Your situation is like something out of a Franz Kafka novel, maddening to hear and worse for you. But it has allowed you the outlet of creating one amazing essay after another, and share with subscribers and passengers on substack. Hard to believe Canada doesn't provide a legal outlet for redress of grievances, while in the States folk can file almost frivilous lawsuits one after another, and your situation screams out injustice and substance.
It’s shameful and despicable to learn how these institutions have been totally captured by an ideology that seeks to dismantle and destroy our cherished Western values. Keep writing and posting. Your story deserves a large audience. We must have conviction that the pendulum will swing in the opposite direction. You deserve vindication and justice, Paul.
The more you share of your story the more I am disgusted with Canada in general and the so-called institutes of higher learning in particular. G’d help us all!!!
Perhaps a more effective approach would be to organize a grassroots boycott of Guelph? If parents stop enrolling their kids there, the university will be forced into collapse or reform. Heads should roll.
If the bureaucrats at the University of Guelph-Humber had the least bit of moral clarity, they would have fired the professors who supported Hamas and expelled the students who did the same. Instead, they fired the guy who exposed this shameful complicity with terrorists.
I fully agree with your original comment, however "hot headed" it may be. Here is a summary of the case.
Finlayson maintains that his posts were a "fiery defense" of Israel and a condemnation of the "barbaric" actions of Hamas (a designated terrorist organization in Canada). [and they were and they hold up] While he later admitted the post was "hot-headed," he argues that calling out genocidal rhetoric should fall under fair comment and academic freedom. Finlayson and his supporters point to what they call a severe institutional double standard. He has publicly alleged that while he was heavily penalized for his pro-Israel comments, other faculty members and campus groups have shared highly inflammatory, anti-Israel rhetoric without facing institutional discipline or termination. [This is true] Finlayson stated that he faced a targeted defamation campaign, a lack of institutional support, and procedural unfairness throughout the prolonged investigation. [Also true, as the lack of union support reveals] Ultimately, the university framed the firing as a disciplinary response to a breach of workplace harassment policies regarding the language used online. [In other words, they use bureaucracy to punish him rather than state outright what they were doing.] In contrast, Finlayson and free-speech advocates frame the dismissal as an example of academic overreach and ideological censorship. [and they're right]
When I hear "Free Palestine," I respond, "Yes, free Palestine ... from Hamas. The Palestinians are subjugated and oppressed, not by Israel but by the hateful ideology of Islamism they are raised in and have internalized. They need to be liberated from Hamas and Islamism for any chance at a good life. Islamism is literally killing them and their children, who are turned into 'martyrs for Islam.'
It's often said that after Oct 7th, the "two-state solution" was off the table. It has been offered since 1947 but rejected many times by the Arab side. Why keep pretending it will work? And yet the West keeps pretending.
The Arab states won't take them in because of their history of violence and also to continue using them as a thorn in the side of Israel, which satisfies the spirit of Islamic jihad. That evil spirit is what influences politics in the Middle East and makes Arab politicians who want to have detente with Israel waver and cave in to it. They are afraid of jihad too.
The entire problem, going back a century, stems from Arab insecurity and Islamic Jew-hatred. They only want to accept Jews who are subjugated, as was the case under the Ottoman Empire. So Zionists brought better technology, modern medicine, agriculture and clean water -- instead of thanking them for all that, the Arabs felt threatened by modernity and reverted to a medieval, tribal, war-like mentality.
This jihad against Jews in the 1920s and 30s, resulting in pogroms then, was given support first by Nazi ideology and later by Marxism during the Cold War.
As for leftist supporters, the phrase 'useful idiots' comes to mind. It sounds as though the Guelph-Humber campus has a lot of them.
They have no idea what their mindless slogan stands for. If they saw the carnage that a fallen Israel would result in, they would (I hope) be horrified. But you never know: some of these same people cheered on Oct. 7th, which immediately discredited everything else they say. Some of them cheered on rape and murder and at the same time called for the genocide of Jews with a mindless slogan ("from the river to sea").
They also falsely alleged that Israel commits genocide to justify this outrageous behaviour. Anyone who does all that is an idiot. Every time I see Greta Thunberg or those like her, I want them to be let into Gaza and forced to live there. It would not be long before they'd be crying for help from the IDF to save them.
