Come One, Come All!

"Never use threat, force or pressure to make someone have sex."

"Women can ... choose who they marry."

"If you have sex with someone without their consent, this is called rape"

"Rape is a serious crime in the U.K. You could go to prison, lose your support and accommodation, and it will affect your asylum claim."

New U.K. orientation manual for migrants 

 

"All permanent residents and protected persons are eligible for IRCC-funded settlement services [to] help them integrate and build a successful life in Canada as quickly as possible and include information on rights and freedoms of individuals according to Canadian law, understanding of Canadian values, as well as their responsibilities and obligations."

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokesperson

600 Gaza refugees enter Canada in 2005  CBC News

 

The United Kingdom, overwhelmed by the presence of migrants, faces a long string of social/cultural problems related to different customs and values being transplanted alongside the migrants into Britain. An epidemic of violence has erupted for several years unlike what the United Kingdom has previously experienced, a stream of non-stop incidents that fall far outside the normal social contract of the Emerald Isle's traditional population. Rapes by migrants perpetrated against vulnerable men, women, teens, even children, taking place in wooded areas, parks, beach change-rooms and rental units.

 

Grooming Gangs in the U.K. Machiavelli Foundation

 

It took long enough for the British Government to pay attention to the scandals that for years had stalked communities where Muslim men, mostly of Pakistani origins, whose sex culture was responsible for grooming gangs focused on raping and using young Caucasian girls as sex slaves, renting out their services for fun and profit. It wasn't that the situation was unknown to British authorities, but that it was quite simply too inconvenient for them to 'notice' much less act on the practise, given the large Muslim population and accusations of 'Islamophobic' racism to be avoided at all costs.

 

Canada too, as it happens, finds itself in inconvenient waters with the surge of the past decade of immigrants, refugees and migrants infiltrating Canadian society. And in Canada not-too-subtle incidents of migrants in the country bringing with them customs contradictory to Western human rights values where incestuous relations, stranger-rape, organized crime, underage marriages, polygamy, genital mutilation offend Canadian customs and laws.

 

In 2015, during the federal election Prime Minister Stephen Harper's election campaign was rife with outrage from civil rights groups and the growing Muslim community in Canada over his government's release of 'instructions for immigrants' booklet Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship that advised foreigners entering Canada as landed immigrants and permanent residents on their way to achieving citizenship, that Canada's welcome did not include 'barbaric cultural practices' such as spousal abuse, 'honour killings', female genital mutilation, and forced polygamy.

 

Burqa ban in Great Britain?  Independent

 

How times have changed; the instructions of yesteryear rejected by the electorate have, by necessity since then been rejuvenated where marriage fraud warning is circulated by government auspices. In Canada too there are those requiring an explanation why it is frowned upon to rape children. A 'Pre-Departure Guide for Newcomers to Canada', published in 2025 focuses on newcomer rights rather than their responsibilities to the new country they will inhabit. 

 

Gently there are hints as to what is now of vital importance to this current progressive government; an acceptance of the presence of transgenderism, where readers are instructed that the LGBTQ-2 community in Canada is not only accepted, supported and valued, but so too is the right of the nation's children to question their from-birth designation as male or female. Issues such as 'lining up', 'making eye contact' and 'using underarm deodorant' are given their due place in the booklet.

 

Criminal activities are also addressed such as a jail term will come with carrying a firearm without a permit, and unwanted sexual touching or remarks may elicit a fine, or even prison. Bribery, polygamy, female genital mutilation and 'Making, sharing or owning photos of naked children', 'forcing others into marriage', and 'having sex with children', are similarly frowned upon and the letter of the law may be applied. Although truth to tell, the justice system goes easy on skin tones and ethnicity and cultures, with reduced sentences applied.

 

Family violence is frowned upon and "Killing a family member as a way to save a family's honour", is definitely unacceptable. Also addressed is the virtue of working for a living, rather than becoming wholly dependent on Canada Child Benefit payments which, when enough children in a family receive those generous benefits can sustain a family, without a breadwinner breaking a sweat. ($679.75 per month ($8,157 per year) for each child under 6, and $573.58 per month ($6,883 per year) for each child aged 6 to 17 for the 2026–2027 year.

 

What Muslim female dress means as a  wedge issue in Canada  TVO Today

 

 

Refugee Baggage

"That's the main thing that we gained. Nobody who is a refugee wants to be convicted of any indictable offence, because it's going to bring them under the purview of deportation."
"[This case represents a] very critical clash of cultures [bringing a clear message to the Syrian community in Canada]."
"Their words were taken literally instead of figuratively. In my interaction with the entire family, I came to the conclusion that this is a manner of speech that they never really intended to carry any of this out, but they do it so to say, 'You should mind me, because this is what I think'."
"Throughout the time from which her [complainant] parents were arrested and detained [Bayan] was recanting and saying 'All this is my fault'. But of course, just like in domestic assaults, the police -- and rightly so -- don't take the recanting seriously."
David Lutz, lawyer for Ahmad Ayoub, Syrian refugee in Canada

Bayan Ayoub, left, her mother Faten, top right, and father Ahmad outside the courthouse in Burton, New Brunswick, on May 15, 2018.    Don MacPherson and Caitlin Dutt/The Daily Gleaner

Having spent 72 days imprisoned for issuing death threats against their daughter, 52-year-old Ahmad Ayoub and his wife Faten, aged 48, are now free. They pleaded guilty to uttering threats in an obvious agreement to treat the matter as a summary conviction offence. Their sentence amounted to the time they served in prison. The more serious indictable offence of uttering threats was dismissed; were it not they would be facing a summer trial and the sentence for a conviction in that instance would have been six months to a year, to a maximum of two years.

Threats uttered by traditional Muslim immigrants are no trifling matter when family 'honour' is involved. Muslim and traditionally orthodox Indian families whose children refuse to honour the traditions of their culture and religion have shocked the West in honour-based killings to prevent a family member from disobeying the patriarch's orders, and to restore honour to the family when it has been too late to stop the revolting family member from deviating from custom.

The notorious Shafia family from Montreal where father, mother and son conspired to murder the family's three teen-age girls for disobeying orders not to mingle with Canadian boys and not to discard traditional Muslim head coverings enraged the parents by the girls' immodest behaviour. They blamed the father's first wife who had acted as a more genuine mother to the girls than their own did, and murdered her along with the girls. All three are now serving sentences for first-degree murder.

