CRIKEY: Why Muslim leaders must change the rhetoric

The Daily Telegraph is having an absolute field day with the Sydney protesters. Yesterday’s front page featured some rather angry faces on the front cover. The words “Muslim unrest” featured at the top of pages four and five. They haven’t had this much fun down at Holt Street since October 2006 when the headline “YOU HEARTLESS IGNORANT MAN” was splashed over the front page along with a photo of a besieged Grand Mufti.

Many Muslims in Sydney haven’t been this embarrassed since Shaykh Hilaly’s infamous cat-meat comments. Readers may recall the then Mufti of Australia made remarks linking women’s dress to s-xual assault. And it wasn’t just tabloid newspapers condemning the man. Politicians, commentators and others weighed in, calling for Hilaly to resign.

Many in Muslim communities also echoed these calls. Many, that is, apart from a fair swag of those currently claiming to speak on behalf of Sydney Muslims in relation to the recent rioting in Sydney over the weekend.

On that occasion, many of these organisational heads felt the urge to publicly support and defend Hilaly. They made excuses for his remarks — that we were missing the context, the true message was lost in translation, etc. The media were collectively blamed. And Muslims who openly spoke out against Hilaly were condemned as traitors to the cause.

It’s the same kind of rhetoric now being used by supporters of the protesters on Facebook and other social media forums against these spokespeople. One can only imagine what is going through their minds as they listen and watch some “leaders” on the radio and TV. ”Oh great, so now you’re condemning us for using the same messages you used six years ago?”

In short, there are some credibility issues that need to be addressed. Or perhaps another way of looking at it is that some people have finally grown up and realised that “they” are not all out to get “us”.

(These observations don’t extend to all Sydney spokespersons, nor to the people at the Melbourne-based Islamic Council of Victoria, which openly called for Hilaly’s resignation. When Waleed Aly joined Randa Abdel Fattah on Lateline the other night and spoke about denial and siege mentality, he used the same themes he used as spokesman of the ICV during the cat-meat saga. On that occasion he also correctly noted that support for Hilaly was limited to a tiny but substantial pocket in a few suburbs of south-western Sydney.)

Yes, the broader community does need to be reassured. Thankfully we now have spokespeople who can speak without interpreters. But the rhetoric of “we condemn this” needs to change.

Why not mock the mockers? When Newsweek recently published a front-page story on “Muslim Rage”, it promoted it on Twitter with the hashtag #MuslimRage. Visit that hashtag today and you will find lots of people poking fun at the idea.

Humour can sometimes take you much further than self-righteous condemnation.

CRIKEY: Sheik Hilaly fights for his life in Lakemba ...

On Tuesday afternoon, I was forwarded a copy of an anonymous email from three Muslim sources. This in itself is nothing special -- Muslims are recipients of sh-tsheets as much as members of even the most mildly political group. But what made this email strange is that it concerned an upcoming election at the Lebanese Moslems Association (LMA) which manages the Imam Ali ben Abi Taleb mosque in Lakemba and employs Sheik Hilaly and other imams.

The LMA's constitution contains a provision that only adult males entitled to a Lebanese passport are eligible to have full membership and voting rights. Which raises the question -- why was the same email sent to my three sources, two of whom are women and one of whom is an Anglo-Australian man and all three of whom live nowhere within 300km of Lakemba?

The email referred to Sheik Hilaly calling up "the Anti-terrorist unit ... on Tuesday; They (Hilali and his mob) are accusing the 'young boys' at the Mosque of being extremists and potential terrorists". The email also referred to Sheik Hilaly's sermon last Friday when he allegedly described a group of young Muslim men as "Taleban in Lakemba". The email claims Hilaly used terrorism fears to play LMA politics.

These are our children he is talking about, our husbands, and our brothers. How can a Shiek [sic.] make such FALSE accusations. These people he is accusing are innocent -- his accusations can lead to long term jail sentences for these innocent people who have families to support.

So why was the email distributed so widely? An election was coming up. LMA elections are always hotly contested affairs, especially given the large amounts of real estate and other assets the LMA owns. Though time and again, the LMA has shown a complete unwillingness to deal with PR issues. Go to the LMA website and try clicking the box marked "MEDIA PRESS RELEASE".

Hilaly is again in hot water, this time over kicking down a door inside the mosque and then allegedly accusing another person of causing damage to the door. His explanation wasn't too convincing, and all he has in his favour is that the report was from A Current Affair, a program with not much of a reputation when it comes to accuracy.

Hilaly's antics could be seen as him resisting generational change in the LMA. Certainly during his catmeat fiasco, LMA executive members (all of whom were 2nd and 3rd generation Lebanese Aussies) distanced themselves from Hilaly and openly expressed a wish to be done with him. LMA elders opposed these young men.

Hilaly is also accused of using Machiavellian LMA politics to protect his position. As an employee of the LMA, Hilaly should be above politics. Yet Hilaly isn't the first imam to play politics. Imams are in a precarious position, often with no written employment contract and no job description, and expected to juggle conflicting instructions from an executive frequently in a state of civil war.

Hilaly's catmeat speech was more than likely leaked to The Oz by a sectarian opponent from a rival mosque. Such an opponent could not have had access to the mosques video. When members of the executive are leaking videos to the media and sending out sh-tsheets across Australia, it seems likely that Hilaly's days as senior imam at Lakemba are numbered.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Pell cannot see the log in his own eye ...

Sydney’s Cardinal Pell has accused "modern liberalism" as being intolerant to Christians wishing to speak and act freely and in accordance with their conscience and their religious values.

Space doesn't permit a detailed treatment of Pell's entire speech. I'd probably need at least 8 pages to do that. But for what it's worth, here are a few paragraphs.

