Fisk and Canadian Muslims

Fisk:

I was given the chance to talk to 600 Muslim Canadians a few days ago. The dinner was in an Ottawa banqueting room and the guests also included the imam of the Ottawa mosque, the Ottawa chief of police and sundry uniformed Canadian army officers.

The imam sat between me and the Canadian capital's top cop ? a genuinely decent guy who wanted Muslim Canadians to regard him as a friend ? and we were even able to joke about the reality of those "random checks" which Muslims of Middle Eastern origin and a certain R Fisk seem to receive at North American airports. All well and good, then, until I got up to speak.

I warned the audience they might not like all they heard from me. And sure enough, when I told the audience that they were perfectly at liberty to condemn Israel and America ? indeed, that they should condemn both when they abuse human rights, occupy other people's countries and shoot innocent civilians ? but that I wanted to know why I so rarely heard them condemn the vicious police states in the Middle East and other areas of south-west Asia from which they originally came, I was greeted with silence. A smattering of Muslim diplomats sat like statues, thus identifying the cruelty of their regimes. The only immediate applause came when I remarked that the moment Western soldiers started shooting at Muslims in Muslim lands, it was time for the soldiers to withdraw.

Two interesting phenomena emerged from this remark. The first was that, when I finished, both the police chief and the Canadian army officers joined the applause. Canada's hopeless military involvement in Afghanistan is a subject of considerable controversy within the Canadian military. When the politicians have had their say, I've discovered, soldiers usually let us know their views.

Much more revealing, however, was the long car journey I took next day across the frozen tundra of Canada during which two Muslim Canadian men ? yes, yes, they had beards ? explained to me just why their community was so silent about the iniquities perpetrated by their local dictatorships back home. I had suggested that they were rather too beholden to those regimes ? for funding and political support. They agreed ? up to a point.

"Mr Robert, you have to understand something," the driver suddenly said. "They have their 'mukhabarat' agents here in Canada. Whenever there is even a dispute between families, anyone who's angry can report back that his antagonist is anti-regime. We have to remember that we have families still in our Arab countries. They can be arrested. Or we can be arrested when we go back to visit them."

Of course. Only a Westerner ? only someone who automatically assumes that anyone with a Canadian passport is safe ? could have failed to spot the flaw in the country's brave multiethnic society: not that Canada's vast communities from every part of the world live in the land of the free ? which they do ? but that their freedom is frighteningly circumscribed by the ruthlessness and lack of freedom in the countries from which they came.

And so I began to learn what it is like to be an Arab Canadian. It takes only a local argument to have an email winging its way back to Tripoli or Cairo or Damascus or the Gulf, informing the local despots that their dual citizen ? Mohamed or Hassan or Abdulrahman or whatever ? is a potential subversive and, ergo, a terrorist. And, so great is the co-operation between our beloved Western intelligence agencies and the torturers of these repulsive dictatorships that this "intelligence" is shared.

So only days after the original message has gone off to the Arab world, the "mukhabarat" privately tell the Canadian intelligence service ? a truly silly institution called CSIS ? that Mohamed or Hassan or Abdulrahman is a "terrorist". At which point, Mohamed or Hassan or Abdulrahman come under observation from CSIS as potentially dangerous terrorists in Canada.

At which point I realised exactly why my remarks in the Ottawa banqueting hall were greeted with a frozen silence. It isn't long ago, for example, that Maher Arar, who lives in Canada, was picked up by the FBI's goons while in transit at JFK airport and "renditioned" to an underground prison and torture in Syria, courtesy of information provided by CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The Canadian government subsequently awarded Arar $10m for this outrageous experience. But who wants to speak out against one's country of origin if it's going to end in the company of a well-trained torturer?

Just as Tariq Ali revealed the darkness behind the Bhutto legend in the London Review of Books last year, so my favourite lawyer, Gareth Peirce ? she of In the Name of the Father fame ? has now shone her crimson torch upon the British version of these iniquitous goings on.

