EVENT: Opera & Koran meet Gregorian ...

Two performances only, both on Saturday 25 October 2008 at the City Recital Hall in Sydney. Click here to purchase tickets online.

The cast includes Tenor Rosario La Spina singing operatic arias; Dr Neil McEwan leading Gregorian Chants with the St Lawrence Singers; Sufi Master Fatih Koca with the Whirling Dervishes and World Champion of Koranic Recitation Ahmet Karali reciting from the holy Koran.

What happens when you combine recitation of the Koran with opera and the Gregorian Chant? Listen to Soner Coruhlu and Dr Neil McEwan talking about this awesome spiritual combination of sound and soul.

To read what the Sydney Morning Herald says about this event, click here.

To read a group of tunnel-visioned narrow-minded moronic imbeciles condemning this event, click here.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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BLOG: Keeping the Nazi dream alive ...

Bloggers at the far-Right Australian Islam Monitor website just can't stop thinking about me. After praising me for speaking out about chronic gender inequalities in Muslim communities, they are now making an issue about the size of my nose.

So I have a rather exotic-looking nose. What will they complain of next? That the spelling of my surname is more Israeli than Arab?

AIM blogger Cassandra then likens my attacks on the "Obama-was-a-Muslim-brigade" to attacks by the anti-Semitic French establishment on Captain Alfred Dreyfus. As if Dreyfus made it a habit to go around spreading false rumours about people's ethnic and religious heritage. As if Dreyfus tried to spread innuendo about people based on their background. As if Dreyfus cast aspersions on people based on their surnames or the size or shape of their noses. As if Dreyfus believed that certain minorities should be kept away from government and public administration.

When I think of prejudice against people based on their nose size, I think of the Nazis. It was the Nazis who determined whether a person was a Jew by the size of their nose. It was the Nazis who were so fixated with the size of people's noses. It is the Nazis who despised certain ethno-religious groups. It was the Nazis who spread the idea that a Jew could never be trusted and that Judaism taught its followers to lie and deceive.

AIM are carrying on these Nazi traditions. They look, sound and talk like Nazis. I wonder what that makes them.



Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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