Socially acceptable hate speech in Canada

Here's more from Solberg:

Sounds familiar.

I think Solberg writes his fair share of hate speech. He makes my left eyelid twitch.

I agree. But if he was targeting any other faith group but Islam he would be relegated to sites regaled with swastikas and images of Sarah Palin. But because it is Islam, he is in mainstream newspapers and not a word of outcry from our politicians busy trying to out pander each other to the supporters of a state that is openly racist.

I think all religions are fair game for attack and a government has no business arbitrating what criticism is "okay" and what criticism is "not okay".

Well that's quite the change of opinion you had not so long ago when you said you weren't an absolutist on free speech. Now you are, go figure. You could also consider reading more closely. The man is not criticizing the philosophy of Islam, nor is he ridiculing the faith. What he is in fact doing is making broad stereotypical statements against all Islamic people that could incite hatred.

As an aside, when we speak of people holding the right of life and death over their families, should we compare the rate of family member killings in North America, among nice white people of the Judaeo/Christian tradition, against Is;lamic people all over the world, a much larger number,  who do you think would have the worst rate? I don't know either, but I bet it would be a hell of a close call.

I read the quotes as well. I understood them to refer to those who believed/claimed their faith allowed "honour killings" etc. not Islam.

Are we really saying that the government believes that Islam condones things like "honour killing"? Not only do I think that this is not accurate (Islam does not condone these and the government has not made that connection), I am concerned that if an attack on "honour killing" and extreme applications of sharia law such as stoning etc. is taken as an attack on Islam then the offense against Islam is being made here not by the government. It is not just the government that needs to be careful about these associations-- we do as well.

Given who was writing, I am sure that there is no intended slight but everyone should be careful about making these connections including those of us who consider ourselves progressive. We all need to be sure of what we are reading before writing so that we are not becoming part of the problem. Nor should we allow ourselves in our disgust with this current government, to contribute to the very things we want to fight against.

:(

On the other hand, I don't see any reason to hate fundamentalist Islam less intensely than fundamentalist Christianity.

Provided it's presented that way, neither do I Doug.  But clearly, it's not.

Sean is right. Violence against women is not a value of any culture or faith. It is Islamophobia and racism to suggest that perpetrating violence against women is a part of Islamists' belief system.

Religious extremism and fundamentalism, otoh, is valued by the US miltary and CIA according to US whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. Western governments and mainly the USA have been aiding and abetting religious fundamentalism and hundreds, perhaps thousands of madrassas/madarsas churning out a specific kind of extremist Muslim in Central Asia for a number of years and continuing to do so.

I am not saying the government has openly made these connections. I am saying Monte Solberg has made these connections, openly, and in his Sun Media column. Am glad we agree it is racist.

I am sorry but I can't agree. Solberg is not making the connection  to Islam. He is NOT saying, implying or suggesting that sharia law and "honour killings" are a reflection of Islam. The article linked in the OP does not make such a connection. The worst it does is fail to underline that the connection does not exist but you could argue that to have to underline that in itself would be deeply insulting -- if we assume that most thinking people already make the distinction.

I can't stand Solberg, his politics or his point of view but if Islam is not implicated there, then it is also the reader's responsibility not to equate extremists with an entire faith. Just as we would not expect an attack on people like those of the Peoples Temple as being representative of the Christian faith. Please reread the article Solberg wrote-- the connection is not there-- not at all.

Now Solberg, may or may not have an undertone of dislike for immigrants in general but that is not clear from the article. This is the thinnest of arguments against the Cons who from time to time actually do take the mask off. When we attack them let's at least get the facts straight and be right about this. There are times when such charges of racism (or more accurately bigotry in this case) from them are true.

There is a stronger argument that it is this thread that is being bigoted rather than the Sun piece in the opening post. All the offensive connections to Islam have been made here; none in that article. People here should find that deeply disturbing especially considering that the connections were made in apparent defence of Islam and without intent. The fact that racism or bigotry is often carried and spread unintentionally should give us all pause.-- Islam, a religion, has never been confused with a concept of race either-- I am somewhat reluctant to point that out given that the entire concept of "race" is in itself a fraud.

