JB Globe

Stop lying. I made absolutely no claim that this is a case of Islamophobia. Here is my post you are referring to: "See, you know you're stretching when you try to pass of the actions of less than a dozen individuals as somehow representative of a larger group. I mean, really? . . . REALLY? Do you have any idea how many facebook groups we could find that paint white folks in a terrible light if we wanted to use your ridiculous standards of logic?" ^^^^ Where did I say anything about Islamophobia? Where? Show me? You said it, now quote me. Otherwise stop putting words in my mouth, that's the hallmark of someone who doesn't have an argument to stand on. Let me repeat my problem with your post: You are attempting to use the actions of less than INDIVIDUALS to say that these actions are representative OF THE CANADIAN MUSLIM COMMUNITY IN GENERAL. You could easily do the same damn thing with other groups, and I am willing to be money that if you looked long enough you could find anti-semitic Facebook groups by Christian kids or atheist kids. I added the caps because apparently your reading comprehension skills are in the toilet. I'm no more concerned about a handful of Muslim teenagers being anti-semetic than I am about a handful of Christian or atheist teenagers being anti-semitic. It's a problem, and it needs to be dealt with, but it is a problem which affects involves a tiny minority of people.

Stop lying. I made absolutely no claim that this is a case of Islamophobia. Here is my post you are referring to: "See, you know you're stretching when you try to pass of the actions of less than a dozen individuals as somehow representative of a larger group. I mean, really? . . . REALLY? Do you have any idea how many facebook groups we could find that paint white folks in a terrible light if we wanted to use your ridiculous standards of logic?" ^^^^ Where did I say anything about Islamophobia? Where? Show me? You said it, now quote me. Otherwise stop putting words in my mouth, that's the hallmark of someone who doesn't have an argument to stand on. Let me repeat my problem with your post: You are attempting to use the actions of less than INDIVIDUALS to say that these actions are representative OF THE CANADIAN MUSLIM COMMUNITY IN GENERAL. You could easily do the same damn thing with other groups, and I am willing to be money that if you looked long enough you could find anti-semitic Facebook groups by Christian kids or atheist kids. I added the caps because apparently your reading comprehension skills are in the toilet. I'm no more concerned about a handful of Muslim teenagers being anti-semetic than I am about a handful of Christian or atheist teenagers being anti-semitic. It's a problem, and it needs to be dealt with, but it is a problem which affects involves a tiny minority of people.

What a cop-out. So, you made a blatantly wrong statement about how Muslims interpret the Qu'ran, and misrepresented passages in the Qu'ran in an effort to make it seem anti-semetic. And now you're claiming that somehow, being an atheist gets you out of the same standards of debate that apply to us all? How is that any different than saying "Well, I'm not white, so that means that I don't have to back up my statement that "all white people are the devil" with factual evidence" - ??? Both are examples of someone using their faith or race as a cheap (and ineffective) way of backing up ignorant, uninformed opinions, with facts. Sounds like someone's too much of a coward to face me in an academic debate. If that's the case, fine, but if you're going to post garbage, expect to be called on it, and don't run away next time

Why did you bother quoting my post if your response has nothing to do with what I was talking about?

Of course, it depends why this person converted, because the way they practice is totally related to those reasons. That goes for any religion, really. I grew up knowing Islam through my friends, one of which, my best friend, taught me the most about it. His family was always good to me, and I'm going to be a guest of honour at his sister's wedding. The way he practices and is able to reconcile his religion and modern is great - he sweats the big stuff (family, friends, compassion, social justice) and not the small stuff. He takes the view of many that although he knows he should live a more traditional life, he doesn't live in a Muslim country where it's easy to fast for Ramadan (which he still does) because the whole society is structured around it. (ie - you get time off, there's always restaurants open late and early, etc) And he knows that the best way to set a good example of his religion isn't to come off as a self-righteous puritan-preacher, but to be approachable so that, if people want to ask questions and learn, that they can talk to him. My future sister-in-law converted when she got serious with the man who would be her husband. Long story short - she's a stickler for the obvious signs of faith, such as dress, and obvious actions - such as not wanting to be near alcohol, to the point where she has at times tried to pressure her family into not drinking when she's around (although, she gave up on that), she's also stopped going to any family Hindu celebrations, because she doesn't like the "idolatry" She'd pretty much be the last person I know who would get me to convert, if that's what she thinks she's going to do by being so obviously pious. In fact, it's kind of known in the Muslim community that converts tend to be more a stickler for the conservative and obvious signs and actions of faith than non-converts do. I think it's just because since religion may not have been a part of their lives from the start, when it suddenly does become part most folks get carried away out of the excitement of "belonging" to something. Or maybe most of them get caught up in the obvious signs of faith because it's new to them, those who are familiar with it for a while are able to see past those things and focus on the bigger, but less visable things.

