Standard Western Racism

Not satisfied with insulting Canadian Muslims with its thinly veiled racism by republishing the Muhammed cartoons, see my comments here and here, now the Western Standard in the same issue has struck another low blow by insulting the wife of the Premier, with an anti-aboriginal racist slur.

It is well known that in Alberta Conservative circles that gay bashing, bashing natives and bashing East Indians is a popular past time. But this goes too far, the unnamed source clearly is a disgruntled insider who is tired of Kleins failure to exit the throne.

And so it is also a sexist slur, claiming that its all Colleens fault. Wow two count em two slurs in one article by an unamed source. The night of long knives is out for our dear Fuerher Herr Klein.

The comments were part of a column in the Western Standard magazine by writer Ric Dolphin. He suggested Colleen Klein wields too much influence over Premier Ralph Klein and his office.

Them there are fighting words Ezra

He then goes on to quote an unnamed source who said, "Once she [Colleen] stops being the premier's wife, she goes back to being just another Indian."

Klein's wife is Métis.

Comments on Klein's wife spark new controversy for Western ...
CBC News, Canada - 55 minutes ago
Aboriginals upset with Western Standard column CBC Calgary
Premier Klein's wife, Colleen, said to be devastated by magazine ... Canada.com
Alberta mag accused of racial slur against Klein's wife Edmonton Journal
Calgary Sun - all 10 related »

And it gets better because Ric Dolphin is no stranger to right wing controversial yellow journalism he was a reporter for the Alberta Report and their doppleganger the B.C. Report.

And this is far more the Report style of journalism than it is the Edmonton Journal or Calgary Herald that have both employed Ric in the past. They would not accept an 'unnamed' source for any such racist quote, but that is standard Report style journalism.

And it is Ric Dolphin wearing his outraged reactionary hat of the Alberta Report(er) that impunes Colleen with his sexist slur saying she has too much power over Ralph. This is that woman hating, sexist patriarchical slur that the Alberta Report specialized in. You know women who advance in society are not 'Real Women'. Even if they stand by their man. Nope this is that old adage that the woman is the power behind the throne, and that makes Ralph a whimp in the eyes of the butch right wing.

The Western Standard as I said before is a plagarized publication, a rehashed Alberta Report, complete with some of its old staff, and with a palagarized name, taking off on the popular American right wing paper the Weekly Standard.

And of course once again it is mindless right wing drivel that can insult thousands of Muslims and the Premier of Alberta and hence thousands of Tories in Alberta in one fell swoop. Yep that Ezra sure does spread the B.S. around.

Let's see whose up next to be smeared by this pathetic excuse for a newsmagazine, one that makes the news more than it reports it. Just like Alberta Report.


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Canada's Real Prime Minister

Is this guy. Really. And you thought you voted for some new Conservative party. Ha! Just look at who got the position of Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Wilson to be next ambassador to the U.S.

Wilson to be US ambassador, CTV reports Globe and Mail

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

Ottawa — Canada's next ambassador to the United States will be Mulroney-era finance minister Michael Wilson, The Globe and Mail has learned.

Mr. Wilson is expected to be appointed toward the end of this week or early next week, pending the agreement of the U.S. government, which is normally a formality.

The appointment is the latest example of former prime minister Brian Mulroney's influence on Stephen Harper's new Conservative government. Derek Burney, a former chief of staff to Mr. Mulroney who also served as ambassador to the U.S from 1989 to 1993, is head of Mr. Harper's transition team and was also rumoured to be in line for the job.

Mr. Wilson, 68, takes over from outgoing ambassador Frank McKenna, who tendered his resignation immediately after Mr. Harper won the Jan. 23 election.

Other members of Mr. Mulroney's inner circle who are close to Mr. Harper include senators Hugh Segal and Marjory LeBreton, both of whom have acted as advisers to the new Prime Minister.

Mr. Wilson was Mr. Mulroney's finance minister and is best known as the man who introduced the much-maligned goods and services tax in 1990. Besides finance, Mr. Wilson also served as minister of industry, science and technology and of international trade.

A tip o the blog to Dissonance and Disrespect for this.

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Conservative Conundrum

A less than impassioned criticism by the 'Prime Minister' of Ezra Le Rant and his Western Standard and the Jewish Free Press both of Harpers home town; Calgary.In fact it isn't a criticism at all it's a defense of Le Rant. Harper regrets publication of controversial Muhammad cartoons

"Free speech is a right that all Canadians enjoy; Canadians also have the right to voice their opinion on the free speech of others," Stephen Harper said in a written statement, his first comments on the incendiary cartoons since the furor erupted.

Well what did you expect, Le Rant is one of the young Turks who surround Harper, like Jason Kenney, Rob Anders, etc. all members of the Republican wing of the Conservative party.

Harper is in a conundrum, as is his Conservative party, as are Blogging Tories because Le Rant may have put Canadian troops in harms way with his publishing the cartoons. The rioting over the cartoons has seen assualts on NATO troops in Afghanistan. And his publishing the cartoons has made it into the world wide Muslim press.

Legal redress sought over cartoons Aljazeera.Net
Canadian PM laments publication of Prophet caricatures Malayala Manorama

Ezra Levant is an Idiot.

On Tuesday, Lt.-Col. Tom Doucette told CTV News that the decision of Western Standard, a Calgary-based magazine, to reprint the cartoons could endanger Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan. "What it might do is slow things down, i.e., in concentrated centres," Doucette told CTV. "If we get crowds gathering, then we will try to avoid that." His comments bolstered a similar warning from Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor. "It doesn't help. Radicals in Syria and Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq, they get people roused up because their religion's being offended," O'Connor said, the Ottawa Citizen reported Tuesday. "We don't need any more risk in the area than we have."PM 'regrets' publication of Muhammad cartoons

Uh oh now all those Blogging Tories that support our troops in Afghanistan will have to make a choice defend an idiotic provocatation that was unneccary and that will lead to endagering our troops, or denounce Le Rant for his deliberate and calculated attempt to increase his magazines circulation and his own profile. The later being more the case than a case for Free Speech.

Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard, told CBC television the magazine decided to publish the cartoons because it considered them newsworthy. "We're not publishing them for their editorial merits," he said."They're boring cartoons. They're bland. They're not interesting. We're not running them because we share their views. We're running them because they're the central fact that caused Muslim radicals around the world to riot."

Ezra is all about Ezra being the news. The Western Standard has no more real circulation than Alberta Report before it. So this is all about Ezra in the news. Always has been. And Ezra ain't news.

And his publishing the cartoons is sheer opportunism not a question of fighting censorship. The Canadian media didn't censor the cartoons they just didn't run them because of good sense and good taste. Something that is lacking at the Western Standard.

But again as I said it's not about the cartoons or freedom of the press or freedom of speech its about Ezra. He thinks now that the Conservatives are in power he and his right wing pals should get more press and be referred to like his counterparts in the U.S. are.

It's a tempest in a tea pot feuled by faux right wing outrage.

And unlike Voltaire I cannot support Ezra's right to so called Free Speech.

