JB Globe

I was talking specifically about Canada, and let me broaden the question to ask: "Why is it national, even international news for days when someone who isn't white, is an immigrant, and/or isn't Christian murders their child or spouse - but similar cases, or family-murder-suicides register barely a blip on the national or international consciousness when the family involved is white, Christian and not immigrants?" In short - why were people in BC talking about Aqsa Parvez, and why aren't they talking about Keith DeLong? My take is it has absolutely nothing to do with our concern about the crime committed, with domestic violence, with untreated mental health issues, and has everything to do with the fact that the family involved was Muslim. I think this entire case is a clear example of Islamophobia, xenophobia and how people who subscribe to these lines of thinking create double-standards and logical fallacies.

Why are you claiming it's an honour killing? Why does society seemingly care more about supposed "honour killings" (which is really just a term for "violence against women that happens to be committed by Muslims") than they do when children are murdered by parents who aren't Muslim? That's an absolutely ridiculous generalization and completely false. The tyranny of domestic violence? I hope so - but not so long as people only pay lip service to being against domestic violence only when the person committing the violent act happens to be Muslim.

Since the initial international media coverage of the murder of Aqsa Parvez we've learned a few things from friends and family of hers. Namely - that the hijab was one of a variety of things she clashed with her father about, and that other women in her family don't wear the hijab either. When this incident first happened I stated that I while I really wished that the attention her death was getting was the result of people actually caring about domestic violence - however, the evidence suggested that all the hype had everything to do with her being Muslim, and nothing to do with her being murdered by her father. Essentially, this incident became an opportunity for Islamophobes to exploit a tragedy and advance their agenda of portraying Muslims as something other than human, as inherently evil. They subsequently ignored the reaction from the Muslim community - which consisted of every major national Muslim organization condemning the murder, of Islamic Scholars commenting that the murder is un-Islamic, and Imams going on hunger strikes in Parvez's name. The many people feigning concern, outrage and sympathy for Aqsa's murder at the hands of her non-white Muslim father were subsequently silent when white fathers murdered their children, or even entire families: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=986415 Where is the international outrage regarding Keith DeLong's murder of his entire family? Would it be different if the family was Muslim? Unfortunately, yes. The media is complicit too, there was too much coverage of the initial incident (especially considering the kind of coverage family murder-suicides get) when the only real information about the situation within the family that surrounded the murder was pure hearsay - in short, bad journalism. Now that more facts have come out (and will continue to come out during the trial, no doubt) that through water on the "Islam killed Aqsa" line of thought, media outlets have lost interest in the story (why would they want to detail how the got it wrong, after all?) I said it before and I'll say it again, Aqsa Parvez was a victim of domestic violence, not Islam - and it seems as though we don't we REALLY care about domestic violence as a society.

Even if what you're saying is true - what does it prove? That the Black Panthers decided to act on their own and intimidate McCain voters? I don't see how you can link this to Obama anymore than you can if the remnants of the KKK decided to use whatever influence they have left to intimidate people into voting McCain.

It would surprise me, as I'm currently only aware of one Mosque in Mississauga that practices Wahhabism. I've never seen any evidence to suggest it's "almost all" - do you have any?

Of course we should take the problem seriously, but I think we can both agree that the solutions should be in line with the scale of the problem, especially here in Canada - where vastly over-stating the problem and making out the Muslim community to be extremist in general will actually make the situation worse, because the community will become insular and thereby more difficult to engage and work with. I agree that the Muslim Courts Union adds yet another layer of problems to Somalia, but I will say that we can't simply leave failed states to their own devices and only intervene when a militant Islamic group takes control or presents a threat (ie - Afghanistan). It's hard for me to see, how the MCU is any worse in the grand scheme of things in that country. After all, it's not as if the warlords didn't employ child soldiers, and weren't above executing children - just by the gun and not by public stoning. And if we are to intervene in these places we have to take the time to plan properly and fully understand the situation on the ground. That's one of the reasons the intervention in Somalia failed the first time - the US didn't understand the dynamics of the conflict and ended up becoming another faction rather than peacekeepers.

I was giving you the opportunity to actually have an intelligent conversation with me. Unfortunately you seem to prefer writing 1-3 sentence pot-shots, which I find boring, immature and stupid. Please don't waste your time by trying to write any more of these in response to my posts - I'm just going to ignore them. You can go ahead and write a zinger in response to this if you want, but I won't be returning to this post so I won't be reading it.

It looks interesting, I'll try and find it. I would caution however using Palestinians opinions on the situation in their homeland as a means of explaining the situation across the Muslim world. It seems as though they're talking in the film specifically about Palestine (and they're right to say they've been hijacked by extremists). As I said earlier I don't see any sort of indication that beyond Wahhabism there is any sort of major, organized infiltration of extremist elements in the Muslim world.

