COMMENT: Richard Kerbaj, Wahhabism & The Taliban

Richard Kerbaj regularly writes for The Oz on issues relating to local Muslim groups. He claims fluency in Arabic and has a Middle Wastern background (I think his family is from Lebanon, but I stand to be corrected).

Unlike some reporters, Kerbaj has made every effort to be accessible to ordinary Muslim community members as well as self-appointed leaders. The last time I did that was in a professional capacity working as a lawyer with two offices (including one in Auburn). It almost drove me nuts!

In the 31 August edition of The Oz, Kerbaj writes about a Muslim leaders’ conference to be held in September. The headline of the article is “Radical clerics to be brought in from the cold.”

Kerbaj is not responsible for the headline. Decisions about headlines are made much higher up in the chain, and tend to reflect the bias or slant of the newspaper. Unfortunately, it is the headline which sets the tone for the entire article in the minds of most readers.

My problem with Kerbaj’s article is with his information on a phenomenon he describes as Wahhabism. Before I start talking about this, I should lay my cards on the table.

I am an implacable opponent of Wahhabi/Salafi theology. I regard it as a fringe theology which rarely complies with mainstream orthodox Sunni or Shia Islam. I regard Wahhabism has being on the very fringes of Islam, and particularly object to:

a. It’s opposition to Islamic spirituality (known to Sunnis as tasawwuf and to Shias as irfan);

b. It’s rejection of the following of 4 schools of law by Sunni Muslims;

c. It’s tendency to regard Shias as non-Muslims.

Of course, these tendencies are characteristic of most Wahhabism that I have been exposed to. Like many Muslims brought up in Australia, my knowledge of Wahhabism is gained from reading books published in Saudi Arabia.

I also understand that there are many Wahhabis who do not agree with the Saudi formulation of Wahhabi doctrine. Just as with Sunni and Shia Muslims, Wahhabis represent a broad spectrum, and cannot be typecast.

Which makes Kerbaj’s formulation of Wahhabism disturbing. The published version of Kerbaj’s article states:

… Wahhabism, a fundamentalist teaching of Islam that is preached by Osama bin Ladin and inspired the fanatical Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

According to Kerbaj’s formulation:

1) Wahhabism is a single kind of teaching.

2) Wahhabism is one of numerous “fundamentalist” teachings.

3) Wahhabism is preached (perhaps exclusively, if not mainly) by Osama bin Ladin.

4) Wahhabism inspired the Taliban regime.

I don’t wish to comment at this stage on the first three suggestions. I’d like to speak with Richard and find out what his source is for this information. Which books has he read? Which experts has he consulted? Which websites does he rely upon?

Anyone who believes that Wahhabism is one monolithic teaching should visit the website of the Canadian based wahhabi TROID where one can find numerous attacks by this Wahhabist group on other Wahhabis.

What surprises and amuses me most is the claim that Wahhabism inspired the Taliban regime. The most reliable information on the subject suggests that the Taliban were a mish-mash militia funded by Pakistani and Saudi interests. However, the dominant theological strain of the Taliban was not Wahhabi but Deobandi.

The Deobandi school is named after Darul Uloom Deoband, the most prominent Islamic institution in India. Yet one in four Muslims is from the Indian sub-Continent, and Indian Islam has its own unique theological spectrum. Indian Muslims are mainly Sunni. Indian Islam, like Hinduism, is a deeply mystical affair. Sufi spirituality plays a large role in the two main Indian Sunni schools – the Deobandi and Barelwi. The anti-Sufi Ahl-i-Hadis (India’s answer to Saudi-style Wahhabism) has few followers

Not Pakistan. Not Saudi Arabia. Not even Afghanistan. India. A nation where Muslims make up hardly 15% of the population.

The Deobandi school/sect is by no means Wahhabi. Indeed, prominent Deobandi authors and scholars have written detailed refutations of Wahhabi doctrine.

It would take a substantial amount of space to explain what the Deobandi strand of Islam teaches. Suffice it to say that it is a uniquely sub-Continental strand and is often in conflict with a competing Barelwi strand of Indian Islam.

To understand the Deobandi/Barelwi dispute, one must understand something of the unique nature, history and Sufi terrain of North Indian Islam. Perhaps the best Western source on this is Professor Barbara Metcalf.

The conservative Deobandi sect was founded in the north Indian village of Deoband during the late 19th century. Despite its orthodox, Deobandism played a pioneering role in educating Indian Muslim women in theology frequently regarded as the sole domain of men.

Deobandism competes with the Barelwi sect founded during the same period by Indian Sufi Syed Ahmad Raza Khan who hailed from a nearby town called Bareilly (from whose name the sect’s label is derived). is derived the school’s popular label of “Barelwi”.

Khan criticised Deobandi scholars for what their alleged lack of respect for the status of the Prophet Muhammad and their claims that certain cultural practises of Indian Muslims represented unnecessary and deviant innovations in orthodox liturgy. The gulf between the two was further widened due to various political differences.

Differences between Deobandi and Barelwi Muslims represent a sectarian divide unique to Indian communities and virtually non-existent in other Muslim communities, including among our own South East Asian neighbours.

Political differences between the two schools are numerous. During the movement for Indian independence most Deobandis worked with Gandhi and opposed Pakistan’s creation. Barelwis tended to support Pakistan.

I’ve provided an imperfect summary which hopefully provides some understanding of Deobandi Islam. If this is what the Taliban stood for, it is a far cry from the alleged Wahhabism attributed to them by Kerbaj and his sources.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006


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Tabloids helping terror?

Once again, the Daily Telegraph has been busy spreading hysteria about “Islamic terrorists”.

Under the blaring headline of “SYDNEY WILL BE ATTACKED” (28 August 2006), Luke McIlveen boasts about how

MOST Australians believe we are losing the war against Islamic terrorists
and an attack on our home soil, most likely Sydney, is inevitable.

So who are this majority of Australians? What have they been asked? And what were their responses?

It turns out that the DT interviewed … wait for it … 572 people. 572, out of 18 million. You don't need a PhD in demography to know that isn't the most statistically significant sample on the planet. The interviews were said to be carried out

… in Sydney, Newcastle, country NSW and the ACT in the past week …

But hang on. The DT said their results were evidence of the beliefs of most Australians?

I don't like to speculate, but apparently quite a few Australians live in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and even ... SHOCK! HORROR!! ... Melbourne.

McIlveen (or, presuming he’s been heavily and unfairly edited, his editor) has blown a legitimate study about security concerns out of all proportion and turned it into a free-for-all on Muslims.

He even goes to the extent of claiming poll result

… raises concerns about the behaviour of Muslims in Australia.

He then quotes from a 62-year-old Newcastle woman who repeats the well-worn mantra of hate

Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.

I’d love to see Mr McIlveen put these suggestions to the Turkish consulate in Sydney. They might remind him that the last terrorist attack in Australia was the 1986 attack on the Turkish Consulate. Then there was the 1980 assassination of the Turkish Consul-General. They might also remind McIlveen that Turkey has just suffered a string of terrorist attacks, responsibility for which has been claimed by Kurdish Marxist groups.

Or perhaps McIlveen could stroll down to the Sri Lankan High Commission and ask someone there what religion the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam follow. He might also wish to read his colleague Anita Quigley’s column in the DT discussing the upcoming tour of American terrorism expert Robert Pape.

The only poll questions which suggested anything positive about Islam or Muslims was this one:

“Do you believe Australian Muslims are moderate?”

Er, aren’t there other ways you could describe Muslims? Is the only contribution Muslims can make to national security that they remain “moderate”? And is terrorism only a Muslim or Islamic phenomenon?

The DT answers this question very clearly. The final 3 questions speak of “Islamic terrorists”.

McIlveen’s hysteria took up an entire 17 paragraphs, plus graphics. A somewhat less negative piece by Evelyn Yamine was given a much smaller amount of space.

Muslim organisations, leaders and activists are run off their feet trying to inform people about their faith and culture. They are organising interfaith meetings, liaising with Federal Police and other law enforcement officials, reporting suspicious activities, writing articles, networking, speaking, organising and much much more.

Notwithstanding such efforts, some journalists and papers continue to play on people’s legitimate fears. No doubt, there is a genuine fear in the broader community about security and terrorism. And these fears are worth reporting.

However, in my opinion the DT’s poll as reported on 28 August 2006 is a classical example of “push polling”, asking loaded questions with underlying assumptions playing upon popularly held misconceptions, if not prejudice and bigotry. It seems they are seeking to combine legitimate fear with illegitimate prejudice.

It's arguable the poll spends less time seeking opinions and more time reinforcing hysteria and hatred toward an entire set of communities whose only common factor is their religious heritage.

By furthering the process of marginalising and demonising nominal Muslims, articles like McIlveen's are effectively helping the cause of al-Qaida. Terrorists want Muslims to feel marginalised, to feel like second class citizens in their own country. McIlveen may well be helping terrorists achieve their strategic goals.

