By Andrew L. Jaffee

Since the arrests of Canadian Islamists planning to detonate 3 tons of ammonium nitrate in and around Toronto hit the news, I’ve heard nothing but denial from the Great White North’s Muslim community. No deep self-reflection as to why young Canadian Muslims living in one of the world’s greatest liberal democracies would want to inflict unimaginable carnage on their own Canadian, and presumably non-Muslim, neighbors. (Remember it took just one ton to kill 168 people and injure hundreds of others in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.) Just xenophobic and incoherent fears that Muslims will be the “real” victims. No empathy for the people the Islamists were trying to annihilate. In fact, it is just the opposite. Zafar Bangash of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought has:

…suggested the arrests may have been timed to coincide with upcoming Supreme Court of Canada hearings into the constitutionality of security certificates, which allow the authorities to indefinitely detain, without charge, anyone considered a threat to national security.

A lawyer for several of the Islamist bomb-makers:

…agreed that the timing of the arrests looked suspicious, as was the massive show of force Saturday when several of the suspects appeared in court.

And then we have the profiles of the would-be terrorists, from the Toronto Star (oh, they were all just splendid people):

Fahim Ahmad, 21, is known as a “pretty good” basketball player by a group of teens he shoots hoops with at a Scarborough mosque every Friday.

“He had a very good personality. He used to treat us very good,” said Abdullah Mohammed, 15.

“Whatever they’re putting on him, it’s all bull—-,” Abdullah said.

A devout Muslim who never missed a prayer at the Islamic Foundation of Toronto in Scarborough, Ahmad was always “really calm,” said Zuhair Mohammad, 14.

“I’m hoping … they just made a mistake,” said Mohammad Alam, president of the Islamic Foundation of Toronto, who says his organization serves 50,000 members.

…or…

Ahmad Mustafa Ghany is a 21-year-old health sciences graduate from McMaster University in Hamilton, according to his lawyer Rocco Galati.

Ghany, who lives in an upscale neighbourhood in Mississauga, was arrested during police raids late Friday night and charged along with 16 others in a suspected terrorism plot.

He was born in Canada and his father, a medical doctor, emigrated from Trinidad and Tobago to Canada in 1955.

Just your friendly neighborhood terrorists.

Canada is not exactly a gulag state — it has welcomed immigrants from all over the old Commonwealth. Walking in downtown Toronto or Montreal, one is overwhelmed by the colors, smells, diversity, orderliness, and cleanliness. Canada is quite a prosperous and healthy democracy, but whether it will remain that way will depend on how the core Canadian community will adapt to the newcomers and demand that immigrants assimilate values like tolerance, openness, peaceful resolution of problems, embrace of a free press, and engagement in the democratic process (i.e., not allow Sharia to be imposed).

When Islamists went on the rampage, killing, looting, and burning over a few Danish cartoons, the “moderate” Muslim reaction was to proclaim their religious beliefs were the real victim, and that all non-Muslims had to pay special dispensations to Islam so as to calm its rightfully-deserved wrath.

After the cartoon blow-up, British Muslim protestors didn’t denounce all the Muslim on Muslim violence in Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya. They carried placards which stated, “Massacre those who insult Islam;” “Europe you will pay, your 9/11 will come;” “Behead those who insult Islam;” “Be prepared for the real Holocaust;” and “Butcher those who mock Islam.”

But listening to Canadian Muslim reactions to the planned bombing (planned by Muslims), one hears unabashed clannishness:

Farhad Oryakhim, 17, an employee at an east-end shop, said he’s concerned about how Muslims in Canada are going to be treated in the wake of the arrests.

“It’s going to be a pretty hard time now,” Oryakhim said. “After this incident, people are going to look at the Muslims from a dangerous view.”

Oryakhim said he fears that non-Muslim customers will stop patronizing businesses in the area that are run by Muslims.

“It’s going to hurt our businesses,” he said. “Our life.”

“Our life.” What narcissistic neurosis. No mention of the 100’s of Canadians and probably foreigners who would have been incinerated if this evil plot had succeeded. In this context, it is only a Muslim concern about Muslims. Unassimilated may be the most apt word here for Canada’s Mohammedans.

Many divergent groups have very successfully integrated into Western nations, like Britain, the U.S., Australia, Israel, Germany, etc. And keep in mind that assimilation doesn’t mean you have to give up all your customs, whatsoever. Look at Chinese and Hispanic immigrants, for example. The Navajos, albeit ancient immigrants, but now assimilating, are doing quite well in their homeland in the Four Corners. They’ve built a parliament in Window Rock, have their own police, publish their own newspapers, and certainly don’t try to blow up skyscrapers.

