Nothing says bug-eyed clerical fanaticism more than inviting a hate-spewing Saudi cleric to address your religious revival meeting. But this is part of the under-reported history of the Reviving the Islamic Spirit (RIS) Convention, a conference that Justin Trudeau, a frontrunner in Canada’s Liberal Party leadership race – and son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau – will address this weekend in Montreal. It’s also why moderate Muslims and non-Muslims are aghast at the prospect of Trudeau’s presence legitimizing the conference and some of its notables.
Although organizers pitch the gathering as “A Unique Youth Effort” “to help overcome new challenges of communication and integration” and “reviv[e] the Islamic tradition of education, tolerance and introspection,” there is reason to be concerned. Aspects of the multi-year history and present-day manifestations of RIS invite questions about ideology and influences at play.
This year’s conference was initially sponsored in part by IRFAN-Canada, an international Muslim relief entity that has seen its federal charitable tax status yanked by Ottawa, as a result of the Canada Revenue Agency’s belief that millions in contributions went to “relieve” the Hamas terror organization. Although exposure of this background forced IRFAN’s eleventh-hour cosmetic removal as an RIS sponsor, it is not evident that all remaining sponsors are clear of radical taint. UBS Bank recently blocked the overseas account of British-based charity and RIS 2012 sponsor Islamic Relief, a situation which an Islamic Relief official reportedly attributes to the technicalities of counterterrorism regulations. Meanwhile, some have questions about the uneven ideological record of one or two prominent figures attached to sponsoring organization Zaytuna College, an Islamic institution in Berkeley, Calif.
And, yes, the inevitable Tariq Ramadan, the charming, soft-spoken and dupe-seducing scion of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood – a man who famously called for a moratorium, rather than a ban, on the stoning of women, and avoids condemning Hamas – will also speak at the event. Ramadan is an RIS veteran speaker whose apparent Muslim Brotherhood link offers little reassurance when taken in concert with a Brotherhood strategic plan for Canada and the United States which prescribes “a grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house.”
Meanwhile, a journalist has exposed expected RIS 2012 speaker Yassir Fazaga as a fixture of Peace TV, an outlet with radical presenters, including Yusuf Islam – the former Cat Stevens – who called for author Salman Rushdie’s death and spoke at the 2009 RIS.
But, years ago, those of us in intelligence who studied RIS conferences had concluded that RIS’s problems exceeded even these present-day issues.
Indeed, the RIS’s history of invited speakers includes some dignitaries who would give pause to people of conscience, especially when speakers might be considered models for youth and other convention attendees. For example, there was distinguished American neo-Nazi William W. Baker at the 2004 gathering. Known for establishing something dubbed Christians and Muslims for Peace (CAMP), Baker has rounded publicly on “belligerent American Jews.” “[H]is apparent goal,” wrote a reporter a year or two before his RIS invitation, is “the creation of a united Christian-Muslim front against Jews and other groups.”
Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes complained that now-disgraced former RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, then-Toronto Police Chief (and now federal Tory Minister) Julian Fantino and Mayor David Miller appeared at the Toronto conference, “thereby giving it – and by implication, William W. Baker – their blessing.” Zaccardelli’s pander-filled speech was memorable. Even the social-democratic NDP’s Jack Layton could not resist addressing an RIS meet.
For “bridge-building” and interfaith work, there was RIS 2006 speaker Imam Siraj Wahhaj, US unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Another RIS invitee was Sheik Bilal Philips, a Canadian imam who is an unindicted co-conspirator in that bombing, favors death for homosexuals in Muslim lands, and fancies punitive amputations, lashings and public executions. From Kenya to Germany to Australia, he has been banned and deported on national security grounds.
The bug-eyed invitee mentioned above was reportedly Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudais, imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque. Well before his invitation to speak at the 2004 RIS, Al-Sudais said “Jews of yesterday are the evil forefathers of the even more evil Jews of today: infidels … prophet murderers, the scum of the human race, accursed by Allah, who turned them into apes and pigs.” “[A]n ongoing continuum of deceit, obstinacy, licentiousness, evil, and corruption,” too. Christians?: idolators – “worshippers of the cross” – as were hideous “idol worshipping Hindus.”
