BLOGS: Imagine a dinner party at Andrew Bolt's place ...

I always dreaded dinner parties when I was growing up. My parents would invite their Indian friends (Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Parsees etc), and I'd have to put up with boring discussions about politics, religion and cricket. Or my father would invite his academia friends and/or postgrad students, in which case the talk would be about this symposium or that academic journal.

I wonder what they talk about at dinner parties hosted by the Bolts. If his blog is anything to go by, Bolt's dinner time discussions would revolve around why white Aussies are victims of nasty Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and/or Muslim and/or African and/or Sudanese and/or Somali victimhood/crime/lack of assimilation etc.

It's hard to find Bolt saying anything nice about anyone. His blog seems to attract an assortment of whingers whingeing about how little they whinge compared to other whingers of a slightly darker skin pigmentation.

In Bolt's world, the white man lives in fear of imminent attack. Everything is black and white, especially in terms of skin colour. Imagine a dinner at the Bolt household with this kind of (allegedly reasoned) discussion:

I would say that most Australians have a healthy dose of Islamophobia simply because they fear being either…

a. Blown up
b. Shot
c. Raped
d. Assulted
e. Intimidated
f. Spat-upon
g. Insulted

Rosemary of Queensland (Reply)
Mon 30 Mar 09 (07:12am)

I never knew Patricia Ilhan engaged in all that nasty stuff. Anyway, here's more from dinner guest Rosemary.

Rosemary replied to Rosemary
Mon 30 Mar 09 (10:45am)

I would also like to add that as far as I am concerned, the Islamophobia that is present is entirely the fault of the Muslim community both here and overseas.

By not controlling, civilizing and moderating their young males, and by not casting out the radicals in their midst they have, by their silence and shameful inaction brought upon their heads the consequences of being mistrusted by the general community.

She's right. Let's look at the young males in my family. One studying medicine, the other dentistry. Both teetotallers, though not teetotalitarians. And then there is this disgraceful example of uncivilised and unmoderated Muslim manhood.

Bolt's dinner guests have some fascinating insights into the legal and political systems of other nations.

lethal replied to David Mon 30 Mar 09 (10:37am)
... in Muslim nations there is no separation of church(mosque) and state (and islamic (sharia) law often prevails) ...

Yep, plenty of sharia law in action in Turkey, Bosnia and Albania. And Pakistan is known for its strict Islamic code, especially on TV.

And, of course, lawlessness and violence can only be met with lawlessness and violence.

These cowards as we all know are only brave when there’s 20 of them on one. They go to s#%t when faced with equal numbers.Look what happened at Cronulla, That kept em quiet for a while. The law needs to evolve to deal with this ...
Des Lyxic of Oak Flats (Reply) Mon 30 Mar 09 (09:52am)

What drives Bolt's guests to spew forth such rabid nonsense? One wonders whether Bolt's dinner party might descend into something resembling this ...



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BLOG: Bolt gets freaky ...

You have to admire Andrew Bolt. He genuinely believes in freedom of speech. Including on the internet.

Well, I thought he believed in freedom of speech. But on Q&A last night, Bolt was caught out badly on the ongoing debate on internet censorship. Bolt was caught out trying to push for legislation to extend internet censorship beyond child pornography and onto politics.

Andrew Bolt said last night that the government should also go after "jihadist" material.

ANDREW BOLT: ...should anyone be able to watch and publish and distribute anything at all they like? Anything at all. Like, I don't know, a father having sex with his children. Fritzl, the guy in Austria, videos of him having sex with his daughter. Anything like that, you think there should be absolutely no barrier. Jihadist material. Anything.

An audience member caught Bolt out:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Andrew you really raise my ire with your comment about jihadists, because that's my worry. When does - we don't see the list. We don't know what's on the list and when do we know what's going to get added to the list? And the next thing is not just kids at Monash getting arrested for reading books, it's somebody who goes to a - the issue of paedophilia, reprehensible, yeah, we're in agreement but you just said jihadist. Now, why can't somebody under the ideas of democracy and freedom of speech visit a jihadist site? If it's racial vilification, if it's an incitement to genocide, there's issues in Australia, but we're still talking about freedom of speech--

At this point the Minister Stephen Conroy, whom Bolt was up until this point defending, rejected any call for political censorship on the internet.