Historically, Jews have been mistreated because they “kept to themselves,” yet are now very assimilated into Western countries, and have permeated all levels of society from restaurant owners, to small software business owners, and up into the U.S. House and Senate. Yet Jews are by no means monolithic in their societal, economic, philosophical, and religious beliefs.

Take Israel for example. Can it ever form a coalition government easily? There are so many different schools of thought: Kadima, Labor, Likud… Some insist on negotiating with Palestinian terrorists, some won’t. All sorts of Jewish NGO’s run around in Israel filing suits on the behalf of Palestinians — even obstructing the security operations of their own military. But hey, that’s democracy. Muslims could learn a lot from Jews, but Jews are the most despised by Mohammedans.

Only in a truly pluralistic society can such forces work together in open debate. Unfortunately, pluralism hasn’t exactly caught on in the Muslim world (there are a few exceptions).

It seems that Canada’s Muslims, and many worldwide, are stuck in the One Newspaper, One Nation, One Religion, One World mindset. This mindset has produced one disaster after another.

Islamists massacred 344 civilians — half of them children — in Beslan, North Ossetia. They killed 62 in Delhi, India; murdered 50+ in Turkey; and have killed tens of thousands in Indonesia, Algeria, and Nigeria. Al-Qaeda slaughtered 88 innocent Egyptians last July 23.

1,095 innocent Israelis have been killed by Palestinian terrorists since September 2000. Thirty-thousand Iraqis, mostly Muslim, have been slaughtered by Islamist terrorists since the country’s liberation.

9/11 (3000 dead). Madrid (200 dead). London (50 dead). Bali (200 dead). Amman (57 dead). Three-hundred trampled to death in this year’s Hajj; 1,426 killed in the 1990 Hajj; 251 in 2004; etc. Sudanese Muslims have slaughtered 180,000 black Africans. Kuwaitis ethnically cleansed 400,000 Palestinians in 1991.

In countries like Iran, there is no figuring things out through consensus. There is the (Orwellian) Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He has ultimate control over all decisions. His thugs banned Western music in December (no more “George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper,’ Eric Clapton’s ‘Rush’ and the Eagles’ ‘Hotel California…’” and “…tunes by saxophonist Kenny G.”). Iran’s theocracy hung two boys for being gay last July. Last month, the mullahs banned access to the BBC’s website. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged that Israel be “wiped off the map,” has denied that the Holocaust ever occurred, called for Israel’s Jews to be moved to Europe (ethnically cleansed), and has planned to host a conference to “prove” that Hitler’s extermination of Jews (and gypsies and gays) was a “myth.”

So one must ask, what will it take to convince Muslim immigrants in Western countries to assimilate? In the aftermath of the averted Toronto bombing, it will take a lot of hard work, tough love, an ever-vigilant public, and a long, long time.

---

Recent posts:

• If we throw the bums out…
• What Hope for Iraq?
• Europe: “Our Discussions with Iran Have Reached an Impasse”
• Canada, Welcome to the Age of 911
• Media and Government Misinterpret the Nation’s Pulse on Immigration
• Damage Is Done: The Bush administration’s bad Iran move
• The Collapse of the West: “Dutch Pedophiles Form Political Party”
• Evidence of Mugabe’s Eradication of “Filth”
• Israel 1st-Time Naval Exercise with NATO
• Ahmadinejad Reiterates Holocaust Denial… Again

---

Share with others (social networking, bookmarking, find related):

Sphere It



Technorati: View blog reactions




Furl This


Fav bookmarking service not in the above list? It's definitely in this drop-down:
Bookmark this BlinkBits BlinkList Blogmarks Buddymarks CiteUlike Connotea Diigo DZone Earthlink FeedMarker Flog this! feedmelinks Google Give a Link Gravee igooi Lilisto Linkagogo Linkroll Looklater ma.gnolia Maple.nu Mr. Wong My-Tuts Spurl Newsvine Onlywire RawSugar Scuttle Segnalo Shadows Simpy Squidoo StumbleUpon Taggly tagtooga TalkDigger Wink Yahoo MyWeb

---

Categories, Tags: United States, Islam, War Against Islamo-fascism, Europe, Canada

Trackback: http://netwmd.com/blog/2006/06/05/636/trackback/

Comments feed: RSS 2.0

Subscribe to netWMD: FeedBurner

---