The Jihad of the Word
According to Syrian revolutionary thinker Said Hawwa in his influential book Min Ajl Khutwa (English: For the Sake of a Step), jihad may come in three flavors: by heart, by word, and by hand, a tripartite distinction derived from the hadith literature. The jihad of the heart is an ambiguous formulation: it can mean self-discipline or the passion and steadfastness applied to waging war. The jihad of the hand (also known as the jihad of the sword) is the most conspicuous in virtue of its immediate destructiveness. But the jihad of the word — of indoctrination, propaganda, and institutional infiltration — is perhaps even more menacing since it operates virally, as it were, infecting the organs of the open society with a view to its gradual demise.
In trying to resolve the predicament in which we find ourselves, to protect a way of life which is under attack and which we have far too long taken for granted, we would need to arrive at a means not only of averting terrorist assaults — the jihad of the hand — but of resisting the jihad of the word. This means, among other things, countering the mispractice of “lawfare,” the deployment of frivolous and vindictive legal suits with the twofold intention of (a) blocking all criticism of Islam and (b) preventing the exposure of those who, whether explicitly or implicitly, abet the terrorists’ aims.
In an article for the American Spectator Brooke Goldstein shows how lawfare is a form of “legal jihad,” a technique for manipulating the courts to silence critics of Islam. This relies heavily on the practice of “forum shopping” or “libel tourism” whereby plaintiffs “bring actions in jurisdictions most likely to rule in their favor.” Goldstein mentions one Rabiah Ahmed, a staffer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who acknowledged such lawsuits as an “instrument” in CAIR’s bag of tricks.
Here in Canada, we have the travesty of our Human Rights Commissions, tribunals which can be accessed and mobilized free of charge — that is, at taxpayers’ expense — by anyone with a complaint against ostensibly libelous or hate-provoking action, speech, or script. The defendant is presumed guilty from the start and must pay his own legal costs. Originally established to protect tenants against unscrupulous landlords and prevent discrimination on the worksite, these commissions, with the complicity of politically correct bureaucrats and profiteering human rights lawyers, have now been largely monopolized by offended Muslims who are intent on suppressing criticism of their faith, preachings, or actions, in other words, on muzzling free speech. For close scrutiny, as they rightly fear, will often lead to bad press.
They rely on Section 13.1 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which defines hate speech as “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.” The formulation is so nebulous that it can be successfully applied against almost anything in print, which indicates that the tribunals are akin to kangaroo courts and show trials. There are always people, after all, ready to feel misprized by something they may happen to see, hear, or read. As a result, human rights are materially abrogated by Human Rights, rendered hollow by the very bodies created to uphold them. When one of the commission’s investigators, a certain Dean Steacy, was asked what value he ascribed to freedom of speech, he replied: “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.”
We should keep in mind that these commissions are unelected tribunals with no accountability under law, are not bound by the presumption of innocence or the rules of evidence, are ready to accept unqualified witnesses for the prosecution, permit uninvolved third parties to file complaints, admit hearsay, are staffed by untrained and incompetent judges, do not require that the willful promotion of hatred be proven or that plaintiffs be present, are consistently unfavorable to the objections of the defense, accept anonymous posts on YouTube as evidence, and, in sum, do not operate under the normal procedures of the criminal justice system.
But although these tribunals are not real courts, they wield real power: the right to impose fines, to prohibit the defendant from speaking out, to demand formal apologies, and to prescribe jail sentences if these conditions are violated. The Human Rights Commission is essentially a contemporary revival of the notorious Camera Stellata, or Star Chamber, which sat at Westminster until 1641, enacting its arbitrary rulings on politically motivated charges.
We need not go back to 1641 for paradigms. The Star Chamber has become a modern phenomenon. There is, for example, an uncanny and troubling resemblance between our HRC procedures and the implementation of the Pakistani blasphemy laws, introduced in the 1980s by the dictator General Zia-ul-Haq and enshrined in Section 295-C of the Pakistan legal code, which dispenses with valid evidence, accepts unfounded allegations brought by one individual against another, requires no proof of intent, and does not adequately define “blasphemy.”
In one particular case, reported by Benedict Rogers of the Terrorism Awareness Project, the impressive length of the accuser’s beard was sufficient to persuade the judge of the man’s moral rectitude and the truth of his accusation. The judicial practice of our commissions is, at bottom, no less risible.
The latest CHRC sally into the theater of the absurd is its prosecution of a former member of Parliament, Jim Pankiw, who was harshly critical of the high First Nations crime rate in his home province of Saskatchewan. One of the commission’s sock puppets, Derek A. Smith, an assistant professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, found that the color of ink used in the MP’s correspondence indicated discrimination and latent racism. Pankiw has now learned to his cost that black and red ink on white paper constitutes a mockery of aboriginal iconography and is tantamount to a cultural offense. “One could hardly claim,” Smith charged, “that the symbolism in this pamphlet is not inflammatory.” Monty Python could scarcely do better. That particular parrot is surely dead.