As a right winger he has now shown himself as a fascist who would deliberately publish material he knows will provoke a negative reaction in order to prove his point that his self appointed enemies, Canadian Muslims, are terrorists and reactionaries. To Ezra and his Conservative pals all Muslims are radicals. He is practicing the Goebbels school of propaganda not Free Speech.

Levant, who is Jewish, had some harsh words for Elmasry. He described him as an "idiot" several times, and said he has no moral high ground to lecture him on journalistic integrity.
Levant pointed to controversial comments Elmasry made in October, 2004, when he said all Jews over the age of 18 are fair targets for suicide bombers. Elmasry made the comments on The Michael Coren Show, an Ontario program that runs on Burlington's Crossroads Television System.Elmasry later repeated the comments in a Globe and Mail interview, but eventually claimed he was expressing a widely-held Palestinian view, not his own personal belief."PM 'regrets' publication of Muhammad cartoons

Yeah Ezra is Jewish, so what. He is a perfect example of what he calls the self-hating Jew, he is Jewish when it is conveniant to be Jewish. Like now. Most of the other times he is just a regular WASP Right Winger like his other pals in the Calgary Conservative circle.

And yeah he uses a mistatement by his opponents to belittle them, like he has never done that and had to apologize. These are the debating tactics of a fascist. Never apologise never surrender. Ah, Dr. Gobbels would have been proud.

And Canadians deserved more outrage out of our PM rather than his weak tea 'regret'. Yeah we all regret your pal's in Calgary are idiots, but your job is not to defend them but to speak for Canadians whom they have insulted and outraged.





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Dick Cheney Murderer?

The joke making the rounds is that the VP of the U.S. shot a lawyer. Get it? It's based on that quote from the Merchant of Venice by Shakespere, "kill all the lawyers".

Unfortunately for Dick Cheney this may turn out to be just the case. As his 'hunting accident' , which is another way of saying his 'ineptness' may result in the death of his hunting companion who is a lawyer and fundraiser for the Republicans in Texas.

Texan shot by Cheney on hunt has heart attack

"Some of the birdshot appeared to have moved and lodged into a part of his heart and caused the atrial (fibrillation) and what we would say is a minor heart attack," hospital administrator Peter Banko said in a press conference.

Banko said Whittington, who before Tuesday had been described as suffering only superficial wounds and well on his way to recovery, would have to stay in the hospital another a week to make sure the remaining pellets do not cause more damage.

Dr. David Blanchard, the hospital's emergency room chief, said on Tuesday, "We knew he had some birdshot very near to the heart from the get-go."

Cheney's Late Disclosure of Hunting Incident Fuels Criticism

The announcement appeared to catch the White House officials and Cheney's staff by surprise. The vice president abruptly left a lunch with Senate Republicans after an aide slipped Cheney a note a half-hour before the doctor's 1 p.m. news conference.

For the second consecutive day, White House spokesman Scott McClellan faced a barrage of questions about why the Feb. 11 incident wasn't revealed until the next day, and then by the ranch owner calling the local newspaper. In past accidents involving President George W. Bush, such as when the president had a bicycle crash in Scotland last year, the White House press office issued a statement soon afterward.

Texas has the death penalty. Will the VP ever be charged for negligance, aggravated assault, or in the worst case if Wittington dies, manslaughter?

Doubtful this is Texas. And Cheney is a white guy. A powerful white guy. So the rules don't apply to him. Just like he didn't need to get a hunting license.

Already the second most powerful man in the United States, though some say the most powerful, has his ineptness being covered up. But with Whittington getting worse, suddenly the motives for the cover up get sinister.

And what went from oh its just an accident he will be out of hospital soon, now turns out to be a big lie too. The doctors knew Whittington had over 200 pieces of birdshot in his body, including near his heart, from "the get-go".

For Texas authorities the case is closed for now. The Kenedy County Sheriffs Department concluded ``this was nothing more than a hunting accident.'' The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department gave Cheney and Whittington warnings because they didn't have a $7 stamp for game birds on their hunting licenses, a new requirement.According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, a significant portion of the 30 hunting accidents in the state last year occurred as a hunter was turning to fire at game. ``It's a classic example of what causes a hunting accident in Texas,'' said Tom Harvey, a department spokesman.

Yep stupid inept white guys with guns

Shooting required speedy disclosure

By every standard and by all accounts, the failure to promptly disclose the accident was wrong. Of course, the first priority when a person is shot and wounded is to make sure the victim receives the necessary medical care. That apparently was done at the scene by medical attendants accompanying Cheney. And the Secret Service reportedly notified the local sheriff's office of the incident on Saturday. The vice-president's staff also regarded the matter as serious enough to alert President George Bush on Saturday and to give the White House updates on the condition of Whittington.What makes little sense, however, was the White House's decision to defer disclosure of the shooting incident to the vice-president's office, and that office's decision to further defer to the owners of the ranch. Cheney did not check his official title at the Armstrongs' front gate. That was no private citizen who pulled the trigger, sending someone to the hospital. That act, though accidental, was committed by the country's second-highest public official. Neither Cheney nor the White House gets to pick and choose when to disclose a shooting. Saturday's incident required immediate public disclosure — a fact so elementary that the failure to act properly is truly disturbing in its implications.

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The Real Debt and Deficit Crisis

Here is the real debt and deficit crisis, ironically one that is driving the booming economy in North America. Just as stocks rise when workers are laid off, so does an economy boom when driven not by production but by consumer debt. But as we all know all booms eventually bust.

And with such huge consumer debt and low average wages, getting lower as capitalism pushes to offset it's falling rate of profit on the backs of the workers who produce them, if a credit or capital crisis hits North America, this personal debt will have a greater impact than the Great Depression. Economists warn on US debt crisis

Family debt soars as incomes stagnate

Canadians outspend their ability to repay, new report finds

Eric Beauchesne, The Ottawa Citizen; with files from CanWest News Service

Monday, February 13, 2006

Cash-strapped Canadian families are racking up debt at an alarming rate and the record number of households declaring bankruptcy will continue to rise unless people tighten their belts now, a new report warns.

"The alarm bells are ringing louder than ever," says the Vanier Institute for the Family, in a report on the state of family finances in Canada released on the weekend.

"They rang for governments and for many businesses and they did something about it. It is now time for families to do something about their own situations."

The average household income is now about $55,000 a year, roughly the same as at the start of the decade and up only one per cent, or about $500, from 1990.

In contrast, average household debt now stands at about $70,920, up 16 per cent from 2000, and 40 per cent from 1990.

"On average, households are putting nothing away for a rainy day, for a bout of unemployment, or for retirement," the report says.

The real hourly earnings of Canadians have increased by just a dime over the past decade and a half, the report says.

The marginal 10-cent-an-hour-after-inflation increase in hourly earnings since 1990 has been accompanied by fewer hours of work, says the respected social policy think-tank.

"As such, more members of cash-strapped families are stepping into the growing paid-labour market," it says.

While that has produced record levels of employment and dual-income families, their disposable income, after taxes and government benefits, has stagnated over the last five years.

