Brean's Delic-tation

Joseph Brean has written what amounts to an adroit puff piece about Iman Zijad Delic of the Canadian Islamic Congress. Bream portrays him as a quintessential "moderate," an entirely different operative than the CIC's previous head honcho, Mohamed Elmasry. Besides, Elmo (as he has unaffectionately come to be known in some quarters) may be a university professor, but he could never have penned something as high-falutingly intellectual-sounding as the title of Delic's PhD thesis, which obviously sounds mega-impressive to Brean:

Mr. Delic has distanced himself from some of Prof. Elmasry's positions. For example, he says there is no systemic Islamophobia in Canada, and he would have taken a "different approach" to Maclean's, because legal action "only blocks ways of normal communication. When we go in front of human rights commissions or court, we actually are just damaging relationships more.

He might be smooth, but he is not shallow. His PhD thesis at Simon Fraser University was on 'Hermeneutics of Islamic Education and the Construction of New Muslim Cultures in the West: Faithful, but Reformed.'

 In reports commissioned by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, he compares the Canadian model of constructive integration with the failed models of assimilation in France and exclusion in Bosnia.

Mr. Delic comes across as someone who has thought deeply about the place of Muslims in the West.

Indeed. Given his academic credentials, his affinity for the abstruse, his propensity for "deep thinking," and his ideas about Muslims in the Western context, he sounds a lot like a Canucki Tariq Ramadan--another smoothy whom many consider "moderate."

Thankfully, Delic's line has fallen flat with at least one wised-up member of the Muslim community:

Tarek Fatah, founder of the rival Muslim Canadian Congress, called Mr. Delic a "whitewash," a smooth-talking replacement for the "buffoon" Prof. Elmasry, whose bumptious self-confidence was an constant source of controversy.

Quite so. That said, however, I wouldn't buy that piffle about the current crop of CIC leadership being qualitatively different than bumptious Elmo. Elmo may have, as they say, left the building, but if you visit the website of the organization behind Islamic History Month Canada (which should more accurately be called Islamic Let's Re-Write History Month), you will find that, in spirit, he hasn't gone anywhere.

Update: Is Imam Delic being somewhat, ahem, "inconsistent" in his messaging? BCF investigates.