CRIKEY: What a Muslim looks like, by the Daily Telegraph ...

An oldie but a goodie ...


Yesterday’s front page of The Australian carried a story headed “Muslim refugee home rental probe” about an investigation into the allegedly dodgy involvement of the Islamic Council of NSW in a NSW Department of Housing scheme for refugees.

People who engage in this sort of behaviour should be exposed regardless of their ethnicity or religion. The ICNSW is one of three competing Councils vying for representative status of Muslim New South Welshmen and women.

The story was repeated in The Oz today and also reported in the Daily Telegraph yesterday. The Tele’s website carried the following graphic showing a woman wearing a face veil:



What the …? A woman wearing a face veil? Was this a story about women? Or about belly dancers? Or about veiling practices? Not exactly.

The Oz for its part carried a photo of Ali Roude, the ICNSW vice-chair at the heart of the scandal.

You’d think by now that I'd be used to this kind of inane stereotyping. But this time it really got on my nerves. So I rang the Tele and spoke to their online editor Ricky Sutton yesterday afternoon.

The conversation started out OK. I asked Ricky why, of all the possible images he could put with the story, he used this one. After all, it was a story about the alleged abuse of community housing by two blokes. Here’s my recollection of how the conversation went:

RICKY: Look, it’s a story about Muslims and refugees and that. So we had to use a Muslim image. What’s wrong with that?

ME: What do women in face veils have to do with Muslims?

RICKY: Well, don’t all their women wear that kind of stuff?

ME: Really? And do you have any evidence to back it up?

RICKY: Listen, if it had been a story about a housing scandal in the Church of England, we’d have run a picture of a crucifix.

ME: So you’re saying that a woman’s head dress is the equivalent of a crucifix. Isn’t that a bit tabloidish?

RICKY: Now you’re the one doing the stereotyping. Are you saying the newspaper I work for is a tabloid?

ME: Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I am.

It all got a little Middle Eastern from there. I pointed him to each story and showed how each graphic made sense. A story about John Howard showed a picture of Howard. A story about the RAAF showed a picture of a fighter jet, etc.

It makes me wonder: how would you illustrate a story about The Daily Tele's approach to Islamic issues?

First published in Crikey on Wednesday 8 August 2007.

Words © 2007-08 Irfan Yusuf


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UPDATE: Old stuff ...

I'll be posting more old stuff I've written elsewhere. Sometimes I'll add some comments but usually not.

In case you didn't know, I'm in the process of writing a book and having it published. My editor has almost finished editing my manuscript, so I'll be working on that for a fair while (as in 2 weeks or so).

After all that, hopefully this blog will have more original stuff.

Enjoy!

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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MEDIA/CRIKEY: FoxNews accuses Mattel of producing jihad doll ...

Prominent toy manufacturer Fisher-Price, a subsidiary of Mattel, is accused by some American parents of selling a baby doll that preaches an Islamic message.

One parent told a sceptical Associated Press reporter in this video that the doll is saying "Islamin is the light”.

I’d hate to think what it would say if played backwards.

FoxNews’ report ("Parents Outraged Over Baby Doll They Say Mumbles Pro-Islam Message") was less sceptical, making an issue of how the manufacturer ...

... didn't immediately respond to FOXNews.com's requests for comment.

Yep, immediate silence is guilt. As if worries over Matel’s share price were clearly less pressing for the company’s PR spin-doctors.

And how much does Mattel really care about FoxNews’ latest al-Qaida conspiracy? Type the word "Islam" into the press release search engine and find out for yourself.

First published in the Crikey daily alert on Monday 13 October 2008.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: AAP's Arabic language skills on show ...

AAP reported a story about a Nigerian man who married 86 women and kept them simultaneously as wives. The man was being prosecuted by one of Nigeria's state sharia courts which implement sections of Islamic sacred law. In the case of Muhammadu Bello Masaba, the 84-year-old with 86 wives, the relevant sharia court judge has ordered that his case be referred to a secular magistrates' court.

The AAP also reported (emphasis mine) that ...

The case of Masaba, an Islamic cleric, captured public attention some three months ago when he admitted to having 86 wives.

The revelation attracted sharp criticism and indignation from Islamic clerics with the Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the Nigerian Muslim umbrella body that slammed a fatwa, or death sentence, on Masaba.

The word fatwa has been translated as "death sentence". I'm not sure where AAP managed to generate or manufacture this translation.

Even someone with the most elementary knowledge of Arabic knows that the term fatwa has little or no relation to death. The Arabic word for death is mawt, and the word for killing is qatl. Neither of these words have an relation to fatwa.

Indeed, the term fatwa refers to an influential but non-binding legal opinion on the application of Islamic sacred law to novel situations. Islamic sacred law's criminal jurisdiction does contain a small number of offences carring capital punishments, known as hudood. Little novelty is involved in these areas of criminal law.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

COMMENT: On the moderation of racist and bigotted comments on blogs Part I

To what extent should bloggers be held responsible (whether legally or morally) for comments left on their blogs? This is an extremely contentious issue, and one I've previously written about in a piece for Crikey which can be found here.