His eight page speech focuses on "two tales of intolerance". The first involves the story of activists from various Christian (and no doubt a fair few non-Christian) denominations in the United States who campaigned in support for proposed state constitutional amendments that enshrine marriage as between a man and a woman only.

Pell claims these activists were subjected to intimidation and even death threats. Churches were ...

... the focus for demonstrations, often attended by violence, vandalism and intimidation.

Some blogs even called for certain churches to be burned down, while businesses supporting the amendments were boycotted.

I wouldn't be surprised if this actually happened. But I cannot help wondering who Pell’s main sources were. And so I checked the footnotes to his speech.

Pell's footnotes twice refer to blogger and news commentator Michelle Malkin whose record of tolerance included encouraging the boycott of Dunkin’ Donuts. Did she do so on health grounds and to highlight growing American obesity rates? No. Malkin objected to a Dunkin’ Donuts advertisement showing Rachel Ray wearing a fashion accessory that resembled the traditional Palestinian scarf, known as a keffiyeh. Malkin described the keffiyeh as ...

... the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad ...

... and ...

... a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos.

Palestinian Catholics, including the parish priest of Bethlehem, won't be impressed.

Pell’s second example of intolerance was a handful of unsuccessful attempts by certain Muslims to seek orders against Christians who engaged in "criticism" of Islam "religiously, sociologically [and] philosophically". Yet the strange thing is that the very individuals he tries to defend have themselves engaged in the kind of intolerance he accuses proponents of “modern liberalism” of engaging in against Christian groups.

Among those Pell defends is Danny Nalliah from Catch The Fire Ministries. Nalliah is on record as calling on his congregation to pray that mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples and even Masonic temples be torn down.

Pell then claims that "many in the West have grown used to practising self-censorship when it comes to Islam". That may be the case with certain non-Muslim Westerners, but there have been plenty of Muslims quite happy to openly criticise and question and even lampoon their faith, leaders and communities.

In all these instances, Pell sees Christians’ liberty being compromised by an aggressive form of secular liberalism. Yet Pell was quite happy to see special regulations introduced to stop people from causing "annoyance or inconvenience" to World Youth Day participants.

There's much more I could say about Pell's speech. Indeed there's quite a bit about his speech that I agree with. But I might suggest to the good Cardinal that before his next polemical foray, he might ponder over words Christ once used:

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

An edited version of this piece was first published in the Crikey daily alert on Friday 13 March 2009.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Shakira Hussein dispatches forest jihad theories for six ...

Canberra writer and academic Shakira Hussein gives the forest jihad rumour a good scrubbing in Crikey this afternoon ...
______________________

Every so often, I have a naïve moment in which I think that an overwhelming disaster will prompt people to lay aside their differences and come together to face of a common tragedy.

But apparently not. Even as the search for bodies continues in the Victorian firezone, some people are searching for the "us and them" angle. Muslims have come to expect that they will be stigamised for any crime commited by any Muslim anywhere. But this week's speculation by some media and internet "commentators" about "forest jihad" has reached a new low.

This speculation is based on reports last year that an extremist Islamic website had called for "forest jihad". The fascist British National Party poses the "question" "Australian Death Fire: was it jihad?". The media finger-pointing has been less direct, more "might-have-done-it, will-be-getting-ideas-from-it, who-knows-but-I-wouldn’t-trust-them-with-a-match".

Fox News quoted various "experts" as saying that Islamic extremists would be "watching" the fires carefully, and getting ideas. "Expert" Steve Emerson said that militants "could" light wildfires, just as they "could" poison food supplies.

As Islamophobiawatch points out, this is the same Steve Emerson who said that the 1995 Oklahoma bombing showed a "Middle Eastern trait" because it aimed to kill a lot of people - an aim that the hypothetical "Middle Easterners" turned out to share with Timothy McVeigh.

And (as reported in Crikey), Piers Akerman proved yet again that there is no dog-whistle so filthy that he won't raise it to his lips. His column describing arson as terrorism did not go so far as to blame Muslims for the tragedy in Victoria, but the comments on his blog show that his readers (both admirers and critics) certainly heard the whistle.

On this occasion, Andrew Bolt showed greater civic responsibilty than Akerman (or, in the words of blogger Sheik Yermani, Bolt "chickened out"), telling readers of his blog that he would not post any comments that pointed the finger at Muslims. So maybe the disaster, and the subsequent finger-pointing, is bringing people together after all. It isn't often that I have a kind word to say about Andrew Bolt.

Police Superintendent Ross McNeill was categorical in dismissing the "forest jihad" theory, telling AFP "None whatsoever, absolutely nothing, zero. We usually rank possibilities on a scale of zero to ten -- this would be on a negative scale."

That would be "no", then.

CRIKEY: Jonathan Greene's piece on the Abu Hamza pseudo-scandal ...

I normally don't do this. I only reproduce on my blogs Crikey items I have written myself. But in the circumstances, I think the following is warranted ...

I am posting the complete Jonathan Greene story on Abu Hamza (including graphics) for a reason. From time to time, we are all prone to being over-affected by media spin and journalistic bullsh*t. I always thought I was immune from this. Well, in fact I wasn't quite as immune as I thought.

Crikey is a subscription-only service which is a terrific read and well-worth subscribing to. It has been a key force in keeping media magnates, journalists and politicians honest. I strongly recommend readers take out a trial subscription or even fork out a small amount for a full subscription. Find out more here.

When the Abu Hamza story first hit the media websites, I thought I would do something many Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph readers wouldn't do. I thought I would watch the video.

Anyone who watched the video will see that News Limited and/or the lecture organisers have done a rather clumsy edit. It is quite clear from the video that, far from promoting domestic violence, Abu Hamza was emphasising just how evil it is.

