Ezra Levant’s speech to the US Congress

Yesterday, Mr. Ezra Levant spoke as an expert witness to the US Congress on the topic of human rights, freedom of speech and their erosion through lawfare and ’soft jihad’.  Here is the link to the entire speech, from which come these following excerpts:

“Canadian human rights commissions, however, are not respectful of the sensitivities of all religions. Less politically correct faiths are regularly prosecuted by them. This May, an Alberta pastor named Stephen Boissoin was given a lifetime gag order, never to say anything critical of homosexuality – not in a church sermon, not even in private e-mails. As well, in what can only be called a Maoist verdict, he has been ordered to renounce his religious beliefs, and to publish a self-denunciation in the local newspaper.”

…

“By the way, the truth of what you say is not a defence. And at the Maclean’s magazine trial last month, half a day was spent determining whether their jokes were funny. They even had a joke expert.

Don’t laugh – literally. Just three weeks ago, a comedian was ordered to stand trial for telling off-colour jokes in a night club. Warning to Chris Rock: don’t bother coming to Canada”

…

“Because we didn’t fight for freedom of speech and freedom of conscience for people who were hard to like, now we’re having to fight for those fundamental freedoms for ourselves. It’s always better to fight in the first ditch rather than the last one.

The legal onslaught against freedom of speech and religious pluralism continues. There are 14 human rights commission in Canada, employing 1,000 people, and with an annual budget of $200-million. It’s an industry, and it needs social strife to stay in business. So it positively drums up discontent. This spring in Alberta, 60,000 new immigrants were taught English as a Second Language using a workbook all about how to file grievances, including against un-funny jokes.”

The conclusion of Mr. Levant’s speech is eloquent, and very, very powerful:

So what can Americans do? 

1. The first thing you can do is what you always do: continue to monitor the erosion of freedom around the world, including through Congressional committees like this one. Publish annual reports shaming foreign countries for their abuses of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Put Canada on that list, to let our government know what they’re doing isn’t acceptable.

2. And rededicate yourselves to your First Amendment. Understand that the erosion of freedom doesn’t always happen with a bang – it can happen with a whimper. And that, when it comes to free speech, it’s usually unpopular people who are censored first. But if they can go for a neo-Nazi yesterday, it’s Geno’s Steak House today, and then a Christian pastor or a news magazine tomorrow.

I believe in a pluralist society where I can be Jewish, he can be Christian, she can be Muslim, and we all get along peacefully – we can agree to disagree about political or religious matters. The use of our own Western laws to crush such disagreement, and end healthy debate, is a threat to all of us, and the U.S. Congress should be on guard.”

 

 

 

(All emphasis is Mr. Levant’s)

Brilliant!

In a related development, the very radical Imam who brought a complaint against Mr. Levant and his then magazine, Western Standard - and thus starting the process which had turned Mr. Levant into ‘an expert’ in this field, may indeed be becoming less radicalized…  Unless I am much mistaken, this is the very first radical Imam who has actually become more moderate after exposure to our ‘western’ values and publicly said so.

 Via Blazing Catfur, the Pete Vere editorieal article in SooToday.com  which prints S. Soharwardy’s letter:

“Response to recent human rights decisions

by Syed Soharwardy

When I initiated my complaint against Mr. Levant, I saw human rights commissions as a non-violent means of resolving differences among Canadians.

I was not aware of the controversies between the commissions and Canada’s faith communities. I am thinking specifically of my friend Fred Henry, the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary.

Upon learning about the difficulties he and other faith communities have encountered with the commissions, I withdrew my complaint against Mr. Levant.

One of the reasons I chose Canada as my adopted homeland is because of our country’s great respect for religious freedom.

In Canada, I am free to be good Canadian and a good Muslim. There is no contradiction between the two.

In listening to the experiences of Bishop Henry and Pastor Boissoin, I realized how precious religious freedom is to our country and how easily freedom is lost.

Yes, I have often expressed concerns over Islamophobia.