FM-- what I am saying is that you have made a rare and unintentional mistake. It would be easier to back up and get out of this than to try to defend it. The article does not say what you suggest it does and the connection is symptomatic of an opinion floating outside the article itself, an opinion you are unfortunately and unintentionally perpetuating by trying to make a case that cannot be made here. I do not think you are racist but effectively you are cornering yourself rhetorically into a very uncomfortable space.

Sean, you are a fool if you believe the term "honour killing" refers to any other religion but Islam in the popular imagination.

Catchfire you miss the point--

The term "Honour killing" refers not to Islam as a whole but to an extreme cultural practice that is not supported by the religion.The practice of murder is only defended as being condoned by the religion by the murderers themselves.

An attack on so called honour killing is not unfair to Islam and to suggest it could be is hugely problematic. Peoples Temple only refers to Christianity but Christians would reject that as a representative of their religion and would be deeply offended if an indictment of the People's Temple was presented as an attack on their faith.

Connections are being made here that are one way-- Islam is not associated with these practices-- it is the perpetrators who try to associate their practice with a religion who are the first link in the offence -- the second is when people assume that the connection is reciprocated on the part of Islam when it is not.

Sean, I understand your point. I don't agree with it. You are giving Solberg far too much credit, and you end up defending xenophobia and racism. Solberg is not concerned with what Islam actually is. He is concerned with exploiting deep-rooted cultural prejudices about the enemy of the West, serially represented in our Western press as the Muslim. He makes lazy and vague gestures toward "honour killing" and "Sharia Law" (would that be the Christians' Sharia Law, then?) knowing that his readership will draw the unstated but insisted connection between those practices and those-who-we-know-practice-them. Solberg is talking in code--a code I know and a code the "great silent majority" know. It is not a subtle language.

Check your sarcasm -- you are making the same connections you are accusing him of making and there is no cover for you to do so.

I am not defending Solberg.

Nowhere in the article did he mention Islam. He did mention practices that some have pretended to associate with religious cover. The whole connection -- on their part and on yours is false. It is bigoted to make that connection.

I would not doubt that it is possible that Solberg is not unhappy when the connection is made -- by others -- like you. In that case you would be the enabler.

Catchfire you are, yourself, falling into the trap while apparently satisfying yourself that I am the one who is naive. Rethink, please. Even if you think you see an under-current here, you become part of the problem when you draw the connection if it has not already been made. Sorry-- I was trying to be kinder about this but you are forcing me to be more blunt. When you make these connections, even if you charge that he wants you to, you become as much a part of the problem as an angry right wing mob. There are bigger issues at stake than scoring a point on a twit like Solberg.

If you persist in making this connection you will also provide cover for BOTH more bigotry against Islam AND for those who want to practice muder. In the process you also provide cover for those who want to say that in the name of religious freedoms we, on the left, allow violence against women. Stop assuming the Cons are stupid-- recognize a trap when you see it and don't go there.

I am not defending Solberg or his ilk-- I am refusing to be drawn in to enable it. You need to brush up on your code-reading.

Sean in Ottawa,

You are justifying the bigotry, xenpphobia and plain lack of decency and civility Solberg displayed. According to your justificative logic, a person or a group who misinterpret a faith automatically invent a new one, parallel to the other. Thus, Solberg is not calling this Islam ugly but rather calling the other Islam ugly, no! not that one, the other beside it. Well, should we, Sean call them Islam A, Islam B, Islam C etc.. to make it easier for you and Solberg to justify the unjustifiable?

 "Nowhere he mentions Islam"? That is precisely what he would say. For, maybe like you he would not mind insulting people's intelligence.  Now, who says that there are no bigots, xenophobes and racists amongst progressives on this board. I have not mentioned any name. 

Sean, I am confused. First you try to acquit Solberg of making racist generalizations (he's just against people who commit "honour killings," whatever their religion) and then you say he is laying a trap for naive leftists and anti-racists like me. I wonder why you think this would be the unstated intent of Solberg's article, rather than communicating to his base--that is, the highly loaded descriptor "silent majority."

The Western media repeatedly and wilfully yokes "honour killing" to Islam and to no other religion. It is a distinctly coloured term used only in reference to Muslims. Yet I am supposed to assume that Solberg (who mentions Sharia law in the same sentence) is just talking about "honour killings" in general? About religion in general used to justify murder? And at the same time as Solberg is speaking so generally about "barbaric" cultural practices, I am supposed to be wary of the "trap" he is laying for me, the naive liberal, begging me to make a connection that is not there?