With the booming real estate market and interest rates at historically low levels, Canadians have reduced their savings and taken on more debt, it notes.

The days of cheap debt, however, are coming to an end, it says, predicting interest rates will continue to rise over the short term at least.

Total debt per household is now equal to 125 per cent of disposable incomes, up from 91 per cent in 1990, an increase that has helped push insolvencies to record levels and will continue to do so.

And nothing the new Conservative government will address this crisis. All they have offered is tax credits to the rich and an inadequate baby bonus. Tax credits do not put real money in your pocket, as ING would say. In fact they only help those who pay taxes, and result not in a lower pay cheque per se but as a balance against earnings on your annual income taxes. Instead a tax cut on those earning under $100,000 would put real money back in your paycheque.

Unfortunately those tax cuts implemented by the Liberals before the election are going to be killed by the Conservtive government in order to pay off its GST promise. Once again helping the rich who are the only ones who really benefit from a GST cut, since it really only appears as a cost savings on big ticket items, like cars and other luxury goods.

See:The Real Debt and Deficit Crisis January 2006

Storm Clouds Over The US Economy

Greenspans Legacy

The Wit and Wisdom of Warren Buffet

Housing Boom or Bust

Debt Crisis

Air Canada Profits From Bankruptcy

Jobs Not Tax Cuts

Retirement Reverse Discrimination

Social Insecurity- The Phony Pension Crisis



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Sniveling NDP

The Federal NDP's defense of Buzz is not about the NDP it's all about the CLC.

A follow up from yesterdays article: Bye Bye Buzz

Layton says he wouldn't have dumped Hargrove from party

How many knives in the back does it take before the snivelling leadership of the NDP gets the message? Apparently alot.

Hargrove unrepentant after NDP suspension

Buzz violated the party membership requirement that you neither belong to nor support any other Federal Politcal party. Yes Virigina you can be a Trotskyist in the party or even a Labour Leader who is outspoken. But you cross the line even if you are a Labour Leader when you campaign for and say Vote Liberal.

What a bunch of whimps.

Wouldn't boot Buzz, Layton says Toronto Star
NDP Leader Jack Layton says he wouldn't have suspended Buzz ... Canada.com
Union-boss booting has Layton buzzing
Calgary Sun -
Delivered rude shock Toronto Star
Buzz cut leaves split ends Hamilton Spectator
Why expel Hargrove? Globe and Mail -
Layton says he wouldn't have dumped Hargrove from party CBC British Columbia (Audio)
all 61 related »

Peggy Nash newly minted Federal MP and Buzz's former executive assistant snivels that the Ontario party shouldn't have dumped him.

NPI founder and NDP reformer MP Libby Davis who allied with Buzz in the NPI whines that he was entitled to express his opinions. Yeah fine. But to endorse Liberal candidates and be Liberal party wall paper, well gimme a break.Why Vote Liberal When You Can Vote NDP



Dan MacLennan of AUPE and Buzz's bosom buddy, is a Liberal, and broke his union away from the CLC at the same time the CLC sanctioned CAW for raiding. And Buzz visits this breakaway union everytime he comes to Alberta, and Dan visits the CAW annual conventions as well.

The siamese twins of the Canadian Left; the CLC and NDP may not appear united at election time but in the backrooms the boys are trying to patch things up with Buzz.

Cause they are afraid of an independent Labour Federation that would compete with the CLC. One that would be composed of the CAW, AUPE, and perhaps the General Construction Union of Toronto along with some of the Building Trades that have viewed, and here is the irony, the CLC and their relationship to the NDP as too left wing.

You see Buzz's Strategic Voting position is NOT radical. It is a rehash of Samuel Gompers election strategy; Reward your friends and punish your enemies. It is a return to the bread and butter issues politics of the 19th Century, before the labour movement in Canada created its own Labour parties.

Buzz claims to be the left wing of the labour movement would appeal to some other Left unions, but they would probably be more reluctant to leave the CLC as CUPE has shown. And his non alliance with the NDP his call for Stratefic Voting would appeal to right wing business unions, especially those in the Building Trades. Who would be willing to leave the CLC, as they have done in the recent past.

The Federal NDP's defense of Buzz is not about the NDP it's all about the CLC.



My blogs on Buzz





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Rules Are For Others

The attitude of the Bush Administration that it is above the law, like its domestic spying operations, leaking CIA agents names to the press, taking payola from Jack Abramoff. Or that rules are for other people, appears to apply in their personal as well as poltical lives.Cheney Apparently Breaks Key Hunting Rule

Cheney, an experienced hunter, has not commented publicly about the accident. He avoided reporters by leaving an Oval Office meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan before the press was escorted in.

He was also apparently hunting illegally. Cheney had no stamp to hunt quail See these guys are above the law and the rules.

No End to Questions on Cheney Hunting Incident

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT and RALPH BLUMENTHAL

Published: February 14, 2006

The White House sought to explain why it took most of a day to disclose that the vice president accidentally shot a fellow hunter.

And while his hunting compatriot that he shot recuperates in hospital, Cheney hadn't visited him according to an interview on PBS last night with the Corpus Christi Caller Times reporter who broke the story. Caller-Times broke Cheney story through hustle, sources

The other hunting partner in the trio, the US Ambasabor to Switzerland visited Cheney's victim in hospital yesterday. As have the family on whose estate they were hunting. But not Dick. Nice guy. Guess the arrogance of office and the refusal to accept responsibility for ones actions that is a hallmark of the Bush team also applies in their personal lives too.

Cheney hunt trip 'victim' recovering in hospital

Although Mr Whittington should, according to hunting etiquette and safety procedures, have announced himself, primary responsibility for the accident lies with the man who pulled the trigger. In Washington, Mr Cheney's office said he had visited Mr Whittington on Sunday afternoon before returning to the capital.

This was perhaps the most high-profile piece of vice-presidential marksmanship since Aaron Burr shot and fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton, then serving as secretary of the treasury, in a duel in 1804 - the most famous such confrontation in US history.

White House Cover Up?

Typical of the Bush adminstration they attempted to cover this up. With the usual suspects involved including Karl Rove! The motto when in doubt lie, backpedal and cover up applies even to hunting accidents. This isn't just the gang that couldn't shoot straight it's also the gang that can't give a straight answer.

White House takes heat over Cheney shooting mishap

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House was bombarded with questions on Monday about why it failed to go public with news that Vice President Dick Cheney shot a fellow quail hunter until the day after the accident.

The accident happened about 5:30 p.m. on a private ranch about 200 miles south of San Antonio, where the vice president has hunted previously. Whittington was treated on the scene by Cheney's travelling medical detail before being taken by helicopter to the hospital.

The accident was not reported publicly by the vice president's office until Sunday afternoon and then only after an account provided by the ranch's owner appeared on the Web site of the local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

In a testy exchange with reporters on Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan faced dozens of questions about the propriety of a private citizen making public a shooting incident involving the vice president and whether Cheney had followed White House protocol.

