Friday, December 15, 2006

Rondi Adamson, Brussels Journal, speaks of the Candian prof. Shiraz Dossa, of Nova Scotia, who addressed a paper to the Conference of Holocaust Denial in Tehran, while denying that he knew what the conference was about. Adamson sums up the paradox of Canadian niceness at-any-price and propensity for appeasement:

Dossa is free to hold his views. I would not have it any other way. But what is deeply troubling is not only that a Canadian has attended this monstrosity -- this not even thinly veiled festival of racism and pitiful excuse for "scholarship" -- but that there has been virtually no press in Canada about that fact. Deniers, revisers or trivializers, all those who attend the abomination in Tehran shame themselves and their countries. Yet, at the time of this writing, only a handful of conservative Canadian blogs have mentioned Dossa. Where is the media attention? Where is the outrage?

Apparently, though, Immigration Canada managed to muster up outrage about Shoebat. Shoebat is a former terrorist and supporter of Jihad who now tries to educate the West about the dangers of terrorism and the very real threats we all face. (Interestingly, he has spoken out against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Holocaust denial obsession.) He was invited to speak by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Ottawa and Montreal, and though he has previously been permitted entry into Canada, for some reason -- not yet explained -- he was turned away.

As a libertarian, I would not prevent someone from saying what they believe -- as long as they do not expect me, or other taxpayers, to fund them. But the contrast is difficult to miss. Dossa's trip to Tehran is paid for by Iranian taxpayers. Dossa, and other Western invitees, receive dinners and nights in luxurious hotels (and I suspect, speaking fees). Courageous Iranian students -- taxpayers all -- stand up to Mad Mahmoud, risking their safety. Meanwhile, Canadian authorities prevent Shoebat from attending and speaking at privately funded events in a free country. And barely any fuss is made.

Canadians, who pride themselves on being tolerant and multicultural, should ask themselves whether diversity means we tolerate the intolerant. Must it mean dhimmitude?

How can anyone who is due to present a paper at a conference not know what the conference is about or who other invitees are? And can the university administration claim to be so utterly surprised by one of their faculty attending such a conference? Surely, if Dossa teaches courses, he would have had to ask for leave and submit a reason for the request. Someone would have had to know that he was heading to a conference about the Holocaust in Tehran. Some further checkup would have been in order. Yet all academics concerned seem to have been caught with their pants down, innocently unaware of what the conference was about, etc etc.

This person participates in Holocaust denial, even if he himself denies that he denies it. He was not in Tehran to confront the slander and to set the record straight. He was there to promote his own anti-American anti-Israel agenda, propelled upon the waves of hatred that issued from the conference. It does not look like he cares much that the Holocaust is denied. I want to know, what kind of history and principles does he teach his students? Has he written any books that are used as texts by other teachers? Are there any basic standards for verifiable truth whatsoever expected from a prof at a Canadian university? Does anybody in Canadian academia even care that history is being re-written, misrepresented, and revised even as events are unfolding?

Why am I not so shocked and surprised by the whole sordid story? In a country where a massive rally calling itself a "peace" rally, took place last August chanting "We are all Hizzbala", why should we be surprised that a Canadian prof will take this missive and its popular appeal to its logical next step?

What's the difference between loudly proclaiming support for a genocidal terrorist organization with a track record, and presenting a paper at a conference hosted by the very same authority that finances and directs Hizzbala? The connections are there. The complicity of the Indecent Left and their lackeys, such as HRW, and the Hamas-appeasing Louise Arbour, in these perversions of history can hardly be ignored any longer.

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