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Several groups of Muslim Canadians are calling on police to investigate a lecture given last week at Campbell Baptist Church, Windsor, Ontario. They allege that the lecture, the first in a series entitled “The Deadly Threat of Islam”, was hate speech. The Windsor Star reports:
Controversy filled a west Windsor church where the lecture of a purported former Muslim terrorist warned that Islam is a religion of war being brought to Canadian soil.
In a speech at Campbell Baptist Church on Thursday night [11 January], 49-year-old Zachariah Anani said that Islamic doctrine teaches nothing less than the "ambushing, seizing and slaying" of non-believers — especially Jews and Christians.
"Violence keeps going on," said Anani, a Lebanese-born convert to Christianity who came to Windsor in 1997.
The lecture was well-attended—over 120 showed up—and many came prepared to disagree.
"You're inciting hatred by the title of tonight's topic," argued Gary Roberts while waving a hand with emotion.
. . .
A group of seven male Muslims who attended the meeting shook their heads at Anani's speech. At the start of the event, the men declined to stand for the church's hymn as a sign of protest.
Five Canadian Muslim groups soon joined to call for a police investigation.
The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN), Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), Windsor Islamic Association, Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and Al Hijra Mosque and School, are asking the Windsor Police in Ontario to investigate the lecture series, “The Deadly Threat of Islam,” as a possible forum for hate speech.
They have also contacted provincial Attorney General Michael Bryant, formally requesting a hate-crime investigation.
The public outcry proved too much for Donald McKay, pastor of Campbell Baptist Church, who now says he would use less provocative language in pamphlets promoting the lecture.
"(The pamphlets) absolutely could have been worded differently," he said. "We're not interested … in causing unnecessary polarization. I did not think this would have the type of media backlash that it has."
. . .
"We're not trying to be provocative unnecessarily," he said. "We make a clear distinction between doctrine and people. Orthodox Islamic doctrine does promote violence. We believe that. The world has shown … many individuals, because they follow verses in Qur'an that promote violence, have themselves engaged in acts of violence."He added: "We do not believe that all Muslims are violent. If that has been suggested, we have been misquoted or taken out of context."
I wasn’t at the lecture, so I don’t know if what Mr Anani said qualifies as hate speech. But I do know that, in view of what Muslims are doing to Christians in Iraq, Egypt, West Bank and Gaza, Indonesia, Nigeria, etc.—not to mention that Muslims often mistreat Jews—his claim cannot be dismissed out of hand. One could argue that appealing for hate crime prosecution is an attempt to shut down expression of plausible but unpopular opinion.
Mr Anani is giving the second lecture in the series tonight at the church.
Previous related posts:
“This claim cannot be dismissed out of hand. One could argue that appealing for hate crime prosecution is an attempt to shut down expression of plausible but unpopular opinion.”
Although I strongly disagree with hate crimes, regardless of how popular or unpopular they may be, I welcome the debate. I think it is essectial.
I was not in attendance either, but I was and remain very much afraid that exteneists on both sides are setting the agenda for the planet –all in the name of God/Allah and freedom and justice. It inspired me to write the following:
The Equally Deadly Threats of Islam and Christianity:
There are interpretations and manifestations of the Islamic faith that do indeed pose a threat — even a deadly threat. This is beyond dispute. This “deadly threat” does not exclusively target non-Muslim “infidels”. Muslims themselves can be the target of these factions, just as Christian sects are and have been involved in deadly combat with each other. It is important to make such distinctions, and not paint all Muslims or all Christians with the same brush.
Non-Muslims have been the targets and victims of self-proclaimed Islamic factions. In the west the horrific destruction of the Twin Towers, the subway bombings in Madrid and London have shattered any illusions Westerners had about being immune to such threats. Our fears were affirmed and reaffirmed by our leaders, and we endorsed and allowed a host of measures to be taken to reestablish our shattered sense of security.