In the same publication, she has given the most detailed account so far of the fraudulent British promises given to Arabs who chose to return to their savage homelands ? rather than languish under a form of house arrest in the UK ? that they would be neither tortured nor imprisoned after they went home.

When Benaissa Taleb and Rida Dendani were packed off back to Algeria, for instance, a British diplomat had promised that they would be detained for only a few hours. But they were both interrogated and beaten for 12 days in Algiers before being sentenced to years in prison. When Dendani appealed desperately to the British Special Immigration Appeals Commission, the SIAC didn't even bother to reply. And there was no reason why they should.

As Peirce has now revealed from court papers, private memoranda between the Home Office and Anthony Blair (I am truly sorry that I must mention this wretched man's name again), a caution from civil servants about the probable torture to which deported Egyptians might be subjected if sent to Cairo, was greeted by our former prime minister with the words: "Get them back." In reference to the Home Office's concern that Egyptian assurances could not be trusted, Blair wrote: "This is a bit much. Why do we need all these things?"

Am I the only one to react to the preachy, hypocritical sermon by this detestable man at Westminster Cathedral on Thursday with something more than disgust? Because it is his callous, immoral reaction to that deportation case ? and the response of countless political leaders like him ? towards Muslims in Europe and North America that led to that cold, hollow, frightening silence in the Ottawa banqueting hall. If I had been among the audience, I now realise, I would have remained silent too.

 

Robert Fisk - The Independant 08-25-07

But ? here we go. I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster ? which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.

I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers ? whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C ? would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower ? the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) ? which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7. Two prominent American professors of mechanical engineering ? very definitely not in the "raver" bracket ? are now legally challenging the terms of reference of this final report on the grounds that it could be "fraudulent or deceptive".

 

Life's a bitch, it's very true. One thing, though: You have lived a strange life, considering your place of birth and age

We live now in perhaps the most volatile era since we "fancy" humans began speaking of "civilization."

What is a Muslim? What is a Christian?

How many muslims live in North America?

How many Christians live in the Middle East?

Extra bonus question: Which countries allow 0 (zero) places of worship which are not considered native?

 

thats a good question uncles.
but., here is another one.
Who is faster multiplying christians or muslims?

 

It is the same, sad true story; Once again religious extremism struggles for power over the forms of government.
Even before the time over the objections of Charlemagne's "confirmation" by coronation of the local bishop, the medicine-man has confirmed his power over the big chief, the high priest and soothsayer consulted the king and pharaoh alike to influence and redirect the will of the people and their leaders.

How easily the "born again Christian" , Tony Blair can condemn a group to torture and worse, how easily one group can murder another when "God is on Our Side" or when it has been declared there is no god and all that matters is the State.

The attempt and many times success of silencing the refugee outside the borders of the home country has always exsisted.

Cubans, Hungarians, Czechoslovakians, Russians, Chinese in the US and Europe were always looking over their shoulder when wanting to say something about the situation and why they left.
It was always those very few who had nothing and no one left who could speak-out the most.

I hope your words had a lasting impact on those people who listened.

Unfortunately those "tony blairs" of the world are strangling the media and doing a most effective job.

Good Luck.

 

I was curious myself, so here go the results (calculated after CIA factbook):

USA: 301mln people, 0.06% muslims, -> 1.8mln
Middle East: ~240mln, ~14mln christians -> 5.6%
(definition: egypt to iran)

But it is true that the number of native christians in the last 20 years is drastically falling, as the number of 'christian' soldiers there grows

Ah, I would very much support such a law everywhere. The distinction bulgarian laws make between native religions and others which are more difficult to register, build new churches,etc. - are regularly attacked by some USA senators who pass by. Undemocratic, breaking human rights, all the usual shit.

Why exactly american politicians shout about this?
Because the only aggressive religions that try to expand to others' territory are the protestant churches. With them religion, business and cultural submission works together. Another global american brand proselytising and assimilating across the globe.