Some of the portrayals of Muslims in the media have been painful - so much so, that I worried when I set out across Canada on the multifaith walk against violence.

However, the reaction from ordinary Canadians could not have been more hospitable. Canadians of all races, colours, religions, and ages have welcomed me, a Muslim man with brown skin, into their homes, their neighbourhoods and their communities.

They have walked with me, eaten with me and prayed with me.

They have expressed strong concern for preserving our civil liberties - which includes freedom of speech and religion.

They have also expressed a strong desire to end violence in Canada and around the world.

This experience has taught me that we can only end violence when we respect the freedom of all Canadians.

There will always be pockets of Islamophobia in Canada, just like there are still pockets of anti-Semitism, racism and sexism.

However, I have learned that the best way to dispel misconceptions between our various cultures and communities is for us to meet face to face and learn from each other’s similarities and difference.

This can only be accomplished in a society that respects freedom of expression, freedom of religion and all of our other democratic freedoms.”

As ‘they’ say:  we live in interesting times!

The Blogosphere is under attack!

There is so much happening in the whole wide world!  And the blogosphere makes it all so easy to access.

The internet is truly changing our society.  Not just within our town, or within our countries - it is truly allowing people from all ’corners of the world’ to build up a common pool of knowledge.  I truly think that the blogosphere is one of the most effective tools driving this change for the better.  (As a matter of fact, that is why, few months ago, I decided to join it!)

The blogosphere is not merely a communication tool, it is a completely new ‘animal’. 

It may  facilitate the exchange of information, but it is not just the sort of ‘information’ that ‘reading the same newspaper’ or ‘watching the same newscast’ could convey.  After all, as the mainstream media (msm) had already discovered, transmitting factual information is only a part of any ’story’.  While the msm has attempted to ‘flesh out’ their stories by including that ‘human experience’ factor, their medium is uniquely unsuitable to such a job.  Instead of adding dimension to their coverage of world events, they end up appearing to be manipulating the emotional context and reducing ‘news’ to ‘gossip’.

Add to this that many new journalists are being taught in school to put emphasis on ‘reporting the news and facts and presenting them in a manner which will indicate to the audience what their appropriate response should be’.  In other words, the very journalists whom we used to rely on to report unbiased facts only are being taught in journalism schools to be the tools of social engineers…

No wonder the msm are becoming irrelevant!

The blogosphere, on the other hand, is actually really, really good at adding a real human dimension to what is happening in the world around us. 

Why?

Because it is so highly interactive!  Because it is made up of millions of individuals!  Individuals from ALL over the world, with all kinds of backgrounds, all points of view! 

That is what makes the blogosphere so powerful!

I do not have to rely on some pretty/serious/demure/outraged face on TV to tell me how people on the other side of the world ‘feel’ about some event.  I don’t have to read a ‘cookie-cutter’ story with a preset word-count, surrounded by pointless ads, the ink of which is bound to come off on my fingers.  If I don’t like the slant of the story, or if I notice factual inaccuracies, I don’t have to be one of thousands of phone calls or emails or letters-to-editor, hoping, despite the odds, to be noticed…

Instead, I can go and look for a real live blogger (OK, I only access their virtual personnas’ posts, but I find these represent a real person, who can use the internet as a shield - and thus expose more of their ture self than they would ever dare in a person-to-preson interaction) who actually is from that part of the world.  And it is not somebody who makes a living from ‘how’ they report the event - which necessitates ‘offocial spin’.  Yes, there will necessarily be ‘personal spin’ - as in, it will reflect the person’s perceptions and understanding of what happened and thoughts and emotions about it.  But they will actually be ‘that person’s’!

And I can go to many bloggers there - and get many different individual points of view.  If I don’t understand things, I can post a comment - and usually get answers that are very useful and educational….and very personal. And if I like that blogger, I am likely to re-visit the site from time to time - just to keep in touch with what is happening in that part of the world and what is happening with that blogger. 

That makes a world of difference.

