Filthy Lucre and Profound Wealth

Jason Kempin/Getty Images

Elon Musk and Grimes at the 2018 Met Gala

The world is stumbling through a global pandemic with nation after nation watching helplessly as their economies crumble, stock market values tumble, businesses fail, great corporations are prostrated, and pharmaceutical companies rush to develop a life-saving vaccine -- and all the while their health-care systems are overwhelmed with mounting cases of a coronavirus that has crushed the lives of millions of people.

Yet, all is not lost. The world's wealthiest billionaires are in fine shape, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index which ranks the world's 500 wealthiest people in order of the riches they have amassed. For the past eight years those rankings have informed a curious world of the wealth that some individuals have been able to accrue to themselves. And this year, which has seen nations stumble to their financial knees, the ultra-wealthy are doing just fine, thanks for asking.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos is now acknowledged as the wealthiest man in the world. Bill Gates has been dumped south, from the second richest man on Earth, to third-place status. And Elon Musk, who in January ranked 35th in wealth among the 500 billionaires the report names, added $100.3 billion to his net worth in the year 2020, for a total of $127.9 billion, the year that spelled disaster to Planet Earth. That princely sum added to his net worth has brought him to the position of second wealthiest man on this blue planet.

Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates's net worth of $127.7 while powerfully rich, has been diminished from the heights it might have reached had he not donated considerable portions of his vast wealth to charity, in giving over $27 billion to the Bill Gates Foundation, since 2006. He appears to have been more than willing to surrender the top spot in soaring wealth in favour of funding research in viruses to rescue humanity from dread diseases.

There are notable differences between Gates and Musk, the former believing in vaccine research and putting his money where his mouth is, as opposed to the values of the latter who questions pandemic data, finding comfort in certain conspiracy theories. And just as urban legend often speaks of the peculiar social mores and twisted morals of the very rich, there are examples that reveal the inner value core of such people.

The COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably made for a poorer world for most of Earth's inhabitants. Millions have lost employment, millions have become ill and the lingering effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID will bedevil some people all their lives, those spared the devastation of more immediate life-taking complications. Governments have had to borrow vast sums in funding to financially support their desperate populations.

Widespread layoffs disproportionately affecting the working class and the poor, poverty is increasing exponentially. In marked contrast to the members of the Bloomberg index having collectively profited by gaining 23 percent (roughly $1.3 trillion-worth) since the beginning of the year when a mysterious pneumonia-like illness began to emerge in Wuhan, China and all too soon spread world-wide to wreak havoc everywhere.

•X, the unknown variable

•Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence) •A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent

+ (A=Archangel, my favorite song) (

metal rat)

The world's second richest man's partner is a Canadian-born entertainer, sufficiently successful in her career to have made a name for herself, and the owner of her own recording company, Crystal Math Music Inc. Her stage name is Grimes, her true name Claire Elise Boucher, born in British Columbia and an alumni of McGill University. The staff she employs at her recording company applied to a granting agency on her  behalf.

This is a woman, while a reportedly gifted musician and entertainer, lives in California with her love partner, Elon Musk, and their young son whom they named XAE A-XII. Factor, a Canadian arts subsidy program partially funded by the Government of Canada, awarded her a $90,000 grant. She evidently under the eligibility criteria of the funding body seems fully qualified, irrespective of the fact that she no longer lives in Canada, though listed as a Quebec artist.

So a woman with a successful entertaining career who owns her own recording company appealed to a partially publicly-funded arts-grant group for a grant acknowledging her contribution to Canadian entertainment. That she has access to undreamed-of wealth, living with the world's second-most wealthy man appears incidental; she has not hesitated to take the grant and he appears uninvolved with the moral implications.

Among which is the fact that entertainers of all kinds in the world of art are struggling to assert their talents in circumstances where public venues revolving around art and entertainment are now closed off to them, and while continuing to polish their talents in hopes of better days to come, seek gainful employment in the ill-paid services industries in hopes of earning a living to get by current difficulties. 

F.Scott Fitzgerald was right when he penned that throw-away line that "the rich are not like you and me".

Canada, Punching Above Its Influence : Canada Misplacing Its Moral Code

"It was a stupid law. And it's still a stupid law. But we're stuck with it."
"Lost in all of the information about the reasons why, was the real reason ... It was the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, frankly. That's the reason: that still exists."
"It's no coincidence that we closed the [Iranian] embassy basically the day after the legislation became effective."
"The British weren't even seizing Iranian government property [following the attack on the British embassy in Tehran]. This law called for the seizure of Iranian government properties; [the Iranians] have a very flexible view on diplomatic immunity."
"How could we possibly stay open under those conditions? How can we reopen under those conditions?"
Dennis Horak, former Canadian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia

This is a man, now retired, who in 2012 was director of Middle East relations for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs at a time when the-then government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper through Cabinet Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird announced the closure of the Tehran embassy in Canada. The accurate analysis cited for the drastic move of shuttering a foreign embassy in a country that had testy relations with an Islamist nation known for its leading role as a sponsor of   unsavoury human-rights-abuses generally was that Canada would not support relations with a state sponsor of terrorism.

Mr. Horak's views follow in lock-step with Foreign Affairs' traditional tolerance for Middle East infractions of human rights, a supporter himself of overlooking the vicious and violent tyrannies whose version of capital punishment would make any supporter of same in the West cringe with horror. It is his considered opinion borne of long years of toiling at the behest of Canada's governments in diplomatic missions in the Middle East, that those countries must be judged by different standards of ethics and morality. They are, after all, Islamic.

In the fine old tradition of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, before that External Affairs, now Global Affairs -- the name may change but the sentiments within do not -- Israel, the only democratic, liberal country in the Middle East, surrounded by avowed enemies, is viewed with disfavour. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's expressed loyalty to the concept of a Jewish State and his respect for the security of that anomalous state in its heritage geography within a larger, Muslim-majority establishment found no support within the Foreign Affairs old guard which has always transmitted its values to incoming members.

Inciting Saudi Arabia to a furious response to a tweet by current Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland represented an unprofessional, undiplomatic demand that this most rigidly Islamist of Muslim Kingdoms immediately shed its normal response to interior dissent, causing not only a diplomatic rift of icy dimensions, but a disruption in trade, investment and student exchange of even more serious implications leading to the question, why is Canada which celebrates itself as liberal progressive to a fault, so dependent on relations with the Kingdom to begin with?

The answer, of course, is Saudi Arabia's clout in the Middle East and the United Nations, and this government has its eye set on a seat on the two-year revolving UN Security Council, while also prepared to bank-and-spend the billions it is set to receive selling military weapons to the Saudis; so much for the morals of a government that sanctimoniously preaches morality to the world at large, proving that for the most part, with Liberal rule Canada is indeed 'back'.

As far as former Ambassador Horak, who deplored riling Saudi Arabia to the point where he was ejected persona non grata, is concerned, diplomats are skilled in many things, but overlooking human rights abuses represent one issue that cannot be overstated in looking after Canada's interests on the world stage. The Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, enacted by the Conservative-led government of Stephen Harper whose conscience is alive and well, made it lawful for victims of violent terrorism attacks to hold responsible those governments who sponsor terror; in this case the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Ambassador Horak, now nothing-Horak, is incensed that Canada has inadvertently in one instance and deliberately in the other, sacrificed a working relationship with the two most influential, oil-wealthy countries in the Middle East; Sunni Arab Saudi Arabia, and Shiite Persian Iran; no ambassador present in Riyadh and a shuttered mission in Tehran. Although this Liberal government is determined to restore relations with Iran. And this is not to be thought necessarily a black mark on Canada's capacity to have amicable relations with important and influential nations who can further Canada's interests.

