Canadian Euro-centric culture on the skids (Vancouver Courier, June 18, 2008)
"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."—T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
Earlier this month the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal launched a jihad against Maclean's magazine.
Naiyer Habib, B.C. director of the Canadian Islamic Congress, and his lawyers allege that Maclean's--which published a 2006 article by Mark Steyn entitled "Why the Future Belongs to Islam"--discriminated against Muslims on religious and racial grounds contrary to Section 7 (1) of the B.C. Human Rights Code.
During closing arguments after a weeklong tribunal hearing, Faisal Joseph, lawyer for the complainants, damned Maclean's to Gehenna. "There will never be any more demonstrable evidence of hatred than has been perpetrated by this article."
Strong words. Perhaps Steyn should be beheaded live on YouTube and his remains scattered around the Downtown Eastside.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission dismissed a similar complaint against Maclean's, yet denounced Steyn's article as "destructive" and "xenophobic."
Rubbish. It's hard to criticize kangaroo courts without legitimizing their existence, so I'll defer to John Martin, a criminologist at the University of the Fraser Valley, who recently denounced the B.C. tribunal in an op-ed piece for the Province newspaper. "I'd like my chances in a Mexican courtroom over a Canadian human-rights interrogation any day," wrote Martin. "In Mexico, the accused has some rights and is occasionally acquitted."
A decision in the Maclean's case is pending. Despite the tribunal nonsense, Steyn's article tapped a taboo subject that, while garnering little attention in Canada, weighs heavy on the minds of millions of Europeans.
Mass immigration, mainly from the Third World, threatens to irrevocably alter the culture of western nations. In his article, Steyn compares shrinking western populations with exploding birthrates in Muslim countries. "Islam has youth and will," he writes, "Europe has age and welfare."
Former Nixon advisor and three-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan blames western countries for their own inevitable demise. In his politically incorrect book The Death of the West, Buchanan points to a decline in marriage, advances in birth control and rampant abortion as major contributing factors in declining white populations worldwide. "First World nations are dying," writes Buchanan. "They face a mortal crisis. Not because of something happening in the Third World, but because of what is not happening at home and in the homes of the First World."
The death of the family unit, warns Buchanan, is a prelude to the death of nations--from ancient Rome to modern-day Europe and America.
But what about Canada?
According to a 2006 Statistics Canada report, immigrants fuel two-thirds of our population growth. Between 2001 and 2006, Canada's native-born population increased by a mere 400,000. However, during that same five-year period, 1.2 million immigrants--mainly from Asia, Africa, Central and South America and the Middle East--arrived on Canadian soil.
Laurent Martel, a Statistics Canada analyst, said by 2030 our refusal to reproduce will seal our nation's fate. "You're going to see an increase in the number of deaths [of baby-boomers] in Canada and the number of deaths will exceed the number of births—so natural increase will become negative," she said. "The only factor of growth will then be immigration."
So, if changing demographics sweep Canada's dominant Euro-centric culture into history's dustpan, why should we care?
Here's why. European culture spawned the now-universal tenets of democratic rule, personal freedom and Christian-based virtue—not to mention many of civilization's greatest scientific and technological achievements. Immigrants flock to Canada not because it resembles the land from which they flee, but because of our liberating Euro-centric society.
Quebecers understand. Last year's "reasonable accommodation hearings" officially acknowledged widespread anxiety in la belle province. Quebecers lined up to voice their concern about foreign influence on Quebec culture, thus demonstrating that the altering affects of immigration should be discussed openly—for the benefit of immigrants and residents alike.
Those who denounce critics like Steyn and Buchanan—who warn of changes in the wind—either don't know history or don't care about North America's Euro-style society.
Is Canada destined for a Third World facelift, while dissenting voices are prosecuted by "human rights" tribunals and seared with a "racist" brand? Or perhaps more importantly, does anyone care?
you sound like someone who has not had much luck in life so you got in front of a computer to type this racist garbage you call journalism.
Posted by: Mark | December 24, 2008 at 07:35 AM