Bush Knew of Cheney's Hunting Accident Saturday
Ranch owner Katharine Armstrong said no one discussed notifying the public of the accident Saturday because they were so consumed with making sure Whittington was OK. She said the family realized in the morning that it would be a story and decided to call the local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. She said that is when she discussed the news coverage with Cheney for the first time

Michelle Pilecki: Trying to Sort Out the Discrepancies in Cheney Shooting Story

When the Veep Shoots Someone

And the whole media debacle of White House avoidance gives new meaning to Duck and Cover.

White House takes cover over shooting by Cheney
Globe and Mail - 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON — It was a scene that seemed straight out of a political skit on late-night TV. An irate White House press corps peppered the official White House spokesman with questions, the way birdshot is aimed at a cornered quail. ...
Some pellets of hunting humour Toronto Star
Cheney's Hunting Accident Provides a Bonanza for Joke Writers Bloomberg

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Idiot Provocatuer

When an agent of the state usually an undercover cop, encourages groups to take illegal or questionable actions which can get them busted they are called agent provocatuers.

Well Ezra Le Rant the Zionist apologist and right wing mouthpiece,publisher of the Western Standard has taken his hatred of all things Arab to its logical extreme. Weeks after the controversy is over, like the opportunist he is , Ezra has decided from the safety of Calgary to publish some of the controversial anti-Mohammed cartoons.

That this is reprehensible goes without saying, that it is NOT freedom of speech goes without saying as well. Why? Because Ezra and his pathetic palagarized rag; the Western Standard are claiming they are doing it cause it's a news story. And they love to fabricate news.

Sorry Ezra the story is over and has been for almost two weeks. Had you published them then, perhaps you could have ecked out a modicum of press sympathy. Publishing them today just proves you are a provocatuer and an idiot. Publisher defends decision to reprint cartoons

And predictably the Blogging Tories one and all are cheering Ezra, well even idiots have friends. Other idiots.

And he is only doing it after another Zionist publication in Calgary the Jewish Free Press also deliberately published them as a provocation. Beating him to the punch.

On February 9, Jewish Free Press reprinted three of the drawings, considered blasphemous under Islam.But the Jewish Council of Calgary immediately slammed the move, dissociating itself from the newspaper and denying any type of support to such hateful publication

Friday 10 February 2006
Ezra Levant takes Canadian Foreign Minister to task for statement on Mohammed cartoons

In an op-ed column published today, Ezra Levant, editor-in-chief of the Western Standard takes newly-appointed Conservative Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay to task for a statement released this week, his first as Minister, on the Mohammed cartoons controversy stating "Freedom of expression is a legally enshrined principle in Canada, but it must be exercised responsibly. We commend those Canadians who have acted appropriately."

Hey Ezra since you are now publishing stale dated controversial material perhaps in the name of freedom of speech you will serialize Mein Kamph since Helen Reisman the owner of Coles/Chapters/Indigo Books has banned that book from her stores as insulting to Jews. And that was done years ago, but still it is an outrage against the Freedom to Read.

Canadian magazine publishes cartoons

CALGARY, Alberta, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- A Canadian magazine published the controversial cartoons of Mohammed Monday, even though the editor called them "boring" and "bland."

Ezra Levant, editor of the Western Standard, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that publishing the cartoons is "completely normal" because the cartoons are at the center of the major news story of the day.

The cartoons originally commissioned and published by the Danish newspaper Jyllens Posten have sparked huge demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Most of the cartoons show Mohammed with the most controversial giving him a bomb for a turban.

"We're not publishing them for their editorial merits. They're boring cartoons, they're bland," Levant said.

Mohamed Elmasry, head of the Canadian Islamic Council, told the Toronto Globe and Mail that he wants Levant prosecuted under Canadian laws making hate speech illegal.

Mon, February 13, 2006

Media runs scared More than meets eye in failure to show cartoons By Ezra Levant

Canadian Muslims press for charges over cartoons
Reuters Canada, Canada - 3 hours ago
... The Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, based in Calgary, said on Monday it filed a complaint against the Western Standard, a right-wing weekly newsmagazine ...
Muslims may sue over cartoons Canada.com
Calgary magazine reprinting cartoons Globe and Mail
Calgary Muslims uneasy after controversial cartoons republished CBC Calgary
Global National - CTV.ca - all 25 related »

And while we are at it let's remember that Ezra and his right wing demagouge pal Rob Anders were forced to apologize to Senator Ron Ghitter for their outrageous statements made in a fund raising letter.

Ezra likes to talk about self hating Jews but he had no problem picking on fellow Jewish Calgarian; Senator Ron Ghitter who had been the Human Rights advocate in Alberta and then was appointed to the Senate. Of course Senator Ghitter was a well known liberal being a Red Tory. It was Conservative PM Brian Mulroney that appointed him to the Senate.

Ezra Levant, a pepper pot of the first order with enthusiasm spilling out of his shirtsleeves, leaves far more Alliance members – including Harper – angry at him than laughing at his antics. Certainly Alberta Tory Jewish Senator Ron Ghitter, a Mulroney appointee, was not amused when Levant, in a fundraising letter sent to 31,000 Albertans, accused Ghitter of being “lazy and un-Albertan.” Levant had to apologize.

LARRY ZOLF:
Ezra Levant is no Oscar Levant

SEE Magazine
Copyright © 1998. All Rights Reserved.

---

UGLY RUMORS
BY SEE STAFF

Far Right savant and Reform Party Animal Ezra Levant is angry that Tory Senator Ron Ghitter has slapped the Reform Party of Canada, Levant et al with a million-dollar lawsuit for libel. The action was filed by Ghitter because of a nasty piece of Senate Reform propaganda Levant had a hand in. The mail-out made disparaging remarks about Senator Ron's attendance at Upper House functions.

But when Ron filed his lawsuit, Ezra began to whimper. Poor thing. Levant called Ghitter a big baby who goes crying to his lawyer just because he didn't like what someone said about him, in print.

Geez, it kinda reminds us of the time we wrote something about Ezra that he didn't like and he went crying to his lawyer.

SEE Magazine:Thursday, October 29th., 1998

THE SENATE

Tuesday, April 11, 2000

The Senate met at 2:00 p.m., the Speaker in the Chair.

Prayers.

SENATORS' STATEMENTS

Apology to the Honourable Ron Ghitter

Statement in Response

Hon. John Lynch-Staunton (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, as my statement, I should like to read part of a statement by our former colleague the Honourable Ron Ghitter, regarding the apology that he received from Mr. Ezra Levant and Mr. Rob Anders, which states as follows:

...I have now received a complete and unequivocal apology from Mr. Levant and Mr. Anders...

In addition to the apology which will be published this week in The Calgary Herald, The Calgary Sun and The Edmonton Journal, the settlement also includes the full payment of all my legal costs and a substantial contribution to the Tom Baker Cancer Clinic and the Sheldon Chumir Foundation which will be made in equal sums.

The issue is not so much the attack on my integrity, which I found to be very hurtful, as much as it is the growing direction of politics in Canada where personal attacks are becoming more and more common. The issues involved are the very basic concerns of leadership, dignity and the fundamental responsibilities of those involved in public life to maintain an element of decorum, fairness and above all civility in their conduct.

