Wally Keeler
Showing posts with label freedom of speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom of speech. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Monday, February 07, 2011
Dutch White Guilt has another run-around with Geert Wilders
If you ever thought there was something compulsive about the modern left, as if they were trapped in a cultic thinking that just knows it can't be wrong, the Dutch plaintiffs and politicians who seemingly can't let go of their persecution of Geert Wilders, are back in court today to support your intuition, notwithstanding the utter farce of their earlier courtroom miscarriages of justice.
The International Free Press Society - Canada writes:
The IFPS then provides us with an English text of Wilders' speech today at the Amsterdam court:
We will perhaps find our answer in a debate over the nature of White Guilt. In this debate, I agree with Adam Katz that White Guilt is ultimately the fear of what we will become (mass murderers) if we refuse the blackmail of those who threaten us with terrorism or totalitarian law (essentially, the Sharia), e.g. with demands for expansion of the Islamic culture and state. This is why, to counter the underlying fear of our cultic left, the defenders of freedom must become much more active in thinking about how our freedom and any reformed immigration policy need not entail a genocidal threat to the "third-world" that is full of resentment at being, in the present world order, marginalized economic and political losers whose culture is not readily-suited to productivity in a now single global marketplace.
Can that resentment be mediated, can it be turned into productive energy, with anything less than a step-by-step liberalization of the cultures of the present outcasts? And do we have the courage, and humility, to help lead that process? Or will we commit suicide? Or will we try to put up a wall around those who hate us and want to kill us, thinking that we will only have to keep them in check with occasional military strikes, and that a heavy hand will diminish and not increase their fury to destroy us, so that the situation will never escalate into the possibility that drives White Guilt: the possibility that we will wipe them out in some fury of escalating rivalry?
White Guilt seeks the suicide of the West so that we need never face that day when we lose all trust and faith in the civilizing mission of Western Judeo-Greco-Christian culture. White Guilt has already imagined that day and lost faith. And that's why Wilders, according to the guilty, must be ceaselessly pursued. While I detest their faithlessness, I think the white guilty do have one real insight: the likelihood that genocide will emerge from any strategy to lock up and contain the resentful, unfree populations of the third world. I don't see this as an argument not to fight the Islamization (Shariafication) of Europe, or at least parts of it, by changing immigration, among other, policies. But maybe that's a topic for the comments section, if anyone wants to take it up.
The International Free Press Society - Canada writes:
From the beginning, the plaintiffs were not pleased that the Dutch prosecutors felt the criminal case against Geert Wilders should not proceed. Remarkably, the Court of Appeal chose to ignore the recommendations of the prosecutors and proceed with the trial.Geert Wilders Speech at court in Amsterdam today :: IFPS-Canada
The trial was suspended in October 2010 as it was determined that the Chief Judge had acted in a manner which could be prejudicial. Subsequently, another instance of interference surfaced. In response to this turn of events, yet another Judge inappropriately made public comments about the suspension of the trial.
The zeal and determination with which the court is pursuing Geert Wilders even in the face of so many opportunities to put a halt to this farce, bespeaks the application of a kind of law that is foreign to western principles of justice. We should all be alarmed that Shariah law appears to have taken hold in our courtrooms and in the social fabric of western nations against the wishes and unbeknownst to the majority of citizens.
It is imperative that the citizens of free nations fully understand the implications of the actions of unelected officials in courtrooms across the Western world and stand with Geert Wilders and other victims of the Thought Police and reject this stealth movement towards removing our fundamental liberties.
The IFPS then provides us with an English text of Wilders' speech today at the Amsterdam court:
The lights are going out all over Europe. All over the continent where our culture flourished and where man created freedom, prosperity and civilization. Everywhere the foundation of the West is under attack.But why do the "multicultural elites" need to persecute Wilders and his free speech and contribute generally to the suicide of freedom, the suicide of the ongoing creativity that defines the West in comparison to pretty much any other, relatively unfree, civilizational order? Why has the left become a cult of control freaks?
All over Europe the elites are acting as the protectors of an ideology that has been bent on destroying us since the fourteenth century. An ideology that has sprung from the desert and that can produce only deserts because it does not give people freedom. The Islamic Mozart, the Islamic Gerard Reve [a Dutch author], the Islamic Bill Gates; they do not exist because without freedom there is no creativity. The ideology of Islam is especially noted for killing and oppression and can only produce societies that are backward and impoverished. Surprisingly, the elites do not want to hear any criticism of this ideology.
My trial is not an isolated incident. Only fools believe it is. All over Europe multicultural elites are waging total war against their populations. Their goal is to continue the strategy of mass-immigration, which will ultimately result in an islamic Europe – a Europe without freedom: Eurabia.
The lights are going out all over Europe. Anyone who thinks or speaks individually is at risk. Freedom loving citizens who criticize islam, or even merely suggest that there is a relationship between islam and crime or honour killing, must suffer and are threatened or criminalized. Those who speak the truth are in danger.
The lights are going out all over Europe. Everywhere the Orwellian thought police are at work, on the lookout for thought crimes everywhere, casting the populace back within the confines where it is allowed to think.
This trial is not about me. It is about something much greater. Freedom of speech is not the property of those who happen to belong to the elites of a country. It is an inalienable right, the birthright of our people. For centuries battles have been fought for it, and now it is being sacrificed to please a totalitarian ideology.
Future generations will look back at this trial and wonder who was right. Who defended freedom and who wanted to get rid of it.
The lights are going out all over Europe. Our freedom is being restricted everywhere, so I repeat what I said here last year:
It is not only the privilege, but also the duty of free people – and hence also my duty as a member of the Dutch Parliament – to speak out against any ideology that threatens freedom. Hence it is a right and a duty to speak the truth about the evil ideology that is called islam. I hope that freedom of speech will emerge triumphant from this trial. I hope not only that I shall be acquitted, but especially that freedom of speech will continue to exist in the Netherlands and in Europe.
We will perhaps find our answer in a debate over the nature of White Guilt. In this debate, I agree with Adam Katz that White Guilt is ultimately the fear of what we will become (mass murderers) if we refuse the blackmail of those who threaten us with terrorism or totalitarian law (essentially, the Sharia), e.g. with demands for expansion of the Islamic culture and state. This is why, to counter the underlying fear of our cultic left, the defenders of freedom must become much more active in thinking about how our freedom and any reformed immigration policy need not entail a genocidal threat to the "third-world" that is full of resentment at being, in the present world order, marginalized economic and political losers whose culture is not readily-suited to productivity in a now single global marketplace.
Can that resentment be mediated, can it be turned into productive energy, with anything less than a step-by-step liberalization of the cultures of the present outcasts? And do we have the courage, and humility, to help lead that process? Or will we commit suicide? Or will we try to put up a wall around those who hate us and want to kill us, thinking that we will only have to keep them in check with occasional military strikes, and that a heavy hand will diminish and not increase their fury to destroy us, so that the situation will never escalate into the possibility that drives White Guilt: the possibility that we will wipe them out in some fury of escalating rivalry?
White Guilt seeks the suicide of the West so that we need never face that day when we lose all trust and faith in the civilizing mission of Western Judeo-Greco-Christian culture. White Guilt has already imagined that day and lost faith. And that's why Wilders, according to the guilty, must be ceaselessly pursued. While I detest their faithlessness, I think the white guilty do have one real insight: the likelihood that genocide will emerge from any strategy to lock up and contain the resentful, unfree populations of the third world. I don't see this as an argument not to fight the Islamization (Shariafication) of Europe, or at least parts of it, by changing immigration, among other, policies. But maybe that's a topic for the comments section, if anyone wants to take it up.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Geert Wilders' speech in Berlin - The kind of talk Europe's totalitarian elites want to ban
Geert Wilders Berlin Oct 2 English titles from Vlad Tepes on Vimeo.
Transcript:
00:00 On Monday October 4th, 2010, in a court in Amsterdam,
00:03 Geert Wilders was put on trial for his freedom.
00:06 Two days before, on the eve of the anniversary of German reunification,
00:08 an event was held in Berlin, by yet another European political party established to preserve
00:13 the traditions of European liberty and to oppose the Islamification of the continent.
00:16 There Mr Wilders delivered the following speech,
00:18 again giving voice to the opinions that the European establishment,
00:22 would like to see him thrown in jail, for having the courage to express.
00:26 Dear... Dear Friends, I find myself very happy to be here in Berlin today.
00:35 As you know, the invitation which my friend René Stadtkewitz extended to me,
00:41 has cost him his membership of the CDU group in the Berlin Parliament.
00:47 René, however, did not give in to the pressure.
01:01 He did not betray his convictions.
01:05 His dismissal prompted him to establish his own new political party.
01:12 And René, I thank you for your invitation, and I wish you all the best:
01:19 and I also wish you a great great deal of success with your new party.
01:38 My friends as you may have heard, the past weeks have been rather busy for me.
01:46 Earlier this week we succeeded in forging in The Netherlands,
01:49 a minority government of the Liberals and the Christian-Democrats,
01:55 which will be supported by my own party.
01:59 And this is an historic event for the Netherlands.
02:05 I am very proud of having been able to help achieve this.
02:11 And at this...
02:22 At this very moment, while we are here,
02:25 the Christian-Democrat Party conference is deciding
02:29 whether or not to approve this coalition.
02:33 And if they do...
02:35 If they do, we will finally be able to start to rebuild our country.
02:41 To be able to preserve our national identity,
02:44 and offer our children a better future.
02:48 Despite...
02:57 And despite my busy schedule,
03:00 it has always been a wish of mine, to come to Berlin.
03:04 Because Germany too needs a political movement,
03:08 which is both willing to defend German identity,
03:11 and to stand up against the Islamification of Germany.
03:32 Your Chancellor Angela Merkel says that,
03:35 “The Islamization of Germany is inevitable.”
03:39 She has called upon citizens to be prepared
03:42 for more changes as a result of immigration.
03:46 She wants the Germans to adapt to this situation.
03:51 The Christian-Democrat leader has said, and accepts that, quote:
03:57 “More than before mosques will be an integral part of our cities.” Unquote.
04:06 My friends...
04:08 My friends, we should not, and we will not
04:11 accept the unacceptable as inevitable:
04:16 Without trying to turn the tide!
04:31 It is our duty as politicians to preserve our nations for our children.
04:37 And I hope that René’s new movement
04:40 will be as successful as my own Partij voor de Vrijheid,
04:45 as Oskar Freysinger’s Schweizerische Volkspartei [in Switzerland],
04:49 and as Pia Kjaersgaard’s Dansk Folkeparti in Denmark,
04:53 and similar movements elsewhere.
05:06 My good friend Pia Kjaersgaard recently spoke in Sweden,
05:11 at the invitation of the Sverigedemokraterna.
05:15 She said: “I have not come to meddle in Swedish domestic politics.
05:21 Because that is for the Swedish people to be concerned with.
05:24 “No,” she said, “I have come because
05:28 in spite of certain differences today's Swedish debate, in many ways
05:33 reminds me of the debate we've had in Denmark for 10-15 years.
05:40 And I have to come to Sweden because it is also a concern to Denmark.
05:45 We cannot just sit on our hands
05:49 and be silent witnesses to political developments in Sweden.”
05:52 And the same, the very same, applies for me
05:57 as a Dutchman with respect to Germany.
06:00 I am here...
