Once in a while I hear from someone who asks: “Why is it
that someone with your talent isn't out there on the lecture circuit and out
there on the airwaves saying in public the things that you write about?” And I
tell them they must be new to my blog, thus counsel them to read my older
entries, especially the one titled: “Post Number 100 And Counting” published in
July of 2008 where they will find a partial answer to their question.
I also hear from people who tell me they are “insiders” here
in Canada or in the United States .
These people keep in touch to inform me that someone prominent has staged a one
person strike and went home for the day because they had wanted to invite me to
discuss something I wrote but were told I was blacklisted and was banned from
appearing or speaking in public.
A few people from that last group advised me to call on
certain shows and say I would be available if and when they decided to use me –
and that the move will most likely help break the ice after which I would
receive an invitation. No, I said, I shall not do that because I am of an age I
do not relish spending as much as a nanosecond doing something I got tired
doing a long time ago.
My friend, this is not the first time I was tempted to write
this story and have it on the record before my time in this world has come to
an end; I have been hesitant for a while but not anymore. The hesitation has
disappeared not because I believe my time is coming close to the end, but
because I believe that telling my story will serve a good cause at this
juncture. It is that the people who decided to blacklist me, and have imposed
the decision on everyone else, are the people who now moan about the fact that
someone has done what they wanted me to do only to see that their project has
not worked like they hoped it would.
When they approached me, as they did on several occasions --
offering a different incentive each time -- to do a project that would spark a
sectarian war somewhere in the Arab world especially Egypt, I told them to go
to hell. I was also aware of the fact that they were trying to entice other
Christians of Egyptian or Lebanese descent to work with them, but that they
were rebuffed. And despite strong indications that the people of FrontPage
Magazine had something to do with the latest project which insults the Muslim
Prophet, I shall not say they found someone so weak as to succumb to their
temptation. Whatever the case, however, they now see that instead of starting a
sectarian war, they got a reaffirmation of sectarian solidarity in much of the
Arab world, especially in Egypt ,
Lebanon
and the Arab Diaspora.
What is especially gratifying to me is seeing that the same
sort of people who tried to bribe me with promises they will work to get me to
win this prize or that one, are now moaning because the man who did the latest
dastardly deed has not only failed to reach his objective and theirs; he was
reviled by much of the world not held in high esteem as they thought he would
be.
You can see and hear the Jewish moaning for that failure
everywhere you look because it fills the air as if the whole world had
transformed into a giant wailing wall. One such example is the Bret Stephens
column that was published in the Wall Street Journal on September 18, 2012. It
has the title: “Muslims, Mormons and Liberals” and the subtitle: “Why is it OK
to mock one religion but not another?” What is remarkable is that the author
complains in the subtitle about an exception he dislikes, yet fails to mention
Jewish or Neocon in the title. Is it OK to make exception of these two, and not
mention them at all? Or what really is involved in this matter?
There was a time, some fifteen or twenty years ago, before I
started publishing in Arabic, before I launched an English newspaper and before
I started this website when I openly discussed with non-Jewish “insiders” what
it would take for me to get off the blacklist. I was told many people wanted to
do that right now but they did not know how to handle the matter because
normally someone would start imperceptibly then grow in the eyes of the public
a little at a time.
But my case was such that they feared I shall start with a
loud thump and keep going non-stop – a situation that will take the matter out
of their control. This revelation told me that the democracy these people say
they enjoy would be as enjoyable to me as having to drink a glass of puss for
breakfast every morning. I wanted to have nothing to do with their brand of
democracy, and nothing to do with their brand of freedom where the only freedom
you enjoy is to be a part-time literary prostitute or a full-time political
prostitute. The very thought that they believe they are free or democratic
makes me sick to the stomach.
Having been banished from the face of the Earth (to use a
cherished expression of theirs) for about 44 years because I published an
article in the Toronto Star in 1968 under the title: “Don't listen to
propaganda, Egypt is a civilized country” and went on to list Egypt's
accomplishments, I now read someone who wasn't born then moan in the following
way: “...the most 'progressive' administration in recent U.S. history will make
no principled defense of free speech to a Muslim world that could stand hearing
such a defense.”
And so I have this message to give to Bret Stephens and to
all those who think like him: If you manage to become a fraction as free as any
of the Muslims I met in my life – and I met many of them having lived several
years among them – you will be ten times the human being you are today.
Work on it, try it and you will know what it is to live a
satisfied life knowing you are free on the inside; not pretending to be free
trying to impose your fake concoction on those who have no use for it.