In a very real sense, the ‘bloggers of the world’ establish a virtual community. 

We may never meet in person, but that is not necessary to develop an empathy, an understanding - to let them into our monkeysphere!  That means we begin to perceive ‘our familiar bloggers’ as people, as individuals.  All of a sudden, should a tragedy occur in a faraway place, the body count is not just a statistic:  these are our virtual friend’s families!

It is impossible to overstate the incredible power in the combination of being able to access uncensored information and points of view along with establishing social bonds with people all over the world!

After all, it always affects us much more deeply if a wrong happens to someone we are connected to than if it happens to a stranger….

Now, we not only learn what happened, we know it happened to someone connected to our social network.  One of us.  Without these social bonds, most of us would lack the depth of desire to affect change.

During successful wars, the governments/rulers kept tight control over the flow of information - and used propaganda to dehumanize the ‘enemy’ into an abstraction!  Only then could they manipulate people into a war…  Large part of the US military failure in Vietnam was due to the fact that the American people were recieving more uncensored information from the frontlines than ever before. 

Make no mistake, this lesson has been learned by opressors everywhere!

It is not surprising, then, that censors and manipulators and social engineers are all waging a war on the blogosphere!

In Canada, it is in the gray drab of bureacratic HRCs which ban people from ‘ever expressing their opinions or thoughts or emotions’ on a subject….  They appear to follow a clear, well defined process, but use this process to bring financial ruin to those whose opinions they disapprove of, and silence them thus.

In Yemen - and, unfortunately, perhaps in Iran - this penalty could be death!

Let us hope the blogosphere is strong enough to withstand these attacks and continue to re-shape the world into a better place.

Death penalty for blogging!

The ‘blogosphere‘ may be be a virtual community, but the social connections it creates are very, very real.  These connections cross boundries:  political, cultural, linguistic, + + +…  In a very real sense, the blogosphere transends these boundries and makes them irrelevant.

This threatens all those who would control their populace, forcing them to adhere to only one ideology (regardless of what the particular ideology may be), limiting them to access only those opinions approved by these rulers.  Yet, like Pandora’s box, once the lid was opened and people realized the vast possibililties the blogosphere presented, closing the blogs down, or filtering them, was not enough to slam the lid back down.  Those who would control now had to ‘neutralize’ those who had peeked in…

Thus, many opressors are going after bloggers themselves.

Here, in Canada, we face only minor punishments:  monetary penalty, perhaps a lifelong gag order (!)against ever ’expressiong oneself’ on or about a particular topic…  This is enough of a threat to our inherrent right to freedom of speech from our own bureaucratic opressors, but it is nothing comparing to what our counterparts in other parts of the world are facing!

Here is the unpleasant bit of news from ‘Global Voices’, and another from ‘Daily Tech’ (this one includes the original cartoon), Khaleej Times Online, thought many other sources have picked up on it, too.

Earlier this year, Iranian bloggers had been asked to register each and every blog on a specific government site.  Fearing this will be a tool to prosecute/persecute them, many bloggers refused to comply.  Predictably, bullies feel threatened by anyone that stands up to them.  This show of backbone by the bloggers could not go uncrushed by that opressive regime…

Last Wednesday, Iranian parlilament has agreed to discuss adding ‘disturbing mental security in society’ to such crimes as rape, kidnapping and armed robbery:  all capital crimes. 

Apparently, blogging could ‘disturb‘ this ‘mental security in society’ if it were to ‘promote prostitution, corruption or apostasy‘.  In the sense used here, the term ‘apostasy’ applies to anything that is not in full agreement with the views and policies of the ruling Ayatollahs. 

According to the strict interpretaions of Islam in Iran (and other Muslim countries), apostasy is punishable by death, as per Koran, chapter 4 (Al-Nisa), verse 90 (partial quote):

“If they turn away [from Islam], then sieze them and kill them wherever you find them…”

That is not such only quote in the Koran, just the one which is best known.  From its past behaviour, it is also clear that the current regime in Iran is using the very strictest possible interpretation of the Islamic scriptures and imposing death sentences on people it deems to be ‘apostates’.  Of course, the Iranian regime is abusing the scriptures in order to silence its political opposition and to stifle legitimate political debate among its populace. 