I would say breaking human rights is to try to replace somebody's roots with a McChurch at best, or an abusive sect, as many who came here were.

 

OK, fair enough, my friend Sometimes I forget that you're a mathematician, grrr. I will be more careful when constructing my normally casual and informal arguments! (Well, one can always hope. But I love love my liberal and therefore often emotionally charged educational background.)

Let me explain -- before sinking deeper into this mire -- that I am neither a religious nor spiritual man, do not practice any religion, and have not done so since I reached adulthood (~13). I am a secular humanist.

But I grow weary of continually reading cookie-cutter, oh-so-predictable opinion pieces about the West, and about the USA and Britain in particular, which tend in general to be wholesale condemnations. Man, we could all probably make millions by shitting out predictable pieces of advertised "insight," "cleverness," "brutally honest non-partisan reporting."

I guess the point I wanted to make last night but didn't is that it is much easier for those of the Islamic faith to practice their beliefs in the USA and Canada than it is for our citizens to safely practice Christianity in such geopolitically pivotal places as Saudi Arabia. I pick on the Saudis because I don't like them. Yes, I really don't like that nation

Well, here is an anecdotal example. Recently I attended a non-religious meeting on the grounds of a very liberal Christian church. The church leader is a popular lesbian or something. At any rate, I began a conversation with a group of Pakistanis who were using the church as a meeting place for their community on a regular basis. There are mosques here, but too far away for these folks. Now, because I personally live through these experiences, I form my opinions and conclude that (for now) I am not living in a country that discriminates against followers of Islam.

Oh, f**k. Sometimes I really worry about the intellectual capabilities of people these days.

Hehe Look, man, maybe you guys have had problems with Protestant proselytism, I don't know. You perceive this to be a wide American conspiracy and not simply the work of a few overly religious, rather fanatical persons?

It's true that many of our USA politicians are crazy, but I reject the idea that such fanaticism is common. Yes, I know about the current Bush, but here you generalize again.

Again, I see here an anger directed at something that I do not know. In my experience, very few in the USA are religious, let alone maniacally devoted to spreading Christianity.

I don't know, it is possible that some fanatical USA religious sects are wandering around in Eastern Europe and causing problems. Is that what you mean? I have met Americans who visit Eastern Europe and say they talk about spreading Christianity, but in my mind they are always a little crazy.

 

Well, the majority of americans that come here (and some even learned to speak an obscure language such as bulgarian!) come with this purpose. What are we supposed to think?
OUR religions stopped proselytising somewhere in the 13th century (christianity) or 18th century (islam). If somebody knocks on your door to talk about God, you know it is a protestant, a fresh stolen soul or directly parachuted from the US.

In Sofiia I live with some deeply religious people. But they would never talk about their beliefs if you dont inquire about it. For them it is simply rude to do that.
It is demeaning for their own religion to be selling it like pizza.

The american sects, doesnt matter mormons, masons, Moons, pentecostals, scientologists, etc etc. come here with business-like ambitions, with all the marketing, advertising and psychological skills they've studied from american corporations (those, by the way, come over with the same aggression). They are backed by lots of resources back home, which are overwhelming for us, with $100-$200 monthly salary.
They come to expand, conquer and steal souls and influence.


so the government is trying (not very hard) to put defences against the expansion of all those sects.

what happens then?
american officials, whether the ambassador or a visiting senator, condemn the anti-democratic practices and limiting of religious freedoms. they urge that all religions must be at equal footing. that 'supporting some religions over others should cease'. (in Bulgaria, Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, Catholicism and Armenian Monophysitism are considered native religions and the state gives some annual funding for maintaining their temples and institutions. americans want to stop this support).


But just the american ambassador's insolence to show on national TV and preach what we should do and what not, is insulting enough to the population. He does that often enough. Every time something is undemocratic or not respecting freedoms or human rights. (i wonder if i google these cliches probably 90% will be said by americans)


I remember when he was all the time speaking against the bulgarian judicial system. One day there was senior judges and prosecutors conference about reforms in the system. He came in and sat on the first row (uninvited). At that moment, the Prosecutor-General who was giving the opening speech on the tribune, stopped talking, came down and along with the constitutional court magistrates demonstratively walked out of the hall. (this was on the news for days)

I mean, he might be right in what he says, but who is he? the local satrap of the american shah?