While on the other hand, this administration, boosted by Foreign/Global Affairs accommodation, is doing its utmost now to separate itself in international public opinion -- at the same time catering to a home audience whose knee-jerk reaction has always been anti-U.S., even while Canadians are flocking as vacationers to various American states -- to demonstrate itself morally superior to an America now led by a conservative counterpart personality to Canada's inept liberal-progressive selfie-clown extraordinaire.

The reality is we share a border cutting straight across a huge continent. The reality is Canada's prosperity is inextricably linked with that of its powerful partner. The reality is that Canada cannot adequately protect itself in the event of conflict or invasion, without relying on the strength of the American military. The reality is that many American values are those shared by Canada. The fact is that without our vital trade with that economic and trade powerhouse the Canadian standard of living would be hugely reduced.

All of which show Trudeau up as a pitiful sham in every conceivable way.

Frivolous Conceit in a Background of Debauched Humanity

"These numbers [on a preferred SIM card] are a language. A man makes calculations for what will make him successful in life or in business."
"Among them is what his phone number says about him."
"It says he has taste. It also says he's loaded. It gives him optimism. It gives him prestige."
Haider Mohamed, 45, cellphone dealer specializing in 'distinguished' phone numbers: "World of Distinction" shop

"This number gives the impression that I am distinguished, which helps me get business, especially among officials in the state ministries who I am dealing with."
"If I call them from a regular number, they wouldn't answer my call but when they see this number, they can't ignore it because they know a VIP is calling them."
"I am always keen on carrying the latest iPhone and having latest Land Cruiser. The phone number completes the prestige."
Essa Sultan, 47, Iraqi contractor

"A friend of mine has a distinguished number that helps him get many girls."
"So I thought of trying it, but I was stunned by the prices. Some numbers are even more expensive than fancy cars."
Hussam al-Zaidi, 29, Iraqi

Corruption in Iraq extends to cellphone numbers   thebaghdadpost

In a country where just a few years ago the vicious ferocity of sectarian hatreds pitted Shiite Muslims against Sunnis, where entire neighbourhoods were subjected to 'cleansings' of the factions claimed by the others as impure in Islam whose penalty should be death, and where resulting from the Medieval-era brutality of the assaults minority Sunni former members of Iraq's Saddam-era military leaders gathered to form the final jihadist-inspired Islamist terrorism group, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant whose atrocities horrified the world at large, the society has adopted a culture of elitism.

A nation fragmented by its incapacity to rise above the tribal mentality generating hatred, resentment and violence resulting in a nation-wide bloodbath, finding purpose in posing as cultured and influential through the access of SIM cards affording them the appearance of prestige and power and glamour. Is this a psychological coping mechanism resulting from the breakdown of civilized society, or the measure of a tribal, theocratic society with no ethical, moral yardstick of what constitutes enduring human values?

Evidently in a number of countries of the Middle East owning telephones with very special numbers conveys the impression of status, sophistication. The ownership of such a numbered telephone that is unique and draws attention is viewed as a savvy entrepreneur, an ambitious power-broker, admired and influential. It is in Iraq in particular, however, where the desire to own a luxury telephone number has elevated its acquisition into power status and explosively costly to acquire.

Mr. Sultan, the contractor, acquired his special number in 2009, paying $1,200 for it. It is distinguished by ending with six number sevens. Its value has soared to $10,000, but Mr. Sultan has no intention of parting with his very special numbered phone. It is essential as an elegant tool.

Essa Mohsen, 44, believes himself to have been personally responsible for inflated SIM card prices; he is "the King of Distinguished Numbers"; his shop boasts that very name. His stock of 2,000 distinctive cards, valued up to $3,000 is in high demand. He identifies former prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's two numbers valued at over $10,000 each. Major General Fadhil Jamil al-Barwari of the elite American-trained Counter Terrorism Service, possessed a number whose value is at least $38,000 reflecting its consecutive zeros.

Mr. Mohsen has been commissioned to acquire a rare number for $120,000. This particular phone number is imbued with seven consecutive zeros and is possessed by a police officer in Kirkuk, but the officer refused the offer of $120000, proffered by a television baron. "He cherishes it. Just like wine, the older it gets, the more valuable it becomes", Mohson explained of the reluctance of the police officer to relinquish his special number even for the amount offered.

At the elite governmental level, SIM cards with distinguished numbers were given to politicians as a way of bypassing endemic corrupt graft, currying favour by presenting these desired numbers where the cards were viewed as laundering bribes, to be traded for cash. According to dealers, many of their regulars are assistants to Iraqi politicians and military officers who come to them to sell the valuable SIM  cards given as gifts to their bosses.

The cards capable of attracting big money are recognized as "presidential numbers". Haider Mohamed, owner of the shop "World of Distinction" in central Baghdad, claims he had once traded a particularly 'beautiful' number to a businessman for a $60,000 Lexus.

An artificial societal prestige symbol for a people lacking a moral base, absent values, seeking to advantage themselves through impressing others possessing the very same culturally debased ideation.

Golden	40,000 IQD	Example: 78XXAABBCC
Golden plus	80,000 IQD	Example: 78XXABCABC
Platinum	160,000 IQD	Example: 78XXXXAAAA
Platinum plus	280,000 IQD	Example: 78XXAABBBB
Diamond	800,000 IQD	Example: 78XXAAAAAX
Diamond plus	1,600,000 IQD	Example: 78XXXAAAAA

Embracing Cultural Annihilation

"On March 22, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, his younger brother Khalid, and Najim Laachraoui blew themselves up at Brussels Airport and at a metro station, killing 36 people. On June 13, Larossi Abballa stabbed a French police officer to death outside his home near Paris, then slit the officer's wife's throat in front of their three-year-old son. On July 14, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhiel ploughed into Bastille Day revellers on the Promenate des Anglais in Nice, killing 86. On July 18, on a train near Frankfurt, Riaz Khan Ahmadzai injured five passengers with a hatchet. On July 24, Mohammed Daleel blew himself up outside a wine bar in Ansbach, near Nuremberg, injuring 15 people. On July 26, Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malic Petitjean stormed into a Catholic church in Normandy, took the congregants hostage and slit the priest's throat at the foot of the altar."
Chris Selley, journalist, National Post

Berlin's Christmas market vehicular assault can also be counted in that trail of mayhem and murder. Europe now lives on a tightrope of anxious anticipation of attacks that can happen seemingly anywhere at any time, and no one relishes the thought of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone will be, most assuredly. And attacks such as these are difficult for intelligence agencies to cope with. They have a growing roster of potential suspects recognized as persons-of-interest who may be the next Islamist jihadist spilling his spleen for spilt blood.