I had no idea that the writings of Monte Solberg abounded in such literary and rhetorical nuance.

No a misinterpretation is a misinterpretation -- never said it was a new religion. Now you are just making up positions for me that I never said. Your entire first paragraph is built on a series of assumptions about my post, the original article and the understand of the public that is quite false. A lot of progress has been made seperating people from false assumptions about Islam-- this line of thinking is undermining that.

To equate a misinterpretation with an entire religion is problematic-- isn't it? So because others make this equation, it is okay to perpetuate it, repeat it, reinforce it directly when it was not even there?

Your comment  saying I do not mind insulting people's intelligence-- I have no polite response for, so you can imagine it for yourself. Your insinuations in your final sentance are far, far, far more direct than anything Solberg said. It is hypocritial to acuse one person of hiding behind insinuations and then use the same tactic on someone else.

According to Sean in Ottawa's logic, one can hurle any insults and derision at the religion of the "Protocol People" or "Blood Libel" folks, perfectly justifiably. Hey, who mentioned Jews or Judaism? More important, it is better not to condemn such behaviour for one would just confirm the association of Protocol/Jews and Bood Libel/Jews.

You seem desperate to justify the unjustifiable, Sean in Ottawa. The more you advance these absurd arguments the more you  keep making an ass of yourself.

I agree with Catchfire, Sean. You are excusing the inexecusable. Let's review, once more, the quote:

It is unmistakable he is referencing not ugly faiths but an ugly faith--singular--and then he connects that ugly faith with life or death over their own families (the cultural racism itself is staggering) with Sharia law and honour killings.

And you don't think that is intentional or racist? I do. I'm not sure how you miss it. And keep in mind this went through an editing process.

"It is crucial, therefore that we do not fall into the trap of seeing honour killing, for all its horrific nature, or rather because of it, as the expression of an alien culture, religion or tradition that has no resonance in the West. For that reason, both Wikan and Husseini cast their net wide, drawing examples from the UK, Jordan, Sweden, the United States, Pakistan. It is no less crucial to insist that honour killing cannot be equated with Islam."

http://tinyurl.com/yzwbhhc

http://www.stop-stoning.org/faq_honour [25] -- read paragraph 2 where honour killing occurs.

The above post arguing that the singular reference to faith rather than faiths means we are talking only about Islam is a stretch. If we werre to say a group of people were speaking from the heart does that mean one heart for all of them or one heart each? Even with multiple "faiths" implicated it could still be written in that sentance in the singular. In any case we are speaking about the belief in the religious justification of homicide. That is not Islam. Not Islam A, B, or C -- not Islam. Period.

http://tinyurl.com/aaekd [26]

As far as the association to Islam is concerned it would be more accurate to say that "honour killing" is an extreme patriarchal practice rather than an Islamic one. To that end it would be fair to argue with Solberg that he ought not to have referenced the concept of religion at all but seen it in the context only of violence against women.

I stand by my contention that to complete an unmade connection, no matter how ignorantly set up, no matter if there is a presumption that the writer privately also completes it, is to play a part of the problem rather than the solution.

I would like to see people here and elsewhere able to attack "honour killing" and even some practices of sharia law in the context of violence against women without being acused of being racist or bigoted. Any perpetuation of a false connection between a religion and these practices muddies responses. The question was not if I thought Solberg was an ass or if I thought he connected the two-- the question was if the article did. It doesn't. And if it had, that should be resisted not embraced. That is the problem with using prevailing cultural prejudices to interpret what is not explicit or even certain.

Sean, are you actually arguing that "honour killings" are not a Muslim-only phenomenon? I don't see anyone disagreeing with you here. The problem is not what an honour killing actually is--violence against women dressed up as a religious problem rather than a masculine one--but what semantic weight the term itself actually carries. In the final analysis there is no such thing as an "honour killing." There is only the meaning we ascribe to the term.  Language does not develop or exist in a vacuum--the article doesn't need to explicitly state that honour killings and Islam are connected, it only needs to encourage you with a wink to do so yourself. The feat is accomplished daily by the Western media whenever it mentions Islam or honour killings. That's how language works.

