JB Globe

Exactly. And to add to this, I would like to ask a Sudanese refugee or an immigrant from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro about the crime rate of these so-called ghettos of Toronto. People are such p***ies, eh? We should be clear on what crime actually is before point out who is and who isn't a "victim" of it . . . And while you're at it, stop complaining that you have cancer, that's not a disease - having Malaria in a country with no health care system, THAT'S a disease!

Which is why Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore have the capacity to do coordinated naval and land patrols and, which have cut piracy in the strait of Malacca dramatically. When the Islamic Courts Union was in charge of Somalia, they could coordinate resources to fight piracy as well, and it was all but eliminated. But dozens of warlords can't coordinate resources to fight piracy, they're too busy fighting each other to gain power.

That's actually not my reasoning at all. Here's how my reasoning goes: If you don't even live in Toronto, and weren't affected by this protest, than you should be able to have a rational discussion about what happened without getting outraged. What happened is regrettable but it's not treasonous or disastrous - No one died, the emergency lanes were restored by the afternoon. So where does the outrage come from? I can only speculate, so I won't say, but this clearly isn't JUST about the blocking of the street for a few hours for you. I'm not saying you can't take a stand, I'm just saying your level of outrage is grossly disproportionate to what actually happened, and it suggests that there's something else going on here . . .

But here's the thing: who in a democratic society gets to decide what "bullying" is and what legit reason to protest is? Do we even want someone to make such a decision? Because I'm sure there were plenty of people in Alabama who though Dr. King's rallies were "bullying" or something similar. (no, I'm not saying you don't support the civil rights movement, I'm just pointing out that what's a legit cause in the eyes of some depends on where they're standing on that issue). Who knows, if there was some board that decided what causes were worth minor inconveniences like street protests (thus deciding if certain causes were legal or illegal) it may even end up declaring some causes you or I support illegal. Personally I'm happy with our free but sometimes inconvenient system as it is.

Sorry, is the problem for you the "ethnic faraway wars" or blocking emergency routes? Because I'm with you on the later, but I don't have any problem with folks using their Charter rights to promote an issue they're concerned with, whether it's an issue that's rooted in the countries they immigrated from, or some other issue.

No, a failed state literally means that there is no rule of law or consistent authority across most of the country besides the authority possessed by armed groups which is based on their capacity to commit violence, rather than even the most basic social contract. Wealth has nothing to do with it, many poor countries aren't failed states, and it's possible for a fairly wealthy nation to fail if it becomes unstable and violent enough for a long period of time.

Beat me to it. Argus - to add on, in case you missed it earlier in this thread, I said that the reason there is more antisemitism in Muslim nations currently is because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not because Islam is INHERENTLY antisemitic.

If Somalia wasn't a failed state, there would be no piracy. Also, if the US hadn't been so quick to depose the Islamic Courts Union because they were Islamist (but not terrorists) than there wouldn't be piracy, because they all but shut it down in the 6 months they were in power. But of course the US a few years ago was driven by such an over-bearing ideology in the White House that no amount of realism in the state department or CIA could prevail, the ICU was tossed out and the pirates got worse than ever, and that provisional government that was put in it's place crumbled. Now the former ICU head is the head of the new US & UN-backed provisional government in exile - looks like he wasn't the anti-christ after all. Sometimes you just have to go with the lesser of two evils, and the sad things is if we went with the ICU it would benefit Somalis & the rest of the world as well. We'd get pirate-free waters, Somalis would get a repressive yet stable government that could deliver international aid. Sure beats the kind of anarchy they deal with now where you can get killed because a warlord's gunman is having a boring day and needs some sport.