Amateur bloggers (such as yours truly) don't have the time and resoyrces to immediately deal with offensive, defamatory or racist comments. In the case of the Planet Irf blog, the period between offensive comments being posted and removed can be days if not hours. But what about well-resourced blogs?

I now want to explore a few blogs where I've featured from time to time. The first blog I wanted to examine is Tim Blair's blog on the Daily Telegraph website, published by Rupert Murdoch's Nationwide News. The website is owned by News Digital Media Pty Limited.

Paragraph 13 of the website's Terms & Conditions states ...

Contributing Content

13. When you submit content to News in any format, including any text ..., you grant News a non-exclusive, royalty free, perpetual license to publish that content ...

15. You warrant that you have all of the necessary rights, including copyright, in the content you contribute, that your content is not defamatory and that it does not infringe any law.

16. You indemnify News against any and all legal fees, damages and other expenses that may be incurred by News as a result of a breach of the above warranty.

These terms don't state that the owner of the site has no liability for comments posted on blogs which are defamatory or infringe anti-discrimination, racial vilification or other laws. Rather, they state that, should a plaintiff commence legal proceedings against News Limited, Nationwide News, the editor, the blogger and/or other entities associated with he website, News Limited can seek indemnity from the person posting the comment.

The publisher's liability in this regard is also affected by the comment publication guidelines which include:

4. News will determine, at its discretion, whether to publish (or remove from a site) any of your content ...

7. News may edit your content in its discretion.

8. You warrant that: ...

(d) your content, your provision of your content to News and the use by News of your content, in each case as contemplated in these terms and conditions, does not breach any law (including laws relating to privacy, intellectual property and defamation) or the rights of any person;

10. On providing your content to News for publication in any media, you indemnify News and its officers, employees and agents against any damage or loss made against or suffered by any of those indemnified arising, in whole or in part, as a result of:
(a) the publication by News or a person permitted by News of your content; or
(b) a breach by you of these terms and conditions.

From all these guidelines, terms and conditions, we can reach the following conclusions:

a. The publishers of the site are legally responsible for comments submitted to and published on blogs.

b. The publishers and any employees responsible for moderating comments, as well as their editor-supervisors, are legally liable for any defamation or other breach of law.

This is the legal liability situation. But what about issues relating to journalism ethics? And balancing freedom of speech with freedom from vilification? What do we make of comments being moderated and allowed onto blogs and stories notwithstanding the fact that they promoting ethnic-based violence?

To be continued ...

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

CRIKEY: New SBS show mired in muslim stereotypes ...

There’s more to the SBS documentary Embedded With Sheik Hilaly than just the documentary itself. The embedded person was 26 year old Dave Zwolenski from Brisbane. Yet Dave was drafted by SBS almost at the last minute.

The original star of the show was to be Melbourne stand-up comic and youth worker Mohammed el-Leissy, formerly of the Fear Of A Brown Planet fame and now about to launch an on-stage comedic gameshow called Who Is Abdul Smith at this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival. El-Leissy first heard about the proposed documentary via a social networking site. He applied successfully for a role starring in the show, and was flown upto Sydney some 4 times, including a 2-month stint during which he approached various Muslim sects and their leaders. He also visited Camden to visit local Muslims.

El-Leissy told Crikey he’d developed an extensive list of Sydney Muslim contacts which he handed to the producers. The original idea was for El-Leissy to embed himself with more radical imams such as Sheik Abdussalam Zoud.

El-Leissy was to "hang out with rough guys, go on jihad camps and similar stuff". On one occasion, the producers asked him to attend a male-only barbecue where he’d accuse Zoud’s crowd of being sexist before asking why no women were present. El-Leissy refused, believing such questions just played into stereotypes (heck, why can’t a bunch of Aussie blokes have a bbq without sheilas spoiling the fun?). He explained this to the producers, who said that if he couldn’t ask these questions, they had a non-Muslim guy who would. They then sacked El-Leissy.

As it turned out, their Brisbane chap also didn’t get a chance to even appear with Zoud, let alone ask these tough questions of his young male followers. El-Leissy says that Zoud’s crowd wouldn’t touch the show with a 10-foot barge pole.

Still, when you can’t convince anyone to participate in a caricatured picture of Muslims, you can always rely on human headlines like Sheik Hilaly and his interpreter. Their attempts to justify Hilaly’s catmeat comments were just painful to watch, as were the attitudes expressed by other more conservative Muslims on the show.

Narrator Dave said his goal was "to understand what being a Muslim is really like". In relation to issues like marriage and gender relations, I doubt any but the most conservative of culturally Lebanese Muslims would relate to what Dave discovered.

The Age reviewer wasn’t terribly happy with the show accusing its makers of “entrenching prejudices and ignorance”. The tiny number of Hilaly-lovers congregating on this online forum were much more upbeat about the show.

Words Copyright © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

CRIKEY: No prejudice at the Courier Mail, just bloody Muslims ...

