I went to an event held at Ryerson University held by the Ryerson Students Union, that featured guest speakers Khaled Loutfi Mouammar, and two of the Osgoode law students who have brought human rights complaints against Macleans Magazine: Khurrum Awan and Muneeza Sheikh
The below audio clip contains only the talking portion of the event.
In the talk, I was the second person from the audience to pose questions to the speakers. The person before me, who supported the call for bringing human rights charges against Macleans magazine, and indeed spent a solid five minutes expatiating on the extent to which he thinks such actions should be taken, was allowed—of course—to speak at length.
Ryerson Student's Union president Nora Loretto, and moderator for the evening, interrupted me about 15 seconds into my questioning in an attempt to drive me to a concise question, as soon as she saw that I disagreed with the actions against Macleans.
In fact, the questioner who came after me, was also allowed to speak at length for four and half minutes straight—I timed it.
Some "public forum".
I did persist, and was able to get most of my challenges question in by being forceful. However, the speakers did nothing but try to point out supposed precedent for their action, and remind me of hypocrisy among certain other groups like the Canadian Jewish Congress vis-a-vis David Ahenakew. Of course, as readers know, I don't support B'nai Brith or the Canadian Jewish Congress' position on hate speech. So his response amounted to nothing but a straw man argument.
The most appalling of the entire thing, is these people are calling to expand the powers of the Human Rights Commission and prosecute more cases like this, especially towards media targets.
Anyways, here's the audio: CLICK HERE TO LISTEN (30 minutes 49 seconds).
Friday, January 18, 2008
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19 comments:
There is a marked difference between the David Ahenakew case and the one brought against Macleans. Ahenakew was criminally charged under Canadian hate propaganda laws. No such charges have been brought against Macleans. My guess is that if a complaint were to be filed with the police, it would likely not result in charges. The threshold is very high for such a charge to stick, a threshold that Macleans is miles from coming even close to. Hence the abuse of the Human Rights Commissions.
Their supposed whole point of the forum is to expand the debate yet they limit it.
Morons.
I have tried numerous times to hear the audio, but it won't load.
Too bad some of these "progressives" have not studied the history of how the Nazis came to power in Germany using very similar tactics.
These students are to be possible future leaders of Canada ... frightening!
Democracy has been saved in Belarus after an editor was jailed for publishing the Danish cartoons!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22731177/
I'm being sarcastic.
I would disagree with the above commenter that the point of that gathering was to expand debate.
No, the point was to wage a propaganda war on behalf of a particular "progressive" view of what thoughts/beliefs are permitted in society.
Goldberg's book on the rise of fascist beliefs among today's left couldn't be more correct,
or timely.
Hi Mike, thanks for attending, I'm sure you could have been doing more enjoyable things on a Friday night.
It's depressing to see law students doing this; muddled thinking and a complete lack of understanding of the fundamentals of our civilization.
Reynolds Forrest, I think they understand "the fundamentals of our civilization" just fine.
The thing to remember about both the jihadi killers and the Left is that they aren't trying to make Canadian society better. They don't like Canadian society. They are trying to destroy it.
Keep that in mind when dealing with these agitators and their useful idiots, it makes their actions much more predictable.
The Phantom
Don't worry this is Ryerson we are talking about, if you have ever walked around the campus, you will realise these will never be our future leaders, maybe CBC or Toronto Star hacks but not our future leaders.
"These students are to be possible future leaders of Canada ... frightening!"
Nah, they go to Ryerson :)
If you don't like free speech then leave this country. I am ashamed to have attended Ryerson. What a travesty. This is a country that obviously does not fit with your world views, so the logical thing to do would be to leave.
Ahenakew should not have been charged either. Laws banning free speech are an abomination in any court or commission.
http://steynian.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/steynianism-260/
Thank you for posting this audio.
I find it interesting that these students would try to use the HRC to accuse free thinking societies (and their publication mediums) of anti-muslim sentiment; yet, when anti-envangilists or anti-Christian are given, the very same people are silent.
For example, we often hear of slanders being made of the "bible belt envangilists" by our media (CBC is very good at promoting one sided views in its documentaries). Or see displays of disturbing distortion of Christian symbols in our museums and elsewhere (Christ with an erection or Virgin Mary in erotic poses).
There are many fundamental Christians who are often made fun of by the very same students and people.
Currently, the very same students are blocking the creation of anti-abortion students groups on campus.
In my opinion, what these students are promoting is to abolish free thinking and free speech and expression.
I for one do not want to live in a1984 society.
We are missing the point.
Neither the left nor the right have exclusive ownership of the trend towards facist thinking, nor does either have any exclusive protection from the same. Both sides of the spectrum can advocate totalitarian ideas (while sounding good)...
UNLESS ...
those within both these halves of the spectrum constantly protect themselves (and the rest) from such tendencies.
In other words, only people can stop people from pushing facists agendas or policies.
want to begin by thanking Mike for attending this event, recording it, and voicing the other side. I am a Ryerson student who wanted to attend but had a prior engagement.
I would just like to respond to some of your comments, while offering some of my own thoughts.
