Barbara Kay on Campaign Quebec: Attacking Catholics is OK, but please don't mention the jihad
The National Post
Posted: September 11, 2008, 9:00 AM by Kelly McParland
My manicurist's brothers girlfriend just had her fifth abortion on the public dime, I learned yesterday. No worries. This is Quebec, which enjoys twice the abortion rate of the other provinces. The right to abortion is sacred here as many and as often as you like. In fact, support for unlimited access to abortion is apparently a litmus test for ones worthiness to enter politics.
Someone running for office in the Conservative Party, for example, who adheres to a faith holding that abortion is morally wrong may be publicly censured by the Bloc Qubcois leader.On the other hand, a candidate linked to terrorist apologists in Quebec wont raise the slightest objection from that same party leader.
Bloc Qubcois leader Gilles Duceppe has taken umbrage because a candidate for the Conservative Party, Nicole Charbonneau Barron, running in the South Shore Montreal riding of St Bruno-St Hubert, is a member of Opus Dei, a personal prelature within the Catholic church.
Attempting to whip up fears that the Tories want to take away a womans right to choose, Duceppe complained that those people are against a lot of things that are generally accepted in Quebec.
It is true that members of Opus Dei do not support abortion. On the other hand, Opus Dei members do not sympathize with Hamas and Hezbollah or believe Jews are legitimate targets for terrorism, surely views that are not generally accepted in Quebec as well?
Which brings me to what should be the actually worrying case of Ms Samira Laouni, the NDP candidate for the riding of Montral-Bourassa. Some of us in Quebec who keep our eye on activities and players in the Islamic community wonder why Monsieur Duceppe is so fascinated by Ms Charbonneau-Barrons privately held views on abortion, but is not at all exercised by Ms Laounis enthusiasm for Sharia law and anti-Western agents provocateurs.
Ms Laouni was interviewed by outspoken popular radio host Benoit Dutrizac Wednesday. He asked her, What is the difference between a good Muslim and an Islamist? She replied: I dont know, I have never been around an extremist…
Not true.
I attended a Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) fund-raiser in September 2007 in Ms Laounis riding that featured the notoriously controversial British journalist Yvonne Ridley. As Project Manager for the CIC's Quebec branch, Ms Laounis name was listed on the program as an organizer and contact person.
Ridley, a convert to Islam after a period of captivity with the Taliban, is famous for her provocations: She has defended the Chechen terrorist leader Shamil Basayev, the mastermind behind both the Moscow theatre hostage crisis and Beslan school massacre, as a shaheed (martyr) with an assured home in Paradise; and is on record counselling British Muslims “to boycott the police and refuse to co-operate with them in any way, shape or form.” Ridley performed as expected that night, praising the misunderstood Taliban, Canada's mortal enemies, cheering on Hezbollah, and bashing the West at every turn. Id call that extremist.
Ms Laounis active participation in the leadership of the CIC is problematic. This organization has petitioned to have Hezbollah and Hamas removed from the governments official terror list. CICs president, Mohamed Elmasry, has declared every adult Jew in Israel to be a legitimate target for murder.
Ms Laounis name may be vaguely familiar to those who followed the Reasonable Accommodation hearings in Quebec. She was co-chair of the delegation that went to the famous town of Hrouxville to lecture its residents on respect and tolerance.
Thats a bit rich in the light of a rather shocking poem that had just been published, written by Ms Laounis riding association president (and until recently her campaign manager), Haydar Moussa. Allegedly an expression of the pain felt by Muslim women who experience prejudice, Moussas poem lashes out at heritage Quebec culture, portraying Quebec women as promiscuous drunks:
“My veil is not a kerchief,” “It's my skin/My modesty, my dignity, my respect.
“And if you, old-stock immigrant/You have neither faith nor law/And you spent your youth drunk/And went from one male to the next/That's not the case for me.”
Moussa, who has yet to apologize for the poem, is vice-president of the Association des Jeunes Libanais Muselmans de Montral. Their website features the Hezbollah war anthem Ya Ashraf An Na (United We Stand), which calls on Muslims to fight the tyrant (the U.S. and Israel presumably) because victory is promised by God.
