Pommygranate has posted a fantastic report on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s presentation at the Sydney Recital Hall last Sunday night. Inspirational stuff.
A couple of stories from The Australian:
“Extremist students take over Newcastle mosque”:
Up to 150 university students from Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Egypt who follow the fundamentalist Wahabbism ideology were central to the overthrow at the weekend of the executive board of the Newcastle Muslim Association.
Deposed association president Yunus Kara yesterday accused the students of pushing for new leadership of the port city’s mosque in order to advance their own extremist agenda and continue “brainwashing” local Muslims.
“The international students have used their puppets to come forward and dictate,” Mr Kara told The Australian.
“They’re driving them to whatever ideology that (suits them). Their ideology is extremism … but they teach under the banner of Islam.”
“Taxation office to probe Muslim cleric on Saudi cash”:
An ACT Islamic organisation has also accused the Palestinian-born imam Mohammad Swaiti of being “radical”, anti-Western in his religious teachings, and failing to declare payments he received from officiating at wedding ceremonies.
Documents obtained by The Australian reveal an Australian Tax Office investigation into Sheik Swaiti over allegations by senior Muslim community leaders that he failed to declare his clerical allowances of up to $US30,000 ($37,700) a year, which were paid to him by the Saudi Government.
The tax office sent Islamic Society of ACT president Sabrija Poskovic a letter in reply to written allegations made by him and his community regarding Sheik Swaiti.
“I refer to your letter relating to the imam of your mosque, Mohammad Swaiti, who also happens to be a tax office employee,” the ATO’s letter to Mr Poskovic says.
[..]
Mr Poskovic accused the Saudi Embassy of bankrolling the annual salaries of up to 20 imams around Australia, including Sheik Swaiti, through its Islamic donations (Daawa) office.
A letter understood to be sent on behalf of Mr Poskovic claims the Saudis pay the imams “mukafa”, which is regarded a “reward compensation payment”. It also alleges that Sheik Swaiti had been on the Saudi payroll for 12 years.
Are parts of Australia heading the way of some cities in Europe, like Antwerp, where the Saudi-sponsored radical Salafists/Wahhabists have taken over all 25 mosques? On a bigger scale, just watch what is happening in Kosovo, where the Wahhabis have sponsored about 200 mosques and religious schools since 1999:
Wahhabis open internet cafes associated with their mosques, “in a bid to attract children to listen to ‘naslihates’ against Skenderbeg and the Albanian national renewal movement, the Western civilization and even Kosovo’s traditional brand of Islam,” the media report.
The newspapers in Priština also say that “Kosovo and international mujahedins may be preparing for a rebellion on the brink of the status solution,”
Or look at the growing influence of the Wahhabis in Bosnia, . Rather predictably, in both places a growing section of the Muslim population is growing increasingly radicalised. Lets not be going in that direction.
‘TERRIFIED students and teachers at government schools across NSW are under attack by intruders at a rate of more than one playground invasion a day’:
Knives, broken bottles, poles, cane-cutters, a sword and even a paving hammer have been used to threaten or harm students, principals and teachers.
One of the victims of the incidents is a male Year 10 student who was assaulted by six youths while sitting an exam, while in another case an enraged parent tried to break down a door to “kill” a Year 7 boy.
Police were also called to a primary school in Sydney’s west after the father of two students pulled out a knife and told a mother in Arabic: “You see this, I’m going to put it in your stomach when you leave.”
This is outrageous! What are they doing mentioning he spoke in Arabic? What does that have to do with the story? Don’t they realise they are going to disturb racial harmony and threaten satotage upon our multicultural paradise? The same thing gets said in many different languages in schools right across Australia all the time, damn it, but go ahead and victimise our Arabic speaking minority. Again. Like they haven’t been through enough already. Makes much more sense to just blame John Howard.
A holiday sign sighting in Byron Bay:
Well, you were only going to smoke it anyway.
Unable to stand the shame any longer I promptly joined the queue nearby to have my car recycled into wind chimes. I now drive a fridge.
Meanwhile in Canada…
UPDATE: the link to the story in that post is dead, here it is on another site.
Paul Sheehan calls ‘bullshit’ in the Sydney Morning Herald, Oct 30: “Sheik tries to lie his way out of trouble”
On Thursday the imam of the Lakemba Mosque, Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, went on television and lied. Brazenly. In an interview with A Current Affair, Hilaly was asked to justify his comments that women bore the ultimate responsibility for the crime of rape, specifically his comment: “If one puts uncovered meat out in the street then the cats come and eat it, is it the fault of the cat or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.”
Hilaly’s response, in Arabic, came via his translator and spin doctor, Keysar Trad: “He’s saying that the man is responsible, that the cat is responsible.”