In response to Anonymous(2): I think we need to be very careful when we speak of the activist community. I will not deny that many progressives are in fact anti-free speech and this saddens me greatly. It saddens me not because I am am on the right (as many of you seem to be) and fear what these left-wingers will do to our society. On the contrary, I think that the activist movement has accomplished great things for such groups as women, queers, racialized peoples, etc. Moreover, I believe that these movements are still needed today. What saddens me on the issue of free speech and censorship is that I do not hear more of my activist associates defending it.
Ezra made an excellent argument during his interrogation in which he explained to the commissioner that all progressive movements begin as fringe movements because they challenge the status quo. Without freedom of speech and freedom of the press I would not have many of the rights that I have today as some one who is both a women and queer, and who suffers from mental illness. It is only through the free exchange of ideas that progress can come about.
I recently attended an event at Ryerson entitled "Adam and St(eve): Confronting the Creation Story. Lunch Seminar and Discussion with Rabbi Steve Greenberg, World's First Openly Gay Orthodox Rabbi". The event was wonderful and Rabbi Greenberg was most insightful.
There was a Christian student who attended the event who was homophobic (I use this word in its truest sense to mean fear of queers, not necessarily oppressive or discriminatory towards us), as well as resistant to Rabbi Greenberg's attempts to reinterpret the Book of Genesis from a queer- and woman-positive perspective. Unlike the RSU who tried to shutdown Mike's opposing views, the Rabbi allowed the student to ask his questions and responded. He had so many questions/comments, however, that he stayed afterwards to continue the discussion. He appeared visibly nervous and almost scared while interacting with those of us who stayed behind and the Rabbi. This was despite any attempt to shut him down.
This is the point for bringing this up: Why was he so afraid? Is this what political correctness and activist movements have brought us to? This person was so afraid to hold these opposing views that he was reluctant to voice them, seemed apologetic for voicing them, and didn't remain in the room for very long afterwards, despite an apparent interest in the subject.
I say this to all of you, but especially to my friends and colleagues on the Left and in the activist community: I believe that limits on freedom of speech whether they be legal or merely cultural are DETRIMENTAL to our cause. If people like this man are so afraid to say anything anti-queer, how will we ever truly promote acceptance of homosexuality? His views will not go away. On the contrary, they will merely go unchallenged, or worse, he will go back to his church and discuss his homophobic views with others who will merely confirm his beliefs. Therefore, not only will he continue to believe what he does, but he will continue to do so in an unchallenged/irrational way. As a student of philosophy and a citizen of the future this scares me. I don't want to live in a homophobic world, true. But I also don't want to live in an uncritical world. I don't want to be a "herd animal"; I want to make Nietzsche proud. Furthermore, as stated above, open discussion and debate on issues of social justice and oppression WILL lead to less oppression. If I didn't believe this I wouldn't have much faith both my position and my ability to reason. Nothing this student said threatened me. Did it offend me? Yes. Did I feel so intimidated that I felt I couldn't take him on and even possibly change his mind? No.
In response to The Phantom who stated "The thing to remember about both the jihadi killers and the Left is that they aren't trying to make Canadian society better. They don't like Canadian society. They are trying to destroy it."
LOL You made me laugh. You sound just as crazy as some of my conspiracy-believing left-wing friends. No, Mr. Phantom not everyone is out to get you. Firstly, after dealing first hand with the MSA (Muslim Students association) at Ryerson, I must say that none of them came across to me as "jihadi killers". In fact, despite my serious disagreements with their unfeminist and anti-queer positions, I found them to be quite peaceful people. We had a very polite conversation despite our disagreement. No phantom, no death threats or anything.
Secondly, the "Left" is a very broad and heterogeneous group. A better analysis is to look at both the fringe left and right, where you will find Socialists, Anarchists, absolute Libertarians, and many other groups who believe that the only way to better our society is to first destroy it and then re-build it. Lets be very clear here, however. I have several anarchist, socialist, and feminist/queer friends who believe that we should do just that. While you may disagree with them, to say that they "don't want to make society better...they are (merely) trying to destroy it" is pretty hurtful. We should all try to understand where our political opponents are coming from. This is the only way to have true debate and dialogue with each other.
In response to Steve who wrote: "Don't worry this is Ryerson we are talking about, if you have ever walked around the campus, you will realize these will never be our future leaders, maybe CBC or Toronto Star hacks but not our future leaders."
LOL. Steve, you also made me laugh. I love the intellectual elitism that drips from your comment. As a Ryerson Student I can tell you that I hate the RSU, but I love Ryerson. Let me guess. You graduated from UofT Commerce or Engineering right? You are as typical as the RSU executive: close-minded, one-sided, and "intellectually superior" to everyone else.
In response to the final Anonymous posting: Thank-you. It is wonderful to see another balanced and rational person on this message board. You, me, and Mike of course. (I'm his biggest fan.) :)
Sarah Landau
Arts and Contemporary Studies
Ryerson University
Well I'm lonely and I find this topic pretty interesting call me or email me and we can talk about it!!!
:)
Kas7286@aol.com
802-578-3690
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