Dear Dymphna:
I was just at Dan Riehl's site and saw a link to is report, which floored me. I am staggered by the accommodations for Muslims that Canadian colleges are considering. I can scarce believe what I am reading.
Pundita
Accommodations could open door to more demands by Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune, April 18, 2007April 20
Last week, I wrote about Minneapolis Community and Technical College's proposal to install ritual washing facilities to facilitate Muslim prayer. Is this a tempest in a teapot, as some have suggested?
Canada, our neighbor to the north, is farther down the "accommodations" road. A glance north can shed light on whether prayer spaces and ritual washing facilities are likely to satisfy activists for long.
Last month, the Canadian Federation of Students issued a report, titled "Final Report of the Task Force on Needs of Muslim Students," that calls for sweeping changes at the country's institutions of higher education. The federation represents more than 500,000 students across Canada, about half of the nation's total. While the report focuses on Ontario, its conclusions are applicable across the country and internationally, said Jesse Greener, the Federation's Ontario chairperson.
Some recommended changes could affect all students. For example, the report criticizes Canada's loan-based system of financing higher education and calls for outright grants to students. "Education related government loans should not accumulate interest," it says, since Islam "opposes usury and involvement with interest-bearing loans."
Other changes would be more focused. The report endorses "women-only" time at athletic facilities, and urges colleges to "provide curtains or screens over the observation windows" when women are using the pool.
The report calls not just for Muslim-only prayer space but for "multiple prayer spaces" with "easy access" from all over campus. All new building plans should include prayer space and ritual washing facilities if necessary, it adds. Food service workers must learn to prepare halal food, which is ritually slaughtered and otherwise permissible under Sharia law. After preparing non-halal food, staff must "change sanitary gloves and wash cutlery and surfaces" to avoid contaminating halal food.
What if a campus fails to make these changes, and others like them?
It is guilty, says the report, of "Islamophobia" -- an "emerging form of racism," according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Islamophobia includes more than clearly inappropriate behavior such as violence against Muslims or unreasonable suspicion of them.
It can be as "subtle" as a remark that includes a "stereotype" or betrays the speaker's "lack of understanding" of Islam (such as the notion that Sharia law treats women as second class citizens).
Just "one comment" of this kind can create a "poisoned" learning environment for Muslim students, the report says.
"Islamophobic" comments will soon land Canadians in serious trouble, if the federation has its way. The report outlines a comprehensive system "to encourage and facilitate a culture of reporting Islamophobia on campus.
Anti-discrimination officers should be notified whenever such a comment is made, it says.
But the report makes clear that systems like this will not eradicate Islamophobia from Canadian campuses. To remove stereotypes, faculty, staff, students and administrators must all learn "the tenets of Islam," it said. "Education modules" for professors should incorporate a focus on "Islam and Islamophobia," while student activities could range from more courses on themes of the Qur'an and the Islamic world today to "socials, programs and other initiatives" to teach about Islam.
Everyone on campus should learn to recognize his or her "collective responsibility to identify and stop Islamophobia."
Throughout this process, however, Islam must not be taught from a "Western perspective." This qualifies as Islamophobia, because it "misrepresents Islam." At the same time, the report says, some Muslim students have called for integrating "Islamic perspectives" in disciplines such as marketing, nursing and finance," since Islam's view of these differs from those of the West.
The Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada is heavily involved in the Canadian Federation of Students' new report and lobbying. Its president is a member of the task force, and has been a spokesman for its recommendations. The association is the organization that Minneapolis Community and Technical College has looked to for guidance on the ritual washing issue. Its main goal, it says, is "Dawah": spreading Islam.
"It's true, Pundita. Minnesota is already dhimmified; Michigan is working on it, especially Detroit. [...] Did you see the recent backwash on Minnesota cab drivers? They're mostly Somali and they wouldn't pick up anyone who appeared "kaffir" -- a bit of a problem at the airport. It took the authorities long enough but they finally cracked down.
These are the people who will help bring Obama to the Oval office. Hillary must be fuming.
Did you see the essay I did on the uniting of the North American continent? Most people dismiss it as scare tactics, but read the meetings with Condi Rice, the huge taking of private lands through the middle of the US to make the superhighway from the ports in Mexico all the way to Alberta, Canada.
Four lanes for cars, four for trucks, four for boxcars, and one section for electronic maintenance of this supposed "smart" highway. There's an inland port in Kansas City, largely funded by (I think) the Chinese. And, of course, they now control both ends of the Panama Canal. To think we ever worried about Fidel....