Today, the tabloids are going nuts over Abu Hamza's comments about Australia being allegedly a nation of drunks and gamblers. Again, a complete fabrication. If it is true that Abu Hamza really did make this gross generalisation about Australians, is it any worse than Rupert Murdoch's gross generalisation to the effect that all Muslims suffer from genetic defects because they marry their cousins?

Of course, none of this detracts from the fact that any suggestion that marital rape is OK should be condemned in the strongest possible language.

Anyway, enough from me. reproduced below is Jonathan Greene's analysis of the media lynching of Abu Hamza.

UPDATE I: This article is also available to non-subscribers at the Crikey website here.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

_______________

Muslim cleric the YouTube hit of ... 2003

Crikey editor Jonathan Green writes:

"Outspoken Islamic cleric" Abu Hamza has been top of the pops for the past two days, incurring no lesser thin-lipped wrath than that of the Prime Minister yesterday for YouTubed comments on s-xual violence and r-pe. He backed up again in this morning's tabloids, accusing Australians of an over-fondness for booze, gambling and s-x.

More of the last later, but the sudden flurry over these six-year-old recordings must have left Hamza more than a little bemused, not only for the Australian tabloid press's capacity to recycle the ancient as fresh front page news, but also for the way on which the media wheel can turn.

Hamza, also known as Samir Mohtadi, has been a feature of significant media coverage before. Three years after the recordings that so enraged Kevin Rudd, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun he was much discussed as the "moderate cleric" who appeared as a star prosecution witness in the case against accused terrorist Abdul Benbrika.

This is how the ABC's AM described Mohtadi in August 2006:

Samir Mohtadi is the director of the Islamic Information and Services Network for Australasia, based in Melbourne. He's a moderate Islamic cleric who preaches regularly at the Preston mosque in north-east Melbourne. He's also a teacher, who gives lectures about the meaning of Islam, mainly to young people.

Through his work, Samir Mohtadi knows some of the men who have been charged with various terrorism offences, and today he gave evidence at their committal hearing.

And this is how news.com.au described him at the time of the 2006 trial:

Mr Mohtadi is the director of the Islamic Information and Services Network of Australasia, in Coburg, in Melbourne's north.

The network provides information and services to Muslims and non-Muslims about Islam.

He said he had known Mr Benbrika as they both attended the same mosque, also in Melbourne's north.

According to sources close to the Benbrika trial, Samir Mohtadi had been cultivated by Australian security agencies since the events of September 2001. He became a key Crown witness in the Benbrika case and gave evidence about a meeting he had with Benbrika in 2004 in which he said to Benbrika that he had heard Benbrika was planning a terrorist attack in Australia. Benbrika denied it. Mohtadi said he would go to the government if he got wind of any plan. According to some, it is not too greater stretch to wonder of Mohtadi was not something of an ASIO mole within Melbourne Muslim circles.

He gave evidence at the long Benbrika trial, and was cross examined at length about Islamic practices, scholarship and views about Israel and jihad. Richard Maidment SC, the lead prosecutor for the Crown, said in his closing that:

... you saw Mr Mohtadi and he was a credible witness, in our respectful submission.

How times change.



Which takes us to today's outrage at Hamza/Mohtadi's comments -- 2003 remember -- that Australians

... think happiness can be achieved by being intoxicated, by going to the casino and blowing your money away.

The Herald Sun demanded his removal from the continent in its editorial today:

Mr Hamza would be better off living somewhere else. His inflammatory teachings are not welcome here.

That was on page 46 of the paper. Here's a look at some other content from the same edition:





Which is not to say that across town The Age is any less dependent on alcohol fueled display advertising. Au contraire:


All of which goes to show that Mohtadi might have a point. Or at least he did in 2003.

CRIKEY: Israeli torn between ''Islamists'' and ''the Muslim thugs'' ...

Visiting Israeli Professor Raphael Israeli presents different faces for different audiences. Sometimes he says his target is only “Islamists”, ie, those Muslims who want to impose a political version of Islam on secular democracies.

Certainly this is what he said in a letter to The Australian. Here's an excerpt from The Oz report on February 19 2007 ...

A VISITING Israeli academic has blasted Australia's Jewish leaders for disowning him after he raised concerns about the level of Muslim immigration in Europe and the consequences of a similar approach here.

Raphael Israeli, Professor of Islamic, Middle East and Chinese History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, wrote to The Australian yesterday to complain about his treatment after a story in the Australian Jewish News which claimed he favoured a cap on Muslim immigration.

The story, which Professor Israeli said didn't accurately reflect his views, led to criticism from Muslim and Jewish leaders without further checks with him, he said. The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, co-sponsoring his lecture tour, decided to sever ties with him.

"Instead of standing by their guest, and supporting free debate in this country, Jewish leaders have elected to shamefully disown me in their statements that were geared to placate Muslims," Professor Israeli wrote.

"I come from a country dipped in solidarity and that never abandons its fighters in the battlefield. Here I feel abandoned, forlorn, betrayed by people who lack courage and stamina to stand up for principles."

Professor Israeli's attributed comments in the Jewish press last week in part suggested there would be demographic pressure for Indonesian Muslims to resettle. The article quoted him as saying "one of the big possibilities is Australia, so they will continue to come legally, or illegally, and settle here, and when they get to the rate of the 10per cent, like in France, then you will see life will become untenable".

Yet he wrote an almost identical, though more virulent (and need I say honest) letter to the far-Right polemical JihadWatch website. In that letter, he made it clear he was talking about “the Muslim thugs”, without differentiation. In other words, his attitudes are directed to all Australians who happen to tick the “Muslim” box on their census forms. Here's how The Age reported Israeli's remarks ...

