tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36501932024-03-13T20:07:09.116+11:00Planet IrfIrfan Yusuf is a lawyer, award-winning author, commentator and humorist. His comic memoir "Once Were Radicals: My Years As A Teenage Islamo-fascist" was published in May 2009. He currently lives in Sydney where he is completing his doctorate.Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.comBlogger923125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-48884696811491384442022-05-26T21:38:00.005+10:002022-05-26T23:46:38.567+10:00COMEDY: The Chaser’s SPINThe federal election campaign is ripe for satire with The Chaser dedicating a new live show to the foibles of politics. Irfan Yusuf went along to the Enmore Theatre in Sydney’s inner-west hoping for a laugh, or two, or three.In the late 1990’s I found myself working in a law firm in Balmain, a trendy suburb in the inner west of Sydney. One afternoon I walked into the building where my Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-85341799966163838922022-05-17T00:10:00.001+10:002022-05-17T00:10:55.156+10:00POLITICS: Scattered thoughts on what is likely the end of Scott Morrison's political career[01] Well I guess it's that time again. Time for Australians to decide which party or coalition will lead the Commonwealth for a few years. And time for the rest of us to become instant experts on the mass debate concerning government policy, economics, politics, health, education and everything else that we expect our bloated governments to run.[02] The next election, to be held on Saturday 21 Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-731768878106393942020-06-22T03:20:00.000+10:002020-06-22T03:20:58.591+10:00OPINION: To Trump, Khashoggi's Murder Is More Serious Than War CrimesA Saudi dissident journalist who contributes to the Washington Post has apparently been murdered in the Saudi embassy in Ankara, Turkey.Jamal Ahmed Khashoggi’s body was apparently cut into pieces. Turkish authorities claim to have video of the gruesome murder. US president Donald Trump has promised “severe punishment” if it turns out the Saudi government was responsible.How doIrfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-57335681782883084522019-11-22T06:04:00.000+11:002019-11-22T06:04:09.480+11:00MUSIC: Tanya Wells channels a South Asian legendIrfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-40404751371603781512019-08-17T13:50:00.000+10:002019-08-17T13:50:02.169+10:00MEDIA: ‘Someone who gets into people’s faces’: Spotlight journalist Walter Robinson speaks in Sydney
On June 4 2018, at an event hosted by the US Studies Centre at Sydney University, Robinson shared his insights on the Spotlight expose of systemic child abuse in the Boston Catholic Church, on media and the law.
In the 2015 Oscar winning film Spotlight he was portrayed by Michael Keaton as the tough reporter heading an investigative team of the Boston Globe. In real life, Walter V Robinson Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-34607721638766780882019-06-26T13:40:00.002+10:002019-06-26T13:41:27.878+10:00EGYPT: Egypt's re-revolution going viral
Though Mohammed Morsi was a flawed President, he was democratically elected. Photo / AP
Muslims around the globe are joining protests on streets and on social media against military takeover.
Protests have spontaneously erupted in cities across the Muslim world, from Istanbul to Lahore to Jakarta. Apart from some clashes with police, mostly the protests have been peaceful and matched by Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-34784788625149024592019-06-25T07:33:00.000+10:002019-06-25T07:33:31.646+10:00INDIA: Silence Over Suffering Is Deafening
We often read stories of India's economic miracle, its IT revolution and its Bollywood culture. We're keen to do business with India, and Indian migrants are regarded as highly skilled and hard-working.
Australia is even considering selling uranium to India, presuming its status as the world's biggest democracy makes its nuclear programme less dangerous than that of Iran or Pakistan.
Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-32997498194231130912019-06-19T09:01:00.000+10:002019-06-19T09:01:12.123+10:00REVIEW: On romping racists and far-left extremists
Just before Christmas a young Afghan, presumably Muslim, drove a vehicle through a group of pedestrians in Flinders Street in Melbourne. Some people were seriously injured. But this wasn't the first such incident in Melbourne. Twelve months earlier another man did the same thing, killing innocent people including a ten-year-old girl from the Jewish community.
The recent incident was differentIrfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-29726317145702056682019-03-08T13:36:00.000+11:002019-06-15T04:25:41.922+10:00AUSTRALIAN POLITICS: Tony Abbott isn't going anywhere
The former PM is back on the talking points, painting himself and Dutton as "reluctant challengers" and orating about "the betterment of mankind".