To be clear, those of us in public life have an obligation to aggressively debate the issues, to question the policies of others, to engage in the cut and thrust of political dialogue and to advance our agendas and arguments in the most persuasive manner. However, to enter into unsavoury and mean-spirited tactics of character assassination, based on alleged facts that are false, and out of context interpretations, as a means to encourage campaign contributions is not only unacceptable, it is deplorable.

If such tactics are left unchallenged there will be a continuing growth of disrespect for our institutions and the dedicated men and women who choose to serve in them. The result will be that fewer and fewer talented Canadians will agree to serve in our Parliaments, our Legislatures and our City councils.

In this case the ultimate responsibility lies with Preston Manning.

Mr. Anders is a Reform M.P. and Mr. Levant was a close advisor to Preston Manning at the time he wrote and distributed the letter. They acted with Mr. Manning's authority, and the blessing of the Reform Party.

Mr. Manning had the following to say when I threatened a law suit.

There is nothing in the letter that is libelous, Ghitter has no grounds to sue.

With the things in that letter being on the streets of Alberta every day, what's Ron going to do, sue all the rest of Alberta? I mean he's an unaccounted, unelected Senator for whom Albertans have less and less respect.

This is the same Mr. Manning who previously is quoted as saying,

We will campaign on principles and specifics and avoid the simple bashing of opponents and the manipulation of symbols. I want to emphasize that we in the Reform Party are not interested in personal attacks on individuals or in bashing any group or region in Canada.

Mr. Ghitter ends his statement by saying:

I think it would be appropriate, and it is to be hoped that Mr. Manning would also publicly apologize for his support and encouragement of such deplorable conduct and defamatory statements by one of his M.P.s and a senior advisor in his office.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

Who's in charge here: monarch or regents?

Edward Greenspon - EDWARD GREENSPON
Friday, May 18, 2001

Ezra Levant, private citizen, stood in front of the National Press Building at noon yesterday doing what he does best: sounding incredible rather than credible, huffing and puffing over legal action, digging into his mental thesaurus for powerful adjectives to hurl at his opponents, circling squares instead of squaring circles. In short, making a bad situation worse.

That the downfall of Stockwell Day's top communications adviser, after just 13 weeks in position, should come over a threatened lawsuit confirms that the master of the universe is a poet at heart. Mr. Levant, a lawyer by training, has proven himself to be something of an obsessive litigator in his short time in politics.

In addition to failing to get his boss to cut and run in a timely fashion in the infamous Goddard case, he actively aided and abetted Mr. Day in smearing the entire Canadian judiciary over the alleged bias of Quebec Superior Court Judge Joel Silcoff. Last year, Mr. Levant himself was forced to settle a defamation suit brought against him and Alliance MP Rob Anders for calling former Alberta Senator Ron Ghitter lazy and un-Albertan.

Mr. Levant apparently went a lawsuit too far in sending a letter Wednesday, along with three of his employees, threatening rebel MP Chuck Strahl with a defamation action unless he immediately and unconditionally apologized for remarks the group found offensive. In turning away from Mr. Day's leadership on Tuesday, Mr. Strahl had complained that "the current leadership has exercised consistently bad judgment, dishonest communications and lack of fidelity to our party's policies." Mr. Levant and his group took the words "dishonest communications" personally.

Although everyone referred to Mr. Levant's resignation yesterday as voluntary, they didn't hide that the letter had been the final straw. In disclosing that the Young Turk spokesman was out, Alliance House Leader John Reynolds stated that Mr. Levant's letter "was not cleared through the process." He also criticized Mr. Levant's leak of the letter to the media as unacceptable.

And so the self-described Stock-aholic vanished, albeit not without a trace.

Ezra hates Ghitter because his human rights commission investigated and made reccomendations around Religious and Minority Tolerance after James Keegstra was charged with promoting Anti-Semitic Hate speech and literature in his Social Studies classes.

Ezra defends Keegstra but denounces fellow Calgarian Ron Ghitter. And he denounces the Palestinan Student Association at the University of Calgary as more anti-Semitic than Keegstra. He also slandered another Jewish academic in his attack on the Palestinian Students Association.

And while attacking opponents of the State of Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories Ezra has no problem defending Anti-Semitism in the name of Free Speech. If it is of course coming from fundamentalist Christians who make up the Right he so loves. Like Mel Gibson.

To its credit, the Asper's National Post is occasionally objective. On August 14, 2003 it published a defence of Mel Gibson by Ezra Levant, a practising Jew, entitled "Don't Criticize Mad Mel."

"The Book of Mathew reports an incontrovertible fact: a Jewish court condemned Jesus for blasphemy," Levant writes. "Of course they would have done so, he was leading a new religion. The lesson that most Christians take from the story, and certainly traditional Catholics like the Gibsons, is that Jesus did not die because of the Jews, but because of the sins of all mankind. He had to suffer to redeem everyone else from their sins...

Mel Gibson's attackers are not just labelling a movie as anti Semitic. They are calling the Bible anti Semitic... Their hysterical attacks reveal much more about their own tolerance than they do about Mr. Gibson's." (A-14)

And here is another example of Ezra's real politick's they aren't about Jewishness they are all about the Fundamentalist Right Wing. Like the Evangelical Chrisians defense of Israel is not about defending Jews but about the coming Rapture.

Conservative magazine out of touch
Curiosity led me to the Western Standard web page, in particular the book review section, where publisher Ezra Levant reviews and recommends the latest books. Curious to know what’s listed? Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Help Me God: The Ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny and the Battle for Religious Freedom, State of Fear, and The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America.

Ezra is a born again Zionist, who uses his Jewishness when it is convinient to justify his attacks on other Semites, which includes liberal Jews and Arabs. His real agenda is the Calgary agenda to promote an Evangelical Bible Based Republican style right wing political movement in Canada. What is laughable is that if you scratch away the veener these guys end up being the real Anti-Semites.





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My Favorite Muslim

Abou el Moughith al Hussein ibn Mansour al Hallaj

أبو المغيث الحسين إبن منصور الحلاج

ana'l -Haqq - I am the Truth.

(this is the saying which apparently earned al-Hallaj his martyrdom - al Haqq also means God)

The school of Islam that most represents the heresy of Gnosticism, freethinking, the enlightenment values that so offend the fundamentalist Christian, Jew and Muslim alike, is Sufism.

One of the greatest Sufi thinkers a gnostic, a freethinker, an apostate and heretic was Mansur el Hallaj, who when after meditating for a long period was asked what he learned of Allah, and replied; "I say, I am the Absolute Truth. Inside my cloak is nothing but Allah.". For this he was stoned to death.

Not unlike the mythological stoning and death of Hiram the builder, whom the Freemasons draw on as the source of their initiatory wisdom. The mythos is about the building of Solomon's temple and the betrayl of the architect Hiram Abiff for whom, like Mansur el Halaj, the truth was that he was God. For this heresy he was stoned to death. The modern version of this legend is key to Masonic teachings, showing a link however tenuous to Sufism as well as hermeticism.

