Truemors
Opinion
Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor
A Canadian who takes exception to Canada's Free Speech, certainly has not witnessed the horrors of repressed speech as the world is full of detractors to free speech. Mr Privelege has boastful words from someone who has never walked the walk, but insists their views take precedence over Canada's. Did we Lose a War???
WTF if he does not like it here in Canada, I know reasonable airfares are available for him and his kind to take the next place outta dodge to any other country of his choosing, if he is disatisfied with the Canadian way of life.
The media has been covering Mr. Anti Canada for a while now and since he is a recent Law Graduate of Osgoode Hall in Ontario, he of all people should know the law, but apparently his religious convictions prevent him from understanding it. So all I can say, don't let Canada's Borders hit you and your like minded friends in the ass at the airport.
The media said it best:
If someone were actively seeking to stir up the worst stereotypes Canadians hold in regard to the repressive political cultures being imported into Canada by Arab and Muslim immigrants, it's hard to imagine anyone doing a better job than Khurrum Awan.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PcUz1FDb8ks
Freedom of speech does not include the right to have one's views published or broadcast. Nor does freedom of the press carry with it an obligation to give space to views opposed to those held by the press' owners or their editors.
Indeed, the only way that a right to have one's views aired could exist is if the government restricted the freedom of the press, forcing media outlets to publish or broadcast material that was deemed otherwise unworthy.
In other words, such a "right" would exist only if the state assumed the power to regulate public discourse, which would be anathema to our democratic ideals.
Apparently, Khurrum Awan doesn't have much respect for those ideals. A recent graduate of Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto, Mr. Awan has put his name to various human-rights complaints against Maclean's magazine and writer Mark Steyn, whom the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) accuses of Islamophobia. Mr. Awan and his coplaintiffs demand that the magazine provide a pro-Islamist writer with space equal to the amount devoted to Mr. Steyn's work.
At a conference over the weekend, Mr. Awan betrayed just how thoroughly he and his fellow travellers misunderstand the concept of freedom of speech. He told the Canadian Arab Federation that Muslims must "demand [the] right to participate" in national media. "And we have to tell them, you know what, if you're not going to allow us to do that, there will be consequences. You will be taken to the human rights commission, you will be taken to the press council, and you know what? If you manage to get rid of the human rights code provisions [on hate speech], we will then take you to the civil courts system. And you know what? Some judge out there might just think that perhaps it's time to have a tort of group defamation, and you might be liable for a few million dollars."
That someone who graduated from law school would issue forth with this hostile jumble of threats is a sad reflection of our rights-mad age. Apparently, Mr. Awan sees freedom of speech and freedom of the press as petty concepts to be brushed aside in the service of identity politics. In his world, the repository of expressive rights is not the individual, but rather ethnic and religious collectives, whose members must bully taxpayers and media owners into disseminating their propaganda.
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