Even the Soviets didnt allow themselves such impudence. They might have defined the entire politics of the country, but they spoke about that to Jivkov in a closed room. On the tribune Brejnev would thank Todor Jivkov and the brother bulgarian people for inviting him to visit this great country.



Today I read in the news Obama's address to the new candidate-ambassador to Bulgaria. He instructed her personally and openly to mess in the internal affairs of the country:
"Mrs Macledawny, you should work aggressively to guarantee that Bulgaria will not retreat from democracy like some other countries in Eastern Europe did. The institutions and the judicial system need assistance and support to keep Bulgaria on its course of complete euroatlantic integration."


But I shouldnt really complain. At least, I am not being democratised by GIs.

 

It's hard to say no when the travelling religion salesman comes to the door eh?
Over here [right next to the USA, so yeah, we get the whackos lecturing at bus stops and holding little books at the train station] we have learned a simple technique to ward them off:
Say "No thanks."
As far as an ambassador attending bishop's conferences or whatever it is called? Listen, there is another warding method: By Invitation Only.
Always make sure to tell stupid people how stupid they are. They learn to not be stupid that way. Well, no actually, they don't.
Sorry

 

Me, being uninterested in current available religions, take amusement from 'door knocka saviours' from time to time when I feel I have enough time left.
I am not totally off regarding religions, because of the fact that I have studied some of them.

It's quite fun when you can entwine 'would-be' saviours using thier own technique/credo usw. It might be considered rude, but if they can't speak for their sake enough, maybe they should not try to do 'saviouring' that way?

...come to think of it, it's been a few years since last visit. Either they have ruled me out as a complete loss, or they are bz honing their talktech...

 

Danm, in a funny way, this morning I found myself again being sentimental for the Cold War

Hmm, I remember meeting our old ambassador to Bulgaria back in the '80s. Man, when I studied Bulgarian it was not to spread religion, hehe. Ah, one can't help but grow sentimental when one has become irrelevant

Personally, I agree with you. If some wild-eyed fanatic claiming to hold the secret to heavenly salvation knocks on my door, I politely dismiss them.

However, I do not insult them. They have rights to believe what they believe, just as do the Islamists with whom I so often disagree.

True.

I did not know this. If you feel comfortable doing so, please send me some info as I'd like to know more. But giving you the benefit of the doubt, as we say, I apologize on behalf of my country.

Hmm, I see. I thank you for sharing this info.

 

maybe you should try to look farther than your own nose?
from another forum:
"често в тези секти привличат или по-точно зарибяват нещастни хора,хора,които са претърпели някакви нещастия и са останали самотни в живота. Преди няколко години си продадохме вилата точно на такова момиче,претърпяло операция от рак на двете гърди,без родители, които са починали и без близки. Милата,имала жилище,но са я принудили от сектата да го продаде и да дари парите на тях. И за това момичето търсеше някаквъв по-евтин и изгоден вариант. Мисля,че в болницата са я обработили да стане част от тях. Казали й ,че Господ ще й помогне и ще оздравее. Стана ми много тъжно,защото момиче беше тотално объркано и мозъка й беше промит до неузнаваемост. Не знам какво става сега с нея,но често се сещам и си казвам,че може би там е намерила някаква утеха за себе си,въпреки ,че тази секта е една от най- гадните за мен. Свидетели на Йехова "