Europe has absorbed millions of Muslim immigrants and refugees. France and Germany now have a significant proportion of their population that is Muslim. Islam is solely responsible for all of the terrorist events haunting the world as a result of the Koranic injunctions to the faithful to pledge themselves to upholding and promoting Islam through whatever means must be engaged to produce the desired result of Islam presenting as the enduring, most powerful and eventually sole religion on Earth.

European politicians often look with envy at North America for the fact that vast oceans separate the continent from the source of the Muslim tide that has overwhelmed Europe. They also cite a different model of integration at a variance with their own that seems not to breed such overwhelming numbers of Islamist psychopaths. Yet, the famed American melting pot of citizen integration has not withstood the test of time and experience in the United States, and nor will it in Canada with its dedication to multiculturalism.

From the massive death count of 9/11 to Fort Hood's shooting to the Boston Marathon bombing and the Florida Pulse gay nightclub attack to the San Bernardino office party shootup , all surprising American authorities and leaving a gory footstep of Muslim death-squad functionaries revelling in the success of their bold jihad as heroes of Islamist jihad, North America has received its share of the signature of Islamist conquest in the wings, awaiting the final curtain fall of the future.

The thing about the West, is its restraint and polite endeavours to solve problems through reasonable debate and conciliation. Both of which utterly fail when coming to grips with fundamentalist ideologies based in fanatic religious destiny striving to reach the goal of consolidating the Islamic hold on the minds and hearts and souls of dedicated followers who believe what the Koran promises, that patience and violence in equal measure will prevail.

"Which country has security under control? Next time it will be a plane or a train, and that's how it is. If a commuter train had blown up, people would still have to ride the train", remarked an exasperated and fearful, albeit resigned Berliner in Christmas mode complete with Santa hat at the re-opened Christmas market in Berlin. Well, the experiments with planes went astonishingly well, close to three thousand killed in one remarkably bloody, explosive day that shook the world.

Trains? They've had their success stories too, just ask Britain and Spain.

There is something about the culture of the West that reflects civilization, a kind of moral constraint that permeates society. Tribal societies whose culture reflecting a religion based on the heritage of the tribes and their culture appear to lack the deeply ingrained moral distaste for blood-letting. In societies where a neighbour's good fortune is jealously viewed by another neighbour who resorts to murder and pillage to further his own interests, humanitarianism and just plain decency don't rank very high in top-of-mind considerations of the public weal.

The Western mind swiftly adopts the willingness to share and to give haven to those in need, cringing with dismay at the plight of those whose own governments or the government in the next country resolves to settle scores and extinguish hopes of equality and freedom. In their generosity, despite dismay at the sheer numbers presenting for aid and haven, they sacrifice their own culture and values and system of justice in the smothering presence of people for whom all of that is completely foreign and contradictory to their religion.

But nations and their leaders feel complacently smug about their humanitarian impulses in the rescue of the unfortunates viewed as disposable, dispensable dross by their own nations. And their compulsion to help the unfortunates blinds them to the quandary they will themselves face when confronted with the inability of the rescued unfortunates to absorb Western justice and values and spirit of respect and co-operation in an egalitarian society.

Spurned by those who implicitly believe in their exceptionality as Muslims to do as tribal custom gears them to.

Sanctimoniously Normalizing Gender Inequality : Islamicizing Canadian Values

"IUMS [International Union for Muslim Scholars] was founded by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading ideologue and a notorious figure who, among other accomplishments, was for many years banned from entering France and endorsed the murder of Israelis."
"That PM Trudeau went to an IUMS-associated mosque is typical of left-leaning politicians, who apply a crude violence filter: if the person has not personally advocated or engaged in violence, then no problem. To put it mildly, that misses the point."
Daniel Pipes, Islamic studies scholar, United States

"Right now we have these political leaders -- ironically, politically liberal leaders -- who are just putting blinders on their eyes about their values."
"That's the big differential for liberals, they fancy themselves as honouring the woman's body and yet the segregation by its very definition hyper-sexualizes women's bodies. That's the great irony."
Asra Nomani, journalist formerly with the Wall Street Journal

"I will meet with Canadians regardless of where they are in Canada. I will speak to inclusive growth, help for the middle class. I will talk about gender equality. I will talk about the rights of the LGBT community."
"We [Liberal Government of Canada] will continue to promote the values which bring us [Canadians of all origins] together."
"Diversity is a source of strength, not just a source of weakness, and as I look at this beautiful room [Ottawa Mosque] -- sisters upstairs -- everyone here [I see] the diversity we have just within this mosque, within the Islamic community, within the Muslim community in Canada."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to members of the Muslim community in Ottawa, Monday September 12, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

"So whether you're in an indigenous community or in a community of faith or in a military community ... there are a number of traditions and cultures and standards that the community upholds and I think the respectful thing is to understand that it might not be your practise but it is theirs."
Patty Hajdu, Minister for the Status of Women

Minister Hajdu chooses to overlook that respect goes both ways. When in Rome... She did not accompany Prime Minister Trudeau on his courtesy visit to the gender-segregated mosque in Ottawa on Monday -- respectfully acknowledging Eid al-Adha, the holy feast day at the conclusion of Ramadan for the world's Muslims -- but three other female Members of Parliament accompanied him when he addressed the gathering at the mosque. Mr. Trudeau entered by the front door of the mosque.

The female Members of Parliament made their arrival through a side door and stood separated from all males present, demurely head-covered; not a Canadian custom, nor were they invited to address the gathering on this splendid social/religious occasion. Men on the main floor of the mosque, where the Prime Minister spoke, and women and girls in other portions of the mosque or on a balcony,

Only men are permitted on the main floor. Women will watch Trudeau from balcony. David Akin

Ms. Nomani, author of Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam noted that recent surveys reveal that mosques are increasingly separating men from women congregants, an steadily growing trend from a decade earlier. So much for Muslim adaptability to the values and priorities of equality between the sexes, with Islamist values superseding the values and guarantees under the Canadian Charter of Rights.

As for Mr. Trudeau's verbal assurances of his intention to speak of gender equality and the rights of the LGBT community, he somehow managed to overlook doing just that in his remarks, and nor did he blink when he remarked on the separation of "sisters upstairs". His presence and that of the other Members of Parliament, at a mosque whose imam is connected with Islamism, a ferociously radicalizing form of Islam, signals either a lax intelligence or an obtuse executive function in upholding Canadian values.

The lead imam at the Ottawa Muslim Association, Samy Metwally, according to the mosque's own website, is "a member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS). The United Arab Emirates since 2014 has placed the group on its list of designated terrorist organizations. And the Muslim Brotherhood has also been designated a terrorist organization, by at least half a dozen countries globally, including Egypt.

Canada has yet to do so, though its junior offshoot, Hamas, is on Canada's designated terrorist list. Both the Brotherhood and Hamas have infiltrated Canada. The Ottawa Mosque, just incidentally, was mentioned in an August report issued by co-authors Thomas Quiggin, formerly an intelligence analyst with the Privy Council Office and the RCMP, and Saied Shoaaib, a journalist originally from Egypt who conducted research in mosque libraries and Islamic schools, concluding that Islamist extremist literature exclusively was featured in those venues across Canada.

"The struggle for the soul of Islam between Islamists and humanists goes on in Canada and the U.S.A., not just in the Middle East, Europe and South Asia", the study noted.