Thankfully, several high-profile cases were recently aborted. The imam who lodged a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission against the editor of the Western Standard, Ezra Levant, for republishing the Danish cartoons, thought better of it and withdrew his claim, though not until Levant, harassed for almost three years, was $100,000 out of pocket. The Muslim-instigated case against political writer Mark Steyn and Maclean’s current affairs magazine, which ran an excerpt from Steyn’s brilliant America Alone, was dismissed by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, after much adverse publicity, on the flimsy pretext that it lacked jurisdiction over printed material (which did not prevent it from issuing a statement that it “strongly condemns the Islamophobic [sic] portrayal of Muslims”).
Further details regarding these ludicrous proceedings, which I have only sketched out here, can be gleaned from Levant’s new book Shakedown: How Our Government Is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights. More recently, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, which spent five years investigating a hate speech complaint against B’nai Brith Canada, prompted by an anonymous and absent tipster and based on the secret report of an equally anonymous “expert,” eventually concluded there was “no reasonable basis in the evidence” for the case. In this way, our so-called Human Rights Commissions cut their losses in order to live and persecute another day.
Clearly, considerable and entirely unnecessary damage is done by so skewed a parallel legal system, essentially a form of secular Sharia. These tribunals continue to stress that group rights retain precedence over other human rights and do not recognize that freedom of expression is a Charter value. Nothing daunts a Human Rights Commission. Its latest bit of mischief is the attempt to influence the courts to accept a Muslim woman’s right to be veiled during a judicial proceeding. It has no compunction allowing a masked plaintiff or witness to trump the Charter right to a fair and open trial.
We are truly in danger of losing many of our cherished rights and freedoms in this country. A working group of American university and college professors, members of the American Political Science Association, think so too. They have objected to Toronto as the site for the Association’s 2009 conference, having come to believe, in the words of spokesman Bradley Watson, “Canada to be a problematic destination.” Cognizant of the “Canadian attacks on freedom of speech,” he feels it is “unacceptable … to risk exposing [our] members to them.”
“In the hands of barbarians,” writes Andrew C. McCarthy in Willful Blindness, the law “is an offensive weapon.” As brandished by “our swelling nomiocracy,” it has become a dangerous liability. “In the war against radical Islam,” he warns, if we fail to understand how the law can be manipulated to our disadvantage, “we are shrinking from our highest duty: to protect lives.” And, as it should go without saying, to defend “the core aspects of Western liberalism: self-determination, freedom of choice, freedom of conscience, equality under the law.”
Similarly, when asked in an interview what radical Islam portends for America, Joseph Hakim, vice president of the International Christian Union, replied: “Radical Islamists will never be integrated into American society. They will grow like a cancer, but let us not be fooled by them. They are well educated and lavishly funded. And they know when to wear suits and pretend to conform while seeking to destroy our economy [and] to exploit our system of government.” Hakim knows whereof he speaks, having observed firsthand the systematic abuse of Christian populations in Arab lands and the various methods by which radical Muslims are able to infest the body politic. According to this authority, what is at stake is the integrity of government and the health of the economy, but these are undermined most effectively through the subversion of our judicial system.
The conclusion is self-evident. Not until our legal institutions can properly calibrate the balance between human rights and freedom of speech and thought — and in the process remember that free speech is a primary human right — will so rudderless a society as ours make any real headway against the Islamic jihad and those who would stifle our ability to think, speak, and act.
Indeed, if we do not move to annul the jihad of the word, the jihad of the hand may no longer be necessary.
Excellent article.
The process is already far advanced in this country, only not very visibly yet. Here also, like in Canada, the only “religion” that is protected is Islam, and the only ones ever slandered, attacked or prosecuted are Christians:
- many states have established “human rights commissions” here too, and they start out with the same stated goals that they did in Canada, to prevent discrimination in housing, employment, and the like. They also are appointed, not elected, staffed with left-wing political hacks and do not have to follow the due process of law that our courts do. The Arizona commission last year fined a photographer $6,000 for refusing to photograph the “wedding” of a lesbian couple because it “offended” them:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91486191
- nearly every college in the USA has “speech codes” based on political correctness. Violations can carry heavy penalties up to expulsion, and the only ones protected are the “approved” victim groups, of which Muslims are now the main attraction. The University of Delaware has a MANDATORY indoctrination for all residential students where you are forced to adhere to the PC line about every left-wing bugaboo imaginable, like “Students will recognize that systemic oppression exists in our society.” When called on it, the university suspended the program for a short period for an “investigation”, gave it a new name and started it up again.