The Old Testament of the Bible, on the evolution of the work, says to us:

"Hiram Abiff fused two bronze columns. It had each one eighteen elbows of stop, and a thread of twelve elbows was the one that could surround each one by the columns. They were not massive, but hollow; the thickness of its walls was of four fingers. It fused bronze capitals stops upon the columns; of five elbows of height the one and five elbows of height other... It erected the first column of the right and it gave the name him of Jakin, and soon the column of the left and gave the Boaz name him. As it ends of the columns were a species of iris. Thus the work of the columns was finished ". (I Re 7, 15-22).

Idries Shaw, the Grand Sheik of the Sufi s and historian of their faith, commented on the connection between the Templars and the Sufis:

That the Templars were thinking in terms of the Sufi , and not the Solomonic, Temple in Jerusalem, and its building, is strongly suggested by one important fact. “Temple” churches which they erected, such as one in London, were modeled upon the Temple as found by the Crusaders, not upon any earlier building. This Temple was none other than the octagonal Dome of the Rock, built in the seventh century on a Sufi mathematical design, and restored in 913. The Sufi legend of the building of the Temple accords with the alleged Masonic version. As an example we may note that the “Solomon” of the Sufi Builders is not King Solomon but the Sufi “King” Maaruf Karkhi (died 815), disciple of David (Daud of Tai, died 781) and hence by extension considered the son of David, and referenced cryptically as Solomon — who was the son of David. The Great murder commemorated by the Sufi Builders is not that of the person (Hiram) supposed by the Masonic tradition to have been killed. The martyr of the Sufi Builders is Mansur el-Hallaj (858-922), juridically murdered because of the Sufi secret, which he spoke in a manner which could not be understood, and thus was dismembered as a heretic.’ — Idries Shaw, The Sufis

Mansur el Hallaj remains controversial not only to strict Muslims, but even to
Sufi's.

He was a gnostic, prefering direct knowledge of the universe than faith. He was the model for Michael Valentine Smith in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in A Strange Land. Smith's motto Thou Art God is the grand heresy that all freethinking enlightened heretics have been killed for. He was in fact a deist and a monist.

He was also the original author of the Satanic Verses.

His most well known written work is the Kitab al Tawasin or Ta Sin al Azal, a dialogue of Satan (Iblis) and God, where Satan refuses to bow to Adam, although God asks him to do so. His refusal is due to a misconceived idea of God's uniqueness and because of his refusal to abandon himself to God in love. Hallaj criticizes the staleness of his adoration (Mason, 51-3)

Themes of 'The Erotic' in Sufi Mysticism

by Jonah Winters

Rabi'a seems to have loved a God who was an other, a being who created her and yet was distinct from her. al-Hallaj, though, often has been interpreted as loving a God who was identical with himself. Inspired by Qur'anic verses such as "He who hath given thee the Qur'an for a law will surely bring thee back home again," (28:85), al-Hallaj wrote: "I have become the One I love, and the One I love has become me! We are two spirits infused in a (single) body."[66] This sense of tawhid, of a complete unification of the lover and the beloved, led al-Hallaj to speak of God in very amorous terms. al-Hallaj's biographer Louis Massignon, in describing his ideas of mystical ontology, wrote that, for al-Hallaj, divine union is consummated in "the amorous nuptial in which the Creator ultimately rejoins his creature ...and in which the latter opens his heart to his Beloved in intimate, familiar" discourse.[67]

Al-Hallaj and Hulul:

A Sufi leader by the name Abu Mansoor al-Hallaj went so far in disbelief as to claim he was god himself. He was crucified for his blasphemous claim, and for his defiance of shari'ah, or Islamic jurisprudence, in Baghdad, Iraq, in 309 A.H. (922 A.D.) He said,

"I am He Whom I love; He Whom I love is I; we are two souls co-inhabiting one body. If you see me you see Him and if you see Him you see me."(67)

Abdul-Karim el-Jili, Ibn Arabi's closest disciple, went a step ahead of his master, claiming that he was commanded by Allah to bring to the people his own book, The Perfect Man, the theme of which is pantheism. He claimed that the perfect man could represent all the attributes of God, even though Allah the Exalted is far above the qualities of men.

El-Jili went on to purport to prove that nothing in essence exists in the universe other than Allah, and that all other things, human, animan and non-living are only manifestations of God Almighty Allah. He further asserted in his book that the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) is the perfect man and the perfect god. From these blasphemous theories, el-Jili went on to declare himself to be a god also, and exclaimed, "To me belongs sovereignty in both worlds." (68)

This assertion is blatant enough to condemn anyone who utters it of clear kufr, or disbelief. Whenever such zindiqs, or heretics are mentioned, Sufis live up to their beliefs by invoking Allah's mercy on them, unaware of the fact that tolerance of kufr is itself an act of kufr, and that whoever invokes Allah's mercy on an unbeliever commits a grave sin.

The Tawasin

of Mansur Al-Hallaj

Translated by
Aisha Abd Ar-Rahman At-Tarjumana

The Ta-Sin of the Prophetic Lamp

The Ta-Sin of Understanding

The Ta-Sin of Purity

The Ta-Sin of the Circle

The Ta-Sin of the Point

The Ta-Sin of Before Endless-Time and Equivocation

The Ta-Sin of the Divine Will

The Ta-Sin of the Declaration of Unity

The Ta-Sin of the Self-Awarenesses in Tawhid

The Ta-Sin of the Disconnection-From-Forms

The Garden of Gnosis

The Ta-Sin of the Self-Awarenesses in Tawhid

1. The attribute of the Ta-Sin of the self-awareness in Tawhid is such:
   
   (Alif - the Unity, Tawhid. Hamza - the self-awarenesses, some on one side some on the other. ‘Ayn at beginning and end - The Essence.)
   
   The self-awarenesses proceed from Him and return to Him, operate in Him, but they are not logically necessary.
   
2. The real subject of the Tawhid moves across the multiplicity of subjects because He is not included in the subject nor in the object nor in the pronouns of the proposition. Its pronominal suffix does not belong to its Object, its possessive ‘h’ is His ‘Ah’ and not the other ‘h’ which does not make us unitarians.
3. If I say of this ‘h’ ‘wah!’ the others say to me, ‘Alas.’
4. These are epithets and specifications and a demonstrative allusion pierces this so we could see Allah through the substantive conditional.
5. All human individualities are ‘like a building well-compacted.’ It is a definition and the Unity of Allah does not make exception to the definition. But every definition is a limitation, and the attributes of a limitation apply to a limited object. However the object of Tawhid does not admit of limitation.
6. The Truth (Al-Haqq) itself is none other than the abode of Allah not necessarily Allah.
7. Saying the Tawhid does not realize it because the syntactical role of a term and its proper sense do not mix with each other when it concerns an appended term. So how can they be mixed when it concerns Allah?
8. If I say ‘the Tawhid emanates from Him’ then I double the Divine Essence, and I make an emanation of itself, co-existent with it, being and not being this Essence at the same time.
9. If I say that it was hidden in Allah, and He manifests it, how was it hidden where there is no ‘how’ or ‘what’ or ‘this’ and there is no place (‘where’) contained in Him.
10. Because ‘in this’ is a creation of Allah, as is ‘where.’
11. That which supports an accident is not without a substance. That which is not separated from a body is not without some part of a body. That which is not separated from spirit, in not without some part of a spirit. The Tawhid is therefore an assimilant.
12. We return then, beyond this to the center (of our Object) and isolate it from adjunctions, assimilations, qualifications, pulverizations and attributions.
13. The first circle (in the next diagram) comprises the actions of Allah, the second comprises their traces and these are two circles of the created.
14. The central point symbolizes the Tawhid, but it is not the Tawhid. If not, how would it be separable from the circle?