06:12 I am here today because Germany matters to the Netherlands,
06:18 and to the rest of the world;
06:21 and because we cannot, in the absence of a strong German partner,
06:25 establish an International Freedom Alliance.
06:38 Dear friends, tomorrow is the Day of German Unity.
06:43 Tomorrow exactly twenty years ago, your great nation was reunified
06:50 after the collapse of the totalitarian Communist ideology.
06:55 The Day of German Unity is an important day for the whole of Europe.
07:01 Germany...
07:09 Germany is the largest democracy in Europe.
07:15 Germany is Europe’s economic powerhouse.
07:18 The wellbeing and prosperity of Germany is of benefit to all of us.
07:24 Because the wellbeing and prosperity of Germany,
07:27 is a prerequisite for the wellbeing and prosperity of Europe.
07:39 Today I am here, however, to warn you about a looming disunity.
07:45 Germany’s national identity, its democracy and economic prosperity,
07:51 is under threat from the political ideology of Islam.
08:00 In 1848, Karl Marx began his Communist Manifesto with the famous words:
08:08 “A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism.”
08:14 But Today...
08:16 Today, there is a different spectre stretching across Europe:
08:20 It is the spectre of Islam.
08:24 This danger...
08:34 And this danger, is a political one today also.
08:39 Islam is not merely a religion, as many people seem to think:
08:44 Islam is mainly a dangerous political ideology.
09:01 The Flemish Professor Urbain Vermeulen, the former president
09:06 of the European Union of Arabists and Islamicists, points out that,
09:10 “Islam is primarily a legal system: a law,” rather than a religion.
09:19 I quote from the bestseller and BBC television series: The Triumph of the West,
09:26 which the renowned Oxford historian J.M. Roberts wrote in 1985.
09:32 And he wrote that,
09:34 “Although we carelessly speak of Islam as a ‘religion’;
09:38 that word carries many overtones of the special history of western Europe.
09:45 The Muslim is primarily a member of a community,
09:49 the follower of a certain way, an adherent to a system of law.
09:56 Rather than someone holding particular theological views.”
10:02 And the American political scientist Mark Alexander writes that,
10:07 “One of our greatest mistakes is to think of Islam
10:12 as just another one of the world’s great religions.
10:18 We should not do so.”
10:29 “Islam,” he says, “is politics or it is nothing at all.
10:34 But of course, it is politics with a spiritual dimension...
10:39 ...which will stop at nothing, until the West is no more.
10:44 Until the West has... been well and truly Islamized.”
10:49 And, he was right. These...
10:56 These are not all just statements by opponents of Islam.
10:59 Islamic scholars say, and think, the same thing.
11:03 To anyone who has read the Koran, the Sirah and the Hadith:
11:09 there can be no misunderstanding about the nature of Islam.
11:15 Abul Ala Maududi, the influential 20th century Pakistani Islamic thinker, wrote,
11:24 – and I quote, emphasizing that these are not my words but those of a leading Islamic scholar –
11:31 he said: “Islam is not merely a religious creed [but] a revolutionary ideology,
11:39 and jihad refers to that revolutionary struggle...
11:44 to destroy all states and governments anywhere, on the face of the earth,
11:50 which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam.”
11:55 And Ali Sina, an Iranian Islamic apostate who now lives in Canada,
12:02 points out that there is one golden rule,
12:06 and that this golden rule lies at the heart of every religion:
12:12 that is, that we do unto others, as we would have them do unto us.
12:19 But in Islam, this rule only applies to fellow believers, but not to Infidels.
12:39 Ali Sina says, and I quote,
12:42 “The reason I am against Islam is not because it is a religion,
12:47 but because it is a political ideology of imperialism and domination,
12:53 in the guise of religion.
12:55 Because Islam does not follow the Golden Rule, it attracts violent people.”
13:03 A dispassionate study of the beginnings of Islamic history,
13:07 reveals clearly that Muhammad’s objective was
13:11 first to conquer his own people, the Arabs, and to unify them under his rule,
13:19 and then to conquer and rule the world.
13:23 That was the original cause.
13:26 It was obviously political and was backed by military force.
13:32 “I was ordered to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah’, ”
13:41 is what Muhammad said in his final address.
13:44 He did so in accordance with the Koranic command in sura 8:39:
13:50 “Fight them until there is no more dissension and the religion is entirely Allah’s.”
14:00 According to mythology, Muhammad founded Islam in Mecca,
14:05 after the Angel Gabriel visited him for the first time in the year 610.
14:11 However, for its first twelve years, when Islam was religious rather than political,
14:18 Islam was not a success.
14:20 But in 622, Muhammad emigrated with his small band of 150 followers, to Yathrib,
14:29 which was then a predominantly Jewish oasis.
14:32 There he established the first mosque in history, and seized political power,
14:39 he gave Yathrib the name of Medina (which means the “City of the Prophet”);
14:44 and began his career as a military and a political leader,
14:49 who conquered the whole of Arabia.
14:52 Tellingly, the Islamic calendar starts with the hijra,
14:58 the migration to Medina:
15:01 the moment when Islam became a political movement.
15:07 And after Muhammad's death, Islam developed,
15:11 based upon his own words and deeds: Sharia.
15:14 An elaborate legal system which justified,
15:17 the repressive governance of the world by divine right
15:22 – including rules for jihad,
15:25 and for the absolute control of believers and non-believers.
15:30 And Sharia as you all know,
15:32 is the law of Saudi Arabia and Iran, among other Islamic states.
15:38 It is also central to the Organization of the Islamic Conference,
15:44 which in article 24 of its Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam,
15:50 proclaims that, “all rights and freedoms are subject to the Islamic Sharia.”
15:58 And the OIC is no religious institution; it is a political body.
16:06 It constitutes the largest voting-block in the United Nations,
16:11 and writes reports on so-called “Islamophobia” in Western Countries,
16:17 which accuse us of human rights violations.
16:22 To speak in biblical terms: They look for the splinter in our eye,
16:29 while ignoring the log in their own.
16:48 Under Sharia law, people in territories conquered by Islam,
16:53 have no guaranteed legal rights,
16:56 not even the right to life or the right to own property,
17:00 unless they convert to Islam.
17:04 Before I continue,
17:07 and in order to avoid any misunderstandings,
17:10 I want to emphasize that I am talking about Islam,
17:15 not about Muslims.
17:17 I always make a clear distinction
17:20 between the people and the ideology,
17:23 between Muslims and Islam.
17:27 There are many moderate Muslims,
17:31 but the political ideology of Islam is not moderate,
17:37 will never be moderate, and has global ambitions.
17:53 It aims to impose Islamic law, or Sharia, upon the whole world.
17:59 The way to achieve this is through jihad.
18:03 The good news is,
18:05 that millions of Muslims around the world,
18:08 – including many in Germany and the Netherlands –
18:11 do not follow the directives of Sharia,
18:14 let alone engage in jihad.
18:17 But the bad news...
18:19 The bad news however, is that those who do follow them,
18:25 are prepared to use all available means
18:28 in order to achieve their ideological, revolutionary goal.
18:34 In 1954 the British-American writer and historian Professor Bernard Lewis,
18:42 in his essay Communism and Islam, spoke of,
18:46 “the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition.”
18:51 Professor Lewis said that,
18:54 “The traditional Islamic division of the world
18:58 into the ‘House of Islam’ and the ‘House of War’...
19:01 ...has obvious parallels in the Communist view of world affairs...
19:06 ...The aggressive fanaticism of the believer is the same.”
19:12 says Professor Lewis.
19:14 And the American political scientist Mark Alexander states,
19:19 that the nature of Islam, differs very little
19:22 – and only in detail rather than style –
19:25 from despicable and totalitarian political ideologies,
19:29 such as National-Socialism and Communism.
19:34 He lists the following common characteristics for these three,
19:39 these three, ideologies:
19:42 Communism, National-Socialism and Islam.
19:45 First: They use political purges to “cleanse” society of what they consider undesirable.
19:56 Second: They tolerate only a single political party,
20:01 where Islam allows more parties, it insists that all parties be Islamic ones.
20:09 Third: They coerce the people down a road that they must follow.
20:16 Fourth: They obliterate the liberal distinction between areas of private judgment and of public control.
20:27 Fifth: They turn the educational system into an apparatus for the purpose of universal indoctrination.
20:35 Sixth: They lay down rules for art, for literature, for science and for religion.
20:44 Seventh: They subdue certain people who are given second-class status.
20:53 Eighth: They induce a frame of mind akin to fanaticism,
20:58 adjustment takes place by struggle and dominance.
21:03 Ninth: They are abusive to their opponents, and regard any concession on their own part,
21:10 as a temporary expedient, and on a rival’s part, as a sign of weakness.
21:19 Tenth: They regard politics as an expression of power.
21:24 Lastly: They are anti-Semitic.
21:29 There is one more striking parallel,
21:33 but this is not a characteristic of the three political ideologies,
21:40 but rather it is a characteristic of the West:
21:43 It is the apparent inability of the West to see the danger.
21:50 The prerequisite to understanding political danger:
21:53 is a willingness to see the truth, even if it is unpleasant.
22:14 Unfortunately, modern Western politicians seem to have lost this capacity.
22:22 Our inability leads us to reject, the logical and historical conclusions,
22:28 to be drawn from the facts.
22:32 Though we could, and should know better.
22:36 What is wrong with modern Western man,
22:40 that we end up making the same mistake over and over again?
22:45 There is no better place to ponder this question,
22:52 than here in Berlin.
23:07 Here in Berlin, the former capital of the empire,
23:11 of the evil that was Nazi Germany.
23:14 And a city which was held captive by the
23:17 so-called German “Democratic” Republic for over forty years.
23:22 When the citizens of Eastern Europe rejected Communism in 1989,
23:30 they were inspired by dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,
23:35 Václav Havel, Vladimir Bukovsky, and others, who told them:
23:39 that people have a right,
23:41 but also an obligation, to “live within the truth.”
23:46 And freedom, dear friends...
23:49 Freedom requires eternal vigilance;
23:53 so it is with truth also.
24:08 So it is too with truth.
24:10 Solzhenitsyn added however, and I quote, that,
24:14 “The truth is seldom sweet. It is almost invariably bitter.”
24:21 Let us, let us together, look the bitter truth squarely in the eye:
24:27 We have lost our capacity to perceive the danger,
24:32 and to understand the truth,
24:34 because we no longer value freedom.
24:38 Politicians from almost all establishment political parties today,
24:41 are facilitating Islamization.
24:44 They are cheering for every new Islamic school,
24:47 every Islamic bank, and every new Islamic court.
24:52 They regard Islam as being equal to our own culture.
24:57 Islam or Freedom?
24:59 It doesn't really matter to them.
25:03 But to us? To us? It does matter.
25:18 The entire establishment, the elite
25:21 – universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians –
25:27 are all putting our hard-earned liberties at risk.
25:32 They talk...
25:39 They talk about equality,
25:42 but amazingly fail to see how in Islam,
25:47 women have fewer rights than men,
25:49 and infidels have fewer rights than adherents of Islam.
26:01 Are we, then, going to repeat the fatal mistakes of the Weimar Republic?
26:20 Are we succumbing to Islam because our commitment to freedom is already dead?
26:26 No. It will not happen.
26:30 We are not like Frau Merkel.
26:32 We will not accept Islamization.
26:55 We have to keep our freedom alive.
