Ottawa Citizen
The arguments may be drivel but that's no reason to censor them
Dan Gardner
December 15, 2007
Back in September 2006, I came across a hilarious statement published in a Norwegian newspaper. "We're the ones who will change you," declared an Islamist wing-nut in Oslo with the delightful name of Mullah Krekar. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children. By 2050, 30 per cent of the population in Europe will be Muslim."
The conquest of Europe is inevitable, says Krekar. Islam will copulate its way to victory.
I filed this for future reference. At the time, I was travelling in Europe to study Muslim integration and I knew that Mark Steyn -- an ultra-conservative Canadian writer based in the U.S. with a huge following among American conservatives -- was about to release a book on that very subject. Called America Alone, it would make the case -- which Steyn had been making in his columns for ages -- that social democracy has sapped Europe of its vitality, shrunk its fertility rates, and made it inevitable that fecund Muhammedans would turn the continent into Eurabia.
The conquest of Europe is inevitable, says Steyn. Islam will copulate its way to victory.
As the reader may have gathered, I think the Steyn/Krekar hypothesis is drivel. There are many objections to be raised but the most obvious is that fertility rates are plummeting everywhere -- and some of the fastest declines are happening in the Muslim world. What's more, Muslim immigrants to Europe may have more babies than the simpering social democrats Steyn despises, but there's plenty of evidence that their offspring aren't interested in conquering Europe with diapers and sippy cups. In the Netherlands -- a country Steyn says will be one of the first to drown in the Muslim tide -- the national statistics agency says the fertility rate of second-generation Muslim women "hardly differs from that of native Dutch women."
This is why I filed Krekar's statement. When Steyn's book was released, I would quote the Mad Mullah of Oslo and suggest Steyn's thoughts deserved about as much respect.
But then the book crossed my desk and, wouldn't you know, Steyn had beat me to it. Right there, on page 39, Steyn had himself quoted Mullah Krekar. Of course, Steyn wasn't ridiculing the man. Oh no. He cited the statement as further proof that Europe was doomed and America stood alone against the Oriental hordes. So much for my devastating rhetorical device.
I relate this little story not to ridicule America Alone as a silly book -- or at least, not only for that reason -- but because I want to establish up front that I am not a fellow-traveller. I marvel at Mark Steyn's way with words and I think he's the funniest writer in the business today, but I find his research tendentious, his perspective blinkered, his judgments crude and his rhetoric offensive. Almost everything Steyn writes makes me want to buy him a beer and break his jaw. Not necessarily in that order.
And yet I am absolutely outraged at what the Canadian Islamic Congress is doing to Mark Steyn. The Oct. 23, 2006 edition of Maclean's magazine published an excerpt from America Alone as a cover story, prompting a deluge of angry responses. Maclean's properly gave the critics ample space, running 27 letters over two issues. Even five months later, when the CIC approached Maclean's editor Ken Whyte to ask if they could run an article in response, Whyte said he'd consider it. Only when the CIC demanded Whyte essentially hand over control of a chunk of his magazine did he tell the group to buzz off.
And so the CIC filed complaints with the federal, British Columbia and Ontario human rights commissions. The first two have already agreed to hear the case and now Steyn and Maclean's will have to spend time and money justifying what they wrote and published.
In one sense, this is a depressingly familiar battle over free speech. But it's also unique, and uniquely depressing, because the core of Steyn's argument is that Muslim immigrants are a threat to the West because they are not embracing core western values. One of those core values is freedom of thought and expression. So how does the CIC respond? By insisting Steyn should be punished for writing that.
"How ironic, and how unfortunate," wrote Tarek Fatah and Farzana Hassan of the Muslim Canadian Congress in an article posted on the Maclean's website. "Only when we Muslims stand behind the right of authors and writers to freely express their views -- even if they are offensive -- will we have proven Steyn wrong. By trying to censor him, the CIC only proves him right."
Just so. Mark Steyn may be offensive to Muslims who see no contradiction between being a Muslim and a citizen of a free and democratic country, but he is the least of their worries.
Dan Gardner writes Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. E-mail: dgardner@thecitizen.canwest.com