This is how that twisted reasoning goes:  

1. The government is headed by the highest religious authority, the Ayatollahs.  
2. Questioning the government’s policy is therefore questioning the Ayatollahs.
3. Questioning  the Ayatollahs, the highest authority on Islam, is questioning Islam itself,
4. Questioning Islam, by the Ayatollahs’ definition, is apostasy. 

… and apostasy is a capital crime.

Q.E.D.

But Iran is not the first country to make such a move!

Last April, Yemen passed a similar law.  Under this law, bloggers whose blogs are deemed to be ‘inciting hatred’ (does the wording sound familiar) could face death penalties. Here are some quotes from ‘Mideast Youth‘:

 Walid Al-Saqaf, the administrator of YemenPortal.net which has been blocked in Yemen since January of this year, has just sent this very alarming news to his friends and colleagues:

“This week, the government’s Minister of Information threatened to file lawsuits against news websites on the justification of ‘inciting hatred’ or ‘harming national interests’ and the other usual excused they often use to prosecute journalists. The threat is even more severe for websites because the government would use the penal code instead of the press law. This means that website owners could get up to death penalties.”

Report in Arabic:

وحذر مصدر مسؤول في المركز من خطورة مثل التصريحات التي توحي بتوجه رسمي لزج الصحافيين والمخالفين بالرأي إلى السجون وتشديد الخناق عليهم بتطبيق قانون العقوبات الذي يحتوي على عقوبات قد تصل حد الإعدام

(Source)

Death penalty for blogging! 

I am speechles…

Learning from history…

In the past, I have ranted on about how it is not enough to learn from history, but how we must actually learn the right lesson from it.

Perhaps I was just a little too eager…

Perhaps it would be asking way too much for people to learn even the most literal, obvious lessons from history…

My ideas on the lessons from history was turned upside down from the boys down under…

The radicalized ‘Church of Global Warming’

If anyone were not yet convinced that the ‘Global Warming Alarmism’ is anything but a new religion, its missionaries have stepped up to remove any lingering doubts doubts.

Few months ago, Canada’s high priest of the ‘Church of Global Warming’ himself, Dr. David Suzuki, had delivered a series of speeches in which he openly called for the jailing of those who disagree with his views on Global Warming.  Dr. Suzuki is a geneticist, and apparently, these credentials qualify him as the leading authority on Climate Change.

Applying this logic, an ornithologist would be qualified to assess building codes for earthquake-prone areas and a meteorologist is qualified to work as an obstetrician.  After all, they are all ’scientists’!!! 

Just imagine…

 

But, I digress…

Is it surprising, then, that one of the founders of the ‘Church of Global Warming’, James Hansen, is doing much the same?  Lubos Motl, from The Reference Frame, has analyzed this and makes some very insightful points:

“…when it is already clear that his predictions have been bunk since the very beginning, James Hansen wants trials against oil firm chiefs who help to allow the people to understand that the predictions have been incorrect.”

 …

“…when you start to see fringe pseudoscientists who not only want to use their subjective, sensationalist, and mad visions and personal interests to unseat all inconvenient CEOs and Congressmen - another explicitly formulated desire of Mr Hansen - but you also see that they seem to have a clique of misinformed or equally evil collaborators who have been partially successful, I am telling you: This is a damn serious situation that should be solved unless you want to repeat some truly black pages from the history.”

It is not the beliefs or opinions themselves which identify someone as a ’radical religionist’, it is the fanticism of their belief that it is their duty to remove all obstacles to re-shaping society according to their own visions. 

Wikipedia (a great place to start info searches) says, under ‘political radicalism’, that:

‘The 19th century American Cyclopaedia of Political Science asserts that “radicalism is characterized less by its principles than by the manner of their application”.’