26:59 And, to the extent that we have already lost it,
27:01 we must reclaim it in our democratic elections.
27:16 This is exactly why, precisely why,
27:19 we need new political parties that defend freedom.
27:30 It is to support such parties that we established the International Freedom Alliance.
27:40 As you know, I am standing trial in the Netherlands.
27:46 On Monday, in two days time, I will have to go to court again.
27:50 And I will have to spend most of the coming month there.
27:55 I have been brought to court because of my opinions on Islam,
28:01 and because I have voiced these opinions in speeches,
28:07 articles and in my documentary film Fitna.
28:11 I have personally lived under constant police protection for years.
28:16 Islamic extremists want to assassinate me,
28:19 yet it is I who stand before a court,
28:22 because the Dutch establishment – most of them non-Muslims –
28:28 want to see me silenced as well.
28:32 I have been dragged to court because in my country,
28:36 freedom can no longer be fully enjoyed.
28:42 Unlike America, we do not have a First Amendment which guarantees people
28:49 the human right to express their opinions,
28:54 and foster public debate by doing so.
28:57 And in contrast to America, in Europe, the nation state,
29:02 and increasingly the European Union also,
29:05 prescribes how citizens
29:07 – including democratically elected politicians such as myself –
29:11 how we should think, and what we are allowed to say.
29:26 One of the things we are no longer allowed to say,
29:31 is that our culture, our culture, is superior to certain other cultures.
29:39 This...
29:48 Saying only this, is seen as a discriminatory statement
29:55 – a statement of hatred even.
29:58 We are indoctrinated on a daily basis, in the schools and through the media,
30:02 with the message that all cultures are equal,
30:06 but that, if one culture is worse than all the rest,
30:09 then it is our own.
30:14 We are inundated with feelings of guilt and shame
30:18 about our own identity and what we stand for.
30:25 We are exhorted to extend respect to everyone and everything,
30:29 except ourselves.
30:31 This...
30:46 This is the message of the Left and of the politically-correct ruling establishment.
30:54 They want us to feel so ashamed about our own identity,
31:01 that we simply refuse to stand up for it.
31:05 The detrimental obsession of our cultural and political elites with Western guilt,
31:13 merely reinforces the view which Islam has of us.
31:17 The Koran says that non-Muslims are kuffar [the plural of kafir],
31:21 a word which literally means “rejectors” or “ingrates”.
31:26 Hence non-believers, are “guilty”.
31:30 Islam teaches that in our natural state we have all been born as believers.
31:36 Islam teaches that if we are not believers today, the fault for this thus lies with us,
31:41 or the fault lies with our forefathers.
31:45 Subsequently, we are always kafir – guilty – because either we or our fathers are apostates.
31:53 And hence, according to some, we deserve subjugation.
31:57 And our contemporary leftist and politically-correct intellectuals,
32:02 are entirely blind to the dangers of Islam.
32:07 Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky argues that the West,
32:13 after the fall of Communism,
32:15 failed to expose those who had collaborated with the Communists.
32:21 By for example purposefully advocating policies of détente and improved relations,
32:27 or a relaxation of international tension, and peaceful coexistence.
32:33 He points out that the Cold War was, “a war we never won.”
32:41 “We never even fought it… Most of the time, the West engaged in
32:47 a policy of appeasement toward the Soviet bloc
32:53 – and appeasers don’t win any wars.”
33:06 Dear friends... Islam is the Communism of today.
33:12 But...
33:17 But, because of our failure to come clean with Communism,
33:23 we are unable to deal with Islam,
33:26 trapped as we are in the old Communist habit of deceit and double-speak;
33:33 which in the past plagued the countries in the East, and that now plagues us all.
33:39 So we see the sort of people, who before turned a blind eye to Communism,
33:46 are precisely the same politically-correct, leftists, who today close their eyes to Islam.
34:03 They are using exactly the same arguments
34:07 for “improved relations”, and appeasement as before.
34:13 They argue that our adversary is just as peace-loving, as we are,
34:20 that if only we were to meet him half-way, then he would also do the same.
34:26 That he only asks for respect, and that if we respect him, he will in turn respect us.
34:34 We even hear a repetition of the old moral equivalence mantra.
34:40 They used to say that Western “imperialism” was as bad as Soviet imperialism;
34:49 today they say that Western “imperialism” is just as bad as Islamic terrorism.
34:57 In my speech a few weeks ago in New York, on September 11th,
35:02 I emphasized that we must stop this “Blame the West, Blame America”-game,
35:09 which Islamic spokesmen are playing with us.
35:27 And we must stop playing this game ourselves.
35:32 And I have exactly the same message, dear friends, for you today.
35:39 It is an insult to tell us that we are guilty,
35:44 and deserve what is happening to us.
35:47 How is it exactly, that we deserve becoming strangers in our own lands?
35:53 We should accept such insults no longer.
36:12 First of all, Western civilization is the freest and most prosperous on earth.
36:21 Which is precisely why so many immigrants are so keen on moving here.
36:24 Secondly...
36:29 Secondly, there is no such thing as collective guilt.
36:33 Free individuals...
36:41 Free individuals are free moral agents who are only responsible for their own deeds.
36:51 I am very happy, very fortunate, to be here in Berlin today in order to deliver this message,
37:00 which is extremely important, especially so, here in Germany.
37:05 Whatever...
37:07 No matter what took place in your country in the past,
37:13 the present generation is not responsible for it.
37:34 Whatever happened in the past, is no excuse for punishing the Germans of today.
37:49 But... But, neither is it an excuse, for you to shrink from the fight for your own identity.
38:10 Your only responsibility is to eschew the mistakes of the past.
38:16 It is your duty to stand with those threatened by the ideology of Islam,
38:24 such as the State of Israel and your Jewish compatriots.
38:41 The Weimar Republic refused to fight for freedom,
38:46 and was overrun by a totalitarian ideology,
38:50 with catastrophic consequences for Germany, the rest of Europe and the world.
38:56 Please do not refuse to fight, for your freedom, today.
39:14 I feel lucky to be in your midst today because it seems,
39:18 that twenty years after German reunification, a new,
39:23 a new generation no longer feels guilty, just for the fact of being German.
39:41 The current and very intense debate about Thilo Sarrazin’s recent book,
39:48 is an indication of the fact that Germany is coming to terms with itself.
39:53 I have...
40:01 I have not yet read Dr Sarrazin’s book, but I say this:
40:05 While the minds of the ruling politically-correct establishment
40:09 may be closed to, and almost unanimously critical of his thesis,
40:12 and while he may have lost his job as a Bundesbanker,
40:16 nevertheless, a large majority of Germans acknowledge that Dr Sarrazin
40:21 has addressed an important and pressing issue.
40:35 “Germany is abolishing itself,” warns Sarrazin,
40:40 and he calls upon the Germans to halt this process.
40:44 The enormous impact of his book indicates that many Germans feel the same way.
40:50 The people of Germany, do not want Germany to be abolished.
40:54 Despite all...
41:04 Germany is no longer ashamed to assert its national pride.
41:18 In these difficult times, when our national identities are under threat,
41:23 we must stop feeling guilty about who we are.
41:26 And with that cease feeling shameful,
41:29 and say together who we are:
41:31 We are not kafir, we are not “guilty”.
41:48 Like other peoples, Germans too have the right to remain who they are.
41:53 Germans must not become French, nor Dutch, nor Americans, nor Turks.
42:00 They should remain Germans.
42:10 When the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan visited your country in 2008,
42:17 he told the Turks living here that they had to remain Turks.
42:23 He literally said that, “assimilation is a crime against humanity.”
42:28 And Erdogan would perhaps have been right,
42:32 if he had been addressing the Turks in Turkey.
42:47 However, Germany is still the land of the Germans.
42:52 And hence, the Germans have a right to demand that anyone
42:56 who comes to live in Germany should assimilate.
43:00 They have the right...
43:07 They have the right
43:09 – no, they have the duty to demand, for the sake of their children –
43:17 to demand that newcomers respect German identity,
43:21 and fully respect Germany’s right to preserve its identity.
43:25 And we must realize...
43:29 We must realize that Islam expands in two ways.
43:35 Since it is not a religion, conversion is only a marginal phenomenon.
43:41 Historically, Islam has expanded either by military conquest,
43:48 or, it has expanded by using the weapon of hijra: immigration.
43:55 Muhammad conquered Medina through immigration.
43:59 Hijra is also what we are experiencing today.
44:03 The Islamization of Europe continues all the time.
44:09 But the West, our West, has no strategy for dealing with the Islamic ideology:
44:17 because our elites say to us, that we must adapt to them,
44:22 rather than the exact opposite.
44:35 In this regard, there is a lesson which we can learn from America,
44:41 the freest nation on Earth.
44:43 Americans are proud of their nation, its achievements and its flag.
44:50 We, too, should be proud of our nations.
44:55 The United States has always been a nation of immigrants.
44:59 And President Theodore Roosevelt was very clear about the duty of immigrants.
45:07 Here is what President Roosevelt said, and I quote:
45:12 “We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith,
45:19 becomes an American and assimilates himself to us,
45:22 he shall be treated with a full and exact equality with everyone else...
45:29 But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American,
45:35 and nothing but an American...
45:38 There can be no divided allegiance here...
45:43 We have room for but one sole loyalty
45:47 and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
45:52 Endquote.
46:05 And it is not up to me to define what Germany’s national identity consists of.
46:13 That is entirely up to you.
46:16 However I do know, that German culture,
46:19 like that of neighbouring countries such as my own,
46:24 is rooted in Judeo-Christian and humanist values, and not in Islam.
46:43 Every responsible politician has a political obligation:
46:48 to preserve these values against ideologies which directly threaten them.
46:55 And a Germany...
46:56 A Germany full of mosques and veiled women,
47:00 is no longer, my friends,
47:02 it is no longer the Germany of Goethe,
47:05 of Schiller and Heine,
47:06 of Bach and Mendelssohn.
47:28 It will be a loss to us all.
47:32 It is vital that you cherish and preserve your roots as a nation.
47:38 Otherwise it will be impossible for you to safeguard your identity:
47:43 you will be abolished as a people, and you will lose your freedom.
47:49 And the rest of Europe will lose its freedom with you.
47:55 My friends, when Ronald Reagan came to a divided Berlin 23 years ago,
48:04 he uttered, not far from here at the Brandenburg Gate,
48:09 the following historic words, to the Soviet General Secretary:
48:20 “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
48:25 President Reagan was not an appeaser,
48:29 he was rather, a man who spoke the truth, and who loved freedom.
48:34 Today, we must again tear down a wall.
48:40 It is not a wall of concrete,
48:43 but rather it is a wall of denial and ignorance, about the real nature of Islam.
48:50 The International Freedom Alliance aims to coordinate and stimulate these efforts.
48:59 And because we speak the truth – and it is the truth – voters have given my party,
49:05 and many other parties too, from Denmark all the way to Switzerland,
49:09 the voters have given us the power to influence the political decision-making process.
49:15 Whether that be in opposition, or through supporting a minority government;
49:21 as we too want to do soon in the Netherlands.
49:26 President Reagan... President Reagan showed, that one can, by speaking the truth,
49:33 one can change the course of history.
49:37 He showed...
49:47 He showed also, that there is no need to despair.
49:52 Never!
49:55 My friends... Just do your duty.
50:00 Do not be afraid.
50:03 Speak up. Speak the truth.
50:06 Defend Freedom.
