when-truth-becomes-poisonous

February 10, 2015 10:42 am By Robert Spencer Leave a Comment

When truth becomes poisonous
by Michael Devolin

“All truths that are kept silent become poisonous.” –Nietzsche

Apparently, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM, formerly known as Canadian Council on American Relations, or CAIR-CAN) and the Canadian Muslim Lawyer’s Association (CMLA) have taken issue with Prime Minister Harper in regards to a speech he made recently in Richmond Hill, Ont., for having “implicated Canadian mosques as venues where terrorism is advocated or promoted.” Well, wherever did PM Harper get that idea? Their reaction reminds me of the old saying, “There is something about a cupboard that makes a skeleton terribly restless.”

Have the NCCM and the CMLA never heard of the Islamic Jaffari Centre in Thornhill, Ont., where a play was performed not too long ago in which children acted out a decapitation? They’ve never heard of Imam Aly Hindy and the Salaheddin Islamic Centre in Toronto? An article by Toronto Sun journalist Al Warmington back in Feb 17, 2012 informs us that Hindy’s mosque, as reported by the RCMP, is “a focal point for Toronto-area Islamic radicals.” Mr. Warmington reveals that Imam Hindy “has been under fire for his friendship with the Khadr family,” the Canadian version of Islamist aristocracy. Imam Hindy is also known to have refused to sign letters of condemnation against terror attacks and purports that 9/11 was a conspiracy carried out by the American CIA. It is also believed that certain congregants of his mosque have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. Raheel Raza, recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal for service to Canada, tells the story about “…the mother of one of my children’s classmates of Pakistani origin, asked me why my kids sang the Canadian national anthem when it is haram, forbidden. Upon asking where she got that information, she confessed that the imam of the local mosque had told the congregation that it was against the faith to sing the national anthem, or, indeed, to show loyalty to Canada.”

Sharon Boase, way back in 2005, reported in the Hamilton Spectator that Hussein Hamdani, a lawyer and local activist, advised a Commons subcommittee on national security that “Muslim Canadians who want to stop being the targets of racial profiling must begin by ridding their own communities of radicalism and intolerance” and that “Mosques and Muslim groups need a ‘zero tolerance’ policy toward the demonization of other faith and ethnic groups, such as Jews and Christians, and should stop dwelling on the plight of Muslims in other parts of the world.” It is worth noting here that one of the groups “advising” that same subcommittee back in 2005, who cautioned Canadian authorities to “stop criminalizing Islam and start working with Muslims, for instance as intelligence officers,” was the now disgraced Canadian Arab Federation whose charitable status was rescinded by then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney, who described the CAF as “anti-Semitic and radical.”
W.H. Auden wrote, “A proof tells us where to concentrate our doubts.” Well, Canadians like me know where to concentrate our doubts. We have been asked for too long to overlook the obvious: Islam is becoming a big problem for Western democracies; Islam was destined to become, sooner or later, a big problem for Western democracies. This is a religion not accustomed nor ever intended to accommodate anything political or religious outside its cultural parameters. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed writes, “It is no coincidence that the Arabs have succeeded in imposing Islam on many nations, to the point where today the religion has approximately 1,400,000,000 followers. Islam’s genetic code is directed towards a steadfast war to impose Muhammad’s religion on the entire world by means of the sword. To achieve this goal, everything is legitimate. The nations they conquered realized this, and opted to convert to Islam rather than die.” Small wonder, then, that Prime Minister Harper might assume mosques to represent a contributing factor, whether inadvertently or otherwise, to the Islamist threat to Canada’s national security. But, as usual, the “honour brigade” (to borrow a phrase from the Washington Post writer Asra Q. Nomani) comes out to label him an “Islamophobe” for making national security a higher priority than the sensibilities of those who are more concerned about Islam’s image than they are about the personal safety of Canadian citizens. Asra Q. Nomani summarizes: “Islam, as practiced from Malaysia to Morocco, is a shame-based, patriarchal culture that values honor and face-saving from the family to the public square. Which is why the bullying often works to silence critics of Islamic extremism.”

A New Delhi Times editorial (Jan 3, 2015) reveals: “In a concerning revelation, several mosques in Canada have been found to incite hatred against the Canadian government’s involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East, for assisting the US in killing fellow Muslims. In recent times, there has been a proliferation of extremist Muslims becoming the religious in-charge of Mosques in Canada. Most of Muslim religious leaders in Canada openly say that their religious affiliations are much superior to their nationality and openly speak of an Islamic brotherhood. Such Islamic leaders with communal and fundamentalist dispositions have made easy inroads into a number of mosques in Canada.” And again, “The Canadian government is seen to be quite aware of these threats originating from the mosque, but due to the principles of multiculturalism and the associated laws that govern in Canada, the local law enforcement agencies are not able to do much to curb the growing terrorists in Canada.” So, apparently—according to this editorial—PM Harper is justified in “profiling” mosques as a possible breeding ground of Islamist hatred. I’m just happy Canada now has a Prime Minister focused more on the national security of this country than on the perverse happiness of those Islamist hiding in our midst, who want no part in this country, never mind a future for it.

Obfuscating the truth does not eradicate its potency nor disable the dangers it warns of. Truths kept silent and suppressed, especially those warning of malefic elements within a society or within a religious community, become poisonous; they become poisonous the moment they achieve taboo status. Such truths are toxicant in that they are distressful and disconcerting for those who oppose their censor, who know that the censor of such truths enables malefic elements within a society or within a religious community to achieve their political and/or religious goal of preponderance.
Michael Devolin has been a member of JDL Canada since the 1980s, and has served as the personal bodyguard to Meir Weinstein, National Director of JDL Canada, at several high-profile trials, including the Jim Keegstra hate crimes trial and the Imra Finta war crimes trial.