See, you know you're stretching when you try to pass of the actions of less than a dozen individuals as somehow representative of a larger group. I mean, really? . . . REALLY? Do you have any idea how many facebook groups we could find that paint white folks in a terrible light if we wanted to use your ridiculous standards of logic?

Hey, I have an idea. Why don't I make a post about how Jews are evil and use "Jewsareevil.com" as my source - it'll be airtight!

You realize that it's talking about the Book of Exodus, right? Check out the verse before yours: 2.63 - And remember We took your covenant and We raised above you (The towering height) of Mount (Sinai) : (Saying): “Hold firmly to what We have given you and bring (ever) to remembrance what is therein: Perchance ye may fear Allah.” You do remember what happened on Sinai, right? Moses went up, got the Commandments, and came back down to find his people worshiping idols. THAT is what these passages are referring to. I mean really - do you really think you can cut and paste the Qu'ran to suit your needs? Do you really think that you can take passages completely out of context? You essentially tried to make those statements seem as if they were some general statement against Jews, period. When in fact it was part of the Islamic version of Exodus and it was referring specifically to those Jews which practiced idolatry at the foot of Mount Sinai I mean really - this is an old trick of folks who are trying to twist Islam - both fundamentalist Muslims and Islamophobes alike. You really have more in common than you'd like to think.

They're borderline, it depends on what context they're used in.

I agree with this statement, however the problem is that many times that people who believe they're making honest arguments aren't actually doing so. They forget that in order to be honest with others you first have to be honest with yourself, and key to that is being honest with yourself about what you know and don't know about an issue, ANY issue really, but in this case we're talking about Multiculturalism so let's use the example of a "problem within an ethnic community" What you end up with is folks who may have no real knowledge of a community criticizing it. Folks who may have never even had a conversation with someone from that community, folks who may know someone from that community but never bothered to learned anything about it because they take the "out of sight, out of mind" approach to multiculturalism (ie - so long as it doesn't directly affect me, I don't want anything to do with it). In the same way as my Big Smoke-self can't read an article on Red Deer every once and a while and when an issue happens there, expect my opinion to be as valid as someone who has lived their whole life there - same applies to someone from Red Deer who offers up their uninformed opinion on an issue within an ethnic community in Toronto. Because that opinion isn't formed from actual learned or lived, knowledge, but rather from stereotypes and assumptions born out of a lack of knowledge. That's why I get frustrated with much of the commentary on Multiculturalism in the country because a lot of it comes from people who don't actually have any true lived experience with it, because many people in this country still live a monocultural existence (and this can happen in small rural towns, or even Toronto - if you live in certain areas and make certain choices in terms of your lifestyle, ie - never getting outside your comfort zone). To recap - before you make an honest arguement about a subject, be honest with yourself about what you know and don't know. Example - don't generalize the entire Muslim community if you've never even had a single serious discussion about Islam with someone who is Muslim. And really - I talk about that issue on a regular basis, and I would still not even think of making sweeping generalizations.

Do they really? Do you have global opinion polls to back that up? Because what I'm pretty sure you'll get when you look at those polls is that while many Muslims have negative views of Israel, most of them don't see genocide as a solution. Where are you getting your translations from? EvilIslam.com? I hope you were just duped by a hate site, rather than knowingly posting a Qu'ran verse that doesn't exist, because that would be even worse, here are 3 translations of 2:64 YUSUFALI: But ye turned back thereafter: Had it not been for the Grace and Mercy of Allah to you, ye had surely been among the lost. PICKTHAL: Then, even after that, ye turned away, and if it had not been for the grace of Allah and His mercy ye had been among the losers. SHAKIR: Then you turned back after that; so were it not for the grace of Allah and His mercy on you, you would certainly have been among the losers.

Well of course they are - every radical or revolutionary movement needs educated folks to run the show or carry out key complicated tasks. My point isn't that every terrorist is uneducated, my point is that the general public support of a movement that is essential to that movement's success is helped when a population is uneducated, thus leaving them vulnerable to being manipulated - and that can happen anywhere, not just the Islamic world. Of course, the key player in foiling that plot was the man who decided to infiltrate the cell with CSIS and did it for Canada, but mostly, in his words, for Islam. And are we really still putting that plot in the same category as the attacks in the UK and Spain? Although I'm very happy that the police treated it very seriously, I think we'd be fooling ourselves to consider those amateurs in the likes of those who pulled off what happens elsewhere. I mean - the man had several tons of fertilizer shipped to his home address in suburban Toronto and dropped in his driveway. My point is that Canada is nowhere close to having to deal with the situation that they deal with in the UK PRECISELY because we don't alienate our Muslim community the way they do there, so that when it comes time for Muslims to step up with critical help to foil a plot like this, we have people willing to do so. I can't understate how valuable it is to have folks from a community who are willing to tackle problematic elements within their community. One of the things that crippled the mob for example is when large amounts of Italians started to enter the police force, they had the cultural and language skills to TRUELY understand the threat and deal with it. Of course, of those police forces had remained hostile to Italians in general who knows how long it would've taken, or if the mob would still be very powerful today?