The Ottawa Mosque -- ReSearch

American Gun Values

"We are a gun society and we recognize that, but we should be writing gun laws that make us safer."
"Do you want every incident on your street to escalate to acts of gun violence?"
Leonard Papania, police chief, Gulfport, Misissippi

"What is alarming to the police is that they have no power to ascertain the potential criminal background of an armed individual until a crime is committed, and by then it is too late."
Ladd Everitt, spokesman, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

"Gloom-and-doom predictions of Wild West scenarios in states with strong gun rights have proven time and again to be nothing more than scare tactics."
Jennifer Baker, spokeswoman, National Rifle Association

"We're advocating the safety for our police officers, but on the other side, you have the N.R.A. and other special interest groups that say, 'If you'll do this, we'll endorse you and make you look good."
"We don't have anything to offer them other than good advice."
Ken Winter, executive director, Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police

"It is absolutely ludicrous to me that we require people to go take a test to get a driver's license, but we are allowing people to carry a deadly weapon on their person without any procedures regulating it."
Michael Sauschuck, police chief, Portland, Maine

Gov. Phil Bryant of Mississippi signed a law in April allowing people to carry guns inside places of worship. Law enforcement officials in the state said they had been mostly unsuccessful in their attempts to negotiate the language in the legislation. Credit Clay Chandler/Mississippi's Governor's Office, via Associated Press

Difficult as it is to imagine, the most powerful nation on Earth which takes pride in its democratic and moral code, reluctantly taking on its role as universal sheriff to an unstable world, where its population values a constitution that enshrines the right to carry firearms, and there are, correspondingly, more firearms in the country per capita than any other place on the globe, and where more people are killed by guns, including children than any other place in the world, is busy freeing up gun availability.

Every time a mass shooting occurs, particularly those that victimize children when gunmen enter a school and imperil the lives of schoolchildren and their teachers, a mass agony of public outcry calls "enough!", and a brief fling with remorse stating that gun laws must be tightened has its day. But only a day, it seems, before the 'sanity' of cultural values returns and all goes back to normal. Normal in the United States appears to be easy access to gunpower. And the sanctimonious statement that guns don't kill, people do.

So guns in some states now appear in bars, in airports, in day-care centers and sports arenas. Guns are tucked into handbags and backpacks. And curious children, from two-year-old infants to ten-year-olds manage to discover where these killing machines are kept and to play with them. In the process killing themselves or their siblings, or their adult family members. Exceedingly small coffins at funerals tend to make people weep. But not work against the freedom to own guns and exorcise that laissez-faire attitude about them.

Lawmakers of a conservative bent, reflecting their constituents' wishes busy themselves by taking legislative steps to ensure that gun regulations are expanding the freedom for owners to carry their weapons wherever they go. Unconcealed, and with a brave attitude of entitlement. The police have always, in this general environment of entitlement, been fairly complacent. They too, of course, are gun owners, not only on the job but in their private lives.

Except, suddenly they're stepping out of line, protesting, expressing unease, and a wish for greater awareness of the dangers posed in a society for which there are no safeguards, only the freedom to possess and to display. Mississippi signed a new law in April to create exceptions to concealed-carry permit rules. West Virginia and Idaho have approved laws permitting people to carry concealed handguns without a permit or firearm training. And oh yes, without background checks.

Texas residents have been given the right to carry handguns openly. People with permits may carry concealed firearms onto public college campuses. In Maine and Texas, police officers have been exposed to people showing off their weapons near schools and libraries. Their attitudes those of challenging anyone to question their new rights. Gun rights advocates and police have traditionally been allies in the national gun debate.

Craig Martin, a police sergeant in Ann Arbor, Mich., asked to see John McIntosh’s concealed-pistol license before he entered a school board meeting last year. Credit Melanie Maxwell/The Ann Arbor News, via Associated Press

Now, however, police departments insist gun owners be required to receive training. Furthermore, that people with histories of violence be blocked from owning weapons. "Constitutional carry laws" eliminate the police role in issuing permits or questioning people who are armed openly, and this has succeeded in disrupting that traditional alliance. In Mississippi, law enforcement officials learned of the new law when it was being passed.

National Rifle Association members in the state had been sent fliers accusing law enforcement of siding with billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg, former mayor of New York, famously one of the country's most voluble advocate of gun control. Maine enacted a law in 2015 allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit or training. Republican Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia proved the exception by vetoing a bill passed by his Republican-controlled Legislature to permit gun owners 21 and older to carry a concealed handgun on college and university campuses, permit-free.

"From the early days of our nation and state, colleges have been treated as sanctuaries of learning where firearms have not been allowed. To depart from such time-honoured protections should require overwhelming justification", he stated. The campus police chiefs of the University System of Georgia distinguished themselves by supporting the existing laws, rejecting the proposed bill.

Molenbeek, Belgium, Jihadi Capital of Europe

"...the most important factor is Belgium's culture of denial. The country's political debate has been dominated by a complacent progressive elite who firmly believes society can be designed and planned. Observers who point to unpleasant truths such as the high incidence of crime among Moroccan youth and violent tendencies in radical Islam are accused of being propagandists of the extreme-right, and are subsequently ignored and ostracized."
"The debate is paralyzed by a paternalistic discourse in which radical Muslim youths are seen, above all, as victims of social and economic exclusion. They in turn internalize this frame of reference, of course, because it arouses sympathy and frees them from taking responsibility for their actions. The former Socialist mayor Philippe Moureax, who governed Molenbeek from 1992 to 2012 as his private fiefdom, perfected this culture of denial and is to a large extent responsible for the current state of affairs in the neighborhood."
"Two journalists had already reported on the presence of radical Islamists in Molenbeek and the danger they posed -- and both became victims of character assassination."     Teun Voten, Belgian cultural anthropologist,former Molenbeek resident

Federica Mogherini, the EU's de facto foreign minister (posing at left with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif) said last year, "Islam belongs in Europe.... I am not afraid to say that political Islam should be part of the picture." Françoise Schepmans (right), mayor of the Molenbeek district of Brussels, received a list with the names and addresses of over 80 suspected Islamic militants living in her area. "What was I supposed to do about them? It is not my job to track possible terrorists," she said. "That is the responsibility of the federal police."

The classic scenario of locking the barn door after the horses have galloped off, is taking place in Europe. Wholly infiltrated by a culture, a heritage and a religion whose values stand in stark contrast to European history, culture and priorities, Europe is swiftly disappearing into the political and social maw of a religion whose primary goal is to eclipse all others and, by the irresistible draw of its theological magnetic field -- just like a black hole against which other space objects have no defense -- capture the world by the energy field of its totalitarian ideology.

Now that Europe has been the beneficiary of years of Muslim immigration from North Africa and the Middle East, the importation of Islamic ideals absorbing society into its orbit is proceeding apace. With the demands for Sharia law, for total recognition and respect for the precepts of Islam which recognizes no man-made laws let alone indigenous customs and values, the gradual take-over of Europe proceeds. And it is joined by a more lethal manifestation of Islam's pathology of conquest, one demanding engagement in jihad through which the vengeance of the spurned has its day.

