Ezra Levant on George Galloway’s being barred from entering Canada:
Good friends, and friends of freedom of speech say I’m not being consistent — that I should be for Galloway’s right to be wrong. I am; I don’t think he should be arrested for being a racist, terrorist-loving buffoon. I think he should be arrested for raising money for a criminal terrorist organization. That’s not speech I’m against, that’s fundraising for terrorism I’m against. But that’s not my main point: my main point is that Galloway has no “right” to come to Canada. He’s not Canadian.
I’m all for his free speech — elsewhere.
First off, charges that Galloway has raised money for Hamas are wildly overblown. His participation in/organization of the Viva Palestina aid convoy only qualifies as “aid to Hamas” on the grounds that Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinian people, and thus any aid to Palestinians (the vast majority of whom only manage to survive now thanks to various international aid programs and food donations) has to go through Hamas.
(This would be one of the many reasons that the quasi-official nature of Palestinian governance is a neverending bugbear from an international law standpoint: if Hamas is the legitimately elected government of Palestine then without an official declaration of hostilities Canada can’t actually do anything (because you can’t really say that an entire other country is a criminal organization without completely debasing the term), but if Hamas isn’t a legitimately elected government then Canada is ignoring gross human rights violations on the part of Israel that it has sworn to uphold and is thus violating its own treaty obligations. Many other First World countries have this same thorny issue, which is why none of them ever really officially decides what Hamas actually is.)
Of course, that aid also has to go through Israel, but apparently the fact that the Israelis let the entire convoy through – except for a fire engine and boat which the Egyptian government pre-emptively disallowed, and if anybody can explain why a fire engine would be dangerous please let me know – would imply that they didn’t think Galloway’s “fundraising” was dangerous to the state of Israel. Considering that the aid consisted entirely of humanitarian materiels (food, blankets, toys for kiddies, et cetera), it’s not surprising that the Israelis would let it through. Then again, until the Americans complained, the Israelis weren’t letting dried pasta into Gaza. So who knows.
Oh, and as much as Bernie Faber of the Jewish Defense League might claim otherwise, Galloway wasn’t “smuggling” goods to Hamas. Smuggling traditionally does not involve the type of political grandstanding for which Galloway is known. Because that’s not smuggling. Galloway has never been caught committing any sort of crime, and this is because Galloway knows exactly where the line he can’t cross is. One might, if one was so inclined, draw parallels to religious bigots who have a good grasp of the boundaries of criminal hate speech laws and who metaphorically are all too willing to walk right up to that boundary and wiggle their ass at it.
But none of this is the real issue. The real issue is that Levant’s suggestion that this is an immigration or administrative problem is the worst kind of semantics. It’s semantics because this is entirely about the Conservative government choosing to abridge Galloway’s ability to speak in Canada, using a cheap excuse to do so.
Consider the staggering incongruity of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in complaining that Galloway supports a terrorist organization when Kenney himself attended a rally of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran in 2006, less than a year after the Canadian government declared it to be a terrorist group and a declaration which was upheld by the current Conservative government as recently as this past November. (In fairness, once people found out about Kenney’s attendance, he first claimed that he hadn’t attended the rally, and then when pictures showed up of him at the rally, claimed he hadn’t known it was the PMOI holding the rally and that he had been tricked. Given that Jason Kenney is a very, very stupid man, this is actually slightly plausible. But only slightly.) Given this context, you might think that Kenney’s judgement of Galloway’s potential security risk is suspect, but apparently Ezra Levant trusts him.
Levant’s argument is that Galloway’s supposed criminal acts (for which he has never been tried, because no judge would ever convict him, because as much as certain parties might wish otherwise delivering food and medicine to Palestinians is not yet a crime in Britain or Canada) are good reason to prevent him from speaking in Canada. That’s his position. He can say “no, I think it’s a good reason to bar him from entering Canada and thus as a consequence he can’t speak,” but when Galloway’s entire purpose for visiting Canada is to speak then the two are obviously conflated and pretending otherwise is, as stated, nothing more than semantics.
It’s just the sort of useful semantics that lets Ezra Levant pretend he isn’t an enormous hypocrite, that restricting George Galloway’s ability to speak isn’t restraining free speech because he can describe it a different way thanks to the technicalities of Canada’s constitution. But of course he is being enormously hypocritical, because freedom of expression isn’t derived from the concept that it’s something that just sort of belongs in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but from the idea that speech has intrinsic value in and of itself. Levant has spent the better part of the last few years passionately arguing the latter point; now that it’s become inconvenient for him to do so, he has cheerfully abandoned it.
Which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.
Related Articles
22 users responded in this post
There’s still the issue of the $45,000 given directly to Hamas.
No matter what we say about the correctness of Hamas being on the list of proscribed organizations, the fact of the matter is that Galloway gave $45,000 to an organization on the list. The issue is really that simple. If the Girl Guides end up on a list, buying cookies makes you ineligible to enter Canada.