As for your suggestion that when we point out Solberg's xenophobic and hatemongering rhetoric, we are repeating the same occult connections he is making (although you suggest, incredibly, that he is not making them), this is possibly true--and a problem, certainly, in fighting racist discourse. Judith Butler makes the point more fully in Excitable Speech. How do we fight hate speech without repeating it, institutionalizing it and normalizing it? Is there another way to defang it?

But before you get to this interesting question, you have to get over the elementary question of whether or not Solberg is trying to stir up hate. It's a no-brainer, Sean. See how much you have to steel yourself not to draw the right conclusion.

Sean,

Osama Bin Laden misinterprets, misuses, abuses and distorts Islam to justify killing innocent people. He is still Muslium. Misinterpreting Islam, but Muslim. His religion is still Islam.

As to your comment that you do not have a polite response to my statements, what couls be more "impolite" than justifying racism and bigotry! 

You are completely losing yourself here, Sean, in attempting, again, to excuse the inexcusable. Go back and read the quote. The offensive aspect was the connecting of an ugly faith that gives the power of life and death to Sharia law which is exclusively Islamic. You can't argue that.

The difference is that while these things are included among the practices of SOME of those who would call themselves Muslim they are not Islamic.

I do not get the point that an attack on behaviour I assume people here oppose, must necessarily be an attack on Islam. I do not have to trust Solberg -- I don't -- to look at the words and see if they are what they are made out to be in post 11--  where the accusation is that these posts were made openly in an article published in the media. Had the connections been made openly in that article, as was stated in post 11, I would have complained to the newspaper itself. However, they were not. The writing can and should be read to refer only to the specific belief of the perpetrator and there is no connection made to Islam itself.

Sure, Solberg may be a bigot but you need to go elsewhere for the evidence than here. I have heard statements no different from those from that article voiced to me by Muslims who passionately rejected any connection between so called honour killing and extreme examples of sharia. I am not comfortable with Solberg or his intentions behind writing that article but I remain unwilling to complete such logic for him if he won`t himself.

FM-Mahmud---don`t start to try to interpret my intentions here- even if you have a few people to pile on. Even if you disagree with my revulsion at the idea of completing a racist bigoted dialogue only to attack it, you have no cause to pretend that I am somehow trying to defend the very thing I am clearly opposing. That I choose not to oppose it by being coopted by it is a question of response not position and to try to tart me up as a racist or bigot because I refuse to make complete an incomplete association is more than a little dishonest. There is nothing I have said that justifies racism.

Catchfire- if you reread my post /6 it is very clear what I am getting at. We do not have to participate in the problem to attack it. The opening post could have begun disassociating these practices from Islam and perhaps making the point that an attack on one is not necessarily on the other-- then it could have raised the suspicion that Solberg was hoping the readers would make the association. Indeed, that is exactly what happened-- Solberg made the comment-- did not make the association but several people here did it for him. I don`t like the article or Solberg but think we could have found a way to respond other than completing a completely bigoted circle. Popular or not- I think that the response here could have been much better. The pile on for expressing that these things Solberg is speaking of do not reflect Islam and that we did not need to make that association to call Solberg on what he wrote.

I have not gotten in to what I do think Solberg was doing but I may as well-- I do not think it was an attack on  Islam so much as it was an attack on immigration and immigrants in general-- I would have responded that way if people had not made the connection for him directly to Islam.

No kidding! That is why ascribing it to that "ugly faith", in my opinion borders on hate speech. Further, I think you're having a bad day. I haven't accused you of defending anything despite your clearly infering my post was bigotted. I said you're excusing the inexcusable as in Solberg's clear, to me and obviously others, reference to Islam as an "ugly faith". And then you do it again:

What disassociates Islam from abhorrent cultural practices moreso than declaring the association hate speech?

I'm sorry, Sean, but you have your head up your ass on this one.

Sean,

You no doubt have good intention but your approach is wrong. I venture to say that anyone

who does not know you would be left with the impression that you are defending the bigoted Solberg.

(I mean by knowing you, like I do, through Babble for years now).

I agree with FM's statement: "What disassociates Islam from abhorrent cultural practices

moreso than declaring the association hate speech?"

Of course, The Liberal Party of Canada are almost as bigoted as the Conservatives. They propped up Monty's party something like 79 times in Parliament. Political and social views harbored within both parties are compatible for the most part. Monty and the Harpers have been in good company.