A VISITING Jewish professor has lashed out at Australian Jewish leaders for their "shameful submission to Muslim thugs", saying his comments were less harsh than some by the Prime Minister and federal Treasurer.

Hebrew University professor Raphael Israeli, dropped from a proposed lecture tour after comments last week, said political correctness did not allow his remarks to be said, though, privately, all supported them.

He said Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello had said harsher things after "Muslim riots", but "someone elected to seize upon this opportunity now and sweep Australia into a storm in a teacup".

Professor Israeli, who will teach his six-week Islamic history course at the University of NSW, posted his version of the stoush on a website.

On the Dhimmi Watch section of www.jihadwatch.org, he wrote: "The dhimmi-like Jewish leadership cancelled all activities, in a shameful submission to the Muslim thugs and under the false claims of a 'multicultural society' in Australia, which they know is not true."

Regardless of where he stands, we’d be living in denial if we insisted Israeli’s attitudes to that nebulous Arab/Muslim/Islamist/Middle Eastern “them” aren’t gaining some hold.

Why is this so? Who is responsible? And what is being done about it?

Journalism professor and veteran reporter Peter Manning believes that skewed reporting is largely to blame. His research of metropolitan Sydney newspaper reporting pre and post-September 11 shows that the prejudices have pre-dated the emergence of al-Qaeda.

Experts like Dr James Jupp of the Australian National University argue cogently against Israeli’s central thesis on limiting immigration for a particular religious group. Here's how ninemsn reported Jupp's remarks on February 16 2007.

A local immigration expert has dismissed suggestions by a visiting Israeli academic that Islamic migration to Australia should be capped.

... immigration expert Dr James Jupp from the Australian National University said talk of limiting immigration for Muslims was the kind of idea "put forward by crackpots" — even though there is no legal barrier to doing so.

He said banning immigrants on religious grounds is possible as all migrant applications are done in other countries which are not subject to our racial vilification laws.

“You [immigrants] have no legal rights to Australian law if you are outside Australia,” Dr Jupp said.

Proving religious discrimination “would be extremely difficult” as immigrants cannot access our legal system before they arrive in Australia.

”I don’t think you’d have a leg to stand on, you couldn’t prove it,” Dr Jupp said.

He added that officials could easily hide religious discrimination behind the various other requirements immigrants must meet to enter this country ...

... Dr Jupp said that would not occur here as European countries gave full citizenship to emigrants from ex-colonial nations — many of which are Muslim countries.

As Australia has no colonial ties with Muslim countries like Algeria, it was unlikely that Muslims would come to this country in such large numbers as they do in Europe.

I think much responsibility rests with Muslims themselves, especially with religious and organisational leaders who are largely first generation migrants who regard Islam as a relic of their lives “back home” and are generally disinterested in communicating Islamic theology to the broader community.

The ethno-religious nature of the Muslim religious establishment is the biggest reason why Israeli’s claims simply don’t apply to Muslims here (if they apply anywhere else).

On Radio National Israeli said that

... in Islam, secular Islam, or secular Muslims, is a contradiction in terms.

He also said that there is only one Islam, and that Muslims either adopt it or they don’t.

This is the weakest link in Israeli’s argument. Australian Muslims come from over 60 different countries. Australian Islam is more ethno-cultural than religious a phenomenon, reflected in Muslim community leadership drawn from ethnic-based mosques.

To say there is one Islam means there is one Muslim community. But the fact is that Muslims cannot even agree on holding festival days. Israeli says that a growing monolithic Muslim community in Australia is a threat. This Muslim community doesn’t exist down under.

An edited version of this piece was first published in Crikey on 23 February 2007.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Media rant - SBS declares Dave Hughes mufti of Australia!

SBS broke the news last night that Australia’s 360,000-odd Muslims now have a new Mufti.

Last night’s premiere episode of Salam Café saw Dave Hughes dressed up in ceremonial robes and a turban and declared mufti by compere Ahmed Imam (whose dad, coincidentally, is current mufti Fehmi el-Imam). Sheik Hughsy left the live Melbourne audience in hysterics.

SBS picked up this community-based show from Channel 31, where the show picked up a bunch of Antenna Awards in 2006 including Best Program on Community TV. The show features a panel of talented young Victorians including a couple of brilliant young stand-up comics, three charming hostesses, an author and that son-of-a-mufti I mentioned earlier.

The show was filmed before a live Melbourne audience, though rumour has it they’re filming some shows in Sydney.

One panel member is no stranger to mainstream TV. As a university student, ophthalmologist Dr Ahmed Hassan raised eyebrows among conservative community leaders by appearing on and (if my memory serves me correctly) winning a “Red Faces” segment on an episode of that Channel 9 classic Hey Hey! It’s Saturday. Back then, the idea of using popular culture to break down stereotypes was a little too cutting-edge for the middle-aged men that ran Australia’s mosques.

But times have changed. At least they have in Victoria. A fair few stars of this show hold senior positions on the Islamic Council of Victoria. And with Sheik Hughsy as their spiritual leader, it looks like mufti day has just hit the big time!

First published in the Crikey daily alert for Thursday 8 May 2008.



Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

MEDIA: Did Dicky misrepresent Laurie Ferguson?

In the Crikey daily alert for 11 March 2008, ANU researcher Shakira Hussein suggests that my old buddy Dicky Kerbaj from The Australian may have been engaging in some poetic (or should that be journalistic?) license in relation to comments made by Minister for Multicultural Affairs (and Federal Member for Reid, perhaps the most multicultural federal electorate in the country) Laurie Ferguson.

