the most elevated concerns are controlled foremost by Islamic injunctions to be Muslim first, a human being second. 

Ahmadiyya and Ismaili Muslims in particular have been able to integrate their firm belief in the faith with the culture of the West, affirming mutual values.  There are those who term themselves 'secular' Muslims, and others whose religious devotion to Islam is tempered with an understanding that as human beings we share more in common than that which separates us and holds us apart. 

Fundamentalist Muslims prefer to be held apart from others. (In this sense they are no different from other ultra-orthodox religious believers whose fanatical religious belief bears some resemblance to Islamism, sans violence.)

And their very fundamental view of Islam is what compels them to react in rage at the belief that their sacred faith is being questioned by non-believers.  They are so deeply psychologically invested in Islam that their belief is that of fanatics whose personal honour reflects any insults they feel have been directed at Islam.  Their first reaction is to seek revenge by any means possible, and from there mob violence of the faithful gone berserk ensues.

This kind of collective mentality is very easily manipulated as a political tool by fanatical clerics, by leaders within the Muslim world, to intimidate other nations and their populations through fear of the unpredictability of violent Muslim reactions.  It is precisely this facet of Islam that makes it incompatible with a society whose reactions are based on reason and the rule of law, not on the concept of jihad and the sacred nature of a religion that is beyond questioning approach or reproach.

The question whether or not the Government of Canada should take steps to exclude pastor Terry Jones from lawful entry into Canada for a scheduled debate on the Innocence of Muslims in front of the Ontario Legislature is now academic, since he has been refused entry to Canada.  On the assumption that he is a hate-monger.  He creates disarray in society by his provocative acts such as Koran-burning and his adverse statements on Muslim compatibility with Western society and its values, true.

But what is life if not an ongoing discovery and the opportunity to question that which creates puzzles in peoples' minds?  The religion of peace and good fellowship for many Muslims is the religion of strife and violence for many other Muslims.  So which is the true Islam, the texts that encourage followers to behave civilly or those which urge followers to a mission of conquest by all conceivable means, including and honouring martyrdom, unflinching before bloody assaults against the infidel?

A religion whose faithful can be relied upon to rise as a violent tide of unreasoning brutality resulting from a perceived assault against a sacred belief, yet which acts with no compunction at the destruction of other religions' sacred temples and artefacts by the pious declaring other religions unworthy of respect, does not present as a faith of human compassion. 

Western societies, for the most part, go to great lengths to ensure that Muslim rage does not erupt because among them live people critical of Islam whose acts are carefully monitored by clerics at home and abroad who then announce in their Mosques the dreadful perfidy of the infidel.

The shudder of revulsion that runs through Western minds and the fear that among them may live people so invested in the need to avenge insults to Islam that they will plan bloody assaults against those whom they consider guilty of blasphemy reflects a gathered opinion of Western-cultured minds.  We must perforce, seriously consider the need to exclude an individual from crossing our sovereign border lest his words unleash upon us the vengeance of ungovernably violent minds.

And when that happens, Islam is appeased, our values of freedom and the liberty to speak as we will, even for those whose actions by default place others in danger, are out of trepidation of what may ensue, abraded.  Solving nothing, and in fact encouraging the dangerously uncivil behaviour to continue unabated, proving more than adequately that reason shrinks before threats of violence.

Islam does not seem to produce civil societies.  It does appear to energize the baser instincts of tribal psychopaths.