Honour killings are not entirely rare across the Muslim world, where girls and women are seen as akin to property, where females are subject to male direction in all matters and not viewed as autonomous individuals. Free will, individual choices and human rights are concepts that bear no weight in societies whose traditions and religious instructions are geared toward ensuring women are compliant and subservient to the menfolk in their lives.

Despite this Canadian lawyer's assurances that the threats were mere admonitions not to be taken seriously as threats, but to be viewed as concerned parents wishing the best for their rebellious daughter refusing to heed their command to stop seeing a Canadian man in an intimate social relationship, the daughter, Bayan Ayoub, knowing her culture and her parents, took the threats seriously enough to contact police.

Had the parents who arrived in New Brunswick as refugees in 2016, under sponsorship by the federal government been found guilty of the more serious charge, their refugee status giving them landed immigrant status in Canada could have been revoked. This is as good an example as any of the unwillingness or inability of some refugees and immigrants who arrive in Canada to integrate into the prevailing culture, accepting Canadian values and leaving their constricted social values inimical to the well-being of women back in their war-torn countries where they belong.

This family of two culturally-obtuse adults have five children in Canada, the youngest ten years of age. The parents cannot be classified as educationally ignorant since both had the advantage of post-secondary education; one in business the other in the service industry. In Canada since 2016 with their five children, neither parent has yet succeeded in finding employment. Daughter Bayan, 25 years of age, informed her Canadian boyfriend of her parents' threats against her. He encouraged her to report the threats.

She was described in court proceedings as a reluctant participant in the prosecution. Natural enough when a young women feels dismayed seeing her parents imprisoned and later in a court. She would naturally feel guilty about reporting them. Which wouldn't have made the threats against her any less worrisome. When  her mother became aware she had gone to police, another threat was forthcoming, that this would result in her being killed; stated via a telephone call which the daughter recorded. If she was disinclined to take the threats seriously she would hardly have reported, much less recorded them.

The Ahmads were enraged their daughter won an iPad in a contest; the first threat consisted of a promise to poison her food. She was warned that contact with local men would be prohibited for her. When Bayan's parents discovered her to be in communication with a Canadian man through social media, her father informed her that "for his own dignity, it would be better to slaughter her". However, since Mr. Lutz, the father's lawyer, assured the court that the words used were hyperbolic, exaggerated and non-literal, all is well.

"[The Ayoubs' threats were] careless, bordering on reckless, and they have learned from this experience that this kind of language may be acceptable in Syria and Afghanistan, but now they know, better than most, that it's not acceptable in Canada". Which means what, exactly, that they will take care in future lest they be caught while in the passionate throes of committing a commonplace cultural-religious strategy to control their children to protect family honour using a time-honoured stratagem familiar and valued?

Hideous Accommodation

Atta Kenare | AFP | Getty Images    Iran's President Hassan Rouhani meets with North Korea's ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong Nam in 2013.

War is good for business. It is during times of conflict that, ironically, free enterprise in armaments production gears up, spurred on by the governments of the states that are at war. Infamously, during times of violent conflict, prisoners are used as slave labourers to produce armaments, and the industries that enslaved people to ensure a profit ensued from the use and sale of their products, suffered no repercussions post-world war. Business is business, and the sales of arms meant profits, both for the manufacturers and for their governments.

The Saudi-led coalition has acknowledged it had made 'limited use' of British-made cluster bombs FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP/Getty Images

That's one issue, and it is one of long-standing presence. We deplore the outbreak of conflicts resulting in countless deaths and the destruction of civil infrastructure. We collectively, as intelligent human beings view with compassion the victims of war, and blame corrupt politicians and leaders of governments for their willingness to bring such bleak destruction onto the landscape, destroying countless lives. And conflicts, around the globe break out constantly.

The second issue is that which for the past few decades has taken the world's attention; a reawakened ideology of violent religious conquest has created widespread terrorism breaking out from the Middle East to North Africa, Europe to North America in terrifying incidents of Islam-inspired jihad, a war of religion, of a religion whose sacred scriptures demand its faithful obey their instructions to instill fear and terror in the minds of those spurning Islam, to destroy those nations refusing to surrender to Islam.

The irony is, of course, that Muslim nations themselves and their populations, have come under attack increasingly by those same death-delivering forces inspired by their common religion to view them as less than dedicated to Islam's final dictates to conquer the world. While the democratic, non-Muslim nations of the world attempt to protect themselves from the viral outbreaks of slaughter-bent jihadis, the targeted Islamic nations are forced to do the same.

As a result Muslim nations which themselves produce terrorists reflecting the tenets of the fundamentalist Islamic principles supported by the state, find themselves in a global 'fight' against terrorism, one that links them in agreement to a common cause with Western nations. There is nothing simple that comes out of the Middle East that can be readily addressed and corrected. Medieval and barbaric complexities of tribal, clan and sectarian opposition abound.

When two regional Islamic countries, one Arab, practising a majority-sect version of Islam, the other non-Arab, practising the minority-sect version of Islam, each manoeuvring to be recognized as the most powerfully reflective of Islam, as its most influential leader, to be feared and respected, use the other countries in the region as proxies, installing their supporters as satellites and challenging one another as an axis of conquest, war is inevitable.

And selling monumental amounts of technologically advanced weaponry to each of the adversaries vying for that leadership role is big business. Each side is championed by those international groups that find common cause with them, but even those that do not, and abhor them, will find it expedient to sell warplanes, attack helicopters, armoured vehicles, ballistic missiles, biological and chemical weapons and virtually any other weapons, for profit.

US President Donald Trump (L) walks with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud after receiving the Order of Abdulaziz al-Saud medal from at the Saudi Royal Court in Riyadh on May 20, 2017. (photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP)

France, Britain, the United States, Canada and other weapons-producing nations all are eager to gather for themselves the countless billions in profits that accrue to those who produce materiel valued by the adversaries. Saudi Arabia, or Iran, each of which represents nations governed by tyrants; one a royal house the other a theocracy, each supporting terrorist groups of their own religious sect, each responsible for murder and mayhem both within and without, use their oil wealth to seduce the West into arming them.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, on the other hand, is free now after the infamous nuclear agreement to sell its oil on the open market, free of sanctions, and to get on with its mission to acquire for itself nuclear weapons. It has proceeded well with its technological efforts to produce more efficient long-range ballistic missiles. Iran's cooperation with yet another outlier country in achieving success in eventually producing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and nuclear-tipped warheads, has it and North Korea in intimate consultation process.

 

Western nations whose weapons manufacturers and governments are eager to be at the head of the line selling advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia, know that the armoured vehicles produced by giants like General Dynamics will be used against their own citizens, but after all, Sunni Saudi Arabia is only putting down insurrections by Shiite minorities in its territory. And the conflict in Yemen is, after all, one between Saudi Arabia and Iran; Yemenite casualties are unfortunate but that's life.