Considering how well-run the previous protest was (Chief Bill Blair even commented on this) that had a human chain formed from Bloor->Yonge->Front->University->Bloor in a square, it's disappointing to see what happened in this most recent protest. Protests are by nature, supposed to be a nuisance - if you can't grab someone's attention by disrupting their routine, you haven't done their job. However blocking emergency routes, even if it was just momentarily, isn't acceptable. But I'd like to point out, that I believe that the tone in this thread is far, far, more extreme than the actions of the protesters. They, on one hand, acted out of emotion because hundreds of thousands of their fellow (civilian) Tamils are trapped by conflict. It doesn't excuse making the mistake, but it's not as if they blocked the emergency routes for completely irrational reasons. With the exception of Muddy, you folks here don't really have any reason to have such an extreme level of outrage about this, in fact - I don't even think most of you live in Toronto, correct? Why are you so angry? You weren't even inconvenienced by this or other Tamil protests like I have - and I'm not angry in the slightest.

I wasn't making the point that personal poverty is primarily driving Somali piracy, although it would be hard to find a pirate who was born wealthy. My point is that a failed state with no ability to enforce a non-existent legal system that has valuable cargo moving past it, and has a history of warlord in-fighting is a breeding ground for pirates. The failed state is the root of the problem, the personal poverty is just the ammunition that keeps the ranks of the pirates steady. And btw - the pirates were initially tied to warlords, who sent gunmen to the coast to find fishermen to captain the boats. The warlords put up the startup money and as the pirates started to catch a few Yemini fishing boats, they used the ransom money to buy better equipment to take on larger boats, which netted more money, which eventually allowed them to nab things like GPS devices. Eventually, the pirates grew so strong they could break their warlord connections and operate independently.

Of course, that didn't stop the countless times in which the bible was INTERPRETED as justifying antisemitism towards Jews in many ways, such as the idea of Jewish Deicide, which has been around for millennia and promoted by establishment figures such as various Popes and reformers like Martin Luther alike. I could care less if the bible is explicitly antisemitic, because Christianity itself has killed a great number of Jews and has a history of antisemitism. I'm sure it didn't the Jewish victims of the Spanish Inquisition feel any better that they were being executed by the followers of a book that didn't actually have anything against them. Of course I'm aware of the few examples of antisemitism in the entire Qu'ran which is not pulled out of context or mistranslated, such as: 2:61, 5:65, and 7:166. Of course, I'm also aware of the fact that the Qu'ran glorifies Hebrew prophets, disregards the idea of Jewish Deicide, and lays out legal protection for Jews in Muslim societies (which while problematic was still ahead of having ZERO legal protection in Christian societies). I'm sorry but antisemitism is not a black and white issue. Christians don't have anything to be proud of when it comes to the history of their faith in relating to Jews. From the middle of the first millenia to the last half of the 20th century the threat of violence was a fact of life for Jews living in the majority of Christian societies. The same reason that there were pogroms throughout Europe for over a thousand years, right up through this past century: the hundreds throughout Russia and the greatest pogrom of them all under the Third Reich . . . The Christian and Muslims worlds have been throughout the vast majority of their histories places of varying degrees antisemitism. There is simply no basis to the idea that Muslim societies are, in the grand scheme of things, inherently more anti-semitic than Christian ones.

To repeat myself, Islam is no more inherently anti-semitic than any other religion. The only reason the level of anti-semitism is higher in the Muslim community CURRENTLY is because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and of course the tensions from that conflict cut both ways, leading to increased Islamophobia in the Jewish community.

From Today's Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/618359 I knew that we would regret disposing the ICU so quickly without trying to engage them first, which they were open to. The post-9/11 paranoia that any group that draws any inspiration from Islamic teachings is one-breath away from becoming Al-Qaeda is irrational and prevents us from working with imperfect but willing partners in imperfect situations. Frankly, a flawed regime is better than violent anarchy. It seems as though we're coming around to this given Ahmed being opposed by the Bush Administration and now backed by the Obama Administration.

Like I said, I know anti-semitism exists in the Muslim community somewhere, however I am as concerned about it as I am the Islamophobia which is present in certain places within the Jewish community. It needs to be dealt with, but the chicken-little approach you and others have taken is simply not logical given the small scope of the problem (based on the available evidence). Overreacting to a small problem I believe will whip up baseless xenophobia, which will cause this handful of small mosques to become even more insular, and thus their views will become even hardened and the problem will become even worse. That's the issue for me here: what works best at alleviating stereotyping and discrimination between communities? In my experiences it's been communication and education: inter-faith dialogue, moderated forums, inter-faith youth groups, rational discussion, etc. What exactly are you suggesting be done? If you were more rational about these issues, you might actually find that more people would get on board, but portraying the case of one immigrant Imam at one small mosque as the standard to which all Imams and mosques across Canada should be judged is classic prejudice. You would not accept someone else trying to generalize the entire Jewish community because of what is being taught at a Hillel Day School, so don't expect folks to accept the same tactic when applied to other communities. I think you'd benefit by being more consistent with your standards of logic no matter who the subject happens to be.

