I generally steer clear of the Wednesday rantings of The Australian’s Janet Albrechsten, but today is different.
I was expecting a big mea culpa from Albrechtsen now that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed a complaint made by an Islamic group against Maclean’s magazine and its columnist Mark Steyn. But there is not one word on the matter in her column.
Steyn wrote a column in 2006 for Maclean’s, a leading Canadian weekly, titled “The Future belongs to Islam”. To put not to fine a point on it, Steyn’s piece essentially warned that radical jihadists were going to take over the world and Islam would kill off western civilisation. The piece enraged many Islamic groups in Canada and Steyn and Maclean’s were hauled before Canada’s national Human Rights Commission, and the Human Rights Commissions of Ontario and British Columbia. Steyn and Maclean’s were accused of all manner of things including racism, and inciting racial hatred and Islamophobia.
Only a fortnight ago, Albrechtsen jumped to the defence of Steyn and Maclean’s. While she focussed on the BC human rights commission matter, she unambiguously warned that Canada’s human rights bodies are not interested in fairness.
“It’s a show trial’, said the tub-thumping Albrechtsen in The Australian on June 18. “Canadian human rights tribunals have a 100 per cent conviction rate on so-called ‘hate speech’ cases,” she said.
But only ten days after Albrechtsen made this serious accusation on the intellectual and judicial integrity of Canadian human rights tribunals, Steyn and Maclean’s won their case in the national Human Rights Commission.
“The Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed a complaint filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress against Maclean’s magazine,” reported wire service CP last Saturday.
“In its ruling, posted on Maclean’s website, the Commission acknowledges ‘the writing is polemical, colourful and emphatic, and was obviously calculated to excite discussion and even offend certain readers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.’ But the Commission also says that, overall, “the views expressed in the Steyn article, when considered as a whole and in context, are not of an extreme nature, as defined by the Supreme Court, ” CP said.
And this is not the only win Steyn has had, despite the impression Albrechtsen has given to readers. The Ontario Commission ruled in April it did not have jurisdiction to hear the complaint against Steyn and Maclean’s. The BC Human Rights Commission is yet to rule on the matter.
So much for Albrechtsen’s show trial allegation. Even if the BC Commission rules against Steyn and Maclean’s, Albrechtsen’s sweeping comments about show trials and a 100 percent conviction rate have been proven wrong.
She should have acknowledged this in her column today.
This is a ‘Left-liberal’ beat up aimed squarely at a bete noir of the Left, a journalist who is NOT politically correct. Surely the fundamental question Albrechsten is raising is the whole notion of ‘hate-speech’. The idea that courts should or could arbitrate in such questions is ludicrous. As this case demonstrates, such cases become vehicles for an aggrieved party to silence any public criticism.
Steyn has also written a book titled “America Alone’ and I imagine he further develops in the book some of the themes he raises in the piece which apparently so outraged some Muslims.
The way to deal with poor journalism is with good journalism and the way to stop articles, light on fact and heavy on abuse, from being published, is with sound editorial supervision.
Dear Crikey,
Fair crack of the whip. Why give space to comments on Janet Albrtectsen’s columns?. We saw her do her comic turn at the Lowy Institute a year or so ago. Then the penny dropped. She’s one of the Australian’s comediennes. Not quite as good as Emma Thom, admiitedly, but promising. Reread her praise of the late great Alex, DFAT supremo and champion of George Bush’s understanding of liberty, As another Alexander would have written “Damn with great praise, assent with civil leer”.
Alan Burnett
You’re talking about her…that’s sweet music to the ears of the Oz’s Editor & Albrechtsen herself. Do what the majority of the Australian public now do to F S Akerman & Dizzy Devine…just don’t read them.
It’s not as if you’re going to miss anything of any substance.
Albrechtsen like Ackerman& Devine are just formula writers-you only need to read the headline to immediately know what their stance will be. Sometimes it makes for an interesting exercise to actually waste some precious minutes of your life which you will never get back, to read their guff and realise you are right.
Greg Branes should take his own advice and continue to ignore this woman’s silly rubbish. Life is too short and there are far more inmportant matters to look into. Like the odious Steyn-who was lauded by our previous PM when he visited Oz-they preach to the converted.
So, if the BC Commission rules against him, Janet will still be wrong, because 2 out of 3 did not accept the complaint? That does not make much sense.