The West looks on with alarm as the Taliban, al-Shabaab, Hezbollah, Islamic State, and Boko Haram maraud through countries of traditional Islamic heritage but which do not sufficiently genuflect to Islam's purity as it was conceived by the Prophet Mohammad in direct and obedient obeisance to Allah. The assaults and atrocities trigger condemnation and fear at the deadly cost to human life. Resolve to counter the waves of terror harden when the West itself comes under vicious attack as it did in America, France, Spain, Britain and Belgium. Not to mention Indonesia, Mali, Iraq, India.

Finally, a recognition that what has been occurring in the only Western-type democracy in the Middle East, is also afflicting Europe, in another classic: the canary-in-the-mine syndrome. "The threat we are facing in Europe is about the same as what Israel faces", finally admitted Olivier Guitta, managing director of GlobalStrat, international security consultancy. "We have entered an era in which we are going to have to change our way of life and take security very seriously."

In Europe and across the world authorities are looking to once again tighten security at airports, railway stations, government buildings and sites key to civilized life in the wake of the deadly bombings at the airport and subway in Brussels. An increased police and military presence in the public arena; explosive experts, sniffer dogs and plainclothes investigators are now being deployed, while governments warn against travel to Belgium.

Counterterrorism units are being deployed in crowded areas and transit locations worldwide in acknowledgement of the string of terrorism assaults setting Europe as a target. Europe itself must now contemplate the implementation of tougher security levels at airports and at obvious 'soft targets' like shopping malls, similar to what Israel has been living with for years.

A former security director at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport, Pini Schiff, issued his critique of Belgium's security, classifying the Brussels airport security as "a colossal failure". In Paris and at Gatwick and Heathrow in London, security is at a high alert level. How alert can any country now be to the threat that exists within? In the United Kingdom 27 percent of Muslims claimed sympathy with the Charlie Hebdo attacks; 78 percent support punishment for publication of Mohammed cartoons, with 68 percent supporting arrest and prosecution of anyone who would "insult Islam".

A World Public Opinion survey at the  University of Maryland gives figures of 61 percent of Egyptians, 32 percent of Indonesians, 41 percent of Pakistanis, 38 percent of Moroccans, 83 percent of Palestinians, 62 percent of Jordanians, and 42 percent of Turks endorsing or sympathizing with attacks on Americans or on U.S. groups. In Belgium, 16 percent of young Muslims believe state terrorism is "acceptable" according to a 2013 study, while 12 percent of young Muslims in Britain feel suicide attacks against civilians can be justified.

The Washington Post reported "About 50 to 70 percent of all inmates in prison [in France] are Muslim, though Muslims represent about 12 percent of the country's population". An Anti-Defamation League report in 2015 found that: "An average of 55 percent of Western European Muslims harbored anti-Semitic attitudes. Acceptance of anti-Semitic stereotypes by Muslims in these countries was substantially higher than among the national population in each country."
A 2006 Swedish government report found that 5 percent of its indigenous population held anti-Semitic views, while the number surged too 39 percent amongst adult Muslims. A 2012 study of Germany's burgeoning Turkish population disclosed that 62 percent of Turks in Germany want to  live exclusively among one another. As well, 46 percent express the aspiration that the country become a Muslim majority nation.

The venerable BBC noted that 36 percent of 16- to 24-year-old Muslims believe should a Muslim convert to another religion they should be punished by death. Thirty-five percent of Muslims prefer to send their children to an Islamic school, while 37 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds say they feel that government-funded Islamic schools should be established. Of 16- to 24-year-olds, there is a 74 percent preference for Muslim women to wear the veil, in comparison to 28 percent among those over age 55.

How Proud Is That?

"I'm definitely proud to be a Canadian. It's a wonderful country, with one small iota that I disagree with."
"I wish to affirm my allegiance, my true allegiance to Canada and the people of Canada, but also to disavow the royalty part and only the royalty part of the citizenship oath."
Dror Bar-Natan, Israeli-Canadian, Toronto

Dror Bar-Natan, about to become a Canadian, plans to start a website allowing other new Canadians recant their oath to the Queen. (Colin Perkel/Canadian Press) 

This man, a 49-year-old professor of mathematics, takes exception to the British monarch representing the Canadian Head of State, in a long heritage connecting Canada to Britain and a tradition honouring that link. In wishing to become a Canadian citizen, he has the gall to criticize that portion of the citizenship ceremony requiring the pledging of allegiance to the Queen.

He glibly dismisses that tradition and the ceremony, viewing the monarch as a symbol of inequality, "repulsive" to his taste. When people emigrate from their country of origin with the intention of taking up residence abroad and eventually becoming citizens elsewhere, it ill behooves them to pick and choose which elements of the law and customs of the land they will adapt to. All the more so when it comes to a citizenship ceremony.

J.P. Moczulski for National Post   Zunera Ishaq shovels her driveway at her home in Mississauga.

When a Pakistani woman who became a landed immigrant in Canada declined to take the citizenship oath because she was instructed to remove her niqab to reveal her entire face, it represented yet another incident where newcomers to Canada arrogantly spurn established law and custom. Tradition is meaningful and is meant to be respected. When tradition is combined with law, rejecting it is an assault upon Canadian values.

This man Bar-Natan was one of three permanent residents who chose to challenge the constitutionality of citizenship conditional on the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen. Ontario's top court while rejecting their argument, found that all citizens have the right to disavow that part of the oath. On the conclusion of the ceremony they recant the oath and feel self-satisfaction in justifying their distaste for a singular tradition that does not sit well with their individual values.

Both the woman who insisted on wearing her niqab and the man who felt justified in disavowing the oath of allegiance should have been denied citizenship, a privilege that neither had earned.

Islamism is the Problem -- Where is the Solution?

The world has a problem. One of monumental proportions. Of course there are always problems, threatening one part of the world or another. Or, in the instance of a problem as universal as Climate Change, a problem whose dimensions are difficult to grasp, let alone for nations to agree on whether and how, when and why each will pledge to restrain their use of energy that carbonizes our atmosphere interfering with nature and causing implacably dangerous weather systems to arise.

And, as it happens, there is a link to greenhouse gas emissions and the vulnerability of our environment to forces both natural, repetitive and cyclical and the way that humans manipulate our environment, corrupting it and endangering all of life. For it seems that the more we advanced our technologies to enable us to extract natural resources the more we compromised our habitat.

There are countries whose vast natural store of fossil fuels enriched them beyond imagination, countries which were entirely devoid of any economic mechanism and recognized resources as well as initiatives to further themselves economically to advance into the future. This is where countries of the Middle East like the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia in particular derived their financing and their power; from the exploitation of their vast stores of oil and natural gas.


And it is Saudi Arabia upon which the focus should be held. For this is a puritan country of elites in the Arab/Muslim world, a country that sees itself as the exemplar-devotion of divine faith as the acknowledged protectors and stewards of the two most sacred sites in the world's second-most-followed religion, Islam. Mecca and Medina, which the Prophet Mohammad conquered in the 7th Century, through bloodshed and appropriation is what motivates the House of Saud.



Their vast stores of oil have lent them authority and power and fabulous wealth. They have used all three to monumentalize themselves as the custodians of the faith. The country is zealous with an epic strain of religious bigotry, celebrating and spreading a 'pure' form of Islam that dates from its founding, Wahhabism. Non-Muslims are not permitted entry to those sacred cities, and nor is any religion other than Islam officially permitted to be worshipped in Saudi Arabia.