And that certainly includes the politico-religious extremists spreading the AGW creed.

Radicalization of religions

This is indeed the threat facing us today:  radicalization of religions.

And any set of prescribed ‘truths’ which are ‘unquestionable’ by its adherents is a religion.  In keeping with the original meaning of the word ‘religios’, it is a belief system which ties effects to specific causes.  These causes need not be supernatural, but they may be.

We are used to thinking of ’religion‘ as ’worship’ of ‘supernatural god/creator/force/consciousness’, but this is only one face or ’religion’.  Rather, it is the fact that there exist some certain ‘tennets’ or ‘beliefs’ or ‘principles’ that are seen as powerful, influential or important enough to be singled out for ’special attention/worship’ and which may not be questioned that turns a simple ‘belief system’ or philosophy into a religion.

So, it really does not matter WHAT the particular religion teaches.  It does not matter whether this religion is Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Secular Humanism, or Global Warming Alarmism.  The  teachings/beliefs themselves are really not the point…

It is the RADICALIZATION bit that is the problem.  It is the WAY in which the ‘radicalized believer’ truly and honestly believes that unless they impose their own beliefs on others, regardless of the cost, the whole society will come to an end/be punished/destroyed.  It is their depth of conviction that they are the only ones who are right and that it is their duty to institutionalize their beliefs which poses the real danger.   

THAT is radicalization, and THAT is the problem.  We need to stop confusing ’symptoms’ with ’causes’…. 

Tarek Fatah’s most brilliant comment!!!

It seems that people all over the world are observing Canada’s shame… 

This week, the British Columbia’s Human Rights Tribunal (thier Provincial flavour of the Canadian Human Rights’ Commission) held hearings of the complaint against the respected Canadian mainstream news magazine, Macleans, and one of its writers, Mark Steyn.  So, what was their crime?

An article Mr. Steyn wrote (actually, an excerpt from his book, America Alone), and Macleans magazine published, was deemed to be potentially harmful, because it quoted a Norwegian Imam who proudly boasted that ‘[Muslims] multiply like mosquitos’.  This, of course, could possibly cast Muslims in a negative light….so, REGARDLESS OF ITS VERACITY, it ‘ought’ never have been published!

According to whom?  Several extremist Islamists….and, by coincidence, 3 of them are just-graduating law students trying to make a name for themselves in the legal profession….  By the way, none of the complainants, or defendants, lives/has head office in BC - which makes this choice of jurisdiction somewhat curious, to say the least.

There are many wonderful bloggers, some of whom have been ‘live blogging’ from the hearings.  You can find some of them here.

One place through which I was attempting to follow the events of Friday, 6th of June, 2008 was the day of ‘final arguments’  (now that I think of it, it is a little funny that it fell onto D-day!) was Macleans’ own blog.  There, I came across a MOST BRILLIANT comment posted by the past president of the Muslim Canadian Congress, Mr. Tarek Fatah.

This man knows his stuff!

Just linking to the page itself, the comment might get lost among the veritable sea of outrage, common sense, and - well - human nature.  Therefore, with Mr. Fatah’s permission, I am posting the whole of his comment.  It speaks for itself!

comment by Tarek Fatah on Friday, June 6, 2008 at 1:29 pm:

Dear ‘Just Living,’

Try living a full and free life instead of hiding behind a cyber-burka and a name that tells all, viz., Just Living.

To label all people on this forum as ‘bigots,’ is not surprising as it is the only tool employed by Islamists hell-bent on upholding the jihadi doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada.

I know it is difficult, but is it possible that the only people contributing to Islamophobia in Canada are the mulla-elmasry duo?

What did these twits achieve other than to embarrass all Muslim Canadians, who appear to held hostage by the blackmail of community patriotism?

