Miranda promoting al-Qaida on Pope?

In her most recent column for the Sydney Morning Herald, Miranda Devine falls into the trap of interpreting the Pope’s innocent 7 page speech in the same manner as al-Qaida wackos and other miscellaneous and allegedly-halal riff-raff.

She claims

“the Islamic world [is] still throwing a tantrum over Pope Benedict's speech to a German university last week”.

Which Islamic world? I sure hope she isn’t verballing me.

Some days back, the Daily Telegraph featured an article with accompanying photo of Muslims protesting in Basra, Iraq ’s second largest city. Last time I checked, Basra had a population of over 3 million. And how many showed up to the rally?

Around 150.

She then claims Tony Abbott’s speech to a Lidcombe function organised by the Parramatta Catholic Diocese was part of a trend

“to question whether excessive politeness or political correctness stands in the way of effective dialogue between Islam and the West and may, in fact, hinder efforts to combat potential home-grown Islamic terrorism.”

I was at the function. I took detailed notes. Tony never linked criticism of Islam to security.

Miranda criticises Keysar Trad for wanting Cardinal Clancy to be the next Pope, without telling readers the good Cardinal acknowledged the Church had only recently come to terms with 2,000 years of often violent persecution of European Jews.

Devine then cites “Arabic scholar Paul Stenhouse” printed in Quadrant. Her quotes include the ridiculous claim that

“Osama bin Laden lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri reportedly adopted the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Miranda, the MB was founded in Egypt in 1928 by a chap who was assassinated in 1949. Zawahiri was born 2 years later.

Finally, Miranda adopts al-Qaida’s wacky interpretation of the Pope’s speech. Not even Cardinal Pell made this error. She quotes George Freidman (“founder of the Stratfor newsletter”) who claims the Pope wasn’t addressing students and staff at his old university but rather was sending a “warning to Europe 's Muslims about the limits of tolerance”.

How did Miranda reach these conclusions? Has she actually read the Pope’s speech? Or has she just muddled a few bits together to meet the Herald’s deadline?

Miranda, the Pope has apologised. Personally I don’t think he needed to. But as my Indian Muslim mum keeps telling me: “Saying sorry never harms anyone”. End of story.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Luke McIlveen - Making it up as you go?

There are a number of ways you can engage in sensationalist tabloid journalism. For instance, you can add your own prejudicial context to words otherwise quoted out of context. Then you can just make it up as you go.

What methodology does Daily Telegraph journalist Luke MvIlveen use? Who knows.

In today’s DT, McIlveen manages to find a non-Lebanese Australian mum with 2 seriously disabled children who has been waiting two years for “priority” public housing. The point being?

McIlveen contrasts the situation of this unfortunate woman to what he describes as

Lebanese Australians evacuated from the Middle East came home
to a welfare smorgasbord.

McIlveen repeats his claims in today’s story.

The Daily Telegraph yesterday exclusively revealed details
of a taxpayer-funded seminar at Rockdale, where senior bureaucrats told Lebanese
Australians how to maximise their welfare payments.

In fact, according to a senior member of the Australian Lebanese community who I spoke with, the seminar was NOT for Lebanese Australians in general. Rather, it was a networking program for government departments and welfare workers funded under government grants. It was not an open invitation for Lebanese community members in general.

Further, the three women photographed and described in yesterday’s article as ordinary members of the Lebanese community were in fact THREE WELFARE WORKERS. One was from the Melkite Church welfare agency, the remaining two from Shia Muslim organisations. All are employed pursuant to heavily regulated government grants.

But will McIlveen and his paper tell the truth about what the event was really about? I won’t be holding my breath.

And it isn’t just one rogue reporter in on the game. Today’s DT Editorial continues with the apparent lie. It claims that this networking seminar among workers was in fact something different.

Earlier this week, a NSW Government-sponsored "forum'' spelled out to a
group of around 60 Australians rescued from Lebanon the welfare benefits -
public housing, Centrelink, welfare support services and so on - to which
they might be entitled.

Even intelligent and respectable broadsheets can get things wrong. The DT owes it to its readers to clarify and tell the truth.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

RACISM: McIlveen strikes at Lebanese Aussies again

Daily Telegraph reporter Luke McIlveen continues with his monocultural agenda, this time complaining about an alleged scheme to enable Lebanese Australians rescued from war-torn Lebanon to ...