Bolt wants political censorship on the internet. Yet Bolt's own blogging practices show to what extent Bolt cannot even comply with existing laws in such areas as racial vilification. Bolt cannot even comply with his employer's Publication Guidelines. How would he comply with political censorship? Unless he wanted to censor everyone else but not himself.

Bolt came out of the episode looking like a goose, and he knew it. He needed to take out his frustration on someone. But he did he choose? A politician?

No. True to form, Bolt blew the dog whistle. His usual gang of racists and bigots are always ready to say what Bolt would like to so (and so often does). Bolt accuses Susan Carland, a descendant of the First Fleet, for allegedly not coming clean with the ABC audience about an allegedly dominant "rejectionist strand" within Australian Muslim circles. Bolt tried to pin Carland into a corner and allege that her comments to a Malaysian newspaper concerning her conversion experiences were somehow identical to Bolt's fear-mongering and hate-speech.

Bolt's attempt to put forward his "Muslims are different" argument (which is virtually identical to the rhetoric of European far-Right parties) failed miderably. He even dragged his father into the discussion.

ANDREW BOLT: Susan, can I just point out when my father came here from Europe as a migrant and then he started teaching immigrants like the Italians and Greeks, I think you're wrong. The suspicion that you say was - this is just what we're seeing a similar version of what those immigrants faced - I think it's completely wrong. That's ahistorical. It's not my experience of it. I'd also point out there are, in fact, more Buddhists in Australian than there are Muslims and we don't hear anything about that. We don't invite Buddhists onto this panel - or Tony doesn't invite Buddhists onto this panel to...

MALE SPEAKER: Next week.

ANDREW BOLT: He's invited you and your husband and, you know, Miss Australia and people like that, but he doesn't do it with Buddhists. There's specifically something in the community itself, as well, and I think, to be honest, you mentioned this yourself in an interview with the Malaysian Star Newspaper only a couple of years ago, where you said within the community, being a new convert from Christianity, you face the calls, from within the community, you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that and you shouldn't make friends with people who weren't Muslim and you should withdraw from society and everything that was haram and you said this was a problem for you and I think that's an acknowledgement there is, in fact, a problem within the Muslim community, a rejectionist strand, which is what makes this different. And I hate to be blunt, I hate to foster - you know, have all these people jeering...

SUSAN CARLAND: No, you don't. No, you don't.

Somehow I could detect some sarcasm from Susan there. Like many of us, Susan will have read the comments on Mr Bolt's blog and read exactly what Bolt fosters.

Bolt must have felt so distraught at his flimsy performance last night that he decided to post not one but two posts attacking fellow panellists. The first, of course, was against Ms Carland whom he claims had contradicted herself. On the show, she said that the rejectionist strand represented a minority among ordinary Muslims.

SUSAN CARLAND: The quick response would be absolutely there are people, a very small minority of people, within the Muslim community that are reluctant to engage with the wider community, but this is more...

ANDREW BOLT: You put it as a majority in this interview and ...

Andrew writes on his blog:

And when I pointed out that in her interview ...

Interview? Did Ms Carland do an interview with the Malaysia Star newspaper? Nowhere in the report did Star reporter Shahanaaz Habib talk about any interview.

Speaking at a dinner talk during the conference, organised by the Muslim Professionals Forum and the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, Carland, who was named Australian Muslim of the Year in 2004, was brutally honest about the treatment of converts at the hands of “born” Muslims.

The reporter was at a function where Ms Carland was speaking. This was no interview. But what about the allegedly dominant "rejectionist strand"? Ms Carland spoke about the treatment converts often get at the hands of "born" Muslims. This was a discussion about relations between cultural Muslims and those who adopt the faith of their own free will.

The list of unreasonable pressures on converts includes telling converts to leave their so-called haram jobs immediately, even if the person had no other source of income.

The newbies are asked to give up hobbies like painting, photography, dancing or playing instruments. They’re advised to move out and sever ties with their kafir (infidel) family and non-Muslim friends, while female converts are urged to get married as soon as possible.

They are often expected to give up their own cultures and take on Arab, sub-continental, Malay or other cultures because these are deemed to be more “Islamic”.

Carland, a lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, described these demands as not only unreasonable but also “very dangerous” as they made things unnecessarily hard for the convert.

