Posted on 09/14/2002 5:09:04 PM PDT by Clive
When the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) speaks, the media listen. The Council recently released a survey accusing much of the Canadian media of being biased against Muslims. Dutifully, newspapers across the country relayed the news to readers.
"Respondents felt that the most biased outlets were those owned by Canwest: the National Post, Global [TV] and the Ottawa Citizen," said CAIR's press release.
Odd that. This is the 23rd article this newspaper has published in the last year that cites information or statistics provided by CAIR. Southam newspapers, many of which have come under unrelenting attack from the Muslim lobby group, have run almost 200 articles quoting or citing CAIR spokesmen. Whatever complaints Muslims lodge against Canadian society, they cannot complain about the media's lack of receptivity to those complaints.
And what of the complaints themselves? Are Muslims in fact victimized?
"There was a very well-documented, anti-Muslim hate wave that swept through Canada, and Muslims had their faith and their identify called into question [after Sept. 11]," Riad Saloojee, executive director of CAIR-CAN, said last week.
The council polled 296 Muslims across the country and said 56% believe the media have grown more biased against Muslims. Sixty per cent said they had directly experienced anti-Muslim incidents.
Due to the small sample size, it was difficult to dissect the claim that Canada is a swamp of anti-Muslim animus. For instance, only 117 people identified any specific way in which their lives had changed for the worse since Sept. 11; almost as many (98) identified ways in which their lives had improved -- they gained an opportunity to "build bridges with non-Muslims" or "remedy stereotypes."
But reading anything of significance into this survey, good or bad, is foolish. For this was hardly a random sample. The surveys were e-mailed to the group's electronic listserv recipients, as well as those who had attended its "conventions, lectures and other events." In other words, the survey polled only those who had already signed on to -- or at least been exposed to -- the council's protest campaign against the alleged "vindictive print censorship of CanWest Global."
This survey was not scientific. Apart from the sampling bias, no margin of error was reported. E-mailed surveys are notoriously unreliable: Response rates are low, and those who do respond tend to be self-selecting. The results only represent the views of the 296 respondents, not those of the Muslim population at large.
Why did the media oblige in publishing the results of a poll so obviously flawed? Because allegations of racism, no matter how histrionic, make news.
Let me be clear. There undoubtedly have been some serious cases of hostility against Muslims in Canada: In the weeks after Sept. 11, mosques were defaced, as was properly reported by the media. But, as groups like CAIR will concede, such incidents tapered off sharply only weeks after the terrorist attacks.
However much some in the media tried to imagine a "backlash" against Muslim Canadians, the truth is there never really was one. A February poll by Environics found strong support for diversity and tolerance toward minorities. Yet a month earlier, Marketing Magazine advised us that Canadian "biases have been exposed" since the terrorist attacks. A month before that, Maclean's reported that "Sept. 11 has given white supremacist organizations a shot in the arm." Maclean's had no data to back up its alarmism apart from unsubstantiated evidence from a talk-show host who had "no firm figures."
This kind of hyperbole expands the idea of "bias" beyond all rational bounds. Of the 262 incidents of alleged bias documented in the CAIR poll, most involved perceived slights -- impossible to verify -- such as "rude looks and stares," "comments attacking Islam," and a "bad attitude from public and service personnel." Meanwhile, the accusations against Jean Chrétien, the Prime Minister, whom CAIR has reprimanded as indifferent to Muslim concerns, were even less precise: The reason most given for why Mr. Chrétien deserved to be scolded was a "general impression" of ill will toward Muslims.
Racism is a serious charge. One should need more than a "general impression" to make the case against the Canadian media and the Prime Minister. And believe me: If there were reliable data to substantiate it, the media would happily report it. On page one.
Neil Seeman, a lawyer, is Director of the CANSTATS project at the Fraser Institute in Toronto.
I'm not racist; but I am culturalist. The "American Way" is a superior culture. If it weren't all these folks wouldn't be falling all over themselves getting here.
If an Arab or South/Southwest Asian denounces Islam and embraces the United States, he can be a fine fellow. Otherwise, based on empirical evidence, that culture is a ticket straight to 12th century living and barbarism.
(*@&% multiculturalism.
Since feelgood leftists without a strong knowledge of language started trying to enforce their worldview on the rest of us. Talk show host Neal Boortz pretty regularly will ask a caller, who is using the term, to define racism. When they fail, as they usually do, he hangs up on them. "Bzzzt! You're not smart enough to be on this talk show!"
And yet another hyphenated name is born.
Personally, I'm still waiting to see a major denunciation of what "radical Islam" did on September 11, 2001. But I have the feeling I'll be waiting for a long, long time.
Signed
A Methodist American.
You are of course, correct. Forced conversion is the Islamic M.O. The only willing coverts Im aware of are those happen in our prisons.
I suspect we'll all get the chance.
Here's a happy thought from Middle East expert Daniel Pipes:
Islamists constitute a small but significant minority of Muslims, perhaps 10 to 15 per cent of the population. Many of them are peaceable in apearance, but they all must be considered potential killers.
How does 400,000 to 800,000 -- in our country -- potential killers sound?
Meet an Islamist -- peaceable in appearance, killer
America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)
Personally, I think ALL non-citizen muslims should be deported. All muslims who are US citizens should be required to swear, in writing, a renunciation of islamism (which I don't feel violates Article VI). Those who won't should be interned for the duration of the war.
Good one! I think we're really starting to get it. We Americans like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but we have our limits.
Like you said, that's NORMAL.
Ah, there are those telltale PC catchwords again that permeate our society. "Political Corectnes" is the vehicle that empowers these self-aggrandizing lobby groups to make a mockery of our policies and paralyze our weak-willed government from effectively fighting the war against terrorism.
CAIR should take into consideration Saudia Arabia's policy requiring women in our military to wear Middle Eastern attire the next time they demand that the media print more meaningless garbage from their propaganda idiots.
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