I'd have to say I never suspected Dicky would be putting words and policies into Laurie's mouth. Further, Dicky's report (that any future Muslim Reference Group advising the Federal Government would focus less on male middle aged migrant religious leaders) was certainly a breath of fresh air compared to the coposition of John Howard's Reference Group.

Yet Ms Hussein actually appears to have spoken to Mr Ferguson on the issue.

This morning, the paper [as in The Australian] reports that the federal government is considering appointments to a new Muslim advisory board. The Muslim Community Reference Group established under the previous government was dominated by conservative religious leaders. It became a lightning rod for internal Muslim community conflicts and recriminations, and was eventually discontinued. The Australian reported that Ferguson is determined that any new government appointed body should represent a wider cross-section of Muslims, and include secular as well as religious figures.

But The Oz may have exaggerated the government's intentions a little with the headline "Rudd's quest for true blue Muslims." In an interview with Crikey this morning, Ferguson hosed down talk of a re-established reference group, emphasising that any such plans were at a very early stage. While the government is "mindful of the need for dialogue" with Muslim communities, it was impossible to say what shape that dialogue might take.

I sure hope that this government spends more time listening to ordinary Aussie Muslims, many if not most of whom aren't terribly observant. I hope they abandon the previous government's approach of talking about and at Muslims instead of talking to them.

© Irfan Yusuf 2008


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CRIKEY: Dr Ramadan and slur by association

Some Crikey writers have speculated about a change in government possibly leading to our national broadsheet toning down some of its far-Right cultural warrior ways. But if the journalistic lynching of Swiss-born philosopher and author Dr Tariq Ramadan in The Australian is anything to go by, monocultural hawks at the paper aren’t giving up without a fight.

Leading the sectarian attack against Dr Ramadan over the weekend was new Opinion Editor of The Oz Rebecca Weisser. She makes a huge issue of the fact that Dr Ramadan happens to be the grandson of the late Hasan al-Banna, the founder of an Egyptian organisation called al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (literally “Muslim Brotherhood”).

Yes, and? Is Weisser alleging that Dr Ramadan agrees with everything his grandfather’s movement stood for? Using the same reasoning, would Ms Weisser also allege that Senator Eric Abetz is a neo-Nazi? After all, Senator Abetz’s great uncle played a senior role in a rather nasty political movement that held sway over much of Europe during the first half of the 20th century.
Abetz rightly refers to those who play the game of “slur … by association with such a distant relative” as being completely unfair and un-Australian. It would be a shame if an editor of a newspaper calling itself The Australian would engage in such un-Australian conduct.

It’s hardly surprising Weisser provides space on her page to tabloid columnist Melanie Phillips. Some readers might recall Phillips’ visit to Australia some 12 months back to promote her book Londonistan, which makes the extraordinary claim that political Islamism is the dominant strain in contemporary Muslim societies. I’d love to see her make that claim in Pakistan, where Islamist parties suffered near-annihilation in recent elections.

Phillips’ diatribe against Dr Ramadan includes the extraordinary claim that he supports the implementation of sharia (Islamic sacred law) as the law of the land in all (including Western) countries. She obviously hasn’t read Ramadan’s call for draconian criminal punishments often associated with sharia to be the subject of an indefinite moratorium where they exist in Muslim-majority states. She also doesn’t refer to Ramadan’s criticism of the recent sharia speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Ramadan is attending a 3-day conference in Brisbane starting today. Prior to his arrival in Australia, Dr Ramadan visited New Zealand where his tour was supported by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs & Trade. None of the Kiwi papers made a fuss about the visit.

First published in the Crikey daily alert on Monday 3 March 2008.

© Irfan Yusuf 2008


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CRIKEY: The Middle Eastern Gerard Henderson?

Imagine writing a monograph on Islam in Australia: Democratic bipartisanship in action including interviews with prominent players in law enforcement and politics but without interviewing a single Muslim, and launching the monograph in ... of all places ... the United Kingdom!

I was a little sceptical yesterday when I was forwarded an e-mail announcing the launch of Gerard Henderson’s monograph published by UK conservative thinktank Policy Exchange.

Especially when the study claimed that Australia actually had a "model" to "approach its Muslim population". (I feel so special knowing Dr Henderson has identified a special model to approach me!) Yet only four of the eight points in the model actually mention Islam or Muslims.

The first three points deal with security and the fourth tackles the end (well, sort of) of multiculturalism. Muslims are only involved to the extent that they do not

... fail to uphold core Australian values of citizenship ...

and

... it is not enough for self-appointed Muslim community leaders to oppose violent and aggressive jihad in Australia whilst supporting it beyond the shores of the Commonwealth.

In short, Muslims are a security threat to be managed. They aren’t people to be consulted or involved or even understood.

I felt it important to show Henderson the respect he failed to show the subjects of his monograph. I telephoned Henderson to ask about his study. He told me the original title was Islam and Democracy: The Australian Experience.

When I asked him whether there was any reason for not interviewing Muslims (or at least Reference Group members), Henderson became rather Middle Eastern.

Are you lecturing me? Who are you to tell me what I should write? What sort of question is that? This is most unprofessional.

Henderson claims the first Muslims to emigrate to Australia were Afghan cameleers. For someone with a PhD in history, this is a serious error. Indeed, Henderson need only look back to the speech delivered at his thinktank by West Australian author Dr Nahid Kabir.

Still, that’s neither here nor there. What is strange is that Henderson, a fellow with no serious knowledge of Australia’s Muslim communities only cites Kabir once. He doesn’t cite any other scholar on Muslim communities. I don’t expect Henderson to cite sycophantic non-critical writers. But Policy Exchange describes itself as taking an

... evidence-based approach to policy development … in partnership with academics and other experts.