The English language used in both the article and in Ms Carland's quoted statements is fairly straight forward. Apart from the non-Muslim families of converts who choose to follow such absurd rules, how does all this affect non-Muslims? How on earth could Bolt read this as some kind of reflection on an alleged monolithic Muslim mass that allegedly refuses to integrate into mainstream society? What kind of English did Bolt learn at school?

Bolt encourages his readers to judge Ms Carland's alleged dishonesty and double-speak. And as always, Bolt always ensures that the discussion never becomes personal.

I’d like to see her in the full black bee-hive hat instead of the glittery silver number she had on last night. After all, complete submission to the beliefs is what it takes to be a good Muslim. At the moment, she’s just a mouthpiece...for herself. She represents very little other than the new face of opportunism. A real muslim woman living a real life should’ve been on the panel, not her ...

I wonder who’s funding her efforts.
Little Ted of Qld (Reply)
Fri 27 Mar 09 (12:39pm)


I was extremely thankful that Mr Bolt was there and cut straight through the bullshit rhetoric spewed by the Islamic community and their apologists ...
Guffman of Coffs Harbour (Reply)
Fri 27 Mar 09 (12:39pm)

And is so often the case with hate speech, threats of violence raise their ugly head.

Habib replied to nigel
Fri 27 Mar 09 (03:36pm)
... Islam is a backward regressive religion for ignorant and cruel individuals - I will never understand why we let the violent stone age peasants that practise it into Australia ... I believe a jihad should be declared on muslims as they are non believers in our way of life ... they have been the enemy of civilizations like ours for centuries yet we let them here in their hordes - such weakness of mind will surely cost us dearly until we learn to treat such threats with the force they require.

Charming. Nice of Bolt to moderate this remark. Anyway, let's get back to the extraordinary reasoning and logic behind Bolt's supporters:

I watched her on the Q and A web site this morning and wasn’t impressed at all by her but I suspect she thinks she looks pretty good in that hijab and a very fashionable hijab it was, too ...
doc molloy of brisbane (Reply)
Fri 27 Mar 09 (01:08pm)

Lin replied to FOEHN
Fri 27 Mar 09 (04:55pm)
How on earth would Carland know what it was like to grow up in a group discriminated against - she is a white Australian? Did she become a Muslim just so that she could be part of a marginalised group, feeling a little left out?

And Bolt allows a Nazi-era slur used commonly against European Jews to now be recycled against Muslims.

Perhaps Carland was practicing Al-taqiyya - the practice of Muslims blatantly lying to non-Muslims. Al-taqiyya means that infidels cannot believe anything told to them by any Muslim ...
Annabelle of Sydney (Reply)
Fri 27 Mar 09 (01:54pm)

I always wondered whether the close association between the Dutch Right and the Nazis could have survived the Second World War. Anyway, some interesting observations were made about those nasty lefties ...

As for Susan Carland - you exposed her as naive and/or intellectually dishonest. The patent fact that the West needs to acknowledge about Islam is that it is the only religion (in fact it is a social and political system first and religion second) that has a developed doctrine and theology that mandates violence against unbelievers. Furthermore, violent jihad is and has been a defining characteristic of Islam since its beginnings in the seventh century ... The whole ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ movement that is propagated by leftist academics, politicians and journalists needs to be exposed for the intellectual fraud that it is.
Petey of Highett (Reply)
Fri 27 Mar 09 (02:51pm)

Those blasted leftwing politicians. One commenter got to the heart of the matter and summarised Bolt's rather paranoid argument.

Why is it that when you ask somebody who they are they usually will say australian, Italian etc. When you ask a muslim the same question they never say they are Australian or Turkish etc, only that they a muslim. This is the problem, muslims think they are special and don’t want to mix with mainstream society. Being muslim is the only identity they know.
John of Vic (Reply)
Fri 27 Mar 09 (03:13pm)

Muslims are one huge monolith, and they're all out to invade our countries, eat our children, kill our pets, sh*t in our toilets and wipe their backsides with our copy of the Herald Sun so that it makes more sense.

The thing that Australians have to understand is that for a muslim, Islam is their family, their past, their identity and their culture. As such Islam and Allah will ALWAYS come before friends, non-muslims, Australia, Australian laws, non-Islamic laws ... The majority, MAJORITY of muslims will not being overtly fundamentalistic jihadists do accept or quietly condone the true integrity of their fellow brothers who have taken Allah’s word to where they themselves are unable to ... I have worked with muslims and for a muslim-owned company ... I have NEVER met any muslim that represents the best of us humans.
green of sydney (Reply)
Fri 27 Mar 09 (04:35pm)

But by far the freakiest bit of Bolt's blogpost is where he cites comments left on Ms Carland's Facebook address.