 

The Middle East's Byzantine politics, assassinations, tyrannies, mass slaughter, aerial bombardment of civilian populations, chemical weapons attacks, flirtations with regime upheavals and civil wars merely represent business as usual there. That it is intrinsically related to the wider international jihad each supports is another thing altogether. But the West recognizes its 'friends' and 'allies' in the war against terror, and its conscience is untroubled in selling protester-murdering weapons to tyrants who must, after all, ensure their longevity is secured.

History Revisted Ad Infinitum

"I'm committed to working with Israel and the Palestinians to reach an agreement, but any agreement cannot be imposed by the United States or any other nation."
"The Palestinians and Israelis must work together to reach an agreement that allows both peoples to live, worship and thrive and prosper in peace."
"We'll [Trump administration] start a process which hopefully will lead to peace."
"Over the course of my lifetime, I've always heard that perhaps the toughest deal to make is the deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Let's see if we can prove them wrong, OK?"
"There's such hatred, but hopefully there won't be such hatred for very long."
American President Donald J. Trump

"Our strategic option, our strategic choice, is to bring about peace based on the vision of the two-state, a Palestinian state, with its capital in East Jerusalem, that lives in peace and stability with the state of Israel, based on the borders of 1967".
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas 

"The man who kills himself [Islamic suicide bomber] today doesn't kill himself because of the words of Hassan al-Bana or Sayyid al-Qutb, or anyone else. He kills himself because of what the consensus of the ulema, and the four schools of jurisprudence, have all agreed to. Hassan al-Bana did not create these ideas [of jihad against infidels and apostates, destroying churches, etc.]; they've been around for many, many centuries.... I am talking about Islam [now], not how it is being taught in schools."
Islam al-Behery—popular Egyptian Muslim reformer  

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas came to the White House for the first time in nearly 

three years on Wednesday for a meeting with President Trump. Photo: Screenshot.

Every American President in the last 60 years has had his turn to take a stab at settling the adversarial controversy over  what part of the 'Palestinian' geography belongs to Israel and what portion should be reserved for the Palestinians. Unfortunately, the geography in question was historically by heritage rights, Israel's from ancient times forward to the present, for there has never been a lapse of Jewish presence in the Holy Land. Jerusalem and Israel were wrenched from Israelites by violence and the bulk of the Jewish population forcibly  scattered.

Wherever Jews settled, in the Arab countries of the Middle East, in North Africa, in India, China, across Europe and North America, they were there on sufferance. A people held as the 'others', generally despised and denied equality with the population they lived among, their human rights violated, their futures straitened, their security and entitlements under prevailing laws truncated. And finally, legendary anti-Semitism victimized them with pogroms and eventually a genocidal plan to obliterate them entirely.

The world's Jews learned over time and through a thoroughly existential trauma that none but Jews would ever come to the defence of Jews, and the goal of Zionism, the return of the wandering Jews of the diaspora to the place of their birth as a people was identified as the only reasonable solution to the observable problem of an existence denied by the outside world. But even there, Jews found resistance to their re-established haven. Simply put, the religion of conquest has never deviated from its founding war footage; whatever Islam has gained in geography and adherents it cleaves to.

Islam al-Behery, quoted above, an Egyptian Muslim reformer, emphasizes that anyone entering any mosque or bookstore requesting a publication containing rulings of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence will find that "everything that is happening today will be found in them; killing the people of the book [Jews and Christians] is obligatory [of the faithful under Islam]." His contention is, as he puts it, the 'bomb' that ignites Islamist violence against non-Muslims is 'the book'; the Koran, the Hadiths, the sacred writings of Islam.

Who more authoritative than Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Islamic scholar and cleric who heads the Egyptian Al-Azhar mosque an Islamic philosophy professor whom Pope Frances recently travelled to Egypt to meet with, to persuade him that Christianity and Islam have much in common, both being religions of peace and goodwill, and that it is in both their interests to counsel their followers against violence against the 'other'. In the instance of Muslims, that would be to advise against engaging in jihad, one of the major pillars of Islam.

Yet Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, imam of the Al-Azhar mosque and intellectual spiritual authority of  Al-Azhar University, the recognized foremost Sunni authority, has shunted aside Egyptian President al-Sisi's plea to modernize Islam and remove from its screed the injunction to view non-Muslims as enemies deserving death. The imam, recognized as the world's most influential Muslim, supports the death penalty for 'apostates', insists on total Sharia, will not denounce ISIL, considers art immoral, and rejects the very concept of reforming Islam.

In all of this, he is like Mahmoud Abbas, showing to the outside world, the face of reasonability while turned inwardly to espouse and incite to violence, as "resistance" against "occupation". The PLO, of which Mr. Abbas's Fatah is part of, sees one "Palestine", not a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state, but one swallowing the Israeli state to 'restore' to the Arab Palestinians what they believe they are entitled to; what the original Palestinians, Jews, believed to be their heritage.

While Mahmoud Abbas just enjoyed a full-state visit to the United States to discuss a 'two-state solution' to the historically intractable issue of violence committed by Palestinians against Israeli Jews in an effort to dislodge them from land they claim as their own, they are not prepared to accept the presence of a Jewish state; it is anathema to Islam. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has effectively co-oped the United Nations and its offshoots as an influential clique whose major focus is the delegitimization of the State of Israel.

The Palestinians have long embarked on a public relations enterprise to augment their violent crusade against Israel, portraying themselves as peaceful and misunderstood, victims of a heartless oppression, gaining the support of the West in characterizing Israel as the oppressor of a vulnerable population of Arabs. The slanders and the boycott movement of Israeli interests; academic and economic in nature, to leave Israel friendless and defenceless against a tide of world condemnation masks the never-ending, violently deadly attacks Israel faces by an Arab population that will be satisfied with nothing but complete capitulation to Arab/Palestinian demands.

The Palestinian Authority oversees school curricula, television programming and summer camps for Palestinian children that orient them relentlessly toward identifying Jews as lethal enemies, inculcating in Palestinian children the nationalist and racist/religious desire to strike out at the enemy, viewing martyrdom as a blessed symbol of love and dedication. Little wonder that adolescents and young adults are so readily manipulated into attacking Israelis with knives and vehicles in paroxysms of pure hatred.