Henderson is no expert on the topic, and he reaches questionable conclusions without citing experts. For instance, Henderson makes claims concerning Lebanese Muslims without citing a shred of evidence. He claims (on p10) that many of Australia’s Lebanese Muslims live in south west Sydney and that ...

... [n]o other Muslim group is so concentrated in a specific area.

He obviously hasn’t been to Auburn (known to many as "little Istanbul") or Coburg. Henderson’s ignorance of Australia’s Muslim organisational landscape especially became evident when he claimed (on p24) that ...

... the Howard government consciously chose not to consult with existing Muslim groups ... Instead the Prime Minister set up the Muslim Community Reference Group.

I’m sure many on the MCRG would find such claims amusing. If anything, the Group was deliberately stacked with existing religious organisational heads and stereotypical imams (like Hilaly). Among those invited by the PM to his Muslim leaders’ summit was Shafiq Khan, a prominent Saudi financier. In fact, Henderson feels quite able to write about the MCRG without even interviewing a single member of the group.

Further, his claim that

... the criticisms which John Howard ... levelled at al-Hilali’s January 2007 outburst created a climate in which Muslim Australians felt freer to state their own views than would otherwise have been the case.

So Aussie Mossies weren’t criticising religious leaders before January? Which planet has Henderson been living on? And as if we needed Howard’s blowing of the dog whistle to release us from our shackles!

If anything, Muslim critics of Hilaly were wishing Howard would shut up and let them deal with the issue. Howard’s interventions made things only more difficult. The study includes interviews with law enforcement, intelligence and political leaders. Instead of asking Muslims in Lakemba for their thoughts, Henderson interviews Bob Carr and Tony Burke (MP for Watson). Instead of asking anyone from the MCRG how they viewed the process, Henderson asks Andrew Robb.

Henderson suggested I "go and write a rant for The Age or the Canberra Times" before hanging up.

He may well find Aussie Muslims aren’t as rude. Assuming, of course, he bothers to talk with them and not just at or about them.

An edited version of this was first published in the Crikey daily alert on Thursday 6 September 2007.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf

CRIKEY: Yes, Jesus was indeed a "sand nigger" ...

In 1998, I visited Brazil. In the world’s largest Catholic country, I saw icons of Jesus and Mary everywhere. There was one not-so-subtle difference between these and the icons I see in Australia. For millions of Brazilian Catholics, the Blessed Virgin with child both had black skin.

Of course, we all know that Jesus wasn’t a negroHe was, after all, born in a place called Beyt Lahm, an Arabic/Aramaic phrase meaning literally "House of Lamb Meat" or 'House of Bread". He spoke fluent Aramaic. His mother wore (at the very least) a traditional head scarf worn today by many orthodox Jewish and Muslim women.

A delegation from Jesus’ town is currently visiting Australia. All delegation members are Christians. All are accused of being terrorists. All no doubt look like Middle Easterners. All look like Arabs. Usama bin Ladin is a Middle Easterner. The Mayor of Bethlehem is a Middle Easterner. Jesus was a Middle Easterner. No doubt Jesus probably bore some resemblance to other Middle Easterners.

Yet for some reason, American-owned tabloids in Sydney and Melbourne are behaving in a very Middle Eastern fashion over one entry to an art prize. One that shows Jesus' mum in traditional arab garb (see right). Even the PM joined the fray, telling journalists ...

The choice of such artwork is gratuitously offensive to the religious beliefs of many Australians.

Yes, it is offensive if you believe Jesus looked something like Merv Hughes and Mary looked like Jennifer Hawkins. Yet the fact is that Mary wore something on her head (and, given her noble ancestry and her cultural heritage, quite likely something over her face).

What all this shows is how far the far-Right evangelical view of Christianity has strayed from the reality of Jesus. Allegedly conservative mono-cultural fruitloops keep referring to Australia’s Christian heritage. Yet how would they react if the real Jesus returned and arrived in Australia?

Well, for a start, they’d probably think he was a terrorist. He wouldn’t be speaking English, and would suddenly appear from the wilderness looking rather dishevelled.

Jesus’ photo would be splashed across our American-owned metropolitan tabloids. Piersed Akumen and his colleagues would be waxing unlyrical about this latest foreign threat. Gerard Henderson would attack the "civil rights lobby" for defending Jesus. Janet Albrechtsen would castigate lawyers and judges for defending a man who wants to establish the Kingdom of God (read sharia law) in Australia. The Australian Federal Police wouldn’t understand a word Jesus was saying but would charge him anyway. Some magistrate would grant Jesus bail, and the good Catholic Kevin Andrews would cancel Jesus’ visa and send him back to … um … er … God The Father?

As William Dalrymple keeps reminding us, Christianity (like Judaism and Islam) is a Middle Eastern religion. And Jesus was a Middle Easterner. Just accept it.

First published in the Crikey daily alert on Thursday 30 August 2007.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf

CRIKEY: Perpetuating the Team America take on Muslims ...

On the night of 25 July, I did something I (and probably most Australians) rarely do. I switched my TV onto SBS. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself halfway through a wonderful documentary Veiled Ambition.

It tells the story of a typical young Aussie couple. Albert is a sports promoter building a dream home for his family. Frida is a small business woman running her own wedding shop and wants to have her own fashion design label. They’re about to have their first child.

I know literally dozens of couples like Albert and Frida. They represent Australia’s emerging class of young people aiming for a home, a small business and a family. There’s just one problem. To use a popular Aussie Muslim slang, Frida "covers".

Some of our commentators like to define this sector as one monolithic entity full of taxi drivers who refuse passengers with guide dogs and radical thick-Sheiks manipulating young kiddies.

