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Galloway Speaks Anyway

By David Topping

20090331galloway.jpg
Photo by James Helmer.


Photographer (and former Torontoist contributor) James Helmer sends along this shot from Metropolitan United Church last night, where George Galloway—whose ban from Canada was upheld earlier yesterday—spoke via video feed from New York. You can watch the entire speech now on rabbletv, a speech that, if you believe the Canadian federal government, would have caused untold damage had Galloway’s body actually crossed the border and delivered it. Yeah. Well, congratulations, Jason Kenney et. al: by denying someone the right to enter this country to speak, you’ve now given them and their words and ideas a larger platform—and a larger audience—than ever.

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  • http://undefined Diisparishun

    Kudos to Mr. Helmer — this is a fantastic photo. (However, regarding a speech that, if you believe the Canadian federal government, would have caused untold damage had Galloway’s body actually crossed the border and delivered it, I do not think that this was said or implied — it sounds like you’re putting words in mouths.)

  • http://null Ken Hunt

    Wow. That looks like something straight out of 1984. Big Brother speaks… doubleplusungood.

  • Pan Von Sol

    by denying someone the right to enter this country to speak, you’ve now given them and their words and ideas a larger platform—and a larger audience—than ever.
    Citation needed.

  • http://null munzz

    Canada should be ashamed and outraged.
    We make fun of the Americans for being closed minded and yet we don’t let someone in the country based on what he has to say. So much for freedom of speech.
    “threat to national security”. what kind of bullshit is that. I’m glad the event took place nonetheless, and that many many people showed up. You cant stop the truth in this day an age.

  • http://null PickleToes

    So much for freedom of speech.
    We’ve been without that for a while (Human Rights Commissions).

  • http://null roolb

    I’m with PickleToes. Also, please remember he gave financial aid to Hamas. Whether it’s right to do is debatable, but as Hamas is designated as a terrorist group by Canada, the U.S, the EU and Japan, it’s not a shock that those governments wouldn’t roll out the red carpet.

  • http://undefined x_the_x

    Its one thing to defend his (dubious) right to enter the country, and his right to make a speech if and when granted entry, and another thing entirely to attribute a phrase like “you cant stop the truth in this day an [sic] age” to a man who has probably never held a position that resembles the “truth” in his long career. Very few are willing to make public statements supporting the “message” (as distinguished from his right to deliver it), except for those whose dementia has long been public knowledge (eg., Olivia Chow calls his message – derived as it is from years of intellectual and financial support to terrorists, despots and the like – a “message of peace”).
    In any event, preventing him from entering the country did not prevent his message from being heard, as the article above makes clear he was available by video conference, and probably many credulous types were drawn or exposed to his message for the first time as a result of the publicity this garnered.
    If, as detractors seem to be suggesting, this was an attempt by the government of the day to restrict his freedom of speech, then it failed miserably by any fair assessment.

  • http://null torontothegreat

    So do people defending this man’s “freedom of speech” (as though we have that here) also feel that Ernst Zundel should have been left alone?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Z%C3%BCndel

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    I do, torontothegreat.

  • http://undefined munzz

    yes you are right he “never held a position that resembles the “truth” in his long career”.
    He never said the following in the US Senate:
    “I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction.
    I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.
    I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001.
    I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
    Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.”
    that is all pack of lies, and the Iraq war was definitley justified…. righttttt…

  • http://undefined munzz
  • http://undefined munzz

    I love Canada. It lets Bush, a mass murdered who took a nation into war and killed 600,000 innocent Iraqies based on complete lies, to come in the country and get paid hundreds of thousand dollars, while an anti-war advocate is a threat to national security.
    you gotta love it.

  • http://null x_the_x

    Thanks for entirely missing the point.

  • http://undefined munzz

    The point is you being so misinformed by saying that he “never held a position that resembles the “truth” in his long career.”

  • http://undefined munzz

    By the way my second and third comments weren’t supposed to be a reply to your post, they were general comments about this subject.
    my first comment, however, was a reply to your comment.

  • http://undefined x_the_x

    I don’t think you found it yet, keep looking.

  • http://undefined PickleToes

    Yep, me too. Since when has government prohibition (which I view limits on the freedom of expression to be) ever worked? A racist, upon publicizing his unsavory opinions, might end up changing his mind once he’s confronted with persuasive contradicting viewpoints. Even if he/she doesn’t, the rest of us get the benefit of keeping our notions of equality from becoming “dead dogma”; something that can be hard to do when the existence of the alternative is suppressed. Succinctly, leave it out in the open so we can see how ugly it truly is.

  • http://null munzz

    actually, as I said the point is you being wrong and misinformed about Galloway. You said he has never said a word of truth. that is just factually wrong. Whenever you get that point and actually acknowledge it, then we can move on to your other points.
    You can’t talk physics with a guy who still believes in Santa Claus. You first need to correct him on some basic facts, and then maybe answer his questions about physics.

  • http://null torontothegreat

    Your idea of what freedoms are is fascinating to say the least. Basically you believe in some sort of anarchy within a legal system. An anarchy under the rule of law? Pretty contrived.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
    The freedom of speech is not absolute. Legal systems recognize limits on the freedom of speech, particularly when freedom of speech conflicts with other values or rights.[18] Exercising freedom of speech always takes place within a context of competing values. Limitations to freedom of speech may follow the “harm principle” or the “offense principle”, for example in the case of pornography or “hate speech”.[19] Limitations to freedom of speech may occur through legal sanction and/or social disapprobation

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    What would you have replied if I said “I don’t”?

  • http://null torontothegreat

    I would have asked you to re-evaluate your thoughts on Galloway being allowed entry into the country.
    Our freedoms work both ways, is all I’m saying. One freedom may be overruled if it conflicts with another freedom. While Zundel/Galloway may have the right to talk, I have the right to tell them to shut up and the HRC will back me up each and every time. It’s why our system of freedom’s works quite well IMO.
    Now, I do believe that our government is knee-jerking this, as I don’t think his motivations are hatred.