And that the PLO administers, on behalf of the Palestinian Authority which pays it with foreign charitable funding, to do so, financial rewards in return for violent assaults to the families of martyrs or jailed assailants of Jews; the more heinous the crime committed the greater the payout. A scheme to reward the violators of Israeli citizens by giving their families generous monthly pensions in reflection of work well done. The greater the damage done, the higher the payments. In 2010 Abbas amended the Palestinian Prisoners Law, increasing monthly payments to families of terrorists from $275-$1110 to $390-$3320 per month, according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

Abbas, like the imam of the Al-Azhar University and Mosque, speaks one way to the gullible West and another entirely to Fatah and the PLO. Islam does not permit 'normalization' with the enemy. And Israel is the enemy targeted by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, no less the Palestinian Authority. The demand that East Jerusalem be apportioned to a Palestinian state as its capital, would leave Israel and Jews without access to their most holy site in their eternal city.

The nation that defeated the strength of the combined Arab armies arrayed against it with the intention of obliterating it from the Middle East, sees itself left adrift, the West championing the violent aggressors, seemingly disinterested in Israel's survival.

A replay of history, over and over and over again.

Refugee Sponsorship in Canada : Mutual Obligations

"Unlike any other refugee populations, social media and mobile applications are very commonly used by the Syrian refugees and the population who are actively connected to each other via mobile devices, specifically WhatsApp."
"Refugees were comparing what Syrian friends received in terms of services in other cities and provinces and requested equivalent services and support."
"Many partners and stakeholders were concerned about the [Syrian] youth group [which had experienced a lapse in their education and might find it a future challenge to both fit in to Canadian society and find employment]."
"The perception was that given the integration challenges mentioned above, this group could become disenfranchised and have a harder time developing a sense of belonging to their communities."
Government of Canada report

Syrian refugees line up at the processing centre in Amman, Jordan, where they will meet with Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) employees on Dec. 13, 2015.  MCpl Bernie Kuhn / Canadian Forces

"If instances of sponsors asking refugees to pay for their own sponsorship come to our attention, we will investigate."
"However, we will not comment on any investigations which may be underway."
Remi Lariviere, Immigration Department spokesman

"Large-scale refugee movements place pressure on health-care systems, both in their immediate response and as part of long-term resettlement efforts."
"As Syrians integrate into Canada, meeting their longer-term, health-care needs will call for a seamless network of health-care providers, supported by community partners."
"[Some children arrived with illnesses including cancers, seizures and developmental disorders. Malnutrition and children with intellectual disabilities were also observed at a rate higher than in the general Canadian population]."
"[In Toronto, more than 500 dental emergencies were addressed. Patients of all ages had severe mouth diseases, unable to sleep or eat because of pain.]"  
Canadian Communicable Disease Report study

A recently published government study began with an evaluation by the Immigration Department of the refugee program to settle Syrians through privately sponsored programs which saw 8,918 refugees arriving in Canada between November 2014 and March of 2017, of whom 581 wee interviewed. Twenty-three of those surveyed stated they had paid for the completion of their sponsorship application or for the provision of their personal support in Canada; in some instances being asked to give payment.

This is an illegal situation since private sponsorship groups are not meant to accept or to require that any funds be supplied by a refugee for submitting a sponsorship. It is not just Syrians, according to the report, who have ended up paying sponsors. Privately sponsored refugees arriving from elsewhere in the world surveyed for a previously-undertaken study had divulged that 19 of 451 refugees that paid for their sponsorship, as well. On the other hand, on a private note, it seems entirely reasonable if the refugees have the financial wherewithal, that they be expected to help support themselves.

In the evaluation of the first wave of Syrians documentation comparable with other refugee groups, it was divulged that some Syrians are less educated and are possessed of a more meagre proficiency of one of the two Canadian official languages, both indices which are meant to identify ideal characteristics for welcoming immigrants and refugees to Canada. Syrians, through this enquiry, were also revealed to have larger families and a lower state of awareness of Canadian rights and freedoms than refugees from other groups.

All of which might mark them as less than ideal candidates for migration to and absorption into Canadian society. These are also recognized factors that contribute to additional settlement challenges, (as, for example, a greater financial investment in supporting larger families) which, when added to the popularity among Syrian refugees of social media, has resulted in an additional complication; the expectation among Syrian refugees to Canada of certain services that they feel they are entitled to.

It was also established that only ten percent of adult government-assisted Syrian refugees had found employment, a number which government officials feel to be comparable with other refugee population groups assisted by government for settlement in Canada. September marked the 13th month of the initial group of refugees being situated in Canada, significant since refugees can expect financial support from the federal government or private sponsors for a twelve-month period before they are expected to become independent.

Those not yet self-supporting theoretically can ask for provincial social assistance, to receive welfare  benefits. The estimate is that from March 2017 approximately 1,890 to 2,005 Syrian adults would be eligible to access provincial welfare. The burden on the Canadian taxpayer, from the moment the estimated 40,000 Syrian refugees entered Canada and received financial support for housing, food, medical care, language and job training and education, straining all public welfare systems in the process, now extends to funding in some of the same spheres through provincial welfare.

But it is the future trajectory of the capacity of the Syrian refugees to accept Canadian cultural and social values, to join the mainstream of self-sufficient and law-abiding citizenry that will represent the true test of the wisdom of bringing in to a country dedicated to equality, fundamental human rights entitlements, protection of rights and freedoms, a pluralistic society and economic opportunities having succeeded or failed.

Iranian Crackdown on Female Defiance

"All people love beauty and fame."
"They would like to be seen, but it is important to know what price they will pay to be seen."
Iranian model, Elham Arab

Arab interrogated on camera at the Iranian Revolutionary Court, her blonde hair hidden under a black chador

"We found out that about 20 percent of the [Iranian] Instagram feed is run by the modelling circle."
"[They have been] making and spreading immoral and un-Islamic culture and promiscuity."
"[It was the judiciary's duty to] confront those who committed these crimes in an organized manner."
Javad Babaei, state prosecutor

Iranian girls and women since 1979, the year that the Shah of Iran was deposed and went into exile and the Iranian Revolution took place with the return of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran from Paris, were exhorted to be modest, to wear clothing that covered, not revealed their forms, lest pure-in-mind Iranian men be introduced to lust by these Jezebels.

In April, Tehran's chief of police General Hossein Sajedinia had announced that his public decorum department was deploying 7,000 male and female officers to a new plainclothes division. This represented the largest undercover assignment in memory tasked to enforce government-mandated Islamic dress code. And they obviously take their job seriously.