It is a country, like other Islamic countries that is Islamist in its form and function and purpose, and it looks to the Koran and Sharia law to address due punishment for crimes against Islam. Apostasy is a crime deserving death. But then, in Sharia law many 'crimes' against Islam and against the state are seen to be deserving of death. And the most common death sentence carried out in Saudi Arabia is by beheading, grotesque and grisly, a cultural/religious practise that has gained huge notoriety for a Wahhabist offshoot, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, but preferentially ignored for Saudi Arabia.

With its vast wealth, the rulers of the country set about ensuring that their Islamist brand of Islam would prevail. When the Muslim Brotherhood was rejected in Egypt where it was born over 80 years ago, it found an appreciative home in Saudi Arabia. Salafist Islam is a stern, medieval, unrelenting form of Islam. Sunni Muslims are in the majority of roughly 80% in the community of Islam, the ummah, and Shiite Islam is the minority. The standard-bearer for Shia Islam which reveres descent from Mohammad is Iran, whose own Islamist credentials rival Saudi Arabia's.



The West views Wahhabist and Salafist Islam as 'radical', but it is Islam itself that practices an excess of manipulation of humanity, whose values are most often directly opposed to human rights in favour of total submission to the will of Allah. And the will of Allah is, needless to say, the human-imagined will of an all-powerful spirit whose expectations are that human beings live for the sole and singular pleasure of worshipping the divine.

All gods are jealous gods competing for human devotion and all inform their faithful of their obligation to convince others that theirs is the only way to salvation. Wahhabist Saudi Arabia does this by funding madrassas throughout the world; schools of religious teaching whose mandate is to transform people into Islamist fundamentalists. Of course, social tradition and culture has its part to play, as well; the madrassas formalize all of that, emphasizing jihad as the tool by which non-believers can be convinced they should believe in Islam.



Out of Wahhabism has come the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda and Islamic State. And these are the nemesis of liberal democracies whom they decry as decadent insults to the sacredness of Islam. The pervasive nature of Western culture, Western values and Western goods is seen as inimical to Islam, weapons that the west uses in its war of ideas and possessions over the pure and selfless self-vision of Islam; a clash that is interpreted as an existential war.

Should the West succeed, they will diminish Islam. Should Islam succeed, it will destroy the West. Fanatical Islamism is the culture common to Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mali, Mauritania, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab/Muslim states, most of whom view the values and culture of the West as degraded and vulgar and a threat to Islam. To decry the violence that oozes out of Islam is to be labelled Islamophobic, a handy shaming tool for sensitive Western consciences.



And so, the West, out of a sense of colonialist guilt and sheer politeness, side-steps the questions that should be asked of Islam; that if it is as it insists, a religion of peace, how can it be that it is the foremost instigator of, and fount of institutionalized violence, human-rights abuses, slander, corruption and oppression, not only targeting its own, but impressively in its sheer savagery, non-Muslim democracies in regular paroxysms of raging psychopathy?

Canada's Social Contract

"Untrue [Zunera Ishaq's vow the niqab is required because of her faith]. Islam makes no such requirement as obligatory on Muslim women, and there is no such ruling made obligatory for Muslim women in Hanafi rites or jurisprudence within Islam."
"The wearing of full face covering by that small segment of Muslim women such as Ms. Ishaq, is a custom turned into religious mandate by Muslim extremists in Pakistan. Such a contentious mandate enforced in public by coercion is of recent origin."
Raheel Raza, Sohail Raza, The Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow

"To have one's face covered for a swearing-in [citizenship] ceremony, I'm not in agreement with that."
"I'm comfortable saying that and I think my party [New Democratic Party] is also comfortable saying that."
NDP candidate Jean-Francois Delisle

 

The Federal Court has struck down the federal government's ban on wearing the niqab while taking the citizenship oath, but not on charter grounds. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

The Conservative-led federal government is prepared to request a stay of the Federal Court of Appeal decision ruling that the Citizenship Act requires a change in law, not only regulation, if the Government of Canada wishes uncovered faces to remain the norm during citizenship ceremonies. A recent immigrant from Pakistan to Canada has decided that this is a social covenant that is not to her liking. Consequently, at a citizenship swearing-in ceremony which required that she remove her niqab she refused to take part.

And then she appealed the issue. Granted, Muslim women in Canada who wear a full face covering are not that abundant in number. In the same token, a requirement for all people who aspire to Canadian citizenship to show their identities during times of grave private and public importance is one meant for everyone, with no exceptions. Canada is a free and open society and within the social contract basic courtesies apply; no one should hide their faces from open view.

The most basic mode of communication is an open visage leaving others free to interpret facial expression as part of one's identity and willingness to exchange opinions or simply feel free to acknowledge the presence of others in an egalitarian society. In a closed, misogynistic society like Pakistan's where female empowerment of equality to males is a concept of human rights that has not yet arrived, women have accepted the male-domineering demand to express their demureness by hiding their physical forms and their personalities.

Another NDP Member of Parliament, Alexandre Boulerice, stated "the niqab is a type of barrier that is created between women and the rest of society. It is a wall", which makes Canadians "uneasy". In fact, it is an expression of rejection of Canadian values of female rights. Yet the leader of the NDP faults the government for its insistence on the necessity of a clear view of the face of anyone taking part in a citizenship ceremony. A recent poll, however, revealed that 83 percent of NDP supporters cast their opinion in support of the government's stand.

That same poll showed endorsement of no-niqab-use at 96 percent for those identifying with the Conservatives, and 85 percent for Liberals, which means that the Liberal leader who also faults the government is as out-of-step as the NDP leader on this critical societal issue; that cultural normatives demeaning the status of women in society are unacceptable in Canada.

"Look, when someone joins the Canadian family, there are times in our open, tolerant, pluralistic society that as part of our interactions with each other we reveal our identify through revealing our face."
"When you join the Canadian family in a public citizenship ceremony, it is essential that that is a time when you reveal yourselves to Canadians and that is something widely supported by Canadians.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

When Good People Grievously Err

"Most Canadians and Westerners are unaware of instructions drilled into the impressionable minds of Muslim boys at a very early age in schools by mullahs, or religious teachers. They are taught that idolatry or associating a partner with Allah (shirk) unbelief (kufr), and apostasy (ridda) are crimes against God deserving of death, and that it is obligatory on Muslims to execute this punishment. They are taught any rule of law apart from Sharia is sinful and illegitimate, and that it is obligatory on Muslims to establish Sharia rule wherever they can and persist in the effort until the whole world eventually submits."
"The result of such teaching, and the culture that perpetuates it, is the ideology of jihad that glorifies terrorism as the cult of martyrdom."
Salim Mansur, professor, Western University, London, Ontario

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot   Two Muslim women demonstrate against the proposed Quebec charter of values outside the legislature in Quebec City.

It was with a sigh of relief that Quebec elected a Liberal government and threw out the separatist Parti Quebecois and its agendas to destroy the unity of the Canadian confederation. A new man came on the scene, a reasonable man who believed in equality and in federation, a doctor by profession who would lead Quebec back into union with the other provinces and put a stop to the uneasy relationship his province has agitated toward for decades.

