Salim Mansur, courageous Canadian Muslim professor

Since we often draw attention to the damage various Muslims are doing to our society, I’d like to give some space to Salim Mansur, someone I just heard about thanks to a friend who sent me this column by Rory Leishman in the London (Ontario) Free Press. It begins:

Among post-modern multiculturalists, it’s commonplace to suppose that all cultures are of equal moral worth. Salim Mansur, professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario, emphatically disagrees.

In an illuminating collection of essays entitled Islam’s Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim, he maintains Islam is afflicted with “a terrible malady,” which “reflects the irreparable breakdown of the civilization’s centre . . . which at one time in history was co-equal, if not briefly superior, to Christendom.”

Paraphrasing William Butler Yeats, Mansur contends that Islam is in the grips of a “rough beast” that has let loose anarchy upon the world. He traces the problem back to the earliest days of Islam, when perverse Muslim rulers renounced the peaceful teachings of the Qu’ran by slaughtering each other in a bloody struggle for political power following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632.

Leishman then relates Mansur’s damning accounts of two major current figures in Islam, and concludes:

In the face of Islamist terrorism, Mansur deplores the “appeasement mentality” of liberal-left multiculturalists in the West as well as the “deafening silence of Muslims, except for lonely voices of feeble opposition.”

He likewise denounces the “double-speak” of Muslim intellectuals and religious leaders in mosques who say “contrary things in English or French and then in Arabic, or Farsi or Urdu.”

Mansur, of course, is a courageous exception: No Muslim has been more outspoken than he in unequivocally denouncing the Islamist terrorists who defame Islam.

As a Muslim, Mansur laments, “We keep assuring ourselves and others that Muslims who violate Islam are a minuscule minority, yet we fail to hold this minority accountable in public. We regularly quote from the Qu’ran, but do not make repentance for our failings as the Qu’ran instructs, by seeking forgiveness of those whom we have harmed.”

He concludes, “We Muslims are the source of our own misery, and we are not misunderstood by others who see in our conduct a threat to their peace.”

I checked around a bit to see what others say about Mansur. Last April he appeared at an event about which Mark Steyn had this to say:

Did you hear about the Catholic, the Jew and the Muslim who walked into a theatre in London, Ontario? It’s a stellar bill – Kathy Shaidle, Ezra Levant and Salim Mansur, three staunch friends of real human rights taking on Canada’s pseudo-“human rights” racket – live this Monday evening. If you’re in the neighborhood, make sure you’re there.

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch took issue with Mansur over his interpretation of Islam (I think) in a 2006 FrontPage symposium titled Death for Apostasy? and doesn’t seem to think much of him. However, it seems like an insider quarrel, based on Robert’s belief that Islam is so defective at its root that it cannot be redeemed. I don’t know enough to take sides on that, and I remain impressed. Mansur makes statements that could easily bring a fatwa down on him and probably has; I’m sure he’s received death threats. He seems perfectly open about the atrocities Muslims and Islam have committed and are committing today, so more power to him.

Obama starving Somalis

I’ve purposefully titled this post ‘Obama starving Somalis’ to make my point that if the Bush Administration were still in control in Washington, this article in Foreign Policy would surely have blamed Bush.  Instead the article about a new policy position that cuts humanitarian aid and warns that a humanitarian crisis is at hand, blames the “United States,” the  “US Treasury Department,” “Washington,” and the “US government”—-but no mention of the fact that the Obama Administration is responsible now!

You can read the article yourself, it begins:

The United States is willfully letting millions of Somalis go hungry in its drive to hunt down terrorists.

A year ago this article would have begun with the sentence:  “The Bush Administration is willfully letting……”

Chicago again! Angry Africans demand more money for refugees

There is no doubt in my mind that these recent articles in the Chicago Tribune are orchestrated and meant to create a crisis in order to push Congress to “reform” the Refugee Resettlement program by allocating it more money.  Afterall, this is Chicago and Ed Silverman has been around long enough to know the basics of Alinsky-style “community organizing.”   Read all about Silverman and Iraqi refugees, here.

Five days ago I told you about the unhappy Iraqis in Chicago and now it’s the Africans.

From the Chicago Tribune today:

The crowd was angry inside the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago — a stark contrast to the cheery African murals that have greeted one refugee community after another since the Uptown nonprofit organization formed 25 years ago.

The reason: more evidence that the federal system set up to welcome roughly 2,500 refugees to Illinois per year is nearly broken.

On the heels of two critical national studies highlighting worries over homelessness and other problems faced by Iraqi refugees, a new report released in Chicago [what report, where is it?] shows the frustrations of Africans arriving from such war-torn areas as Burundi, Sudan and Somalia.

Among the findings is that the system created in 1980 no longer meets the needs of an increasingly diverse refugee population of former human trafficking victims, child soldiers and victims of torture.

“I arrived here full of hope to start a new life,” fumed Idriss Shariff, a refugee from Darfur, Sudan, who said he nevertheless was frustrated about a lack of job training and decent housing.