I knock The Australian newspaper a lot for their coverage of Australia’s (if not Planet Earth’s) 21st century Muslim realities. But let’s give credit where it’s due. Their coverage of the Haneef case, an area where you’d expect their perceived editorial prejudices to trump over accuracy, has been second-to-none.

Yesterday, the Opinion page ran a super piece about democratic changes in Pakistan and Turkey. Entitled A watershed in Islamic History, the piece gave a positive (or rather, realistic) take on recent developments in Pakistan and Turkey.

On Saturday in Pakistan, the Supreme Court demonstrated true judicial independence virtually for the first time in the country's 60-year history when it reinstated Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, nemesis of Pakistan's "progressive" military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf.

Then on Sunday, Turks delivered the biggest electoral triumph in 50 years to the Justice and Development Party, a political movement that demonstrates the possibility of transcending the apparent tension between being devoutly Muslim in private and progressive and democratic in politics.

These two events mark a watershed in the modern history of the Islamic world: both are principled popular rebellions against military elites whose will has traditionally gone unchallenged. The rebellions could hardly have been more promising or have occurred in more important places.

Yet there remains a certain inertia, an ongoing insistence in some circles to define the 300,000-odd Aussies of all different backgrounds who tick the "Muslim" box on their census forms are somehow only defined by beedy-eyed dudes screaming “jihad jihad, jerka jerka”. Dudes looking like the chap on my left.

It was appropriate, therefore, that I first noticed my old buddy Richard Kerbaj’s latest tabloid offering at the Daily Telegraph website. Entitled "Radical sheik phones home for sermons", the story talks about how a Liverpool thick-Sheik "continued to influence young Muslim minds by delivering sermons by phone from overseas to a select group of his followers in Australia".

So Sydney’s Muslim kids are engaged in some kind of dial-a jihad operation? Er, not quite. The reality is that the Global Islamic Youth Centre gets a dozen or so kids together twice a week to ask questions of Feiz Mohamed.

And what do they talk about? The latest in suicide vest fashions? New methodologies in sleeper cell management? Nope. Just lots of

Tawheed (monotheism) ... intended to advance our understanding of this concept and to help us to understand the importance of unifying God in all of our acts of worship.

In other words, how to believe in and worship one God to the exclusion of all other false (according to Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs and other monotheists) gods. So while SBS TV and The Oz’s Opinion page (and even their Review page) are finding exciting and interesting things to say about Muslims, Kerbaj can’t keep away from reporting for Team America.

First published in the Crikey alert for 26 July 2007.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf

CRIKEY: In search of consistency: How Kevin Andrews applies his ministerial discretion ...

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has a residual discretion to refuse a visa to anyone, an authority he describes succinctly as follows:

It's unrelated to religion, it's related to whether there is a risk to our national security, whether there is a risk to vilification of segments of the Australian community, inciting discord, these are the sorts of criteria which are looked at under these provisions.

But for the discretion to make any sense, it must be exercised consistently. The Government looks a little stupid banning Wahhabi speaker Bilal Phillips as a security threat whilst allowing in Alex Vella, the head of a violent bikie gang with a criminal record.

And why has Andrews (or his predecessor) not banned speakers who engage in "vilification of a segment of the Australian community"? Or does Andrews think it's OK for Mark Steyn and Raphael Israeli to generate hatred toward 360,000 Australians of a certain faith? Does Andrews believe that some Australians are more deserving of vilification than others? Is this really unrelated to religion?

I'm no fan of the theology of a fringe Muslim sect founded in the Arabian peninsular by one Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, or of its promoters like Dr Bilal Phillips. Bilal Phillips featured prominently on the UK Channel 4 documentary Undercover Mosque. He's visited Australia before on at least one previous occasion. But is he a national security threat?

The Hun got its Muslim sects confused, claiming yesterday that Phillips "holds to a radical form of the religion", unlike another invited scholar (Sheik Jafar Idris) who "espouses the radical form of Islam known as Wahhabism". Nonsense. They're both Wahhabis.

The tabloid further claims Phillips promotes certain criminal sanctions on Fridays. But is defending elements of Saudi criminal law the same as calling for its implementation in Australia?

Phillips isn't the first Wahhabist scholar to be banned. Abdur-Raheem Greene, a UK-born Wahhabist, copped a similar ban in August 2005, despite delivering a number of speeches across the Tasman.

DIAC-heads last year delayed issuing a visa to Malek Triki, Al-Jazeera's London correspondent, who was keynote speaker at a conference organised by UTS and Macquarie University. On that occasion, it's believed DIAC-heads thought Triki looked and sounded a little too much like Saddam Hussein's surname of Tikriti.

Yep, those Muslims certainly are a triki bunch!

First published in the Crikey daily alert for 5 April 2007.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

CRIKEY: How to turn 150 Muslims into a national threat

Crikey readers must grow tired reading about the smallest roaring mouse among that 1.5% of Australians who tick "Muslim" on their Census forms. Yet readers of The Oz apparently just can’t get enough.

Today’s report concerns the alleged takeover of a tiny mosque servicing hardly 600 people in Newcastle, north of Sydney. Dick Kerbaj reports the "moderate" leadership were deposed by "hardline" newcomers. Gee, that says a lot.


Apparently former Newcastle Muslim Association president Yunus Kara is concerned a group of overseas students make home visits to ordinary Muslims to preach their beliefs.

On the basis of this, Kerbaj speculates:

This home preaching may suggest that the appointment of a new imam is not an immediate priority of the new leadership.

Really?

Kerbaj should know that many metropolitan, regional and rural mosques don’t have imams. Having a basic understanding of Muslim religious ritual means he’d know virtually anyone can lead a prayer service. A full-time imam is a luxury many mosques don’t need and (in many cases) cannot afford.