"often in these sects they attract, or rather, lure wretched people, people who have suffered from some misfortunes or they have been left lonely in their lives. A few years ago we sold our cottage to a girl exactly like this. It had gone through surgery of cancer of both her breasts, had no parents, they had passed away, no close people (relatives). The poor thing had a home, but from the sect they forced her to sell it and donate the money to them. So the girl was looking for some cheaper way to live. I think they had worked on her in the hospital to become one of them. They were talking to her about God helping her to get healthy again. It became very sad for me, because that girl was totally mixed up and her brain was so much washed. I dont know what is happening with her now, but often I remember about her and hope maybe she has found some comfort for herself there, after all. although this sect is one of the most disgusting for me. Jehova witnesses"

 

i cant find information - i was reading these things in the bulgarian newspapers before i go to UK a few years ago.

but there is a plenty of more areas where happens the same. i think the one of the worst side effects of the Cold War was that it made the US's preaching its 'values' abroad almost into an unconscious habit.

the most funny recent example was, when some local NGO financed by the USA put up lots highly provocative billboards across the highways of Macedonia to promote homosexualism. men kissing men, lesbians holding each other, apparently one even featured a threesome.
It became big scandal in the macedonian press, the government had to dispatch teams to take the billboards down. Even the macedonian president had to issue a statement.
i've posted this before - here


make sure to read the second post (from an american journalist based on the Balkans)

"U.S. grants totaling $50,000 were given to three NGOs in Macedonia, Croatia, and the Kyrgyz republic for projects clearly described as advocating a gay lifestyle in their grant requests and in the State Department's approval documents."

and here is spelled out for you one mechanisms of imperialistic politics:
"These grants were given under the Democracy Commission, a program providing low-level funding to indigenous NGOs supporting the transition to free-market economies and democratic policies.
instituted in 1994 by the Clinton administration, is available in 27 countries. Individual grants cannot exceed $24,000. Last year, total funding in Central and Eastern Europe under this program was $4.5 million"

So Cold War still operates even if the other side capitulated? I wonder if Russia still funds communist organisations in your place?

 

Wow. I have met thousands of Jehova's Witnesses. I have known dozens of Jehova's witnesses Intimately, having a grandparent who was raised that way, but the grandparent stopped being a church goer over time, see? after he [and granny] had to face a few things, like his daughter having a child out of wedlock, at 15, in 1954, a son who is as gay as a Spring Festival, alcoholism mass unemployment, anti-communist which hunts in the 50s [my grand-dad was an active union member], his desire to celibrate christmas with his grandchilden, his brother's decision to run and be elected pro-labour, his wife's desire to get blood transfusions when she lay later a bad car wreck...
I do not know one single person who has refused a blood transfusion. ALL of my family members and, indeed, friends of theirs 'in the community' who needed them, quietly and without any fuss, got them. And it was against their rules. But you know something? There are lots of things people do that are proscribed by religion. People, for the most part, just want to be middle class, have good jobs, maybe a sailboat, live in peace and belive in something. When something you belive in is a bit inconvenient at times, then you gotta make choices, but life goes on without church. And people find that out, if they are smart.

Anyway, never mind that. I have known many many Jehova's witnesses and they have as much or as little deviation from societal norms as everyone, everywhere. There are lost sheep everywhere who have things, moneys and souls stolen from them, or dealt away, you will find them in gangs and cults and The Lunchroom At Work.
Example:
I do not know one single Jehova's Witness who ever gave his or her things away as any sort of condition of membership or to be potlatched or any of that sort of thing. I know, and know well, many many middle-class people and families who eat steak every day, have four cars parked in the driveway kids with orthodontics and soccer trips, a dog in the back yard, dad building a sailboat.


There are saints of The Holy Church who gave their shit away and retreated into caves or went to stay under a bridge. There are saints who refused offers of clemency if they would only renounce. But didn't, so they died. Dumb.
There are dumb people who lose things sometimes by violence and sometimes by faulty process and sometimes through negligence and there is always an opportunist to spirit the goods away.

I hope that silly woman is okay.

Blah blah blah. Sry

 

Why evangelists (protestants) invest so much resources and effort to send missionaries outsides their home countries? Because there it is not as easy to say 'No thanks' as in the self-confident developed world.