Now it has been revealed that Iranian police have mounted a crackdown to target "un-Islamic acts" online, mostly female Iranian models posting images of themselves in seductive poses, their hair uncovered, according to state media. This represents in part a more widespread cultural battle in the Islamic Republic, determined to ensure that the country's future as a purely Islamic state without illicit introduction of Western cultural influences in music and dress codes sully the nation.

Artists, poets, journalists and activists have already been detained for their proclivities to follow Western-inspired cultural values. Arrests taking place and their harsh followup sentences indicate that hardliners in the police and judiciary mean to reassert Iranian fundamentalist values, in the fear that the nuclear accord with the West will help to introduce Western influences to Iranian youth and in the process turn them away from the kind of fanatical Islam that is propagated by the state.

The challenge to the power of the Ayatollahs who control cultural awareness in attempting to block the moral permissiveness pervasive in the West and which continues to be popular among Iranian youth in surreptitious displays of occasional lapses in the popularizing of Western music and clothing, threatens the influence of the hard-line Islamists. Television coverage in Tehran has reported on the interrogation by Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi of model Elham Arab.

The charges brought against her were not revealed as required details to be divuleged in the television broadcast. The seven people arrested with her were not identified, though police, according to the broadcast, identified 170 people who were brought in as derelict to Islamist cultural and religious values, through their social media activity, involved in modelling. Of that number, 58 models, 59 photographers and makeup artists were accused. 

The subjects targeted saw their businesses shuttered, their pages on Instagram and Facebook removed. These operations have been given the name 'Spider I' and 'Spider II'. Spider I had previously targeted "pornography and insulting Islamic sanctity", according to officials. Women in general, in Iranian society, have taken to wearing the mandatory scarf covering their hair too loosely, and in so doing have enraged the Islamic Republic conservative core.

In recent years, Iranian women - especially in the capital, Tehran - have worn the mandatory scarf loosely on their head, drawing the ire of conservatives in the Islamic Republic. Pictured right is Elham Arab

Saving the Islamic Republic of Iran from the hedonistic corruption of the West is paramount. Hastening the creation of nuclear bombs miniaturized to fit neatly on ballistic missiles to chastise those in the West plotting to destroy the purity of Iranian womanhood and bedevil the Ayatollahs will proceed henceforth with all due dispatch.

Modernizing Egyptian Society

"The decision bans them [Egyptian women] from wearing the niqab during working hours to protect patients' rights and interests."
Cairo University statement

"The law requires that the neck [below and including the collarbone], the upper arms [including the elbow] and the thighs and knees [when sitting or standing] of a married woman be covered both in public and within the confines of her own house."
"[Jewish law also requires that] a married woman may not appear in public with her hair uncovered. She is required to wear a head-covering that hides all her hair from view. It is proper to ensure that no hair protrudes from it."
Barbara Goldman Carrell, “Shattered Vessels that Contain Divine Sparks; Unveiling Hasidic Women’s Dress Code,” in The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore and Politics

"Yes, that’s why you see so many Jewish women wearing face veils. But labeling something “Jewish” in Egypt is likely to get more people to oppose it; that could be Amna Nosseir’s strategy. In reality, the niqab and burqa arise from the assumption underlying the idea that a woman must cover her hair. Muhammad did indeed only mandate that a woman must cover everything except her face and hands, but he did so based on the notion that it is the woman’s responsibility to keep men from being tempted by her. So if the face tempts a man, it has to be covered as well."
Robert Spencer, jihadwatch.org

A supporter of of Egypt's new President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi wears a full veil (niqab) with a headband that reads "al-Sisi my president". (photo credit:REUTERS)

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is a reformer. He has aspirations to take Egypt into modernity, into a communion with other countries and societies in the 21st Century, and his vision includes a modernization of Islam, to make it less confrontational, condemnatory of other religions, and to bring Egyptians around to respecting the differences within its own society, and extending that respect outwardly toward other societies:

"We talk a lot about the importance of reforming religious discourse. In our schools, institutes and universities, do we teach and practice respect for the other?"

"We neither teach [respect for the other] or practice it. God did not create the world for the ‘ummah’ [Arabic for ‘nation’ or ‘community’] to be alone. [He didn’t create it] for one community, but for communities. [He didn’t create it] for one religion, but for religions", he stated last December.

Good luck on that. The Egyptian population has among its 80-million many who are open-hearted and generous people, but they have also been traditionally subject to hearing Muslim clerics expound from their mosques the extraordinary superiority of Islam over all other religions, and that only Islam has god's exclusive permission to represent the Almighty's tolerant and peaceful message to humankind. Exceptionalism and its belief does lead humans to excesses of intolerance, a predictable byproduct of the Islamic message.

An Egyptian parliamentarian was recently hounded and expelled from parliament until he agreed to apologize for inviting the newly-appointed Israeli ambassador to his home for dinner. The outrage expressed by Egyptians was fairly universal, that an Egyptian lawmaker would treat an Israeli diplomat as an equal, despite the two nations having signed a peace agreement. Egyptians regard Jews warily, distrust them and are outwardly hostile; so much for open-mindedness extolled by their president.

But in an effort to haul Egypt out of the dark ages, the President is in support as well of passing a law to make it unlawful for women to wear burqas and niqabs. When Turkey, under Kemal Ataturk, sought to moderate Islam's sway over the country's social contract those dress customs were outlawed there, almost a hundred years ago. But in the Middle East as well as other Muslim societies there has been a return to women wearing these face-and-body coverings in the name of Islamic 'modesty'.

Cairo University last year banned its professors and researchers from appearing in the classroom with niqabs after university administration received student complaints of the difficulties experienced in communications when the face-covering veil is worn. In Afghanistan, under Taliban rule even surgeons in the operating theatre were forced to wear burqas while attending to surgeries. The influence of the Muslim Brotherhood helped propel the new 'modesty' of the veil and the burqa.

And while the Muslim Brotherhood is now outlawed as a terrorist group in Egypt and elsewhere, the wearing of the niqab and the burqa prevail, and their use grows; it is prevalent in Parkistan and Afghanistan. One hundred Cairo University academics retained lawyers to file a court case to lift the ban that Cairo University put in place, but an Egyptian court in January upheld the university's decision.

The Egyptian lawmakers prepared to draft legislation making it illegal for women to wear the niqab in public areas or in government offices are set to proceed. Asma Nosseir, a member of parliament in support of the bill, has the opinion that the veil represents a Jewish tradition prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam. She is a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Cairo's Al-Azhar University.