UPDATE
Susan Carland’s Facebook community isn’t doing much to prove me wrong, or her the face of a religion of peace:

So now Andrew is obsessed not just with Ms Carland's religious choices. He is also obsessed with finding out who Ms Carland's friends are and what they post on her Facebook page. This is seriously scary stuff.

Poor Andrew Bolt seemd to have completely lost it.

UPDATE I: Bolt believes in freedom of speech, unless you disagree with him. Here is something that appeared on the right hand column of his blog recently ...

Irfan says: Watch out, everyone. Andrew wants to politically censor the internet. Seriously, though, you did come out looking like a prize goose. That explains why you’ve…

But when you go to the actual blog in question, this is what you see ...

SNIP - BANNED
Irfan
(Reply)Fri 27 Mar 09 (07:38pm)

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BLOGS: Those RMIT almost-suicide-bombers ...

Andrew Bolt generally doesn't directly cast aspersions or makes insinuations about entire groups. He generally poses questions and leaves it to his commenters to take things furthsr. But on this occasion, Bolt just couldn't help himself.

Is this about faith - or about power?

Yep, Muslim students and staff who want a private space to perform their prayers are seeking to take over RMIT and turn it into a caliphate.

RMIT University’s acting pro vice-chancellor (students), Maddy McMaster, explains why this secular university won’t cave in to demands for yet more ...

(... emphasis mine.) Selfish cretins these Muslims are. They just keep demanding. They're never content.

... the Muslim students are demanding the university build them the de-facto mosque that Melbourne-city Muslims won’t build themselves.

Bolt knows this is a complete lie and fabrication. The students and staff are only asking for a dedicated room. They aren't asking for a huge building with minarets and a dome. But what's wrong with telling lies if it generates hatred against an undesirable group?

Can’t share. Won’t share. Demanding more than their share. Is this the authentic face of young Muslims in Australia?

Can vilify. Will vilify. Thinking himself above all human rights and anti-vilification legislation. Is this Andrew Bolt the authentic face of columnists at the Herald Sun?

If Andrew Bolt's blog is anything to go by, it certainly is. Here's what one commenter wrote about overseas students coming to Australia:

uptothebackteeth replied to George P
Mon 23 Mar 09 (02:51pm)
Commercial realities.. my foot!!I’ll see them in hell first.You don’t pander to zealots at any time. You keep giving an inch and they’ll keep taking the miles, and the demands will never end. What’s next on their agenda...Deny some other race they don’t like an education or some other extreme position. I could care less how much money they import each year.

A fairly mild start. But it gets better.

Terry replied to George P
Mon 23 Mar 09 (03:23pm)
I really don’t care how much they are paying, if their presence undermines civilised values in Autralia, let them go somewhere else. In case you don’t get that - these are racist bigots, and we don’t need them in our places of learning. Period, end of story. We certainly don’t need to feed from their pockets.

And of course, it doesn't matter if you were born and brought up in Australia. Your motives must necessarily be interpreted in light of the actions and attitudes of overseas actors over which you have absolutely no control.

Gerry Murphy replied to Sasha
Mon 23 Mar 09 (02:01pm)
They do unlike the reception a Christian would receive in an Islamic country. It’s about the perception that their demands are unreasonable, and they are. It fits a tiresome pattern of incessant grievance mongering and special pleading that will never be satisfied.

Still, at least we can be grateful that these nasty foreign beedy-eyed protestors aren't doing what their kind do overseas.

Hey, at least they are protesting and not using Suicide Bombings.
Nathan (Reply)
Mon 23 Mar 09 (12:43pm)

Hey, at least Andrew Bolt is just moderating racist comments and not imposing apartheid in Australia in the manner some other consevatives of Dutch origin had done in South Africa and Indonesia. Woops, was that offensive? Moving right along ...