Of course, that original Solberg piece was brought to you by the good folks at Home Hardware.   I would hope that you drop them a line, and tell them how you feel, and how you feel about them enabling people like Solberg.

You know, Sean, if Solberg had said: "Likewise, we condemn those whose ugly faith makes them justify every war crime of Israel as being divinely willed, and those others whose ugly faith makes them deny women's freedom of choice and the rights of queer people, and of course, those whose ugly faith allows them to whitewash every aggressive action of NATO and its member countries."

... then I might be more sympathetic to your point. Under the circumstances, however, if you can't tell a racist ultra-right xenophobic article for what it is, I think we need to have a little more discussion.

Why is everyone piling on Sean instead of Monte Solberg,  and all those MP's who've voted in support of the Tory agenda dozens of times?  

No, Fidel, not piling on Sean. Merely debating with a fellow progressive the best approach to counter xenophobic statements of the Solberg genre.

About the Tories, it is clear that Canada, under their administration has hit the bottom credibility and prestige-wise  -among many other things- things can only get better. Actually I was reding about a recent poll indicating that the NDP is gaining what is being chipped from the Cons and Fiberals.

It's all a game of political charades, Sean. Our Liberals pretend to oppose the Tories most of the time while supporting them with votes of confidence in Parliament. It's a phony setup, and Canadians are finally realizing that there are few differences between the two old line parties.

Solberg and Kenney's views on Islam or Sharia law don't matter. Both old line parties receive their rightwing instruction from Warshington anyway. Canada is not a sovereign country as of decades ago. And their imperial masters in Warshington turned a blind eye to Taliban fundamentalism in 1996 Afghanistan. And they have worked covertly with the KLA and NLA to create militant Islamic states in Bosnia and assisted terrorists in Macedonia in the 1990's. That is sordid recent history which our colonial administrators in Ottawa would prefer no one talked about while they follow marching orders from Warshington.

New Muslim immigrants to Canada have been at the forefront of speaking out against Sharia law among other cultural quirks brought to Canada from their home countries where the west has worked to foment spread of militant Islam and sabotaging the natural evolution of democracy in Central Asia and other countries. Most people leaving various thirdworld capitalist countries are doing so because of the dire economic and social conditions created there by western capitalist institutions and globalization of poverty and vast inequalities, US-backed military dictatorial rule etc. Don't listen to stooges like Solberg or Kenney. They don't know their asses from holes in the ground. They are pathetic US-stooges as are the heads of the political parties they belong to. Vicious arsehole-creeping toadies that they are.

Actually, Sean, why are we talking about Islam at all? Solberg didn't attack Islam (you're correct). He attacked Muslims.

I personally think Islam, as a belief system, is nonsense - likewise with Judaism and Christianity and other (well-named) faiths - and I will and do write against them as I please. But, as Catchfire noted, Solberg doesn't give a damn about theology. He is invoking xenophobia against Muslims (obviously) in order to peddle his ultra-right agenda.

US conservatives do it too. They pander to their bigoted support base with get tough on immigration rhetoric and even building walls at the borders, spying on Canadian border towns with aerial drones etc. But high ranking neocons actually love immigrants for their low wage potential in serving the interests of their big business pals, and merely any rich guy who wants to pay new people rock-bottom wages and all the while threatening them with extradition if they demand higher wages or basic worker's rights. We have our own low wage philanthropists in Canada.

I remain convinced that the point of the article is not so much about Muslims or Islam in particular (which is partly why I objected in the first place for making connections where they were not explicit and where I felt it was adding more harm by doing so).

I suspect the real point here is to create more concern and fear about immigrants in general- that people come to Canada with incompatible ugly belief systems-- I don't think that Solberg cares which religion they may be associated with. Other things he has written have lead me to believe that his problem is with immigration in general. This was just another opportunity to make that point. If we fall in to  the trap of making a connection from a fringe element with a particularly offensive view to a more mainstream religion that captures more people all the better. If we don't and just remain wary about immigration in general then his job will have been done.

I had a friend who became a citizen and watched the ceremony presided over by a judge and Kenny at the museum in Gatineau. I came away convinced that Kenny was basically anti-immigrant and really did not care where they were from (except the UK or US immigrants). I read the article making the connection in terms of the attack to immigrants rather than to a single religion.

