Looking for Solutions

It's not possible to overlook feeling a pang of sorrow and regret for the introspective concerns of many Canadian Muslims in the wake of the most recent jihadist depredations, the only as-yet successful violent assaults to be carried out on Canadian soil. All other such planned assaults have been apprehended, and perhaps the fact that they have, before they could be carried out, endowed us all with a sense of complacency.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang   Police teams enter Centre Block at Parliament Hill in Ottawa 

on on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. A gunman opened fire at the National War Memorial, wounding a 

soldier, then moved to nearby Parliament Hill and wounded a security guard before he was shot, 

reportedly by Parliament's sergeant-at-arms. 

 

Our very polite assertions of Islamist fundamentalist atrocities, trotted out each time we hear of a fresh assault on the civilized sensibilities of the West when viewing one of the blockbuster videos of beheadings that Islamic State is so fond of parading on line, that "this has nothing to do with Islam", is a sham of shameful dimensions. Since Sharia law promotes jihad, not the polite introspective form of becoming a 'better Muslim', but the deadly-odious form of violent bloodshed, it is indeed Islam.

And while most Canadians would never in their wildest nightmares think of blaming an entire group of religious faithful for the failings of some among them in embracing the medieval brutality of the original prosetylization techniques so typical of historical Islam in broadening its appeal by force and conquest, the fact remains that though there is a very limited number of Muslims who perform violent jihad, a greater number express some sympathy for it.

So, what to do? Expel wholesale anyone with Canadian citizenship who expresses unsavoury personal opinions about violent jihad? Brand their foreheads with a large "J" to identify their presence in society? Warn them under the weight of newly-imposed laws more redolent of wretched totalitarian governments that their views are unwelcome within Canada and they will be prosecuted or worse, for expressing them?

We're pretty impotent, come to think of it. But how about viewing the psychopathic personalities that embrace violent Islam as unwelcome because they have effectively betrayed Canadian values which in the breach as well as in vibrant practise negates their right to citizenship? Evidently recent studies point out that those who leap to the opportunity to become jihadists don't necessary have mental health issues.
Momin Khawaja, pictured entering the Elgin Street courthouse and as a high school student at Sir Wilfrid Laurier Secondary School (inset), faces seven terror-related charges in connection with a 2004 plot to blow up several targets in London, England. File photo

So scrub that excuse. But we still don't want to welcome their presence among us, since they're clearly not to be trusted, express hatred of the democratic way of life, vastly prefer to live without the kinds of laws that make safety and security of the person an imperative to a free and democratic society with respect for all and equality assured for all.

We've enacted laws to stop them from heading abroad, to remove their passports, to force them to remain within Canada. Why? When we should be ushering them out the airport door and into the planes that will take them to their destination where they can complete their destiny; either to be flown by deadly events to the heavens above, or to be mired in a miserable society they long to be part of where personal freedom is unknown and absolute surrender to a deadly theocracy is the norm.