Oh indeed – it’s definitely about hate!

… but not the “hate” to which this columnist for the Toronto Star is referring. Antonia Zerbisias writes in her blog today that the recent right wing blogburst – where bloggers across the spectrum (but mostly on the right) posted the ‘offensive’ Mohammed cartoons and linked up to other bloggers who did the same – was nothing more than a ‘hate’ campaign conducted by right wing bloggers who ‘hate’ Muslims.

In the article, Zerbisias takes a tone of righteous indignation with great flair, displaying her disgust of anyone who would dare reprint/repost those cartoons because,of course, the bloggers who did so must “hate” all Muslims. She throws in the obligatory ‘this is horrible’ bit about the chaos and destruction brought forth by the rioting, but she doesn’t waste time lingering on it because she goes back to slamming those who have chosen to reprint/repost the cartoons in question, rather than taking the time to thoroughly condemn the violence that to this point has killed six and injured countless others – not to mention all the embassies that have been stormed and torched. She also speculates that the spark that started it all may have been a Christian magazine that printed the photos back in September, but seems (conveniently) to forget that the rioting over the cartoons didn’t start until a few months later (like about two weeks ago), when they appeared in a Danish secular paper.

The most fascinating part of this article poor excuse for journalism is contained in the last few paragraphs, where Zerbisias portrays the Muslim rioters as the real victims here, while the real culprits are – gasp – US!

As for violence, I would guess that Muslims are more victims than perpetrators.

After all, when Irshad Manji published her controversial The Trouble With Islam: A Wake Up Call for Honesty and Change in 2003, no harm ever came to her despite so many β€” again right-wing β€” bloggers’ musings that it would. That said, their fears helped Manji move a lot of books around the world.

Frankly, we’re a lot more tolerant society than our own intolerant right would like to believe.

The hypocrisy here is breathtaking – Zerbisias takes great issue with the right wing blogburst of the ‘offensive’ cartoons as if it’s the worst thing to happen in modern history, and yet in effect has displayed her actual hateful intolerance for the world to see, yet it’s others with she acccuses others with whom she disagrees of being intolerant? That’s rich. One wonders if Ms. Zerbisias remembers what happened to filmaker and outspoken-critic-of-Islam Theo van Gogh? Here’s a refresher:

A Dutch court has sentenced a 27-year-old radical Islamist to life in prison for the November murder of controversial film-maker Theo van Gogh.

Mohammed Bouyeri, who has joint Dutch-Moroccan nationality, had made a courtroom confession and had vowed to do the same again if given the chance.

[…]

Bouyeri had told the court he had acted out of religious conviction.

Clutching a copy of the Koran, he said that “the law compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet”.

Van Gogh, a strong critic of radical Islam, was shot and stabbed in broad daylight as he was cycling through Amsterdam.

His throat was slashed and the killer also pinned a letter to his chest with a knife, which threatened Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

She had written the script for Van Gogh’s controversial film Submission, which criticised the treatment of women under Islam.

Now how’s THAT for tolerance?

Lastly, she makes one last attempt to school the masses on who the ‘real hate-mongers’ are:

Which makes me wonder who the real hate-mongers are: those who are cut off from modern communications technology and are more easily subject to the machinations of ignorant clerics β€” or those that should know better and who claim to be morally superior.

Bottom-line: if you choose to call fanatical, hateful Islamists for what they are, you are an ignorant, repugnant right wing extremist to Ms. Zerbisias and furthermore have no moral authority to condemn the rioting and certianly should not support the reposting/reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons. We should show respect to fanatics who ‘don’t know any better’ (to paraphrase) – fanatics who would just as soon cut our heads off as show any respect in turn. I don’t THINK so!

Glenn Reynolds has some interesting background on Ms. Zerbisias here and here.

Read more via Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse, and Kathy Shaidle at the Relapsed Catholic blog – who Zerbisias attacked in her article as someone “whose religious politics would have easily qualified her as chief judge and bonfire builder during the Spanish Inquisition.” Ace of Spades is also blogging about this, as is Daimnation.

Update: Michelle Malkin responds to Zerbisias nonsense. Slam!

Related Toldjah So posts:

Comments are closed.