Islamo-nuts try to muzzle Mark Steyn over Maclean’s article

Four students at Toronto’s Osgoode Hall Law School are accusing Maclean’s magazine of violating their human rights over an article titled The Future Belongs to Islam. They’ve filed complaints with the federal, Ontario and British Columbia human rights commissions over the October 2006 article.The article discusses the high birth rate among Muslims and speculates that Islamic people could become the majority population in Europe. It also says some Muslims are violent radicals.Naseem Mithoowani, one of the Osgoode Hall law students bringing forward the complaint, said the article was one of a series of articles offensive to Muslims.
Link: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/story/2007/12/05/muslim-macleans.html

The truth hurts, doesn’t it?

In response to the “perpetually outraged” muslims, the author of the article, Mark Steyn, published a piece in the National Review Online:

(Excerpt):

One of the critical differences between America and the rest of the west is that America has a First Amendment and the rest don’t. And a lot of them are far too comfortable with the notion that in free societies it is right and proper for the state to regulate speech. The response of the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security to the Danish cartoons was to propose a press charter that would oblige newspapers to exercise “prudence” on, ah, certain controversial subjects. The response of Tony Blair’s ministry to the problems of “Londonistan” was to propose a sweeping law dramatically constraining free discussion of religion. At the end of her life, Oriana Fallaci was being sued in France, Italy, Switzerland and sundry other jurisdictions by groups who believed her opinions were not merely disagreeable but criminal. In France, Michel Houellebecq was sued by Muslim and other “anti-racist” groups who believed opinions held by a fictional character in one of his novels were not merely disagreeable but criminal.

Up north, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced the other day that at least two of Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” – one federal, one provincial – had agreed to hear their complaints that their “human rights” had been breached by this “flagrantly Islamophobic” excerpt from my book, as published in the country’s bestselling news magazine, Maclean’s. Several readers and various Canadian media outlets have enquired what my defense to the charges is. Here’s my answer:

I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn’t have to.

If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts. That way lies madness. America Alone was a bestseller in Canada, made all the literary Top Ten hit parades, Number One at Amazon Canada, Number One on The National Post’s national bestseller list, Number One on various local sales charts from statist Quebec to cowboy Alberta, etc. I find it difficult to imagine that a Canadian “human rights” tribunal would rule that all those Canadians who bought the book were wrong and that it is beyond the bounds of acceptable (and legal) discourse in Canada.

Link: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzgzNmFmODNmNDJkMWYzMTdkYjlkNDI2ZTA2NmI1ZTU

Among the multitude of truths the Islamo-nuts find offensive are Steyn’s observations on the acquiescence of Europe (and Canada) to militant Islam.  He points out the ratio of native European births to deaths as well as the ominous saturation of muslims, foreign and homegrown, into the demographic.

The Islamofascists are not just using terrorist tactics but birth rates, recruitment, and taking advantage of the craven politically correct socialist welfare state. European countries are losing their national sovereignty and identity.  They’ve lost their courage to stand against brutal assailants who would gladly subjugate them under Islam on the way to a world Caliphate.

An Islamofascist imam quoted in Steyn’s article sums it up:

“We’re the ones who will change you,” the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. “Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children.” As he summed it up: “Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours.”

Link:http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20061023_134898_134898&source

21st Century Ottomans are on a campaign to infuse Islam into every culture on earth; by political and legal coersion when possible, and by force if necessary.

Selwyn Duke writes on the censorship imposed by an increasingly Dhimmified media:

……The new media is under attack, as the left aims to silence dissent before it grows strong enough to block the thought police’s coup de grace. This is the race for the American mind.

……In Europe, Canada and elsewhere, average citizens have suffered persecution for criticizing homosexuality and Islam and voicing other unfashionable truths. And as hate speech laws become more entrenched and accepted, the list of taboos of the tongue grows longer – and more widespread. They’re coming soon to a theater of social operations near you.

……Across the North Sea in Germany, a leftist politician filed charges against the citizen encyclopedia “Wikipedia” because one of its entries contained too much Nazi symbolism. Here’s the kicker: It was a piece about the Hitler Youth. Then there’s Jewish historian Arno Lustiger, who filed a lawsuit in Germany against Vanity Fair magazine because it published an interview with a neo-Nazi.

……While the Internet seems like a wild and woolly land of bits and bytes, just as information can be transmitted at the touch of a button, so can it be suppressed. Remember, when spreading your message, you’re at the mercy of an Internet Service Provider (ISP), hosting company and, to a lesser extent, services that disseminate information, such as search engines. And as these businesses have already proven, they’re more interested in currency than current events.

Consider Google’s well-publicized capitulation to communist China. Using a filter known informally as “The Great Firewall of China,” the search engine’s Chinese version censors information about the independence movement in Tibet, the Tiananmen Square protests and anything else China’s commissars find objectionable.

It seems like Google’s motto “Don’t be evil” should have a corollary: “But cooperating with it is fine.”

……Then there’s Google’s subsidiary YouTube. Early last year it agreed to remove a video Turks found objectionable after a court in Turkey ordered that the site should be blocked in that nation. It took YouTube all of two days to say mercy.

But direct government action isn’t necessary for censorship, as social pressure often suffices. In fact, the private sector often enforces “hate speech” codes even where states do not, such as here in the US. In 2006, pundit Michelle Malkin’s mini-movie “First, They Came”– it showcases victims of Islamic violence — was deleted by YouTube after being “flagged” as inappropriate. Malkin isn’t alone, either, as other anti-Islamism crusaders have not only had videos pulled, but accounts suspended as well.

Getting back to Google, it has also been censoring traditionalist websites from its news search for quite some time now; entities such as The New Media Journal, Michnews.com and The Jawa Report have been victims, just to name a few.

……Yet email is far from sacrosanct. Social commentators Dr. David Yeagley and Amil Imani had their MSN Hotmail accounts terminated for criticizing Islam. Then there are the proposals to tax or levy fees on email, a truly stifling measure. It would make bulk transmissions prohibitively expensive for the average citizen, thereby robbing him of a resonant Web voice.

……It could reach a point where ISPs won’t service you if you send the “wrong” kinds of emails and will block “hateful” sites. Don’t forget that “access forbidden” prompt. At the end of the day – and it may be the end of days – hosting companies may just decide that such sites’ business is no longer welcome, and registrars may even freeze their domains (a hosting company provides a site’s “edifice”; a domain is its “address”). They may be consigned to Internet oblivion.

Link: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/the_race_for_the_american_mind.html

Mr. Steyn’s book titled “America Alone” may not be so far fetched.