Absolute rubbish.
Next, Hilaly was asked about his comment: “She is the one wearing a short skirt, then a meeting, then a crime, then Long Bay jail, then comes a merciless judge who gives you 65 years.”
Trad, on behalf of Hilaly, replied: “What is meant by that is that anybody who commits the crime of rape deserves 65 years. The judge should not show mercy to that person.”
Absolute rubbish.
The clearly sceptical reporter, Ben Fordham, using a transcript of Hilaly’s speech, insisted this was not what he had said.
Trad replied: “The intention in that context is that this person does not deserve mercy. That the judge should show no mercy to that person.”
There is a word for this: lying.
Deborah Hope in The Australian, Oct 28: “Islam’s gender crisis”
Some Muslim men’s fear of women is cast in sharp relief by an outlandish sermon.
A LEADING Muslim cleric’s recent sermon, translated this week, blaming women for inviting rape through their choice of clothes and make-up, brings to a head in Australia the titanic collision between conservative Islam and modernity.
Whether this collision can be reconciled is one of the key issues for the West today. The issue is far bigger than Australian Mufti Sheik Taj Din al-Halali’s preoccupation with rapes cases involving Muslim men.
Editorial in The Australian looks back at 20 years of Meat Sheik Hilalisms, Oct 27: “Time to muzzle the outrageous Mufti”
In 1988, he infamously told Muslim students at Sydney University that Jews used “sex and abominable acts of buggery, espionage, treason and economic hoarding to control the world”.
[..]In 2004, he visited Lebanon and described the September 11 terrorist attacks as “God’s work against oppressors” and said that “good lies in evil”. Sheik Hilali would later defend himself to the ABC’s Geraldine Doogue, saying that the controversy stemmed from errors in translation from his florid, High Arabic style. As he put it weakly at the time, “it was poetry and in poetry we go a little bit into the imagination of presentation”.
[..]In the midst of a sermon last November criticising anti-terrorism laws, the sheik complained that the Holocaust was a “Zionist lie” and asked, “What’s that six million all about? Is there six million?”. This past winter he described Israel as a “cancer” in the heart of the Muslim world.
Tanveer Ahmed ousts some uncomfortable truths in the Australian, Oct 30: “Islam can modernise”
A large number of Australian Muslims agree with Hilali’s rant
[..]As long as Muslims view their religion as sitting above history and culture - with the Koran as the literal word of God, which in their view makes Islam undebatable - there will always be Hilalis who can point to certain texts and argue for a social and legal structure consistent with 7th-century Arabia. Let’s not forget that a senior British cleric lavished praise on Hilali in response to this incident, saying Australia was lucky to have him, and suggesting he was “one of the greatest Islamic scholars in the world”.
This is a man who knows the Koran in intimate detail and his views are consistent with a strict reading of the Muslim holy book.
And if you believe the Koran is the literal word of God, how is anything other than a strict interpretation appropriate?
Tanveer Ahmed again on onlineopinion.com.au, Oct 27: “Draw back the veil”
The stabbing death of a Gold Coast woman in a domestic dispute that was apparently sparked by a daughter’s wish to convert from her Islamic faith is a clear example of why the debate on integration and Australian values is one worth having.
There will be many leaders, both from Islamic and academic circles, who will condemn this death and assure us all that it was extraordinary and had nothing to with Islam. They would be right, but not entirely.
The tragic episode highlights a common trend in large numbers of migrants, especially those from South Asian and Arab backgrounds.
Many have no desire to interact in any way with mainstream culture unless it is absolutely necessary. Their attitude is that they have sacrificed a great deal to leave their homes, families and ancestry. They are here to further their children’s education in order to give them a better chance in life as well as send money back home to help their extended families. Their purposes are economic and educational.
[..]What is unique about Muslim communities is that the paradigm of honour, shame, and the obsession with saving face are at the core of their identities. This is a derivation from the clan, village-based groups most have migrated from.
This world view results in seeing wives and children as an extension of male honour. A friend said that in his culture any deviation from authority by the children was viewed as the fault of the mother and her inability to guide them correctly.
While this may not be encouraged in Islam, although there are some quotes from the Koran that could be interpreted as such encouragement, the religion is based on a social system formed from tribes and clans. Its laws are very much about preserving the cohesion and honour of the tribe, at the expense of the individual.
