Finally, yesterday, something germane to the case: Exhibit Nine, the two-year-old Maclean’s magazine book excerpt written by journalist Mark Steyn, and made much more famous by the B. C. Human Rights Tribunal.
Taken from Mr. Steyn’s book America Alone, the 4,800-word piece denigrated Muslims and made them objects of fear and contempt, or so it is claimed by two Muslim men, one of whom lives in B. C. The excerpt is alleged to have promoted hate. No one, not even the complainant from B. C., has come forward to describe the damages caused, or the hurt feelings, at least not yet.
The hearing is moving slowly; three days into the week-long hearing process, the Steyn excerpt was at last produced and discussed.
Taking the witness stand inside a B. C. provincial courtroom was a former Vancouverite named Faiza Hirji. She now lives in Ottawa and is employed as a lecturer at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication. Dr. Hirji was introduced by counsel for the hearing’s two complainants as “an expert in analyzing stereotypes in the media,” with a specialty in the portrayal of Muslim minorities.
Eloquent and smart, Dr. Hirji has, however, published little in this area of purported expertise. Her academic career has barely started. Her slim body of peer-reviewed work, according to her curriculum vitae and confirmed by her answers on the stand, is focused on feminism and popular Indian cinema.
Dr. Hirji has also examined, in a feminist context, the depiction of women in Western culture, as expressed in such entertainment products as the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and music and videos by hip hop singer Queen Latifah.
There are no references to hip hop or vampires or even Bollywood in the Steyn book excerpt. Regardless, and over objections from Maclean’s magazine’s counsel, the three tribunal panellists agreed to accept Dr. Hirji as a qualified expert in the stereotyping of Muslims in media.
If nothing else, the young lecturer proved well-acquainted with the Steyn excerpt, having read it “a number of times” since it appeared in Maclean’s in October, 2006, and “enough to form an opinion and to extract some of the views” of the author.
Dr. Hirji offered to read from “copied and pasted paragraphs” she had organized thematically, or, alternatively, to “go through the article from beginning to end, and stop at each paragraph where I have a concern.”
The latter, replied Faisal Joseph, lawyer for the hearing’s two complainants.
Dr. Hirji began right at the top, at Paragraph One.
“If you’d said that whether something does or does not cause offence to Muslims would be the early 21st century’s principal political dynamic in Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, most folks would have thought you were crazy. Yet on that Tuesday morning the top of the iceberg bobbed up and toppled the Twin Towers.” So wrote Mr. Steyn.
“I detect some sense of stereotyping,” noted Dr. Hirji. What’s more, “in the second sentence, there is a clear sense of threat that is conveyed by the presence of Muslims in Western society.”
“That’s a stereotype,” said Mr. Joseph.
Maclean’s lawyer Roger McConchie then stood, and tried in vain to object. The tribunal’s chairwoman, Heather MacNaughton, cut him off. “It is not necessary to rise every time,” she told him. “We will be able to determine what we think is appropriate and what is not. So I’m going to allow some leeway to get this evidence in.… We’re fully aware of what we qualified this expert for.”
Back to the text. Any other examples of “negative stereotyping,” asked Mr. Joseph. “I believe so, yes,” replied the witness. She did not look far. Paragraph two:
“This is about the seven-eighths below the surface -- the larger forces at play in the developed world that have left Europe too enfeebled to resist its remorseless transformation into Eurabia and that call into question the future of much of the rest of the world,” wrote Mr. Steyn. “The key factors are: demographic decline; the unsustainability of the social democratic state; and civilizational exhaustion.”
According to Dr. Hirji, the paragraph referred not to a possible misconception, but to “a common stereotype, which is that Europe is under siege from foreigners, specifically … Muslims and Middle Easterners.”
What’s more, she added, the phrase “civilizational exhaustion” could refer to “the end of civilization because of a very common stereotype that Muslims are opposed to civilization and opposed to modernity, and therefore they will attack” the West.
Discussion turned to the Maclean’s magazine cover of Oct. 23, 2006, the issue in which the Steyn except appeared. It displayed a contemporaneous photograph of Muslim women, wearing typical black burkas.
Another stereotype, alleged Dr. Hirji. “The black burka is a very common image to depict Muslims as foreign, different, often as threatening.”
Mr. Joseph directed his expert witness back to the actual article. Mr. Steyn “referenced the fact” that some Muslims “have become expert in exploiting the tolerance of pluralist societies,” said Dr. Hirji. “So there, I think, is an emphasis on the fact that Muslims may plead a sense of victimization, but they clearly are not. They have learned how to manipulate political institutions, to their advantage.”
A comment steeped in irony, given the circumstances.
The hearing continues.