But now the Quebec government of Liberal Premier Philippe Couillard has brought forward new legislation that would stifle free speech. Bill 59 is a perverse bit of legislation, as inimical to free democratic values as Bill 101 has been in banishing English in the province. Bill 59 would make it illegal, through a proposal made real initiated by the Quebec Human Rights commission, to bring lawsuits against any who engage in "hate speech".

Hate speech is defined in this context as criticism of Islam. The Conference of Islamic Cooperation must be chortling with satisfaction, if they know of this new initiative in Quebec. Where the Parti Quebecois made strides to bring into law the illegality of wearing conspicuous religious symbols for civil servants serving the public, Quebec's Liberal party has gone to the opposite extreme. The Conference of Islamic Cooperation has been attempting for years to have the United Nations declare that criticism of Islam represents a criminal, human rights offence in its obvious "Islamophobia".

No other religion in the world would have this distinction of being universally protected against criticism. Coincidentally, no other religion in the world has roiled the international community with its calls to jihad and its spread of global terror. No other religion in the world has been responsible for the countless bloodthirsty deaths of its own, from Africa to South Asia to the Middle East. No other religion in the world is guilty of inciting its own faithful to flee the countries where sectarian, minority ethnic and tribal oppression and conflict makes migrants and refugees of their own.

Professor Mansur speaks on behalf of Muslims who have fled the oppression and repression and human rights violations common in Muslim majority countries for haven elsewhere, where democracy and equality rights benefit all equally under the law. Those Muslims who are appalled when the strictures of Islamist values and Islamist Sharia law have followed them and taunt them and once again imfringe on their lives.

Premier Couillard states that Muslim terrorism is a response to criticism of Islam. Believing that if criticism becomes unlawful then terrorism will cease to be a problem; jihadists will no longer have a reason to spread their brand of violence across the world. President of the Quebec Human Rights commission, Jacques Fremont, has stated publicly his intention to sue any who "write against ... the Islamic religion ... on a website or on a Facebook page." Effectively joining ranks with repressive countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey and Iran.


This alarms Professor Mansur, an outspoken critic of fundamentalist Islam. "As a Canadian, I know the values of freedom and democracy are indispensable for the world of Islam if it eventually makes the transition from closed to open society. These values, especially freedom of speech, have to be vigorously defended and taught to immigrants from Muslim countries to embrace as citizens of a liberal democracy."

"...In Bangladesh bloggers have been hacked to death for practising free speech. In Iran, Saudi Arabia, and across the Middle East freedom of speech and freedom of religion are repressed with lashings, crucifixions, imprisonments and beheadings. This is why Bill 59 is not merely a diminution of liberal democracy. It is worse It is a betrayal of those Muslim immigrants and refugees in Quebec who came seeking freedom and democracy. And it is an abject capitulation in appeasing those Muslims who cling to the values of a closed society and fear, like rulers of the OIC countries."

Concerning Concerned Canadian Muslims

• We acknowledge the extraordinary experience of acceptance of Muslims in Canadian society.
• We are committed to countering the impact of the hate-filled ideologies of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Khomeinists and other extremist groups, on Canada.
• We decry the promotion by extremists of 'cultural victimhood' as an insidious tool to attract supporters and lay the groundwork for radicalization.  
• We reject the unfettered use of accusations of "Islamophobia" to inhibit free speech and silence the discussion on Islamist extremism in Canada.
• We urge Canada to enact stronger policy initiatives to contend with extremist ideologies that generate radicalization.
• We support the legislative measures adopted by Canada to protect Canadians from terrorism.
• We unequivocally support Canadian legislation prohibiting forced marriages, female genital mutilation (FGM) and other such loathsome practices.
• We support Canada's continued involvement in the military mission against ISIS.
• We support Canada's listing of the Iranian and Syrian regimes as state sponsors of terror.

Above are the inspiring statements of the collective voice of a coalition calling themselves Muslims Facing Tomorrow. Their website, muslimsfacingtomorrow.com introduces the curious to their mission within Canada as Muslims disturbed beyond complacent isolation from those Muslim-Canadian groups that distinguish themselves by the tactics of divisive and hateful propaganda against those with whom they disagree or who raise their traditional ire.

The full-page advertisement published in Canadian newspapers on Thursday, 30 July 2015 is unequivocal in its support of the current Government of Canada's attempts to protect all Canadians against home-grown terrorism, of Canada's involvement in international efforts to confront radical Islam, and in its rejection of Muslim societies within Canada purporting to speak for Canadian Muslims who accuse those critical of political Islam of "Islamophobia".

Muslims Facing Tomorrow, a coalition of Muslim groups that have formed to counteract the efforts of political Islamists who have much in common with and support groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and celebrate Iranian influence in Canada has stated its commitment to advancing the interests of all people regardless of ethnicity, religion, civil status, gender orientation or any other indices that generally tend to set people apart from one another.

This timely, refreshing and vitally critical exposition of an entirely humanist mode of expressing solidarity with all the citizens of Canada with a common interest in advancing human society, human rights and equality among people, sets in perspective a hitherto not fully recognized effort on the part of people dismayed at seeing their religion used as a tool of medieval violence, threatening co-existence even among Muslims whose sect is viewed as that of heretics.

It is beyond reassuring to know that Tarek Fatah, Salim Mansur, Irshad Manji, Nazeem Afshin-Jan and Raheel Reza are not alone in their dedication to defending the religion they know and love while confronting the destabilizing efforts of fanatical Muslims living in Canada and spreading their message of suspicion, hatred, rejection of equality and the opportunity to live in peace with their neighbours. Muslims Facing Tomorrow spurs those on the sidelines to raise their voices in support of Canadian values.

Aligned with them in Muslims Facing Tomorrow is the Coalition of Progressive Canadian Muslim Organizations, Muslim Committee Against Antisemitism, Canadian Thinkers' Forum, Muslim Youth Expressions and Forum for Learning. While Canada is beset in some quarters with the threat of militant Islam, we are fortunate to have among us Canadians who subscribe to the tenets that support their belief that Islam is a religion of peace, rejecting those that seek to assert otherwise.

Canadian Muslims who have accepted Canadian values and who deplore the fanatical Islamism that prevails throughout much of the Middle East, Southeast Asia and North Africa today, have finally raised their voice to inform the Canadian reading public that there are indeed righteous among the faithful whose values are distinctly oriented in opposition to militant, human-rights-abusing Islamism.

Respect! For Whom?

"Every school that joins ROPSSAA [Region of Peel Secondary School Athletic Association], it's a voluntary membership. We will continue to adhere strictly to those constitutions and bylaws."
Paul Freier, chairman, ROPSSAA

"We assumed this was a senior boys' league and we thought it was exclusively for boys."
"Understand that free mixing is something that, generally speaking, we do not do, more so out of respect than anything."
"It's got nothing to do with discrimination."
Essa Abdool-Karim, soccer coach, ISNA [independent Islamic school, Mississauga, Ontario

"I said to my coach, 'I'd rather see everybody play. I don't want to ruin this for the rest of the team. Me and the other girl will sit out'."
Carla Biscoe, Caledon, Ontario

Courtesy of Briscoe family    Carla Briscoe, 18, shown in the foreground during a game in December, is a senior at Robert F. Hall Catholic Secondary School in Caledon, Ontario. She is one of two girls on her school’s boys soccer team.

