Tuesday, March 2, 2010
You might remember Canadian author Howard Rotberg from the incident recounted in this post from 2008: Canadian Author Called a F**king Jew...And HE'S the One Being Called a Racist. Now Rotberg gas taken a personal stand and made a public matter of returning his degrees to U Toronto, the home of Israel Apartheid Week. He writes: My letter to the President of University of Toronto re: returning my two degrees as a protest against Israel Apartheid (sic) Week
Dear President Naylor:
I am a graduate of University College (1973) at which time I had the honour of standing first among the students in the Department of History. I received an excellent education, specializing in the history of values and ideologies. Then I attended, and graduated from, the Faculty of Law, in 1976.
I have tried to live a life of ethics, respect for individual human rights and social justice, and service to my profession and the community. I have won awards for my service to my municipality in volunteering on municipal committees and for my development of affordable rental housing for low income working people. I have a record of writing about race relations and participating in conferences meant to accomplish respect for diversity in the context of adherence to foundational Canadian values.
I am ashamed that University of Toronto hosted the first Israel Apartheid Week, and continues to make its facilities available to this distortion of "free speech and respect for diversity". I read your February 24 remarks on freedom of expression and diversity, and sadly, I feel that you misstate the basic issues. My university is now known as the birthplace of this vile hatefest.
The University would never allow an "Islamic Apartheid Week" because of course the speakers would be violently attacked by mobs of illiberals who have brought with them to the University no respect for free speech but only a respect for their upbringings where they were taught that Jews and the Jewish State are evil, and inferior.
I am disgusted that in a time of war against our liberal values, University of Toronto chooses to support one side, and that is the side that supports the war against our freedoms and our civilians from Sderot to Manhattan, from London to Madrid, and from Buenos Aires to Mumbai.
I myself have had my lectures shouted down and my books effectively banned. See here.
I know that freedom loving writers like myself no longer have the freedoms that you are so proud of extending to people who support the murder of Jewish children, less than a century after the Holocaust...
The rest is here. He comments further here.
I can't believe this.
My grandparents fled the pogroms FFS.
It confirms my worst fears.
Universities and bookstores are too important to be controlled by barbarians and the weak.
University College of course threw the letter in the trash. Palestinian students there declare it a victory. Well at any rate when Sharia comes to Canuckistan, they will probably line the Quislings up against the wall and shoot them first. If they are traitors to their own nation how can they be trusted with their new overlords?
things are ugly on both Toronto area campuses, but in our provincial legislature, IAW has brought this about:
A Festival of Bigotry:
[...]
That's why we applaud Ontario MPP Peter Shurman, who has successfully tabled a motion to denounce IAW. The motion received unanimous support from all 30 of the MPPs who were present when it was introduced -- including, to our surprise and delight, those from the NDP.
[...]
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=2629574
A similar motion is expected to be tabled in our national legislature.
Ultimately, IAW will result in truths being told about this bogus and distructive movement.
What a brave soul!