Unfortunately the vast majority of these measures have not reestablished our former sense of security. The curtailment of fundamental basic rights of Muslims has provided Muslims with even more reason to fear Westerners and Christians than we Westerners and Christians have to fear Muslims. To name only a few: We have Guantanamo Bay, were Muslims are held without trial and due process; We have had Abu Ghraib prison, where tens of thousands of Muslims are held under similar conditions, and subjected to torture and sexual abuse; In Canada, where I live, Muslims are being held on security certificates, denied access to a fair trial and access to the evidence against them; One Canadian citizen was arrested in the United States and sent to Syria, where he was tortured before being exonerated by an Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation; The preemptive invasion and occupation of Iraq in response to some ambiguous and, as it turns out, unfounded threat of Muslim terrorism and tens of thousands of casualties; After the charred remains of four mercenaries were found in Faluja that city was bombarded, killing over one thousand Muslims (half of them women and children –250 Muslims killed for each of the four dead Americans).
I was in Iraq at that time. Many Iraqis told me that whoever had done this to these foreign mercenaries were not true Muslims because such acts were against the Muslim faith. This must be the starting point. Before criticizing the other, both Christians and Muslims must criticize equally unacceptable behavior by those who’s faith they share. A Christian/Westerner’s condemnation of the preaching of hatred on the part of some Muslim cleric will be heard as insincere, and hypocritical by most Mulims if they do not also hear, with equal vigor, the condemnation of similar behavior when it is done by a fellow Christian/Westerner; and, of course, vice versa.
Our current strategy of trying to make our enemies more afraid of us than we are of them is misguided and counter productive. We have and are increasingly becoming the evil we say we are out to combat. The threat posed to Muslins by certain powerful Christian and Western decision-makers is no less real than the threat certain Muslim sects pose to Westerners and Christians. The fears on both sides are increasingly polarizing the conflict, and their fears result in both sides being increasingly willing to indiscriminately dehumanize and demonize all of the other. This must stop.
We must transform our enemies and embody the God who loved us while we were yet sinners. We must transform rather than vanquish those we are afraid of. We must win hearts and minds. Neither Christians nor Muslims can afford to continue to let our fears of the other dictate our behaviour. While these fears have a basis in our reality and experience, they should not be allowed to determine our collective and mutual annihilation.
If that were to happen the meek would indeed inherit whatever is left of the earth! (Assuming they didn’t all die as collateral damage.)
–Stewart Vriesinga
Your fundamental error is equating actions of the governments of the United States and Canada with actions of Christian bodies. Both nations are, in fact and in law, secular nations, that is to say, both are constitutionally forbidden to give, implicitly or explicitly, official allegiance or preference to any religion or denomination. Offences committed at Abu Ghraib, etc. were not the actions of agents of the Christian church or any other Christian body. They were the actions of members of the armed forces of the US.
In Canada, where I live too, Muslims are held under Canadian laws passed by Parliament. That may be lamentable but, likewise, that is the action of a secular constitutionally defined and democratic legislative body, not that of a Christian church or other Christian body. If we don‚Äôt like the laws Parliament passes, we can change the government in a peaceful and orderly manner—which is far more than can be said about most countries dominated by Islamic authorities.
Moreover, need I point out what happened to the offenders of Abu Ghraib when their crimes became known? A outcry of revulsion and disgust arose from the American people. The criminals were publicly disgraced, prosecuted, and sentenced to prison terms. By contrast, what was the reaction of the general public of West Bank and Gaza, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc., to the events of 11 September 2001, when Muslims purporting to act in the name of Allah committed the worst mass murder ever to occur on American soil? Dancing in the streets, jubilation, congratulation. Just a slight difference in perspective there.
I have a question: How do you know that the “many Iraqis” who spoke to you were authoritative teachers of Islam and interpreters of the Qur’an? Were they mullahs or imams? What makes their opinion your “starting point”?
[...] Muslims want Ontario church investigated for “hate speech” [...]
[...] Muslims are apparently feeling their oats. Last January, they intimidated a local Christian church, alleging that a lecture by a Lebanese-born convert to Christianity entitled “The Deadly [...]
A Youtube friend of mine sent me to this blog, and I’ve already thanked her for it.
I worry about the Middle East and I worry about jews around the world. I’m a catholic, and I really don’t care about islamic hatred in the news. I also don’t care for the security measures jews apply to their schools in England-which is totally ignored in the media although it’s unprecedented in any other school of any denomination!
I believe that any church who would side against Neo-Nazis who promote hatred are righteous. So is Mr Anani.
Anani is risking his life. Let’s not forget that.
Thank you for mentioning this.
red collar,
Thank you for the kind words. I thank your Youtube friend as well.