Last night one of these imams came on the Michael Coren Show to discuss polygamy and made such an ass of himself, waving the Quran at the host, mocking Christianity on a Christian TV station and then claiming there was Islamophobia in this country! When I defended my faith by explaining that polygamy was a medieval Bedouin tradition meant to take care of war widows, the Imam started reading from the Quran, screaming, “My religion allows me to marry four wives…Tarek Fatah knows nothing about Islam,” then he sneered at me with ugly facial gestures, waving hands and feminine accent, “Tarek Fatah is modern … moddderrrnnn Muslim…He is not a Muslim,” as if modernity itself was his enemy!

Dear ‘Just Living’, start living and while you are at it, if you are looking for bigots, chances are you will find them in Elmasry’s mosque or Dr. Habib’s clinic, definitely not on this Macleans forum. Sarcasm? May be. Anger? Yes and justifiably so. Islamophiobia? Not a shred of it in five days of discussion.

Dear ‘Just Living,’ the notion that the US or Canada are anti-Muslim does not withstand scrutiny. The number one selling author in both countries for over two years is a Muslim: Dr. Khalid Hossieni whose novel ‘Kite Runner’ has made so many Canucks shed tears on Go Trains and in their solitudes as they embraced the young poor boys of Kabul as their very own family. There is more.

The most sold poet in all of North America is the medieval Muslim poet Rumi. Why would Americans choose to read Maulana Rumi if they hate Muslims?

The most popular sportsman in US for decades is Muhammad Ali Clay. This mischievous boxer who titillated and entertained all of us with his sly smile and political wit. And who still stings like butterfly and floats like a bee! If Americans and the US hate Muslims, why do they love Muhammad Ali, Rumi and read the Kite Runner?

Why does CNN give Ali Velshi so much airtime prominence if it is anti-Muslim? Why, if the West hates Islam, is Farid Zakaria the editor of Newsweek magazine and why is permitted to host his own show on PBS and CNN?

Right in the heart of Vancouver where the boy-band is spewing hate against Canada and its free press, lives Senator Mobina Jaffer. Does her appointment to the senate reflect an anti-Muslim bias in the West or Canada? How doe we end up electing a young Muslim lawyer from Ottawa Centre if Canaucks are anti-Islam? And if your anger is directed at the Conservative flank of Canadian political spectrum, why them would the Reform Party, then the Alliance and later the Conservatives elect Rahim Jaffer as an MP since 1993. Or do you discount him to be a good Muslim simply because he is smart, good looking, dates a lovely MP and wears stylish suits, and heavens forbid, has sense of humour that borders impish naughtiness, a trait that would help such cry babies as Khurrum Awan and Faisal ‘Joseph’ to grow up and stop sucking on their thumbs as they utter drivel.

Dear ‘Just Living,’ please start living.

Mr. Fatah could not be more correct!

One lie comes out to light!

As I wrote yesterday:  a lie repeated often enough eventually becomes perceived as the truth (because of the mechanisms our brain uses to process its input), I had no idea one frequently repeated - and widely accepted as true - statement would be proven to be a big, fat lie!!!

Perhaps only Canadians are following the circus happening in the Star Chambers of the British Columbia HRC .  (The commission sometimes has tribunals - but as they are the same people, the names get confusing…officially, they call themselves tribunal in BC- usually they say commission/tribunal.  I think they are just trying to confuse us.) 

What is happening there?

The BC HRC(/T) is dragging a mainstream news magazine, Macleans, and a writer, Mark Steyn, ‘onto the carpet’ for having the audacity to quote a Norwegian Imam.  Apparently, his words could cause prejudice or hate against Muslims in BC, and so they should not be allowed to print them.  The fact that the statement was quoted truly and accurately - and in context - is no defence.  It is the fact that the statement could be perceived as ‘hateful’ or ‘demeaning’ .  Not was, just could be.  So, no need to go through that pesky business of proving any actual damages….

What is perhaps most frightening is that TRUTH IS NO DEFENSE!!!

The complainants live in Ontario.  The magazine is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario.  The writer lives in the USA.  Yet, the complaint is brought forward in BC….among other places (yes, double or tripple jeopardy do not apply).