Fidel I think the high-ranking neocons would rather beat down people who are already here into the low wages. While it is true that they become a source for over-qualified low wage labour the neo-cons have managed to believe that immigrants as a group cost the system more than they contribute to it-- that this is false does not stop them believing it.

Oh, neither of our two old line parties care about what anything costs. The neoliberal setup is failing, and their banking and financial capitalist friends here and around the world have developed a new business plan. The new business plan says that debt is wealth creation, and public debt is the highest quality debt/wealth. It sounds Orwellian, I know, and that's another thread.

The point is there is no chance that Sharia law or honour killings or any other cultural quirks would become accepted or established in Canada or other western countries. Solberg is so full of Yanqui bullshit his eyes are now deep brown in colour. And as I was saying before, Muslim Canadians are at the forefront of speaking out against these cultural practices and explaining to Canadians that those practices are not compatible with true Islam. American whistleblower Sibel Edmonds explains how Ottawa's masters in Washington have been very, very tolerant of militant Islam in all of the countries which the capitalist banking institutuions, the CIA,  US military have deliberately destabilized in recent years. Balkanization of Yugoslavia is the template for destroying economies and democracy they've been using. Solberg and Kenney are vicious toadies as are Harper and Ignatieff. There really are low-lifes in Canada, and they are high ranking Liberal and Tory Party members.

That's a leap.  By saying all religion should be open to criticism, I'm now advocating free speech absolutism?

Okay, Sean, I don't entirely disagree with you. I do think they are anti-immigrant but more specifically I think they are anti-brown-immigrant. But here is why I think Solberg's peice is directed at Muslims (as Unionist pointed out). We both agree that no faith condones honour killings, yes? So then why did Solberg speak of an "ugly faith"? And then why are the only words he used specific to any faith, Sharia Law, specific to Islam? What else should a reader take from his use of the term an "ugly faith" in conjunction with Sharia Law and honour killings? How sophisticated our Sun Media readers anyway?

I don't think there is any question of his intent and I think Unionist gets it right.

I agree with you as well on his intentions-- where we did not agree was on completing a connection he did not make explicit. I think that is more harmful than beneficial to indulge in such a connection. For that reason I would have preferred to call him on something else. There are many angles we could have taken-- one is the anti-immigrant posture of this government-which I agree is rooted in racism. And this includes the desire to close the door as tightly as possible with the exception of renting bodies from off-shore to produce low-wage labour from people who will have no ongoing right to remain in the country. The wording of the article was as much a defence of restrictions in immigration as anything else.

The government has quietly reduced family reunification quotas for 2010 to the lowest numbers since the Cons came in to office- a restriction of almost 20% this year alone at a time when the wait is now getting close to ten years for parents and grandparents from some countries. The argument is that demand to come to Canada is being reduced-- although they do not acknowledge the role of these extremely long waits when elderly relatives may not live long enough to be able to come to Canada, in the demand. What is clear is the signal this decision is sending that the government never wants the time-line to come to Canada to shorten.

Another angle addressing the honour killlings and Sharia law comments is the focus of this issue. Honour killings and some of the results of sharia law can and should be addressed in the wider issues of women's equality and violence against women.This is another reason why I did not want to reinforce a false connection to a religion because I do not want to label all those who speak out against these practices as racists and bigots.

This government's record currently and historically is dismal when it comes to violence against women. That far, far, far, more women in Canada are killed by white male partners and former partners than by honour killings raises some questions about the government's motives in raising the issue in this way since they certainly are not for the reduction of violence against women or the protection of our society as a whole. There are issues here that do relate to the approach to the long gun registry as well as the overall diminishing of women's equality rights by this government.

The long gun registry itself ought to be debated in the context of violence against women. What replacement measures for its removal are being contemplated? Should we consider what citizens appear to be saying -- that in rural communities the registry should be scrapped while allowing the urban communities allowed the right to have them maintained-- meaning you could have an unregistered gun in rural Sask but be required to register it on moving to Toronto. I don't know if this is a compromise but at least the issue of violence rather than inconvenience and cost needs to enter the debate. You could take my conversation as a digression but in fact it is this touching on an important issue (violence) for a different political agenda (immigration) that angers me. Everything this government does is calculated.

Are you sure this government wants to close the door tight to immigration? Racism doesn't mean "keep them out". Welcome them in, treat them like crap, exploit their labour and skills, pick and choose which ones can remain, and stoke up the flames of racism and xenophobia to get people fighting each other instead of uniting to oppose the ugly policies of the government.