All else is irrelevant. Getting Hamas off the list is a battle for Canadians to fight at home, should we decide that that is the right thing to do.
We are after all, a nation of laws, and the law was applied correctly, not by an evil conservative overlord, but by a faceless bureaucrat. The actual government involvement in all this was to do nothing, and allow the administrative decision to stand.
Speaking as a fellow scot (yer actual “Born in and lives in Scotland” kind), I feel I must give our view on the man. Here it is: George Galloway is a cunt. Theres no getting away from it. Hes a loud mouthed, blowhard grandstanding self-aggrandising opportunistic prick. He didnt fight his constituency in scotland, moving instead to unseat a reletively blameless labour politician in an area of london where anger at the iraq war was greatest.
But. And you knew there had to be a But, right? For all that, he is not a terrorist. He does not promote hate speech (or at least not against groups of people. Against Tony Blair, yeah. But ot most in britain Galloway vs Blair is like watching a snake fight a scorpion). Banning him makes it look like you are afraid of a man who pretended to be a cat on national television. He’s not a terrorist and the evidence that hes a terrorist supporter is to be honest sketchy at best.
He is also to give him his credit, a very very good debater. I recommend anyone search out him ripping the arse out of the people questioning him in the US senate a few years back.
Just my 2 cents worth.
I’d have to agree with Simon K here, also speaking as a Scot.
Also, can someone provide a link to Galloway giving cash directly to Hamas. Mostly because I don’t think he has that kind of cash to throw around, at least not personally.
Speaking as a Dane, a citizen of the country with the Mohammed cartoons, we have the very same hypocricy thrown into our faces on a daily basis. Many of the most passionate defenders of the right of free speech of the newspaper that published the cartoons also lionize Geert Wilders, the Dutch douchebag who made the muslim-bashing movie “Fitna” and argues that the Quran should be outlawed!
These bold defenders of free speech also bash Hans Jørgen Bonnichsen, former chief of the Danish internal security services, who is known for arguing that divisive rethoric increases the risk of terror and that some anti-terror laws have infringed on basic civil rights. The defenders of free speech argue that he should not speak his mind, as he is damaging the operations of the secret services and revealing insider knowledge…though the secret services themselves are not raising charges and no independent legal professional think that he has done anything illegal.
…which was delivered without Israeli objection. (Well, obviously they weren’t happy, but they still permitted it.)
It was also delivered to Hamas because they may or may not have been elected fairly, but they are the current government. So was he giving the money to the government, which happened to be Hamas, or the other way around?
There’s still the issue of the $45,000 given directly to Hamas.
…which was delivered without Israeli objection. (Well, obviously they weren’t happy, but they still permitted it.)
Still irrelevant. This in not about whether or not the law is just, nor whether or not Galloway is an asshole. Nor do we look to Israel for judgment under our laws.
It’s about rule of law. You have two options: You can lobby in Canada to have the definition of aid to terrorist organizations changed, OR Mr. Galloway can land at an airport, and fight his deportation in a court of law.
But, until either of those two paths are followed and the law is changed, the existing decision is correct.
You know, this could very well be a bad law, I’m not going to pass opinion on that aspect of the issue. The fact is that he is ineligible to enter Canada.
Mr Galloway was allowed to speak last night via a network link. There was absolutely no suppression of speech.
“Speaking as a fellow scot (yer actual “Born in and lives in Scotland” kind), I feel I must give our view on the man. Here it is: George Galloway is a cunt. Theres no getting away from it. Hes a loud mouthed, blowhard grandstanding self-aggrandising opportunistic prick. He didnt fight his constituency in scotland, moving instead to unseat a reletively blameless labour politician in an area of london where anger at the iraq war was greatest.”
Speaking as another Scot (of the actual living here type. Wait, actually, I moved to London to start a PhD in October. Still counts, right?) I don’t think Galloway’s that bad.
It’s certainly not fair to use the fact “He didnt fight his constituency in scotland, moving instead to unseat a reletively blameless labour politician in an area of london” as a criticism.
He didn’t fight his constituency for the simple fact that it didn’t exist any more. The redrawing of the borders [due to the Scottish Parliment meaning less MPs for Scotland] meant his constituency no longer existed. He chose not to fight the [other] labour incumbent of the sucessor constituency, who he respected.
He’s a loud-mouthed self-aggrandising opportunist, no doubt, but he was providing a loud opposition to the war when very few other elected representative standing up to what they believe. He’s a prick, yes, and shouldn’t get too much power, but he should be there, to say what many others aren’t.
I don’t see why standing against Oona King was such a bad thing – she backed Blair whole-heartedly. She made sense as someone to stand against.
I keep waiting for these right-wing douchebags who oppose allowing Galloway into the country to say something about how if we’re going to ban people who support oppressive governments, then letting George W. Bush speak in Calgary was also wrong.
Apparently I’m the only person bothered by that blatant hypocrisy, though. Oh, well. I anxiously await Ezra Whatshisface’s vocal opposition of Condoleeza Rice entering Canada this coming May!
