Editor:
In the letters to editor I was ambushed by an old acquaintance, Rick Matthews, who I have known for 40 years.
He doesn’t know any of the authors I referred to in an earlier letter. Maybe Rick should expand his reading beyond the Greenpeace Gazette. Both Ayan Hirst Ali and Mark Steyn are known internationally. Ayan, a Somali Muslim, helped make a short film called Submission (Islam). For doing this she was branded an infidel and a fatwa (death sentence) was declared against her.
She lives in the U.S. now, writes books and gives speeches, etc. She can’t go anywhere without bodyguards as thousands of Muslims, even her family, consider it a religious duty to kill her. She has asked why Western culture is so tolerant of the intolerant?
Mark Steyn and Macleans Magazine went through a two-year inquisition by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Mark Steyn and Macleans won but legal fees cost them one million dollars, it did not cost the Moslem complainants one penny.
Incidentally, Rex Murphy (heard of him, Rick?), stated: “Human Rights Commissions are a blight and absolute contradiction in terms. They are censor boards, grotesquely unfair, an offence against Canadian democracy”
Rick says we should put aside practicality, don’t count beans, have compassion, empathy.
Sounds like the 60s mantra: “All you need is love.” Of course, love without knowledge can be foolish. Think of the elderly cat lady has compassion for the 100 cats in her tiny house, 10 of them dead. The flip side is: “knowledge without love can be cruel.”
Twenty years ago, Trevor Phillips, head of Britain’s Human Rights Commission coined the phrase, “Islamophobia.” He now has serious concerns himself. Quote: “For a long time I thought Europe’s Muslims would be like previous waves of migrants” ... “gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity. I should have known better.”
To build your strawman, Rick, you misrepresented what I said about immigration. You cynically pointed out my family is of foreign descent. So what?
All of us at one time or another came from a foreign land. I said there are thousands of people wanting to immigrate to Canada, patiently waiting in their home countries, going through the bureaucratic hurdles and paperwork to come here.
Why not fast track them instead of 50,000 undocumented refugees, 10,000 is practical, doable, more than a trickle but not a flood.
Alan Trenzek
Williams Lake