Search: “far right”

This post appeared in The Hill Times on February 4, 2019 When we think of the major terrorist threats facing us today we tend to think of phenomena like Islamist extremism (Islamic State, Al Qaeda and the like). If we want to sound more avant garde we might say far right extremism (neo-Nazis, white supremacists, […]

We have a definite bias when we think of terrorism. First and foremost, and for justifiable reasons, we focus on Islamist extremism (some focus erroneously on Muslims and Islam writ large, but I hope I don’t need to deconstruct that myth again). More and more recently it seems we are concerned about terrorism and violence […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on January 21, 2019 Third parties are an interesting bit of Canadian political history. I am not well-versed in the blood sport of politics and thus have no intention of pretending to be a pundit on these matters. What I do find intriguing, however, is how certain parties […]

If you were to ask the average citizen, the eponymous ‘man in the street’ (as sexist as that may sound), about religious intolerance, hate and violent extremism and which particular faith, if any, is most guilty of these crimes, I would be very, very surprised if the answer you did not receive is ‘Islam’. We […]

If there is one thing I take pride in it is my commitment to speaking and writing only on matters on which I think I have something meaningful or useful to say. Our world is all too crammed with ‘instant experts’ willing to weigh in on just about anything, although more often than not they […]

There is little doubt that the bloom of the Justin Trudeau rose has lost some of its lustre. The advent of the young mop-haired, baby-balancing, stripey-sock wearing son of a former Prime Minister onto the national political scene had many Canadians excited, much as they had swooned decades ago for his dad, Pierre Elliot Trudeau […]

We live in a win-lose world.  Whether we are referring to sports, politics, game shows or whatever, there is usually a winner and one or more losers.   We may simply be wired for dividing things into two categories, at least after initial analysis: good-bad, black-white, winner-loser.  As I know I have read somewhere, way back […]

I guess we would call what happened in Strasbourg yesterday evening a case of deja-vu, and not just because that particular phrase is French in origin. A man armed with both a knife and a gunman attacked shoppers at that eastern French city’s famous Christmas market around 8 PM when he opened fire, killing at […]

At the risk of seeming insensitive, here is an extract from today’s offerings from the satirical Web site The Onion (if you don’t know what The Onion and its Canadian counterpart The Beaverton are you really should fix that).  Don’t be put off by the apparent dismissal of the Holocaust: there is a bigger message […]

There is a lot of debate these days about what is more important when it comes to terrorism: Islamist extremism (i.e. jihadis) or right wing extremists.  The truth is that both pose a threat but which one is scarier depends on what part of the world you are talking about.  In the US it is […]