These blasted people don't belong in our country.

john n replied to scotty
Mon 23 Mar 09 (01:58pm)
Yes and there are lots more and many mosques -right back where they belong ,in their Islamic countries ...

lethal replied to DALTS
Mon 23 Mar 09 (01:12pm)
... They say we discriminate against them then turn around and ask for special treatment that keeps them separate from the rest of us dirty infidels. Trouble is, Muslims see themselves as superior to the rest of us filthy infidels - they really want to be treated as better than us.

Daniel Lewis (of Rushcutters Bay fame) then decides to inject some prejudice from another blog ...

Daniel Lewis replied to DALTS
Mon 23 Mar 09 (02:36pm)
... Vexnews has more (note my comments).

Yes, the in-house counsel at Herald and Weekly Times Pty Limited should note these comments.
Perhaps long-time employees may recall a time when other minorities were baited in this fashion. Or maybe not. Andrew Bolt's friends certainly don't.

frank replied to Susan of Victoria
Mon 23 Mar 09 (04:24pm)
Unlike other migrant groups who want to share their culture this lot are different,in that they seem to want to come in and tell us how we should be living,eating drinking,dressing, worshipping and not only get offended but get even aggressive if we dont conform to their ways.

They really don't belong in our country, do they Andrew?

They can find all the Muslim prayer spaces they’d need in an Islamic country where, I’m sure, they’d be happier, May Allah speed them on their way.

Bob Up of Beaumaris, Vic (Reply)
Mon 23 Mar 09 (12:58pm)

I could go on and on. It must have been like this for German Jews reading newspapers during the 1920's and '30's. This is the level of discourse from Australia's biggest selling newspaper.

Also, in case you are wondering, one of the Herald Sun's advertisers is the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Feel free to forward any racist and xenophobic comments moderated by Bolt and his minions to their e-mail address: wspa@wspa.org.au. Ask them whether they are happy for their advertisement to be placed on the same page as this xenophobic filth.

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HATEWATCH/BLOG: Andrew Bolt's bloggers want to KILL ALL MUSLIMS ...

Kill all Muslims? Bomb all Muslims? Murder 1.2 billion people? Blow up over 55 states? Even this guy finds such talk unconscionable.

But Andrew Bolt and his buddies at the Herald Sun don't. President Obama wants to send a message to the Iranian people. But the message from Bolt's buddies to anyone living in an OIC member state is clear:

In the Islamic world, they look at negotiaions as surrender.
the Dean of Doonside (Reply) Sun 22 Mar 09 (09:52am)


Barry of Round replied to the Dean Sun 22 Mar 09 (10:52am)
Insightful.
Best bomb them in that case.


Larry replied to the Dean Sun 22 Mar 09 (01:10pm)
Barry of Round, bombing them, back to the stone age where their politico-religious philosophy belongs, would indeed be the only thing they understand.
Islam has no such thing as a peace treaty, just hudna, to be entered into when weaker than the opposition, and only lasting long enough for them to gather the strength to have another go.
You don’t negotiate with that, you shoot it.

Those companies choosing to advertise on the Herald Sun website should consider whether their sponsorship of such messages will further their export sales in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

Andrew Bolt regards the massacre of over 1 billion people as perfectly acceptable discourse. So does the Herald-Sun.

Enough is enough. It wasn't enough for Bolt to cast aspersions on Australians of Sudanese, Somalis, Lebanese and other backgrounds. Bolt has allowed his blog to become a place where people can incite violence and murder against others.

Bolt should be sacked.

UPDATE I: I am informed that one of the blog moderators has now removed the offending remarks.

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BLOG: Those blasted Africans in their leopard skins who marry nice white Murdoch girls ...

You don't have to go far into Tim Blair's blogging past to see that he and his buddies are such huge friends of persons from non-European backgrounds. Just read this classic remark about Rupert Murdoch's daughter:

Elisabeth is the smartest one of the lot—apart from her unfortunate first marriage to the son of some African diplomat. Even that was worth it for the picture of Murdoch at the wedding, surrounded by his new in-laws in leopard skin traditional dress. Anyway she dumped Bongo and married one of the Freuds—leading James to remark in his wedding speech that the groom had better be well endowed because his sister was accustomed to a black man! ...
Posted by Phranger on 2005 07 29 at 11:37 PM

Yep, absolutely no racism there. I'm sure Mr Murdoch and the family will be most impressed. Can't wait to read what Blair and his mates say about Wendy ...

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BLOG: You can always choose your housemate ...

