Speaking of the Québec/Maclean’s controversy, I don’t know if a version of Steyn’s recycled story about Montreal’s 9/11 celebrations ever ended up in one of his Maclean’s columns, but these are interesting to read side by side. Steyn’s journalistic method at work. Spot the “source”.
1. Chicago Sun Times, 2001: … the students at Montreal’s Concordia University who openly celebrated the attacks on the World Trade Center.
2. National Post, 2002: “To the Muslims who celebrated openly in Ramullah, in Copenhagen, in Yorkshire and at Concordia University in Montreal, it was the most spectacular blow yet…."
3. UK Spectator, 2002: “smoke billowing from a pile of rubble on Pennsylvania Avenue, just like the money shot in Independence Day. Those delirious Palestinians and Danes and Montrealers would have danced all night.”
4. UK Spectator, 2004: “Three years ago, I got a flurry of emails from Yorkshire, Oslo, Marseilles and elsewhere recounting incidents of gangs of Muslim youths enthusiastically celebrating the glorious victory of 9/11 by swarming around cars, banging on the windows, intimidating the drivers, yelling Osama’s name. If you tried that in Texas, the guy would reach in his glove box and blow your head off”.
5. Western Standard, 2004: “On the night of September 11, 2001, a gang of Muslim youths rampaged through the streets of Bradford, England, celebrating Islam's glorious victory over the Great Satan. They pounded on the hoods…of cars, hammered the doors and demanded the drivers join them in their chants of ‘Osama bin Laden is a great man.’ Try that in Texas, and the guy will reach into his glove box and blow your head off.”
6. National Review, 2004: On September 11, they celebrated in the streets of Copenhagen and at Concordia University in Montreal. In Bradford, Yorkshire, they roamed the town, banging on the hoods of passing cars, forcing them to stop and making the drivers shout, ““Osama is a great man.”
7. America Alone, page 46: “On the night of September 11th Muslim youths in northern England rampaged through the streets cheering Islam's glorious victory over the Great Satan. They pounded on the hoods of the cars, hammered the doors and demanded the drivers join them in the chants of 'Osama Bin Laden is a great man.'"
8. National Review, 2005: “…the Muslim mobs in Yorkshire, who on the night of September 11 rampaged through the streets banging on the hoods of cars and demanding the drivers join them in cheering Osama bin Laden… If you tried to do that to a pick-up truck in Texas, you’d get your head blown off.”
9. Chicago Sun Times, 2006: “on the streets of Ramallah, people filled the streets and cheered and passed out candy. They celebrated at Concordia University in Montreal, and in northern England and in Scandinavia, too, but I didn’t find that out until e-mail from readers began coming through later in the day.”
10. The Australian, August 2006: “I don't mean the, ah, unfortunate business with the planes and buildings and so forth, but the open cheering of the attacks by their co-religionists in Montreal, Yorkshire, Copenhagen, and elsewhere.”
11. America Alone, page 4: “I don't mean the, ah, unfortunate business with the planes and buildings and so forth, but the open cheering of the attacks by their co-religionists in Montreal, Yorkshire, Copenhagen, and elsewhere.”
12. Interview, 2007: “on the night of September 11th, in several European towns, they demonstrated and chanted in support of Osama bin Laden. Who knew, until they were on the streets of Oslo and other Norwegian cities, that Norway had a big Muslim minority, that was celebrating September 11th? You couldn't get a taxi in certain towns in northern England, because the Muslim taxi drivers were all partying that night…They were banging on the hoods of cars and demanding that the drivers say Osama bin Laden is a great man. Well, if you try that in most American jurisdictions, the guy will just reach into [the] glove box and blow your head off”.
Referring to version #7 (one of two which end up in America Alone) Johann Hari writes:
After the 9/11 massacres, in his Daily Telegraph column (Steyn) repeated as fact preposterous claims that Muslim children all over New York had warned their favourite teachers not to go to the World Trade Centre that day. Here, he says, ‘On the night of September 11th Muslim youths in northern England rampaged through the streets cheering Islam's glorious victory over the Great Satan. They pounded on the hoods of the cars, hammered the doors and demanded the drivers join them in the chants of 'Osama Bin Laden is a great man.'" There is no record of these events on Lexis-Nexis; Steyn has not replied to a request for the source.