 

Two girls on the senior boys' soccer team representing Robert F. Hall Catholic Secondary School, playing against a team comprised of all boys, were asked by their coach, halfway through a competitive game that had them scoring 3-1, to sit out the rest of the game. The game referee had been advised that the ISNA High team was unable to continue playing as a result of the presence of the two girls on the field.

Carla Briscoe, 18, is an enthusiastic player and wanted nothing more than to get on with the game. Presumably the other girl felt likewise. In a spirit of team cooperation they agreed to sit out the second half of the game. They had no wish to interfere with the rest of their team's play, particularly since some of the team members hadn't yet had their opportunity to get out on the field. It was, to be sure, an uncommon situation.

And the Catholic Secondary School went on to win the game in the end, 6-1. But, according to Paul Freier the rules governing sports in the region are precisely those formulated by the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations. In this instance if a sport is not available to girls at a school they have the right to become part of the boys' team, if they prove capable of success during a tryout. That's equality of opportunity.

An email was sent to the ISNA coach by Mr. Freier to ensure he knew that all schools that join their sports federation must respect those rules. They are free to leave the athletic association should they disagree with any of the rules. "This restraint is considered by some Canadian Muslims to be an expression of personal modesty and is not meant to be regarded as a personal insult or affront". explained Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

He was addressing the issue that in the Muslim faith there is a firm belief that no physical contact should be made with players of the opposite gender during sport events. The genders must not interact. This interpretation of Islamic code perhaps owes quite a bit to social culture and tradition emanating from the country of origin of Muslim Canadians who have emigrated and arrived in Canada to enable their young to have opportunities not available to them in their countries of origin.

The old adage of 'when in Rome' can never be repeated to excess. Respect given to the welcoming culture, particularly one where equality of opportunity is the norm is never misplaced.

Charging On With Clarity and Distinction

"It's dangerous because increasingly we are abridging our freedoms so as not to offend savages. The fact that we have to spend upwards of $50,000 in security speaks to how dangerously in trouble freedom of speech is in this country [United States]."
"And then we have to get on these news shows and somehow we are -- those that are targeted, those that were going to be slaughtered -- are the ones who get attacked [by the media]."
"[The only] moderate Muslim is a secular Muslim. [When Muslims] pray five times a day ... they're cursing Christians and Jews five times a day."
"The mosque-ing of the workplace where you're imposing prayer times on union contracts, non-Muslim workers have to lengthen their day .... These demands are a way of imposing Islam on a secular society."
"They say I'm a racist, Islamophobic, anti-Muslim bigot. I'm anti-jihad. ... I don't see how anyone could say I'm anti-Muslim. I love Muslims."
"We decided to have a cartoon contest to show we would not kowtow to violent intimidation and allow the freedom of speech to be overwhelmed by thugs and bullies."
"The Islamic jihadis are determined to suppress our freedom of speech violently. They struck in Paris and Copenhagen recently, and now in Texas. This incident shows how much needed our event really was. The freedom of speech is under violent assault here in our nation. The question now before us is -- will we stand and defend it, or bow to violence, thuggery, and savagery?"
Pamela Geller, blogger [Atlas Shrugs], anti-Islamist jihad activist

David Karp /Associated Press   Pamela Geller, the organizers of a ‘prophet Muhammad cartoon contest’ in Texas that ended in a shooting Sunday.

She is adamant, forceful, determined to force the issue that no one -- or at least very few, for fear of being labelled as she has been, racist and bigoted -- wants to face head on; the gradual Islamization of Western society, wherever large numbers of Muslims migrate throughout Europe, North America, Oceania and elsewhere. Muslims organize themselves in assertive blocs of entitlement to demand that the laws of any nation that they settle in also recognize Sharia law and make room for Islamic values and customs.

In so doing they fail to recognize the laws of the country they have migrated to, they insist on the superiority of their religion over all others, they agitate for recognition of Islamic values over the cultural and social mores of the welcoming society, and in the process they actively dilute the prevailing culture, denigrating its values as inferior to those that Muslims hold dear. As though that isn't quite enough, they also bring with them their vitriolic hatred for Jews in very particular, leading to a surging anti-Semitism.

So if Pamela Geller sounds like a drama-queen, a hysteric over her alarm in reflection of what she sees happening around her, she can be forgiven, as far as many, though not all of her countrymen and women are concerned. She is recognized as one of the most aggressive, perhaps shrillest voices in the United States against what she terms the Islamization of America. President of both the American Freedom Defense Initiative and the Stop Islamization of America activist groups, her voice has the power to motivate others to speak in their own defence.

Her goal is to have enough Americans sit up and take notice and take her accusations as seriously as they deserve to be taken. And to create a backlash against the very real potential of America turning out a mirror image of France, of Germany, of the Netherlands, of Norway, of Sweden, and in fact pretty well most of Europe, with its too-late groundswell of popular dissatisfaction with the dissolution of their nations' social culture and religious direction.

As to her claim that Muslims "are cursing Christians and Jews five times a day", as incredible as that sounds, it is perfectly true. Any Muslim who attends daily prayers does just that. Here's the word from Canada's Tarek Fatah, himself a considerable, influential and dogged critic of violent Islamism who has faced death threats, but continues to write about the infiltration of Islamism in Canadian society and his fears over its eventual actualization into something approximating an Islamist Canada:

"One of the reasons I avoid attending Friday congregations at mosques is a specific ritual prayer uttered by most Mosque Imams just prior to the formal Friday prayer we Muslims refer to as the Juma’a. In the prayer, the clerics ask Allah among other things to give “victory to Muslims over the ‘Qawm al-Kafirun’ the Arabic phrase that lumps all non-Muslims, that is Jews, Hindus, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists and Sikhs into one. I was hoping this particular prayer would not be uttered on the day Islamist Jihadi Terrorists killed four Jews in Paris in the name of Islam and just two days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre."              Tarek Fatah, January 10, 2015

Pamela Geller was herself prodded to action when in the shadow of Ground Zero after the Islamist attack of 9/11 in New York, the proposal was put forward for the construction of a huge mosque/social centre complex; an act of incredible arrogance which its funders declared to be innocent of any intention to give offence. In the wake of the Paris Charlie Hebdo atrocity and the concomitant attack on the Jewish supermarket, she again rose to the occasion.

Deciding to hold a Mohammad cartoon contest in Texas. And putting in place appropriate security, correctly judging that some crazed Islamist would decide to express 'disappointment' at the deliberate slur against the Prophet whose image replication is strictly forbidden. And so Elton Simpson, a convert to Islam, and his companion Nadir Soofi, both wearing body armour, arrived at the contest venue suitably armed to make their disapproval known. Aiming at a security guard they were themselves killed by an armed policeman.

Islamic State has since boasted that the attack, albeit foiled, was their work. And Pamela Geller's critics have a field day deploring her actions and activities, her claims and her warnings: "She's relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims", the Southern Poverty Law Centre states. They have added her name to its list of "hate group" leaders, speaking of her as the "anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead".

Members of the FBI Evidence Response Team investigate the crime scene outside the Curtis Culwell Center after a shooting the day before, on May 4, 2015, in Garland, Texas.

Photo by Ben Torres/Getty Images