50:08 Together we can preserve freedom,
50:12 together we must preserve freedom,
50:14 and together, my friends, we will be able to preserve freedom.
50:19 Thank you.
VIA Gates of Vienna: Islam or Freedom?
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Show Trials 2010 - Geert Wilders quietly watches poor imitation of Maoists
Here is a highlight from Day 3 of the Geert Wilders "hate speech" trial in the Netherlands, sparked when the court was about to watch Wilders' film Fitna, and one audience member (a formal plaintiff?) puts on a show of asking permission to leave that she not have to see the horror. Have a good look at the vacant bureaucratic faces of the "judges". I haven't seen the like since attending show trials at the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. (We previously discussed the judge's obvious bias here.)
Don't miss Dutch Blogger Klein Verzet for a full report on Day 3. Here is one of his interesting observations:
Don't miss Dutch Blogger Klein Verzet for a full report on Day 3. Here is one of his interesting observations:
Then they started with the reading of the testimony of Hans Jansen (he can be seen in the court room sitting behind Geert Wilders). In their reading of the first Islam expert the court showed some ignorance. The court apparently had never heard of Qutub the founder of modern jihad ideology. The judge could not pronounce the name: Qutb and had to try several times to pronounce it.Alas, that is a point about the study of religion, any religion, that lots of people don't quite appreciate, especially when it comes to consideration of Islam. With this religion, the resentment of insiders (according to this study, noted in Klein Verzet's most recent post, 64% of the Koranic text discusses - i.e. curses - the Un-believer) and the anti-Islam resentment of non-Muslims often trumps the scholarly desire to get closer to the inherently paradoxical nature of that truth, in any religion, which generates resentment, and love.
[...]
Noteworthy was Hans Jansen his final statement in which he stated his surprise about the courts interest in so many religious details. It was against all he had learned about the separations of powers, the separation of church and state.
And of course, as often, he is right. He has said it before, with this trial, they have positioned the court as an arbiter of truth, truth about religion, truth about Islam, an impossible and unwanted situation.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
The bad joke that is "justice" in the Netherlands
Yesterday, Geert Wilders declared to the Dutch court that is trying Wilders for "racism" against Muslims - on the grounds that Wilders has compared the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf (in the context of questioning the balanced or reasonable application of a law that bans publication of the Nazi book) - that he will not answer any questions from the court, that he will invoke his right not to say things that may be held against him in what promises to be a politicized game of gotcha (my interpretation). Here, via Diana West, is Wilders' statement translated into English:
And how did the court respond to Wilders' statement? The head judge, Jan Moorse, said:
This is a sign of a totalitarian "justice" system of course. Reminds one of China's cultural revolution, for example.
Naturally enough, Wilders' lawyer then asked for an independent finding that the presently-constituted court is biased against Wilders. The wrakings kamer, the special court that is held to consider such claims of bias then found that
While it should go without saying that any government that puts on trial a leading oppposition politician for mere words, for advocating policies that run counter to the highest pieties of the governing "liberal" elite, is in no sense liberal and only proving that contemporary "liberalism" reaches its logical conclusion in totalitarianism, it is nonetheless jarring to this writer to see additional evidence of the decadence of Dutch society and justice. Many Canadians, only a generation or two ago, died liberating the Netherlands from the Nazis. And, we may now well ask, for what?
Let us remember how, after liberation, the Dutch treated some of those who had collaborated with the Nazis, marking them visibly.
Madness has again descended on Europe.
Mister Chairman, members of the Court,
Thank you for allowing me a few minutes for a personal observation. For me the past months have been centred around the exhausting process of government coalition formation. For the people at the negotiating table the end of the day meant that they could rest and recharge their batteries. For me it usually meant that I had to devote my time to a second job, namely being the object of this ongoing court case.
It is strange experience for me to have to combine these two cases. However different these cases are they are the results of the same ideal, namely to stand for the freedom of expression and the will to pass on a better Netherlands to the next generation.
In this regard, defending freedom of expression (and for me that is what is at stake in the coming weeks) is of crucial importance. More then ever we must honour this commitment. Democracy requires open and free discussion. It must be possible to express different vision, especially on controversial issues, because the clash opinions leads to better understanding..
I am here today as a suspect. Formally, I am being tried, but it is the freedom of expression of many Dutchmen that is being tried.
Freedom of expression may not be curbed. That is all I have to say.
My lawyer will speak on my behalf regarding all the rest. I invoke my right to remain silent. I do so on the advice of my lawyer, but also because I have already said everything that needs to be said. I do not retract any of it. This does not mean, however, that I have said all the things which have been attributed to me.
And how did the court respond to Wilders' statement? The head judge, Jan Moorse, said:
I still value it to say something about it, Mr. Wilders. The court has read the files, but the court also read newspapers and watches television these days. You have been accused by others of being good at stating a position but unwilling to debate it. It looks as if you’re doing the same thing today.In other words, the court responded to Wilders' statement that he would exercise his right not to say anything that might be seen as incriminating, by accusing Wilders on the spot that his failure adequately to debate his accusers is a sign of Wilders' guilt. The power of the accuser, the scandal monger, is somehow equated with what is right and just.
This is a sign of a totalitarian "justice" system of course. Reminds one of China's cultural revolution, for example.
Naturally enough, Wilders' lawyer then asked for an independent finding that the presently-constituted court is biased against Wilders. The wrakings kamer, the special court that is held to consider such claims of bias then found that
There is no substantial evidence to show that the judges have given the impression of being biased, therefore the request is being deniedTalk about being blind to the obvious. But then again, maybe not. It turns out that the head of the wrakings kamer is himself politically active with a government-funded organization focussed on "development" aid for Morocco, a judge with a previous record of downplaying terrorism. It seems that it is normal for judges in the Netherlands to be affiliated with a ruling political party.
While it should go without saying that any government that puts on trial a leading oppposition politician for mere words, for advocating policies that run counter to the highest pieties of the governing "liberal" elite, is in no sense liberal and only proving that contemporary "liberalism" reaches its logical conclusion in totalitarianism, it is nonetheless jarring to this writer to see additional evidence of the decadence of Dutch society and justice. Many Canadians, only a generation or two ago, died liberating the Netherlands from the Nazis. And, we may now well ask, for what?
Let us remember how, after liberation, the Dutch treated some of those who had collaborated with the Nazis, marking them visibly.
Madness has again descended on Europe.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Can someone explain to me what this guy is saying?
Commanded to terrorize South Park, an op ed in today's Vancouver Sun by lecturer Gordon Nickel is a head scratcher for me. I know our public or mainstream media discourse on Islam has become a game of unmentionables, innuendo, and false pieties. But really, I pity the UBC students who have to figure out what this prof. wants them to think or write about Islam. This guy is not obviously an enthusiast for dissimulation or cultural relativism and yet he seems so scared of appearing to say anything a little too declarative that he invents a whole new kind of pointing with eyebrows raised, while saying weird things about Jews. Either that, or he was terribly abused by some newpaper editor with the fear of Allah in mind.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Free speech (and Kathy Shaidle) championed in Canadian Senate
Senator Nicole Eaton recognizes free expression is not just an "American thing", but fundamental to Canadian history (HT: Catfur):
Those are all Conservative Party Senators, by the way, in case anyone is wondering where the Liberals stand on freedom of speech. I sure don't know.
April 13th, 2010
For immediate release
“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to address the state of freedom of speech in Canada.
Like other Senators who have spoken before me on this matter, I am alarmed by the erosion of this most essential right; alarmed because freedom of speech is an inextricable part of our Canadian identity. If we lose that freedom, we lose a part of our Canadian-ness. Freedom of expression in all of its many forms – including freedom of speech, the press, the arts, and religious and cultural expression – has always been one of Canada’s most important national qualities.
It is a golden thread, woven through our great historic moments and all of our great public controversies, and it has guided us to peaceful resolutions of our disagreements and helped us reach our highest aspirations. And, in our increasingly multicultural, pluralistic society, it ensures that everyone in Canada can find their voice, and have their say.
Freedom of speech is the great equalizer for Canadians who seek to address their claims by appealing to our national conscience. In Canada, one doesn’t need to have power or money to make a case – merely a passion to express an idea. This is one of the most attractive qualities we offer to new immigrants, many of whom come from countries where political or even religious dissent is a crime.
But free speech isn’t just part of our Canada today. It is also a great Canadian tradition. In his opening remarks on this subject, Senator Finley mentioned in passing the case of Joseph Howe. I’d like to expand on that, because it set such an important precedent for the freedoms we enjoy to this day.
In 1835 – nearly 200 years ago, and a generation before Canada was born as our own country – Joseph Howe was put on trial for seditious libel, because the newspaper he published had embarrassed local Halifax politicians by exposing their corruption. Howe knew that his own freedom was at stake – if he lost, he could have been imprisoned. But he also knew that much more was on trial that day: the right of citizens to scrutinize and criticize their government was in question.
Some would call that the right to offend!
Here’s what he said to the jury about what would happen politically if he were convicted:
“Were you to condemn me, these [politicians] would say there is no truth in those charges, there is nothing wrong, and matters would continue in the old beaten track. If you acquit me, as I trust you will, they must form themselves into a court of inquiry for self-reformation ; they must drive out from among them those men who bring disgrace on their ranks, and mischief on the community in which they reside…”
At the time, Halifax had fewer than 15,000 citizens. It was still a very new place, and its political and legal culture were still being formed. Howe’s case would set a precedent for Nova Scotia, and the rest of Canada, for centuries to come. Had the jury chosen to side with the Halifax elites – the politicians and other polite company who had been offended and embarrassed by him – corruption would have flourished, and democratic criticism would have withered. Howe’s passionate defence of freedom worked. The jury defied the judge’s instructions and acquitted Howe. And that great triumph set him on course to one day become Nova Scotia’s premier.
But let me quote one more passage from Howe’s speech. Remember, his trial was not long after the American Revolution, and the War of 1812. Canadians and Americans had taken two separate paths, and were still wary of each other.
Howe clearly rejected the American way. He regarded their revolution as an act of rebellion and disloyalty. He was a fiercely proud Nova Scotian. But here’s what he said:
“Let not the sons of the Rebels look across the border to the sons of the Loyalists, and reproach them that their press is not free.”
Howe wasn’t trying to impress the Americans. And he certainly didn’t believe that freedom of speech was only for Americans. In fact, the opposite: in his defence, he constantly referred to the Canadian and British traditions of liberty. To Howe, all modern free peoples enjoyed freedom of speech. Far from being merely an American concept, Howe regarded it as quintessentially Canadian.
Joseph Howe set a great precedent. But the nature of freedom of speech is that it constantly must be supported, for there are would-be censors in every generation. In 1935, exactly a century after Howe’s acquittal, across the country in Alberta, William Aberhart became premier, and like the political elites of Howe’s Halifax, he found Alberta’s newspapers to be troublesome and offensive.
Aberhart’s election came in the face of nearly universal opposition by the newspapers of the day. By 1937, he was so frustrated that he introduced the Accurate News and Information Act, that required every newspaper in the province to run a rebuttal or a “correction or amplification” when ordered to do so by the government.
Alberta’s Lieutenant Governor refused to proclaim the law until the Supreme Court could assess its constitutionality; he was punished by being stripped of his official residence, car and staff. Even without that law, Aberhart prosecuted his war against the press. The Alberta Legislature ordered that a reporter for the Edmonton Journal, Don Brown, be jailed for misquoting a government back-bencher. Luckily, national ridicule caused the government to back down before they could arrest him.