One of the key pillars of their position, the thing that demonstrated how ‘unreasonable’ the magazine’s behaviour was, was the complainant’s insistence that MacLeans refused their suggestion that they publish an impartial article on that topic, written by a mutually acceptable writer.

Today, the truth comes out!  This was NEVER part of their demands! 

They never asked for a ‘more neutral’ article to be published, to be written by a mutually acceptable - or agreed upon (one variation wording of the LIE) writer.  Never.  One of the complainants admitted this, today, under oath, while questioned by a lawyed for Macleans who was actually present at that meeting where this alleged request took place.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Thanks for Blazing Catfur for the tip! 

More Mind Games

Yesterday, I had a fun post on how easily our perceptions can play mind games on us - looking at optical illusons.  Of course, optical illusions, at least of the ‘fun’ type, are just the tip of the iceberg!

The post showed, I hope, just how easy it is for our eyes to be tricked. 

Our brains are wonderful, comples structures.  They take the information from our eyes, and process it.  It is this processing of information which ‘tricks’ our mind.  Why?  Because our brains have developed some mightily useful ways of ‘figuring things out’ without telling us.  At least, without telling that conscious part of our thoughts we often think of as ’us’. 

Yes, it is a form of subconscious ‘prejudice’ system - but it is precisely through this type of ‘pre-judgements’ that let humans  anticipate what is likely to happen next, so as to react in the best, most advantageour (to survival) way.  {Aside:  it is precisely because so many of our bad prejudices are also rooted this very deeply, among other survival tools, that we have a hard time recognizing our own ones… and why it is healthy for us to see other people’s ‘obvious’ prejudice openly, so we may learn to recognize our own bad/destructive/unreasonable prejucices and guard against acting on them.  But, that is for another day…}

When our brain gets some input, it matches this input to ‘past experiences’, compares patterns, looks for similarities.  It then interprets this new inputas best as it can - with respect to all the stored past experiences! And it does so quickly, without us even noticing it is doing it…

That is why we find it so hard to ‘wrap our brains’ around something completely new and outside of our experiences:  our brain has nothing to match it to, and would be just as happy ‘not noticing it’…

The immortal Douglas Adams was quite fascinated by this phenomenon.  And, as was his way, he used humour to get his point across… Please, indulge me (highly paraphrased):

The story went something like this:  A guy had a bet with some people about erecting an invisibility field on the mountain that blocked his view…  It was no easy thing, and in the end, the nay-sayers had lost, because even though the mountain could no longer be seen, there was now a suspicious new moon in low orbit, just about the size of that mountain…  Douglas Adams said that trying to generate an ‘invisibility field’ was silly, that is just so very troublesome.  It would have been much easier to simply paint the mountain pink during the nighttime and erect an S.E.P. field on it.

What is an S.E.P. field?  It simply means ‘Somebody Else’s Problem’ - anything that is ‘unusual’ or appears’ unexpected, and has this S.E.P. field on it - will be less than invisible!  People will look straight through it and not see it!  Their brain will just process it as ’somebody else’s problem’ and refuse to acknowledge its existence…

Seems to me that this is one take on the whole ‘mind tricks’ phenomenon I am trying to get at.  Can’t relate to it - it’s not there. 

But, there are way more sinister uses of this ability we, people have, to interpret what we see according to familiar patterns.  This can be seriously abused by people with very particular - and not always honourable - aims.

Just like we can be tricked by a simple optical illusion, we can be tricked into seeing ‘things’ that never happened.  And once people ’see things for themselves’, they accept them as true… and belieave them.

All our actions are based on what we perceive.  Not on facts - only on what we think are the acts. Not on truth, because we have no way of separating truth from our very distorted - and sometimes intentionally tricked - perceptions of the truth, on what we think the truth is.

A lie repeated often enough will eventually appear to us as the truth (it’s precisely this ’previously encountered pattern’ matching thing in our subconsciousness that does this!). 

