Angry in the Great White North
Urging the Western Standard to reconsider
Monday, February 13, 2006 at 02:00 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
Leader

One the lead stories in Canada today is news that the Western Standard will be publishing the Muhammad cartoons in today's issue.

Of course, Canadian Muslims are not happy:

Mohamed Elmasry, leader of the Canadian Islamic Congress, told the Globe and Mail that his organization will seek to have charges laid against the magazine under Canada's laws against distributing hate literature.

"It's unfortunate," said Elmasry, who had urged [pubisher Ezra] Levant not to republish the images. "I think he really goes against the will and the values of Canadians by this provocative action."

I contacted Ezra to ask him how exactly Elmasry urged him. What arguments did he use?

Apparently, "urging" Ezra constituted putting Ezra on the "cc" list for the news release.

That's it. Not even a direct email, but an offhand copy.

Here's what I think. If Elmasry really want to stop the publication, he would have made a major effort. A conversation with Ezra, maybe even a meeting. If Ezra held the line, then maybe more discussions about how to manage the reaction to make sure no one got hurt.

I think Elmasry is happy to see the cartoons published. Why? Well, that would be further speculation, but it wouldn't be hard to imagine a a leader of a Muslim community looking to use the cartoons as a way to further his own agenda, perhaps earn some extra respect inside the community.

As it is, Elmasry is in the news. He gets some exposure, babble on about hate crimes, and generally act like a castrated Taliban, looking for the Calgary police to do his dirty work.

I wonder how all those offended Muslims would feel if they knew exactly how much effort Elmasry put into preventing this insult to the Prophet from happening.

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