Tag Archives: cultural relativism

Canadian Left Calls for ‘Neutrality’ on Honor Killings & Female Genital Mutilation

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clitorectomyBy :

Cultural relativism has reached a new point of absurdity in Canada when the “barbarity” of female genital mutilation and honor killings is questioned and becomes a controversy.

A recently introduced manual by the Government of Canada intended to teach newcomers about Canadian values and Canadian society has been met with ongoing hostility from left-wing Canadians and politicians over the choice of words in describing female genital mutilation and honor killings. Jinny Sims, the immigration critic of the opposition New Democratic Party of Canada, suggested the word “barbaric” might “stigmatize some cultures.”

Aside from official protestations, everyone can imagine the type of cultural relativist rhetoric that has been used to attack the Conservative government for releasing this guide. The blogosphere has been filled with “liberal-minded” Canadians continuing in the same vein as Ms. Sims, suggesting the term “barbaric” is somehow discriminatory or offensive to a particular group. However, reasoned thought on the matter should conclude on the exact opposite; that it is offensive to those forced to endure such ordeals to call them anything but barbaric. Unfortunately, sensitivity towards this group (as per usual) is ignored.

Taking up the relativist banner was also none other than Justin Trudeau, front-runner for leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, and son of the infamous Canadian Prime Minister who brought multiculturalist policy to Canada. He attacked the Conservatives for using the term “barbaric,” and suggested that the term was a “pejorative” and that “there needs to be a little bit of an attempt at responsible neutrality.”

Read more at Front Page

Also see:

Justin Trudeau’s Islamist Revival (counterjihadreport.com)

U.S. Covering Up and Revising Islamic Ties to Terrorism

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11By Rachel Alexander

The Obama administration is following the direction of the United Nations and suppressing any mention of radical Islam’s association with terrorism. Even the word “terrorism” is being censored because it has become associated with Islam. Remember President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror?” The phrase has disappeared, even though terrorist attacks are increasing. Obama has stopped using the phrase.

The censorship effort began in 1999, when the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) began urging the U.N. to pass a resolution denouncing “religious intolerance” and “condemning the stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion.” The U.N.’s Human Rights Council passed two censorship resolutions in 2010 and 2011, and last September Obama encouraged the full U.N. to pass one. In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Obama said, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Since Christians do not believe that Mohammed was a prophet, many people felt that Obama went too far, forcing Islamic views upon Christians.

Several Islamic world leaders are pressuring the U.N. to adopt the censorship resolution, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf of Pakistan condemned the importance the Western free world places on freedom of speech, saying, “It is sad that the ‘open-minded’ people of the world – who stand against religious extremism and terrorism and consider disrespecting the sentiments of the common man a violation of human rights – justify hurting religious emotions of nearly 1.5 billion Muslims as freedom of speech.”

The move towards censorship in the U.S. started under the second Bush administration. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo containing recommendations from Muslim organizations that instruct Americans to avoid using words like “jihadist,” “Islamic terrorist,” “Islamist” and “holy warrior.” When referring to Muslims, words like “mainstream,” “ordinary,” and “traditional” should be used instead of terms like “moderate.” The “War on Terror” is to be rephrased as “a global challenge, which transcends geography, culture and religion.” It is a “struggle for progress, over which no nation has a monopoly.”

Earlier this year the FBI was ordered by the Obama administration to purge language from its manuals, and subsequently removed more than 700 documents and 300 presentations from training materials. All federal law enforcement agencies were ordered to eliminate the words “Islamic terror” from their training manuals. The Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review and the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review were revised to eliminate the words “Muslim” and “Islam.” Mentions of al Qaeda were replaced with “global violent extremism.”

The U.S. military handbook “Culture Cards: Afghanistan & Islamic Culture” was revised last year to censor anything perceived as negative towards Islam. In the 2011 version, incest in Islam is described as just a different variety of culture; “In some traditionally Islamic Middle East cultures the preferred marriage pattern has been to marry one’s father’s brother’s daughter.” The handbook begins, “Culture is about how people perceive reality. It may not fit the true facts or history…..Soldiers must not let personal prejudices cloud their judgment.” The handbook is full of morally relative statements like, “Norms are not rigid and may be ignored with only minor repercussions.” It concludes by asserting that a “culturally literate soldier” “appreciates and generally accepts diverse beliefs, appearances and lifestyles.”

Read more at Townhall

The First Amendment Is What We Need in Europe

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by Geert Wilders, Gatestone Institute:

Adherence to religion must be a personal choice. No religion should demand that those who leave it be killed; this makes it a totalitarian ideology rather than a religion. A religion must never mandate the subjugation of those who do not belong to it. A religion must be in accord with basic human rights. This ideology also harms Muslims. That is why we have to end the biggest disease in the world today, the cultural relativism which pretends that all cultures are equal. If Israel falls, the West falls. That is why their fight is our fight. We should support it.