The DT has every right to criticise aspects of Muslim cultures and beliefs they find distasteful. Yes, it's true - often Muslims are the ones who need a good kick up the backside. But the DT and other papers should keep in mind that sometimes their critiques will be seen as attempts to manufacture hatred against ordinary Aussie Muslims. If they want to support al-Qaida, they can keep manufacturing hatred against ordinary Aussie Muslims. If they want al-Qaida to fail, the DT can report and critique without the hysteria and prejudice.

Still, to be fair to the paper, Roger Coombs (who is one of the most senior editors at the paper) has written an excellent critique of the thick-Sheiks who make Aussies of all faiths look like fools in their response to the Muslim beauty queen aspirants. Anita Quigley gives Professor Robert Pape a fair hearing. She's also written a piece on converts which (in my opinion) is a genuine attempt to understand the troubled communal and cultural terrain they must pass through.

In fact, to be fair to McIlveen, his treatment of Jack Thomas was much fairer than many of his colleagues at The Oz.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Frank Devine, 1.2 billion people and one word

Frank Devine is a senior columnist at The Australian. In a profile of his daughter, Miranda Devine, The Bulletin once described him as a "conservative Catholic". Devine’s views on certain issues are similar to those of his daughter.

In 2004, he praised genocide-denier and ex-Marxist Keith Windschuttle’s book praising what was (and thankfully no longer is) Australia’s racist White Australia Policy.

Devine now attempts to justify using a term championed by Islamophobes to link the acts of homicidal terrorists to Islamic theology. His column in The Australian, entitled Let's not be shy as the Islamo-fascists certainly aren’t, supports George W Bush’s description of “Islamic fascists”, though preferring the even more offensive terminology (“Islamo-fascist”) of far-right fruitcakes like Mark Steyn and Daniel Pipes.

Given his conservative Catholic leanings, one might expect Devine to have greater tolerance for a faith which suffers similar demonising in the mainstream press as his. No such luck. Devine’s attitudes toward Islam display near-chronic ignorance.

Thankfully, most Catholics don’t share Devine’s views. Devinde’s lack of sophistication can be illustrated by his lumping together a whole range of disparate interests (from the Deobandi Taliban to the Wahhabist al-Qaida to the Shia Hezbollah) as

... our Islamic foes.

Gee, that really tells us a lot, doesn’t it. The intellectual senility continues with Devine remarking:

Islamo-fascist groups or of their common purpose - to damage and, ideally,
destroy Western society - and their identical murderous tactics.

Yes, of course anyone who supports Hezbollah must be anti-Western. Try telling that to supporters of Michel Aoun with a straight face.

And who is Devine’s magical authority for his claim? First, it is widely used Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Yes, I'm sure most serious scholars of religion go straight to that source when wanting to understand the complex theological and political nuances of a faith followed by 1.2 billion people.

His next source? American historian Paul Berman. Now presuming this is the same Berman I know, I’ll admit that he isn’t exactly on the far-Right. He regularly writes for the American small-‘l’ liberal Slate magazine.

However, I’m not sure if Berman would agree with the lazy manner in which Devine applies part of one sentence from an unnamed book or article or Berman’s to conclude any Middle Eastern movement calling itself “Islamic” is necessarily linked to European fascism.

Of course, Devine is no expert in the field. Daniel Benjamin of the Centre for Strategic & International Studies is such an expert. BBC quotes him as stating:

There is no sense in which jihadists embrace fascist ideology as it was
developed by Mussolini or anyone else who was associated with the term. "This is
an epithet, a way of arousing strong emotion and tarnishing one's opponent, but
it doesn't tell us anything about the content of their beliefs.

The people who are trying to kill us, Sunni jihadist terrorists,
are a very, very different breed.

It may be hard for Devine to accept, but some phenomena cannot be summed up in a term that is

… catchier: it's only one word, is easier to say and holds promise of
developing the acronym IF (pronounced eye eff).

Devine isn’t concerned with the fact that Islam happens to be the faith of the vast majority of victims of terrorist attacks. He also isn’t concerned that Islam is the surname of a British victim of the July 7 2005 attacks in London. As far as he is concerned, attributing terroristic tendencies to the faith of the majority of its victims is perfectly acceptable.

Without meaning to sound ageist, Devine isn’t exactly growing younger. Then again, who is? I've certainly increased my quota of grey hairs since the photo in the top right hand corner of this page was taken in 2001.

Still, I can confidently say that Devine's views are part of the edifice of yesterday’s Australia, an Australia which took pride in hating anyone deemed different. The White Australia Policy has been relegated to the intellectual dustbin of Australia. It’s only a matter of time before views such as those of Devine are treated in a similar fashion.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Gerard Henderson & Lebs

What on earth does Gerard Henderson have against Lebs?

His most recent piece for the Sydney Morning Herald, an assault on anti-Israel protesters who allegedly hijacked a Sydney Hiroshima protest, contained the usual defence of hawkishly pro-Israel positions that even Israelis themselves are beginning to doubt.

Fair enough. Henderson supports Israel. Many Australians are sympathetic to Israel and hostile to Lebanon and/or Hezbollah in the current conflict. And yes, it is hypocritical for some protesters to mourn for Lebanese but not for Israelis. And I can’t say people like the Mufti Mel Hilaly (or should that be Tajeddine Gibson?) and his interpreter are my favourite Aussie Mossies.

But for Henderson to claim that an entire migrant wave came to Australia on the basis of false pretences is little more than an attempt to sound sophisticated whilst jumping on the same bandwagon Waleed Aly so deftly demolished last Sunday.

Henderson writes: “Many of the Lebanese Muslim Australians … were given refugee status during the civil war in Lebanon in the late 1970s and early 1980s, despite the fact they did not meet the requirements for obtaining refugee status.”

And the relevance of his point to the protest march and the current conflict in the Middle East is? Who knows? Indeed, who cares?

Is Henderson claiming that Lebanese Muslims engaged in migration fraud? Is he suggesting the Australian embassy in Damascus was party to this fraud? Is he suggesting Malcolm Fraser and his immigration minister were subverting due processes to favour Lebanese Sunni and/or Shia Muslims?

I’d love to see Henderson make this pitch to Ahmed Fahour should the Institute need NAB sponsorship.

I’d also love to see Gerard argue this point with Anne Henderson, who seems to have excellent rapport with Lebanese Aussies of all backgrounds.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

RACISM: Murdoch moments

A fortnight ago, Piers Akerman complained about a ...

... new class of dual nationality super-snivellers who believe mere possession of an Australian passport guarantees them security in their “other” homeland.

But by Friday morning, Akerman was shedding what might be described as crocodile tears for Assaf Namer, the young Israeli-Australian dual-citizen who died in Souyth Lebanon whilst serving in the Israeli army.

Akerman’s views on citizenship (indeed on many other) issues aren’t exactly rational and consistent. One wonders whether Akerman’s distaste for dual citizenship would be further tempered should Mr Murdoch find economic incentive to re-apply for Australian citizenship.

Some weeks back, Mr Murdoch told Channel 9:

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.

We’ve all heard theories of how Murdoch’s personal views are allegedly parroted by his columnists. I thought I’d test this theory. I wrote to Akerman (who, I understand, is still Deputy Editor of the Daily Telegraph) in relation to an article I was researching for New Matilda.

Three of my questions are reproduced in bold. Akerman’s answers are in non-bolded italics.

Do you think Mr Murdoch is questioning the loyalties of all Muslim Aussies? I think his remarks are legitimate.

Do you support his sentiments? Yes.

Do you think this expression is indicative of an official News Limited editorial policy when it comes to Muslim issues? No.

So I guess Akerman’s citizenship formula goes something like this …

a) If you’re a Muslim citizen (dual or otherwise), you’re unwelcome.
b) If you’re a Lebanese dual citizen, you’re unwelcome.
c) If you are an Israeli dual citizen who fights in the Israeli army, you are welcome.
d) If you are a dual citizen who doesn’t fit into a), b) or c), watch this space.

Perhaps Akerman should make his suggestions to the Deputy Secretary for DIMA responsible for policy development and implementation in the areas of migration and temporary entry, refugees, settlement, citizenship and multicultural affairs. Then again, in the eyes of Akerman and Murdoch, Mr Rizvi probably has dual loyalties.

Akerman’s Melbourne colleague, Andrew Bolt, remains unrepentant over his comments on dual citizenship. It seems not even the death of an Israeli-Australian is enough to convince Bolt that dual citizens are real Aussies.

********************************

In Sunday night, I visited a friend for our regular Sunday night movie on FoxTel. While waiting for the 10:30pm edition of some movie about a 40 year old virgin, we decided to cross to Fox & Friends (F&F) for some live entertainment.

What we saw was far from entertaining. A Fox News reporter was being filmed live at the scene in the southern Lebanese village of Qana. He was standing near the bombed-out building whose basement entombed some 57 civilian dead, including at least 30 children.

