Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Information Free Press

Mr. Steyn links to a curious article about his upcoming Canadian tour. Or perhaps I should call that an incurious article, since, as Mark points out,

 ...this newspaper does not see fit to inform its readers that its principal interviewee, Faisal Joseph, was, in fact, the Canadian Islamic Congress' lawyer in the Maclean's/Steyn trial.

Indeed, that does seem like a fact the reader might want to know. I think it's great if Muslims devote themselves to acts of kindness and charity, but that doesn't really "show people how wrong" Mark Steyn is. As I recall, he contends that Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy, not that Muslims don't give enough to the food bank.

In all the time Steyn's work was being examined by various HRCs, I never heard any of the plaintiffs (or their spokesocks) explicitly refute his arguments, so I didn't expect to find that in this short article, either. But could we at least have one example of the "misinformation and misrepresentations of the history of Islam" which the BCHRC located in the Maclean's excerpt? And what are these controversial "views" of Coulter and Steyn? I guess it's like "Dune": you have to have read the book to know what's going on.

This part also struck me:

"Views such as those of Coulter — who was soundly booed during her Western appearance when she mocked a 17-year-old Muslim student — and Steyn, Joseph said, will have to be drowned out by the compassion of Islam." 

"Will have to be drowned out"? Why not "answered" or "engaged" or "refuted"?

2 comments:

  1. "Drowned out"? That sounds suspiciously like those honour killings that never take place.

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  2. I thought it strange phraseology. It's not presented as a direct quote, but if the reporter chose those words, that is even stranger.

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