The Koran, she explains, encourages modest clothing and the covering of the hair, not the face. The fact that the Koran grew out of Judaic tradition, when the Prophet Mohammad selected from the much earlierTorah what suited him for inclusion in his new religion for a Bedouin population of Arabs goes a long way to understanding where the prohibition of female attributes being flaunted in public comes from; in the Orthodox Jewish view of life, married women must cover their hair.

Ironically, in France, it is illegal for women to wear the niqab in public, as European countries struggle with the influence the influx of Muslims have had in converting indigenous social custom to Islamic traditions. In Canada recently government attempted to outlaw the wearing of a face covering when Muslims sought to obtain Canadian citizenship, while swearing the oath of citizenship wearing a niqab.

Canada/U.S. Trade Relations

"Understand what this project is: It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land down to the Gulf where it will be sold everywhere else. It doesn't have an impact on U.S. gas prices." 2014
"Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation's interest And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward." [2013]
"Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator. There is no evidence that that's true. The most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline, which might take a year or two, and then after that we're talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs in an economy of 150 million working people. A blip relative to the need." [2013]
"I have to constantly push back against this idea that somehow the Keystone pipeline is either this massive jobs bill for the United States or is something lowering gas prices."
President Barack Obama

Seems the American public no longer hangs on the words of their president. He has stated some assurances so confidently in the past only to have them flap against his face when they've been proven wrong, wrong, wrong. American unions in the industry are all for giving approval to the pipeline. The majority of American citizens are clearly in favour of the pipeline proceeding. He isn't listening to them.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted for the ninth time to approve the Keystone XL pipeline last Friday, and the vote to approve was lost by one vote. Another bill will surface in favour of approval at the turn of the year in 2015 when the new Republican House members will be sworn in, after the recent election that saw the Republican candidates sweep the polls, making no secret that this issue is of top importance to them and to their economy.

This is President Obama's courting of the environmental groups that have given him huge support and continue to invest their interests in his ongoing reciprocation in his quest to cement his legacy as he prepares to leave office. It seems so strange that a Democratic President and a Democratic cohort is averse to approving a project that will, regardless of statements to the contrary, materially benefit the U.S. Whereas a Republican Congress and Senate would react differently.

Canada's politics and values, sometimes appearing close to those of the U.S., are more in tune with Democratic rather than Republican values, so there's a strange disconnect there; Democrats tend to be more protectionist, contrary to conventional wisdom and when it comes to trade matters between each others' largest trading partners and continental neighbours, it seems the Republicans are more friendly to Canada's needs and aspirations.

"What's in it for us? The dirtiest oil in the world, so Canadians can make more money?" Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey claims KXL would profit Canada sending oil through the U.S. to the Gulf Coast to be shipped to Europe, Latin America and China since "they will pay more for this oil than the United States." But it's been really swell for the U.S. to pay an artificially low price for Canadian Oil per barrel up to now, since they've had Canada over a barrel.

Canadian oil will be shipped out, primarily to its U.S. market, but by rail until a pipeline is built.

Rail conveyance of crude and other oil products is not as safe as pipeline delivery. And the claims of carbon pollution coming out of the oilsands in Alberta have been reduced in impact by the U.S.'s own investigative conclusions. Canada's portion of air pollution comes nowhere near that of the United States, the world's greatest environmental polluter; the impact of carbon emissions from the oilsands is comparable to 300,000 vehicles on the road in the U.S.

"Misery follows the tar sands. We have seen a tremendous rise in domestic production. It is not tar sands oil. It is not filthy oil. Conventional crude oil is different than the tar sands. The tar sands have eleven times more sulphur and nickel, six times more nitrogen, and five times more lead. Before we invite a 45% increase in this filthy, dirty oil, let's take a look at what this tar sands is", fulminated Barbara Boxer, Democratic Senator for California.

More or less overlooking the fact that crude oil derived from Venezuela is just about exactly the same in its 'yuck' content. And forgetting that the widely-used coal burned in the United States is overwhelmingly far more injurious to the environment from its sulphur dioxide emissions than the oil product that Democrats are so contemptuously dismissive of, because it's Canadian 'tarsands' oil.
Because, in point of fact, it's Canadian.