And in that regard, people from certain countries (whether they actually happen individually to be Muslim or not) provide a convenient scapegoat these days.

Then we will agree to disagree as I think he was quite explicit. In fact, I don't know how his words and meaning could be interpreted any differently. It was he who introduced the idea of faith and religion into his conversation. It was he who linked a singular "ugly faith" to honour killings. And it was he who made sure the reader linked the one faith raised to Islam through reference to Sharia Law. I think he is a very sophisticated politician and writer and I think his words were carefully chosen.

Yup.

Well, not to take away from the 'open season' on Muslims, but really Christians and especially Catholics have been fair game for awhile too. In fact, it's really just Judaism that is 'hands off'.

Not true. Unionist made the distinction above.

I just read a stat, in passing, which suggested that 7% of all homicide in Syria is honor-related, and it came with the disclaimer that the real number is likely much higher, given that the crime is rarely reported.

In other news, Syria recently changed its laws to ensure that rather than a one-year maximum, a man who kills his wife, sister, daughter or mother for talking to a man or using Facebook will now receive a minimum sentence of two years. Whopping sentences like that should change those numbers real quick.

Here's a quick question for anyone in the know: while Islam does not, as noted, condone honor killings, does Sharia, or any official Islamic doctrine, condemn it explicitly? Sorry, but the elephant in the room is that honour killlings (especially of the man-kills-sister or man-kills-daughter variety) seem disproportionately likely to take place in self-identified Muslim families. It might be handy if Islam were as clear about killing your wife as it is about, say, drinking alcohol. How is it that the most orthodox Muslim states (Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Syria, etc.) seem to also have the most lenience, almost to the point of tolerance, for honour killings? I think that's a reasonable question (and I don't think the answer is "North Americans kill women too!!")

Oh, you mean the Islamic Republic of Syria? Tell me, what percentage of homicide in Canada is related to spousal feelings of hurt and injury (our version of "honour killing")? Did you happen to read that stat in passing?

On the contrary, here's what their Holy Book says about honour killing:

Oh, sorry, holy mary mother of god, I accidentally quoted from the Jewish Bible, Deuteronomy 22:22. You say the Christians also consider that shit as "holy"? Sorry, I'll get back to you on that Sharia provocation of yours, post haste, gotta do some research here...

You mean, like air strikes and armed invasions and mass murder of indigenous populations seem disproportionately likely to take place on the part of self-identified Christian-type countries? God, you're right, there's a pattern emerging here. Thanks for doing the research. I'll get back to you real soon, Monte Snert.

By immigration I do not mean temporary working (exploitation) visas. I beleive this government would like to close the door as tight as possible to immigrants and throw the door wide open for second class citizens-- temporary workers who have no right to stay here or obtain things Canadians get like health care. The Cons want Kleenex people not immigrants.

Apparently, it is just accidental that we process people from countries like the UK and the US much faster than anywhere else. This is apparently just a mismatch of embassy staff not a prejudice against people from other countries. No, we would not do that. I you sort the countries of origin into so-called races and look at how long it takes to get to Canada, some patterns appear. But these are just coincidental-- of course.

The government does not turn over people to be knowingly tortured either.

Now-- if the Cons found that they were able to get the votes of certain immigrants from certain countries--perhaps we might see a new pattern emerge. Would not surprise me at all. If they thought ethnic community A would vote Con adn Ethnic Community B would not-- I'd bet that they would find the resources to put into our embassies so that Ethnic group A would come in faster. Of course miraculously, the resources would be cut back for ethnic community B. This would all be for the purpose of encouraging multiculturalism and unity -- to help us all get along better.

I'd like to see this government do one thing that does not have a political calculation attached or a political score to settle.

Yes. You seem much more comfortable looking at that head-on.

Does any religion condemn honour killings explicitly?

Well at least they've attempted to provide a reason for killing in the name of justice. Here in the west the first unwritten commandment of disaster capitalism says,  basically,

Thou shalt commit mass murder in proportion with the booty. Taketh all you can. Give back nothing.(Pirate or capitalist creedo, same thing)

Some experts have noted that honour killing may have been be condoned by the Klingon religion. But these pro-Federation experts have been critisized by many Klingons.