The associations website also has links to a number of radical Shiite ayatollahs, including Hezbollahs spiritual leader, jihadism strategist Sayed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who, for the record, supports terrorism, although, ironically enough, does not support abortion. Has anyone asked Ms Laouni what her private views on jihadism, as well as abortion, are? Or, she being Muslim, not Catholic, and NDP, not Conservative, would such an intrusion into her private conscience be considered too politically indelicate?
bkay@videotron.ca
National Post
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73 Comments
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by Sassylassie
Sep 11 2008
9:26 AM
As per the norm you've nailed the hypocrisy directly on the head. It's truely vile and despicable that Catholics and Christians are considered “Hateful and evil” by our Liberal and Lefty Political Leaders whilst they suck up to our enemy. Their bigotry goes unpunished, and usually unrebutted thanks Mrs. Kay for attempting to address this issue of hatred, contempt and bigotry. Sadly the Left's hatred grows daily for Conservative and Christian beliefs, I can be punished and financially ruined for my peaceful Christian beliefs via HRCs yet the left can espouse their hatred and bigotry openly and in public without penalty.
Equality in Canada is applicable only if your views are based on Liberal or Illiberal ideology, if you espouse the left's ideology of “Anything goes baby if it feels good” you are deemed tolerant if you believe the above philosophy is damaging the moral fabric of our society you are deemed “Intolerant” and bigoted.
It's okay for the Islamists to hate and loathe our western culture and spread their hatred, but if you value human life you are a threat to society. Where oh where did we start going down the path to moral destruction.
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by lauren_l
Sep 11 2008
9:40 AM
The problem is that it isn't politically correct to delve into Ms Laounis background. Even with the evidence that she has met extremists, it would be seen as an attack on a different religion, one that average Canadians just don't 'understand'. The truth is we need to get over our collective 'turn the other cheek mentality' and actually investigate ties to questionable groups. Not because everyone of a specific religion is a terrorist, but because there are people who hate The West, who would hurt us given the chance. Why are we in Afghanistan if not to stem the tide of extremists? Only to find their is support for them on our own soil.
Catholicism is one of the religions that is constantly under fire lately, even in the US. Its okay for everyone else to practice their religion, to have prayer time in offices and schools, but if a catholic asked for the same it would be seen as discriminating against others.
The truth is the double standard has tipped the other way. And being Catholic is akin to being a leper just waiting to force your religion on others. We bend over backwards to be inclusive and multicultural while condemning half the people who live in this country. This isn't the crusades. It isn't one religion against the other. Judge EVERYONE fairly. Don't pick on one group and give another an out, just to avoid offending anyone.
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by chuck80
Sep 11 2008
10:58 AM
For many years, Duceppe used to walk around, righteous and indignant about whatever issues. He was a man with integrity and he used to hold Stephen Harper's feet to the fire. Some Anglos even said he was a better leader than any federalist option.
Gradually however, over the last few years, the untenable stance of the Bloc in our country has slowly shown him that he was not immune to his own flawed philosophical stances.
This has now mutated into a full-fledged degeneration of this individual and his politics. He is becoming irrelevant and activistic. Typical leftard devolution!
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by Tarek_Fatah
Sep 11 2008
11:33 AM
Shame on Jack Layton for permitting an Islamist to run on the NDP ticket.
Samira Laouni and the CIC have done tremdous damage to the reputation of the Muslim community in Canada by pursuing an agenda that resembles that of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Quebec offers two stark contrasts between Muslim women: Legislator Fatima Houda-Pepin represents the vast majority of us Muslims, modern, liberal, enlightened and progressive. Samira Laouni on the other hand espouses the causes of medievalism, the Mosque establishment and the Sharia obsessed jihadi radicals in this country. Louani should be soundly defeated and be given the chouice of moving to Iran or Saudi Arabia where she will find necessary fertile soil she desires to plant the seeds of medieval values.
What Canada needs is many more Fatima Houda-Pepins and far less Samira Laounis.