ISIS Snuffs Out Ancient Christianity Muslim Persecution of Christians, June 2014 by Raymond Ibrahim November 1, 2014 at 5:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4817/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june In Egypt, a young Coptic Christian man, accused of blaspheming Islam for simply "liking" an Arabic-language Facebook page, was sentenced to six years in prison. One of the intruders in Uganda was shouting, "Today we shall kill you [for converting to Christianity] -- you... are not respecting our prophet's religion." He then heard his 12-year-old-girl's cries as the Muslim intruders were strangling her. Then they seized him. Muslims in Germany were granted their own section of the cemetery. Now these same Islamic communities are demanding that, during Islamic funerals, Christian symbols and crosses in the cemetery be removed or covered up. During the Islamic State's June invasion and consolidation of Mosul, Iraq -- where Christians have been present since the first century -- countless atrocities against them were committed. Accordingly, the region is now reportedly empty of Christian presence. The Islamic State, among other acts, reinstituted the collection of jizya, the "tribute" conquered Christians (and Jews) were historically required to pay in order not to be killed in accordance with the Koran (9:29). In one instance, three Islamic State members burst into the home of a Christian family, demanding the jizya-money. When the father of the house pleaded that he did not have the money, the intruders raped his wife and daughter in front of him. The man was reportedly so traumatized that he committed suicide. Four other Christian women were killed for not wearing the Islamic veil. Soon after taking over Mosul, the Islamic State also announced that it would destroy all Christian places of worship. Several churches were burned, including the Armenian church near the Al Salam hospital, and the Church of the Holy Spirit, after first being looted and desecrated. A large statue of the Virgin Mary disappeared. Among the many Christians missing are two nuns from the Daughters of Mary Order, who managed an orphanage for girls in Mosul. It is believed they have been kidnapped. Sister Utoor Joseph (left) and Sister Miskintah, are nuns who disappeared on June 28 in Mosul, Iraq, and are believed to have been kidnapped by Islamists. The rest of June's roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity. Church Attacks and Slaughters Indonesia: Another Catholic community was attacked in the world's largest Muslim-population country. The Parish of the Sacred Heart in Pugeran, in the South of Yogyakarta, was targeted by three different groups of unknown assailants riding motorcycles during the first morning Mass. The incident coincided with the start of Ramadan, Islam's holy month, which often sees a rise in hostility for religious minorities. The attackers, who were dressed in black and covered their faces with masks, broke through the parish gates while shouting, "Allah is Greater!," Islam's historic war-cry. They attacked some Christian objects and posters placed there by members of the local Catholic community. Weeks earlier, on May 30, "Islamic extremists attacked a group of Catholics gathered in prayer, beating up the community leader; a week later, Pastor Niko, leader of the Protestant Christian community, was targeted by extremists 'accused' of having set up an 'illegal' house of prayer without permission," according to Asia News. It continued, "Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Increasingly however, it has become the scene of attacks or episodes of intolerance against minorities, whether they are Christians, Ahmadi Muslims or belong to other faiths." Kenya: Approximately 50 militants from Somalia's Islamic Al Shabaab ("the youth") network attacked two hotels, a police station and other buildings in Mpeketoni, a predominantly Christian town on Kenya's coast, during the night of Sunday June 15. They chanted "Allahu Akbar!" ("Allah is Greater!") and killed whoever could not recite verses from the Koran. The militants reportedly also went door-to-door asking residents their religion and killing them if they said, "Christian." More than 57 people were killed, including six children of church pastors. Nigeria: Suspected Boko Haram jihadis killed nine Christians during a June 1 Sunday church service, hours before bombing a Christian area in neighboring Adamawa state. The blast resulted in nearly 50 deaths. In addition, at least 10 gunmen attacked the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria during worship in Attagara village. The jihadis killed nine Christian members who were volunteering as security for the rest of the congregation during service. Another Christian church in Central State Plateau was set ablaze by armed men who also killed at least eight Christian worshippers. According to the Italian news agency, AGI, "The police made their statement, saying that for now they have not assigned the blame for the action, even though the MO and the aims of the attack lead to presuming it was the work by the Boko Haram Islamic Fundamentalists, who have killed thousands of people since 2009." Speaking about the June 1 church attack, one area Christian leader said that the attackers were a small part of 200 assailants who have invaded Attagara and other predominantly Christian villages around Gwoza the past two weeks, destroying homes and churches: "Our church in Attagara was attacked also on Sunday," said Dr. Rebecca Dali. "There have been 24-hour-a-day attacks on Christian communities of Attagara, Hawul, and Gwoshe around the Gwoza mountains…. The Boko Haram Islamists have destroyed 36 churches in Gwoza area, including that of Attagara attacked on Sunday. We now have only two churches that have not been affected." Sudan: Authorities in North Khartoum demolished another church building, that of the Sudanese Church of Christ. Bulldozers came and demolished the church just one day after authorities gave verbal notice of the decision during the congregation's Sunday worship service the previous day. Congregation members stood by watching their church razed to the ground. About 70 security personnel armed with guns and tear gas stood by, threatening anyone who dared to interfere or protest. "They wanted to beat us or throw tear gas on us," said one congregation member. Authorities gave no clear reason why the church, which has stood since 1983 and which has all the legal paperwork, was being destroyed. According to Rev. Kwa Shamal, the church's pastor who questioned the commissioner, "They did not want us to ask many questions on why they were demolishing our church." Because the government refuses to grant the church any compensation, "We will have to pray in a makeshift tent next Sunday" along the road, said the pastor. Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy and Blasphemy Afghanistan: The New York Times told the story of "Josef," a Muslim convert to Christianity who is on the run from Afghani family members trying to slay him. The apostate from Islam lives in a 10-by-10 dilapidated room, his few worldly possessions a tattered Bible and wooden cross with the Sermon on the Mount written on it: "Josef's brother-in-law Ibrahim arrived in Kabul recently, leaving behind his family and business in Pakistan, to hunt down the apostate and kill him. When reached by telephone, Ibrahim, who uses only one name, offered a reporter for The New York Times $20,000 to tell him where Josef was hiding. 'If I find him, once we are done with him, I will kill his son as well, because his son is a bastard,' Ibrahim said, referring to Josef's 3-year-old child. 'He is not from a Muslim father.'" Earlier, when Ibrahim first discovered Josef's conversion to Christianity, he and his family attacked the convert, tied his hands and feet and were going to slaughter him until the father intervened, calling for time to investigate matters. Josef used the time to escape. Having had a long spiritual journey and closely studying all religions, the Christian convert said, "Even if I get killed, I won't convert back." Egypt: Islamic vindictiveness against Coptic Christians accused of "blasphemy" and "apostasy" was in the air all throughout the month of June in President Sisi's not so "new" Egypt. First, Kerolos Shouky Attallah, a young Coptic Christian man accused of blaspheming Islam for simply "liking" an Arabic-language Facebook page administered by an anonymous group of Christian converts, was sentenced to six years in prison. According to Attallah's attorney, the Copt did not make any comments on the site, share any of the postings or upload anything to it, and removed his name from the page once he realized that it might offend Muslims. In the hours preceding the sentencing, a rioting mob burned down several Christian-owned shops in the area near Luxor. Safwat Samaan, Chairman of Nation Without Borders, a human rights and development group headquartered in Luxor, said, "The sentence today was a shock not just to Kerolos but to everyone who uses Facebook in Egypt. Any person who uses Facebook in Egypt and presses 'Like' on any page … can be put into prison for six years." Also, An Egyptian appeals court upheld a blasphemy conviction against Dimyana Abdel-Nour, a Coptic Christian teacher, and sentenced her to six months. The ruling overturned an earlier sentencing, which only imposed a fine. The appellate court in Luxor stated that the elementary school teacher had insulted Islam in front of her pupils. Last year, three 10-year-old Muslim children complained to their parents that the Coptic teacher showed disgust for Islam when discussing it in class. Bishoy Armia Boulous—more notoriously known as Mohammed Hegazy, the first Egyptian ever to try legally to change his religious identity from Muslim to Christian on his official ID—was sentenced to five years in prison. (Years earlier, when he first tried to change his ID, he was also imprisoned and tortured.) The judge cited "disturbing the peace by broadcasting false information" as the reason for sentencing the apostate, who in the weeks before, was documenting political unrest in Egypt brought on by innumerable Muslim extremist attacks on Christians. The exact section of the nation's criminal code that Boulous allegedly violated was not released. According to Boulous's lawyer, the real reason he was charged and sentenced is because he abandoned Islam and became a Christian: "The officer who arrested him, when he found that he hadn't committed a crime, made up things to keep him in prison so he could be sentenced," said the lawyer. Uganda: After Muslim family members tried, but failed, to poison a relative who converted to Christianity, he was attacked again by Muslims who killed his young daughter. On June 16, four men forced their way into the home of Hassan Muwanguzi—a former sheikh who converted to Christianity in 2003. One of the intruders was shouting, "Today we shall kill you—you have been a trouble-maker and are not respecting our prophet's religion." Thinking they would not hurt Grace Baruka, his daughter, he fled into a room, but then heard the 12-year-old girl's cries as the Muslim intruders were strangling her. When he came out of the room they seized him: "They hit me with a blunt object, and I fell down. I just woke up and saw neighbors surrounding me while wailing, saying that my daughter is in critical condition." Neighbors took Grace to a clinic but she was declared dead upon arrival. Muwanguzi has suffered greatly for embracing Christianity: first he lost his wife and job as a schoolteacher after his conversion; then an aunt tried to poison him by putting insecticide in his tea; and now his 12-year-old daughter has been killed. Lamented the former Muslim, in tears, to Morning Star News: "I am regretting why I survived the poisoning. God could have allowed me to die. My daughter has died, and I am now mourning for her death as well [as] have pain all over my body." Dhimmitude Lebanon: The Abra Municipality, a predominantly Christian suburb in the coastal city of Sidon, released a memo urging all citizens—the majority of whom are Christian—to respect observant Muslims during Ramadan and abstain from eating in public. In his memo, Mayor Walid Nicolas al-Mchantaf stressed the importance of showing consideration during the holy month and refraining from dining at restaurants and cafes during the fasting period, which begins at sunrise and ends at sunset. A large Muslim community exists in the town and has been in the spotlight since last year's violent clashes between Islamic gunmen and the Lebanese Army. Germany: Muslims were granted their own section at the cemetery in the Hessian town of Seligenstadt. And they have been allowed to conduct Islamic ceremonies, in which the corpse is wrapped in cloths and buried facing Mecca. Now these same Islamic communities, including Ahmadiyyas, are demanding that Christian symbols and crosses in the cemetery be removed or covered up during Islamic funerals. United Kingdom: The National Health Services suspended a Christian health worker on full pay for nine months for praying with a Muslim colleague. Victoria Wasteney, a senior occupational therapist, was also accused of "bullying" the colleague after giving her a book about a Muslim woman who converts to Christianity. According to Wasteney, her relationship with the Muslim woman was friendly; the Muslim female often came to her for support; the Christian health worker did not think that she was behaving coercively or disrespectfully. Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said the case demonstrated that "the NHS is increasingly dominated by a suffocating liberal agenda that chooses to bend over backwards to accommodate certain beliefs but punishes the Christian." About this Series While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report. It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages ethnicities and locations. Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War in Christians (published by Regnery in cooperation with Gatestone Institute, April 2013).

