With Maclean’s, the simplest description would be that it is more or less the Canadian Time, though, while over the decades Time has become somewhat less right wing, Maclean’s has moved in the other direction.  On October 20, Maclean’s carried an excerpt from a book by Mark Steyn in which he argues that, as the title puts it, “The future belongs to Islam.”In brief summary, Steyn sees Islam (equated with Muslims) becoming dominant in the world.  He compares low birth rates in the West and in Japan with high rates among Muslims.  He says that the low birth rates will make the welfare state (he calls it social democracy) doomed, unsustainable.  Then, he identifies a Western loss of confidence in the face of growing confidence among Muslims about their social destiny.

Mark Steyn

There are major problems with Steyn’s argument.  Most basically, his demographic argument is flawed because it fails to recognize what happens when women become educated and enter the workforce outside the home.  They have fewer children.  This trend affects Muslim women just as it affects others.  As for the welfare state, its cost is dwarfed by the cost of the warfare state. So Steyn is hardly immune to contradiction.  However, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) has decided to answer in another fashion.  Rather than making the kinds of criticism I have suggested, it has chosen to launch human rights complaints in British Columbia, Ontario, and at the federal level against Maclean’s and its editor, “for publishing a flagrantly Islamophobic article.”  There are a myriad of problems with the path chosen by the Congress.  Let’s list them. First, they are going to lose.  The argument by Steyn, however wrong he is, is not obviously prejudiced.  And by attacking Steyn in this way they will alienate civil libertarians, people who are usually defenders of Muslim interests.  As well, they are giving Steyn free publicity. As well, the CIC gives weight to Steyn’s argument.  Islam will not, he argues, brook opposition, and it is gaining strength, giving it the power to silence opponents.  At the same time, he says, Western governments bend over backwards to kow-tow to Muslims. (Excuse the mixed metaphor.)  So, even in the highly unlikely case that the CIC is successful in its complaints, Steyn’s argument would be given further weight. Why did the CIC not simply approach Maclean’s editor with the offer of a rebuttal?  If the offer were refused, that would be ammunition against Maclean’s.  The piece that was refused could then be offered to a more sympathetic publication, the Toronto Star, for example. The Congress has put itself in a no-win situation on this issue.  It has unnecessarily stubbed its toe.