You really have to wonder what our country is coming to.
Last week I wrote about our immigration system, so messed up we can’t even kick out convicted terrorists. For that I was called racist.
This week we have Justin Trudeau, the Liberal immigration critic, blasting the federal government for calling female genital mutilation, forced marriages and “honour killings” barbaric.
“There’s nothing that the word ‘barbaric’ achieves that the words ‘absolutely unacceptable’ would not have achieved,” he said.
He also called for the government to show “responsible neutrality” when discussing issues like this.
Trudeau has retracted those comments after a barrage of abuse and added he was sorry if his words had been “interpreted by anyone as dismissing or diminishing the serious and appalling nature of honour killings and other gender-based violence.”
How did we get to the point where the first reaction on the part of an elite member of the political culture is to shudder at the sight of a blunt word to describe the brutal murder of women whose behaviour is deemed dishonourable (such as when they get raped) and the barbaric practice of mutilating young girls’ genitals to keep them “pure”? What on earth is a “neutral” response in such cases?
If the government had issued a guide on good old-fashioned Canadian spousal abuse, Trudeau and the Liberals would probably have complained the government’s language was not strong enough. The only reason they wanted to mince words in this case is because the government guide in question, Discover Canada, is aimed at newcomers as a way to help them study for citizenship.
On Twitter, while still defending his comments, Trudeau mused that using the word barbaric gave the impression the government was saying, “us civilized, you not.” I’d have to disagree. The government was saying, “us civilized, you better be as well if you want to come here.”
Trudeau’s qualms over the use of a blunt word betray a mindset that has swallowed multiculturalism so fully that it doesn’t know what to do when confronted with cultural practices that don’t jive with Canada’s core values.
The government’s answer is to denounce them. Others, including many in the media, want to look the other way.
When Asqa Parvez was strangled to death by her father in 2007 for adopting a western way of dressing and refusing to wear the hijab it was an honour killing, but most media outlets were squeamish about using the term. The same squeamishness showed up in the charges facing Mohammad Shafia in the death of his first wife and three daughters, found inside a submerged car in the Rideau Canal.
Critics of the term, mostly moral and cultural relativists, claim that we shouldn’t single out honour killings for special denunciation. All murders, they say, are bad.
True, up to a point.
The problem is not all countries consider honour killings murder. Some countries effectively allow this practice, either by calling them accidents or suicides, or by not spending much time or energy prosecuting the perpetrators or giving them laughably mild sentences when they do bother to prosecute them.
That’s why the federal government was right to use strong language to denounce truly barbaric practices. It is past time the media in this country did the same.
— Lilley will host his own show, Byline, on Sun News Network starting April 18
via ‘Barbaric’ exactly the word that’s needed | Brian Lilley | Columnists | Comment | Ottawa Sun.
Tags: barbaric, Liberals, Multiculturalism, Trudeau
I am apalled that anyone would call you a racist…Probably some illegal immigrant terrorist or his family. Don’t worry it’s going to come to a head, and it will get ugly. We have beocme a haven for terrorists, and that’s a matter of ‘FACT.’ Not because I said or you said it, but because it’s absolute.
We should NOT import crime, we have enough home grown bad guys that to import them and give them a cushy life to boot, is about as insane as it gets.
And to all who believe in ‘honour killings,’ there is no honour in taking anyone’s life. Don’t try to flog that whooey here, and don’t bring that here to a almost civilized country. IF you immigrate to Canada and don’t want your kids to adopt the way of life here, the solution to that, is do NOT come here. Kids are easily influenced, they follow fashion leads, and trends. kids will be kids, either immigrants need to get over that, or stay where ever they come from. Is that plain enough? And does that make me a racist, being of Metis decent (louis Riel’s great great niece, Eulalie Riel’s great granddaughter) I would have to say you are wrong.
Now leave our Sun’s senior reporter alone or I’ll have to get nasty. Trying to ‘MUZZLE’ our news reporters is not in line with our ‘FREEDOM OF THE PRESS ACT!’ it is HIS obligation and duty to bring us information, and to share his line of thinking on certain subjects. He and only he will write his column as he sees fit. AS for you if you don’t like it….DON’T read the darn thing, I am sick and tired of people who disagree trying to muzzle others. Canada is a FREE country. NOW the ones who have the nerve to call the rest of us racist, put a sock in it.
Do people in Canada know how many young women (13 yrs or younger) die from female circumcision? They die from infections some from both infections and hemorraging. Yes and at the ripe old age of 13 yrs or less. They girls are babies.
The people who perform this UMMM “OPERATION” do not use sanitary tools now disinfect their hands or use gloves. The girls by the way, do not have local anesthetic, while the butcher, butchers away. This is a very very painful procedure. For anyone to ask our gov’t to take a neutral stand/position in any mutilation is himself/herself a barbarian. oh and so you know it’s the clitoris that is removed.
here ya go more information on female circumcision:
Sunna Circumcision – consists of the removal of the prepuce(retractable fold of skin, or hood) and /or the tip of the clitoris. Sunna in Arabic means “tradition”.
Clitoridectomy – consists of the removal of the entire clitoris (prepuce and glands) and the removal of the adjacent labia.
Infibulation(pharonic circumcision)– consists of performing a clitoridectomy (removal of all or part of the labia minora, the labia majora). This is then stitched up allowing a small hole to remain open to allow for urine and menstrual blood to flow through.
If we in Canada agree to such insane actions then we really need to move OUT of our own country and go where this is a daily occurance. I can’t in my darkest moments find it in me to agree with this insane, cruel, vicious thinking.
OH!!! by the way if I’m here hopping around does this make me a (YOU READY?) a “LILLEY PAD HOPPER?” Hehehehehehe. Being french and all.
oh you’re a bit off though, the circumcision is not to keep the girls pure, it’s so the have no “DESIRE” for sex AND also so they don’t have orgasims, thus no mulitple lovers and alll that crap. They do get married and do have babies, the ones that survive that operation of course. The sex part comes as a need to ‘please’ the man, his right for sex on demand rules.
And yes my friend I was married to a muslim and I did live in Egypt. Am I a foremost authority on muslim laws and religion? NO!! I have read the Quran a coupla times. And yes I do know that female circumcision is alive and thriving in Egypt. Around places like Tanta, Shabin-el-coom. etc etc.
I’ve seen a program with this actual taking place. The girls family held her down, while they were going to use a raizor. The girl was screaming, but I turned the channel. It was barbaric, and I coudn’t tolerate it.