... get priority access to our welfare scheme.

The wording in the first paragraph is quite clear. The forum was designed to cater for Lebanese Australians to gain access to “our welfare scheme”.

Our scheme. Not their scheme. They are Lebanese Australians. We are real Australians. The message and implication is quite clear. The Telegraph is busy continuing with an agenda of demonising Lebanese Australians evacuated from what was the warzone.

The forum included advice on how to get ...

... to the top of the public housing queue.

Wow. How terrible. The sort of advice you could get by visiting your State MP’s office.

And what was the biggest deal about all this? The 3rd paragraph of the article states:

The extent of the support disproves claims from community leaders including Keysar Trad that Australia's response to the Middle East crisis was "racist".

Of course, had Keysar made the same allegations against McIlveen and the editors at the Telegraph, his allegations would have had some substance.

What the Telegraph doesn’t say is that the forum didn’t tell Lebanese Australians how to rort the system, though this is no doubt the impression McIlveen wishes to leave readers.

And they certainly did get that impression of the published feedback is anything to go by.

Once again, McIlveen has managed to engage in thinly disguised racism toward non-Anglo Australians. This time, his hysteria has also resulted in highly defamatory imputations against the Premier and staff of State and Federal Government Departments and Agencies.

The story includes a photo of 3 women at a table of brochures and pamphlets. As expected, 2 of them are wearing hijabs. The photo caption reads:

Generous support ... members of the Lebanese community check their entitlements last night.

Can someone please tell someone at the DT that most Lebanese Aussies are in fact Christians?

I often wonder whether the Telegraph get legal advice before they published their articles. One day they might find themselves in a spot of bother.

It would be interesting to know what Lebanese Aussie reporters employed by the DT think of this hysteria-mongering. The last time Piers Akerman wrote his nonsensical attack on Lebanese-Australian dual citizens and their pleas for evacuation, Lillian Saleh responded with a thinly-veiled critique of Akerman’s position.

(I say it was thinly veiled because she didn’t mention Akerman by name.)

It will be interesting to see if Saleh or one of her colleagues responds to what appears to be McIlveen’s latest racially-motivated monstrosity.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf


Bookmark this on Delicious

Akerman, Sultan, Blokes & Potatoes

Before I commence this column I’d like to issue a warning to readers with even rudimentary knowledge of Arabic, Lebanese and/or Islamic cultures. The following few paragraphs could lead your sides to split.

Piers Akerman’s column in the Daily Telegraph on September 3 2006 contained the following reference to Syrian-born psychiatrist Dr Wafa Sultan:

Dr Sultan, a Syrian psychologist now living in the US, earned the wrath of
Islamicists for stating on al-Jazeera that Muslims began the clash of
civilisations.

“The Prophet of Islam said he was ordered to fight the
people until they believed in Allah and His messenger’,’’ he said.

Yes, Mr Akerman believes that Dr Sultan is, in fact, a man.

I searched in vain using a range of search engines. At no place could I find any evidence that Wafa Sultan was a man. I understand that normally “Wafa” is a woman’s name in Arabic. However, there could be situations where the name is used by men, just as names like “Akhter” and “Ferhat” can be used for either sex.

No such luck. Wafa is definitely a girl’s name. And Wafa Sultan is definitely a female.

So there you have it. A senior and experienced columnist and Deputy Editor of a major Sydney newspaper does not even bother to do sufficient research to ensure he has the genders of people who quotes correctly identified.

Piers regularly comments on Lebanese, Arab and/or Muslim cultures and peoples. He has at least 2 journalists working for his paper of Lebanese and/or Arabic-speaking background.

Further, his colleague Dr Janet Albrechtsen wrote about Wafa Sultan in one of her recent columns. Dr Albrechtsen seemed quite confident in her knowledge that Dr Sultan is not a bloke.

Yet he still makes such fundamental and embarrassing mistakes. He quotes from a female writer and then calls her a man.

Now, of course, it might be a simple mistake. Perhaps a typo. Just like the typo Piers made when he suggested Muslims worship potatoes.

Well done, Piers.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Telegraphic blackmail on Muslim free speech?

Daily Telegraph writer Luke McIlveen, in conjunction with his editors, seems to be again manufacturing stories attempting to widen the gap between the PM and whichever minority group it considers is worthy of a hatchet job.