In the spring of 1938, the Supreme Court ruled that Alberta’s Press Act was illegal, and that it violated Canada’s unwritten bill of rights – the same code of freedom that had protected Joseph Howe. And for its efforts in fighting against Aberhart’s censorship, the Edmonton Journal was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize, the first time the citation was awarded outside of the United States.
It was a great Canadian moment.
There are many of these moments in our history – some much more recently.
It wasn’t until 1955 that the University of Toronto shut down its “Art Room”, where, until then, students had to prove they were free of “mental problems” before reading controversial books like Ulysses. The books were later moved to open shelves.
In the 1980s, in the case of Vancouver’s Little Sisters book store, Canada Customs followed Memorandum D911, which arbitrarily declared any description of gay sexuality to be obscene – a vague rule that was eventually thrown out by the Supreme Court. Little Sisters continued its fight against Customs and Canada Post well into the 1990s.
And until Prime Minister Brian Mulroney overturned the order 48 hours later, customs police briefly made Canada the only Western democracy to seize copies of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, after Iran’s fatwa.
We’re in the 21st century now, and one would think that censorship would be obsolete, universally considered a relic of less enlightened times. But nowadays it’s not prudish customs agents or thin-skinned politicians who are the main threat.
It’s Canada’s “human rights commissions”, which would have struck George Orwell as being perfectly named.
These commissions were started with the best of intentions – to help the poor and the weak from being bullied out of a job or an apartment. But they have become censors, policing not death threats or incitement to violence, or any other real crime, but rather the fake crime of hurt feelings.
They have become what author Kathy Shaidle calls a “Tyranny of Nice”.
Section 13 of our own Canadian Human Rights Act makes it against the law to evoke feelings of “hatred or contempt”. But hate is a normal human feeling. What’s not normal is to make those feelings against the law. Of course we don’t want people to turn their hard feelings into crimes –that’s why we have the Criminal Code. But to have a government agency monitoring the Internet, searching for certain political views to prosecute is anathema to a liberal democracy.
In 2008, Maclean’s magazine was put on trial for a week for publishing excerpts from Mark Steyn’s best-selling book on Islam. And the Western Standard’s publisher, Ezra Levant, was prosecuted for 900 days for publishing pictures of the controversial Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Those are two famous cases. But there are plenty more people who have been investigated by the government merely for having a certain point of view.
Like pastor Stephen Boissoin (buzz-ON), who was given a lifetime speech ban by the Alberta human rights commission. And Father Alphonse de Valk of Toronto’s Catholic Insight magazine, and the Christian Heritage Party and Bill Whatcott of Saskatchewan.
Each of these men were prosecuted for expressing their religious belief. Not for doing anything harmful; just for saying something that someone else found offensive.
This shows a systemic bias in our human rights commissions – and that’s exactly the problem with vague, political censorship. It’s not about the law anymore. It’s about political favourites. But that’s just not how we settle our disagreements in Canada. We don’t have the state intervene in political or religious disagreements.
We let people decide for themselves.
There is a common thread to each of these free speech battles. In each case, the targets of censorship were declared “offensive” or “troublesome”. But in each case, the success of those troublesome critics helped make Canada more inclusive and more democratic. Canada is the most peaceful and tolerant country in the world, precisely because we allow people to disagree with each other passionately – and even offensively.
That clash of ideas is often noisy and occasionally upsetting. But through those vigorous discussions, we have been able to navigate our way through hundreds of years of challenges – and our national purpose has never been stronger.
Mr. Speaker, freedom of speech is not just an abstract Canadian ideal.
It is an active, living part of being Canadian. It is an integral part of the Canadian identity. Our citizens use it every day, more often than any other freedom. To study our history is to see each generation of Canadians stand up for that freedom when it is challenged like it has been several times recently with the Steyn, Levant and Coulter episodes. And to learn from our history is to know that we must protect that great inheritance today and whenever in the future it may be challenged again.
Thank you.”
........
Speeches By Senators Finley, Wallin, Duffy & Tkachuk
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Howard Rotberg takes a stand on "Israel Apartheid Week", sacrificing something once dear
Howard Rotberg is returning the history and law degrees he earned from the University of Toronto in the 1970s. He is doing this in protest against the University's continuing provision of space and other resources that allow for the annual holding of "Israel Apartheid Week" events.
While the University now has an established history of aiding and abetting the Israel haters and by extension the defenders of illiberal Islamic societies which are not held to any blame for the fate of the Palestinians, what seems to have pushed Howard into action was a letter to the university "community" that U of T President David Naylor recently penned, as his way of responding to calls for the University to refuse to support "Israel Apartheid Week".
It might be useful to contrast the arguments of Naylor and Rotberg, as a way of exploring whether there really is freedom of speech at the Universtity of Toronto, though this will require a somewhat lengthy post.
The title of Naylor's letter is "Freedom of Expression and Diversity". The question, once we have stumbled past the awkward concept of "Freedom of Diversity" - expressed as if diversity were already in its final, unquestionable, form, and not something we need more freedom for - is what is Naylor's conception of "diversity" and is it fully compatible with his or our conception of freedom of expression? If there is a conflict, how does Naylor propose to mediate or transcend it? Or does he have no real answer to that last question, preferring to envelop us in rhetorical dodges to defer if only briefly our resentment at the University's refusal to take a stand to which we can relate in good faith?
Naylor begins with this argument for not refusing to support "Israel Apartheid Week":
You know the answers but please note anyway that it would of course be a practical impossibility for any institution in our society to provide space for just any discussion. We all have to make choices where to spend our resources. But to live so pragmatically is not to deny anyone's right to free speech somewhere else in society. Nor is it "censorship", to use Naylor's word - a word sure to raise the emotions of the academics who like to imagine they are anything but social conformists, defenders of the status quo. Rather, it is simply a recognition of the eternal truth that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch and no one, not even students, have a right to expect a host to provide endlessly for their "needs" (as if it is angry students who own and rule the university and not its faculty).
We also need to be aware that "free expression" can only exist in environments in which someone is not abusing our shared freedom in order to destroy others' enjoyment of that freedom. Anyone who thinks that the right to freedom of speech belongs to those who would shout others down is not anyone who really thinks. Ask that invidiously neo-conservatie Zionist, Daniel Pipes.
But note that Naylor's letter does not touch on such questions. His invocation of the words "censorship" is at once falsely to dress himself in the robes of the state - of which the self-ruling university is at best only a tangential, wannabe, part - and to refuse, oh so nobly, the censor's office. But what students say to each other in the hallways is not what is at issue. No one, not least Rotberg as we will see, is asking that anyone's ordinary speech be "censored". What is being asked of Naylor is that he take a stand on what the university should or should not support with its resources, or where it should draw the line in how those resources already provided for are used by students and staff.
But as we will see, Naylor, in his offical statement, has absolutely nothing to say about the intellectual or scholarly merits of "Israel Apartheid Week" other than that it is an issue he implies is sufficiently heated that he not dare take a stand, as if he can avoid divisions by refusing to divide; but as I will argue, we can only begin to heal unavoidable divisions by jumping into the fray and taking a stand. Implicitly, Naylor says that there are some issues that cannot be questioned whatever their intellectual or scholarly merits, or lack therof. Pragmatically, all that official authority has to say is "diversity" and "freedom of expression."
But can a man in authority who reveals his intellctual cupboard so bare be taken seriously when he then begs all involved to behave themselves, on an issue which is for the friends and family of some Toronto people a question of life and death? Are gestures of "neutrality" really worthy of a man, let alone a supposed intellectual, caught in the middle of a war, or at least a very serious moral divide, as I think we are?
Naylor also writes:
Naylor goes on to argue that we mustn't leave any individual or group feeling "targeted", that we must nuance our speech so that no one feels "discriminated" against. Just how this is possible when he also admits our right to feel passionate about justice is not at all clear. It is i think impossible. Either I have a right to criticize socio-religious structures like Judaism or Islam and hence inevitably offend sincerely believing Jews and Muslims, and leave them feeling as if they are the target of my politics and my calls for people to recognize certain imperatives as more important than others' imperatives, or I do not have the right. It seems clear enough to me that Naylor is telling the University of Toronto community that it is better they just shut up than offend those who have a higher status in the postmodern hierarchy of offendedness - we need not note that Naylor does not talk about, for example, the evil of middle-class, non-Jewish, whites being racially offended. Obviously some people, or at least their collective guilt, can be and often is "targeted" at the University of Toronto, as any analysis of professorial discourse will quickly reveal. If the target is deemed "privileged", by the academic powers that be, then it's ok. And inevitably that is what is at issue here, i.e. the common sense of the University of Toronto "community" when it comes to deciding who is more "privileged" - Israelis or Palestinians, Jews or Muslims. But privileged how? By signs of success or failure/"victimhood", with responsibility for these accorded just how? Again, Naylor will not address such questions, preferring we defer to some normative desire to just tone things down.
Antisemitism is ultimately something as simple as our resentment of another's intellectual and/or material and/or military success - as symbolized by the Jewish leading role in Western history's unveiling of monotheist universalism, and the rewards that have come to those who have understood well what this anthropological revelation tells us about our shared humanity (how else to explain the success of the Israeli nation vis a vis its neighbors, without delving into conspiracy theory?)
Is it ok to "target" Jews as such when they are successful, but not when they are ground into the dust? How do we "nuance" such questions without offending someone else? Can one really be neutral about Jews as a whole - if we are honest with ourselves, doesn't one just have to choose, however our choice may differ at times, to love or resent Jews? Is neutrality, or an advocacy of cultural relativism, just a dishonest lie we tell ourselves? And if it is, can that lie be freely debated at the University of Toronto where we are called to respect all and offend none?
But Naylor's promotion of abstract pieties goes on, not that I think they are worthy of much discussion beyond our recognizing that this is the way a man of some political skill in our times tries to stick-handle around what seem to him irresolvible problems that he just has forever to jump around rather than seriously address. I mean what is anyone seriously to do with lines like this: "We shall not hesitate to intervene if there are concerns about safety, or if speakers migrate from advocacy to hate-promoting speech." I mean, just where is the line between "advocacy" and "hate-promoting speech" and why doesn't "Israel Apartheid Week" cross that line? There are of course no serious answers, just signs of a university refusing to take a stand on the most important political and religious questions of our day.
II
When a man refuses to take a stand, what do we make of another who pushes him to do so? Do we call the other man "pushy" or "righteous"? Do we call him intolerant or a seeker of justice, a "Jew" or a Jew? What do we call a man who decides that publicly burning his university degrees would be too theatrical, so he chooses instead just to write a public letter and send the degrees back? Well, I would call this a man frustrated at a string of tactical failures, at the unwillingness of people in media, politics, and education in Canada to take his various attempts at public intellectual interventions seriously. A man frustrated that so few are taking a public stand on Israel and on the claim that Israel's fight is but a harbinger of the fight we all in the West are soon going to have to engage as the now Global Intifada takes on our now single global economy, and the forms of Western modernity and freedom that have to now led in building that shared economy.