The unit of money suggested is the amero.
The concept of sovereignty seems to be fading. See my post, Yes Virginia, there is an American Union waiting in the wings.
It is going to be a Mexican-Muslim standoff, though. Crime in Canada by immigrants -- the trash and dash, or slash and dash, as the case may be -- is so common that people aren't even reporting anymore. It is as [politically correct] and repressive as the EU now.
I think the point tipped, Pundita, but I hope I'm wrong.
Consider joining the Center for Vigilant Freedom. [...] Their basic premise is that "we're on our own." The federal government is too swollen and too corrupt to be of any practical value in the struggles ahead. And the EU, especially with the new hate speech laws, is becoming ever more repressive. Some of the proposals are directed specifically against blogs.
Americans and Europeans have different issues but the core problem is the same: the silencing of dissent.
Also, read the latest Fjordman essay, Is Islam Compatible With Democracy?
Dymphna
Gates of Vienna"
Dear Dymphna:
I was very impressed with Fjordman's essay. I didn't know about the CanAmerMex superhighway but I was struck by this passage from your Yes Virgina essay.
[...] Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.[...]If it's any comfort, the superhighway won't bypass the Longshoreman and Teamsters unions for very long. The most powerful American unions have decided to fight fire with fire: if they can't beat the US companies that globalize production to avoid unions, then globalize the unions. That's the trend right now with labor organizers; eventually it will have a huge impact on the global economy help chip away at national sovereignty.
The business press has barely noticed and the usual champions of globalization have been mute, but an announcement last week in Ottawa signaled a radical new direction for the globalized economy. The United Steelworkers [...] entered into merger negotiations with two of Britain's largest unions (which are merging with each other next month) to create not only the first transatlantic but the first genuinely multinational trade union.Have you seen an old Wayans Brothers movie, The Great White Hype? It's a sendup of the US professional boxing world. The opening scene is a closeup of two scorpions trying to sting each other to death. The camera pulls back to show that the scorpions are locked in their death battle on a road to Las Vegas. They are so intent on the battle that they don't see a Cadillac in the distance, bearing down at top speed. The Caddy, which is driven by a boxing promoter, pulverizes the battling scorpions as it zooms down the road.
[...] The Ottawa declaration broke new ground, but the transnational coordination of unions has been building for more than a decade. The Communications Workers of America has been meeting with telecommunications unions in Europe and elsewhere for years to better deal with common employers. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has for the past two years been working with, and helping to fund, security guard and janitorial unions in other nations as ownership of the property service industry has been consolidated into an ever-smaller number of multinationals.
Last November, the SEIU organized 5,300 immigrant workers who clean the office buildings in downtown Houston -- a stunning achievement in the heart of the anti-union South. Stephen Lerner, chief strategist for the SEIU's Justice for Janitors campaign, attributes the success partly to the same consolidation and globalization processes that have generally proved so debilitating to union power.
Last year just five cleaning contractors -- all either national or global in scope -- employed the majority of the city's janitors, and many of the office buildings were owned by global investors. The emerging global network of property-service unions staged demonstrations supporting the Houston janitors in Mexico, Moscow, London and Berlin.
The Steelworkers' network of strategic alliances with foreign unions dates to the early '90s. As the production of steel became a global enterprise, the union formed alliances with mining and manufacturing unions in Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Mexico, Germany and Britain. In part, the alliances emerged because these unions shared common employers -- Alcoa in metals, Bridgestone in tires and, now, with the Steelworkers and Britain's Amicus having grown to include paper workers, Georgia Pacific and International Paper as well. The unions share research, discuss common bargaining strategies and support one another during strikes.
But the purpose of the proposed merger is broader. "We determined that the best way to fight financial globalization was to fight it globally," says Gerald Fernandez, who heads the Steelworkers' international affairs and global bargaining operations.
"Exploring a merger is the necessary first step to building a global union or federation of metal, mining and general workers."
Whether or not the merger goes through, the Steelworkers and their British partners have already committed to fund human rights and union rights operations in Colombia (which perennially leads the world in murdered unionists) and parts of Africa. They plan to mount a global campaign to protect employees' retirement benefits, under assault in a growing number of countries from financiers who view workers' financial security as a dispensable commodity.(1) [...]
Substitute the Republican and Democrat parties for the scorpions, the European Union for the Cadillac, the globalized investor-banking sectors for Las Vegas, and globalized business for the boxing world, and you have a handy metaphor to explain the way things are going right now in the world.
1) Unions for a Global Economy by Harold Meyerson, The Washington Post, April 26, 2007.
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