Australia still in denial

Submitted by Reuben Horne (Australia), Aug 31, 2005 at 05:24

Dr Pipes,
As an Australian I must point out that the glimmers of an awakening that you have honed in on have been all but counteracted by the idiocy and distorted reporting of a persistently left wing media in Australia. Night after night debates are conducted on public broadcasts with self congratulatory closet Islamists marketing their religion. The rush of new converts in the post September 11 furor seems to vindicate the old axiom that you cannot have bad publicity. It is the public debates that we so frequently have which demonstrate the ground that needs must be covered. No pressing questions are asked of any of the moslem panelists and even when they do get asked a halfway embarrassing question they engage in the customary double talk that characterises a well practiced cultural misdirection. The media are readily fooled by such things seeming to be of inferior intellect, general character and possessing memories so short they cannot remember what question they asked let alone whether it was answered. But the Australian population who sense the illegitimacy of the loud protests of intolerence in the face of the mass slaughter of their civilians overseas - and have to deal with the over 400,000 muslims who have appeared overnight in our country sometimes on a daily basis - don't ever seem to be represented in these debates.

Two main platitudes are endlesslessly reiterated to be assimilated into our subconscious so that we will repeat them like parrots: (1) The majority of Muslims are peace loving, tolerant people who fit well within our democracy and share our values (2) The blame for extremism lies with us for persecuting the muslims and also our media for pushing a skewed view of Islam and not emphasising its positive side.

Lesser propositions which we are also supposed to blindly accept include: (3) The amount of people killed in terrorism is small world wide (one left wing commentator citing the highly dubious figure of 3000 people for the last year) and the money (hundreds of billions) would be better spent on some neosocialist agenda or another which would manifestly reduce the amount of terrorism by cutting down on inequity, (4) Terrorists are criminals and therefore it is inappropriate that we treat them as a military threat and the combatants as having any sort of Islamic ideological underpinning because there is no ideological link between Islam and these extremists at all (well you could have fooled me!), the problem is instead a international policing one, (5) in furtherance of (4) Islam is actually a religion of peace and some quotation like "he that saves a life saves the world entire etc etc" is cited for good measure (actually having been stolen from the Torah but lets not quibble over minor details).

Breaking this argument down and starting with (1) no data has been gathered ascertain the actual political alignment of the Islamic community - I assume probably because the results would be frightening no matter how you framed the questions. I refer to one of the earlier Dr Pipes articles which refered to a survey of London after the bombings painting a frightening picture of the pattern of opinion within the Islamic community.

On another related matter, no data is gathered on the social security status of these communities, probably because the bulk of them are recieving unemployment or other benefits which would cause the Australian population to wonder why we need an Islamic community at all.

(2) The media, if anything, is guilty of skewing things in favor of the Islamists - look at the double standards in journalism around the world when reporting on Israel - sometimes the terrorist outrage that Israel is militarily reacting against is never even alluded to. Look at the ample time they get to voice their purile opinions in debate after debate and interview after interview. After the Bali attacks the Australian Human Rights commision interviewed hundreds of Muslims and could find only around three clear incidents of abuse of muslims and all of them involved trivialities (like for example a second generation Australian muslim being told to "go home"). Considering the carnage and our subdued reaction you would think we were saintly. And of course I do not even need to mention how non-muslim minorities fare in predominantly Islamic countries (see www.dhimmi.org).

(3) I cannot even begin to reduce the pathetic amorality that governs this argument into something that does not make me quiver with rage. Simply because a small number of people die needlessly we are to turn our backs on this problem. First of all I would think that the figure would be substantially higher than 3,000 worldwide especially across the middle east in any given year, second of all retreat and withdrawal is only likely to inflate this figure and give comfort to our sworn enemies (as Ariel Sharon is no doubt about to discover). As for pumping the money into a neosocialist poor box it just illustrates the lefts preparedness to use any public forum to push their own agenda no matter how shameless. Suffice to say we spend billions on aid each year to little or no effect. About $100m of the $1Bn in aid provided for tsunami relief in Indonesia has already disappeared into that corrupt country without a trace or any tangible benefit to the victims of the natural disaster.

(4) Terrorists usually act with the consent or the defacto consent and patronage of given middle eastern states thus they have a nationality, and even if they arent operating with permission/cooperation the states that they are operating from have an obligation to clean them out otherwise they have no right to claim the territory that these "criminals" operate in as part of their jurisdiction (a principle that Israel "used" to be familiar with).

(5) and (4) Numerous statements in the Koran when weighed objectively in a western context make it the most fervently anti Islamic document available - it demonstrates unequivocally that peace will never be entirely achievable and paints a picture of a civilisation that has found its identity in a crusade to destroy and enslave us. It promotes wife beating, it excuses the killing of innocents, the murder of homosexuals, atheists, pagans and agnostics, the raping of captured and subjugated women and the mutilation of criminals and adversaries. There are numerous magnanimous passages mostly stolen from elsewhere but within its hallowed pages on will find ample ideological justification for the pursuit of terrorist tactics. In fact some western scholars and Imams overseas and domestically have argued that terrorists are actually the "real" or "true" muslims.

On the whole "no comment from any American figures" matter I think that you might find the answer in the whole blind adherence to the principles of freedom of speech, assembly and religion. In a western context we seem to have grown so used to the seperation of church and state that we automatically assume that this division is true of every other society. In the instance of Islam however - in encountering a religion that is also a political party we have exceeded the limits of the self contained paradigm through which we assess reality. If Islam were regarded as a political party the USA could ban it just like any other unsavory organisation (the KKK, the Nazi party). Our system and that in the US make it almost impossible to fight an opponent that organises itself around a religion.

So these statements are few steps in the right direction that are no where near enough. Maybe they are just trying to placate people like us with their rhetoric this time as the words have yet to be backed up legislatively. I can quote London's mayor on this matter - given the new tighter anti terrorism legislation proposed by Tony Blair he was heard to say: "I would support it if it passed the Nelson Mandela test," which was "Whether the legislation would have hindered Nelson Mandela from operating out of London." So now we are expected to make value judgements about which terrorists we support given how just we percieve their causes to be? A warped principle that has already been turned against Israel. Already we see the left wing ideologues whittling away at the legislation and controlling the debate.

On a final and personal note I would like to add (and I think I speak for a lot of people in Australia and the UK) that it upsets me when my own democratic freedoms are curtailed via blanket generally applicable legislation passed (assuming it does get passed) simply because of the political instability caused by one particular religious minority in my country. It's no real consolation that legislation in being generally applicable is simply conforming with our notion of a rule of law in not singling any group or class out (whether it be fair or not). But rather than picking on the Muslims who are simply acting as Muslims must and always have acted, I save my ire for the future blind left wing idiots who campaigned oh so hard to bring these people here ...
Cheers,
Reuben Horne.

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