I would reply with a quote I remember from a senior Palestinian leader in Thomas Friedman's Pulitzer-Prize winning "From Beruit to Jerusalem" from before the first Intifada - "Palestinians may not be the most brutalized people in the Middle East, but they certainly are the most humiliated." That humiliation is one of the primary factors which caused the intifada in the first place, and something which Israelis vehemently deny takes place to this day, as illustrated by the reaction to a Condi Rice speech acknowledging the humiliation of occupation. To acknowledge that the occupation is inherently dehumanizing, would of course acknowledge that Israelis support a foreign policy which is morally bankrupt. Of course, post-intifada the noose was tightened, and I don't think there's much separating Palestinians in general in terms of quality of life, economic, and political freedoms from the rest of the Arab world. In fact, it's worse in some cases, for example: I'm at a loss at how you can state that "the Muslims in question are no more or less oppressed than Muslims in most other countries" when we've been watching what's been going on in Gaza for the last several years. It essentially functions as a prison, after all. But I digress, my point originally for this thread was: I'm sure anti-semitism exists in the Muslim Canadian community like it does in every community in Canada, but I don't believe it is a major problem and is only higher than average because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not some inherent anti-semitism within Islam.

A few thoughts . . . A lot more than 12% of Ontarians would be able to speak French if non-immersion/extended classes concentrated solely on speech-instruction. A student who's in immersion/extended obviously wants to be able to speak, read, and write French fairly fluently, and most do. Immersion/extended classes aren't the problem, it's Core classes: they basically take the same curriculum, chop it down and try and do speech, reading and writing in under 4 hours a week - that's simply nowhere near enough. If those Core classes concentrated ONLY on speech, I'm pretty sure a lot more of us would be able to speak French in a basic manner, but because they try to do everything and there's not enough time we end up not having ANY French skills at all. There are a lot of students who are interested in spending a few hours a week learning to speak French, but don't want to spend several hours a day learning speech, writing, and reading. We need to have realistic options that reflect the actual educational needs of students. It seems as though the current curriculum is based on politics: making it look like the education system is committed to producing students who can read, write, and speak French and thus "fully committed to bilingualism". The irony is that this policy ends up preventing students from at least learning to speak French and have SOME French skills versus no skills at all - thus you could say it hurts bilingualism more. On a personal note, I assumed I would hate all language instruction based on my difficulties with Core French, until I started trying to learn Hindi speech-only, and realized how much quicker you learn to speak a language if you're not at the same time trying to read and write. You're able to advance quicker, which gives you more confidence and satisfaction, versus spending a year doing all three and still not being able to speak a proper sentence - which is extremely frustrating.

Most folks don't realize that the Islamic Courts Union pretty much halted piracy during it's brief time in power in Somalia. The fact is that so long as there is violent anarchy in Somalia and no repercussions for piracy than people who are very poor are going to do it. I'm not making a moral argument here, I'm just being pragmatic - it might be better to have a repressive regime in power (not necessarily the ICU) in Somalia than utter chaos - that goes for both Somalis and the international community. This kind of situation is a result of having a desperately poor failed state beside a shipping lane that handles a large amount of high-value cargo. It's a huge amount of ocean to patrol and I don't think you're going to be able to stop it unless you commit a ridiculous amount of resources to deterrence. I think dealing with the root cause of the problem: Somalia, will probably be a more effective, cheaper, and longer-lasting solution to the problem.

