RACISM: AIJAC Writer Claims Muslim Cultures Promote Rape

Were the Cronulla riots a response to gang rapes? According to one post graduate student at the University of Melbourne, the answer is yes.

In the immediate aftermath of the Cronulla riots, Sharon Lapkin authored a piece claiming that Muslim cultures promote sexual assault of women.

The article, published in neo-Conservative Front Page Magazine website, claims that gang rapes formed a necessary context to the Cronulla riots. The article also attacks Australia’s status quo of multiculturalism for promoting ...

... cultural relativism ...

... and claims that ...

... Islamic migration ...

... to western nations has brought with it ...

... Third World value systems regarding the treatment of women ...

... including...

... forced marriages, officially sanctioned rape, and honour killings.

Sharon Lapkin described herself in the article as ...

... a former Australian Army Officer and a postgraduate student at the University of Melbourne.

One wonders whether the Australian Army would like to be mentioned in the context of Lapkin's articles defaming Muslim cultures, especially given the presence of hundreds of Australian troops risking their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ms Lapkin is also a contributor to the Australia/Israel Review, published by the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council. Her previous articles for the Review have made farcical claims of al-Qaida plots being hatched by mainstream Muslim organisations in universities and off campus. She has sought to claim that groups with some tenuous ideological link to Middle Eastern Muslim movements are recruiting home-grown terrorists.

Lapkin’s Cronulla effort included the startling claim that Pakistani and other Muslim cultures are characterised by the abuse of women. Among the practices she lists are female genital mutilation, a practice virtually unknown in the Indian sub-Continent among any faith-community.

Lapkin cites claims made by defence counsel for a Pakistani man convicted of gang rape of teenage girls. The convicted rapist instructed his Counsel to argue that ...

... his cultural background was responsible for his crimes.

And Lapkin’s response to this claim?

And he is right.

Lapkin goes onto assert that Pakistanis hail from ...

... a society where officially sanctioned sexual violence is commonly employed as a means to enforce the subservience of women.

There is no doubt that abuses of women do occur in Pakistani society. The writer has himself criticised Pakistan's human rights record, including its treatment of victims of mass-rape such as Mukhtar Mai.

Lapkin’s claims play into the hands of those she descriobes as "neo-Nazis" who participated in (if not orchestrated) the Cronulla riots. She is, in effect, providing ideological and rhetorical ammunition to those very groups. It is one thing to allege that such abuses exist in Pakistan. It is another to claim that the cultures of all Pakistanis promote physical and sexual violence toward women.

And so we see at least one regular contributors to AIJAC publications using clearly racist and xenophobic language to virtually justify one of the worst incidents of racial riots in 21st century Australia.

What makes Lapkin’s claims even worse is that prominent Pakistani and Muslim Australians have refuted statements made on behalf of the convicted rapist. Indeed, when one Muslim religious leader claimed women’s dress made them “eligible for rape”, state and national Muslim peak bodies (not to mention the writer) immediately condemned the sentiments.

Lapkin’s article contains statements about other cultures that are deeply offensive and clearly racist. She attributes specific human rights abuses to all Muslims, and her writing echoes the sentiments of those supporting the Cronulla rioters.

Mark Leibler, National Chairman of AIJAC, recently criticised those who claims Aboriginal cultures promoted violence against women. Leibler was right in taking such a stand.

And so when similar claims are made about the cultures of a faith community closer to Judaism than any other faith on earth (and when such claims are made by contributors to AIJAC’s official publication), we can only hope Mr Leibler will show consistency in showing similar disdain to such clearly offensive sentiments.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf


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