It seems like every time a piece of hate speech gets banned we hear "Canada will be changed forever" - of course it will - a different kind of hate speech will get banned. And that is all. Discussion of Islam will not stop, criticism of Islam will not stop. The only thing that will is hateful attacks on a religion and its people in general. The sky didn't start falling when we kicked Zundel out of the country, and it won't if Levant gets convicted of anything. Considering no respectable news organizations bothered to print the cartoons, I doubt they're feeling any chill. According to folks I know in the industry, it wasn't because "they were scared to" it was because if you're going to publish something that's offensive, there'd better be a huge benefit, and in this case there wasn't - the OFFENSIVE cartoons in question were borderline amatuerish in their simplicity, and wouldn't have made the cut in editorial pages based on their quality. Their "satire" was shallow and simplistic. Show me where anyone is banning public discourse of Islam. You said it, now go ahead and prove it.

Of course it's troubling, but the danger here isn't Islam, it's poverty, poor education and inequality. An uneducated, poor, disempowered majority in any country is easily exploited by people with certain agendas. That's why radical Islamic militants have success in poor or highly unequal Arab states, that's why the BJP and state governors like Modi of Gujarat have success in India, and it's why populist quasi-socialist leaders have success in South America. The problems of bad education, poverty and inequality isn't just limited to Islamic countries. Radical Islam is just the symptom of the problem.

I'm misrepresenting your remarks? Really? What did you REALLY mean by this if not that Muslims are inherently violence . . . Let me know, because, to non-bigoted folks, it sounds like you're saying Muslims are inherently more violent than other folks because they're Muslim. Perhaps, but in some cases it's clearly beyond the control of the local population. In a failed state where power rules, the individual citizen doesn't bear as much responsibility for these things as the individual does in a functioning democracy. Also I again would argue that we in the West are in no position to preach from a moral high ground considering the amount of rogues we've supported in the past and still to this day. They just happen to be terrorist governments, and not terrorist organizations. Of course, not a soul was ever really penalized for their involvement in say, the massacres in the refugee camps of Beruit in Israel's 1982 invasion. Officers that were never supposed to serve in the army again because of their culpability in the massacre were given time off and soon after appointed such prestigious positions as Israeli military attache in Washington. Sharon himself resigned as Defence Minister . . . And became Trade Minister immediately . . . Then Defence Minister for another government. Ooooooh - such punishments! Like Thomas Friedman said - Israel, like all other nations in the region, have one set of actions they show to the world to show how just they are and garner political support, and they have another set of actions they use to show to the rest of their neighbours in the Mid-East how tough they are and why you should mess with them. Yemen has jailed countless members of Al Qaeda, and has dealt a blow to that organization. So clearly they've learned how to handle them since the USS Cole incident - which I should point out, didn't prompt the US into great action against Al-Qaeda either. It took 9/11 to do that. As for Pakistan, we both know the situation there is a little more complicated than "letting the wrongdoers escape" the difference is that you're mischaracterizing things to fit your agenda of "Islam is the enemy" And thus the situation in Pakistan exists because "Muslims don't want to go after their bad guys" rather than "going after the bad guys with the gov't in its current state might topple it and lead to civil war, and the bad guys could come out on top" Okay, but answer me this then - do ordinary Americans (or Christians, if I was reducing many nations down to a single religion) need to take responsibility for Pinochet? Saddam? The Shah? Mubarek? After all, their nation supported them. Or is this another case of you applying more vigorous standards of morality and ethics to Muslims than you do Americans Really? Well let me quote you again -

Well hell, if you think so, it must be true.

