Last weekend’s protests in cities across North America and Europe against the war and American presence in Iraq were once again a vivid confirmation of democracy’s vitality and moral superiority over all other political systems.
In Canadian cities the protest was also against Canada’s military role in Afghanistan. Protesters chanted for peace, opposed violence, denounced George Bush, Tony Blair and Stephen Harper—no doubt feeling good about themselves and their politics, the sort that can only be practised in a democracy such as ours.
The core constituency of these crowds in Paris, London, Rome, New York and Toronto, has remained the same over the years. Their protests against war and for peace have always tilted alarmingly in favour of such monstrous regimes as those of Stalin and Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, in support of gnome-headed members of the politburo in Beijing or Havana or their cruel caricatures in Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran.
And predictably for this constituency, the enemy invariably remains the same: The democratically elected leaders of free and open societies in Washington, London or Ottawa.
In my years of folly—when youthful ignorance, I recall now with embarrassment, made me think Noam Chomsky to be wiser than Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan—I, too, on occasion walked with the crowd to protest the seeming perfidy of the United States and its allies.
It does not take knowledge, reflection or, most importantly, courage to join such crowds in democratic societies where the right to protest, to insult, and throw insidious labels at elected leaders is constitutionally protected.
Courage is the conviction to stand alone and, knowing the peril, to speak against evil and evildoers.
I found such courage recently in Paris among some remarkable Muslim women who came together to expose the cruelties of radical Islamism that maim, kill and silence individuals in the societies from which they fled to freedom.
Samia Labidi is of Tunisian origin and resides in Paris. She is a writer devoted to exposing al-Qaida as a cult of criminals and killers. She published an account of how her younger brother was recruited by al-Qaida and taken to Afghanistan—and eventually escaped the entrapment of those who make of Islam an ideology of suicide bombings.
I was humbled by Samia Labidi’s quiet demonstration of courage, intelligence and unyielding spirit to defend freedom in a culture where women pay the price for men’s honour. She reminded me of another immensely brave woman who was recently profiled by John M. Broder in The New York Times.
Many by now have heard of Dr. Wafa Sultan, the Syrian-born psychiatrist residing outside of Los Angeles. Her recent appearance on the Arab TV network al-Jazeera, speaking forcefully the sort of truth that few dare voice in her culture, raised a storm across the Arab world.
Wafa Sultan is now deemed an apostate by those Muslim religious leaders who contort themselves in apologetics for al-Qaida criminals.
This, because she declared, among other things: “Knowledge has released me from this backward thinking … Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies … Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind before they demand that humankind respect them.”
There are for sure many more women, and men, such as Samia Labidi and Wafa Sultan.
They will not be found in demonstrating crowds, but their hearts pump with courage and their eyes recognize the difference between the evil of closed societies and the fallibility of democracies.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
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