Some weeks back, the people at the Pure Poison blog decided to issue an apology to Tim Blair:

... it was suggested by a writer on this site that enthusiastic Pure Poison critic “WB”, a character who although we haven’t seen him or her before appears intimately familiar with old allegations about our pasts, had been making comments from Tim Blair’s private IP address. The post, now removed from the Crikey site, included speculation on the identity of WB, concluding that it was Blair. Tim denies this flatly, and notes that people in the same house would share an IP.

Emphasis mine.

Yep, some person calling themselves WB uses Blair's private IP address. And let's read what WB has to say on a variety of issues:

... Name a great Palestinian artist. And I don’t mean some ‘conceptual’ wanker whose art is all about ‘the occupation’ I mean art, beauty, perfect rendering of vision and delight, Titian, Rembrandt, heck, even Bacon, that kind of art. There isn’t one. 60 frickin’ years, 3 generations, and no artistic achievement, not one painter? Did the eviiil joooos take the paintbrushes and the paint away? No. The Palestinians never bothered - too busy lying about their terrible starvaaation and genociiiide .and the awful naaaaaaqba ... if it seems as if I am angry at them, I am. Cos they should be better than suicide bombs and shooting “collabrators” and slaughtering Olympians. And it’s 2009 and they’re still not.
WB (Reply)
Sat 21 Mar 09 (01:36am)

An entire nation turned into a bunch of unartistic murderous whingers with strange accents. And this type of racial slur was happily published by Blair.

You can't choose your relos, Blair, but you have chosen your flatmates. And you are judged by the company your keep. If you moderate this racist trash on your blog, notwithstanding what you should know are the provisions of State and Commonwealth legislation dealing with racial vilification, and notwithstanding your own publication guidelines, it shows you regard racist hate-speech as acceptable.

A person who regards racist hate-speech as acceptable. Can we regard such a person as a racist?

UPDATE I: An anonymous commenter has claimed that WB is in fact the person behind the "WogBlog" and is Blair's female friend. I cannot confirm or deny whether that is the case, and quite frankly don't particularly care.

UPDATE II: So apparently the Palestinians have no artists, no writers, no one of any significance other than people who shoot Olympians and people alleged to be on the Shin Beth payroll. No doubt WB considers these people to be eskimos. And each of these people are Russians. And look at how devious and sleezy those Palestinians are for taking credit for this brilliant Italian poet. Yep, you just cannot trust those Palestinian terrorists.

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HATEWATCH/BLOG: Blair's blog buddies roll out the Nazi-style hate-speech ...

For centuries leading upto the Holocaust, the dominant prejudice in Europe was anti-Semitism. European Jews were the subject of all kinds of suspicion, from blood libels to the suggestion that Judaism allows its followers to relinquish their promises and contracts. One common Jewish ritual prayer was often cited as evidence that Jews could break their promises and hence where inherently untrustworthy.

Today's bigots reproduce that prejudice against the faith which bares the closest resemblance to Judaism. Some Muslim sources, especially those in the shia tradition, speak of taqiyya, a special teaching which allows a Muslim to hide his or her faith in times of severe persecution.

Anti-shia polemicists from sunni circles sometimes use the idea of taqiyya as a tool to discredit shi'i Islam and to make the outlandishly silly claim that shia Muslims cannot be trusted and have some secret agenda to take control over Muslim institutions and countries.

Yet the bigotry of sunni supremacists is nothing compared to the extreme bigotry and prejudice of the nazis that congregate around Tim Blair's blog hosted by the Daily Telecra ... woops ... Telegraph. Blair happily entertains and allows onto his blog the rants of those whose prejudices he shares, or at least which he considers within the ballpark of acceptable discourse.

Hence, the recent incident involving Sheik Hilaly has given Blair's buddies an excuse to unleash the kind of Nazi-era bigotry Blair's blog is famous for. Here is a sample:

What does the Koran say about an imam lying to manipulate infidels?

Well, it’s all ok...taqqiya means not a single word his outfit says can be trusted.
TT (Reply)
Thu 19 Mar 09 (01:56pm)

Who are "his outfit"? It's obvious. Then Daniel Lewis, ever a defender of even the worst Israeli atrocities, happily repeats the Nazi-era slur against a group he loves to hate.

Daniel Lewis replied to Daniel Lewis
Thu 19 Mar 09 (05:52pm)

... Keysar Trad should be along shortly to offer the usual lost in translation defence.

