A spokesman for the Defence forces last Friday reiterated this truism:
Eligible people may join the ADF irrespective of their ethnicity, race or religion.
Alan Howe, executive editor of the Herald & Weekly Times, described this remark almost dismissively as
... the strictly politically correct line.
Howe’s column, also published in the Brisbane Courier Mail, began with these words:
There are 2006 Muslims in the Australian Defence Force.
He describes suggestions that none have been investigated after the Fort Hood massacre as
... a bold call.
He claims allied Christian soldiers had no hesitation in killing German (presumably Christian) soldiers and civilians during the Second World War, despite the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers being the battle cry. He ends with this:
If the god in any soldier’s life looms larger than his or her responsibility to Australia, we have a problem.
Meanwhile, one of Howe’s more hysterical colleagues, a certain Andrew Bolt, starts his column by what he sees as the first fact a “real journalist” would tell you to explain why the Fort Hood killer did what he did:
The Fort Hood killer, army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, was a Muslim. He shouted ‘God is great’ in Arabic as he opened fire.
So why question the loyalties of Australian servicemen and women who happen to tick a particular box for religion on their census forms? Is Howe trying to do a Nile?
Perhaps the answer to my question can be found in a fatwa issued by Sheik Rupert bin Murdoch in 2006:
You have to be careful about Muslims, who have a very strong, in many ways a fine, but very strong, religion, which supersedes any sense of nationalism wherever they go.
But how will we tell exactly who is a Muslim? By the colour of their skin? Will a white Bosnian with a Muslim mum and Orthodox dad count as Muslims? Or a white man married to a Muslim woman? Will we know Muslims by what language they speak at home? Most Arabic speakers in Australia are Christian. Again, a fatwa from Ayatollah Murdoch provides guidance: Muslims are the ones with genetic defects from marrying their cousins.
And the best refutation for this bigotry and stupidity comes from Feroze Khan, the father of fallen US soldier Kareem R Khan, who told a journalist:
My son’s Muslim faith did not make him not want to go. It never stopped him … He
looked at it that he’s American and he has a job to do.
Our troops have a job to do. We should allow them to do it and not waste their or our own time with moronic speculations based on isolated incidents.
First published in Crikey on 12 November 2009.
Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf
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2 comments:
or at least two years Major Hasan wrote and spoke against forced conscription of muslim citizens into wars against muslim states ... the hate diatribe from Howe and his fkwit mate, have zero relevance to the facts of the matter, and are obviously contrived toward another agenda ... I am antiwar and definitely anti-conscription, but how stupid does a government have to be to force citizens to fight a way against countries they have some level of identification with ... Major Hasan's call for the release of soldiers, like himself, on the ground of conscientious objection, was a sound and necessary one, more than two years of being forced to occupy an untenable position, and not being listened to, and he lost it ... Good article from planet Irf
Yeah right - he just lost it yelling Allu Acktbar as he slaughtered 13 of his fellow soldiers....and wounding 30 odd others. Gimme a break - the man was in contact with a radical Imam for over a year and he was attending the same mosque as three of the 9/11 terrorists. Add to that he was wearing traditional robes hours before and had been giving away all his possessions to neighbours. He was also hording weapons and ammo. The bastard knew what he was doing.....and I hope he never recovers from his injuries and avoids the death penalty. Death is too good for that murdering animal. If muslims want a Holy War, bring it on!!! We have had a gutful of your pushy religion and it's endless demand!!!
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