Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has (I presume inadvertently) used his blog to promote a far-Right conspiracy theory about Muslims.
Bolt cites the allegedly conservative blog Qohel on a proposal by the Hawaii Legislature to introduce an official annual "Islam Day" on September 24. Qohel in turn refers readers to a far-Right conspiracy theorist posing as the "Canada Free Press" for "more detail".
And what does the CFP have to say? Here's how their "report" commences.
Muslims have just tricked the Hawaii Legislature into celebrating Islam on September 11.To get an idea of just how loopy this CFP is, go to their search feature and type in the words Obama Muslim. Be prepared for nonsensical articles like this and this.
Bolt, of course, would never subscribe to any conspiracy theory concerning Muslims imposing an agenda on Hawaii or the rest of the United States. After all, it's not as if Bolt would make the kinds of far-fetched remarks that far-Right nutters would make. You know, remarks like this:
If adherents of this faith hadn’t killed so many Americans, would it have attracted this kind of fawning?Of course, Bolt did say all that. His comments echoed the views of two Republican representatives in Hawaii as reported by the Associated Press on 7 May 2009.
Hawaii's state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate "Islam Day" — over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn't want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001.Those Senators were right. But then, they were in the minority. What can one say about the rest of those damned Hawaiians? In the mind of Andrew Bolt and his conspiratorial nutter sources, terrorists (i.e. Hawaiian Muslims) have successfully held a gun to the head of the Hawaiian Senate. The terrorists have won. We should have seen it coming. Head for the hills!
UPDATE I: Those winderful people at the Crikey Pure Poison blog have done some thorough research on the Hawaiian Islam Day proposal which, far from being an annual event, was supposed to be a one-off. Read more here.
Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf
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