Canadian Shia Muslim Organization Joins the Muslim Lunatic Fringe

by Sheila Musaji

According to the Canada National Post, a Canadian Muslim organization’s website features a video address by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. 

The article says that they contacted the organization and received the following response: Asked about the video, the Markham, Ont.-based Muslim group responded with an email saying it would not discuss the matter unless the press reported on “the Islamaphobic hate propaganda going on here in Canada.”

The article also gave some background on the organization The Canadian Shia Muslim Organization was incorporated in 2008 to “support multiculturalism” and “interfaith dialogue.” Federal records list the directors as Munir Hussain Syed, Riaz Husain and Syed Fayyaz Mehdi Rizvi.    The group’s address is a postal box in Markham. It has no phone listing. In its literature, it calls itself “a grassroots organization of Canadian Shia Muslims that operates above racial, gender and ethnicity considerations.” Its stated aim is to “represent all Canadian Shia Muslims to promote and ensure their participation in religious and political arenas of the Canadian society.”

I went to the CASMO site to check this out, and the video is there on the main page (as of 4/12/2011).  The sites “about us” section included this statement “To encourage and support multiculturalism by integration and active participation of Muslims in Canadian civil society”

How is it possible that an organization who has such a positive goal can include a video by a hate-monger?  How is it possible that Muslims could raise the question of Islamophobia while at the same time hosting a video by someone like David Duke? 

If this is a legitimate Muslim organization, they need to think seriously about such double standards.  They are putting themselves into the same category as the Muslim lunatic fringe like Revolution Muslim, and Islamic Thinkers Society or Muslims4UK.  This sort of behavior is not only morally wrong, but also damages the reputation of all Muslims.

David Duke is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan - that’s the KKK.  He supposedly left the Klan and formed a new group, National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP).  And, in January 2000, Duke announced the formation of a new organization, NOFEAR (The National Organization For European American Rights), whose purpose is to “defend the civil rights of European Americans.”  He is a neo-nazi, holocaust denier, a white supremecist, a racist bigot.  He goes beyond anti-Zionism into anti-Semitism.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a backgrounder on David Duke which the directors of CASMO should read, in case they do not know who this man is.  Here are a few quotes from Duke himself listed on the SPLC site

“Racial idealism, or racialism, is the idea that a nation’s greatest resource is the quality of its people. It means examining all questions of government on the basis of whether the proposed measure is good or bad for our race. … Neither Communism, Capitalism, nor any other materialistic doctrine can save our race; our only racial salvation lies in a White racial alliance uniting our people with the common cause of racial idealism.”
— September 1970 article in The Racialist

“In modern America, Jews lead the effort to de-Christianize America. ... They share little of the heritage of the Old Testament people called the Israelites. … Communism and Zionism were born from the same Jewish soul. ... Jewish power is ubiquitous. ... It is not a [Jewish] conspiracy. It is simply two nations — Jew and Gentile — in a state of ethnic war.”
— From Duke’s 1998 autobiography My Awakening

Islamophobia is wrong, and so is anti-Semitism, racism, and every other form of bigotry.  For a North American Muslim organization not to know this is disgusting.

The CASMO site has a contact us page.  I would encourage Muslims in Canada and the United States to contact them and let them know that inclusion of such material is reprehensible.

And, just in case the CASMO leadership thinks Duke holds them in any higher regard than he holds Blacks or Jews, here are a few quotes from the ADL backgrounder on Duke about immigrants:

“New York has become an example of everything that is wrong with America. White Americans, fearing the crime and social alienation in New York City, commute endless hours to raise their families in safe, clean neighborhoods. The numbers of non-Americans, especially those from the Third World, are growing, and it is the hard working White New Yorker that pays the bill,” said Duke.—Press release on Duke’s web site 12/23/99

“More than 95 percent of both legal and illegal immigration into the United States is non-white. Because of the way immigration law is structured, the highest-skilled nations on earth—those of Europe—are allowed only a tiny percentage of immigrants, while the third world nations such as Mexico are dumping their chaff onto American shores at the highest rate in history.”—­­ My Awakening, p. 177 (1998)

UPDATE 4/12 p.m.

The Canadian National Post has just reported that the police have been asked to investigate the website.

In a letter sent to York Region Police on Tuesday, the Canadian Jewish Congress asked for an investigation into the Canadian Shia Muslims Organization website.   

The three-page letter said the congress believed the website was willfully promoting hatred, a violation of Canada’s hate crimes law. A York police official confirmed receiving the letter and said it would get “appropriate and timely attention.”

...  “This has now been fully reported in a national newspaper, bloggers have taken it on themselves,” said Bernie Farber, CEO of the congress. “There is no way that they cannot know of the concern.

“And the very fact it remains on their site, I think, speaks to a purposefulness, a real desire to basically say ‘we don’t care that this might be anti-Semitic, we stand by it.’ Otherwise it would be gone.”

I checked the website again this evening and discovered that not only have they not removed the video, they have added a second video.  Absolutely unbelievable.  Please contact them and let them know how wrong this is.

UPDATE 4/13/2011

It has just been reported by the Canadian National Post that the CASMO site has removed the videos.  They removed these filing the hate-crimes complaint to the police by the Canadian Jewish Congress. 

The National Post site mentions this article on TAM and quotes one paragraph The on-line journal The American Muslim accused it of joining “the Muslim lunatic fringe” in an editorial. “Islamophobia is wrong, and so is anti-Semitism, racism and every other form of bigotry. For a North American Muslim organization not to know this is disgusting,” it read.

I only hope that hearing from many North American Muslims also influenced their decision to remove the videos.  Hopefully, they will also issue an apology.

SEE ALSO

Statement Of American Muslim Imams And Community Leaders On Holocaust Denial & ati-Semitism http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/statement_of_american_muslim_imams_and_community_leaders_on_holocaust_denia/

AAI Condemns Iranian President’s Holocaust Denial Gathering http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/aai_condemns_iranian_presidents_holocaust_denial_gathering/

ADL backgrounder on David Duke http://www.adl.org/special_reports/duke_own_words/duke_intro.asp
 
American Muslim Delegation Visits U.S. Holocaust Museum, MPAC http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/american_muslim_delegation_visits_us_holocaust_museum/

British Muslims, Europe and the Holocaust, Yahya Birt http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/british_muslims_europe_and_the_holocaust/

The Disgrace of Holocaust Denial, Hasan Zillur Rahim http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/the_disgrace_of_holocaust_denial/

Holocaust cartoon and hate speech double standards, Sheila Musaji http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/holocaust_cartoon_vs/ 

Holocaust Denial Undermines Islam, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/holocaust_denial_undermines_islam/

Muslims Who Fought Against the ‘Real’ Fascists, Sheila Musaji (with article collection)  http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/muslims_who_fought_against_the_real_fascists/

True Muslims Must Never Deny the European Holocaust, Ibrahim Ramey http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/true_muslims_must_never_deny_the_european_holocaust/