Friday, August 14, 2009

The lies, the lies, the glorious lies.


As progressives who care about stuff like, you know, facts and truth and accuracy, I think we should be on the lookout for the newest wanker talking point related to Suaad Hagi Mohamud, as horked up by vile racist and National Post favourite "Raphael Alexander":

... Kenyan officials arrested her after pronouncing her an impostor because she did not look entirely like her passport photograph.

No, "Raphael," that's not what happened. You're forgetting the middle part (emphasis tail-waggingly added):

Mohamud, a Somali-Canadian, was branded an impostor by staff of the Canadian High Commission in Kenya because she did not resemble her passport photograph. Her lips were different from the four-year-old picture, as were her eyeglasses.

In a telephone interview from Nairobi yesterday, Mohamud gave further details of the event that started her ordeal when she tried to board a KLM flight home on May 21 after a three-week visit to Kenya.

A Kenyan KLM employee stopped her. "He told me he could make me miss my flight," she said of the KLM worker, who suggested Mohamud didn't look like her passport photo.

He seemed to be soliciting a bribe, she said, an experience Somali-born Torontonians say is commonplace for them at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

When she didn't pay, a Kenyan immigration official arrested her. Canadian consular officials went along, returning Mohamud to the Kenyans, who threw her in jail on charges of entering Kenya illegally on a passport not her own.

Here's a fun game, kids -- let's be on the lookout for the sudden spate of Blogging Tory-flavoured outrage that claims that Mohamud was arrested by Kenyan officials, with no mention of how Canadian officials played a critical part in all of this.

Won't that be fun? I think it will be hilarious. I'd use the word "entertaining" but, apparently, some truly stupid people would get the wrong idea.

8 comments:

Raphael Alexander said...

If you weren't being intellectually dishonest before, you are certainly out and open about it now. The article you quote quite strongly blamed Canada for what happened, and in particular the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi, and anyone bothering to read what I wrote will know that.

It's one thing to bash your political opponents for divergence of opinion, but how can bash someone who agrees with you is beyond my comprehension.

Anonymous said...

Fuck you raphael -
It's amusing to get lectured on honesty from someone who does not even have the balls to use his real name (all the while criticising...).

You are racist little fuck - it's amazing that the National Post gives you a voice - just shows what kind of reprobates run the paper... or their target audience.


As for blaming Kenyan officials - seeing it more and more in comments. It is like a virus of stupidity that has infected Conservatives.

Sparky said...

Well, again point of fact--
From Ralph's blog (right after the quotation cited by cc)--
The shocker: Canadian consular officials agreed with the verdict, and declared her an impostor, cancelling her passport and requesting that Kenya prosecute her for identity theft. They did:

The Canadian high commission in Nairobi punched a hole through the passport and returned it to Kenyan immigration officials with a letter confirming that the woman who claimed to be Suaad Hagi Mohamud was an impostor."


In this particular case, I think cc's got it wrong. Ralph did attribute negligence to the Canadians involved in keeping her in Kenya. He didn't embellish or belittle their involvement. He just had a different writing style in order to get that point across.
Ralph might be a little late to the party, but he did get the facts correct. I don't necessarily agree with his summation--
Incidents like the Suaad Hagi Mohamud affair does this government no favours, and in the long run it could lose them the support of the people they’ve fought hard to win over in recent campaigns: the immigrant.
I haven't seen this government working hard to win over immigrants. I've seen evidence of systematic disregard for them, of which her plight is just one more straw on that particular camel's back.

Dooshbahg Dhimvit said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
CC said...

I'm not sure I see the problem here, Sparky. Did I not reproduce Raphael's words absolutely accurately? Did he not write precisely what I claimed he wrote? No words added, deleted or modified?

Oh, wait, I see what you mean. You're suggesting it's a bit sleazy to quote someone incompletely, or out of context, to imply a different meaning from the one that was intended, is that it?

Sort of like maybe me writing that a "recap" of Suaad Hagi Mohamud's situation would be "entertaining," and having someone seize on that single word, and suggest that I thought her situation itself was "entertaining."

Is that what you're saying, Sparky? Because, when I think about it, you have a good point. It really is the height of sleazy douchebaggery to deliberately quote people incompletely, or out of context, in order to dishonestly misrepresent what they're trying to say.

And as someone who's put up with that kind of crap for years from Canada's Dumbass-o-sphere, it amuses me to see how little they enjoy getting that kind of treatment in return.

Dish it out, but can't take it. How little that surprises all of us.

CC said...

By the way, Raphael's inability to write coherently notwithstanding, it's still worth keeping an eye out for that new talking point. Because you know it's going to get a workout.

Sparky said...

Oh I'm with you there, cc. This is why your blog is one of my oft visited sites--speaking truth to idiocy and watching the idiots get in a tizzy because of it.
And regarding Ralph, there's nothing I'd rather do than sit back and watch you and, well, just about anyone else worth reading, dismantle his ludicrous and preposterous yippage and point out his rampant hypocricy.
And I'll also be with you on the 'it was those dastardly Kenyans' future blog posts from those we love to mock.
However, in this particular instance, Ralphs whole point was the Canadian ineptitude.
Call him on his huge list of transgressions--lord knows there's enuf of them, including, as I mentioned, his brilliantly worded CPoC apologetic summation.
Just trying to give the peanut gallery no real ammunition to shoot with.
As you stated, they make up enuf on their own.

KEvron said...

"anyone bothering to read what I wrote will know that."

we did read what you wrote, "ralphie", and it deviated, ever so slightly, from the truth, just as cc pointed out. a small lie is still a lie. i know, that's a tough one for a liar like you to grasp....

KEvron