Please sir, may I have some more hyperlinks?

Once again, Blair's buddies take the Tele back to the 1930's. Just replace "Jew" with "Muslim" and you can almost hear the thugs marching down Kippax Street.

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HATEWATCH/BLOG: Some groups deserve to be vilified ...

At the Herald Sun website, there are some groups that one is not allowed to vilify. And then there are some groups that one is encouraged to vilify. Sometimes they can be identified according to race, sometimes according to presumed ancestral religious affiliation. Sometimes it's a case of either/or. Sometimes in can change in less than an hour.

At 6:16am this morning, Andrew Bolt seemed to have discovered that crime bosses can change their religious affiliation even when they’re dead. Andrew arose to blog about the murder of a Sydney drug boss. He cited this Daily Telegraph article which named Sydney crime figures Abdul Qadier Darwiche, Danny Karam and Michael Kanaan. His blog entry, headlined “Not all felafels and homous (sic.)”, began with this line:

Marvellous how some groups are making their way in their new Sydney home.

Bolt abruptly ended the post after reproducing the relevant excerpt from the Tele article. It seems Andrew was intending to make an issue of the ethnic group involved - the mention of “felafels and homous (sic.)” along with the names of certain crime figures was a clear indication that Bolt’s “some groups” referred to Lebanese migrants, whether of Sunni Muslim background (such as AQ Darwiche) or Christian (such as M Kanaan and D Karam). Bolt was effectively casting aspersions on Lebanese migrants in general, among them this Bulldog champion, the Queen's representative in New South Wales, and some Victorian kid whose ancestors came from the Beka'a Valley.

But then around 40 minutes later, Bolt decided that Kanaan and Karam had suddenly changed their religions. In Karam’s case, the change of faith may have taken place during the 11 year period since he was murdered.

Hence Bolt changed the first sentence of his blog to read:

Marvellous how some Lebanese Muslim groups are making their way in their new Sydney home (emphasis mine).

After citing the Tele paragraph, Bolt added this sentence ...

Time to hold some politicians and policies to account.

... before citing two paragraphs from a January 2007 story in The Australian about how former Prime Minister Fraser was warned about the consequences of accepting certain migrants who didn’t have “the required qualities”.

Bolt’s fine-tuning of his original blogpost made more logical sense when its racism was more ecumenical. Muslim Lebanese aren’t the only Lebanese who eat “homous” (sic.) and felafels. In fact, felafels are also a popular dish in Turkey, Syria and Israel.

And if you thought that was weird, check out the blogpost from 5:13am where Bolt manages to somehow link the arrest of a man on murder charges in England to a number of South Korean tourists murdered in Yemen. Perhaps Andrew should limit his blogging to office hours.

Disclaimer: In case it matters, the writer’s parents were born in Delhi.

UPDATE I: As expected, Bolt's comments have generated a storm of xenophobic comments, which Bolt is quite happy to allow to be aired. Here are a sample:

Many wonderful Lebanese Christians left Lebanon because the influx of Muslins ruined their once wonderful country and cause the destruction of their city by using its country as a base to attack Israel. The same Lebanese Christians who felt the country and emigrated to Australia have been warning us for years not to let any Lebanese Muslims in for they will surely do the same here. We should have heeded their warning!

George P of Albert Park (Reply)
Mon 16 Mar 09 (11:47am)

So there were no indigenous Lebanese Muslims living in the area now known as Lebanon. Apart from the fact that this remark is deeply racist (and hence perfectly legitimate comment for a newspaper that regards itself as being above the law), it is also profoundly ignorant. But the ignorant racism doesn't end there.

Mick replied to George P
Mon 16 Mar 09 (05:26pm)
Yep, my Leb mates couldn’t believe that the Oz Govt decided to let these Leb/Syrian Muslims in. It never makes sense to accept refos from both sides of a conflict, and in this case, it’s the Muslims who caused the trouble, and isn’t it the case every time?

So all the troubles in Lebanon were caused by these foreign Muslims. And Lebanese Muslims always cause the trouble everywhere they go. Everywhere. Each and every place. No exceptions. This is racial vilification, Andrew Bolt style. But Andrew doesn't have the guts to write this stuff himself. He has his minions write it. Then he moderates it and lets it on.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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BLOGS: It's all black and white ...