Both the reporter and F&F hosts were speculating how women and children could have ended up in that building given that Israel’s defence forces had very kindly dropped leaflets on the area warning people to leave.

The hosts canvassed a number of theories with the reporter. One theory was that the Hezbollah fighters wouldn’t let them leave. A number of other theories were used, none of which suggested that maybe the women and children were too poor and/or too sick to leave. Nor was it mentioned that Red Cross officials found the burnt-out wrecks containing charred remains of civilians trying to flee the south before being bombed by Israeli jets.

After canvassing all possible theories, both hosts and reporter agreed that the most plausible explanation was that the children were in fact somehow directly linked to Hezbollah terrorism. How such link manifested itself wasn’t explained.

In other words, Rupert Murdoch’s news network was effectively justifying the incineration of children in southern Lebanon.

Later on in the show, a former Israeli Foreign Service chief was interviewed. An F&F hostess prompted the gentleman to suggest that an existing UN Resolution to disarm Hezbollah was futile and Israel should just go on with its bombing campaign.

When the Israeli gentleman tried to suggest that the UN Resolution was fine and just needed to be implemented, the hostess cut him off, saying they needed to go for a commercial break.

So there you have it. Even the most hawkish Israeli political positions aren’t hawkish enough for Fox, a news network that invents theories to justify the massacre of children.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf


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Tabloid Forum Fraud?

The Daily Telegraph reached new lows of divisive and gutter journalism in its Monday July 10 2006 issue.

The offending article appeared on page 7 of the DT and was headed “Extremists weave a suburban web of hate”. It was authored by Luke McIlveen.

The article claims “Muslim extremists in Sydney are using the internet to gather support for making Australia an Islamic state”. It also claims chat rooms reveal “a ground swell of support for notorious terrorists such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi”.

The article doesn’t actually define what it understands by the term “Islamic state”. Nor does it define “ground swell”.

When examined closely, the ground swell turns out to be little more than a small number of quotes or excerpts from postings made by anonymous contributors. The quotations were made out of context, with McIlveen’s over-active imagination used to prove the relevant sinister context.

McIlveen deliberately misleads his readers by claiming “several threads” were devoted to “turning Australia into an Islamic state.

Yet the only quote he provides is one person posting: “II reckon we stay and try our best to get to high positions in this country so it comes to the fold of Islam”.

“McIlveen doesn’t explain how coming “to the fold of Islam” necessarily means the establishment of a caliphate or some other form of theocratic Islamic state.

Other quotes from postings are provided, though little indication is given of the precise subject matter of the posts or of other opinions expressed on the same thread.

At the article’s end, McIlveen invites readers to report any extremist websites with the question: “Do know of any extremist websites?”.

It seems professional journalism isn’t the only thing McIlveen has trouble with.

I did speak to Mr McIlveen on the afternoon of 11 July 2006. He insisted that the quotes did suggest their authors did envisage establishing an Islamic state. He asked what other possible reading could be given to them. I suggested there could be numerous possible readings, amongst which is that the posters wanted Islam to become the majority religion without changing the political system.

I followed up the telephone conversation with an e-mail to Mr McIlveen. I requested he send me a copy of all threads he had retained in researching the story, especially given that he had envisaged moderators of the forums might edit or remove the threads and then accuse McIlveen of misrepresentation. I'll keep you all informed of any response I receive from Mr McIlveen and/or the DT.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

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

RACISM: AIJAC Writer Claims Muslim Cultures Promote Rape

Were the Cronulla riots a response to gang rapes? According to one post graduate student at the University of Melbourne, the answer is yes.

In the immediate aftermath of the Cronulla riots, Sharon Lapkin authored a piece claiming that Muslim cultures promote sexual assault of women.

The article, published in neo-Conservative Front Page Magazine website, claims that gang rapes formed a necessary context to the Cronulla riots. The article also attacks Australia’s status quo of multiculturalism for promoting ...

... cultural relativism ...

... and claims that ...

... Islamic migration ...

... to western nations has brought with it ...

... Third World value systems regarding the treatment of women ...

... including...

... forced marriages, officially sanctioned rape, and honour killings.

Sharon Lapkin described herself in the article as ...

... a former Australian Army Officer and a postgraduate student at the University of Melbourne.

One wonders whether the Australian Army would like to be mentioned in the context of Lapkin's articles defaming Muslim cultures, especially given the presence of hundreds of Australian troops risking their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ms Lapkin is also a contributor to the Australia/Israel Review, published by the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council. Her previous articles for the Review have made farcical claims of al-Qaida plots being hatched by mainstream Muslim organisations in universities and off campus. She has sought to claim that groups with some tenuous ideological link to Middle Eastern Muslim movements are recruiting home-grown terrorists.

Lapkin’s Cronulla effort included the startling claim that Pakistani and other Muslim cultures are characterised by the abuse of women. Among the practices she lists are female genital mutilation, a practice virtually unknown in the Indian sub-Continent among any faith-community.

Lapkin cites claims made by defence counsel for a Pakistani man convicted of gang rape of teenage girls. The convicted rapist instructed his Counsel to argue that ...

... his cultural background was responsible for his crimes.

And Lapkin’s response to this claim?

And he is right.

Lapkin goes onto assert that Pakistanis hail from ...

... a society where officially sanctioned sexual violence is commonly employed as a means to enforce the subservience of women.

There is no doubt that abuses of women do occur in Pakistani society. The writer has himself criticised Pakistan's human rights record, including its treatment of victims of mass-rape such as Mukhtar Mai.

Lapkin’s claims play into the hands of those she descriobes as "neo-Nazis" who participated in (if not orchestrated) the Cronulla riots. She is, in effect, providing ideological and rhetorical ammunition to those very groups. It is one thing to allege that such abuses exist in Pakistan. It is another to claim that the cultures of all Pakistanis promote physical and sexual violence toward women.

And so we see at least one regular contributors to AIJAC publications using clearly racist and xenophobic language to virtually justify one of the worst incidents of racial riots in 21st century Australia.

What makes Lapkin’s claims even worse is that prominent Pakistani and Muslim Australians have refuted statements made on behalf of the convicted rapist. Indeed, when one Muslim religious leader claimed women’s dress made them “eligible for rape”, state and national Muslim peak bodies (not to mention the writer) immediately condemned the sentiments.

Lapkin’s article contains statements about other cultures that are deeply offensive and clearly racist. She attributes specific human rights abuses to all Muslims, and her writing echoes the sentiments of those supporting the Cronulla rioters.

Mark Leibler, National Chairman of AIJAC, recently criticised those who claims Aboriginal cultures promoted violence against women. Leibler was right in taking such a stand.

And so when similar claims are made about the cultures of a faith community closer to Judaism than any other faith on earth (and when such claims are made by contributors to AIJAC’s official publication), we can only hope Mr Leibler will show consistency in showing similar disdain to such clearly offensive sentiments.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf


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Limited News Snippets

The May 28 edition of the Sunday Telegraph moaned about the families of terror suspects receiving increased payments from Centrelink and also receiving assistance from the Legal Aid Commission.

The story, authored by Lincoln Wright, carries a headline of “Terror suspects’ $1M welfare gift”. Wright claims his paper carried out an “investigation”, going onto provide details of increasing payments made to families of the accused.

Investigation? What investigation? Did they obtain records under FOI? Did Mr Wright attend his local Centrelink office and ask a few questions? Did Centrelink staff breach Commonwealth privacy legislation and provide otherwise confidential details to the Tele?

What actually seems to have happened is that the paper used publicly-available formulae to calculate how much the terror suspects earned. There was no investigation. Mr Wright and the paper have in fact carried out no investigation.

Even more laughable is the paper’s claim that “Legal Aid services have boosted the total bill for taxpayers to more than $1 million”. Really? Is that an increase specific to these trials? Or is that a general increase in Legal Aid funding arising from the recent Commonwealth Budget? Or is that an estimate from the upcoming NSW and Victorian State Budgets?

Apparently, the paper wants us to believe that anyone guilty of the crime of being married to or parented by a terror suspect should be sentenced to mandatory destitution. But then, if concerned friends of the family decided to fundraise, the same newspaper would make an issue about “Pro-terror Muslim extremists raising money for their own”.

Apparently, the Telegraph also wants us to believe that there is already a fair amount of indignation in the grassroots. Hence quotes from representatives of such prominent organisations as “People Against Lenient Sentencing”.

I thought I would check the Yellow and White Pages to see if I could find this prominent and influential organisation. Just as I expected, there was no listing. I then did a search on the national names index of the Australian Securities & Investments Commisssion (ASIC). Again, no listing.

So who is this organisation? Who is Steve Medcraft? I wonder if Lincoln Wright would be prepared to tell me? I might just ring him on Monday and find out …

**********

Allegedly conservative columnist Piers Ackerman also finds time to moan. His targets are those nasty boongs who are victims of an inner-city Marxist ALP conspiracy called “self determination”.

