Justin Trudeau’s August 20, 2023, confrontation with a Quebec woman—who questioned his $164M border housing policy for "illegal immigrants"—escalated into six unprovoked "racist" slurs while RCMP detained her. Media like CTV and CBC omitted key details, mirroring past censorship of critics like Robert Spencer, whose Patreon suspension by MasterCard he’s suing over alleged smear tactics. Meanwhile, China’s internment of 1M Uyghurs via forced pork consumption, mosque destruction, and cultural erasure risks backfiring, fueling radicalism as a reaction to state repression. Trudeau’s intolerance and media bias expose deeper fractures in democratic discourse, where dissent is silenced while authoritarian tactics go unchecked. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, Justin Trudeau loses his cool on a heckler in Quebec, calling her racist.
We've got the full video the mainstream media won't show you.
It's August 20th, and you're watching The Ezra LeVant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Justin Trudeau absolutely lost his cool over the weekend.
His staff always insulate him from criticism, and the Canadian media is so overwhelmingly biased towards him.
He really doesn't know what to do with someone like this woman who dared to heckle him in Quebec.
Take a look.
He's used to being lavished with praise.
He has been his whole life.
Ever since he was a boy, he's just not good at handling criticism.
He surrounds himself with yes men.
So on those rare moments when someone manages to get through his bubble to speak truth to power, he falls apart.
Like this weekend in Quebec, Trudeau was giving a stump speech when that woman started heckling him.
Take a look.
And now I'm going to show you more of it.
I'm going to show you the whole thing, okay, from the beginning to the end.
But let me set the clip up a bit first.
I mean, heckling, that's not very friendly, is it?
Well, it's actually a pretty important part of democracy.
We have the right to heckle our political leaders.
Maybe even a duty if they're doing something really wrong.
I mean, they heckle each other in parliament, right?
And Trudeau heckles back, right?
I mean, who can forget Trudeau's own eloquent reply a few years back when he was in opposition to Peter Kent?
Here, take a listen.
You'll hear a swear being shouted in the background.
That's our boy, Justin.
Well, Mr. Speaker, my honorable colleague, if she had been in Durban, would have seen that, in fact, Canada was among the leaders in creating the order.
Order.
Order.
Shh.
That was Trudeau.
He later apologized.
I lost my temper and used language that was most decidedly unparliamentary.
And for that, I unreservedly apologize, Mr. Speaker.
And withdraw my remarks.
That Zorro mustache was just perfect for him, wasn't it?
Anyways, heckling, yeah.
Not so good at, say, weddings or funerals, but those are private events, ceremonies, really.
A politician giving a stump speech is pretty much the number one place you should heckle, other than maybe at a comedy club.
And like at a comedy club, how the speaker deals with hecklers is really a test of your temperament.
I mean, for comedians, it's a test of how quick you can think on your feet and how funny you are.
For politicians, it's a test of how quick you can think on your feet and how smart you are or how funny you are.
A funny reply to a heckler can be as winning for a politician as for a comedian.
So how did boy Trudeau do?
Well, I'll show you.
Just FYI, the grandmother who heckles Trudeau, she's talking about Trudeau's decision to let in tens of thousands of illegal immigrants from the United States just walking right across our borders, not applying legally, but pretending to be refugees when, of course, they're not.
No one coming from the United States is a refugee.
But Trudeau lets them all stay, and he even puts them up in hotels at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.
So without further ado, watch this grandmother heckle Trudeau and watch his response.
RCMP Intervene Amid Heckling00:15:02
— Madame, une des choses importantes, madame, en politique, c'est l'écoute.
Mes amis, c'est l'écoute qui compte.
On est en dialogue.
— Bien, vous me répondez pas, répondez pas.
— C'est pas très gentil.
— Répondez-moi.
— On est ici pour échanger, pour dialoguer.
J'ai bien hâte de vous écouter ici, à position que vous écoutiez, madame.
Vous avez quelque chose à dire, madame?
— Je veux savoir quand vous allez nous remettre le 146 millions qu'on a payé pour vos immigrants illégaux.
— OK, madame.
— C'est nous autres qui a payé pour ça.