Howard Rotberg writes:
Let's stop here for a moment and dwell on Rotberg's nuance - "diversity in the context of adherence to foundational Canadian values". Rotberg seems to be arguing that diversity is only possible, it depends, on some kind of foundational unity, some common value or individual freedom, some refusal of endless moral or cultural relativism. If that's so, and I think it is, it is not enough for Naylor just to appeal to all to recognize our common value(s) of "diversity", which is just another word for moral or cultural relavism; he also, as a man in authority, needs to provide some serious accounting of what that common value is and how it applies to those involved in the provocative rhetoric of "Israeli Apartheid"; and he needs to do more than say our common value is a refusal of violence and "targeting". He needs to tell students what it is that allows us to mimimize (because humanity can never completely eliminate) violence - sometimes violence is necessary to fight or avoid a greater violence; for this reason, Howard Rotberg has decided he must sacrifice his degrees and links to the U of T.
Naylor also needs to show us how we judge when someone is using our shared freedoms only to erode that shared freedom in the service of some more totalitarian cause. It is not enough to say we should guarantee each other's freedom - we need to know how this is possible, if this can really be done by refusing to target any and all groups or religions no matter what their cause. Naylor talks about Jews and Muslims as if their identity is beyond question. And still there is room for "Israel Apartheid Week"?
Does a flourishing diversity depend on a prior unity, or does unity depend on recognizing a prior diversity? The former, I'm arguing, though i fear you won't find many Toronto academics capable of explaining the anthropology of it. They place all their bets on diversity first.
Rotberg continues:
These simple facts, ones that when taken to heart should alone allow for deeply critical suspicion of "Israel Apartheid Week", are nowhere even hinted at in Naylor's discourse, as if we can somehow provide resourcs for IAW, and still not "target" Jews. It's a fantastic denial of reality.
Rotberg continues:
Here is where Rotberg's argument enters into somewhat speculative territory, it seems to me. Do we all see the signs that Howard does? I think I see many of them, but just how much weight to give to them in a Canadian society that still has many defenders of freedom? I just don't know.
But I would argue that it is just the nature of our humanity that we can only know what really exists among us and what we really believe by acting and constructing our shared reality. If people like Naylor refuse to act, refuse to take stands on central questions, feigning an impossible neutrality, then nihilism and consequently expressions of the "will to power" will inevitably inherit the day, one way or another. I trust, however, that many Canadians will not put up with uncommitted Naylors, and with Jew haters, when push comes to shove. Will they be enough? I don't know; we can't know. Truth can only reveal itself through acting in shared good faith. There is no new truth in not acting, just a clinging to old truths that are always somewhere on the road to becoming empty cliches.
Howard continues:
While Howard may not be entirely correct in his predictions - then again he may be - what is certain is that if we don't have the freedom to make such frank and "un-nuanced" judgments, if we can't target ostensible evils like the Muslim Students Association for being under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, then it is inevitably the case that we will, sooner or later, see our free society erode into some more totalitarian arrangement. Freedom requires people being able to take stands, on one foot, and hence to push others into frank exchanges of our differences, rejecting some in favour of others. Free expression only exists where offensiveness exists, thankyou Howard -:) and a free future can only be made by someone playing the pushy "Jew", by someone, anyone, attempting to take a lead in revealing and constructing the new reality, or shared sign of our shared freedom.
Refusing to do this in the name of "nuance" is the way Gnostics - which is what most of today's acadmics are - war against reality. For it is inevitable that we can all sense that reality is far more nuanced that any possible representation of it that we can ever make to others can ever possibly be. But if we refuse to take seriously our never-possibly-complete representations of reality (because, gee, the Muslim Students Association, for example, is not all bad, whatever its links to Islamism and political violence), if we seek instead the Gnostic fantasy of overcoming all our hideously-limited representations of our shared reality, in some perfectly nuanced society, then we cannot ever really allow for the necessary leaps of faith in the free sharing of representations, by which any possibly decent future is actually to be built. "Nuance", while sometimes a good thing, becomes when it is offical policy a denial of the reality that we must take stands as incomplete persons.
If we give in to Gnosticism, to the dream of overcoming this hideoulsy incomplete and fallen world of conflicts and pushy people, by insisting on ever deferring to "nuance", and the experts who dictate it, we can never truly enjoy a shared freedom; we descend into "the dictatorship of relativism" where it's better not to choose, not to act, but just to accept the reigning hierarchies of "privilege" and "offendedness", the hierarchy that promotes itself as Utopian "tolerance" or "inclusivity" or "diversity", and that tolerates those who can claim to be righteous in their violent opposition of our unsatisfactorily-privileged representations of (incomplete) "reality".
For the Gnostic academy, no representation of Israel can be good enough. Israel is, for all its beauties, an imperfect society born of events whose meaning can never be settled; and instead of working to become perfectly nuanced and inclusive of all who make demands on it, it eventually poses to honest seekers an inescapable choice between competing ideas of God, competing notions of how people should be organized politically: in discrete nation-states, or in world-straddling Caliphates and/or multicultural empires. It asks us to choose the better over the less good, or the least bad over the worse, instead of just deferring to some "offended" dream as a way of not now choosing.
Rotberg denounces Naylor for refusing to see that we are in the midst of a global civil war where we have to chooose:
We must be able to narrow some roads from past to future, in order to open up others more capacious, knowing full well we may get things all wrong. This is our tragic human reality that no amount of feel-good rhetoric can overcome. Sooner or later, under the force of events, the university President's ability to ever temporize, will completely lose its footing. And then the question of whether he has left the university "community" any ground on which to stand and build an acceptable future will have to be faced. If you have been promised the moon, you will probably then have nothing. However, if you have been building on some incompletely-nuanced ground, you may well have something to work with. Rotberg's position is in no way complete unto itself; the quest for justice is never complete and final; but some such stand for individual and institutional responsibility is a necessary starting point for any hope of justice. Some others may have to mail in their degrees so that eventually not everyone will feel so obliged.
While the University now has an established history of aiding and abetting the Israel haters and by extension the defenders of illiberal Islamic societies which are not held to any blame for the fate of the Palestinians, what seems to have pushed Howard into action was a letter to the university "community" that U of T President David Naylor recently penned, as his way of responding to calls for the University to refuse to support "Israel Apartheid Week".
It might be useful to contrast the arguments of Naylor and Rotberg, as a way of exploring whether there really is freedom of speech at the Universtity of Toronto, though this will require a somewhat lengthy post.
The title of Naylor's letter is "Freedom of Expression and Diversity". The question, once we have stumbled past the awkward concept of "Freedom of Diversity" - expressed as if diversity were already in its final, unquestionable, form, and not something we need more freedom for - is what is Naylor's conception of "diversity" and is it fully compatible with his or our conception of freedom of expression? If there is a conflict, how does Naylor propose to mediate or transcend it? Or does he have no real answer to that last question, preferring to envelop us in rhetorical dodges to defer if only briefly our resentment at the University's refusal to take a stand to which we can relate in good faith?
Naylor begins with this argument for not refusing to support "Israel Apartheid Week":
...in general, free expression on our campuses has served to build a sense of community.Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether the merely physical safety of Jewish students is threatened by portrayals of Israel as the postmodern age's "dirty Jew" - the nation that is pushy, aggressive, selfish, violent, conspiring, unlike all others - note that Naylor is dodging another question: does the university provide its space for just any discussion that some group or another feels heated about? Will the university provide space and dedicate its security/observer resources to just any cause, whatever its intellectual merits? If a group of students wants to put on an event to, say, encourage the understanding of the world as flat; to encourage the shaming of women who sleep around, or have abortions; to encourage the production of more destructive biological and chemical weapons; to encourage in public fora - as Howard suggests would be impossible at the U of T - the idea that Islamic societies are Apartheid societies; to encourage the destruction by military or demographic forces of the invidiously-Hispanic nation of Uruguay; will the university make space and commit the necessary staff resources?
From time to time, however, we are asked to ban discussion of certain subjects or censor certain presentations. We examine those requests on their merits, but the bar to take such actions is high. Freedom of speech is a core value for any university in a democratic society. Younger members of our community will eventually enter a world in which heated arguments occur and careless or inflammatory rhetoric is not uncommon. We do them no service to shelter them from those realities.
That said, I want to acknowledge the over-riding imperative of campus safety when controversy bubbles and debates become heated. Thus far, the University of Toronto has been a safe place for vigorous debate on even the most divisive of topics. Looking ahead, we shall not tolerate any actions by any groups that cause threats to the physical safety of members of our community.
You know the answers but please note anyway that it would of course be a practical impossibility for any institution in our society to provide space for just any discussion. We all have to make choices where to spend our resources. But to live so pragmatically is not to deny anyone's right to free speech somewhere else in society. Nor is it "censorship", to use Naylor's word - a word sure to raise the emotions of the academics who like to imagine they are anything but social conformists, defenders of the status quo. Rather, it is simply a recognition of the eternal truth that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch and no one, not even students, have a right to expect a host to provide endlessly for their "needs" (as if it is angry students who own and rule the university and not its faculty).
We also need to be aware that "free expression" can only exist in environments in which someone is not abusing our shared freedom in order to destroy others' enjoyment of that freedom. Anyone who thinks that the right to freedom of speech belongs to those who would shout others down is not anyone who really thinks. Ask that invidiously neo-conservatie Zionist, Daniel Pipes.
But note that Naylor's letter does not touch on such questions. His invocation of the words "censorship" is at once falsely to dress himself in the robes of the state - of which the self-ruling university is at best only a tangential, wannabe, part - and to refuse, oh so nobly, the censor's office. But what students say to each other in the hallways is not what is at issue. No one, not least Rotberg as we will see, is asking that anyone's ordinary speech be "censored". What is being asked of Naylor is that he take a stand on what the university should or should not support with its resources, or where it should draw the line in how those resources already provided for are used by students and staff.
But as we will see, Naylor, in his offical statement, has absolutely nothing to say about the intellectual or scholarly merits of "Israel Apartheid Week" other than that it is an issue he implies is sufficiently heated that he not dare take a stand, as if he can avoid divisions by refusing to divide; but as I will argue, we can only begin to heal unavoidable divisions by jumping into the fray and taking a stand. Implicitly, Naylor says that there are some issues that cannot be questioned whatever their intellectual or scholarly merits, or lack therof. Pragmatically, all that official authority has to say is "diversity" and "freedom of expression."
But can a man in authority who reveals his intellctual cupboard so bare be taken seriously when he then begs all involved to behave themselves, on an issue which is for the friends and family of some Toronto people a question of life and death? Are gestures of "neutrality" really worthy of a man, let alone a supposed intellectual, caught in the middle of a war, or at least a very serious moral divide, as I think we are?
Naylor also writes:
While the usual rule of law applies to any and all utterances on our campuses, there are some other responsibilities that I believe travel along with the exercise of free speech rights. These include decency and civility, avoidance of targeting of individuals and identifiable groups, and respect for diversity of opinion.But Naylor does not explain how depicting Israel as an "Apartheid State" can be done in civil tones. It may be possible that one could come up with argument showing how this could be done, but it would require that certain contrary points of view be absent from the debate. One can't be too civil with someone you sincerely think is trying to kill off your people. So let us agree first of all that not just any argument can be treated civilly. Some things are just too hateful, too absurd, too dishonest to admit of civility. If this is correct, then Naylor is implicitly taking the stand that advocacy of "Israel Apartheid" - something that we can be sure will be blamed on the Jews, that few at U of T will use the term with an eye to explaining just how it is that Islamic law can never accept the presence of a Jewish state or political entity of any kind in land considered already Islamic, dar al-Islam (thus positively requiring Jewish recognition of an "apartheid", a refusal of Islam, or its secular offshoots, to treat with Jews on "Islamic" lands) - is not too hateful, too absurd, too dishonest to admit of civility.
