Journalist for Life Michael Coren
White guilt is a terrible thing to waste. Something that became profoundly clear during the trial of Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya, and their son Hamed earlier this year. Although the case was shocking, it was in fact only the most recent of a dozen murders in the last 12 years, most involving Muslim patriarchs killing young girls who wanted to be horribly western by wearing nice clothes, doing nice things. Which brings us to the greater point here, which has more long-term consequences than this single repugnant case. The authorities – be they police, politicians, social workers, media – are obsessed with appearing to be non-judgmental when Islam is concerned; partly out of a fear of being accused of Islamaphobia, but also because they genuinely believe that the white, Christian west has more to learn from Islam than the contrary. The Shafia girls had pleaded with their teachers for help, and while front line social workers acknowledged that the situation was potentially disastrous, the concerns evaporated as soon as they reached middle management. So Mohammad Shafia, who had written of his daughters that he hoped “the devil shits on their graves,” was, effectively, permitted to commit mass murder.
This issue is pertinent to the pro-life community, because it obviously concerns life, but also because it reveals the gaping double standard that media and the establishment use when dealing with different religions and different causes. Good Lord, if an abortionist is attacked – and this is always wrong – the entire movement is painted as dark and violent. Yet even months after the Shafia case, commentators are embarrassingly, cringingly, reluctant to link the crime in any way with Islam, and it is described as domestic violence. No! This was not domestic violence but yet another example of an Islamic psychosis that has its epicentre in Pakistan, but extends to most parts of the Islamic heartland, and many in the Muslim diaspora. It’s a self-evident truth that not all Muslims behave so brutally, but it’s also undeniable that Islam teaches that a woman is the property of a father, then a husband. Most fathers and husbands are kind, but if they are not they are empowered by Koranic teaching and the prism of Sharia law to behave pretty much as they like.
While it’s true that honour killings are not exclusively Muslim, Islam is the only faith that boasts textual defence and sacred justification for such grotesque acts. When 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez was murdered in a 2007 honour killing by her Pakistani father and brother, CAIR Canada told the gullible that, “It’s important not to generalize. There are cases of violence across all faiths and all cultures.” That was rubbish, but worse than Muslim extremists hiding the truth, are non-Muslims embracing lies without question. We saw this during the Parisian riots, when mobs of overwhelmingly Muslim youths beat and torched their way through the city, often screaming “Allahu Akbar.” Yet they were almost never described as being Muslim by the media. So different from when the Norwegian killer Anders Behring Breivik, a Freemason who wrote that he had no relationship with God and had not attended a church in 15 years, was repeatedly defined as a “Christian fundamentalist” on international television.
In the United States, President Obama played this game of obscene hide-and-seek when he dealt with Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 colleagues and wounded dozens more. Even though Hasan identified himself as a Muslim radical and told friends that it was the duty of a Muslim to wage war against the US Army, Obama refused to refer to the man’s religion.
He has gone further. Under the current administration, and to a degree even under his predecessor, moderate Muslims have been marginalized and almost excluded from the political establishment and halls of power. It’s the racism of lowered expectations. Fundamentalist organisations have convinced white liberals that only activists with beards or burkas are genuine Muslims, and to think otherwise is colonial and patronizing. Yet this same president will have nothing to do with good, peaceful Americans who oppose abortion or support traditional marriage; they are rejected, radical Muslims are encouraged.
Then we have the sugar-coating approach. The CBC produces Little Mosque on the Prairie. The imam is a handsome, progressive young man with a liberated, pretty wife. His fellow Muslims are fun-loving and tolerant, unlike the local Christian preacher, who is a bigoted ignoramus, or the conservative radio talk-show host, who screams all the time. The achingly bland show has been sold across the world, but oddly enough no episode about honour killings or female genital mutilation has so far been made. Can you imagine a CBC program showing the nice, gentle side of pro-lifers or evangelicals or serious Catholics? Please don’t hold your breath – that would be an act of suicide.
