December 1, 2009 Letters

Bigot preaches humanism

by Arshad Khan

In the Queer special issue, The Link published a Canadian University Press article titled “What is a ‘soft jihad?’” on Ezra Levant, the publisher of the now-defunct tripe known as the Western Standard. [Vol. 30, Iss. 13, pg. 7]. The author of the article, Jonathon Van Maren, presented Levant as an “activist for free speech.”

Fawning over Levant, Maren failed to mention that Mr. Levant is a right-wing extremist. The Western Standard was known to be homophobic, ultra-right wing, racist, anti-abortion, promoting deadbeat dads, Islamophobic, blindly pro-Zionist and extremely pro-war.
Mr. Levant and his magazine were so vehemently against publicly owned media that one of the covers of the magazine boasted that by the time the Conservatives are done with the CBC, no one will be able to recognize it. The Western Standard took it upon itself to raise controversy because it was a failing magazine. Levant knew very well that those images of Mohammad that he printed would raise controversy and so he published them in pursuit of pure sensationalism.

If he cared for freedom of speech then at least one issue of that awful magazine would have had an article by a credible journalist that was not on the Can-West media conglomerate payroll.

This is how the magazine was promoting itself: “In the Western Standard, ‘capitalist,’ ‘gun owner,’ ‘tobacconist,’ ‘America’ and ‘men’ won’t be dirty words. On the other hand, ‘bureaucrat,’ ‘social worker,’ ‘CRTC’ and ‘United Nations’ will be treated with caution.”
Meanwhile, on his blog, Van Maren poses the question “Why has the history of Western Civilization been whittled down to an ‘intellectual’ rant howling about the historic mistreatment of minorities?” This statement raises a floodgate of issues. This proves Van Maren’s questionable understanding of history, politics and journalism. His blog boasts his publications.

When “journalists” of this kind get a voice in community magazines and newspapers, the state of journalism itself should be brought into question.

Centuries of progress on racial and religious issues are at stake when individuals can on one hand posture as “activists” interested in freedom while in the same breath denigrate historic struggles against colonial injustices.

—Arshad Khan,
Film Production