And we all know how nasty and left-wing that conspiracy is. After all, it is supported by such radical leftists as Malcolm Fraser, Paul Keating and Aiden Ridgeway. Reds under Piers’ bed!

Or perhaps Ackerman wants to return the blasted Abbos back to the good old days when they received less money for doing the same job. After all, he finds time to lament “the 1965 equal wage case which saw Aboriginal stockmen granted the same wages as Europeans on stations across Australia's northern pastoral districts.”

Perhaps he reckons the black bastards should be happy getting less, so long as their families were allowed to sleep outside and have a few scraps of last night’s dinner and a couple of aspirin tablets thrown their way. After all, treating the boongs as equals is something only those bloody Afghan Muslim cameleer buggers would do.

Perhaps the best way to treat the blasted Abbos is to make them just like us. Get rid of their customs and cultures by throwing their customary law out the door. Let’s be honest. Which die-hard conservative, which believer in the maintenance of the status quo would allow the 20,000 year cultural landscape of the blasted boongs to compete with the 200 year Pommy/Irish cultural new kids on the block?

With friends like Piers to embarrass them, serious conservatives don’t need too many more journalistic enemies.

**********
Everyone’s favourite Dutchman, Andrew Bolt, spends his 26 May column in the Herald-Sun complaining about how the status quo of multiculturalism is once again destroying our nation. How so?

Always a purist on (mono-)cultural issues, Bolt laments that lots of Aussies attending the soccer game were barracking for Greece.

Yep, the choice of which team the crowd supports in soccer represents a dangerous threat to our nation and its culture. According Bolt, this shows a “clash of loyalties” and is part of the great conspiracy known as the “shame-Australia-shame movement”.

But hang on. Weren't the Greeks one of those wonderful European waves of migrants that John Howard claims always put Australia first? That have adjusted well and become part of mainstream Australia? That don't share the nasty extremist traits of those blasted Muslim arrivals?

Andrew, of course, doesn't find space to address this chink in the neo-Conservative cultural armour. Instead, he engages in some good old-fashioned wog-bashing. Maybe someone put too much chilli in his yeeros. Or was that a kebab? Who gives a toss. They're all the bloody same, those bloody wogs!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Why sexual hypocrisy is preferable to shock jock xenophobia

Rex Hunt is a respected AFL commentator and fishing guru. His most recent exploits involved a somewhat amusing spat with residents of the NSW alternative lifestyle hub of Byron Bay following an alleged assault by local youths.

In rather colourful fashion, Hunt described Byron (popularly regarded as an idyllic haunt for backpackers, yoga instructors, schoolies and cashed-up gurus) as worse than Baghdad. Locals were furious. The rest of Australia were most amused.

Yet Mr Hunt’s recent public exposure has had far more serious consequences than verbal exchanges with Byron Bay locals. A frequent commentator on moral as well as sporting issues, Mr Hunt has been forced to admit sexual indiscretions on public radio.

Hunt has condemned himself as a “sleaze” and a “hypocrite” for paying women to provide sexual favours (or at least to keep silent about them) whilst lecturing others on sexual morality. His wife has also appeared on radio to comment on his activities.

Yes, we can condemn Mr Hunt in the same terms as he has condemned himself. But it is also an opportunity to give credit where credit is due. In media terms, for a man constantly in the public eye, Rex Hunt is a uniquely brave man.

In the world of talkback radio, it is rare to find a man prepared to admit his own humanity to his listeners. Mr Hunt’s behaviour may have been disgraceful. But compare Mr Hunt’s conduct and his response to the scandal to the responses of other media personalities.

Shock jocks are known for their flagrant disregard of the reputations of others. How often do we hear talkback hosts insult, malign and defame not just individuals but entire communities.

In the lead-up to the Cronulla riots, a number of Sydney talkback hosts openly encouraged frustrated rioters to take the law into their own hands. They used the worst racial and religious stereotypes to generate hatred toward persons presumed by their appearance to belong to a supposedly offending group.

Rex Hunt may be an unfaithful husband, but his words certainly were not an essential ingredient of one of the nastiest race riots this country has seen since the end of the Second World War. Mr Hunt’s indiscretions did not lead to a breakdown of law and order of such proportions that entire beaches had to be closed up and down the New South Wales coast over summer.

One can only imagine how some notoriously racist Sydney shock jocks would react if their own sexuality was made the subject of public scrutiny. One wonders whether their claims to being protectors and defenders of decent conservative values would survive examination should their known past indiscretions be aired.

I wonder if they would even allow scrutiny of their sexual activities to be even mentioned without their reaching for their lawyers and threatening the alleged offenders with expensive legal proceedings.

Some of these same shock jocks have even gone to the extent of claiming that certain cultures and religions encourage their young men to sexually abuse white-skinned women as some kind of right of passage.

But it isn’t just the ayatollahs of talk back radio that show scant regard to the feelings of others. Some years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the first Bali bombing, a former client of mine was charged with possessing possible explosives. One journalist reported that this fellow had Arabic books in his house and had recently started attending religious classes at the local mosque.

The police involved in the investigation had already ruled out the possibility of terrorism. Yet the journalist involved wanted to use the pages of his Sydney newspaper to spread hysteria about the possibility of terrorism by making reference to a recent religious conversion on the road to Damascus (or in my former client’s case, Mecca).

Ironically, the journalist involved had a distinctly Arabic-sounding surname. His own background suggested that a visit to his own home might reveal Arabic books and possible visits to the institutions of religious denominations at the heart of Middle Eastern conflict. I raised these points on an e-mail group, with a view to levelling the playing field and exposing what I felt was the journalist’s hypocrisy.

Some 4 months later, I received a letter from an in-house lawyer of the media organisation for which that journalist worked. That letter corrected some erroneous assumptions I had made concerning the journalist’s ethno-religious background (I got his Middle Eastern denomination wrong in my e-mail).

More importantly, the letter threatened me with defamation proceedings for daring to question the journalist’s integrity on a private subscriber-only e-mail list. Perhaps the journalist should have realised that sometimes threatening a litigation lawyer with legal proceedings is as effective as threatening a surgeon with a penicillin injection.

To make matters worse, the journalist did not even bother to spend his own money to brief their own lawyers, preferring to use the resources of the company’s legal department to fight a personal legal battle.

Those who lecture others about sexual morality while failing to practise it themselves deserve to be derided. But what is worse? Using the microphone to preach morality while failing to practice? Or using it to behave like fanatical mullahs by preaching hatred toward others?

I’ll take an honest sleaze over a bigotted shock jock or racist scribe anyday.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

New Blog

I don’t always have the time to update my many blogs with article-size (700-plus word) analyses. But I still like to keep my brain ticking over with short snippets on what I am reading at the moment.

With this in mind, I’ve started a new blog which (I hope) will be updated with some regularity. You can check it out here.

Hopefully, I will have some stuff to write about on this blog in the near future. Anyway, back to my 6-minute units!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

When good Police PR compromises better security

It was around 5am in the morning when my mobile phone suddenly rang.

“Hi, this is [producer] from [commercial channel]’s morning show. You must have heard about the terror raids earlier this morning. We can arrange a car to take you to Lakemba Mosque. We’d like to talk to you so we can gauge the Muslim response.”

The high profile November raids on the homes of terror suspects gave newspapers plenty to write about. A number of commentators criticised the timing and publicity surrounding the raids. At the same time, Muslim leaders in Sydney and Melbourne felt the raids proved that then-existing anti-terror laws worked sufficiently well to apprehend and protect the community from terror suspects.

Now, in a keynote speech to the Press Council on 23 March 2006, Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty has urged reporters and state police media units to cease filming raids on the homes of terror suspects.

Keelty said that filming the raids had caused unnecessary and justifiable angst amongst Muslim Australians. He further added that the way media reported issues related to terrorism has a “deep and abiding” impact on the recruitment of extremists and potential terrorists from within Muslim communities.

Keelty argued that police warrants should be executed without the intrusion of TV film crews whose presence potentially compromised the integrity of police work.

“The fashion of trying to provide film or footage of the execution of search warrants needs to be rethought because it is an intrusion into someone else's property. It is a precious power that needs to be, I think, surrounded by appropriate decorum.”

In the days following the raids, Keelty made his criticism of state police media units known privately to a number of Muslim leaders in Sydney. The Press Council address is the first time Mr Keelty’s criticisms have been made publicly.

There is no doubt that Keelty’s views were reflected in the responses of many Muslims to the raids. One need only visit the forum pages of websites such as islamicsydney.com to see how many young Australian-born Muslims took a dim view of the media circus surrounding the raids.

Rightly or wrongly, many Muslims felt that coverage of the raids and the first few days of the trials reinforced community perceptions that terrorism was an inherently Muslim phenomenon.

Images of doors being smashed open, of female relatives of the accused dressed in traditional covering and of subsequent selective leaking of police fact sheets with information linking suspects to mainstream Islamic institutions did not assist in this regard.