Bad news for all those hoping Tony Abbott will leave Parliament soon: on Monday, Abbott told a packed crowd of adoring fans at the uber-conservative Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney that he isn’t going anywhere. Abbott is alreadyIrfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-60722600070743977732019-03-04T20:10:00.003+11:002019-06-15T04:26:11.445+10:00BOOKS: A Sunday afternoon trying to make the Liberal Party great again
A new book proposes a plan to fix the Liberal parties leadership woes.
Sunday afternoon at a pub in North Sydney and Sky News presenter Ross Cameron is launching the first book of conservative apparatchik John Ruddick. It’s called Make The Liberal Party Great Again.
I’ve known John since 1994 when I found myself in the conservative faction of the New South Wales Young Liberals Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-51932689814497129932019-03-01T20:14:00.000+11:002019-06-15T04:26:36.875+10:00BOOKS: The new book by an IPA fellow that is head-scratchingly nuanced
Matthew Lesh's heavily researched theory on socio-economic divides would give Andrew Bolt a heart attack.
It’s always a surprise to see brown people at an Institute of Public Affairs event, but there they were. Last Friday night a youngish crowd including several Sri Lankan women and a very anti-Communist Chinese guy gathered at a trendy Melbourne CBD bar to launch the first book of Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-6890436116402773152019-03-01T19:40:00.000+11:002019-06-15T04:27:05.920+10:00ENVIRONMENT: When the river runs dry, we will return to the scene of the crime
Residents at the trashed end of the Darling River are angry, jobless and unable to drink their own town water.
UP TO 1 MILLION FISH HAVE DIED IN THE DARLING RIVER SYSTEM (IMAGE: AAP/ KATE MCBRIDE)
Back in October, I started working as a community lawyer in Broken Hill. This involved frequent outreach visits to Menindee and Wilcannia. On my first trip to Menindee, an Indigenous Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-63556651491414023402018-09-26T19:10:00.001+10:002019-06-15T04:27:39.041+10:00CULTURE WARS: Is small-minded bigotry how we honour the Diggers? Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s tsunami in a teacup
This concocted mass debate, like those before it and those to come, shows that we, as a nation, have no bloody idea about our values.
Late on the night of Anzac Day 2015, Malcolm Turnbull (then communications minister) contacted the head of SBS to complain about five tweets sent by a sports reporter that allegedly showed grave disrespect to those commemorating the sacrifices and Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-79182930132480510752018-09-26T18:37:00.001+10:002019-06-15T04:28:04.455+10:00SECURITY: The real danger at Punchbowl High School is the ideological deradicalisation program
The debate about theoretically unsound and ideologically charged deradicalisation programs, like the one at Punchbowl High School, doesn't help students.
A few days before she was to commence her Australia/New Zealand tour, Ayaan Hirsi Ali called for all Islamic schools to be shut down. Sharri Markson, now at The Daily Telegraph, conducted the “exclusive interview” with Hirsi Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-64097100583948725202018-09-26T18:01:00.000+10:002019-06-15T04:28:38.441+10:00CULTURE WARS: Has political correctness failed?
Chris Kenny thinks that political correctness has failed "the mainstream"-- but what on earth does this actually mean?
Last night was cheapskate Tuesday. I could have seen a politically correct Hollywood movie for half-price — particularly one starring some pathetic left-wing, anti-Trump, pro-Muslim heart-throb. Instead, I headed to Sydney Town Hall for a mass debate on the topic Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-36536296028407142932018-05-25T06:27:00.000+10:002019-06-15T04:29:24.271+10:00CULTURE WARS: Sorry, Malcolm, but multicultural Australia is not ‘united, strong, successful’
And guess whose fault that is?
And so, on Harmony Day, our erstwhile PM launched a document entitled Multicultural Australia: United, Strong, Successful. And what a colourful, sexy document it is: full of the smiling faces of people from different backgrounds and of all ages, all sharing their own or ancestral stories of struggle — full of wonderful talk about values, visions and all Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-78031596330982980132018-05-05T13:42:00.000+10:002019-06-15T04:29:53.999+10:00CULTURE WARS: The Australian declares war on Yassmin Abdel-Magied, misses the point again
For some reason, Caroline Overington, in her attacks on Yassmin Abdel-Magied in The Australian, cannot seem to understand this whole idea of soft diplomacy.
