How Murdoch’s own reporters prove he is wrong …

So where do the loyalties of Australia’s 300,000 Muslims lie? Do Muslims swear allegiance to a foreign religious figure? Or to an international church? Or to an alien legal system based on a system of criminal sanctions based on amputation without anaesthetic?

Our nation’s most influential ex-Australian has made his position clear. News.com.au reported Mr Murdoch’s comments to Channel Nine on 26 June 2006 as follows: “You have to be careful about Muslims who have a very strong, in many ways a fine, but very strong religion which supercedes any sense of nationalism wherever they go,"

Certainly if Mr Murdoch’s perspective were coloured by some of the material printed in the op-ed pages of his newspapers, he might be forgiven for believing this simplistic view of an Australian community hailing from over 60 different countries.

Two of Australia’s most prominent Muslim-haters find pride of place as regular columnists for Murdoch tabloids in Sydney and Melbourne. The Murdoch broadsheet regularly publishes articles by Mark Steyn and Daniel Pipes, both of whom are known for their venomous attitudes toward Muslims.

Writing for the neo-Conservative FrontPageMag.com, Sharon Lapkin cites Steyn’s views as follows: “Everywhere in the world, Muslims are in conflict with their neighbours. And as Mark Steyn recently said, every conflict appears to have originated by someone with the name of Mohammed.”

On one occasion, The Australian even published an article by former National Party Senator John Stone who called for the formation of a Queen Isabella Society to commemorate her expulsion of Muslims from Spain in the 15th century. This would be akin to calling for the formation of a Slobodan Milosevic Society in a Bosnian or Croatian newspaper.

Despite the xenophobia projected by some regular Murdoch columnists, The Australian has also reported on Muslim community affairs on a regular basis. One Melbourne-based reporter, Richard Kerbaj, has focussed on a range of Muslim organisational issues, including ethnic ruptures within Muslim peak bodies.

Kerbaj has reported on the ethnic-based divisions within the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC). He has identified the existence of competing Fiji-Indian and Pakistani factions within AFIC. He has also focussed on the ethnic and tribal divisions within the Lebanese Moslems Association and other Muslim groups.

Kerbaj’s work is perhaps the best evidence against Murdoch’s claims. Kerbaj has exposed the severe ethnic divisions within the Muslim community, not to mention the general generational division between Muslims brought up in Australia and those brought up overseas.

If Rupert Murdoch wishes to see his views contested, he need only look as far as one of his most competent reporters and in one of his most respected newspapers.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006