I am happy to be in New York again, even though in my country today it is Queen’s Day, a national celebration. This is why I am wearing my orange tie.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address all of you. It is always good to be among friends. It is an honor to be here in the presence of so many people who care for the preservation of freedom in our civilization.

It is great to be in America, the beacon of liberty, the land of the free, the land where people are still allowed to speak freely. I know what I am talking about. I was acquitted after a legal ordeal that lasted almost three years. I had been brought to court for criticizing Islam.

Though at the end of the day I was acquitted, the court case was a disgrace. It was a time-, money- and energy-consuming nightmare. This charade that happened in the Netherlands for the last few years could not have happened in your great country, where the First Amendment guarantees people the freedom to express their opinions.

The First Amendment is what we need in the Netherlands and Europe.

I am in New York for the release of my book “Marked for Death.” It reveals how Islam has already profoundly changed Europe in the last decades. It exposes the cultural relativism which has affected Europe so deeply that many in Europe refuse to stand for liberty and prefer to appease Islam. It explains why Islam is a threat to freedom.

As you know, people who speak out like me pay a steep price for speaking these truths. Apart from legal attempts to silence me, there are also the threats by radical Muslims to kill me. I have been living under permanent police protection for almost eight years now. But I do not regret one word. I see it as my duty to warn the West.

I have traveled widely in the Islamic world. I have read the Koran. I have studied the life of Muhammad. It made me realize that Islam is primarily an ideology rather than a religion. This ideology wants to impose Islamic sharia law on the whole world, including us the Kafirs, the non-Muslims. This ideology is also outspokenly anti-Semitic.

This ideology also harms Muslims. Islam believes that everything men have to know can be found in the Koran. As such, it is hostile to all forms of innovation. But without innovation there can be no progress and people cannot prosper.

Many people unfortunately are blind to the nature of Islam because they do not realize what Islam is, and mistakenly believe that it is a religion just like any other religion.

I have written my book to inform them.

Islam fails four major tests that religions should fulfill:

  1. Adherence to a religion must be a personal choice;
  2. no religion should demand that those who leave it be killed; this makes it a totalitarian ideology rather than a religion.
  3. a religion must never mandate the subjugation of those who do not belong to it;
  4. a religion must be in accord with basic human rights.

I have also written my book because I am not a defeatist. The West is able to defeat totalitarianism just as it defeated Nazism and Communism in the past.

My book is dedicated to freedom. It is inspired by many freedom fighters, from previous generations but also people from our age.

Fortunately, we are not alone in the fight for freedom. We are in the company of heroes and friends. This gives us the strength to continue.

In order to defeat Islam so, we must do four things.

The first and most important is to speak the truth, always and everywhere also about Islam. Like the Americans, the people in the Netherlands and other European countries desperately need a First Amendment.

That will allow them to tell the truth about Islam and Muhammad. We must encourage Muslims to leave Islam and to choose freedom and prosperity.

Secondly, we have to believe in the superiority of our Western values. If we do not believe in our own Western values, we will not be prepared to defend them. That is why we have to end the biggest disease in the world today, the cultural relativism which pretends that all cultures are equal. Our Judeo-Chrisitian, humanist civilization is more free, more democratic, more tolerant than any civilization the world has ever seen. We should not be afraid to say so.

Thirdly, we must stop the Islamization of our societies by restricting immigration from Islamic countries, and expelling those who violate our laws and commit violence. If you respect our laws you are welcome to stay; if you don’t, you do not belong here..

And fourthly, we must reassert our national identities. The nation-state enables self-government and self-determination. This insight led the Zionists to establish Israel as the homeland of the Jews.

Zionism teaches us one of the most important lessons which the modern world needs today. Theodor Herzl argued that a Jewish state would facilitate “a new blossoming of the Jewish spirit.” Today, we need our own respective nation-states to preside over a new blossoming of our own Western spirit.

Our nations are the homes in which freedom and democracy prosper. This is true for the Netherlands. This is true for America. This is true for Israel.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. It is a beacon of freedom in an unfree region, a beacon of life in a place of darkness. If Israel falls, the West falls.

Mothers in the West can sleep safely because Israeli mothers at night worry about their sons in the army. Their fight is our fight. We should support it.

Israel is, indeed, a vital outpost of Western civilization. That is why Islam conditions the faithful to hate the Jewish state and to view its destruction as an imperative. It is our duty to stand with Israel.

In my book I explain how we can defend freedom and oppose Islamization and cultural relativism in a non-violent and democratic way. In fact, that is what my party, the Party for Freedom, is doing in the Netherlands.

Read more..