Bypassing The Thrills

"Hayat helps the family to become a living positive counter-narrative to the radicalizing environment."
"We provide positive alternatives through the family and strengthen emotional bonds to create a counterforce to pull into the radical milieu. We do not train the families in theological arguments."
"[Discussions with Canadian officials is] still very delicate and it is not clear which agency may take over responsibility and how."
"Canadian officials know that they need to come up with something as they are massively lagging behind European countries in terms of dealing with homegrown radicalization."
Daniel Koelher, counsellor, Hayat group

"Why would the Italian community have to react to Cosa Nostra? Why would it be expected of the German community as a whole to react to a couple people who decide to shave their heads and wear swastikas?"
"The impact is societal. We have to deal with it together. This is not a Muslim community problem in and of itself. Radicalization is a criminal dynamic and it has to be dealt with."
Abdul Souraya, immigration lawyer, co-chair, Calgary Police Services Middle East advisory committee

Well, there's some food for thoughtful argument. There's no argument that Canada needs to address the issue of radically belligerent young Canadians obsessed with jihad and the exciting prospect of travelling abroad to enlist with groups they have come to regard as righteously protective of Islam which just incidentally offers them the opportunity to engage in real-live conflict, not just video games and paint-ball excursions.

Why? asks Mr. Souraya. Well, for starters one is religious-based and extremely sensitive. The other examples given are purely ideological and criminal; there are no population-sensitive toes to step on. One is based on interpretations of sacred writings inherent within a religion and its devotion, the other is indeed societal and criminal. So comparisons are fairly useless and cross the line into the absurd.

Although the problem is obvious and has become more obvious as time goes by in tandem with the deteriorating situations in Muslim countries like Libya, Somalia, Syria and Iraq, there is also the issue of oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar and the Emirates funding and founding the activities of Al-Qaeda and ISIS (for the Sunni side) and Hezbollah and Hamas (by Iran and Qatar, reflecting Shiite terror-power). Much of this, in fact, is related to Islamist sectarian adversities.

Saudi Arabia got the ball rolling when it established madrassas world-wide to teach impressionable young Muslims of their duties to Islam, with the emphasis on sacrifice and prosetylization, and jihad. But it was the Islamic Republic of Iran with its fiery revolutionary zeal that set the Muslim world on fire with the theological thrust of its hatred of all that existed outside the world of Islam; its contempt for Western decadence and lack of spirituality, Muslim-style.

Mr. Souraya's contention that a world afire with Islamist jihad threatening order and stability in the Middle East, an area that has never fully come to terms with order and stability, to tip it completely over into full-blown dysfunction, as not a Muslim concern only, more or less ignores what has happened whenever a Western power becomes involved in Islamic affairs. The West was forgiven for saving Muslims in Bosnia, but its forays into Afghanistan and Iraq to save Muslims from their own dark dictators was damned as modern-day Crusades.

The spectre of police and security agents in close communion with Muslim leaders in Canada, urging them to be aware, to detect and to pass on to them information relating to the identification of those within their faith who appear to have 'gone over to the dark side', raises the likely enough prospect of Muslims accusing government agencies of spying on them, of oppressing them, of accusing them of dastardly plans to cause havoc within Canada.

The radicalization of Muslims is indeed a Muslim affair; it is from within Islam and among other Muslims who seek to influence ever greater numbers of recruits to violent jihad where the problem lies. Just as physicians are often bidden to heal themselves, calls to the Muslim community to rid themselves of these sinister recruiters from among their midst, and to explain as only they can, to the impressionable that to engage in slaughter and rampages of atrocities runs counter to Islamic values.

Unless it doesn't.

Either way, Canadian authorities have little option but to become involved. To become engaged in an effort to attempt to stem the tide of Islamist recruits into violent Islam. That up to an estimated 300 to 500 Canadian Muslims have left the country for more violent pastures in places of conflict, has its counterpart in their return, some 80 of whom are assumed to have come back to Canada post-conflict, with newfound skills.

In the effort to restrain, detain and defang these converts to Islamist jihad and martyrdom, will the Muslim community rise up in defence of its own, and accuse those involved agencies of abusing their authority and hounding the Islamic community?