Primus bring some (cl)ass to the debate on Sailing the Seas of Cheese: “Tommy the Cat”
“I remember as it were a meal ago”
Said Tommy the Cat as he reeled back to clear whatever foreign matter
may have nestled its way into his mighty throat. Many a fat alley rat
had met its demise while staring point blank down the cavernous barrel
of this awesome prowling machine. Truly a wonder of nature this urban
predator. Tommy the cat had many a story to tell, but it was a rare
occasion such as this that he did.“She came slidin’ down the alleyway like butter drippin’ off a hot
biscuit. The aroma, the mean scent, was enough to arouse suspicion in
even the oldest of Tigers that hung around the hot spot in those
days. The sight was beyond belief. Many a head snapped for double,
even triple, takes as this vivacious feline made her her way into the
delta of the alleyway where the most virile of the young tabbys were
known to hang out. They hung in droves. Such a multitude of
masculinity could only be found in one place… and that was
O’malley’s Alley. The air was thick with cat calls (no pun intended)
but not even a muscle in her neck did twitch as she sauntered up into
the heart of the alley. She knew what she wanted. She was lookin’
for that stud bull, the he cat. And that was me. Tommy the Cat is my
name and I say unto thee…Say baby do you wanna lay down by me.”
Fax that one to Keysar Trad pronto.
“What he meant was that he is a big fan of Primus and Tommy the Cat is a top notch song. Clearly the Arabic version has lost some of the meaning. What I am trying to say is the Sheik is one cool cat and wants to lay down with some of them sexy Western ladies, you know what I’m sayin’? Say baby!”
Sure, Keysar. Keep on sailing on, homie.
If you’re in Sydney you may like to drop round to Centennial Park sometime and check out the newly hatched signets. Here are some photos I took with a phone camera.
The whole family:
One more Steyn in Australia post. Here’s a transcript of the interview from the Lateline program, with Tony Jones.
The discussion takes off where Mark left off on the PM radio program on Monday, when he said Israel should have moved against Syria, rather than Hezbollah. Interestingly Mark says he does not think an Islamist regime would follow a toppled Assad government. Unfortunately he does not get a chance to say what he think would follow.
The interview focuses on Mark’s opinion that an artificial stability in the Middle East, with the US propping up various unpopular regimes, is not in the interest of the West. He suggests, for example, that the US should be funding the restless Sunni minority in Iran to distabilise the Islamic Republic. I had assumed this would already be happening anyway. The Iranians have certainly accused the US of doing just that. Perhaps it is matter of the magnitude of funding and/or type of support given.
Read the transcript here.
Mark Steyn was on the ABC’s Counterpoint program on Monday and they have put the transcript up on the Counterpoint site.
Michael Duffy barely had a chance to get started when Mark dropped a bombshell. Brazenly showing his true colours, yet concealing the revelation in an apparent joke (thus giving himself the ultimate escape clause should the ‘revolution’ not go according to plan), he announced his defection to the enemy camp:
Michael Duffy: Is this your first visit?
Mark Steyn: No, I was here a few years ago, not that many years ago but it was pre-9/11, so it seems like a lost age now, it could be something from two centuries ago for all the differences we’ve had since then.
Michael Duffy: You probably got through security a lot quicker then, did you?
Mark Steyn: Actually I get through security pretty quickly now because once you tell them you’re a columnist…they say, ‘What do you do?’ and I say, ‘I’m a newspaper communist. In my line of work, everything after five minutes is material.’ And they just whisk you through.
Safe in the Red stronghold of the ABC, the interviewer played along, covering brilliantly for the now unmasked Steyn by diverting the discussion to pinko ‘music’ talk for most of the interview.
The mask was back on and worn brilliantly as ever in the second half, most of which I reproduce below.
Tonight is census night, and the hottest question on the paper for Australia as always is going to be the one about religion.
Will Jedi finally be recognised as an official faith (70,000 registered Jedi in 2001)? And who will win the race for the fastest growing religion (last time it was Buddhism with a growth from 200,000 to 360,000 in 5 years)? Danna Vale will no doubt be anxiously awaiting confirmation that “Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years’ time”. As will the Muslims.
Meanwhile, it appears that our younger generation is turning away from organised religion, according to a three-year national study, jointly done by Monash University, the Australian Catholic University and the Christian Research Association:
Researchers conducted the random survey with 1619 people. Of those, 1272 were aged 13 to 24 and the rest were aged 25 to 59.
University of NSW Emeritus Professor of sociology and anthropology Clive Kessler said the results reflected the secular and sceptical nature of Australian society.
A QUESTION OF SPIRIT
- 48 per cent of Generation Y believe in a god.
- 20 per cent do not believe in a god.
- 32 per cent are unsure.
- 19 per cent of Generation Y are actively involved in a church.
- 17 per cent have an eclectic spirituality, believing in two or more “New Age”, esoteric or eastern beliefs, including reincarnation, psychics and astrology.
- 31 per cent can be classified as humanists, rejecting the idea of a god, although a few believe in a “higher being”.