You really have to wonder whether this saturated coverage of every tiny mouse that roars inside Australia’s Muslim communities makes any difference to Australians of any faith and no faith in particular. Let’s face facts. Muslim folk hardly make up 1.5% of the population.

Further, The Oz’s reporting tends to be so meaninglessly stereotypical (with words like "extreme", "hardline" and "moderate" thrown around like clothes in a dryer) that one wonders whether the goal is just to keep Muslims somehow in the news.

I spoke to the former President of the Newcastle Muslim Association, Yunus Kara, some four weeks ago about the issue. He acknowledged the caretaker imam Bilal Kanj was not a trained "sheik" but rather was a young student associated with a Lebanese sect known as "al-Ahbash". Kara acknowledged that many Muslims regarded the al-Ahbash as a fringe cult, but he preferred their beliefs to those of the Wahhabis.

And what are these beliefs? What are the theological nuances that distinguish these groups? How does this play out in the real world of Muslim congregations?

Perhaps Kara’s most telling answer was when I asked him how many Muslims attend his mosque for Friday prayer. He said around 150.

150. Out of 600. Kara, Kerbaj, Kanj & Ko may be interested. But the rest of Novocastrian Muslims are too busy getting on with life in the real world.

First published in the Crikey.com.au daily alert on 20 March 2007. Crikey is a superb source of news, commentary, gossip and lots of other interesting stuff. It is widely read by journalists, parliamentarians, staffers, editors, academics and an assortment of other persons with far too much time on their hands. To subscribe, click here

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Aussie muslims are no Londonistanis

Alan Jones was fired up last Friday, arguing that the fact Easter eggs were being sold as early as January at Woolworths (or Safeway for Mexican readers) and Coles supermarkets was evidence of the demise of Australian Christian culture.

"It is legitimate to ask how far we will go to accommodate those of non-Christian faith when we live in a predominantly Christian country," says Jones.

Melanie Phillips argues a similar line (minus the chocolate) in her recently released book Londonistan, a favourable review of which is found here and an unfavourable one here.

Phillips spoke at a Quadrant dinner in Sydney and was earlier hosted in Melbourne by the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council (who also were going to host the tour of Raphael Israeli). Avidly opposed to multiculturalism, Phillips argues the war against terrorism must go beyond security measures.

She argues Britain (and by implication, other Western countries) has been bending over backwards to appease religious, ethnic, linguistic and even sexual minorities.

I could always condemn Phillips' argument as racist and Islamophobic. But to some extent, she is spot on. There are radical Islamists, i.e. proponents of a politicised ideology which wants Muslims to wage war on the West.

Phillips states her book offers no opinion on whether political Islamism is consistent with orthodox theology. Her disclaimer becomes meaningless when she states that political Islamism is the dominant strain of theology in nominally Muslim countries. When even experts in the field aren’t prepared to make such claims, it takes extraordinary hubris for a tabloid columnist to make them.

Phillips also says British multiculturalism allowed the Islamist xenophobic agenda to foster and grow. Presumably, that means pre-multicultural Britain didn’t take a hard line against hostile xenophobic ideology.

But as Israeli reviewer Michael Fox (hyperlinked above) notes, George Orwell was hard-pressed to find a publisher for his satire of Soviet Russia Animal Farm. Even TS Eliot (then at Faber & Faber) knocked the book back. Monocultural societies are often the first to adopt xenophobic politics.

Even if Britain’s Muslims have been radicalised, of what relevance is this to Australia? British Muslims are largely from South Asia and (to a lesser extent) the Arab world.

Aussie Muslims are from over 60 different countries, the two dominant ethno-religious groups hailing from a former French protectorate and a deeply secular state knocking on the doors of the EU.

First published in the Crikey daily alert for Friday 2 March 2007.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Muhammad wins the Nobel Prize twice!

A few weeks ago, Pope Benedict XVI cited a Byzantine emperor who claimed that Muhammad had brought nothing new to the world except war and violence. Yet in the past two years, the secretive Norwegian Nobel Committee has chosen Muhammad to receive its prestigious international peace prize. And not once, but twice in a row.

Well, not exactly. But it’s certainly significant that the two most recent recipients of this award have been prominent members of the Muslim intelligentsia who share the world’s most commonly used name given to male children.

Last year it was the Egyptian-born head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei. This year, the committee overlooked 190 other candidates to award the prize to an eccentric banker from the Indian sub-Continent.

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi-born and American-trained economist who invented microcredit - an unusual method of lending money to people with no assets to mortgage and nothing to offer except a business plan and economic desperation that forces them into hard work.

Yunus’s Grameen Bank has now lent over $8 billion, most of it to impoverished villagers in Bangladesh and other parts of the Third World. Although largely unknown in the West (as opposed to prominent politicians and activists among past winners), Yunus and his bank are household names in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Grameen Bank has an impressive array of assets. It owns Bangladesh’s largest mobile phone network. The bank has played an important role in assisting women from impoverished backgrounds gain some financial independence, particularly women whose male providers are unable to find work.

Muhammad Yunus’ unique banking methodology has been applied outside Bangladesh to great effect. His bank has worked on development projects for women in Vietnam and other parts of the world. From time to time, he has fallen foul of religious zealots in Bangladesh unhappy at what they perceive as Yunus’ methods challenging traditional Bangladeshi gender relations.

Yunus isn’t the only Muslim to receive a Nobel Prize. This year, the Nobel Committee awarded prizes to two prominent Muslims, the other being Turkish author Orhan Pamuk.

First published in the Crikey! Daily alert for 18 October 2006.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf