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| Great White North |
| Americanophobic Canuckistani takes on Ayaan Hirsi Ali |
| 2007-07-19 |
| Someone at the CBC gave Avi Lewis a new TV show and — surprise, surprise — he's using the gig to rant against the United States. Bet you didn't see that one coming. On the Map with Avi Lewis is billed as "no-rules, full-contact opinionated news analysis." That is to say, it is the news of the world filtered through the mind of Avi Lewis and a CBC board room full of like-minded left-wing 20- and 30-something production assistants. It is kind of like watching old reruns of counterSpin, except without the screaming in-studio "debates." I don't want to generalize too snarkily about the show. I have only seen a few episodes of the many that have been broadcast this year. Plus, Avi Lewis isn't that bad a guy. His one identifiable vice — his smug left-wing ideology — is one he shares with 99% of CBC staffers (and 90% of Toronto media types for that matter). What I've seen on his show isn't any worse than your average airing of, say, The Current. Still, it is worth checking out this particularly awful segment from June that is now making the rounds of the blogosphere. The clip features Lewis interviewing Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Netherlands' answer to Canada's Irshad Manji. Ali, as many will know from her recent best-selling book, grew up in a traditional Muslim family in Somalia, where she endured all the horrible physical rituals associated with such an upbringing. She came to the Netherlands as a refugee, denounced Islam as a retrograde religion, joined a conservative political party, and eventually made her way to the right-wing (or, as Avi calls it, "arch-conservative") American Enterprise institute. That's a pretty interesting bio. But mostly, Lewis just wants to ask her how she could possibly think the United States is a decent place. When she talks about how awful it is to live in a Muslim land where the Koran is the state constitution, women have no rights, gays are persecuted and religious heresy is a deadly offense, Lewis rants about how American evangelicals are just as bad (as evidence, he cites the fact that some abortion doctors have been killed.) A propos of nothing, Lewis also lectures Ali that getting ahead in the United States is imposisble unless you're "staggeringly rich and well-connected." (When Ali argues otherwise, Lewis says he's getting "upset" and asks where Ali learned all these "American clichés.") Lewis is also visibly agitated when Ali refuses to agree with his proposition that "Islamophobia" is a huge problem. Ali also rejects his particularly Canadian obsession with the inconveniences some Muslims face thanks to no-fly lists. She has endured far worse than "no-fly" lists and so has no patience for his whining. "You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom ... I haven't," says Ali at the end. Lewis ends the interview there. One hopes the words humbled him. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #4 fwiw, Hirsi Ali is not an equivalent of Irshad Manji. The former is no longer a believing Muslim; the latter is. Also, the AEI isn't arch conservative. It is only barely conservative. |
| Posted by: mhw 2007-07-19 11:12 |
| #3 I believe George Soros is an immigrant. He made it big. Google him up, sometime. What a butthead. He's a caricature of how the left thinks of capitalists. But he doesn't get much ink because he funds the left and they don't want it generally known. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2007-07-19 11:10 |
| #2 Well...Avi Lewis is pissed. Who's Avi Lewis? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-07-19 10:26 |
| #1 Given that Avi Lewis would be nothing without his wealthy, well-connected father and obnoxious leftard wife he is in no position to criticize an American class system. Canada's is stifling. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-07-19 09:19 |