Last Entry: Finances Stop Tour

Five universities visited so far and no incidents, no attempt to silence the discussion, no personal threats.

The main objective of the tour was to insist upon the right to speak freely and to discuss all the issues relevant to our concerns with respect to Islam. It seems that this objective has been met in aces. For, even though two universities did make unreasonable demands for security measures (SMU and MU), still the Moslems in attendance at the lectures have been consistently polite and very welcoming. I'm invited to supper, to the mosque, to meet and discuss the issues late into the night and even at Concordia, arguably the most politically active campus in Canada, everyone was very cordial and a group of Muslims (both male and female) argued the issues with me late into the night at a local coffee house.

So, the objective has been met: I wanted to test free speech in Canada and Canada passed the test with flying colors. True, I only visited the eastern universities, but there seems no reason to think that I would be any less welcome in the West. In fact, I have had numerous contacts with the media in the West of Canada and they seem to view what I'm doing positively.

Unfortunately I am now out of money: all lines of credit are exhausted. So, unless a source of funding comes forward, the effort has to stop ... for the moment. Perhaps my university will come up with the requisite travel moneys.

In any case it's been money well-spent: academic freedom is alive and well in Canada.

Cheers,

Peter March