The thing is, this is the same thing that folks who were down with the Holocaust conference in Iran said about it - "There's distinguished academics coming!" which really meant: "Some of the people speaking may have at some time taught at some community college somewhere" I mean, most of the folks you listed either aren't academics at all, have degrees in fields completely unrelated to the study of Islam (ie - Andrew Bostom is a medical doctor - if you're gonna trust his views on Islam, than I've got a stuffy-old polisci prof waiting to do open-heart surgery in case you need it). Conferences like these happen all the time - they're a great way to make some dough and make it seem as though "the word is getting out" when in fact it's just preaching to the choir. Everyone at this gig are far, far right-wing anti-Islamist hacks, and the people who are interested in this scene are from the same camp. It's the far-right version of those far-left conferences you'd see on campus every now and then advertising some blow-hard old-school socialist academic who's only ever quoted by other blow-hard socialists and will be speaking to a bunch of rich, spoiled 19-year olds who want to feign radicalism in some sort of post-teen angst before they put on a suit and tie and start working in a Fortune 500 company. This kind of stuff happens across the political spectrum - people seeking out those who are saying what they want to hear, rather than seeking out those who have an extensive level of understanding on the subject. And as a result, no one learns a damn thing. How cute! You're so sensational! The threat of Islamic extremism in Canada is real, it needs to be dealt with in a rational, calm and informed manner. Meaning - this Chicken-Little routine is way over the top. Just because the rest of us aren't fearful and distrustful of the majority of Canadian Muslims doesn't mean that all of us (Canadian Muslims included) aren't concerned about the potential of Islamic extremism in Canada. We just are dealing with the problem in a much more pragmatic, calm, and sensitive manner (and, dare I say it, makes this method more Canadian) than you would like. This "Islam is the enemy!" approach actually compounds the problem because it POLARIZES people, and functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The unrest in Amsterdam and riots in France were set against the backdrop of the economic and social marginalization of African and Muslim youth in both countries. Treating all Muslims as the enemy increasingly marginalizes them, which increases their anger towards mainstream society and increases the likelihood of violence, as well as gives extremists a pool of their favourite canon-fodder - angry young Muslim men. Turning would-be allies against extremism into your enemies simply because they're Muslim is a sure fire way to magnify the problem, not solve it.

See, I thought JBG was a grown adult, I was unaware he needed a crew of cronies to help defend him from his own statements. But since you can resist chiming in on this one, here's something for you . . . By this comment, it would appear you see nothing racist in JBG's statements, including the one I quoted before where he explicitly said that ALL Muslims are inherently violent. If that's the case, than I suppose you would agree the following statement is not racist: "All Jews are conspirators in a plot to take over the world" If you think the above statement is racist, than why? And why is such a similar, grand-sweeping negative generalization of the entirety of Islam NOT racist? For the record, I find both statements indicative of a serious amount of racism and ignorance on the part of the person who agrees with them.

Nice try. You know exactly what I'm saying, you're just playing dumb so you don't actually have to debate me on it: My point is - who are you to criticize others for making "ridiculous" statements/demands, or, as you have before, criticize folks like the Iranian Prez, for making racist comments, when you yourself have make such comments on a routine basis?

So you could care less about the bigotry, so long as these hacks contribute something useful towards a cause you're interested in? Myself, I would never associate with anyone who advocates hatred no matter how influencial, or usefull they might be to any cause I'm down with. I think it actually ends up hurting the movement to be associated with radicals and disgusting human beings which turn off mainstream society and thus hurt the movement as a whole. Actually, come to think of it - keep parading these guys around, it'll do nothing but damage this movement for a global war on all Muslims for being Muslims. Self-destruction would certainly save the rest of us a lot of time and money.

You said it, not me. Nice try at putting words in my mouth though - it was cute.

What? Me hypocrite? That's unpossible! What's the sequel to this post? Are you going to call Ahmadinejad a bigot than proceed to tell us how evil ALL Muslims are?

Wow, what a great conference! The guestlist reads like a who's who of blatantly prejudiced and woefully underqualified commentators on Islam! - Come see Bat "Muslims have a history of oppressing Jews, but Christians don't" Ye'or! - Come see Arieh "I've got a realistic peace plan! We'll create a state for the Palestinians to our liking, why wouldn't it work?!" Eldad - Robert "If I wrote an amatuerish book like this about Judaism, the world would call it anti-semetic" Spencer - Patrick "Stand up for democratic freedom! Ban the Qu'ran!" Sookhdeo - Sam "Islam is the devil!" Solomon - Dr. Andrew "I didn't know anything about Islam before 9/11, then I decided to find out in a purely unbiased fashion who are all these people were who were trying to kill me?" Bostom I mean, if they wanted to upstage the Iranian regime's Holocaust denial conference in terms of sheer stupidity, they were a few months too late. Since when do you need to dredge the bottom of the intellectual food chain if you want to find someone who's against Sharia Law? Why go to a hack like Spencer when you have the Canadian Muslim Congress, for example? Oh wait, I forgot the CMC doesn't think Islam in its entirety is evil and and enemy of Western civilization . . . Spencer does. These jokers are just using the guise of "the campaign against Sharia Law" which is legit, as a mask to hide their bigotry.

You guys are so right - the violence we're seeing in Holland (not the nut stabbing the police, but the ensuing violence) and what we saw in France was simply a result of violent and evil Muslims being violent and evil because they're Muslim. End of story. Just like how when those lazy savages rioted in Winnipeg in 1918 they did so simply because they were savage and lazy. There was nothing else at play, nothing at all. Who ever said gross oversimplification to advance a prejudiced worldview was stupid and juvenile, right?

Did you really just open the post by criticizing an arguement you found the be ridiculous? Because if you did, the above quote would contain lethal doses of hypocrisy and irony.