Reporting crime statistics isn't an easy job. The Victorian police haven't been as proficient in this area as they could be. Hence when the Victorian Opposition Leader asked the Victorian Ombudsman to look into the matter in April 2008, it was taken seriously. You can read the Ombudsman's full report here.

The goals of the Ombudsman's investigation are summed up in his report as follows:

... it was my view that uncertainty regarding the validity of crime statistics and police numbers needed to be resolved. Ongoing debate about the integrity and accuracy of this data could undermine public confidence in Victoria Police and have a deleterious effect on the quality of public debate regarding law and order issues.

My investigation was concerned with two key issues. Firstly, do Victoria Police crime statistics accurately reflect the community’s experience of crime as it is reported to police? Secondly, can the public have confidence that the information about the number and availability of police in Victoria is accurately reported?

I confess that I haven't read the full report. I'm not sure if Herald Sun blogger Andrew Bolt has. However, he's already drawn some conclusions.

And what are these conclusions? Do they merely concern the alleged massaging of crime statistics? Was it just about police numbers? In fact Andrew's concerns are also about whether ...

... the crime rate among African refugees was not higher than for everyone else ...

... and about how ...

... police and court protocols in dealing with minorities.

Again, I admit I haven't read the full report. But it might have been useful for Mr Bolt to have pointed out precisely where the Ombudsman talks about crime amongst African and other minorities.

Andrew's commenters have less hesitation in pointing the fingers ...

rick9 replied to Barry Bones Wed 11 Mar 09 (05:40pm)
stats on whites are easy to find, and are not being hidden by PC police management. When the ‘force’ tries to shy away from doing their job and becomes an instrument of mushy multiculturalism, society has a BIG problem

Second alleged murder in Adelaide by African men. Both against fellow Africans. That is 2 murders this past year for an ethnic group only numbering 2000.
crime rep (Reply) Wed 11 Mar 09 (07:29pm)

And so a legitimate discussion about crime statistics and police numbers becomes an exercise in trying to prove that African migrants are more crooked than the rest of us. But don't dare call this racism lest you be accused of being "PC" or "bleeding heart" or a "lefty". Or worst of all, a "Muslim".

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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BLOGS/HATEWATCH: Bolt's bloggers on African and Pakistani taxi-drivers ...

Thanks to the Pure Poison blog on the Crikey website for alerting these to its readers. The following racist comments have been on Andrew Bolt's blog since November 2008. There is simply no excuse for these comments to have been published in the first place. Unless, of course, Bolt and his friends at the Herald Sun don't regard these comments as racist.

rossco replied to Tony
Wed 26 Nov 08 (07:24am)
Of course there’s one simple solution - don’t get into any taxi with a black driver.

Er, Andrew, how is this comment not racist?

On the offchance that I ever visit Melbourne I’ll be definately ensuring that any cab I catch has a non-African driving it. I’m not being racist, just practical - its hard enough to keep one’s cool when city driving is pretty full-on at the best of times, what with road-rage and traffic congestion and idiot drivers making foolish and reckless decisions. The last thing a passenger needs is to be worried that their taxi driver may go ‘postal’ on them (or other drivers) due to the stresses he is enduring during the course of performing his job. Not a good decision by that tribunal, and will certainly have broader consequences. Rosemary of Queensland (Reply) Wed 26 Nov 08 (07:24am)

Yep, nothing racist about that. But why stop at race? Why not double the prejudice with a good old fashioned dose of sectarian hate-speech?

Relax infidels, you are just as safe in this brothers cab as in any other fundamental Moslem’s one. Islamic Rage Boy of Insane.... or fulfilling Mo's obligations? (Reply) Wed 26 Nov 08 (07:57am)

Religion does tend to make things a little to complex. How about we just keep things black and white.

Simple. Just don’t accept a cab driven by an African. Rod of Singapore (Reply) Wed 26 Nov 08 (08:32am)

What could be simpler than that, Rod? Maybe this ...

If I see ANY African driving a taxi , I will not entering it. Many do not speak or read English, have no idea how to drive safely and certainly do NOT know anything about the cities they drive in. Oh.. once again...no apologies ..
frankly fed up of melbourne (Reply) Wed 26 Nov 08 (12:59pm)

And so once again the Herald Sun has become a forum where all kinds of crazy xenophobes can have their say.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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