Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Canadian Priorities/Proclivities on Display at Shafia Trial

Christie Blatchford highlights what she calls a "funny moment" at the Shafia trial:
The limits of cross-cultural communications - despite the fact that these proceedings are being simultaneously translated from Farsi to English and back again - were illustrated in a funny moment late Tuesday.
Mr. Kemp was cross-examining the relative. The lawyer was asking questions about Zainab and her Pakistani boyfriend, and twice referred to him as "the Paki." The gasp of horror that went up in the courtroom was audible.
The discussion of murderous plans for teenage girls is one thing, but a breach of etiquette like that quite another: Such are the nuances of Canadian life that those girls weren't around long enough to learn.
With all due respect to Blatchford, who is doing a superb job covering the trial, the word I would use to describe that moment isn't "funny," it's "revealing." The moment shows how out to lunch we are after decades of "human-rightsy" brainwashing and multiculti bilge: An "honour crime" involving a dad murdering his teenage daughters and infertile and discarded first wife? Best not to dwell on it since it's a cultural matter, and, as per the Animal Farm-esque multiculti bleat, all cultures are equal and equally splendid (save that of the Western nation that has opened its doors to all the others). But let a racist word slip past your lips, and Canadians will recoil in horror, like Dracula encountering a cross, as the mere sound of it is more than they can bear.

Maybe Richard Warman can launch a Section-13 "human rights" complaint. On behalf of aggrieved and insulted Pakistani-Canadians, I mean.

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