This was a bridge-building too far, and Canada’s government barred entry to the Saudi imam.
As it did to RIS 2010 invitee (and previous speaker) Indian physician-preacher Zakir Naik, thought to have a crush on Osama bin Laden. “[E]very Muslim should be a terrorist,” says Naik, and Jews are “our staunchest enemy.” At the 2005 RIS, Naik pressed Islamic Sharia law upon America, complete with death penalties for homosexuals, heavy veiling for women. There was more than a dash of false equivalence in his comparing of the targeted civilian deaths of 9/11, and the accidental civilian casualties in Afghanistan combat. Naik’s ambiguous position on suicide bombing included the view that it “should be done under proper guidance” – surely a constructive thought for susceptible youth juggling contemporary responsibilities and trying to reach that life-balance between school and demolitions. Naik is progressive inasmuch as he believes wives should be beaten only “lightly.”
Several years ago, Britain’s Sheikh Riyadh ul-Haq spoke at an RIS convention in Toronto. Reports point to Indian-born ul-Haq’s enthusiastic paraphrasing of the Quran in remarks made on another occasion: “the ones who are bitterest in their enmity towards Muslims, the most unrelenting, unforgiving, are the Jews and the mushrikeen, idolators in all their forms.” Today’s “chief idolators,” he adds, are the Hindus.
U.S. authorities have taken an interest in RIS, and detained some American Muslims returning from the 2004 RIS conference in Toronto. Department of Homeland Security: “we had credible intelligence that conferences similar to the one from which these individuals were leaving were being used by terrorist organizations to fundraise and to hide the travel of terrorists themselves.” The Saudi-funded, extremist-sympathetic Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – later an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terror funding U.S. prosecution, and the mother group of a Canadian chapter, CAIR-CAN, now attacking critics of this week’s conference – sued the American government, and lost.
Border authorities, asserted the supportive U.S. appeals court, “had reason to believe that terrorists, or those with terrorist ties, would be attending the RIS conference.”
It was at this Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference – presumably in the midst of some of its participants’ condemnations of liberal coexistence – that a jargon-laced greeting was read aloud from a letter from then-Prime Minister Paul Martin. “[T]his year’s conference,” he intoned on behalf of the Government of Canada, “adds to the fabric of our nation and strengthens our social foundations by making our communities more dynamic, culturally rich, and cohesive.” U.S. border authorities might have taken another view.
Now comes the Reviving the Islamic Spirit 2012 conclave. You’ve heard about Tariq Ramadan and the rest, but what about other invitees who will be joining this month’s Montreal conventioneers?
Read the rest at IPT
David B. Harris is a Canadian lawyer with three decades’ experience in intelligence affairs, and serves as Director of the International Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc. He is on the advisory board of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow (MFT), although opinions expressed here are his alone.
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Who is this hypocrite Trudeau? What does he really stand for?
“Let me say very clearly that I support Bill 101,” Trudeau said Thursday.
“It is a reality that helps Quebec remain mainly French in a bilingual country. If we want Canada to remain bilingual — and I want it — we need to understand that Quebec must remain primarily francophone.” Justin Trudeau
“Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda. It doesn’t work,” Trudeau said in French to interviewer Patrick Lagace on the Tele-Quebec program Les francs-tireurs (The Straight Shooters).
Lagace then asked Trudeau if he thought Canada was “better served when there are more Quebecers in charge than Albertans?”
Trudeau replied: “I’m a Liberal, so of course I think so, yes. Certainly when we look at the great prime ministers of the 20th century, those that really stood the test of time, they were MPs from Quebec… This country – Canada – it belongs to us.”
Trudeau specifically named prime ministers Pierre Trudeau, Chretien and Paul Martin but also included Progressive Conservative Mulroney on his list of great Quebec prime ministers of the last century.
“I always say that if, at a given time, I
believed that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper, and that we were
going against abortion, that we were going against gay marriage, that we were
moving backwards in 10,000 different ways, maybe I would think of wanting to
make Quebec a country,” when the interviewer asked for clarification he replied
“Oh yes, absolutely. If I no longer recognized Canada, I know my own
values very well.” Justin Trudeau
.” ….Given these facts, should French-speaking people concentrate their efforts on Quebec or take the whole of Canada as their base? In my opinion, they should do both; and for the purpose they could find no better instrument than federalism”, Pierre Trudeau,.