In 2008, I went to an event at Gleebooks, an independent bookshop in Sydney’s inner west. The British Council and High Commission was putting on a do for a visiting author of conservative bent. The book was, in parts, Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-29448545246291067072018-05-05T12:49:00.000+10:002019-06-15T04:30:24.831+10:00OBITUARY: Iranian revolutionary leaves a complicated legacy
The guy was the wiliest of wily politicians who co-authored the constitution that created the revolutionary government.
Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani casts his ballot for the parliamentary elections in front of a portrait of late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini
It was 1979. I was in year 4 at Ryde East Primary School. Something terrible happened. It was calledIrfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-66920363826922860252018-05-04T20:13:00.002+10:002019-06-15T04:31:43.226+10:00AUSTRALIAN POLITICS: Guess who’s coming to $150-a-head anti-Islam dinner?
Who on Earth would turn up to Kirralie Smith's "Defending Freedom of Speech Halal Choices" fundraiser? Spoiler: it's Bernardi. And Christensen. And attention-starved Ross Cameron.
The other day my mate and I went to Nissin World Delicatessen, a popular supermarket for expats in central Tokyo. In the meat section, I saw imported meats from Australia, the United States and New Zealand. The Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-83049303191313354982018-01-13T23:45:00.000+11:002019-06-15T04:35:40.695+10:00WAR: Three things you don’t understand about the Syrian war
For a start, the rebels are not one big happy family all fighting for a common notion of justice.
My goodness. There has been so much internet chatter among Aussie and Western Muslims about the fall of Aleppo to Syrian regime forces aided by Iranian proxies and Russia. But it’s OK. I doubt the chatter will lead to another 0.002% of Australia’s Muslims heading off to join Islamic State.
Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-72321050486969885592018-01-13T22:36:00.000+11:002019-06-15T04:39:12.043+10:00CULTURE WARS: How do you stop polygamy? With overreaching surveillance, of course
Pauline Hanson thinks there needs to be a national identity card in order to stop Muslims from claiming Centrelink benefits for multiple wives.
Once again those bloody Muzzlems are up to no good. Marrying more than one wife and then claiming multiple spousal benefits. I mean, can you believe it?
And so the headlines and talkback hosts blared over the weekend. The Channel Seven Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-82399011370712516332018-01-13T16:45:00.000+11:002019-06-15T04:38:21.385+10:00EUROPEAN POLITICS: Et tu, Angela? Merkel picks politics over people
If Merkel really wants to stamp out the wearing of face veils, she will find no greater ally than the mainstream German Muslim communities.
Three Muslim women
And so it goes. The Brexit effect becomes the Brexit/Trump effect, which then becomes the Brexit/Trump/Italy effect. It could almost have become the Brexit/Trump/Austrian Nazi/Italy effect. It may become the Brexit/Trump/Italy/One Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-16505768247613271802017-12-15T20:37:00.001+11:002019-06-15T04:30:58.102+10:00AUSTRALIAN POLITICS: Why George Christensen might make a great immigration minister
Barnaby Joyce reckons George Christensen needs to be given a portfolio. Would Immigration be a good fit?
Have you head the rumour? Apparently National Party leader Barnaby Joyce is training up George Christensen for a ministerial gig. At least, I think it’s a rumour. At least I hope it’s a rumour, both for Malcolm Turnbull’s sake and possibly for the sake of the public servants whose jobs Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-70461463850287780282017-12-15T19:40:00.001+11:002019-06-15T04:34:34.574+10:00BOOKS: Some friendly advice to Tony Abbott on writing his next book
Take it from a Muslim, Tony, you need to come to terms with gay marriage.
There’s been plenty of speculation about Tony Abbott’s next book. Already he is in talks with his publisher, and he has even jokingly suggested the title of “Battlescars”. Pundits are asking questions like:
Why is he writing this now?
Is he making another tilt for the leadership?
Is he seeking academic Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3650193.post-17832424473252699352017-12-13T23:22:00.001+11:002019-06-15T04:37:04.929+10:00CULTURE WARS: The White Australia Policy is over, deal with it
Sadly, ignorance of non-Anglo cultures is the name of the game in both mainstream media and politics in Australia.
I’ve been writing commentary and pious punditry since 2005. Before then, I was a helpless consumer of news. When caught in Sydney traffic driving to work in the morning in the early 2000s, I’d tune into 2UE for the last half hour of Steve Price’s morning show. The last 10 Irfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12032825228704836828noreply@blogger.com0