(EDIT: html error was cutting out a paragraph or two here…)
The process is not going fast enough for some people:
Greens call for secular alternative to religion classes
The New South Wales Greens are calling on the State Government to offer students a non-religious alternative to school scripture classes.
Greens education spokesman John Kaye says the deal between the Government and churches to have one hour of religious instruction in public schools needs to be re-examined.
Mr Kaye says it is time that school students were offered a secular alternative to the one-hour scripture class.
“The deal dates back 126 years to 1880 and for all that time the churches have had a monopoly on religious instruction in public schools,” he said.
“This is not appropriate, it doesn’t match the needs of our community.
“It doesn’t match the diversity of world views held by the people in Australia.”
At the other end of the spectrum the Family First party is gaining in popularity and a coalition of Christian MPs is fighting back against the ultra-secularists:
CHRISTIANITY has been under “consistent attack” and should be re-established as the dominant belief system in Australia.
This argument was mounted yesterday by more than a dozen politicians of all hues at a Christian conference in Canberra.
Former Nationals leader John Anderson, president of the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, opened the 300-strong Christian forum at Parliament House last night, saying secularism had gone too far.
“I think we confuse in the public mind very much what we really are, and certainly our government is secular,” he said. “It’s actually a Christian concept that you should separate church and state — it’s one of the great differences between us and Muslim societies.
‘What is a secular value system? I could argue the extreme case, that a secular value system gave us World WarII via Nazism.”
One reason for the decline of Christianity in Australia may be all the bad press its been getting for… well, for as long as anyone can remember really. And one approach for getting bums back onto pews that is currently being tried in the UK is apparently to “take ‘religion’ out of church”:
For those who are curious about Christianity but disillusioned by the institutional Church, there is a novel solution - drop the religion.
The Rev Ian Gregory, a cleric well known to readers of The Daily Telegraph for launching the Campaign for Courtesy in an attempt to improve manners, has embarked on a new project which he calls “Christianity without religion”.
Out goes the “archaic mumbo-jumbo” of church services and the “silly arguments about things that don’t and shouldn’t matter”; in come chats about anything that makes you feel good and the world’s first dedicated “laughter room” because “laughter is as important as prayer”.
..
“People are fed up with religion. The bar-room talk is that it causes too much trouble in the world. But people are intrigued by spirituality and by figures such as Jesus and Buddha.”, [thats the Rev speaking]
..
Not laughing is man of the moment and dedicated Catholic, Mel Gibson, an expert in “anything that makes you feel good”:
In a compelling interview on US television two years ago, Gibson admitted that he has many times thought of ending his suffering. Asked if he had thought of jumping out of a window, he replied: “I really did, yeah. I was looking down thinking, man, this is just easier this way. You have to be mad, you have to be insane to despair in that way. But that is the height of spiritual bankruptcy. There’s nothing left.” For someone punching the time clock for a few shekels a week, it seems rather ridiculous that a man with an estimated wealth of more than $1 billion would feel this way.
“Let’s face it, I’ve been to the pinnacle of what secular utopia has to offer,” Gibson told ABC TV in the US. “It’s just this kind of everything. I’ve got money, fame, this, that and the other, you know, and it’s all been like, whoosh here, here you go, like that. And it’s like, OK. And when I was younger, I got my proboscis out and I dipped it into the font and sucked it up, all right. It didn’t matter, there wasn’t enough, it wasn’t good enough. It’s not good enough. It leaves you empty. The more you eat the emptier you get.
“I think everybody in their life gets to a point where that happens. Where they get to the moment of truth and they go, ‘Well, what is this all about? Am I going to jump? Am I going to go on? I don’t want to do either. I don’t want to live. I don’t want to die.’ You ask yourself all those Hamlet questions.”
Another interesting tidbit I dug up about Australia is that in a recent study some social scientists looking at actual governmental practices in regards to various religious groups gave Australia a government favouritism index of 0 out 10 towards the “official or preferred religion”. Ie, no favouritism at all. Taiwan was the only other country that scored 0. In comparison Afghanistan, Iceland, Belgium, Greece and Spain all somehow scored 7.8, Denmark got 6.7 and Finland 6. The average score for Western nation was in fact higher than the score for Syria.
I shall seek to maintain our glorious null favouritism index and wish all of the above interest groups the best of luck in tonights race. May the force be with you!
UPDATE: Saint at Dogfight In Bankstown alerted me to one lot I missed. The Assemblies of God are also in the running with a campaign to get their own checkbox on the form, instead of just being lumped into the “Other - please specify” basket. Good luck with that one also. Its between you and the Jedi, I reckon.
It was definitely a quantity not quality day when I wrote this post.
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