Here in is a text worthy of comparison with the Tao Teh King, for it is not just a spiritual and moral text, but a scientific one, that in its monism, compares with the ideas of the Tao; all is one all is nothing, and in the works of Heraclites that all is fire. Mansur el Hallaj thus had developed his own school of dialectics as an enlightened Muslim.

The idea is that like the Tao; the Tawhid is all and not all. The very earliest expression of monism. And as a scientist, el Hallaj's text is about the science of cosmology and mathematics. That of the point in space. Which is the origin not only of the idea of mans relationship to the universe, but it has the same religious and philisophical impact as Rene Descartes I Think Therefore I Am. It is the recognition of the indivdual in relationship to the whole, of society that they exist in.

XXXVIII. CONCERNETH THE TEH

1. those who possessed perfectly the powers (Teh) did not manifest them, and so they preserved them. those who possessed them imperfectly feared to lose them, and so lost them.
2. the former did nothing, nor had need to do. the latter did, and had need to do.
3. those who possessed benevolence exercised it, and had need of it; so also was it with them who possessed justice.
4. those whom possessed the conventions displayed them; and when men would not agree; they made ready to fight them.
Teh appears as Chokmah - Binah, Benevolence as Chesed, Justice as Geburah, Convention as Tiphereth. thus Kether alone is 'safe'; even Chokmah-Binah risks fall unless it keep Silence.
5. thus when the Tao was lost, the Magick Powers (Teh) appeared; then, by successive degradations, came Benevolence, Justice, Convention.
6. now convention is the shadow of loyalty and good-will, and so the herald of disorder. yea, even understanding (binah) is but a Blossom of the Tao, and promises Stupidity.
this repeats the doctrine of the danger of Binah. the attack on Tipereth is to be regarded as a reference to the 'Fall', death of Hiram at high noon, etc.
7. so then the Tao-Man holds to Mass, and avoids Motion; he is attached to the root, not to the flower. he leaves the one, and cleaves to the other.
that is, if his raod be toward the Tao. in our language, he adores Nuit; but the perfect Man, when he needs to manifest, is on the opposite curve.
Cf. The Book of Lies, 'the Brothers of the A A are Women; the Aspirants to A A are Men'.

The importance of el Hallaj cannot be underestimated. His thoughts influenced French religious thinking as well as its humanistic spiritual philosophy prior to the advent of the materialist philosophers and it would continue later in the development of existentialism.

Fifty years of French philosophy - Cross-pieces/ Philosophy and religion
Cinquante ans de philosophie française - Traverses - [ Translate this page ]
The heading "Philosophy and religion" was not essential itself: it thus calls some explanations. In this respect, it would not be bad to return to some sometimes forgotten basic obviousnesses. Since the Fathers of the Church until the Rebirth at least, it is clear that philosophy and theology were consubstantielles, no philosophical development not being a long time possible out of the Christian dogma which governed at the same time the ways of thinking and the modes of organization of the concrete existence of the men. It is with Descartes in a sense, Kant especially, one knows it, that philosophy as such will take its take-off while separating from the theological supervision, separation which the French philosophy of the Lights will greet like the triumph (late) of the finally adult reason and of the released thought of the dreams metaphysics. The things, however, are not so simple. The philosophy of Kant congédie not purely and simply the religion, but reinterprets it "within the limits of the simple reason" by integrating into its equations the metaphysical enigma of the radical evil. Philosophy hégélienne in its turn is thought like completion, in the form of the absolute knowledge, of this "phenomenology of the Spirit" in work of oneself whose religion is one of the ultimate figures, and it will be necessary forces it proclamation of "dead of God" in the lyricism of Nietzsche so that one comes from there to think that a systematically atheistic philosophy is possible which opens with the unknown of a new era.

The late arrival in France of Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx as well, undoubtedly explains the long insistence of a spiritualistic philosophy which will have known to resist the power of the rationalist currents (neo-kantian in particular), even frankly scientistic. This tendency could be expressed brillamment in a whole side of the philosophy of Bergson, but also in the analyses metaphysics of Maurice Blondel ( the Action , 1893; The Thought , 2 vol., 1934; The Being and Beings , 1935), of Jacques Maritain ( integral Humanism , 1936; Short Treaty of the existence and existing , 1947) or of Gabriel Marcel ( To be and To have , 1935; Metaphysical newspaper , 1927). This philosophy then appeared able to oppose a Christian humanism to a humanism existentialist which was in a direction its interlocutor privileged, able also to maintain the anchoring of the thought in an ontology inherited the thomism (in a form it is true often scholastic and dogmatic). It is in fact that this "Christian philosophy" mainly moved away from us with the language which she spoke, and which the historical bond between philosophy and theology then strongly distended. However, it is not impossible to suppose that this situation is changing, not certainly in the direction of a return behind, but in that of a revival of the interrogation and dialogue. The collapse of the insurrectionary movements of the années70, the collapse of the communist universe belong to this news gives: handing-over with foreground of the ethical question caused for example by recent progress of the life sciences, the collapse of the Utopias émancipatrices, the new forms of destructuration of the personality which psychoanalysis and psychotherapies approach according to their respective protocols, all that resulted reopening a field of interrogation and in again questioning this long memory of Occident in the heart of which the message of the three monotheisms insists - to contemplate the powerful consistency of a report/ratio of the subject to the law and the history which is formulated there.

ABDELWAHAB MEDDEB - [ Translate this page ]

Massignon, L., The Passion of al-Hallaj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam. Translated by Mason, H. 4 Vols, Princeton, NJ, Princeton, 1982.

Christianity and Islam in Historical Perspective: A Christian’s View by Sidney Griffith, Catholic University of America

Like others of his faith, when Louis Massignon learned the Arabic language and became immersed in the lives of Muslims in Cairo and Baghdad in the early twentieth century he was deeply impressed by the rigor and regularity of their religious observances. He was struck by the power of Islamic mystical poetry, and especially by the life and passion of the Muslim Sufi saint and martyr, Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 922).54 He began an intensive study of the life and work of al-Hallaj, culminating in the publication in 1922 of two major books on the biography of al-Hallaj and on Islamic, mystical vocabulary, works that would revolutionize the study of Islamic mysticism in Europe.55 But personally the most important experience for Massignon was his religious conversion in 1908 in Iraq, from a life of profligacy. as he saw it, back to the intense practice of the Roman Catholic faith he had earlier abandoned. It was precipitated by a dramatic moment in his life, fraught with sickness and physical danger. He always believed that al-Hallaj, the Muslim mystic and martyr, interceded for him with God on this occasion. The experience gave Massignon a deeper, religious appreciation of Islam, and he thereafter and throughout his life sought ways to bring about a rapprochement between Islam and Christianity.56 Eventually he became associated with Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), the Christian hermit in Muslim North Africa,57 whose spirituality was to inspire many in the twentieth century. In later life Massignon, together with a ‘Melkite’ woman of Cairo named Mary Kahil (1889-1979), founded an ecclesiastically approved sodality of prayer, called in Arabic al-Badaliyya. The purpose of the sodality was for its members mystically to offer their prayer and fasting in behalf of Muslims. A notable, early member of the sodality was Giovanni Batista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI.