— OK, now, so far, so good.
He actually tells the heckling grandma that they have to listen to each other.
That sounds calm and friendly enough and respectful enough.
And tell you the truth, it makes him look good, don't you think?
So he actually invites her to put her question.
And she does.
Without insults, without profanity.
She doesn't call him a piece of SHIT like he called Peter Kent.
And it's a real question.
What about the $164 million spent on Trudeau's illegal immigrants so far?
It's a question that everyone is asking in Canada, at least different versions of that question.
Even the mainstream media acknowledges it's an issue.
It's a crisis.
They use that word crisis.
The opposition in Parliament calls it a crisis.
His own bureaucrats call it a crisis.
And the Liberal Premier of Quebec calls it a crisis, so much so that he insists on bussing Trudeau's illegal immigrants to Toronto because he doesn't even want them in his province.
So what's Trudeau's first answer?
She was heckling him, but then he invited her to put her question, get it out of her system.
And she did very succinctly.
I mean, sure, she's irritating, but if you don't like that, don't go into politics.
She put her question, and immediately, his immediate reaction was to attack her as racist.
She didn't call him names, but he immediately called her, and presumably anyone else who dares to share the same opinions as her, why they're intolerant racists.
So she's intolerant.
She's racist towards immigrants, but she wasn't.
She just asked him a real question.
Who's going to pay for it all?
Why does she have to pay $146 million along with other taxpayers?
How is that a racist question?
What's that got to do with race at all?
Trudeau is setting the example on how to treat people who disagree.
You can see other people telling her to shut up.
Now, fair enough.
She can dish it out.
She can take it.
But then, look, look, someone falsely accuses her of making a threat of violence.
I mean, it's a hokey and hoax, but right away, a plainclothes RCMP officer comes right over to check it out.
And she obviously denies it.
And we know the truth because we've been listening and watching her.
You can tell the guy who comes over is RCMP because he's got an earpiece in his ear.
He talks to her once or twice, but he basically leaves her alone.
Take a look.
Monsieur Trudeau, êtes-vous tolérant avec les Québécois de source ?
Êtes-vous tolérant avec les Québécois ?
On n'est pas un territoire morand .
So she's responded in an interesting way.
She was just accused by Justin Trudeau of being intolerant because she dared to question his immigration crisis and specifically its costs.
By the way, most Canadians are opposed to Trudeau on immigration.
Trudeau's own poll showed that 92% of Canadians don't want increased immigration, but he's forcing it on us anyways.
You could say he's intolerant of our views.
So she asks Trudeau, and she says, Mr. Trudeau, she's being even more polite now, actually.
She asks if Mr. Trudeau is tolerant of old-stock Quebecers.
And remember, this is in Quebec.
Their ethnic identity, their distinct society status, their specialness has been drummed into the rest of us Canadians by liberal politicians for 50 years since the FLQ crisis, right?
So it's hardly radical what she says there.
Quebecers do have an ethnic cultural identity.
I mean, don't be surprised.
It's what we've been told to accept for decades, really for centuries since Lower Canada was given special French Catholic privileges under the British Empire.
And that's fine by me.
Quebecers obviously are different than the rest of Canadians.
My point is, this woman wasn't asking anything that Trudeau himself hasn't said his whole life.
He's a Quebec chauvinist himself.
Remember this?
Quebecers are better than the rest of Canada because, you know, we're Quebecers.
Yeah.
So let's keep watching now.
So the speech is over.
She had her heckles.
The RCMP came over, stood right by her, obviously saw who she was.
An angry grandma, but not anyone posing any danger at all.
Not making threats, not swearing, not really even shouting except to be heard.
Trudeau himself invited her to speak.
She did.
Everything's fine.
I mean, Trudeau's reaction was way, way over the top, immediately escalating to calling her names.
But let's keep watching because the worst is yet to come.
Now notice there's a guy behind her in a cap, a light shirt, and a dark knapsack.
That's another RCMP officer in plain clothes.
He follows her towards Trudeau.
And again, no problem.
That's good policing.
Just to make sure nothing goes wrong, just to make sure she doesn't, I don't know, try to hit him or something or grab him.