Sadly, there are a lot of them in the West who support real evil. Most, I would like to think, are just mindless followers who have no idea what they're supporting. But a few really do relish this wicked ideology and want to see the murder of Jews. They are not interested in conversation. They are using Israel as a scapegoat to demonize it. The motivation for this is unconscious.
How this works, based on the work of philosopher René Girard:
Western and global societies face profound internal political, cultural, and moral fractures. Framing Israel as a singular, ultimate source of global evil allows disparate groups to elude complex domestic and geopolitical problems. Anti-Israel rhetoric creates a powerful sense of moral clarity and solidarity among diverse political coalitions (including Leftists, Muslims, and groypers). Just like the ancient lynching mob, participants feel completely justified, projecting all violence and oppression onto the state of Israel while proclaiming their own absolute innocence.
The scapegoat is chosen for its utility rather than specific guilt; Israel functions as a symbolic vessel. The accusations often rely on sweeping, reductive tropes that treat the nation as uniquely malevolent, making the act of collective accusation far more important than factual proportion. By transferring society's internal impulse for conflict onto a concentrated external target, the accusers paradoxically claim to champion peace and human rights while participating in a unanimous cycle of ideological hostility.
Academia 's wholesale adoption of critical theory has transformed places of learning into indoctrination camps. Qatari and Chinese money has extinguished any quaint attachment to Enlightenment values like truth, rationality or logic.
You have to escaped with your brain, your values and total integrity. I am grateful for that will be celebrating that triumph - the first of many I am sure.
I wish there was something more that we could do not just for you, it is in reality, for all of us. Such humans as these deserve to be excommunicated from civil society.
Hang in there brother....not so easy in these Orwellian times.
Your situation is like something out of a Franz Kafka novel, maddening to hear and worse for you. But it has allowed you the outlet of creating one amazing essay after another, and share with subscribers and passengers on substack. Hard to believe Canada doesn't provide a legal outlet for redress of grievances, while in the States folk can file almost frivilous lawsuits one after another, and your situation screams out injustice and substance.
Thank you for your kind words.
It’s shameful and despicable to learn how these institutions have been totally captured by an ideology that seeks to dismantle and destroy our cherished Western values. Keep writing and posting. Your story deserves a large audience. We must have conviction that the pendulum will swing in the opposite direction. You deserve vindication and justice, Paul.
The more you share of your story the more I am disgusted with Canada in general and the so-called institutes of higher learning in particular. G’d help us all!!!
Perhaps a more effective approach would be to organize a grassroots boycott of Guelph? If parents stop enrolling their kids there, the university will be forced into collapse or reform. Heads should roll.
If the bureaucrats at the University of Guelph-Humber had the least bit of moral clarity, they would have fired the professors who supported Hamas and expelled the students who did the same. Instead, they fired the guy who exposed this shameful complicity with terrorists.
I fully agree with your original comment, however "hot headed" it may be. Here is a summary of the case.
Finlayson maintains that his posts were a "fiery defense" of Israel and a condemnation of the "barbaric" actions of Hamas (a designated terrorist organization in Canada). [and they were and they hold up] While he later admitted the post was "hot-headed," he argues that calling out genocidal rhetoric should fall under fair comment and academic freedom. Finlayson and his supporters point to what they call a severe institutional double standard. He has publicly alleged that while he was heavily penalized for his pro-Israel comments, other faculty members and campus groups have shared highly inflammatory, anti-Israel rhetoric without facing institutional discipline or termination. [This is true] Finlayson stated that he faced a targeted defamation campaign, a lack of institutional support, and procedural unfairness throughout the prolonged investigation. [Also true, as the lack of union support reveals] Ultimately, the university framed the firing as a disciplinary response to a breach of workplace harassment policies regarding the language used online. [In other words, they use bureaucracy to punish him rather than state outright what they were doing.] In contrast, Finlayson and free-speech advocates frame the dismissal as an example of academic overreach and ideological censorship. [and they're right]
One more comment on the Israel issue.