Actually it's: I have intimate knowledge and connections to the community in question from a young age, I have professional experience researching the community and producing documentaries about issues pertaining to it, I have yet to see any hard data that proves any of these allegations (what will happen in France will happen here) . . . Therefor, as far as I'm concerned, it's not happening. You cannot expect to convince anyone with gross generalizations and a lack objective, factual, information. People generally don't change their views on things because of someone else's "hunch" on a given issue.

I wasn't talking about politeness, I'm talking about a blatant dislike of all Jews. Muslims have strong opinions against Israel and have no problem expressing them in front of me, but I have not encountered folks with blatantly anti-semetic views who are Muslim. I know they exist, but my experiences and learned knowledge would suggest it's not as pervasive as some people in this post are making it out to be. Again, I believe it may only be slightly more of an issue than in the non-Muslim community, and the reason being the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not some inherent anti-semitism within Islam. Vice-versa with the Jewish community. I find that standard practice among ALL people though, and I don't find it to be more common than any other stereotype about any given community. ie - I find that just as many people believe "Jews control the media" as do "Italians are connected with the mafia" (my father is Italian) I think it speaks to a general lack of communication and understanding between people of different communities more than some specific issue of one community only being ignorant about one other community. I find this also to be a generational thing, where people my age or younger generally don't subscribe as much to stereotypes in general as my parents generation does, this obviously being a result of growing up with folks from different communities, an opportunity which my parents and many of their age didn't have.

Sorry, so you don't think this is a specifically European problem? You think that this is symptomatic of Muslim immigration everywhere? Really? As a Canadian Jew, I have never encountered anti-semitism from someone who is Muslim, even though I've gone to mosques with my friends, been at Muslim weddings, and worked on documentaries in Mosques. If it were as pervasive as you make it seem, surely I would have encountered it by now.

You're right, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the nuclear reactor of communal tensions between Muslims and Jews. Muslims are not inherently any more anti-semetic than Christians, it's just that for the last half century a group of Jews have been politically oppressing a group of Muslims, and tension ensues. If that oppressed group happened to be Christian instead, I think the social landscape would be radically different in Western countries.

Translation: "I don't have any information to refute the fact that 50 or so Gaza medical facilities were hit by the IDF, so I'm going to start a philosophical discussion about objective reality in order to muddy the waters of the discussion." Can I do this to invalidate claims you make? Or is this a tactic which only you are allowed to use.

Well, according to that Guardian reporter, it was new, according to the doctors he interviewed, it was new. According to the UN, the damage on their building was new. I'm sorry, but you cannot expect us to value the personal hunch of some random person on the Internet over the reporting of professionals like Journalists, Doctors, and UN Staff who were and/or are on the ground in Gaza when these incidents happened. And so could you, and so could the Israeli military. That's why we have to trust independent observers like journalists, NGO's, UN staff, etc, that when they investigate these claims and the stories check out, that we don't immediately invalidate their findings because they are inconvenient to our worldview. Honestly, if you're going to wilfully accept reports on Hamas' human rights abuses, which are extensively documented, than you can't turn around and immediately invalidate the findings of these same news agencies or NGO's when they find abuses committed by Israel. Just like in Canada, testimony given by professionals while on the job has considerable weight because they are held to a professional standard of ethics and duty.

Except when they issue reports about Hamas or Saddam Hussein, then their numbers magically become accurate enough to be used by the Bush Administration as part of their case for the Iraq War, for example. I'm interested to know why there's no issue with Human Rights Watch and their claims about Hamas' violations of human rights, but all of their claims about Israel are false - especially when the follow the exact same methodology when compiling their reports.

FYI - Using articles published by special interest advocacy groups that are aligned with one side in a conflict is ALWAYS an epic fail. You would NEVER accept an article by the pro-Palestinian equivalent of CAMERA, so why should we accept this article? To quote former Jerusalem Post Editor Gershom Gorenberg: " It is not the press's job to provide PR for any government. Until CAMERA gets this straight, self-respecting journalists will regard an occasional snarl from the watchdog as proof that they're doing their job." Honestly you would do better to just remain silent than posting something like this, if you can't find a reputable news source that shares the findings of this CAMERA article, than it might mean that there's actually some validity to the soldiers' claims.