But he's so low-key at first.
All right, let's go, let's go.
So he calls her racist a few more times and says he's a proud Quebecer.
And he says she does not belong in Quebec.
You can see a couple more RCMP in very dark vests helping to push him forward, push people back.
You can hear her, but you can't see her anymore.
But now look at this new camera angle.
And for about 10 seconds, you can't hear her anymore either.
Take a look.
Look at that.
Look back there near the tractors.
The guy who was following her when she approached the Prime Minister, you can see his hat, you can see his backpack there near the tractors.
You can see her shirt, and he's holding her.
He's got her, and he's moved her over to the tractors.
Okay, keep rolling.
They're demanding an ID card from her.
Why?
But look what they're doing to her arm there.
Look at how they're holding her arm.
Look at how they're bending it for maximum pain.
They're holding her bicep and pushing her wrist down.
Now she's far away from the Prime Minister now.
He has left.
You saw him leave.
She never said anything threatening to him.
She asked him a question, and then you saw it.
He came when he left.
He walked right to her.
He leaned over.
He came up to her for him to have another go at her.
He went to her.
He obviously wasn't scared of her, but he wasn't ignoring her either.
He went up to her to humiliate her a bit, to quarrel with her a bit.
So he wasn't scared of her, and she wasn't scary.
And he's the one who insulted her, saying she does not belong in Quebec.
You heard him say that.
And so the RCMP pull her away.
Why?
Trudeau came towards her to finish their quarrel.
But now, to hurt her like that, to bend her wrist like that?
For what?
Watch some more.
So I don't know if you noticed, but a second undercover cop comes over.
But really, why does she have to go with them?
Trudeau has left.
He bravely came up to her, called her some names.
She didn't call him names.
In fact, she's calling him Mr. Trudeau now.
He called her names, but they're handling her, bruising her.
She says, I don't know if she's telling the truth about being bruised, but it sure didn't look comfortable to have your wrist like that.
Trudeau has left.
And even if he hadn't, what had she done?
In fact, wasn't it Trudeau who came over to her?
Keep rolling the tape.
C'est quoi votre match, monsieur, on veut l'avoir?
La 62945.
62945.
OK, je suis policier, je suis gendarme autour de la GRC.
Madame, je n'ai pas fini avec vous, là.
She's not done, really?
And what more will he do to her?
And on what basis will he do it?
Has she been depersoned yet by Trudeau, fired from her job?
Though I sense she's probably retired, humiliated in public.
Oh, that will come soon enough.
On what grounds would the police not be done with her yet?
You know, the police in Quebec know how to be very hospitable, super friendly, very accommodating to foreign illegal immigrants breaking the law.
Then the police are positively bellhops, carrying luggage, fetching them lunch.
But they're illegal immigrants.
This woman is much worse.
She's an old-stock Quebecer asking about illegal immigrants, and Trudeau says she doesn't belong in the province.
So the police aren't done with her yet.
Two of them now.
Trudeau's long gone.
He's in his bulletproof limo.
He's gone back to another personal day or whatever.
But this woman's not free to go yet.
But watch this next part.
It's classic.
It's amazing, actually.
Take a look.
Oh, you're hysterical, lady.
You're mad.
Isn't she great?
She says, no, if I were a man, you'd say I had balls.
But again, really, who was hysterical?
This woman or Trudeau?
They both shouted, but only Trudeau called her names six times.
They both exercised their freedom of speech, but only Trudeau's bodyguards thought that a physical altercation was necessary.
And if someone did that to my arm because I dared to question the precious one, I'd probably be more hysterical than she was.
That's it.
She leaves after that.
The tape ends in about 10 more seconds.
Hey, did you see any of the footage I just showed you on TV?
I understand that CTV actually played a brief clip of her hollering at the PM, but did you see on TV him insulting her six times, calling her racist, calling her intolerant, and saying she has no place in Quebec?
Trudeau's Face Rubbing00:03:35
But more to the point, did you see him going over to her afterwards to grind her face in it, to really rub it in her face?
She was intolerant that there's no place in this country for her.
No, you did not see that on CTV or CBC, at least not as of the moment I'm recording this.