- Our so-called “media” already toe the line to political correctness voluntarily, especially where it concers race, gender and Islam. Note I did not say “religion” because it is perfectly acceptable to attack Christians, and increasingly, Jews, but NEVER Muslims. When the Danish cartoons caused aherents to the Religion of Perpetual Outrage to loot, riot, pillage, and murder infidels around the world, only one or two newpapers re-published those cartoons in the US, even though they are very mild and were at the center of a hot story about a raging conflagration perpetrated by Muslims. Didn’t want to offend the little tykes, you see.
There is an apocalyptic confrontation coming in the next generation at the latest between the civilized world and a stone age religion that wants to drag the rest of the planet back in to the seventh century where they reside. If it was not for sitting on the black gold that has allowed them to extort tens of trillions of dollars from the West, they would still be herding camels. Instead they can use our own money to foment their violent jihad all over the planet and are about to acquire nuclear weapons. And our new prez is very sympathetic to Islam, in case no one has noticed.
When it was the West against Communism, it was not nearly as dire as this, even though they had nukes as well. They at least were rational and relatively sane, so they knew that to attack us was suicide.
Islam, by contrast, PROMOTES suicide as a means to their ends; their Koran tells them that to die for their religion has great rewards in the next life. What do they care if hundreds of millions of their own die in the coming conflict, as long as the infidels are defeated?
If we don’t wake up to this threat soon, it will be too late.
Jihad of the word is effective whenever the host culture is already in the grips of self-doubt. The strength of the west has been in three extraordinary treasures: The individual is respected, has access to knowledge, and enjoys freedom of action.
If we continue to excuse crime under the banner of understanding, glorify ignorance under the banner of tolerance and fear of speaking up under the banner of sensitivity, we are cooked, already. Explain to your children how wonderful and how special it is to live in freedom, safety and prosperity. On a global scale, these things are rare, precious, and have been dearly acquired and defended in the past.
Joining the ranks of those who hate these extraordinary privileges is not just a theoretical possibility; You don’t need to look very far to find those who will make it an attractive one!
One thing I don’t get. Why is everyone on the non-Muslim side playing *defense* exclusively during this argument. Someone should hear that a Muslim imam made a proclamation or speech (we hear regularly that such people make inflammatory speeches, calling for the downfall of Western culture and the Islamification of the West), and call one of these stupid Civil Rights Commissions down on the idiot, and let him explain himself. I suspect if *he* starts out guilty until proven innocent, things will look a lot different.
We raise our voices in protest over their actions, they raise their fists in anger at our words.
Obama is showing the world how to be a martyr for the U.S..
DavidN:
“One thing I don’t get. Why is everyone on the non-Muslim side playing *defense* exclusively during this argument. Someone should hear that a Muslim imam made a proclamation or speech (we hear regularly that such people make inflammatory speeches, calling for the downfall of Western culture and the Islamification of the West), and call one of these stupid Civil Rights Commissions down on the idiot, and let him explain himself. I suspect if *he* starts out guilty until proven innocent, things will look a lot different.”
On the few occasions that’s been tried in Canada, the commissions have declined to even investigate the charges against Muslims. In the famous cases of Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant, the complainant was a Muslim who is known for his inflammatory statements about Jews and infidels, including saying on a TV show that every Israeli over 18 was a legitimate target for suicide bombers.
And speaking of “defense” I read last year that there were 73 violent conflicts currently going on the world, that Muslims are a major participant in 72 of them, and in none of them are they on the defense. This is a maniacally violent culture.
And speaking of “defense” I read last year that there were 73 violent conflicts currently going on the world, that Muslims are a major participant in 72 of them, and in none of them are they on the defense. This is a maniacally violent culture.
And you can trace that roots back to the Arabians whose lives are depending on their relations or connections to the House of Saud, its vast fortunes and vast networks.
Dean Stacy isn’t the only Canadian that doesn’t value free speech. Canadians as a group don’t value free speech. Each year, when as ex-pats we travel ‘home’ for several months , the difference in freedom between Cayman (our ‘other’ country) and Canada is more and more palpable.
I start to feel anxious about what freely expressed thought might land one of my children in hot water, as soon as we cross the border. Canadian society feels repressive. A large part of this repressive atmosphere comes from the diligent work of the Canadian media, and the oppressive and doctrinal machinations of provincial gov’ts. Check out the mandates of departments of education. Nova Scotia and BC are great reasons for our family to live elsewhere!