Conversly, a truth never heard of, will never be considered when one makes decisions.  After all, we can only decide on our best understanding of the truth…

Perhaps it is time we took a moment and re-evaluated just how easy it is for our brains to become victims of ‘mind games’…

A Father with Real HONOUR!

Oppression comes in many forms, all of them disgusting and condemnable.  All of them have something in common:  the willingness to sacrifice the rights and well being of an individual, a specific human being, for some higher principle.  The principle itself is less imoportant - and it varies from ‘the good of the society’, or ‘religious piety’, or, paradoxically, ‘family honour’.

The opressors smugly wrap themselves in the ’cloak of righteousness’.  They truly and honestly believe their ends justify the means…which they NEVER do.

I planned to write about something else today, when I came across this  article on ‘A Chocoholic’s Piece of Mind’ blog:  Rand Abdel-Qader, a 17-year-old student, was murdered by her father an brother for being seen speaking to a Brit soldier….  She worked as an aid worker, and spoke English…translated and became infatuated.  No affair, no clandestine meeting, just a schoolgirl crush…and translating for him, as part of the volunteer work she did with refugee families. 

I wonder what another Rand, Ayn Rand, would have to say about this…her father’s reaction (quoting the article linked above) was:

‘Death was the least she deserved,’ said Abdel-Qader. ‘I don’t regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,’

…

‘I have only two boys from now on. That girl was a mistake in my life. I know God is blessing me for what I did,’ he said, his voice swelling with pride. ‘My sons are by my side, and they were men enough to help me finish the life of someone who just brought shame to ours.’

…

He said his daughter’s ‘bad genes were passed on from her mother’. Rand’s mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she told him she was going.

…

Sources have indicated that Abdel-Qader, who works in the health department, has been asked to leave because of the bad publicity, yet he will continue to draw a salary.

And it has been alleged by one senior unnamed official in the Basra governorate that he has received financial support by a local politician to enable him to ‘disappear’ to Jordan for a few weeks, ‘until the story has been forgotten’ - the usual practice in the 30-plus cases of ‘honour’ killings that have been registered since January alone.

…

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. ‘They are men and know what honour is,’ he said.

This is not honour, and we must stop thinking that just because people come from different parts of the world, they should not be expected to treat each other - including their daughters and wives - with respect.  Thinking these attitudes are too deeply entrenched is a very insidious and destructive form or racism, and we must all work together to show it is unacceptable!

Please, indulge me with a story about an Iranian man and HIS attitude towards his teenage daughter:

When I came to Canada as a teenager, I befriended an Iranian girl who arrived at about the same time.  They were devout Muslims.  At her apartment, my friend showed me the charcoal-gray hijab she was forced to wear in Iran - the very first one I ever saw - and I tried it on.  Her father was angry at the sight of the hijab.   What he said has made a deep impression on me, and is with me still.

He told me that the hijab was not part of Islam.  Not even a little bit.  He explained that when the Koran was written, the rights it granted women were much more than women had in that society before, and that it meant that the Prophet wanted to eventually bring full equality between men and women.  It just had to happen one step at a time.

The hijab, he went on, was a symbol of opression:  not just of women, but of all true Muslims by those who wish to have power over them.  He was very angry that they would do this, when the religion itself teaches the equality of all humans.  He was also angry that many young Mulsimas were brainwashed to think the hijab was a symbol of a proudly pious Muslima - he said teaching young women that was a crime against Islam, because it was a part of a doctorine that reduced them from humans to possessions.

He explained that in Iran, he had done well, a professional with his own business…but he left because he would not allow his daughter to be brought up in a society which would only treat her as cattle, or a piece of meat!  He wanted her to grow up a good Muslima who has confidence in herself as a person, and who is not a slave to anyone…in other words, as a real human being!

Now THERE is a FATHER WITH HONOUR!!! 

If only more men - Muslim or otherwise - would have enough honour to value their daughters as much as my friend’s father valued her!