And you did not see the clip of the bodyguards bending her wrist, roughing her up just a little bit, just enough to leave a mark, even just for a few minutes on her arm, and just enough to psychologically mark her, so that she knows if she does it again, she'll be hurt, maybe hurt much worse.
Did you see that on the media party TV stations?
No, you did not.
Four times, Justin Trudeau said she was intolerant.
Two times said she was racist.
No, no place here.
Twice to be called racist.
No place in Quebec.
It's six insults to her for asking a question, for daring to ask about the number one issue in Quebec today.
And it's not insignificant to note.
The liberal partisan who falsely accused her of making threats.
Remember earlier in the video?
Falsely accusing her of making threats.
You saw it was false.
And of course, it is important to note the bodyguards who she did not make any threats.
They were treating her as if she did.
Did you see this comedy headline over the weekend?
Trudeau says 2019 election is fight against polarization.
And then says liberals want positive politics.
Conservatives reject.
Imagine being a reporter, watching Trudeau insult this woman six times, and then writing that absurd headline.
Trudeau wants a healing, positive country, unlike those evil conservatives.
This, my friends, is what we're in for.
For the next 12 months.
You are that grandma.
If you dare to ask any questions, however nicely or however loudly, you will be called intolerant and racist and that you have no place in this country.
Not the place that illegal immigrants have, that's for sure.
And the media party, they will cheer along with your denunciation.
Say, what do you think the media party would have done if it were Stephen Harper who had smeared a liberal citizen six times in two minutes as a bigot merely for asking a question about government spending?
And if Harper had literally walked up to that grandma afterwards to pick a fight some more, and then if Harper's bodyguards would have bent a grandma's wrist just to teach her a little lesson.
Yeah, it would be crisis-style coverage for a week.
But for Trudeau, well, the media knows its job.
Ignore this story or denounce the woman as a bigot, too.
I wonder how Andrew Scheer is going to fare in a battle like this.
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, I think the key issue of our age is internet censorship.
I wouldn't have said anything so obscure just a few years ago, but censorship did not rear its ugly head until more recently, and it's become increasingly politicized and weaponized against a particular point of view, namely conservatives.
It's gotten so bad that President Donald Trump himself weighed in on the matter over the weekend in a series of three tweets.
Patreon Censorship Case00:11:43
Let me read them to you.
Social media is totally discriminating against Republican conservative voices.
Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump administration, we won't let that happen.
They are closing down the opinions of many people on the right, while at the same time doing nothing to others.
And the next one, censorship is a very dangerous thing and absolutely impossible to police.
If you are weeding out fake news, there is nothing so fake as CNN and NMSNBC.
And yet I do not ask that their sick behavior be removed.
I get used to it and watch with a grain of salt or don't watch at all.
And last one, too many voices are being destroyed, some good and some bad, and that cannot be allowed to happen.
Who is making the choices?
Because I can already tell you that too many mistakes are being made.
Let everybody participate, good and bad, and we will all just have to figure it out.
I think that's actually a fairly thoughtful intervention, appealing to our better nature, calling for freedom of speech even for views he doesn't himself support, and pointing out that one man's fake news is another man's CNN, and he's fine with that.
He's never called for CNN to be banned despite their squawking.
Well, what exactly is he referring to?
Well, one case that fits the bill is that of our friend Robert Spencer, the boss of JihadWatch, who suddenly and without notice was informed that his Patreon account, which is not only a source of funding but an online communications tool, was being suspended.
He suddenly saw this when he went to log in.
Your account has been disabled.
If you believe this is an error, please visit our help center.
And they actually sent him an email.
Put that up on the screen.
Hi, Robert.
My name is April, and I'm on the trust and safety team here at Patreon.
I've been notified by MasterCard that we must remove your account from Patreon effective immediately.
MasterCard has a stricter set of rules and regulations than Patreon, and they reserve the right to not offer their services to accounts of their choosing.
They announced that they will pay out Robert the final amount there.
And they just shut him down.
No appeal, no nothing.
And joining us now via Skype is our friend Robert Spencer.
Robert, welcome back to the show.
Always great to be here, Ezra.
Thank you.