If you really want to have at me - go ahead and present an actual argument, not a rant but an argument, and I'll respond. These snarky little jabs aren't really worth my time.

Which movie is this? I searched this thread for your posts and you didn't mention it.

No, but you do need to provide evidence when you slander people. So please - go ahead and directly quote me and show me where I say that dead Jews are better than living Jews. You consistently character assassinate people because you don't like their arguments, yet you clearly lack the intellectual capacity to respond directly to the points they raised. And again - if you want to choose to be the kind of person who wants to slander and slur people runs away when asked to back it up - be my guest. It's totally your prerogative if you want to be seen as a joke around here. It's also my prerogative to make it very difficult for you to pull this intellectually lazy routine again without looking even more ridiculous than you already do.

This case is of course deeply problematic and this issue deserves to be dealt with, however I don't think that's possible in Somalia until a stable government is established there. You can't skip over the steps of establishing a government that can exert its authority, and a functioning legal system, and an effective police force. You need all those things to be present before you start going after human rights abuses in society and trying to change social attitudes. And I feel it must be said given some of the comments - Muslim-majority countries do not have the monopoly on human rights abuses.

The situation of the Baha'is in Iran provides just another example of the need for serious reform if not revolution. The Mullahtocracy can do what it wants in regards to crushing reform movements or oppressing religious and ethnic minorities, but eventually they are not going to be able to escape the demographic time-bomb that's creeping up on them. You should take solace in the fact that the vast majority of Iranians are under 30 and the vast majority of them are opposed to the current regime. It's power base has been weakening for years and will only continue to erode. Hopefully the next president of the United States will realize that bullying Iran only serves to give the Mullahs the only issue they have traction with: standing up to foreign influence. Without that issue to help them, they're left with a terrible economic situation and a regime most people don't like - it will only be a matter of time before they're forced to face their future.

Where are you looking? People who usually make the claim that "where are the moderate Muslims?" usually have not done their homework or are looking in the wrong places. For example, you'll never see a moderate Muslim commentator in Frontpage Magazine or World Net Daily and that's because 1 - Both sites are anti-Islamic and moderates would not publish there, and 2 - Both sites have a vetted interest in portraying Islam as monolithic, to admit that there is a moderate majority within Islam by allowing moderates who are critical of extremists to write on the websites would hurt their entire position on the religion, which of course is their bread and butter for drawing readers. If you look up Daniel Pipe's books on Amazon, then you look at the "books recommended by other readers" list, you're going to get other non-Muslim or ex-Muslim critics of the "Islam is evil" variety, and not moderate commentators who are actually part of, and engaged with the Muslim community and its reform. Also, the news media deserves some blame because of its tenancy to sensationalize. And what's more sensational than positioning a conservative or fundamentalist Islamic commentator as "the voice of Islam" and then on the other half of the screen having a non-Muslim anti-Islamic commentator as the "voice of the West" and watching these two nutjobs duke it out while ignoring the massive moderate centre. The media is quick to note when Osama Bin Laden issues a fatwa (which, according to Islamic practice, he doesn't have the authority to make) but doesn't even broadcast such important information such as when the most influencial cleric of Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country and 3rd largest democracy, issued a fatwa against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda calling them enemies of Islam. Here are some places for you to get started: http://www.muslimunion.ca/ http://www.muslimcanadiancongress.org/ And two commentators for you to start with: Reza Aslan Tariq Ramadan - Both have many clips on youtube from debates and appearances as commentators on news shows. I think you need more context to go with this statement. And that context is that death threats are not uncommon throughout the world, especially in under-developed states. For example - how many death threats do you think are issued in Colombia? El Salvador? Sri Lanka? Also, it's not as if most of these death threats have any traction outside of the sphere of influence of the Imam that issued them - or in many cases, the militant that issued them (ie - Bin Laden). The only real Islamic movement that justifies terrorism in any real way is Wahhabism, and that is such an extreme minority movement - I fail to see where Islam as a whole has been hijacked by terror groups as a whole. That doesn't mean you don't worry about terrorism in Islam, it's just that your solutions have to be in-step with the reality of the problem. You can't be approaching the situation from your perspective of "Islam is a terrorist religion because it's been hijacked by terrorist" because the solutions you come up with as a result of that approach are going to be not only completely disproportionate to the actual scope of the problem - they're also going to totally fail, and they have been failing.

Well, I've given him ample opportunity to prove himself not a hack, but unfortunately I might have no alternative. He's done this in many posts where you respond to the thread-starter's post, he'll post a comment like "horrific post" commenting on your post, then when you ask him to explain himself he makes wild accusations and slander you with whatever kinds of slurs are topical in that discussion. Then he won't provided any evidence of those slurs (as in - quoting your argument and showing where such slurs apply) instead he'll disappear from the post or try and switch topics to avoid backing up his statements.