Occasionally incidents arise that compel us to recall these principles which are at the core of our work and life together. Some years ago, serious events occurred that left members of our Muslim communities feeling targeted; in the past year other incidents have occurred that alienated and dismayed members of our Black and Jewish communities. While these occurrences are rare, any such behaviours are deplorable.
I understand that there are strong views on our campuses on a wide variety of issues. We recognize the right of members of our community to exchange views that are discomfiting or even offensive to some. However, passionate advocacy – even righteous anger directed at some perceived injustice – does not preclude civility or generosity of spirit. We ask, therefore, that when arguments veer near or onto themes such as nationality, ethnicity, race or religion, all members of our community make every effort to express the qualifiers and nuances that mitigate the risk that their opinions can be interpreted as discriminatory denigration of individuals and groups.
Naylor goes on to argue that we mustn't leave any individual or group feeling "targeted", that we must nuance our speech so that no one feels "discriminated" against. Just how this is possible when he also admits our right to feel passionate about justice is not at all clear. It is i think impossible. Either I have a right to criticize socio-religious structures like Judaism or Islam and hence inevitably offend sincerely believing Jews and Muslims, and leave them feeling as if they are the target of my politics and my calls for people to recognize certain imperatives as more important than others' imperatives, or I do not have the right. It seems clear enough to me that Naylor is telling the University of Toronto community that it is better they just shut up than offend those who have a higher status in the postmodern hierarchy of offendedness - we need not note that Naylor does not talk about, for example, the evil of middle-class, non-Jewish, whites being racially offended. Obviously some people, or at least their collective guilt, can be and often is "targeted" at the University of Toronto, as any analysis of professorial discourse will quickly reveal. If the target is deemed "privileged", by the academic powers that be, then it's ok. And inevitably that is what is at issue here, i.e. the common sense of the University of Toronto "community" when it comes to deciding who is more "privileged" - Israelis or Palestinians, Jews or Muslims. But privileged how? By signs of success or failure/"victimhood", with responsibility for these accorded just how? Again, Naylor will not address such questions, preferring we defer to some normative desire to just tone things down.
Antisemitism is ultimately something as simple as our resentment of another's intellectual and/or material and/or military success - as symbolized by the Jewish leading role in Western history's unveiling of monotheist universalism, and the rewards that have come to those who have understood well what this anthropological revelation tells us about our shared humanity (how else to explain the success of the Israeli nation vis a vis its neighbors, without delving into conspiracy theory?)
Is it ok to "target" Jews as such when they are successful, but not when they are ground into the dust? How do we "nuance" such questions without offending someone else? Can one really be neutral about Jews as a whole - if we are honest with ourselves, doesn't one just have to choose, however our choice may differ at times, to love or resent Jews? Is neutrality, or an advocacy of cultural relativism, just a dishonest lie we tell ourselves? And if it is, can that lie be freely debated at the University of Toronto where we are called to respect all and offend none?
But Naylor's promotion of abstract pieties goes on, not that I think they are worthy of much discussion beyond our recognizing that this is the way a man of some political skill in our times tries to stick-handle around what seem to him irresolvible problems that he just has forever to jump around rather than seriously address. I mean what is anyone seriously to do with lines like this: "We shall not hesitate to intervene if there are concerns about safety, or if speakers migrate from advocacy to hate-promoting speech." I mean, just where is the line between "advocacy" and "hate-promoting speech" and why doesn't "Israel Apartheid Week" cross that line? There are of course no serious answers, just signs of a university refusing to take a stand on the most important political and religious questions of our day.
II
When a man refuses to take a stand, what do we make of another who pushes him to do so? Do we call the other man "pushy" or "righteous"? Do we call him intolerant or a seeker of justice, a "Jew" or a Jew? What do we call a man who decides that publicly burning his university degrees would be too theatrical, so he chooses instead just to write a public letter and send the degrees back? Well, I would call this a man frustrated at a string of tactical failures, at the unwillingness of people in media, politics, and education in Canada to take his various attempts at public intellectual interventions seriously. A man frustrated that so few are taking a public stand on Israel and on the claim that Israel's fight is but a harbinger of the fight we all in the West are soon going to have to engage as the now Global Intifada takes on our now single global economy, and the forms of Western modernity and freedom that have to now led in building that shared economy.
Howard Rotberg writes:
Dear President Naylor:
I am a graduate of University College (1973) at which time I had the honour of standing first among the students in the Department of History. I received an excellent education, specializing in the history of values and ideologies. Then I attended, and graduated from, the Faculty of Law, in 1976.
I have tried to live a life of ethics, respect for individual human rights and social justice, and service to my profession and the community. I have won awards for my service to my municipality in volunteering on municipal committees and for my development of affordable rental housing for low income working people. I have a record of writing about race relations and participating in conferences meant to accomplish respect for diversity in the context of adherence to foundational Canadian values.
Let's stop here for a moment and dwell on Rotberg's nuance - "diversity in the context of adherence to foundational Canadian values". Rotberg seems to be arguing that diversity is only possible, it depends, on some kind of foundational unity, some common value or individual freedom, some refusal of endless moral or cultural relativism. If that's so, and I think it is, it is not enough for Naylor just to appeal to all to recognize our common value(s) of "diversity", which is just another word for moral or cultural relavism; he also, as a man in authority, needs to provide some serious accounting of what that common value is and how it applies to those involved in the provocative rhetoric of "Israeli Apartheid"; and he needs to do more than say our common value is a refusal of violence and "targeting". He needs to tell students what it is that allows us to mimimize (because humanity can never completely eliminate) violence - sometimes violence is necessary to fight or avoid a greater violence; for this reason, Howard Rotberg has decided he must sacrifice his degrees and links to the U of T.
Naylor also needs to show us how we judge when someone is using our shared freedoms only to erode that shared freedom in the service of some more totalitarian cause. It is not enough to say we should guarantee each other's freedom - we need to know how this is possible, if this can really be done by refusing to target any and all groups or religions no matter what their cause. Naylor talks about Jews and Muslims as if their identity is beyond question. And still there is room for "Israel Apartheid Week"?
Does a flourishing diversity depend on a prior unity, or does unity depend on recognizing a prior diversity? The former, I'm arguing, though i fear you won't find many Toronto academics capable of explaining the anthropology of it. They place all their bets on diversity first.
Rotberg continues:
I am ashamed that University of Toronto hosted the first Israel Apartheid Week, and continues to make its facilities available to this distortion of “free speech and respect for diversity”. I read your February 24 remarks on freedom of expression and diversity, and sadly, I feel that you misstate the basic issues. My university is now known as the birthplace of this vile hatefest.I do not feel this is too hyperbolic on Rotberg's part. While it is not my intent here to argue this point - one can find countless discussions on the internet if one is an honest seeker - I think there is much available evidence that this is just what orthodox Islam and orthodox leftist/Politically Correct ideologies teach today - that Jewishness is a problem, a source of inferiority or unacceptable difference/success. Islam has traditionally had no place for Jews as anything other than dhimmis in lands graced by Islamic law, nor have we yet seen any but a few lonely individuals suggest Islamic societies could ever be any other way. Similarly, the left, as no end of socialist and Soviet history shows, has never known what to do with Jewish cultural differences that lead to Jewish individual or national success under modern conditions; nor has it known what to do with Jewish centrality as the archetypal and unquestionable victims of the modern age, with the world-historical repecursions of the revelation of Auschwitz, now that we are living in a postmodern culture that takes Auschwitz as its starting point and accordingly values signs of victimhood and hence sometimes wishes to turn succesful, powerful, Jews into "Nazis". Jewishness is a "problem" for many and is widely resented, and not least by many secular Jews.
The University would never allow an “Islamic Apartheid Week” because of course the speakers would be violently attacked by mobs of illiberals who have brought with them to the University no respect for free speech but only a respect for their upbringings where they were taught that Jews and the Jewish State are evil, and inferior.
These simple facts, ones that when taken to heart should alone allow for deeply critical suspicion of "Israel Apartheid Week", are nowhere even hinted at in Naylor's discourse, as if we can somehow provide resourcs for IAW, and still not "target" Jews. It's a fantastic denial of reality.
Rotberg continues:
I am disgusted that in a time of war against our liberal values, University of Toronto chooses to support one side, and that is the side that supports the war against our freedoms and our civilians from Sderot to Manhattan, from London to Madrid, and from Buenos Aires to Mumbai.In other words, Rotberg is clearly rejecting Naylor's grandiose notion that he could possibly be a "censor", while pointing out that many other falsely-aristocratic University Presidents have allowed their campuses to become places where pro-Israel speakers are shouted down or refused speaking dates because they would pose too much of a demand for security. Is University of Toronto now such a place? Is the mere acceptance of "Israel Apartheid Week" proof that it is now very difficult for Jews to speak freely at U of T?
I myself have had my lectures shouted down and my books effectively banned. See http://www.scragged.com/articles/how-i-became-a-banned-author-in-canada.aspx
I know that freedom loving writers like myself no longer have the freedoms that you are so proud of extending to people who support the murder of Jewish children, less than a century after the Holocaust.
I do not advocate censoring them, unless they pass into hate crimes, and even then I am not supportive of use of the criminal law, in all but the clearest of cases. But the notion of feeling compelled to have such an event in effect sanctioned by the University is clearly wrong. If they want to speak such words, there are, I am sure, other facilities that would welcome them.
Here is where Rotberg's argument enters into somewhat speculative territory, it seems to me. Do we all see the signs that Howard does? I think I see many of them, but just how much weight to give to them in a Canadian society that still has many defenders of freedom? I just don't know.
But I would argue that it is just the nature of our humanity that we can only know what really exists among us and what we really believe by acting and constructing our shared reality. If people like Naylor refuse to act, refuse to take stands on central questions, feigning an impossible neutrality, then nihilism and consequently expressions of the "will to power" will inevitably inherit the day, one way or another. I trust, however, that many Canadians will not put up with uncommitted Naylors, and with Jew haters, when push comes to shove. Will they be enough? I don't know; we can't know. Truth can only reveal itself through acting in shared good faith. There is no new truth in not acting, just a clinging to old truths that are always somewhere on the road to becoming empty cliches.
Howard continues:
I hereby adopt the positions taken in the following two essays: http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=610&PID=0&IID=2778No doubt the wannabe ironists among today's youth may think this quaint - "I hereby adopt the positions..." But in reality, there is no other way forward but to take on positions without benefit of fully "nuanced" deliberations...
and http://www.mythsandfacts.org/Conflict/13/human_rights.htm#B1
We have now reached a stage where Jewish students and others identifiably Jewish fear for their safety at various universities in North America and Europe, and where various Jewish speakers are denied permission to speak because of Islamist intimidation. We have now reached a situation where various student groups, such as the Muslim Students Association are being funded by radical Islamist groups, and where various University departments across the “free world” are becoming beholden to radical Islam due to financial funding from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.Again we can note Howard Rotberg's heresy, in postmodern eyes. He is making bold declarative statements about what the signs of the time mean. Nothing could be more "offensive" to the official ethos of moral and cultural relativism, the nihilism of today's academic elites.