You know, it's not just the censorship of your voice.
That's one thing.
But they're actually banning you from banking.
I've never heard of a credit card company banning someone from having a credit card or using a credit card for reasons other than fraud.
It's a political ban from a bank.
Yeah, there's no doubt about it.
They won't give a reason.
I repeatedly asked Patreon, why?
What rule did I break?
What guideline did I transgress?
Nothing.
And then Breitbart went to MasterCard and MasterCard actually told them that it was because I had illegal content on my website.
Well, illegal content, I didn't know MasterCard had a court that they could determine what content is illegal or not.
And I didn't know that that was MasterCard's business.
That is so bizarre.
It is.
See, I have 60,000 posts on Jihad Watch.
It's news and commentary going back to 2003.
There's not a shred of illegality about any of it.
Unless, of course, you're talking about from the standpoint of Islamic law.
Then there's plenty that's illegal because criticism of Islam and jihad terror is forbidden in Islam.
Well, that's a good point.
If you were based in Turkey or Saudi Arabia or Iran.
That's plenty illegal.
And, you know, the Bank of Riyadh said you're breaking our rules, you would probably be able to guess what they're talking about.
But MasterCard, if I'm not mistaken, is headquartered in the United States.
As far as I know, yes, but I understand that they do have extensive holdings in the Middle East.
And so it did occur to me.
And of course, they're not talking, at least so far, but it did occur to me that this may actually be a Sharia decision, a decision based on Islamic law, because they may want to not offend their business partners in Middle Eastern countries.
Now, I've heard of Patreon.
I mean, Patreon is an interesting social media service.
We don't really use it here at the Rebel.
It's a way that people can show their content.
And as you can see in the name Patreon, to patrons, we use PayPal.
We crowdfund and people chip in through PayPal.
But Patreon was really built for artists, people who weren't getting a lot of money from YouTube.
So it was a system where they could let only their patrons get the first view or a sneak preview.
It's a great system.
Obviously, you sign up for Patreon for your work, a way for your grassroots viewers to support you.
If someone doesn't want to support you, they don't have to support you.
It's bizarre to me that a company would stop a lawful commercial transaction between you and your consenting supporters.
It's bizarre that anyone could object to a happy legal act of commerce like that.
Yeah, it's bizarre, Ezra, because that's what they're in the business of offering.
And so if they stop offering it on the basis of disliking people's political views, well, obviously the question next is, where does it stop?
And you're right.
You know, people, I sometimes hear about people's YouTube videos being demonetized, and I always laugh because I was demonetized before they were monetized.
They never have allowed me to earn any money on YouTube.
All my videos there are for free.
And as it happened, I came into the possession of an old TV studio, thought I would fix it up, and went to Patreon to raise money to do this.
And as you say, everybody who signed up to help was somebody who already likes my work and was doing it voluntarily.
So the idea that Patreon or MasterCard would object to this is obviously clear, just viewpoint censorship, which is supposed to be illegal in the United States.
Well, that's interesting because about a year ago, we had a cruise booked with Norwegian Cruise Line.
And without notice, warning, or appeal, they just said, no, we're not having you on there.
And it was clear that they were pressured by a group that was taking credit for it, a Soros-backed group in the United Kingdom called Hope Not Hate.
Now, we retained a lawyer to look into this, and the lawyer reviewed our contract with the cruise line and came back and said the terms of service are so one-sided, you really don't have a case.
And we didn't want to waste the money trying.
But it would seem to me that if MasterCard is saying, I mean, we weren't really told anything.
They just dropped us.
But if you have actually been told that you are breaking the law, but no court has said so, it sounds to me, I'm not going to say you have a defamation case, but you may have some case and to be able to smoke out from Patreon or MasterCard what basis it was for them to do this to you.
And the reason I'm going down this road, just bear with me for one more minute, is because a few months ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is a left-wing smear group, they smear everyone they don't like as racist.
They went after someone in London named Majid Nawaz, who is the head of the Quilliam Foundation.
And he says he's a progressive Muslim for moderation and against extremism.
And I'm not going to ask you for your view on him because that's not relevant.
I'm just saying that's who he is.
