Criticism of media
Steyn frequently criticizes the institutional media.
In a May 2004 column Steyn commented that editors were encouraging anti-Bush sentiments after
The Daily Mirror and the
Boston Globe had published faked pictures, originating from American and Hungarian pornographic websites,of British and American soldiers purportedly sexually abusing Iraqis.Steyn argues that media only wanted to show images to westerners "that will shame and demoralize them."
In a July 2005 column for
National Review, Steyn criticized Andrew Jaspan, then the editor of
The Age, an Australian newspaper. Jaspan was offended by Douglas Wood, an Australian kidnapped and held hostage in Iraq, who after his rescue referred to his captors as "arseholes." Jaspan claimed that "the issue is really largely, speaking as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive." Steyn argued that there is nothing at all wrong with insensitivity toward murderous captors, and that it was Jaspan, not Wood, who suffered from Stockholm syndrome. He said further, "A blindfolded Mr. Wood had to listen to his captors murder two of his colleagues a few inches away, but how crude and boorish would one have to be to hold that against one's hosts?"
Conrad Black trial
Steyn wrote articles and maintained a blogfor
Maclean's covering the 2007 business fraud trial of his friend Conrad Black in Chicago, from the point of view of one who was never convinced Black committed any crime. Doing this, he later wrote, "cost me my gig at the [Chicago] Sun-Times" and "took me away from more lucrative duties such as book promotion".Steyn expressed dismay at "the procedural advantages the prosecution enjoys ... the inducements it's able to dangle in order to turn witnesses that, if offered by the defence, would be regarded as the suborning of perjury; or the confiscation of assets intended to prevent an accused person from being able to mount a defence; or the piling on of multiple charges which virtually guarantees that a jury will seek to demonstrate its balanced judgment by convicting on something. All that speaks very poorly for the federal justice system."
After Black's conviction, Steyn published a long essay in Maclean's about the case, strongly criticizing Black's defense team.
Eurabia
Steyn believes that Eurabia — a future where the European continent is dominated by Islam — is an imminent reality that cannot be reversed. "The problem, after all, is not that the sons of Allah are 'long shots' but that they're certainties. Every Continental under the age of 40 — make that 60, if not 75 — is all but guaranteed to end his days living in an Islamified Europe.""Native populations on the continent are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic."Steyn claims that Muslims will account for perhaps 40 percent of the population by 2020, but
Globe and Mail correspondent Doug Saunders labels the assertion false:
Slightly more than 4 percent of Europe's population is Muslim, as defined by demographers (though about 80 per cent of these people are not religiously observant, so they are better defined as secular citizens who have escaped religious nations).
It is possible, though not certain, that this number could rise to 6 percent by 2020. If current immigration and birth rates remain the same, it could even rise to 10 percent within 100 years.
But it won't, because Muslims don't actually have more babies than other populations do under the same circumstances. The declining population growth rates are not confined to native populations. In fact, immigrants from Muslim countries are experiencing a faster drop in reproduction rates than the larger European population.
In his book
America Alone, Steyn posits that Muslim population growth has already contributed to a modern European genocide:
Why did Bosnia collapse into the worst slaughter in Europe since the second World War? In the thirty years before the meltdown, Bosnian Serbs had declined from 43 percent to 31 percent of the population, while Bosnian Muslims had increased from 26 percent to 44 percent. In a democratic age, you can't buck demography — except through civil war. The Serbs figured that out, as other Continentals will in the years ahead: if you cannot outbreed the enemy, cull 'em. The problem that Europe faces is that Bosnia's demographic profile is now the model for the entire continent.
When some left-wing critics claimed Steyn was advocating genocide in this passage, he wrote:
My book isn't about what I want to happen but what I think will happen. Given Fascism, Communism and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, it's not hard to foresee that the neo-nationalist resurgence already under way in parts of Europe will at some point take a violent form. ... I think any descent into neo-Fascism will be ineffectual and therefore merely a temporary blip in the remorseless transformation of the Continent.
Criticism of multiculturalism
Steyn has commented on divisions between the Western world and the Islamic World. He criticizes the tolerance of what he calls "Islamic cultural intolerance." Steyn explains that multiculturalism only requires feeling good about other cultures and is "fundamentally a fraud ... subliminally accepted on that basis."In
Jewish World Review, Steyn argues "Multiculturalism means that the worst attributes of Muslim culture — the subjugation of women — combine with the worst attributes of Western culture — licence and self-gratification." He states, "I am not a racist, only a culturist. I believe Western culture — rule of law, universal suffrage — is preferable to Arab culture."
After Steyn ridiculed Ayatollah Khomeni for giving advice on child abuse and bestiality,some Canadian leftists accused Steyn of concocting his facts, leading Steyn to pen a memorable refutation.
Christopher Hitchens on America Alone
In an essay about
America Alone,Christopher Hitchens wrote that "Mark Steyn believes that demography is destiny, and he makes an immensely convincing case," then went on to detail many points at which he disagrees with Steyn.For instance, Hitchens believes that Steyn errs by "considering European Muslim populations as one. Islam is as fissile as any other religion, and considerable friction exists among immigrant Muslim groups in many European countries. Moreover, many Muslims actually have come to Europe for the advertised purposes; seeking asylum and to build a better life."
Nevertheless, Hitchens expressed strong agreement with some of Steyn's points, calling the book "admirably tough-minded."
Support of Iraq invasion
Steyn was an early proponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2007 he reiterated his support while attacking Democrat John Murtha, stating that his plan for military action in Iraq was designed "to deny the president the possibility of victory while making sure Democrats don't have to share the blame for the defeat. ... [Murtha] doesn't support them in the mission, but he'd like them to continue failing at it for a couple more years".
The Canadian Jewish Congress Affair
In the course of a 2010 column for Maclean's,Steyn accused the Canadian Jewish Congress, which he often criticizes, of supporting what he called the "ubiquitous campus Judenhass" and a user of the term "kikeroaches" while criticising Ann Coulter, whom he called "a great defender of the state of Israel". He quoted criticism of Coulter from a page on the CJC's websitenot realizing it was a copy of an editorialfrom a small Toronto-area newspaper. Maclean's later appended a note to Steyn's column noting that
- In this column, [...] quotes were attributed to the Canadian Jewish Congress that came from The Mississauga News. [...] Subsequent commentary and satire in the column was linked to those quotes. Maclean’s regrets any confusion they might have caused by attributing certain positions directly to the CJC.
In a subsequent Maclean's column,Steyn accused CJC head Bernie Farber of lying about details of the page on the CJC's website, called him "a Jewish book burner", and noted that "the only words even hinting that the unsigned editorial does not come from Bernie Farber’s desk were two small words in parentheses: '(Mississauga News)'". Steyn also claimed that "simply as a point of Canadian law, the CJC is the publisher", a claim which Chris Selley of the
National Post called "astoundingly disingenuous", while accepting Steyn's argument "that he misinterpreted the words 'Mississauga News' as 'news from Mississauga that's relevant to the CJC,' rather than as an attribution."