Selective leaks by NSW police media units effectively allowed good police work to be hijacked by sectarian agendas of some tabloid columnists and radio talkback hosts.

If the greatest risk of terrorism on Australian soil arises from home-grown locally indoctrinated Muslim extremists, law enforcement agencies must have the support and confidence of local Muslims who have at least as much to lose from terrorist attacks as anyone else. At least 10% of victims of the July 7 London attacks were from Muslim backgrounds, including a young English girl whose surname was Islam.

Of course, NSW Police have been tipping off media outlets about anti-terror raids for the past 2 years. The Sydney Morning Herald reported a NSW Police public affairs officer Kylie Keough as suggesting that the practise of tipping off journalists merely highlighted the good work of police officers.

But good public relations isn’t the be-all and end-all of police work. If the price of good police PR is increased risk of Muslim resentment leading to possible recruitment of extremists, it is too high a security price for Australians of all backgrounds to pay.

Whether police spin doctors like it or not, there are media commentators and editors with clear sectarian agendas. Their ability to distort police information and evidence has led to a tide of feeling in parts of the broader community against any group deemed responsible for terrorism. A sample of the explosive results could be seen at Cronulla last December.

Some motives mentioned by participants in the Cronulla riots (as shown on the ABC Four Corners program on 13 March 2006) illustrate the risks of allowing police information to fuel prejudice. One participant named Luke makes the following remark: “I want this government to stop the growing threat. And I want them to stop appeasing Islam. And to stop appeasing people that follow Islam.”

All this may seem unrelated to Mr Keelty’s warnings. Yet misinformation-fed fear of terrorism adds fuel to sectarian fires. The following dialogue sums this up.

LIZ JACKSON: What about reconciling? I mean, a lot of groups have put some effort down here into reconciliation.

LUKE: Sure, sure. But the monster's just going to go somewhere else. It'll rear its head somewhere else. There's always going to be that threat. And I think that paranoia will become part of society forever. Like, as far as I can see. And I don't - I think that's here to stay.

LIZ JACKSON: And what threat? What is the threat you're talking about?

LUKE: Terrorism, you know? It's terrorism.

When paranoia and social division reach such fevered pitch, the terrorists have already won half the battle. Yet given the tendency of even senior government ministers to reinforce existing sectarian prejudice, it is unlikely Keelty’s warnings will be heeded.

The author is a Sydney lawyer and writer.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Sobering Thoughts On An allegedly American Newspaper

Last Saturday night I had an interesting conversation in Canberra with a group of people who had gotten together to support that progressive bunch known as the Canberra Islamic Centre. Amongst them was a gentleman who had something to do with media.

I made a flippant throwaway reference to an American newspaper that likes to call itself The Australian. I was expressing my frustration at one section of The Oz which provides voice to some of the ugliest views I have ever read since I arrived in Australia as a wee toddler.

Going to school as virtually the only non-Anglo kid at Ryde East Public, I heard lots of nonsense in the playground from other kids. But the taunts I received then were nothing compared to some of the things I read in the columns of Janet Albrechtsen and others claiming to represent conservative thinking.

The fellow I spoke to claimed not to recall the good Doctor making any extreme reference to Muslim cultures. I reminded the chap of Dr Albrechtsen’s claim that Victoria looked like it was on the verge of becoming an Islamic state because of its religious vilification legislation. I also reminded him of the comments she made in relation to the gang rapes that took place in south western Sydney.

I got the feeling my converstaion partner may have had some link with The Oz and appeared to be offended by my suggestion that a newspaper he associated with was printing views which, if said about Jews and Judaism, would be deemed anti-Semitic.

I hope he goes back and reads some of the offending columns and considers the impressions that the promotion of such lunatic-fringe ideas has on even the most conservative people for whom Islam forms perhaps a minor part of their identity.

The gentleman certainly had far more enlightened views about non-Christian religions (if he didn’t, why on earth would he be attending a fundraising dinner for an Islamic centre?). To his credit, the gentleman did provide me with some food for thought which I felt should be shared with readers.

He explained that each section of the paper has its own editors who have separate briefs and engage their own regular contributors. These contributors are given a certain amount of latitude and are deliberately chosen because they represent a certain element of the public conversation.

There is a significant monoculturalist element of the public conversation which wants to read criticisms of matters associated with Muslim cultures. Writers like Kevin Donnelly and Janet Albrechtsen cater for these people.

At the same time there are elements of the public conversation that want to read relatively less conservative and/or multiculturalist views. Writers like Phillip Adams and others cater for these.

He also pointed out that ugly views about certain non-Christian faiths and cultures are also printed in the Fairfax press. I agreed with him in the case of Paul Sheehan and Miranda Devine (and occasionally Gerard Henderson, though he is far more sophisticated in his analysis of sectarian issues).

He also suggested that much of the problem is not that of the paper but rather of those claiming to speak for Australia’s incredibly diverse Muslim communities. On this point, I doubt there can be any disagreement except from those representing the private interests of those benefiting from their continual domination of Muslim institutions.

I guess this is where government-sponsored multiculturalism has its limits. If, by multiculturalism, we mean governments spending money on organisations which then divert funds into private ventures then it is understandable for taxpayers of any denomination to find such activity inherently offensive.

In this regard The Oz has investigated and exposed both the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. But it has also exposed the Hillsong Church. If Islam or Pentecostal Christianity has reputation problems, this cannot be solely attributed to a few op-eds in a newspaper.

Perhaps the most important point the gentleman made is that what gets printed in different sections of a newspaper may or may not represent the entire newspaper. He said that no mainstream newspaper from any camp (Fairfax or News Limited) has a single ideological agenda. Rather, the newspapers try to reflect the national conversation and break news stories that readers want to read.

Further, often a newspaper’s op-ed section will enable the views of certain writers to be projected further so as to counter-balance the perceived biases of a competing newspaper and so as to differentiate itself from its competitors.

In the current environment, with anything remotely related to Islam being painted as violent and ugly, it is sometimes easier for those of us who don’t feel the urge to hate the faith and all its followers to presume every attack is part of some agenda. Conspiracies often make excellent self-fulfilling prophecies.

But we have to learn to be careful not to demonise media outlets just because they give space to those who demonise us. Because chances are the same outlet gives space to the demonising of just about everyone else.

(A version of this was first published on The Webdiary.)

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

The Daily Telegraph's Disgraceful Front Page Headline

In April 2005, I had something published in a Sydney newspaper about a Sydney sheik who said women who dressed a certain way are eligible to be raped.

I promised myself I would never write anything related to “Muslimy” issues again. The last thing I wanted was to be known as the media’s “village Muslim”. Heck, there are so many other things to write about.

Then the London bombing came along. People claiming to represent me and 300,000 other people who, amongst other things, happen to have Islam as their religion were saying all sorts of crazy things.

Australians were naturally scared, especially with those responsible for the bombing thought to be kids born and bred in the UK. With the exception of leaders in Victoria and ACT, those claiming to represent Muslims were not saying or doing much to alleviate people’s fears. Their inaction forced my hand and my pen.

With John Howard and Peter Costello harping on about Muslim extremists more than Muslims “harp on” (to use Mr Howard’s phrase) about jihad, I now find myself in the same situation.

But this time, my concern isn’t so much about the words of greying politicians in dark suits. I’m angry about a headline.

A young Australian girl of Turkish background falls in love with a young guy and has been in a relationship with him for 4 years. Her terminally-ill mother disapproves of the relationship, and the young girl succumbs to a psychiatric condition which leads her to make a number of calls to Carlingford Court. The calls were in fact bomb threats.

The girl pleads guilty and her solicitor calls evidence from a psychiatrist. I am not sure if Dr Russell White was the girl’s treating psychiatrist, but I’m not sure if it really matters. He is qualified to give his report, and his evidence is accepted by the magistrate and not opposed by the prosecutor.

According to Dr White, this girl’s psychiatric condition has two causes. First, there is her mother’s terminal illness. Second, there is the parental pressure relating to the relationship.

Yet for reasons unknown, this psychiatric condition is reported on the front page of this newspaper with the headline as “Muslim Legal Excuse”. The article suggests that submissions made by her solicitor were incredulous. Hardly one sentence from solicitor Jonathan Anton’s submissions have been quoted with a view to showing that the act of making bomb-threats and the subsequent allegedly poor excuses were allegedly “Muslim” behaviour.

The newspaper has defamed the girl. It has also defamed her boyfriend, her parents, her psychiatrist and her lawyer.

Further, the newspaper has engaged in breaches of the Trade Practices Act 1974. It has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in trade and commerce by falsely attributing certain criminal conduct to Muslim culture.

It is one thing to speak of a clash of cultures. It is another to describe criminal conduct and its explanation as a “Muslim legal excuse”.

The headline represents an insult to all persons who happen to be of Muslim background.

Perhaps my colleague, Mr Anton, might consider advising the young lady to pursue action against the newspaper.