JBG - Provide evidence of your claims that I justified the holocaust & that I believe dead Jews are better than living Jews. I'm not allowing you to sidetrack as a means of distracting from the fact that you made some serious accusations against me, and so far have not provided any evidence. Either provide the evidence, retract the statement, or continue to avoid the issue. Of course, the later choice looks the worse on you.

Deleted because of double-post

I'm saying that the facts in the film are taken so grossly out of context that the film can only be described as blatantly manipulative. Example: Every nation that has +10% immigration also has no official policy on integration, meaning - the government has taken a hands-off approach to helping immigrants adjust to their new society, no wonder there have been problems. And that's exactly why Christian immigrants from France's former colonies in Africa are just as marginalized as immigrants from France's former Muslim-majority colonies. Youth from both communities were torching cars in the 2005 riots, after all - so it becomes clear right away that when all the facts are on the table, this clearly isn't just an issue of "those bloody Muslims" But to include those facts would cloud the manipulative argument of the film - which is that Muslims are the new Jews: responsible for all of societies' problems. I honestly believe this film was designed to function as the 2008 version of "The Eternal Jew" And please note - the idiot who made the collage (that's really what it is): - didn't interview any experts on Islam - Made liberal use of unidentified individuals making claims such as "The mosque will be part of the system of the government of Holland" - Made liberal use of unidentified Imams making controversial statements Basically, the film is a blatant hack-job - taking the worst of Islam, and leaving out everything else. As a filmmaker I can guarantee you that you can make such a hack-job on ANY subject if you're willing to be THAT unethical and manipulative. I mean really, at least if you were defending Mark Stein column I would take your efforts more seriously. But defending this piece of garbage? Really?

This is not flaming. I'm simply asking you to back up your wild accusations that I excused/justified the Holocaust, and that I think dead Jews are better than living Jews. Again - go ahead and quote me, I'm fully confident that you simply said those things because you didn't like what I had to say and had no actual argument to use in a rebuttal. You used those accusations as a means of distracting from the points I was making so we'd be talking about the accusation instead of the issue. Now you're making accusations that I'm flaming so it will distract from me calling you out on your unfounded accusations. See a cycle here?

This is not flaming. I'm simply asking you to back up your wild accusations that I excused/justified the Holocaust, and that I think dead Jews are better than living Jews. Again - go ahead and quote me, I'm fully confident that you simply said those things because you didn't like what I had to say and had no actual argument to use in a rebuttal. You used those accusations as a means of distracting from the points I was making so we'd be talking about the accusation instead of the issue. Now you're making accusations that I'm flaming so it will distract from me calling you out on your unfounded accusations. See a cycle here?

True - saying the Holocaust was justified is as racist as saying that slavery was a good thing. But what I'm saying is that if you ever wondered why slurs against anglo folks don't seem to sting as bad as slurs against groups of people that anglo folks have historically oppressed, it's got to do with history and power.

True - saying the Holocaust was justified is as racist as saying that slavery was a good thing. But what I'm saying is that if you ever wondered why slurs against anglo folks don't seem to sting as bad as slurs against groups of people that anglo folks have historically oppressed, it's got to do with history and power.

^^^ - Classic case of someone who identifies with the subject matter (in this case Islamophobia) of a piece of media (I refuse to call it a film) so strongly they're willing to overlook the fact that it's technically terrible, and even worse when it comes to narrative.

No, you don't get to get out of jail free. Either retract the following statements: "your post excuses the Holocaust on the basis of hypothetical Jewish "oppression" of Christians" "Your post is further horrific for the reason that you imply (even though you say that you are Jewish) that dead Jews are better for the image of Jewry than living Jews." Or, alternatively, back up these allegations by quoting my posts and showing directly where I did such things. I'm quite tired of you accusing myself and others of antisemitism on the basis of us saying things you don't like or disagree with. Stop crying wolf. Sorry, why are you referring me to your response of another person's post? Especially when it has nothing to do with the points I raised earlier? Are you really going to just make wild accusations about me "morally justifying the holocaust" and then bugger off? I really can't understand why you continually start things you can't finish, it's really tearing up your credibility.

And that has a lot to do with power. If white folks were oppressed by black folks for centuries and "cracker" was one of the slurs used during that period, and became sort of a symbol of that kind of racist mentality, than of course in today's world it would have the same weight that the n-bomb does currently. But the fact is that cracker really doesn't sting that much precisely because it doesn't come from a place of one powerful group dominating a minority group. For the record - I steer clear of racial slurs in general except when being ironic and making fun of myself with my VERY good friends.