Massignon’s experience, while it was dramatically more striking than that of most people, was nevertheless in many ways fairly typical of that of many Christians from the west who lived with Muslims in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Kenneth Cragg, who had a long experience as an Anglican priest in Jerusalem and Cairo, eventually being ordained an assistant bishop of the Anglican see in Jerusalem, was similarly inspired by Islamic religious life. He has written numerous books explaining Islam and Muslims to Christians, becoming in the process the most prominent voice in the English-speaking world to commend a religious respect for Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam.58

The Sufi tradition of openess and questioning has led them and other Shia sects to be considered blashphemous and irreligious to those who like their counterparts in the West believe in the literalness of the Koran or the Bible.

This Gnosis that infuses Sufism was later embraced by the great British explorer, linguist, and author Sir Captain Richard Burton. He wrote his famous paen to Sufism and Arabic Gnosticism; the Kasidah, I am sure not without passing knowledge of the work of Mansur el Hallaj.

"All Faith is false, all Faith is true" says Burton in the Kasidah.

Many of el Hallaj's ideas are within Burtons clever text. I say clever because he claims it is an original work in Arabic that he merely translated, when in reality he wrote in Arabic and then translated. In order to get the poetic scanning correct.

NOTE: "Kasidah" is an Arabic or Persian panegyric. A panegyric is a public speech or writing in praise of some person, thing, or achievement; a laudatory discourse, a formal or elaborate encomium or eulogy. According to the ancient rules the author of a "qasîda" must begin by a reference to the forsaken camping-grounds. Next he must lament, and pray his comrades to halt, while he calls up the memory of the dwellers who had departed. The Kasidah is a very artificial composition; the same rhyme has to run through the whole of the verses, however long the poem may be. (OED.)

Burton takes the last name of el-Yezdi. Which in Farsi is Devil or Satan. The Yezedi are a Gnostic sect of believers who exist in modern day Iraq, Armenia, Turkey and Iran. They are Kurds whose religion predates all others in the region.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica 1986' explains : "The Yazidi religion is a syncretic combination of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian and Islamic elements. The Yazidi themselves are thought to be descended from supporters of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid 1. They themselves believe that they are created quite separately from the rest of mankind, not even being descended from Adam, and they have kept themselves strictly segregated from the people among whom they live. Although scattered and probably numbering fewer than 1,00,000, they have a well-organized society, with a chief shaykh as the supreme religious head and an amir, or prince, as the secular head.

As early as 2000 BC, the vanguards of the Indo-European speaking tribal immigrants, such as the Hittites and Mittanis, had arrived in southwestern Asia. While the Hittites only marginally affected the mountain communities in Kurdistan, the Mittanis settled in Kurdistan and influenced the natives in several fields worthy of note, in particular the introduction of knotted rug weaving. Even rug designs introduced by the Mittanis and recognizable in Assyrian floor carvings remain the hallmark of Kurdish rugs and kelims. The modern minakhani and chwarsuch styles are basically the same as those the Assyrians depicted nearly 3000 years ago.

The Mittanis seem to have been an Indic, and not an Iranic group of people. Their pantheon, which includes names like Indra, Varuna, Suriya, Nasatya, is typically Indic. The Mittanis could have introduced during this early period some of the Indic tradition that appears to be manifest in the Kurdish religion of Yazdanism.

Burtons Kasidah can be seen as a tribute to el-Hallaj and his original Satanic Verses. Because of his dark features, wicked sense of humour and irrelgious views Burton was referred to as "that Devil" by his friends and enemies.

Sir Richard Burton's Kasidah, written in 1880 after his return from Mecca, has been called one of the greatest poems of the Earth, and the essence of the explorer's life and work. In exquisite verse and extensive author's notes, Burton adapts the style, techniques and ideas of the classical Sufi masters such as Hafiz and Omar Khayyam, exploring the limitation of man's undeveloped reason, egoism and self-made religions in fulfilling real human destiny.

Idries Shah devotes almost an entire chapter of The Sufis to The Kasidah, calling it, "One of the most interesting productions of Western Sufic literature... Burton provided a bridge whereby the thinking Westerner could accept essential Sufi concepts."

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî

or

“Lay of the Higher Law”

“Translated and annotated by his friend and pupil, F.B.”

by

Richard F. Burton

TO THE READER

The Translator has ventured to entitle a “Lay of the Higher Law” the following composition, which aims at being in advance of its time; and he has not feared the danger of collision with such unpleasant forms as the “Higher Culture.” The principles which justify the name are as follows:—

The Author asserts that Happiness and Misery are equally divided and distributed in the world.

He makes Self-cultivation, with due regard to others, the sole and sufficient object of human life.

He suggests that the affections, the sympathies, and the “divine gift of Pity” are man’s highest enjoyments.

He advocates suspension of judgment, with a proper suspicion of “Facts, the idlest of superstitions.”

Finally, although destructive to appearance, he is essentially reconstructive.

For other details concerning the Poem and the Poet, the curious reader is referred to the end of the volume.

F. B.

Vienna, Nov., 1880.

The Sufi's originating in Persia, Iran, are a school of Shi'ism that Dr. Ali Shariati calls Red Shi'ism

Shi'ism is the Islam which differentiates itself and selects its direction in the history of Islam with the "No" of the great Ali, the heir of Mohammad and the manifestation of the Islam of Justice and Truth, a "No" which he gives to the Council for the Election of the Caliph, in answer to Abdul Rahman, who was the manifestation of Islamic aristocracy and compromise. This "No", up until pre-Safavid times, is recognized as part of the Shi'ite movement in the history of Islam, an indication of the social and political role of a group who are the followers of Ali, known for their association with the kindness of the family of the Prophet. It is a movement based upon the Qoran and the Traditions; not the Qoran and the traditions as proclaimed by the dynasties of the Omayyids, Abbasids, Ghaznavids, Seljuks, Mongols and Timurids, but the ones proclaimed by the family of Mohammad.

That "NO" is the libertarian expression we find in the poetic morality of Omar Khayyam, the politics of the Old Man of the Mountain, and in the economic libertarianism of Ibn Khaldun. Like Mansur el Hallaj they were Shia, Persian and Sufi's. Which is why he is one of my favorite Muslim's.

See:The Need for Arab Anarchism

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