This american linguist who works in the Andes and had to deal personally with the results of evangelism, expressed it better than I could:


... Missionary activity is just another brick in the wall, and can have a much wider psychological impact on indigenous peoples than missionaries seem to realise, destroying more of their own culture and hastening complete assimilation to mainstream, imported Western culture.

Missionaries would also do well to bear in mind the realities behind what they see as their ?success? (counted in converts). For this is achieved in a context where they too are exploiting the relative weakness and lack of self-confidence of indigenous cultures when faced with socially dominant and more prestigious cultural traits brought in from outside (of which religion is one). Why do so many missionaries prefer to leave Western countries, where there are still plenty of people whose ?souls they could try to save?? Because people at home are harder to convert, because they?re already wise to the missionaries? real objectives, and don?t come from a culture that is of relatively weaker standing than that of the missionaries, and therefore less able to resist the pressure and attractions of an outside culture. (Don?t forget, too, that U.S. evangelists in particular come armed with sometimes hefty financial support from donations from home, which can represent very significant sums of money in the context of a poor Andean village.)

...

Go to Incahuasi (Inkawasi), one of very few last endangered bastions of Quechua in northern Peru, and speak to the locals there. As soon as they heard that I was a linguist, their response was ?Ah, you mean a missionary?? Why did it take me so long to persuade them that I really wasn?t? Why could they not simply just take me at my word and trust me? Because they were too used to people arriving and deliberately, misleadingly describing themselves as linguists, but who eventually revealed their true colours as missionaries.

...

The only reassuring aspect of the missionaries? ?success? is that as often as not it?s actually them that are being taken for a ride instead. Many of their converts are not daft, and are happy to change the religious ?club? that they nominally belong to if it can get them some tangible practical benefits. Catholicism, this brand of Evangelism, that brand of Evangelism, what do they care? It is not unusual to see tiny towns in the Andes with churches for a panoply of half a dozen different evangelical sects or more.

...

For a first reality check, here is something that may come as a shock to many neutral readers, as it did to me when I first realised it. There is an organisation which calls itself the Summer Institute of Linguistics (sil, or in Spanish the Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, ilv), associated also with a website that classifies the world?s languages, called the Ethnologue. The very names they have chosen for themselves are indicative of the fact that these two organisations deliberately misrepresent themselves ? so much so that it took me several years to realise who they really were. They deliberately play down and even hide the fact that their fundamental goal is not linguistic research.

If you look hard enough though, you will find out what these two organisations are in reality. Essentially they are American evangelical missionary movements whose real goal is to translate the Bible into as many of the world?s languages as they can (the Ethnologue?s categorisation of languages includes notes of whether their speakers are or are not ?evangelised?). Whatever you think of the merits or demerits of that goal is not even the real point here. It is the fact that these movements so deliberately avoid coming clean on who they are and what they are trying to do. Why on earth? This alone cannot help putting even the neutral reader at considerable unease. And this is not just institutional: I have also had first‑hand experience of a number of missionaries in the Andes who ?did not speak their name?, and presented themselves simply as ?linguists?, when in reality what they were there for was conversion, not linguistics.

Far, far worse accusations have actually been levelled at the so‑called Summer Institute of Linguistics. I have no idea about these, or whether they are true or not, and I have no comment to make on them at all. ...

these are listed in wikipedia here

 

it is indeed a very different country.
here i do not know a single family like that.

 

This land prospers.
Come on over and get a job driving a truck, eat steak every day and keep telling everyone around you how backward and provincial we North American English Speakers are. While you are making everyone around you feel guilty for NOT being immersed in crippling poverty you can send chump change to your relatives back home with the letters you send them telling them how pissed off you are becuase the 'pool guy' did a crappy job of pressure washing the concrete and how are you going to explain the green slime on the deck.... and then it will occur to you, and you will chuckle: The people coming to visit are truck drivers and their wives, men just like yourself, except that you are classy and well educated and Worth SOmething, instead of being just a truck driver, no wait.
Uh.
... drowning in poverty