Also: There’s still the issue of the $45,000 given directly to Hamas.
Hey, guess who else gave money to Hamas? The Israeli government! Israel financially supported Hamas in an effort to undermine the PLO. So are we going to ban people from the Israeli government? You know, since the issue here is not supporting people and organizations that gave Hamas money.
I’ve got a question about this: how well enforced is this law? What I mean is, if somebody hadn’t said “Galloway shouldn’t be allowed in Canada” and had gone out and actively invoked this law, would it still be barring his entry into country? Is this a law that is applied frequently or a law that tends to lie ignored on the books until somebody feels like using it?
Speaking as a Canadian, let me assure you that Ezra is also a cunt and a mighty hypocritical one – while peddling his martyrdom as a “free speech warrior”, he is also engaged in a SLAPP suit against a former employee who wrote a less than flattering letter to the editor about a year ago. So he is actively participating in suppression of free speech and opinion, while also asking the rubes and credulous right-wing idiots to donate to his little crusade. He claims all of this cost him $100 000 CAD, but has refused to show the expenses on which this is based and has refused to let people know how much he has earned via his pay-pal button.
The man is a black-hearted charlatan.
“There’s still the issue of the $45,000 given directly to Hamas.”
So, did all those people who donated to help the people of New Orleans after Katrina donate to the Republican Party?
I didn’t think so.
And here is the point: Levant’s worries about constraint on speech lead him to conclude that amendment of law is necessary where said amendment can protect his speech (and similar speech he supports) from being curtailed, but not where it curtails George Galloway’s.
That is seemingly okey-dokey with Levant. And that’s the point.
Skimming Galloway’s Wikipedia entry and Wikiquote page, I agree with some things he’s said:
“Tell me the name of one member of the seven members of the same family slaughtered on the beach in Gaza by an Israeli warship. You don’t even know their names! But you know the name of every Israeli soldier who has been taken prisoner in this conflict. Because you believe whether you know it or not that Israeli blood is more valuable than the blood of Lebanese or Palestinians.”)
And not with others:
“Hezbollah has never been a terrorist organisation!” (What?! They do a damn good impersonation of one, then.)
Denying him entry into Canada, though? Because he was involved in getting the necessities of living into Palestine at a time when the Palestinians desperately need it after having their country demolished and hundreds of their civilians killed? (And hundreds certainly were; even if you believe Israel’s claims that the death toll is exaggerated, even if the death toll is actually half or one third of the 900 listed, we are still talking about hundreds of innocent people slaughtered.)
That’s not what this country’s supposed to be about.
I can’t believe the border authorities turned a non-citizen away just because he’s a well-known financial supporter of a terrorist group. I smell a conspiracy. Any truly free society would welcome such visitors with open arms.
So what are you saying, Garfield? That any aid to Palestinians is financially supporting a terrorist group?
Of course he is Rob. Just look how they terrorized the Israelis last year by throwing themselves under white phosphorus.
Unless Garfield continues to think that giving aid to the government of Gaza is the same as donating it to Hamas. Does that mean paying my taxes is a donation to the CPC? I’d sure like to stop it if that’s the case.
Hamas are bad actors. Designating them as terrorists may seem arbitrary, but if the governments of Canada, the U.S., Japan and the EU agree on it, it may not be entirely capricious. On the other hand, violence is not all that Hamas does. It’s also into children’s television:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYjQXSF6mtc
You have to be able to separate the people from their government. It’s not as though anybody is handing Hamas a blank cheque or a truckload of weapons here. We are talking about food and medicine and so forth. The kind of stuff that wouldn’t come in very handy in an attack on Israel.
Whatever else it has done, Hamas has to use that stuff to help the people it’s been elected to govern. If they don’t, they aren’t going to stay in power. So I don’t see the problem here.
And we’ve all seen the stupid Mickey Mouse knockoff by now.
Speaking as an American, would anyone like a ride in my bitchin’ monster truck? We can then eat apple pie while I tell you that you’d all be speaking German if it weren’t for us.
[…] your cause. Also if you think the likes of Ezra Levant and Steyn are your allies the title of this blog says it […]
I hate that “this is the rule of law” stuff, it’s a great big fucking phantom, it’s like that episode of Scooby-Doo where they meet Leviathan and then find out it was really the assistant manager of the amusement park Mr. Hobbes all along. Really, fuck that shit: the government of Canada bends laws all the time, for all kinds of different people in all kinds of different ways, and they don’t get to claim “rule of law” as an excuse for turning on laws in certain areas because it suits their interest to do so, and then turning them off again in other areas when it doesn’t.
Or are we really longing to hear more government officials explain that “that was the decision that I made”.
“Dayv said on March 31st, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Speaking as an American, would anyone like a ride in my bitchin’ monster truck? We can then eat apple pie while I tell you that you’d all be speaking German if it weren’t for us.”
Hee. Thanks for that, brought my blood pressure right down. (I should probably just stop reading blog posts on this sort of topic.)