Monday, May 05, 2008

Over To You, Macleans Magazine

A letter from Faisal Joseph, lawyer to the four Muslim students pursuing a Human Rights complaint against Macleans Magazine (over Mark Steyn's article "The Future Belong's To Islam") :

You were correct that this settlement offer was substantially the same offer that was put to Maclean's in an initial meeting nearly one year ago. What has changed is that we have new information about Maclean's position, as a result of their recent editorial in response to the statement made by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which condemned the writing in question as 'contrary to the spirit of the human rights code', 'xenophobic,' 'destructive,' 'racist' and 'Islamophobic.' Through this editorial, we have learned that Maclean's editors claim to have been 'always prepared' to publish a reasonable response. We want to take them up on this offer.

Here's the relevant passage from the Maclean's editorial:

Since that meeting, the students have been communicating an inaccurate version of what transpired. For example, it's not true, as they claim, that we said we would rather go out of business than allow them right of response; we said we'd rather go out of business than allow them to respond entirely on their terms. They claim now that they would have settled for a reasonable right of response; we asked if they were firm in their position, and they said "yes." We were prepared to give them an opportunity to have their say, but they gave us no opening for reasonable conciliation. Several weeks later, we learned they had complained to federal human rights authorities, and to similar commissions in British Columbia and Ontario.

Not so easy to wriggle out of that. As an interesting side-note, if the Macleans website is any indication, Steyn's piece originally appeared in the entertainment section, where the more recent articles concern Snoop Dog and where to place the string section in a modern orchestra.

7 comments:

Johnathon said...

Macleans owes those muslims NOTHING.

No response, no attention and no apologies.

Case closed.

If the BigCityLib has the right to free speech, then certainly Macleans also does.

Case closed and no further response from the muslims is needed.

Jerome Bastien said...

for some intelligent and insightful commentary on this, I recommend checking out Tarek Fatah's comments on the latest Steyn piece (scroll down),
here

bigcitylib said...

Nice of him not to start flogging his book until the last paragraph.

Jerome Bastien said...

Nice of him not to start flogging his book until the last paragraph.

I know - they always look out for #1.

Ti-Guy said...

for some intelligent and insightful commentary on this,

What a difference from the Robber Baron's Catamite's illiterate, paranoid, fecund and racist twaddle.

More on old (shit)Stain here. Follow all the links (although a lot are probably defunct now) to savour the Steynian aroma at its most pungent.

Just imagine; other people have to actually work really hard, do actual research to make sure they aren't repeating falsehoods and produce quality writing that eschews character assassination and grotesque group defamation to get books and articles published.

I guess it is true; it's not who you know, it's who you blow.

When I think about this, Steyn should be at the Hague being tried for crimes against humanity. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...

BCL, you have to put up more images of Steyn. He can't take a picture without looking like a muppet.

Unknown said...

Just imagine; other people have to actually work really hard, do actual research to make sure they aren't repeating falsehoods and produce quality writing that eschews character assassination and grotesque group defamation to get books and articles published.

Not that writers on the left would know anything about that. ;)

Ti-Guy said...

Pipe down, you pre-literate. Get back to those flashcards I sent you.