The editor and sub-editor of the paper have behaved irresponsibly in relation to both the headline and the editing of the story. If the girl happened to be Jewish, I doubt they would place as a headline “Jewish Legal Excuse”.

I believe that, should the paper be found to have defamed the girl, damages would be quite substantial. She is already suffering stress as a result of the circumstances outlined in her psychiatrist’s report. Now to have her name and reputation tarnished purely because of her family’s religious background will be a cause of even greater stress.

The Daily Telegraph, its editors and its publishers should be held accountable for their gross misconduct and complete lack of professionalism. It saddens me to say this given that the newspaper has allowed a small number of nominally Muslim voices (including my own) to be printed on its pages. But in the current environment, with Australian Muslims feeling the heat from all sides, the media must learn to behave responsibly.

And if they will not learn voluntarily, they may have to learn through the prospect of court action.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Lifting the Media Veil on Costello & Sharia

The media circus

On Thursday 23 February 2006, Treasurer and Prime Ministerial aspirant Peter Costello delivered a speech to an audience at the Sydney Institute. Mr Costello provided some personal reflections on Australia’s developing culture and citizenship. Within a few hours, a veritable media circus began.

Predictably, some News Limited newspapers reported Mr Costello’s words as condemning all Muslims. Some of these papers had provided skewed and distorted reporting of similar comments made by the Prime Minister one week before.

The Fairfax Press, on the other hand, attempted to paint Costello as indulging in dog whistle politics, seeking diversions for the scandal of the Government’s knowledge of kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein’s regime. Others speculated that the PM wanted to be seen to be going further than the PM, taking a stronger stand on policy issues outside his Treasury portfolio.

Speaking before reading

Sadly, most migrant Muslim leaders bought into the circus, many expressing views on the Costello comments without having read the Costello speech. Some leaders accused Costello of deliberately seeking to marginalise Muslim communities by speaking of undefined Australian values and threatening the dual citizenship status of those seen to be opposing such values.

I must admit I initially agreed with them.

Until, that is, I read Mr Costello’s actual speech. I agree that Mr Costello’s “values” test for citizenship will be difficult to translate into workable legislation. Further, his views on sharia are at best simplistic.

Apart from these fairly significant bloopers, Costello’s comments were spot-on. The first two-thirds of his speech are fairly innocuous. But what sent the scribes, pundits and some Muslim leaders scurrying were the final 2 pages of comments on sharia and citizenship.

Australian values are sharia values

Peter Costello said that anyone who believes Sharia can co-exist with Australian law and Australian values should leave the country. Mr Howard described his comments as “fundamentally accurate”.

What neither fail to see is that if Mr Costello’s formulation of Australian values is correct, it might mean non-indigenous Australians will have to pack their bags and return to their motherlands.

Mr Costello says most migrants “become Australian citizens because they want to embrace the things this country stand for.” He lists six core Australian values including economic opportunity, security, democracy and personal freedom.

In 2002, a visiting Indonesian academic lawyer delivered a series of lectures under the auspices of the conservative Centre for Independent Studies (CIS). Professor Muhammad Fajrul Falaakh is Vice Dean of the prestigious Gadjah Mada University, among the top 100 universities in the world. He holds a masters degree from the London School of Economics, and was a Fullbright Scholar in the United States in 2000.

Professor Falaakh is also a senior figure in the Nahdatul Ulama (Council of Theologians), the world’s largest Islamic organisation. NU ‘s membership is more than double Australia’s population.

Falaakh delivered the annual CIS Acton Lecture on the topic of “Sharia and Pluralism in Indonesia”. He listed 5 basic values of Sharia agreed upon by Sharia scholars from all schools of Islamic law.

An edited text of Professor Falaakh’s lecture is still available on the website of the Centre for Independent Studies. If one compares the 5 basic principles of Sharia to the 6 values espoused by Mr Costello, one finds they are virtually identical.

Perhaps this is what Australian imams mean when they state in their sermons that Australia is a more Islamic country than most Muslim-majority states.

Sharia as legal tradition

But then, this should be of no surprise to anyone. After all, sharia is not a synonym for amputations and beheadings. Rather, sharia is the name of a legal tradition, a set of legal principles based on certain values. And those values are identical to the values expressed in the Old and New Testaments.

Further, legal scholars in both east and west are agreed that the traditions of sharia, English common law (from which our legal systems are derived) and European civil law have borrowed from each other and influenced each other. To this day, in a large number of Commonwealth countries, sharia and the common law sit side by side.

Historically, all legal traditions influence and are influenced by each other. This simple fact is taught to first year law students in universities across the world. Many of our fundamental common law doctrines are taken from the works of sharia jurists, and sharia has also borrowed from the common law.

A retired Justice of the NSW Supreme Court has written that alternate dispute resolution procedures adopted in Australian commercial law find their origins in Islamic commercial law. Further, Professor John Makdisi of the St Thomas University in North Carolina has written extensively on how common law and sharia traditions borrowed extensively from each other.

Sharia as ethics and liturgy

Some pseudo-conservative commentators present sharia as a system of medieval criminal punishments. But for some 300,000 Australian Muslims, sharia represents little more than ethics (honesty, enterprise etc) and liturgy (how to perform prayers, weddings and funerals etc.)

As shown above, the ethics of sharia do not pose a problem for Australia. Further, sharia liturgy has been practised in Australia for over a century. Indeed, Australia law allows a number of religious legal systems (such as Jewish religious law) to operate in the contexts of family law, estates and other areas.

The letter and the spirit

Christ, recognised as Messiah by Muslims, castigated rabbis of his time who followed the letter but ignored the spirit of sacred law. Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad brought sharia as the outer manifestation of religious values. He also brought an inner manifestation, which has been given a variety of labels by Muslims but which is commonly known in the West as sufism.

A tiny minority of Muslims seek to establish sharia without sufism across the world. They are the source of virtually all terrorist groups in the Muslim world. Their theology is regarded by mainstream Muslims as isolationist and fringe. They distort sharia by imposing it on people without the inner discipline of sufism. They are openly hostile to sufi tradition.

These people seek to destroy Islam from within. They are arguably more of a threat to Muslims than non-Muslims. Hence, the majority of their victims are Muslims. Mr Costello would like to see such people leave Australia. Most Muslims, on the other hand, would prefer to see these people leave our planet.

Charity and distorted perceptions

These people distort our perceptions about sharia. Most Australians regard sharia as purely consisting of draconian medieval punishments. Mr Costello’s own inaccurate comments about sharia are a manifestation of distorted perceptions. Instead of criticising inevitable and understandable ignorance, Muslim leaders need to educate the community about their faith and values.

The Qur’an teaches that when giving charity, give of things you value. Australians have followed this Qur’anic teaching by sharing with Muslim migrants so much they value – wealth, jobs, education and greater liberty to practise Islam than exists in most Muslim countries. Muslims too must share what they treasure – their religious and ethical values. If Aussie Muslims do not share their faith with their countrymen, how can they blame the rest of Australia for not understanding them?

The author is a Sydney lawyer. iyusuf@sydneylawyers.com.au

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Fun with forums ...

I’ve been having some fun times on the forums associated with that magnificent website Online Opinion (OLO). This fantastic initiative deserves our support. I urge you all to donate to keep this superb website alive.

The forums are especially entertaining as they are a place where a variety of nutcases congregate. These are usually the same people who make up the cheer squad for views expressed on the blogs of Tim Blair and Peter Faris.

You might want to check out the comments left on the OLO forum website to my (rather clumsily worded) questions as follows:

“I'd just like to ask B_D, mikijo and all the other armchair Nazis here a simple question. If the Federal Government decided to round up Muslims and have them detained in detention camps, would you support such a move?

Further, would you support laws that would allow persons of Muslim origin to be killed?

I'm just trying to gauge where all this discussion is heading.”

I’d also encourage you to check out the forums associated with Ted Lapkin’s latest attempt to portray all Muslims as a bunch of embassy-burners. I’ve set a few challenges for young Ted. It makes for fascinating reading.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Australian Doublespeak and that nasty "M" word

That nasty ‘m’ word

It’s official: Howard doesn’t like the ‘m’ word. Neither do his supporters, whether they be (at least one) anti-abortion MPs or some allegedly conservative columnists writing about the Cronulla riots in the op-ed pages of that American publication calling itself The Australian.

Which ‘m’ word is that, you may ask. Is it the name Muhammad? Certainly, that’s a word open to abuse in most neo-con circles, especially after an obscure neo-con newspaper in Denmark decided to publish a dozen or so cartoons.

Or maybe it’s that other ‘m’ word, the one that could well be used to describe Australia unless we follow Danna Vale’s advice and make abortion pills a tad harder for Australian (as opposed to, say, Muslim) women to access. I mean, let’s face it: in today’s conservative parties, you can say what you like about Muhammad and Muslims, but don’t even suggest the Health Minister’s rosary could cause any harm to non-Muslim ovaries.