When I hear "Free Palestine," I respond, "Yes, free Palestine ... from Hamas. The Palestinians are subjugated and oppressed, not by Israel but by the hateful ideology of Islamism they are raised in and have internalized. They need to be liberated from Hamas and Islamism for any chance at a good life. Islamism is literally killing them and their children, who are turned into 'martyrs for Islam.'
It's often said that after Oct 7th, the "two-state solution" was off the table. It has been offered since 1947 but rejected many times by the Arab side. Why keep pretending it will work? And yet the West keeps pretending.
The Arab states won't take them in because of their history of violence and also to continue using them as a thorn in the side of Israel, which satisfies the spirit of Islamic jihad. That evil spirit is what influences politics in the Middle East and makes Arab politicians who want to have detente with Israel waver and cave in to it. They are afraid of jihad too.
The entire problem, going back a century, stems from Arab insecurity and Islamic Jew-hatred. They only want to accept Jews who are subjugated, as was the case under the Ottoman Empire. So Zionists brought better technology, modern medicine, agriculture and clean water -- instead of thanking them for all that, the Arabs felt threatened by modernity and reverted to a medieval, tribal, war-like mentality.
This jihad against Jews in the 1920s and 30s, resulting in pogroms then, was given support first by Nazi ideology and later by Marxism during the Cold War.
As for leftist supporters, the phrase 'useful idiots' comes to mind. It sounds as though the Guelph-Humber campus has a lot of them.
They have no idea what their mindless slogan stands for. If they saw the carnage that a fallen Israel would result in, they would (I hope) be horrified. But you never know: some of these same people cheered on Oct. 7th, which immediately discredited everything else they say. Some of them cheered on rape and murder and at the same time called for the genocide of Jews with a mindless slogan ("from the river to sea").
They also falsely alleged that Israel commits genocide to justify this outrageous behaviour. Anyone who does all that is an idiot. Every time I see Greta Thunberg or those like her, I want them to be let into Gaza and forced to live there. It would not be long before they'd be crying for help from the IDF to save them.
There is a funny skit about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbfccVBo9tE
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIwvO-DUQNQ
Sadly, there are a lot of them in the West who support real evil. Most, I would like to think, are just mindless followers who have no idea what they're supporting. But a few really do relish this wicked ideology and want to see the murder of Jews. They are not interested in conversation. They are using Israel as a scapegoat to demonize it. The motivation for this is unconscious.
How this works, based on the work of philosopher René Girard:
Western and global societies face profound internal political, cultural, and moral fractures. Framing Israel as a singular, ultimate source of global evil allows disparate groups to elude complex domestic and geopolitical problems. Anti-Israel rhetoric creates a powerful sense of moral clarity and solidarity among diverse political coalitions (including Leftists, Muslims, and groypers). Just like the ancient lynching mob, participants feel completely justified, projecting all violence and oppression onto the state of Israel while proclaiming their own absolute innocence.
The scapegoat is chosen for its utility rather than specific guilt; Israel functions as a symbolic vessel. The accusations often rely on sweeping, reductive tropes that treat the nation as uniquely malevolent, making the act of collective accusation far more important than factual proportion. By transferring society's internal impulse for conflict onto a concentrated external target, the accusers paradoxically claim to champion peace and human rights while participating in a unanimous cycle of ideological hostility.
Academia 's wholesale adoption of critical theory has transformed places of learning into indoctrination camps. Qatari and Chinese money has extinguished any quaint attachment to Enlightenment values like truth, rationality or logic.
You have to escaped with your brain, your values and total integrity. I am grateful for that will be celebrating that triumph - the first of many I am sure.
No luck getting sound with the video. Thanks for posting, and for fighting the good fight!
I don’t think I put sound on it. It’s old. It was before I was fired. I should have put sound if I used it on YouTube. Oops
Can they not be prosecuted for hate crimes? I'm not familiar with Candian law.
It’s a good question. The police were at my door and investigated Ramadan but declined to file charges.
UKLFI are doing great work in Britain. Perhaps they know of a similar organisation in Canada.
I wish there was something more that we could do not just for you, it is in reality, for all of us. Such humans as these deserve to be excommunicated from civil society.