I am sure you have read how young Muslim students are being “radicalized” at universities in England, and such was the case with the attempted terror attacker on the Delta airlines jet on Christmas Day.
The situation at English universities and even at York University has gotten out of hand. To the extent that your views are infused with cultural and moral relativism, I suggest that the University of Toronto is poised to eventually join those institutions where Jewish students will be viewed as “offensive” per se to Muslim students and other illiberal antagonists who apply double standards and factually incorrect legal and historical judgments against the Jewish State, and interpret Islam as holding Jews and Christians to be second class citizens, which is the real apartheid that your University will not allow to be discussed. Moral equivalency is not appropriate between liberal democrats and terror supporting illiberals.
While Howard may not be entirely correct in his predictions - then again he may be - what is certain is that if we don't have the freedom to make such frank and "un-nuanced" judgments, if we can't target ostensible evils like the Muslim Students Association for being under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, then it is inevitably the case that we will, sooner or later, see our free society erode into some more totalitarian arrangement. Freedom requires people being able to take stands, on one foot, and hence to push others into frank exchanges of our differences, rejecting some in favour of others. Free expression only exists where offensiveness exists, thankyou Howard -:) and a free future can only be made by someone playing the pushy "Jew", by someone, anyone, attempting to take a lead in revealing and constructing the new reality, or shared sign of our shared freedom.
Refusing to do this in the name of "nuance" is the way Gnostics - which is what most of today's acadmics are - war against reality. For it is inevitable that we can all sense that reality is far more nuanced that any possible representation of it that we can ever make to others can ever possibly be. But if we refuse to take seriously our never-possibly-complete representations of reality (because, gee, the Muslim Students Association, for example, is not all bad, whatever its links to Islamism and political violence), if we seek instead the Gnostic fantasy of overcoming all our hideously-limited representations of our shared reality, in some perfectly nuanced society, then we cannot ever really allow for the necessary leaps of faith in the free sharing of representations, by which any possibly decent future is actually to be built. "Nuance", while sometimes a good thing, becomes when it is offical policy a denial of the reality that we must take stands as incomplete persons.
If we give in to Gnosticism, to the dream of overcoming this hideoulsy incomplete and fallen world of conflicts and pushy people, by insisting on ever deferring to "nuance", and the experts who dictate it, we can never truly enjoy a shared freedom; we descend into "the dictatorship of relativism" where it's better not to choose, not to act, but just to accept the reigning hierarchies of "privilege" and "offendedness", the hierarchy that promotes itself as Utopian "tolerance" or "inclusivity" or "diversity", and that tolerates those who can claim to be righteous in their violent opposition of our unsatisfactorily-privileged representations of (incomplete) "reality".
For the Gnostic academy, no representation of Israel can be good enough. Israel is, for all its beauties, an imperfect society born of events whose meaning can never be settled; and instead of working to become perfectly nuanced and inclusive of all who make demands on it, it eventually poses to honest seekers an inescapable choice between competing ideas of God, competing notions of how people should be organized politically: in discrete nation-states, or in world-straddling Caliphates and/or multicultural empires. It asks us to choose the better over the less good, or the least bad over the worse, instead of just deferring to some "offended" dream as a way of not now choosing.
Rotberg denounces Naylor for refusing to see that we are in the midst of a global civil war where we have to chooose:
I feel such shame to have been associated with a University that feels that its facilities must be given to those who would destroy our freedoms, and one which fails to understand that tolerance is a two-way concept. Your moral equivalency is misplaced. Israel is the first front in a war that has already come to our shores. That war has nothing to do with “sharing” land, but is about an attempt to enforce Western submission to Islamic values, including Sharia Law.If Rotberg and I are right that we are in the midst of a global civil war, it is incumbent on everyone to ask which side or coalition is most likely to be able to represent a future peace? Under whose inevitably somewhat limited terms might Jews and Muslims and Christians and everyone else be best able to co-exist in individual freedom and global economic sufficiency? It is not enough to marginalzie the reality of deadly conflict that affects people around us and to pre-suppose peace by simply insisting on "diversity", "inclusiveness", "Islam", now! You either recognize the reality of inevitable conflict, or not. You either divorce yourself from reality by playing the Utopian Gnostic who is "against all violence and all racism", ignoring the costs to others of your playing the fool, the pacifist, or the PC speech enforcer; or you take a responsible position on which side or possible coalition is best able to lead us to a new shared reality and freedom, with yet not completely forseeable terms, recognizing that not everyone or everything can be included in the new terms of peace. We must maximize that freedom, that inclusiveness, but endlessly chanting "diversity", "inclusivenes" does not make it so. As Rotberg says, our sense of justice must overrule our sense of tolerance at times. Or better put, we can only be truly tolerant of others with whom we disagree when we take a clear stand for justice. Only then might one be a truly gracious, tolerant, leader, and not a slippery trickster.
I have recently written a book called TOLERism: The Ideology Revealed. You might be interested in reading it, although I must warn you that while Chapters Indigo carries 8 different titles by or about Noam Chomsky, my works have been banned by Canada’s monopoly book retailer because they are “offensive” to illiberals.
My grandparents and aunt were gassed to death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and my father was slave labour there and barely survived. For years, I felt that it was possible as a Jew to attend the University of Toronto and still publically adhere to the biblical value of justice. Unfortunately, in your quest for “tolerance” you have abnegated the historical values of our country, based on Justice being a more important value than Tolerance. My father and his family were certainly not helped by “Tolerance” and I dare say that a continuation of the trends at your university will make it impossible for my grandchildren to attend there. My daughter has two degrees from University of Toronto and my son-in-law has three degrees from U. of T. I believe that if present trends continue, no further members of my family will be able to attend University of Toronto. By abnegating all standards in the name of freedom and tolerance, and by failing to stand for Justice over Tolerance, you are party to the decline of a once-great university.
Please take me off all mailing lists for University of Toronto, University College, and the Faculty of Law, whether it be for financial solicitations, reports or magazines.
I am removing from my office wall my two degrees from University of Toronto. I shall be mailing them back to you.
Shame on you.
S. Howard Rotberg B.A., LL.B
Rotberg Development Group
Brantcord Group of Companies
Southern Ontario Affordable Housing Inc.
Literary website: www.howardrotberg.ca
Blog: http://secondgenerationradical.blogmatrix.com/
We must be able to narrow some roads from past to future, in order to open up others more capacious, knowing full well we may get things all wrong. This is our tragic human reality that no amount of feel-good rhetoric can overcome. Sooner or later, under the force of events, the university President's ability to ever temporize, will completely lose its footing. And then the question of whether he has left the university "community" any ground on which to stand and build an acceptable future will have to be faced. If you have been promised the moon, you will probably then have nothing. However, if you have been building on some incompletely-nuanced ground, you may well have something to work with. Rotberg's position is in no way complete unto itself; the quest for justice is never complete and final; but some such stand for individual and institutional responsibility is a necessary starting point for any hope of justice. Some others may have to mail in their degrees so that eventually not everyone will feel so obliged.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Geert Who?
The news out of the Geert Wilders show trial today is that the Dutch court is refusing to hear but three of the eighteen witnesses Wilders had wished to call.
What is one to make of this but that it shows an obvious desire on the part of the judges to keep things as quiet and short as possible. Once again we see that the "liberal" elites ruling the West simply cannot both defend their dogmatic positions on multiculturalism and "hate speech" without trying to shut up people who point out some of the deep problems with their ideology. And no problem is greater than the question of whether Islam, as it exists today in Europe, is compatible with European liberal democracy.
Diana West notes that it is not just the Dutch judges who don't want to hear too much about Islam, it is also the global media. One might have thought that when the government of a Western state puts on trial the Parliamentary leader of the party currently highest in the polls, this would be big news to those who supposedly pride themselves in chronicling and commenting on the ways of liberal democracy. Apparently not:
As for Geert Wilders, he apparently is not amused to be tried by judges who apparently suffer in fear of what they might hear and have to judge. Gates of Vienna reports Wilders' comments:
As usual, Walker provides a great roundup of Geert Wilders news.
What is one to make of this but that it shows an obvious desire on the part of the judges to keep things as quiet and short as possible. Once again we see that the "liberal" elites ruling the West simply cannot both defend their dogmatic positions on multiculturalism and "hate speech" without trying to shut up people who point out some of the deep problems with their ideology. And no problem is greater than the question of whether Islam, as it exists today in Europe, is compatible with European liberal democracy.
Diana West notes that it is not just the Dutch judges who don't want to hear too much about Islam, it is also the global media. One might have thought that when the government of a Western state puts on trial the Parliamentary leader of the party currently highest in the polls, this would be big news to those who supposedly pride themselves in chronicling and commenting on the ways of liberal democracy. Apparently not:
If anyone is puzzled as to why there is so little MSM coverage of this trial that is in the shameful and historic tradition of the trial of Galileo, the reason is unspoken, possibly unconscious media cowardice and embarassment: cowardice driven by the chilling effect of the experience of Kurt Westergaard and other critics of Islam under permanent death threat; and embarassment driven by intense discomfort with frank discussion of the gross incompatibility of basic Islamic beliefs with Western society.This reminded me of Paul Berman's conclusion to his celebrated 2007 New Republic essay on Tariq Ramadan:
In other words, this code of silence is the code of dhimmitude.
The [Salman] Rushdies of today find themselves under criticism, compared unfavorably in the press with the Islamist philosopher [Tariq Ramadan] who writes prefaces for the collected fatwas of Sheik al-Qaradawi, the theologian of the human bomb. Today the menace to society is declared to be Hirsi Ali and people of similar minds, of whom there are quite a few: John Stuart Mill's Muslim admirers, who are said to be just as fanatical as the fanatics. During the Rushdie affair, courage was saluted. Today it is likened to fascism [by the lefist establishment].
How did this happen? The equanimity on the part of some well-known intellectuals and journalists in the face of Islamist death threats so numerous as to constitute a campaign; the equanimity in regard to stoning women to death; the journalistic inability even to acknowledge that women's rights have been at stake in the debates over Islamism; the inability to recall the problems faced by Muslim women in European hospitals; the inability to acknowledge how large has been the role of a revived anti-Semitism; the striking number of errors of understanding and even of fact that have entered into the journalistic presentations of Tariq Ramadan and his ideas; the refusal to discuss with any frankness the role of Ramadan's family over the years; the accidental endorsement in the Guardian of the great-uncle who finds something admirable in the September 11 attacks--what can possibly account for this string of bumbles, timidities, gaffes, omissions, miscomprehensions, and slanders?
Two developments account for it. The first development is the unimaginable rise of Islamism since the time of the Rushdie fatwa. The second is terrorism.
As for Geert Wilders, he apparently is not amused to be tried by judges who apparently suffer in fear of what they might hear and have to judge. Gates of Vienna reports Wilders' comments:
“This court is apparently not interested in the truth. I cannot conclude anything but that the court does not award me a fair trial,” Geert Wilders said after the court in Amsterdam rejected fifteen of the eighteen witnesses chosen by him.The time is come when we all have to decide whether to shut up or face down our fear of the left-terrorist alliance.
“I have no respect for this,” Wilders added. He pointed out that in a typical criminal case there are often dozens of witnesses heard. He believes that his case, which he calls a matter of great principle, would also deserve that. Otherwise he cannot prove that he has spoken the truth with the statements that led to his prosecution.
As usual, Walker provides a great roundup of Geert Wilders news.
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