Actually, the word I am thinking about combines both these distasteful alien religious elements. John Howard has declared that he doesn’t like the word ‘multiculturalism’, and his view is shared increasingly by members of his party (both organisational and parliamentary wings) and by his friends at The Australian.

That diplomatically useful ‘m’ word

Howard may not like the word, but successive Australian Ambassadors to Indonesia can’t get enough of it.

The present Ambassador, Bill Farmer, and his brave staff are still nervously housed behind tight security in the fortress-like Australian Embassy building on a main street of Jakarta’s CBD. The building was the scene of a terrorist attack on 9 September 2004 in which 10 Indonesians died and over 200 were injured. The blast was so big that the 100kg Australian crest fell from the embassy wall and crashed to the ground.

Despite their understandable jitters, Farmer and his crew maintain brave smiles as they struggle to find all sorts of novel ways to use the ‘m’ word in almost every press release. The problem is that Indonesian journalists are just as smart as ours. And they can read.

During the last two weeks of January, I travelled with a delegation of young Aussie Muslims on an exchange program sponsored by the Australia Indonesia Institute and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Each year, the Institute sends a delegation of young Australian Muslims to visit a range of individuals, organisations and institutions from across the spectrum of Indonesian opinion. Delegations of Indonesian Muslim youth leaders also visit Australia.

Our delegation consisted of two lawyers, an engineer, a researcher and a police woman. Two of our delegation could speak fluent Bahasa Indonesia. We had to front up before some of Indonesia’s top journos for a news conference. We felt confident we would represent the national interest well, and so did the embassy staff.

Indonesian journos do have internet access

One of the embassy heavies was with us, and she very capably and confidently briefed Indonesian journos about how Australia is multicultural, about how Muslims are all living very comfortably thanks very much, and about how we even have a Ministry for Multicultural Affairs.

The Indonesian journos, of course, had heard it all before. So when it was their turn to speak to us, they had already memorised the relevant offensive lines from the op-ed pieces written by the Stones and Windschuttles and Donnellys that are regarded as reflective of ‘mainstream’ opinion by the head honchos at The Australian.

It became a bit embarrassing listening to the journos throw neo-con mantras in our direction like patriot missiles. In the end, we had no option but to speak the truth. We were cornered by well-researched scribes, and had to somehow weasel our way out.

‘Guys, listen: the stuff you are throwing at us is published in an American-owned newspaper. Seriously. It isn’t reflective of what most Australians think. If it was, it would sell far more copies and be much more profitable than it actually is.’

The journalists just weren’t convinced. One blurted out:

‘But the newspaper is called The Australian. And we know the paper is very supportive of the Howard Government. We have been following it during your last federal election.’

What could we say to that? Indonesian journos, after all, do have internet access. They can also read Latin script, and many can speak fluent English. In fact, quite a few were educated in Australia.

So there we were, a bunch of Australians trying to help the embassy sell a certain official line, and the biggest obstacle in our way was an American-owned newspaper. Yep, some op-ed writers may think they are helping the government, but their infantile rants and imbecilic prejudices are harming our national interests in our own backyard. They are facilitating DFAT spin to be unspun by savvy journalists in our region.

Indonesian press and the ‘p’ word

Howard may not like the ‘m’ word, but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and most of the politicians and religious organisations in Indonesia are all in favour of the ‘p’ word.

One Indonesian academic from the liberal Muslim Paramadina University in Jakarta told our delegation that ‘pluralism’ is a much more effective and inclusive concept than tolerance or multiculturalism.

Indonesia is not the first country that comes to mind when words like pluralist, liberal and democratic are mentioned. During the decades of Suharto’s ‘New Order’, liberal democracy was in short supply. And we have all heard the horror stories of violence between various Muslim and Christian denominations in Ambon and Sulawesi.

Indonesia isn’t a perfect place. During our stay, we saw plenty of evidence of inter-racial and inter-religious tension. In Indonesia’s university town of Yogyakarta, we visited an interfaith group known as Interfidei. We heard from their (mainly Muslim) workers about the difficulties Christian communities face in establishing new churches.

We were also given the run-down on how Catholicism and Christianity are regarded as separate religions (a sectarian relic of Dutch colonial rule), and of efforts to have Judaism recognised as an official religion. Believe it or not, there are Indonesian Jews living in Surabaya.

But in Indonesia, inter-racial and religious violence and its underlying sentiments are not applauded in the op-ed pages of national broadsheets. Indeed, media ownership in Indonesia is a reflection of the pluralism that Indonesians take for granted. In the world’s largest Muslim country, the highest selling national broadsheet, Kompas, is owned by a Catholic foundation.

Imagine the outcry if Muslim interests bought our own national broadsheet.

(First published in New Matilda on 22 February 2006.)

An Ignorant Australian?

Its advertisements pose the question: “Are you an informed Australian?” But if you believe what has been written in The Australian on 20 February 2006 about Muslim migrants, you will probably end up a bigoted, or at best, ignorant Australian.

The Australian newspaper has attempted to paint a picture of a singular Muslim culture hostile to mainstream Australia, showing extreme attitudes toward women, being powered by a sense of “jihad” and showing an inability to adapt to the Australian mainstream.

In the past, The Oz has published numerous opinion pieces supporting or suggesting such a view. The authors have pointed to the alleged inability of Muslim migrants to adapt to Australian conditions. Alternately, they have used Muslims as a scapegoat in an attempt to impose their own cultural monolith on Australia’s multicultural status quo.

Even when parliamentarians have made (and then withdrawn) infantile allegations against Muslim migrants (such as the recent embarrassment with Danna Vale’s contribution to the RU482 debate), The Oz allowed its op-ed pages to be graced with an article by Muslim-hater Mark Steyn supporting Vale’s withdrawn and discredited views.

The Australian has now decided to publish excerpts from an interview with the Prime Minister, excerpts which the paper originally meant to publish on or about 11 March 2006 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Howard government. It is unclear exactly why the paper has chosen to do so at this time.

Mr Howard has made some recent remarks on what he views as unfortunate traits limited to a small minority from within Muslim communities. Some of Mr Howard’s remarks are correct, whilst others are perhaps reflective of popularly-held misconceptions.

This article will not focus so much on what Mr Howard said. Rather, it will focus on the editorial baggage which The Oz has tried to attach to Mr Howard’s comments.

Mr Howard’s words were about a minority, but what The Oz attempts to do is to generalise these traits into characteristics of what it describes as “Muslim culture”.

In an article entitled “Howard hits out at ‘jihad’ Muslims”, George Megalogenis writes about the PM “strongly criticis[ing] aspects of Muslim culture, warning they pose an unprecedented challenge for Australia's immigration program.”

The paper went onto report about how “[t]he Prime Minister also expressed concern about Muslim attitudes to women.”

So we have “Muslim culture” and “Muslim attitudes”. The suggestion is that exists a singular Muslim culture, that it is a migrant culture and that it has implications for Australia’s immigration program.

And what evidence has been presented of a singular Muslim culture? Who knows? Perhaps more importantly, who cares?

The Oz’s editorial of 20 February 2006 provides some background behind the interview with the PM, which was held “to discuss multiculturalism, immigration and the integration into our society of new arrivals”. In this context, Mr Howard “was asked if he was confident that Muslims would integrate as thoroughly as the wave of Asian immigrants of the 1980s and 90s had done.”

The very fact that such a question could be asked shows the exceptional ignorance of the editorial’s authors. It suggests that Muslim migration is a recent phenomenon, and that Muslim migrants all have the same culture. Muslims are painted as a recently-arrived monolithic migrant group.

The reality is that Muslims have been migrating to Australia for over a century. Apart from the descendants of Afghan and north-west Indian cameleers and hawkers, there were a large number of post-war Muslim migrants from Albania and the former Yugoslavia.

Hardly 4 decades after the Gallipoli campaign, Australia relaxed its White Australia Policy to enable migration of Turks from Cyprus and Anatolia. Today, Turkish Australians are some of the best settled migrants in the country. Turks manage more mosques than any other ethnic Muslim group.

If they seriously believe that Muslims make up a singular monolithic cultural group of migrants arriving after the wave of Indo-Chinese migrants of the 1980’s, one wonders which Australia the editors of The Oz have been living in all these years.

The editors claim that “[i]n recent years we have had no one, other than some Muslims, bringing such missionary zeal to the establishment of their own religion and society within our own.”

Exactly what is the problem with establishing one’s culture and institutions isn’t explained. Islam, like Christianity, is a missionary faith. Displaying missionary zeal is not in itself illegal. Neither is establishing mosques or schools. Indeed, the Howard government has been committed to the public funding of independent schools.

Muslim missionary work has been performed in Australia since the arrival of the first Muslim settlers in the 19th century. The vast majority of Muslim missionary work has been peaceful, usually in the form of speeches by imams and visiting scholars.