And I've been following him fairly closely, and I like some of the work he does.
He sued the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And before it even went to court, in fact, before I think he might, I don't even know if he actually filed a claim, they settled with him for more than $3 million and gave him an amazing videotaped apology spoken by no one less than their boss.
And so that's a very long preamble, but my question to you is, would you consider suing Patreon and particularly MasterCard, not just to be reinstated, but so that the lawsuit could flush out who the hidden hand was that was blackballing you and that perhaps they would restore your account and maybe even sell, they gave Neminje Nawaz more than 3 million bucks.
Would you consider suing?
Oh, absolutely, Ezra.
And as a matter of fact, there is a letter that is going, I think today, from an attorney to MasterCard.
And so we'll see how that develops.
I do suspect that the palsied hand of the Southern Poverty Law Center is behind this.
I'm on that same anti-Muslim extremist list that Majid Nawaz was on.
I contacted lawyers to try to attempt to sue the Southern Poverty Law Center myself, but they have explained to me that he had the benefit of UK libel laws.
which favor the plaintiff, whereas U.S. libel laws favor the defendant.
And so nobody so far has been willing to take the case, but I'm still trying and still hoping to find somebody.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, as you say, they just try to destroy people whose views they dislike.
And if people don't stand up to this group, it's going to get a lot worse in terms of freedom of speech and the ability for dissenters from the leftist agenda to be heard at all in the West.
I'm not even saying to sue them for defamation.
I'm saying to sue them for a breach of contract or for some inducement of breach of contract.
The fact that MasterCard cut you off and apparently claimed you broke the law, it's not even the defamation of their smear that you broke the law.
It's that they thought they had enough to break off a commercial deal with you.
I think they would be terrified to have all their emails and phone calls and everything brought out into the light of day.
I really think it's worth pursuing.
And Donald Trump, I don't know what you thought about those three tweets I read at the top of our interview.
I think he tweets if he's about to do something more substantive.
He's starting to soften up the ground by talking about it.
I think that your suit against MasterCard is something that you should really look at seriously, not from a defamation point of view, but to fight back.
If they can cut off our banking and our finances, they can cut off our entire projects.
Yours, ours, everybody's.
Absolutely, yes.
And you're absolutely right.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
It's not solely defamation.
We're going after the lawyer's letter.
I can't really talk too much about it, obviously, but the lawyer's letter essentially just tells them to give a reason or reinstate me.
And so we're going to take it from there, depending on how MasterCard responds.
Yeah.
I mean, it's one thing for the social media giants to be regulated.
And as Donald Trump suggests, it's very careful because you don't want to step on the First Amendment.
But for a bank to ban someone from banking, there's no First Amendment that's going to protect a bank for blackballing someone.
I mean, that's pure lunch counter stuff, back of the bus stuff.
I really think MasterCard's made a mistake here.
It'll be interesting to see how stubborn they are.
Well, listen, you know what?
It's very interesting times.
Can you keep us posted?
I hear what you're saying.
You don't want to give away privileged material that your lawyer is doing, but I really think your case is interesting.
I really think it's dangerous because it involves a bank.
When you have news, can you share it with us so we can keep our viewers up to date?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And thank you for your interest in the case.
I think, obviously, its implications go far beyond me and are very far-reaching.
Yeah, I think so, too.
Well, listen, it's nice to have you on the show.
Stay strong.
Give us one minute on how your book's doing.
Chinese Government's Forced Assimilation00:07:54
Of course, the history of Jihad.
Thanks, Ezra.
You know, I'm having a happy problem with that.
The book, The History of Jihad from Muhammad to ISIS, it is doing so well, as a matter of fact.
It hit number one in six different Amazon categories.
It's doing so much better than anybody expected that we've run out.
And so we are hurrying a second printing now, and a third is in the works.
And so it's great demand for it.
It's been very well received in initial reviews.
And so I'm very grateful for all of that.
Well, that's good to hear.
Hopefully we can get MasterCard back on board so you can sell some books that way.
Nice to see you again, Robert.
Likewise, Ezra.
Thank you.
All right.
There you have it.
Robert Spencer.
