Tarek Fatah Crosses Over

According to his own account, Tarek Fatah took the first real concrete steps in the "right" direction some two years ago and a bit. Formerly, he was an active member of the NDP in Ontario. What compelled him to cut ties with his party? In his own words:

"Religion has a huge role to play in our society. Our imams, rabbis, pastors and pundits perform a crucial and significant function taking care of the religious and spiritual needs of their congregations.

But it seems that at this critical juncture in our history, when competing religious ideologies are forcing their way into the political mainstream and trying to re-establish themselves as the primary purveyors of good citizenship, the NDP is opening the way for fundamentalists to find a new home inside one of Canada's political parties."

[snip]

"In my view, the left in Canada, and to a certain degree in the UK, has, in the words of author Kenan Malik, "shamefully swapped secular universalism for ethnic particularism.

A week before my decision to tear up my NDP card, I interviewed Liberal leadership hopeful Bob Rae for my CTS-TV Saturday night show, The Muslim Chronicle. He talked about Afghanistan, the Middle East, the trade union movement and the NDP with ease and comfort. He said working as George Bush's junior partner is not what Canadians want.

Later, on Monday, July 3, I read Rae's op-ed piece in the Toronto Star. One section caught my eye. Rae wrote that "investing in and promoting the values of common citizenship in our schools and communities... is absolutely essential. We can't content ourselves with merely repeating old formulas when isolated pockets of our citizens somehow feel justified in plotting terror against fellow Canadians.

Here was a politician not mincing his words, and challenging the status quo around multiculturalism that has contributed to the building of sometimes prosperous ghettos and 21st-century tribes in Canada."

Now, I don't particularly agree with his portrayal of George Bush as being driven by religious fundamentalism, but I guess I can cut him some slack. Having been an NDPer for a long time and having grown up under the thumb of Third World dictators who would have crammed anti-American rhetoric into his head via school curricula and state run media, I can understand that it may take a considerably more disillusionment with "the cause" than would be required to abandon even the Liberals. After all, the Liberals are the architects of Multi-Culturalism in Canada and there's no sign yet that they are willing to do significant surgery on their own baby.

Apparently Fatah has written a new book - Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State (reviewed here by Ali Eteraz) - in which he articulates a very important voice on behalf of moderate Muslims. For this, I can also forgive him his leftist leanings. Perhaps he will be a good influence on the Liberal Party and his work with them will help to put the NDP permanently out to pasture. As they used to say, back in my day, the world is unfolding as it should.

(Sorry, I couldn't find a sound recording of Trudeau's version of Desiderata. LOL!! But for all you young-uns out there and, especially you young lefties who are still full of yourselves and haven't yet found grace, this will do. It's the original recording made famous in my youth. In my inner child there's still an old hippy that WILL NOT DIE!! It's part of the eternal spirit that graces almost every life. When you are young, you should be hot to trot out to change the world. When you are older you should be mellow and at peace. The world and its people are forever evolving and that is what makes it sooo interesting.)