Avi Lewis - On The Map

On The Map

In June 2007, CBC Newsworld debuted On the Map with Avi Lewis, a daily (Monday-Thursday) half-hour of international news commentary. Lewis discussed such issues as the "Oil Law" that the United States wished Iraq to adopt, women in Afghanistan, and what exactly is meant by the phrase "ungoverned spaces". The show was officially renewed for November 2007 and then disappeared without ever airing again. On the Map's half-hour time slot was replaced with a half-hour summary of the daily hour-long show 'Politics' by Don Newman.

During the same time period, The Hour, which had a mix of news commentary and pop culture and provided a lighter fare than On the Map, became decidedly more oriented to pop culture - even though there has been some creep towards greater news commentary as the season progressed. George Stroumboulopoulos, who had also worked with Lewis on MuchMusic, stated during the opening show, that the modification of format was because The Hour would now be shown right after The National (rather than before in previous seasons) when shown on the CBC main channel.

Lewis conducted a June 11, 2007 interview with political writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Lewis sharply questioned some of Ali's views - including her denial of the existence of Islamophobia, her belief that Islam was inherently misogynistic, and her positive opinions concerning American democracy. Lewis compared Islamophobia to Anti-Semitism, seeing both as equally real, to which Ali replied: "Racism is a universal trait, so is antisemitism, by the way. But I want us not to confuse a set of beliefs such as Islam, with ethnicity such as the hatred against Jews just because they are Jews, or against blacks just because they are black, or against gays just because of- it's something you can't do anything about. Whereas Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it's not Islamophobic to say ... this is being done in the name of your religion."

Lewis has stated that Hugo Chávez's actions do not match his rhetoric and has criticized Chávez for not doing more to close down the "laboratory" of policies which he had inherited from previous administrations. Naomi Klein, who credited Avi Lewis for his input into her book The Shock Doctrine, links both stifling of dissent and concentration of power with the implementation of these earlier economic policies.