He's the boss of Jihad Watch, the author of the history of jihad, and of course he is the target of Silicon Valley censorship.
Stay with us, more head on.
Welcome back.
Well, those of us in the West who follow Islamic Jihad are very cautious about Muslim populations and are very curious about the nature of the jihad.
Well, one country that I think deserves our observation is China, which has a large Muslim minority.
And we have the perfect article to lead into that discussion today.
It's titled China's Peaceful Muslims Fight Back.
And it's published in the Epoch Times, which is a newspaper that focuses on minorities in China, especially the Falun Gong religious minority.
And the author of the piece is an old friend of ours, Gordon Cheng.
He's a writer with The Daily Beast, and he's the author of the book, The Coming Collapse of China.
And Gordon Cheng joins us now, ViceCon.
Gordon, it's great to see you again.
Tell us in what ways the Chinese population of China is different, say, to the Chinese population of Arabia or even the expat Muslim population in Europe.
Yeah, there are two large groups of Muslims in China.
There are the Uyghurs in northwest China, in Xinjiang, and there are the Wei, who are further east.
And both of them have been very peaceful people, but they both have actually been motivated to activism because of extremely repressive actions on the part of the Beijing government, part of the Communist Party, which is trying to assimilate them and essentially eliminate Islam from China.
And of course, this has triggered a pushback from both groups.
My piece, which referred to the Wei, they are right now in a struggle to preserve a mosque in a city called Weizhou in the Ningsha Autonomous Region.
And this is an important story in the sense that these Wei would never think of opposing Beijing, but they're doing so now because they're trying to preserve their way of life.
You know, I visited that province of Xinjiang about 10 years ago, and it was interesting to see the Chinese Communist Party's attempt to put the ethnic diversity in a museum.
In fact, they had such a museum, the different costumes and the different stories, and the end of the narrative in the museum was we're all happy communists now.
It's like they wanted to take the specialness of Xinjiang and sort of put it in a box, and that's it.
My own sense, and I was only there as a tourist, and of course I don't have the language facility, and I was only there briefly, was that it was the mildest form of Islam I've ever observed.
I didn't see any niqabs there.
I felt no tension whatsoever, and it actually felt very gentle, in some ways more gentle than the bustling parts of China like Shanghai or Beijing.
That's just my own anecdote.
But how much paranoia can China be allowed given the global ambitions of ISIS or even Saudi Arabia and Iran to sort of evangelize Muslims to make them more activist?
Is there a proper place for China to be a little bit worried about outside influences that would radicalize Chinese Muslims?
Well, yeah, of course there is reason to be concerned.
But really, when we look at radicalism in both Ningsha and in Xinjiang, because most of it's in Xinjiang, it's really because it's a reaction to what the Chinese government has tried to do.
And in Xinjiang, you have what really constitutes a crime against humanity.
About 10% of the population, about a million people, have been put into internment camps, which are called re-education centers.
And they're being put there largely because of their religion.
They're being cut off.
Some people have been dying in those camps.
And this is one of the most horrific human rights abuses in the world today.
Fortunately, now people are starting to pay attention to it.
Gordon, I was reading in your article about some internment camps that you've been suggesting where these Uyghur Muslims are forced, positively forced to eat pork and things like that in violation of their religion.
And that does sound like the kind of thing that would maybe stir within the heart of a calm, pacified Muslim community a kind of resistance, like a martyrdom.
I mean, it sounds bizarre and punitive and inflammatory.
Does China not sense that maybe they're provoking the monster that was never there?
They're creating a problem that wasn't there?
You know, you'd like to think that there was self-awareness on the part of religion officials in Beijing, but they've been pursuing these policies in Xinjiang for quite some time.
And so they have been forcing Muslims to eat pork.
They've been forcing them to break Ramadan traditions.
They've forced shaving of beards.
Children are not allowed religious instruction.
They've destroyed mosques.
And now they've got these internment camps, which are just horrific.
So at this time, you'd have to believe that although that they understand that they might be triggering retaliation, they nonetheless believe that this is the correct policy.
And that's why this story about the internment camps is so important.
One last question for you.
One of the interesting characteristics of the ISIS terrorists were how international they were.