This time McIlveen has generated hysteria in an article concerning the PM’s comments on minority Muslims who refuse to integrate.

McIlveen has deliberately sought to paint the PM as a reactionary racist, turning his somewhat tame comments into a serious attempt to attack all Muslims.

At one point in his article, McIlveen accuses the PM of having an agenda to deliberately marginalise Australia’s 300,000 Australians who just happen to be Muslim.

…Mr Howard … warned those who are unwilling to fit in would be further
marginalised.

Yet nowhere in Mr Howard’s comments could such a warning be found. McIlveen has twisted the PM’s words to generate reactionary intentions no Australian PM could reasonably hold.

McIlveen then accuses the PM of engaging in

… debate on whether Muslims should learn English and treat women as equals
…

It is only later in the article that McIlveen reluctantly concedes that the PM said

… some Muslims were not doing enough to learn English or adhere to
Australian customs of equality for women and a "fair go'' for all. (emphasis
mine)

McIlveen doesn’t stop at twisting and manipulating the words of the PM. He also manufactures a claim of …

Islamic leaders … trying to gag Prime Minister John Howard from speaking out
against Muslims who refuse to integrate, threatening that any criticism of their
culture could lead to another race riot.

And his evidence for this almost unbelievable slur? The following comment by the PM’s own handpicked Muslim Reference Group chair Dr Ameer Ali:

We have already witnessed one incident in Sydney, in Cronulla. I don't want
these scenes to be repeated, because when you antagonise the younger generation they are bound to react.

In what sense do such comments represent an attempt to gag the PM? Has Dr Ali pointed a gun at the PM’s head? Have Reference Group members threatened to strap bombs to their stomachs, storm Kirribilli and hold Janette Howard hostage should the PM not meet their demands.

Or has Dr Ali made a secret deal with Rupert Murdoch to ensure that the PM receives no coverage in News Limited papers from now on?

The story includes a photo of Mr Howard standing next to Dr Ali, an economist from Western Australia. The caption below the photo describes Dr Ali as the person

… who issued the Cronulla warning yesterday.

Other references to Dr Ali include claims that he

… tried to shut down debate on whether Muslims should learn English and
treat women as equals …

… and that Mr Ali made …

… inflammatory remarks …

The entire tone of the article was set by the headline which read

Muslim free speech blackmail

The tone of the article suggested that Muslims were attempting to blackmail the PM, threatening to spread hatred among young Muslims that could lead to more Cronulla-style riots. Certainly for anyone not reading beyond the headline, the photo caption and the first few sentences, this is the conclusion many would reach.

The DT’s editorial continued with its attack on Dr Ali’s “intemperate suggestion” that

... the Prime Minister's commentary could spark a new outbreak of violence
such as that seen at Cronulla last year.

My own personal opinion on the subject is that Dr Ali’s choice of words was very poor. However, the DT’s editorial claims that Dr Ali was in effect rejecting the notion that migrants should learn English and treat women as equals.

It goes further to reinforce stereotypes of Muslim women as oppressed.

Then we get to the issue of equality for women. Again, why single out
Muslims? The question is naive, and deliberately so.

The regrettable reality is that for many women, Islam is misused as a justification
for keeping them in subjugation, for limiting their educational opportunities,
their social contact, their right to work and so on.

The regrettable reality is that women of all ethnic and religious backgrounds keep women in subjugation. Were this not the case in Australia, why would we need State and Federal laws prohibiting and punishing discrimination on the basis of gender and pregnancy?

Australia has a serious problem with domestic violence. In NSW, figures published by the Bureau of Crime Statistics in November last year showed that in the past 7 years reported incidents of domestic violence had increased by over 50%.

That’s just the reported figures. Who knows how many women were too afraid to report?

Female victims of physical and sexual violence are from all ethnic and religious backgrounds, as are the perpetrators of such violence. Singling out Muslim women as being subjugated effectively demeans the experiences of non-Muslim women (including, no doubt, women employed by News Limited) who might have experienced discrimination or harassment, whether inside our outside the workplace.

Still, to be fair, the DT isn’t always so focussed on hysteria. I have little doubt they will also provide space for a reasonable exchange of views on the issues raised in the Prime Minister’s comparatively measured words.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006