Individual acts of hate....can add up to some general conclusions

By Ryan Leclaire, Study Magazine website, January 6, 2012 

Professor Malory Nye worked at the Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education for 8-years, until he was fired for being Caucasian and Christian.
The school is in Dundee, Scotland and recently dismissed Nye because his race and religion were seen as a threat to its Muslim values.
“It is clear to me that there is collusion between individuals that I should be removed from my position on the basis that I am not an Arab and not a Muslim and that the person who has the role of principal should be Arab and/or Muslim,” said Nye.
His wife, Isabel Campbell-Nye, 42, was also working at the college at the time and claims she has been the subject of rebuke. She says her marriage was the reason she was bullied out of her job as head of the college’s English language centre.
The couple is going to take the college to an employment tribunal claiming racial and religious discrimination, and unfair dismissal.
“I believe that such inclusive multiculturalism no longer fits the particular type of multicultural vision of certain managers and the chairman –that is accepting of different cultures, so long as the majority of students are Muslim and/or Arabs and the ethos is distinctly Islamic,” said Nye.
While it is a long-standing tradition that protestants are not welcome instructors in Roman Catholic schools in Ontario, apparently, Mr. Nye was acceptable for eight years, as an instructor in this Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education in Dundee Scotland. That simple fact, linked to his recent dismissal raises some troubling questions.

1. Was he "used" as a marketing tool to attract political acceptance of the school by the Islamist board at the inception, and now has outlived his usefulness in that capacity?
2. Is this an example of high-profile discrimination in an institution that has now established its political "legs" and public acceptance, and no longer wishes to tarnish its public image by having a "white Christian" leader?
3. Were both Mr. Nye and his wife complicity, albeit innocently, in having too much influence on the school's culture to warrant continuing employment?
4. Is the Islamic community in Dundee now sufficiently "established" to give the school the kind of confidence to dismiss these two educators, of a different race and religion?
5. Is the Dundee community supportive of the school administration or the Nye's, in this obviously high-profile dispute?
6. Is there an adequate judicial process in place to deal fairly and justly with whatever complaint/charge/claim the Nye's make?
7. Are the Nye's merely being naive to think that their tenure at that school was not easily revocable?
8. Does anyone else really care about the implications of this story?

We heard this week, of a Mayor of a small town in Quebec, who, on his radio show, dubbed Israel a country of apartheid that should no be allowed to exist. Naturally, Quebec Jews are outraged and want the Mayor removed.
We learned of a long sniper who shot several people in a church in Nigeria, the site of Christmas Day slaughter of some 39 Christians by Salafist Muslims.
Baghdad has witnessed this week a dramatic spike in killings, following the departure of the U.S. forces.
While these individual stories do not a conflagration make, (nor should they), there is reason to observe that acts of exclusion, execution, terror and murder are being flashed around the world, with troubling frequency. |Just this week another 2 Canadians were murdered on their vacation in Mexico, acts of horror apparently related to drug cartel wars. This comes only one week after the murder of another Canadian on vacation in that country.
How does one find and deploy a voice for moderation in a world that scorns all moderation in favour of extreme acts, at the individual, gang, and even geopolitical level?
Where are the leveraged voices in the public consciousness speaking about the virtues of moderation, of discussion, of debate, and of compromise.
Are we losing the capacity to talk with each other?
Example: just today the NHL Players Association said, "No!" on league re-alignment under a January 6th deadline, although the union sought more time to "work the issues out" in the face of an ultimatum from the league officials.
The U.S. Congress is suffering a "bowel obstruction" rendering it completely dysfunctional, because of a similar "ultimatum" psychology from the Tea Party members of the Republican party.
The Canadian government refuses to listen to divergent voices on any of their "changes" because they have a
"strong majority mandate" to carry out their promises, although the rest of the world is voicing legitimate objections on:

• the long-form census
• the omnibus crime bill
• the Attawapiskat crisis of housing and living conditions
• the obliteration of the gun registry
• the lowering of corporate taxes
• the withdrawal from Kyoto
• the Office of Religious Freedom

Are listening, negotiating and compromise, the sine qua non(s) of any democracy, lying lifeless in the trash in a world gone mad with individual violent power? We need more than fairness, (as Ignatieff advocates)! We need the restoration of respect for human life and dignity, in all quarters.