AND THEN WE ARE ALL ON TRIAL

In a crowded subterranean courtroom about the size of a two car garage, arguments raged this week between the broad founding principles of western secular civilization and the forces aimed at its undoing.

For five days, Mark Steyn and Maclean's Magazine have been under quasi-judicial scrutiny for a column published a year or two back that the Council on Islamic American Relations (Canada) chose as a battleground in their ongoing efforts to silence any opinion they disagree with.

I dropped by this morning. It was a hot ticket and a small venue and I didn't expect to get in. The proceedings are being well documented by the National Post's Andrew Coyne (hit the link in the headline for the latest).

I went more to see who was there. It was a mixed bag: men and women, young and old, all shapes sizes and hues.

At the 10:30 break, like the stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers 'Night at the Opera', the door opened and everyone spilled out into the large corridor. Steyn was in great form- jovial and engaging, signing a few autographs before huddling with his team, while the plaintiffs huddled at a different end of the hallway. Andrew Coyne looked a little weary and if you read his blog about the week, you'll know why.

Considering what was at stake, there was remarkably little media present. The MSM has been very slow to pick up on this and I can't for the life of me understand why.

Perhaps it's function of their overall state of denial as their familiar world continues to unravel. Local media is among the most somnolent on the issue and may well look back one day and ask themselves 'why didn't we have someone there?'.

In a forum where rules of evidence, case law and even truth are not relevant to the proceedings, to let the story slide by unremarked is journalistic malpractice and further enables the cause of the plaintiffs.

Across the hall from Courtroom 105, the scene of the tribunal, was an office for a native outreach service with a sign on the door advertising an upcoming 'talking circle'. I don't think it could hold a candle to the circles talked this week in that tiny room.

It's so very odd. Canada is a polite, peaceful place where strangers are welcomed and accommodated. Muslims, particularly, have had a very easy ride in the court of public opinion. Mosques are springing up, without a quibble, across the country. In suburban Toronto, a new subdivision 'Peace Village' is being built by and for followers of Islam. All the houses face Mecca and the toilets are aligned to avoid offense. There has been no outcry, nor need there be.

In fact, the very existence of the tribunal is evidence that Canadians have enshrined their desire not to offend into this ludicrous law.

Yet the self-appointed guardians of Islamic interests scour the landscape looking for fuel to justify their very existence. If you aren't under threat, you don't need guardians.

When 9/11 happened, politicians of all stripes rushed to express solidarity with Islamic Canadians in anticipation of a backlash that never came.

Radical Muslims in Ontario plotted to blow up parliament and behead the prime minister. Again, dire warnings of a backlash that, again, never came.

There was some tut-tutting when the CBC, our left-wing national broadcaster, aired the sitcom 'Little Mosque on the Prairie', but most of the country took it all in stride.

Few countries have been as welcoming and accommodating to Muslim immigrants and the vast majority have settled in and got along. Should they be grateful? Perhaps. Those who left homelands behind to find a better life for them and their families probably are.

But as radical global Islam flexes its muscles, sinews bulge here as well.

Such is the makeup of this unaccountable body that I don't anticipate a victory for the defendants. There are also five Canadian bloggers in line for similar treatment.

If this case goes to the plaintiffs, things look grim for the five.

And then we are all on trial.