On Saturday, the Editor of the Courier Mail David Fagan addressed a Brisbane journalism conference organised by the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA). My notes from the conference show Fagan declaring that newspaper journalism consists of great pictures with good words attached. As if readers want the kind of stuff Little Golden Books were made of. Fagan also declared that his paper was not in the business of inciting prejudice.

On the same day, buried on Page 22 of the Courier Mail, was a story headed "Muslim game outrage". The headline on the online edition was "Anti-Muslim computer game stirs wave of anger". On the Saturday archive index, the headline is "Computer game riles Muslims".

Yep, no prejudice here. Just another story about those bloody Muslims yet again getting angry (and possibly violent) about being criticised. Heck, why be offended by a computer game where players get to engage in "modern religious genocide"? What's wrong with a game about "killing as many Muslims as possible, ranging from terrorists and civilians to Osama bin Laden, even the prophet Mohammed and Allah"? As if Jews or Christians would be offended by a game about massacring them.

But Mr Fagan will insist that the various headlines to this story weren't written to generate such responses. Try believing that once you've read the 100-plus comments left on the Courier Mail website, the bulk of which refer to Muslims getting unnecessarily sensitive, hating free speech, invading our country, killing us if they had a chance, why don't they get as angry as when one of them blows up a church? etc etc.

The game's developer describes it as intending to

... mock the foreign policy of the United States and the commonly held belief ... that Muslims are a hostile people to be held with suspicion.

In other words, it was all satire, a case of Team America becoming Game America. Just like the Lindsay pamphlet, only worse. At least one computing magazine disagrees.

The game's instructions made reference to the "Muslim race". The developer now says he doesn't believe Muslims have racial or genetic defects. I sure hope no one at the Courier Mail believes this either, even if their ultimate employer seems to.

First published in the Crikey daily alert for Monday 15 September 2008.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

COMMENT: Why the Pope cares more about sexual abuse victims than some News Limited editors ...

Certain columnists and editorial writers from The Australian and other News Limited newspapers has been complaining about ABC Lateline's reporting of the mishandling of sexual abuse complaints made by victims and their families to the Catholic church. Apparently in their eyes, reporting on such matters on the eve of World Youth Day represents an attack on all Catholics and an attempt to tarnish a week of religious festivities for Catholic pilgrims who have gathered in Australia from across the world.

You can catch a summary of that criticism at the ABC Media Watch website here. You can also read a rather sad attempt at a critique of Media Watch here.

Some people at The Oz think that criticising Catholic clergy on the eve of World Youth Day represents an assault on WYD pilgrims and Catholics in general. They seem to think that Catholics are so sensitive that they are unable to handle such reporting. They also assume that Catholics, by and large, are quite happy with the way the Church handles sexual abuse by clergy.

I can understand devout Catholics like Angela Shanahan asking why such matters should be covered at this stage. However, for The Oz editorial writers to ask such questions is sheer hypocrisy.

The Oz editorial writers and columnists had no hesitation in pilloring Hilaly when he made comments disparaging of rape victims. The Oz never cared about the fact that the breaking of its story virtually coincided with Muslims celebrating the holiest day of their religious calender - the Feast of Purity (Eid al-Fitr) to commemmorate the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Worse still, The Oz sheeted the blame for Hilaly's comments to Muslims themselves. Neither ABC Lateline nor Media Watch suggested that ordinary Catholics should be held responsible for the insensitive remarks of Bishop Fisher about the rape victims and their parents.

Indeed, when I suggested that reporting overkill in The Oz was making it harder for ordinary Muslims to pressure imams and religious leaders to remove Hilaly, The Oz editorial accused me of seeking to cover up "Islamic excesses" and even claimed I condoned the kind of radical speech that led to bombings in London and Madrid and the assassination of Theo Van Gogh.

The Oz editorialists aren't against bashing of believers. Nor are The Oz editorialists concerned about defending rape victims. Rather The Oz editorialists will only defend the sentiments of believers it selects. However, The Oz editorialists are happy to do to Hilaly exactly what they accuse the ABC of doing to the Catjolic church.

I urge The Oz editorialists to grab a copy of the al-Mawrid and look up the meaning of the Arabic word nifaaq.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

COMMENT: A word of advice to readers of News Limited papers ...

Please, please, please. Whatever you do, try not to talk about the insensitivity of Catholic clergy toward sex abuse victims on a News Limited paper's website. You'll be accused by some of their prominent editors and columnists of being anti-Catholic and part of a nasty Fairfax/ABC conspiracy.

If you really want justice for sex abuse victims, pray to God that Pell and Fisher convert to Islam and one of them becomes Mufti. Then watch as The Oz, Tele etc lash out on their insensitivity and lack of Australian values. Or even better - pray that God transforms them into Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders and watch the media and political circus begin.

Just remember the golden rule - some newspapers only criticise clerical insensitivity when displayed by clerics of the "wrong" religion or race. Funnily enough, this golden rule applies to virtually all MP's as well.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf