Muslim Terrorists and Moderates in Ottawa

The story broke yesterday with the arrest of two men, carefully unidentified, so carefuly in fact that simple information such as their ethnicity (information routinely given out in other arrests) was withheld - but that is perhaps a point for a future post.

Then today what was suspected by all, was proven to be true. The men accused are all of middle eastern descent and Muslim.

But again, for me, that fact is unimportant.

What is important is that one of the largest and most powerful Muslim organizations in this country the Muslim Canadian Congress is sounding out. However, the protestations of this group have not been in outrage at the RCMP or to claim racism or bigotry as has so often happened before in other places. Instead they have voiced their outrage against the ideology of Jihad. They have called for Muslims in Canada to stem this evil and to address this "serious problem among Canadian Muslim youth".

"Salma Siddiqui, the Muslim Canadian Congress vice-president said in a telephone interview that she was “livid and frustrated” that young Muslim men were still being seduced by the idea of fighting a holy war in the name of Islam.

“It has to stop,” she said."

Raheel Raza, also of the Muslim Canadian Congress went even further in this article when she admitted that...

"This is not something that comes as a total surprise . . . we have a problem,"

To add to the credibility of this group, to show that they are indeed the moderate western face of modern Islam in Canada, Muslim Canadian Congress has condemned the Ground Zero Mosque on the front page of their website saying...

“Many Muslims suspect that the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation, to thumb our noses at the 'infidel.' We believe the proposal has been made in bad faith and, in Islamic parlance, is creating 'fitna,' meaning 'mischief-making,' an act clearly forbidden in the Qur’an.”

For those that claim there are no moderate Muslims the words of Salma Siddiqui, Raheel Raza, and the Muslim Canadian Congress would seem to make a lie of that claim.

I should point out, that I do believe that Islamic fascism is a real and continuing problem. But regardless of that, as a rational individual I know that it is individuals that set their own beliefs, guide their own destinies and run their own lives. That simple knowledge will not allow me reasonably to condemn all Muslims as dangerous terrorists or Islamofascists any more than it is reasonable and proper to believe that every German, alive in the world between 1931 and 1945 was a Nazi.