You had people coming from Germany, from France, even from Canada.
And I saw that there were Chechen Muslims who went to join ISIS.
Are you aware of any Chinese Muslims that went to join ISIS?
Well, there's some Uyghurs who have gone to the Middle East.
I don't know if they've gone to ISIS, but there have been a few there.
And Beijing is obviously worried about them coming back to China.
But if you go back three decades or so, Xinjiang and Ningcha were completely peaceful.
And really, what we've seen is activism and sometimes radicalism, which has been the result of a horrific repression campaign.
So this is something that Beijing has caused itself.
Yeah.
Well, it's very interesting.
And we are always on the alert of Islamic jihad, and we're always cautious about that.
But your report in the Epoch Times, which I very much recommend, I recommend the Epoch Times as a read all the time.
It's a good counterpoint to the mainstream.
But your piece here, it's called China's Peaceful Muslims Fight Back.
That was my own observation.
And I had this passing fancy when I was there.
If only that were the template for Islam around the world, the world itself would be more harmonious.
Preston Manning's Legacy00:03:48
Last word to you, Gordon.
Yes.
Well, that's certainly true.
I mean, you look at the way they've been completely assimilated into Chinese society.
And the only reason why there's activism is because the government has been taking mosques and destroying them.
And so really, this is, at the end of the day, something that Beijing has triggered on its own.
Well, thank you for this update.
A point of view I'm sure most of our viewers have not heard before.
And it's a delight to have you on the show.
Gordon, great to see you.
Thank you so much, Ezra.
All right, there you have it.
Gordon Cheng.
He's a writer with The Daily Beast and an author of the book, The Coming Collapse of China.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue Friday about Maxime Bernier fighting back against Rosemary Barton and fake news from the CBC.
Angela writes, I agree with you insofar as Scheer is concerned.
I have emailed him suggesting that he get a backbone and start challenging the mainstream media on their biased reporting.
It's hard to have someone change their personality.
People can grow and improve in the job.
I mean, I have to say, Justin Trudeau, when he was first elected as MP to Justin Trudeau, by the time he was done his first election campaign, he improved markedly.
It is possible to improve, but to find a courage to take on the media, it's a whole new level of courage.
It's not just a skill.
Can you do it well?
It's can you look a reporter in the eyes and know that what you're about to say will hurt their feelings, will offend them maybe, and turn them against you.
That's what makes it tough.
And that's what I don't know if Andrew Scheer has.
Allen writes, I suspect a whole lot of Canadians will agree with Maxime.
Up until now, there was no truly conservative voice that resonates with the common man, and that is why the leftists are deranged about him.
Well, it reminds me of Preston Manning.
I worked for Preston Manning, as you may know, for two years.
And people liked the media, of course they attacked Preston Manning as a racist, as a bigot, that's their go-to line, has been for decades.
But they never felt threatened by Preston Manning.
I remember when Stockwell A came around.
I mean, they hated Preston Manning, absolutely.
But the minute Stockwell Day came around to seek the leadership of the Canadian Alliance Party, the media suddenly fell in love with Preston Manning.
Why is that?
Well, because they saw in Stockwell Day someone who had a chance of breaking through.
He spoke better French.
He was more media savvy.
He was younger.
So I think that, of course, the media despises Andrew Scheer.
Of course, he's everything they hate.
He's conservative.
He's socially conservative.
He's pro-life.
He's a family man.
He's mild-mannered.
He's reasonable.
Of course, the media hate him.
But they fear Maxime Bernier because he might actually win.
So I think that that's why the media hates Bernier.
They fear that if he were to lead the party, it could actually win the thing.
John writes, you piqued my interest about a rebel charity.
We could approach the next election with third-party status with our own commercials denouncing Trudeau or other third parties.
Hey, I like your thinking.
You are exactly right.
I mean, there were over 100 third-party campaign groups in the last election, all but one of them for Justin Trudeau.
Wouldn't it be fun to have our own campaign organization registered and giving tax receipts or whatever?
Something to think about, that's for sure.
Boy, I like the way you think.
Alrighty, well, that is our show for today.
On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night and keep heckling politicians.