The difference between a summer in Canada and the rest of the year in a country where Christian ethos still prevails and people are still,( in spite of the nearly 50% ex-pat popuplation), free to speak up about it and do, is some compensation for separation from family and Canada’s natural beauty.
Canadians could look at England as a cautionary tale, where even without a bill of rights, the HRC’s and ‘proactive’ courts are completely nuts. But I suspect Canadians look at England and say…’ if only we could be sophisticated like those Europeans’! Oh Canada!
Points very well made and well taken. However, a naive reader might emerge with a distorted view of this epochal ‘clash’ because you (perhaps deliberately) fail to mention the symmetries that grant it the status of ‘clash.’ I speak of American Jihad: more insidious than any stealth equivalent. The West has to merely enter any aspect of its culture (its freedoms, its art, its decadence) into the public domain and the Arab, just learning about it, becomes vexed, exercised, even tormented. Once exposed, he’s never the same. We read about burqa’d babes slipping into mini skirts on international flights. We must not forget that Mohamed Atta, before checking into ‘paradise now,’ spent his last night, not in the embrace of his culture, but in the embrace of a dedicated club’s strippers. This is not an insignificant fact. What will our world look like in a hundred years from now? We will be more Islamicized or will they be more Westernized? I’d put my luck on the latter. In the absence of reliable oracle journalism, keep an eye on Turkey for signs of what’s to come. My (unsolicited) cartoon to your editorial shows a ferocious weasel, in full Arab headgear, gnawing away at the Bank of America — with an American flag nailed to his tail.
Nonetheless, we must remain vigilant and find the way and will to disconcert over developments (the Steyn farce) you appositely (and eloquently) describe in your piece.
“a certain Dean Steacy, was asked what value he ascribed to freedom of speech, he replied: “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.”
How dare Dean Steacy sully Americans by suggesting our concepts are valueless. Clearly the man hates all Americans and wishes us ill will. To the Humans Rights Commissions stocks with him! He should be banned from mentioning “speech” ever again, and he will have to agree that such a punishment is just in his own philosophy.
Of course, we don’t believe that. That’s the advantage these hypocritical, knuckle-dragging, fascist apparachniks have over the rest of us. They make it up as they go, denying us the very same rights they rely on to make their insipid way, knowing that we’ll play fair, even as they don’t.
The only effective line of attack become the complete and utter discrediting and ridicule of such anti-democratic, anti-civil-rights thugs. They must be shown as the truly blatant bigots that they are.
So if I, an American was living in Canada, would I be able to sue Dean Steacy for hate speech?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/database-salaries/?appSession=24780756295604
The only thing wrong with David Solway’s posts is that they are so few. His recent book, “The Big Lie”, is a brilliant account of the post 9-11 politicization of a poet, and the responsibilities entailed in being Jewish. An amazing book given token attention by the mainstream media.
This so called Jihad is nothing more than a bunch of clowns hiding behind religion.
The mafia is as much a religion as these Jihad clowns.
“So if I, an American was living in Canada, would I be able to sue Dean Steacy for hate speech?”
Your complaint would be filed in the round file immediately because you do not belong to the pet groups who are allowed to be victims. You belong to the group most despised by the left wing in Canada and can only enter the kangaroo court as an offender.
…our swelling nomiocracy
McCarthy should use straightforward English
We, too, in the lower 48 are being inundated by a “swelling” and an elaboration of infinitesimal laws. (I think it’s nomocracy)
The HRC’s appear to have way too much arbitrary power to unjustly afflict individual lives, and many who gravitate to positions of pissant power on these mock tribunals don’t seem like the brightest bulbs in the lot. (I wondered, reading your article, whether HRC’s were created in the same push that Canada seemed to indulge in by flirting with allowing Shari’a law in family matters, that is, unburdening an overburdened court system.)
Anyway, it seems like Levant’s accuser “withdrew” after costing Levant a lot of money & time, and jihad of the word was successful even though the action was dropped.
Islam, by contrast, PROMOTES suicide as a means to their ends; their Koran tells them that to die for their religion has great rewards in the next life. What do they care if hundreds of millions of their own die in the coming conflict, as long as the infidels are defeated?
Some (American) Somali men recently said (from Somalia) that their goal was martyrdom. Another American jihadi in Somalia on a recent video said the same thing, tantamount to: “my goal is my own death”
These guys’ handlers & brainwashers apparently aren’t even bothering with the shtick about Allah’s One & Only Religion anymore as justification for joining jihad.
The solution to the anti-free speech abuses of the various Canadian human rights commissions is a legislative one. Canadians need to elect representatives who are willing to pass the necessary laws to severely limit the powers of these groups.
mTLUI8 http://ueNx8wqkk3Mnd.com