The Oz editorial laments “… the attitude of some of our latest arrivals who see the relaxed and tolerant lifestyle of their neighbours as some sort of affront to their passionately held beliefs.”

The most recently arrived waves of Muslim migrants (apart from skilled tradespeople, professionals or business migrants) have been asylum seekers from Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa. Apart from one Bosnian charged following the recent anti-terror raids, there is not any evidence of such attitudes being held by any of these categories of asylum seekers. Nor is there evidence to suggest that Afghans or Bosnians or Somalis or other similar groups live and work in ghettoes or enclaves.

The Oz continues: “Since the end of World War II, Australia has prided itself on the ability of everyone to fit in. The waves of Greek and Italian migrants have been absorbed in two generations. They are now no easier to pinpoint than the Scots or Irish immigrants of a century before.”

Exactly the same can be said for Albanian and Bosnian Muslim migrants from the post-war era. It can also be said for many Turkish migrants, whose dress and appearance makes them indistinguishable from other European Australians. One wonders whether The Oz’s editors have ever visited Smithfield or Penshurst in Sydney and attempted to identify a Bosnian Muslim who isn’t sporting a prayer cap.

The Oz goes onto state that “Asian immigrants of the last part of the 20th century are now doing likewise. None of these peoples harboured any hope or desire to imprint their culture over that which existed here.”

So how does one define “imprint” of a culture? Have Vietnamese or Chinese migrants suddenly started only eating meat pies? Is Sydney’s China Town being dismantled? Did we see the last of the Chinese New Years celebrations in late January?

The Oz editorial shows how completely divorced it is from reality in the following lengthy paragraph:

“Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for some of our newest Muslim immigrants. They have arrived with attitude. They have a mindset that disapproves of our relaxed and socially unstructured lifestyle. Their young men, raised in the strictures of Muslim households, do not understand, and have no wish to accept, the freedoms young Australian women take for granted. It was this clash of cultures that fuelled the Cronulla riots and which is at the heart of Mr Howard's warning.”

Again, none of the most recent Muslim arrivals had any involvement in the Cronulla riots. The riots were said to be in retaliation for the assault on surf life savers by certain people of “Middle Eastern” appearance. I am yet to meet someone from Bosnia or the Horn of Africa of Middle Eastern appearance. Further, there is no suggestion of involvement by Afghans.

Rather, where there are young Middle Eastern looking men showing bad attitudes to women and the law, they are mainly from more 2nd and 3rd generations of more settled migrant groups – Lebanese and Pakistanis. The boys convicted of gang-rapes were not Afghan or Somali or Bosnian. They were boys from Lebanese and Pakistani families.

In adding editorial baggage to the PM’s recent pronouncements, the editorial writers of The Australian are seeking to paint a coherent picture of a monolithic culture of recently arrived Muslim migrants. But examined against the reality of wave after wave of Muslim migration, the picture painted looks little more than incoherent pieces of paint hurled onto the canvas.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

With friends like these ...?

I realise that if New Matilda were a country, it probably wouldn't be ruled by a conservative government. But I am sure it must have some conservative readers, and in my case, at least one conservative writer.

Conservatism isn't very popular in certain quarters. Listening to the way some conservative leaders carry on, it isn't hard to guess why.

I am writing this piece after spending around 2.5 hours with 250 people at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, filming a 60 Minutes show on the Cronulla riots. I heard NSW Opposition Leader and Liberal State MP Peter Debnam repeatedly call for the jailing of '500 young Middle Eastern thugs' who have allegedly been terrorising Sydney for over 10 years.

These kids must have been driving around Sydney in hotted-up cars and harassing people since they were in kindy!

Comments like Debnam's make me wonder whether one needs to fail an IQ test to lead a conservative party these days. But then, so many of today's conservatives are about as conservative as Josef Stalin. They play games with racial and religious tensions, their words parroting the worst rhetorical excesses of tin-pot dictators from the Middle East and Africa. And their media cheer squad of spin doctors and commentators aren't much better.

The Islamic Republic of Victoria?

Dr Janet Albrechtsen is regarded as a media pin-up girl for the conservative side — Australia's very own Ann Coulter. Some might recall Coulter writing in the immediate aftermath of September 11 the following words of wisdom and good sense on the US-based pseudo-conservative website, 'Townhall'

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Albrechtsen, thankfully, never descends to this level. However, in a recent column for that American newspaper called The Australian, she airs her concerns that, 'Victoria's religious vilification laws are working in ways that make the place look like an Islamic State-in-waiting.'

This comment appeared in an Albrechtsen article after she spent some 15 paragraphs claiming that all Muslims across the Islamic world were getting completely violent and hysterical over the Danish cartoons.

Victoria's religious vilification laws must have been fairly radical legislation. Let me guess: was it called the Ayatollah Khomeini Appreciation Act 2006? Or has Steve Bracks decided to change his title from Premier to Caliph? (See, One Nation had a point: those dimwits south of the Murray should never have allowed a Leb to become Premier!)

In the same article, Albrechtsen made some legitimate points about the hypocrisy of Muslim reaction to the Danish cartoons. I have made similar criticisms and comments and had them published elsewhere, including in the Dominion Post (the NZ newspaper that recently published all 12 offending cartoons).

The difference between my criticisms and Albrechtsen's is that I don't regard all Muslim cultures as being absolutely inconsistent with Western values.

Miranda links Osama bin Reagan to Cronulla

Albrechtsen may have her prejudices. Heck, we all do. But at least she writes with vigour, passion and some intelligence.

Miranda Devine, on the other hand, rarely if ever displays much sophistication in her pieces. Her recent column analysing the international storm over the 12 cartoons is an example of this.

In one 900 word article, Devine somehow manages to find a way of linking the ">following:

*Osama bin Reagan;
*The September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington;
*An alleged unofficial policy to go soft on thugs responsible for post-Cronulla reprisal attacks;
*The murder of a Dutch filmmaker;
*A survey by a Victorian teachers' union;
*Driver's licence photos;
*Government initiatives to train home-grown imams.

And what do all these disparate and unrelated things have in common? Does Devine have a clue? Probably not. And who is the sole 'authority' cited by Devine in support of her thesis? None other than US hate-monger extraordinaire Daniel Pipes.

Playing the Pipes of War

For those wanting to see American Talibanism in action, I urge you to visit Daniel Pipes's website. Pipes has visited Australia on a number of occasions, usually at the invitation of the Centre for Independent Studies or some other conservative think tank.

On one occasion, Pipes suggested that 'radical Islamists' should be hunted down and eliminated. He estimated they constituted 10-15 per cent of the world's Muslim population. Considering there are around 1.2 billion Muslims on this planet, this means Pipes wants to see at least 120 million Muslims massacred. Nice chap, isn't he?

Pipes also suggests that the best way for nations to respond to the kidnapping of their citizens in Iraq is to lynch Muslim minorities. His article was reproduced in the Melbourne Age on 15 September 2004.

In the context of the Danish cartoons, Pipes is once again peddling his conspiracy theories about how all those nasty Muslims are trying to take over Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand, the Moon, Saturn, etc.

With enemies like that

Seriously, I could go on and on about Albrechtsen and Devine and their sad excuse for conservative analysis. But ultimately I have to agree that they do have a point. The response of some Muslims in Damascus, Beirut and elsewhere has been completely over-the-top. Where these two commentators go wrong is they take that small minority of dimwits and attribute their stupid behaviour and antics to an entire faith community.

(Albrechtsen and Devine also are completely ill-equipped to talk about freedom of speech when they themselves have supported draconian sedition laws — but that's a separate point that can be discussed on another occasion.)

Writers like Albrechtsen and Devine seem to have a pathological hatred of Islam (I can only say 'seem to have' because I honestly don't know what they really think). But some Muslims claiming to love Islam share a large responsibility in generating that hatred.

In Iran, a newspaper is having a Holocaust cartoon competition. That's just so funny, isn't it? I'm in stitches. Neo-cons produce cartoons and we retaliate against the memory of six million who died unjustly. Gee thanks, guys.

Muslims who go around burning embassies in the name of Islam are as evil and destructive as people who get drunk and stoned and go around singing the national anthem and waving our flag while assaulting anyone deemed 'Middle Eastern'.

If you feel hurt about something, the worst thing you can do is lash out at innocent people. Because when you do, people who can make a difference start to ignore your grievances. They focus instead on the ugliness of what you did.

Muslim protestors need to understand that if they react and respond to every provocation out there, they will be screaming and shouting until the halal cows come home to be slaughtered. They have to remember (if you pardon me mixing metaphors) that they have bigger fish to fry.

The Albrechtsens and Devines of this world are actually doing Muslims a favour. Instead of spending more time hacking into them, I might consider inviting them out to lunch. Then we can talk as human beings and not as opponents in some intra-conservative war.

Sometimes those you perceive as your enemy do you more favours than sycophantic best mates. With enemies like that, who needs dumb friends?

(First published in New Matilda on Wednesday 15 February 2006.)