As for Duceppe is concerned, doesn't he realize Samira Laouni represents the dark Duplessis era in Quebec? Or perhaps like so many on the Left, he too practices the racism of lower expectations; savour secular democracy for all Quebecois and Canadians, but for us Muslims, leave us to the mercy of our clergy. No Mr. Duceppe, just as your parents threw out the Duplessis era, we Muslims too will soon dump our own theocrats. Its a pity, you will not be there to help us free the community from these mysognists, homophobes and hate mongers.
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by nationalposter
Sep 11 2008
12:06 PM
Excellent article and further evidence that a vote for the NDP, Liberals, or BQ is a vote FOR radical, socialistic, terrorist-supporting, intolerant and censorship-backing parties who wish to socially engineer Canada into oblivion with our children to suffer the chaos and fallout.
While the Conservatives are far from perfect, they are the only major party I see that is even close to “moderate” as they stand with Israel against Islamo-terrorism, are respectful of Christianity, and, unlike the Greens, have economic policy that will not bring Canada to its knees in order to usher in socialistic utopia (aka poverty for all).
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by TCTheTiger
Sep 11 2008
1:00 PM
Thank you, Barabara Kay, for speaking up and speaking out……it is extremely politically incorrect these days to apply fairness to the Catholics…..
I'm not at all surprised by the leftists who seem to leave the Muslim extremists alone. For one thing, the extremists will retaliate, unlike the regular Catholic whose protest will not even disturb anyone's afternoon tea. Besides, the terrorists' tactics are quite in line with the leftists' – sort of like retrofitting abortions. Now abortions are certainly women's choice as long as those women weren't the mothers of the advocates'.
I wonder what the leftists have in mind if they know certain fetuses will grow up leftists but the women insist on their choice…….
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by Warwick1
Sep 11 2008
1:08 PM
I've never understood the left cozzying up to Islamists.
They seem to make strange bedfellows.
Given that if the left thinks your average western christians is roughly equal to satin riding cerberus to devour the children I fail to see why they'd side with a group who would oppress them and deny them everything they claim to hold dear given half the chance. That's if the Islamist let them live at all.
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by ShayGaetz
Sep 11 2008
1:33 PM
We are witness to a nouveau anti-Semitism of the vilest sort. A generation ago Canada proudly proclaimed its obeisance to”Judeo-Christian” principles; sadly, such talk today would be mocked and ridiculed. Capitalizing on new modern latitudes, the politically correct maliciously lampoons and execrates what was once was held dear.
Malicious “fiction” such as Dan Brown that also denigrates Opus Dei constitutes nothing more than the Protocols of the Elders of Zion writ Catholic. We forget the countless Catholic clergy and laity who for the last two millennia submitted righteously to the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience
striving only to make this planet a better place for their fellow human beings. Widows, orphans and the dispossessed were provided basic means as well as schools, hospitals and spiritual guidance. Today's public frenzy of “Shadenfreude”execrates such noble self-sacrifice and we are all the poorer and very much the sadder for it.
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by TCTheTiger
Sep 11 2008
2:03 PM
Shay: little do they know (here I'm giving them benefits of the doubt for not knowing) that by denouncing the Judeo-Christian roots, they have lost their identity. And therefore, their moral predicate becomes 'anything goes'. Everything we do roots itself in the moral makeup of our being, and with the moral roots rooted up, 'lost' becomes norm.
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by Felicity Hangnail
Sep 11 2008
4:17 PM
TCTheTiger – why don't you explain to the readers what your Catholic Church, through Duplessis, did to the Jehovah's Witnesses in Quebec in the 1960's.
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by Felicity Hangnail
Sep 11 2008
4:20 PM
ShayGaetz – which Catholic clergy and Laity are you referring to? I hope it's not the ones that molested all those children and then relied on their Catholic heirarchy to protect them from public prosecution.
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by chuck80
Sep 11 2008
5:32 PM
LOL@Felicity….a little pissed at Catholics are we?
Tarek Fatah, Thanks for your contributions; they always add insider knowledge in a way that must make some of those tyrants' blood boil!!
May you prosper!