White House officials have acknowledged the need to reform the system, which provides a one-time grant of $425 per adult refugee and leaves much of the burden for housing, job searches and other needs to overwhelmed local aid groups.

Roughly 4,800 African refugees have arrived in the Chicago area since 1999, most of them settling on the North Side as they contribute to African communities’ rapid growth in the last decade to nearly 30,000 people.

And, what do you know!  It’s Mr. Ed again saying that boo hoo we have no money for all these refugees!

Ed Silverman, who has directed state refugee services since the late 1970s, said stability has become increasingly elusive for new refugees.

“We are facing the worst crisis in the refugee program that I have ever experienced,” he told the crowd at the Ethiopian center.

Many clapped in agreement.

NO ONE EVER SUGGESTS THAT MAYBE THE NUMBER OF REFUGEES GOING TO CHICAGO IS NOT SUSTAINABLE, AND NO ONE EVER SAYS LET’S SLOW THE FLOW OF REFUGEES TO THE US WHILE WE ARE IN A RECESSION!   INDEED THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS PROPOSED THE CEILING FOR FY2010 REMAIN AS HIGH AS THE PREVIOUS YEAR!

So, let’s have a look at the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago.   Note that on their home page they are purchasing a building, so that tells us right there that they have some money.   Check out their Form990 for the FY ending June 2008, here.

I am not an accountant, so I’m not sure why these numbers don’t exactly match up, but here they are.   They reported that they received $311,317 from government grants (taxpayers) and $611,101 from fees and government contracts (taxpayers) and that is the sum of their income for the year.*

However, scrolling down to near the end of the Form 990 there is this list of government grants and the total amount of money is higher.  Keep in mind some of this might be expended in another fiscal year, but I thought it interesting to note the agencies from which funds are received.

There is an Office of Refugee Resettlement grant of $424,453 that is a pass through grant from its parent organization, Ethiopian Community Development Council, one of the Top Ten volags (ECDC does not have a Better Business Bureau Report on file).

$66,297 from the US Dept. of Labor, $20,970 from HUD, and $25,270 from the US Dept. of Education.

That brings the total for June 2008 to $536,990 and that is up from $256,148 the previous June.  So, they have doubled their income from the feds (you) in one year.  They do have more money.

By the way, that $424,453 is for “reception and placement” which means that if they don’t bring in the refugees they don’t get that money.

That Los Angeles grant scam, any connection?

Now, one more thing.  Back to the website for the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, note that they had a visit from Dr. Tsehaye Teferra of ECDC.   We wrote 2 years ago about a scam involving an African resettlement agency in Los Angeles, another subcontractor of ECDC, here, where the director, Nikki Tesfai (a friend of Oprah!), was indicted in a huge grant scam.   I recall reading that she is somehow related to Dr Teferra, but  I could be wrong and I couldn’t find the reference just now.  I don’t know what happened to Nikki Tesfai, whether she was ever found guilty.

* A little while later:   It just occurred to me that there might be readers new to the refugee program who don’t know that this whole thing was set up as a public-private partnership.  That means that the private part, the non-profit group, is supposed to put up some of the funding.  It was not meant to be strictly a pass through of  your tax dollars to unaccountable NGOs,  now largely run by the immigrants they originally helped.   This is how the left has effectively expanded the reach of the federal government (and redistributes your wealth!)—it happens in all leftwing causes from immigration to environment, and if Obama has his way, before you know it, it will be expanded to newspapers as well!

Obama Administration to lift ban on immigrants/travelers with HIV/AIDS

President Obama, while signing legislation yesterday that extends taxpayer funding of medical care and treatment to people with HIV, announced the final steps to lifting a ban on those entering the US with HIV/AIDS.  Guess we will be taking care of more of the world’s HIV population right here.*   From the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON – President Obama said yesterday that the United States will overturn a 22-year-old travel and immigration ban against people with HIV early next year.

The order will be finalized on Monday, Obama said, completing a process begun during the Bush administration. The United States has been among a dozen countries that bar entry to travelers with visas or anyone seeking a green card based on their HIV status.

This next section of the article is inaccurate because refugees with HIV have been allowed entry.  The reporter should have used the word ‘immigrants’ instead of ‘refugees.’

The law effectively has kept out thousands of students, tourists, and refugees and has complicated the adoption of children with HIV.

Those countries still banning people with HIV/AIDS are as follows.  I wonder at the accuracy of the list.   Do Iran and Syria, for example, let in people with the disease? 

The 11 other countries that ban HIV-positive travelers and immigrants are Armenia, Brunei, Iraq, Libya, Moldova, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Sudan, according to the advocacy group Immigration Equality.

I don’t have the time, but if you are interested you might want to visit Immigration Equality and see if you can find any mention of the list.

* The Bush Administration is credited with spending a lot of money in Africa to fight HIV/AIDS, but I just talked with a young man in my town who spent 2 years in Africa recently with the Peace Corps.  He said the Africans in his area of Africa refused the condoms because they believed they were contaminated with the AIDS virus and that it was a US plot to infect them.   Consequently, his Peace Corps compatriots who were assigned to work on HIV/AIDS had nothing to do.