Justin Trudeau supports the racist, bigoted, xenophobic bill 101. Yes he supports a French only Kebec (proper native spelling) and forced french “bilingualism” all over the country, nice eh? Just like a daddy a French first, Kebec first bigot, hypocrite, from the province of the Qlue Qlux Qlan. Get back to the tax and spend, have not, high debt, socialist province of Kebec and shut up you parasite Trudeau, yes Kebec where you fit right in.
Ah yes….our liberal twit justin trudeau….where do we start with this dhimmi! He should have stayed teaching drama to high school students…it is the only thing he seems good at! Politically…he is an empty suit with a fuddle-duddled brain with no substance. His arrogance far surpasses his intelligence!
He has not made any friends out in Western Canada…..especially in Alberta! Quebec gets paid Welfare to sustain her overspending and not tapping into their resources… from the other have Provinces. Alberta has paid billions to Quebec. If not for Alberta ….Quebec could be a third world country!
Let Quebec leave Canada! They can go out with what they came in with…..a small strip of the land along the St. Lawrence. Let them try to make it on their own!
The only thing that this Bill 101 has accomplished….muslims who speak French are able to immigrate but only allowed in Quebec! They can have their French Language and the muslims too!
Canada is doing just fine thank you, despite Quebec! As long as PM Harper stays in Power…..we will be moving ahead! If Twit trudeau ever happens to get into the Power seat….it will be our downfall. He will give the Islamists everything they want! Hope he is prepared to have his daughter and wife wearing the burka!
Most Canadians know that Twit is at this conference….it won’t help him any! Even his little club called KATIMAVIK….the young folks who had joined this club were taught to embrace Canadian Values and Principles and to think for themselves. They even are turning their backs on him now. They have learned well….they understand that Islamism is not compatible with our Canadian values or principles!
Twit trudeau has just shown everyone where he stands and it isn’t with Canadians!
Justin best leave Canada with them now because what’s coming he won’t want to face.
As for ‘islamic plans’ for Canada…we have our own plans for the islami that have been drawn up slowly and patiently down the centuries since The Winnowing…our word for how islam nearly annihilated us globally and forced Paganity into hiding.
We came to Canada long ago, when the Americas were just beginning to see colonization, and we went West far ahead of civilization, to hide, recover and reclaim what had been lost.
We’re back now, and we will NOT tolerate islam in the Americas, or in the world. islam, it’s supporters, and lickspittle sympathizers like justin-the-lapdog will be deported to somalia.
islam assaults all other faiths and peoples…it’s a criminal and genocidalistic cult organization, and this is proved out by it’s history extending even into the present day. islam had 1400 years to change it’s way, it hasn’t, and it’s too late now, it’s too dangerous to be permitted any further tolerance in light of modern weaponry and what they do with such.
I speak as Harbinger for my people since accepting the request to do so.
Paganics are back. We are Everwhere. We are Everyone.
islam is to it’s core Anti-Human, and Humanity will NOT be enslaved under islam, or any other Entity-Group–and that is a Warning to the UN as well.
Humanity’s destiny is one of Liberty, Freedom. This Birthright will be Defended and Protected by us as we did in ages past so that Humanity can someday become the Great People it will be.
That cannot happen if it’s enslaved to false religion and political doctrines inimical to Humanity such as islam, communism, and other such anti-Humanistic things.
We return to to resume our place in the world, and we come with gifts of new, Clean, Sustainable energy technologies to encourage Humanity along in it’s path to it’s destiny, ease the resource-fighting between nations, encourage economic recovery and strengthening of same. It is our hope to heal, at least in-part all that has gone so awry in the past few decades. Humanity deserves better than to toil and suffer beneath the burdens it carries now.
As we were, we are again.
We have always been.
We shall always be.
We do not do PolCorr.
We do not heed the words or commands of our enemies or their lickspittle dhimmi servants and slaves.
islam, you can start leaving the Americas and Western, Civilized nations now under your own volition and spare yourselves what comes, what you have brought down on yourselves of your own hand and doing.
Marlene Wilkins Blackwinter
Witch of The First Circle
Consecrated to Hecate
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