Tuesday, May 20, 2008

EVENTS: Imran Ahmad at the Sydney Writers' Festival


Karachi's answer to James Bond?

Imran Ahmad is author of the rather hilarious Muslim memoir Unimagined (which I've reviewed here). He is in Sydney for the Sydney Writers' Festival and has a number of events in Sydney and Canberra. He will also be appearing on the SBS TV chatshow Salam Cafe.

This Thursday morning, check out Imran with the exceptionally funny Judith Lucy, SBS Tv newsreader Anton Enus and Canada's Ryan Knighton discussing the topic of Not Another Misery Memoir.

Thursday evening, Imran Ahmad talks with Australian novellist Randa Abdel Fattah at the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta. This is a free event.

Stay tuned for more events.



Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: Sectarian prejudice is clear in mainstream media ...



The way things are looking, Senator Barack Obama will most likely be the Democratic Party's nominee for the presidential elections. He will lead a fractured Democratic Party to face a united Republican front to take on Senator John McCain. Hopefully he'll have a vice-presidential running mate who can shoot straighter than Dick Cheney.

Amazing. A black man in the White House. American stand-up comic Azhar Usman tells his audience: "What hope has he got? His middle name is Saddam's surname, and his surname rhymes with Osama". Still, at least his Christian name is an Arabic word that means blessing. Stand-up comics across the world will have a field day.

Voting isn't compulsory in the United States. In the 2006 presidential elections, just under 44 per cent of Americans of voting age actually turned up to the polling booths. The highest voter turnout in the last decade was about 55 per cent.

It is possible to become US president with only the support of 25 per cent of the voting age population. McCain need only convince a quarter of voting age Americans that he would make a better president than Barack Obama.

It will be tempting for Republican nominee McCain to appeal to the deeper prejudices of the American electorate. Already, like their Australian counterparts, people on McCain's side of politics are happy to use race and ethno-religious identity as a political wedge.

Daniel Pipes, a frequent visitor to Australia (usually at the invitation of allegedly conservative think-tanks) , has tried to establish that Obama was (and perhaps still is) a Muslim.

In May 2006, Cold War veteran Edward Luttwak wrote in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper that peace in Iraq could only be achieved by civil war. Two years later, under the headline of "President Apostate", Luttwak writes in The New York Times that Islamic law requires Muslims to kill Obama, and even claims that Obama's visits to Muslim countries would be complicated by the fact that any security apparatus provided would regard it as sinful to protect Obama against assassins.

I'm not sure which Muslims Luttwak is talking about. To this day, not a single American Muslim leader or imam or commentator has called for Obama's execution. Nor am I aware of any imam elsewhere (including Indonesia where he spent some years at school) making such a call.

Maybe Luttwak started his own wacky Republican Muslim sect of assassins. Either that, or Luttwak presumes that 1.3billion Muslims behave like the assassins in the first Naked Gun movie, with their leader Osama bin Laden pressing the button and the rest of them holding a gun or pillow in Washington's general direction and reciting, "I must kill President Apostate Obama."

Of course, the reality is that Obama's biggest threat comes not from the kind of terrorist who flies planes into skyscrapers, but rather the kind of terrorist who belongs to fundamentalist militias that inspired an American to blow up a federal government building in Oklahoma. For these types, the colour of Obama's skin is enough reason to vote against (if not kill) him.

The far-Right needs to be more vigilant of its own dangerous and violent elements who, thanks to the "Obama was a Muslim and may still be" propaganda, now have two reasons to attack him. As for non-Americans (Muslim or otherwise), we will judge Obama by the success of his policies.

However, it seems sectarian prejudice may have a mainstream voice. Obama has copped much flak in mainstream American media for his association with a pastor. Yet everyone seems to have ignored a pair of wacky pastors who have the ear of McCain. A tiny portion of mainstream US and international media are reporting McCain's endorsement of an American pastor who wants America to fulfil its historical mission.

And what mission is that? To spread democracy? Fight climate change? Combat political extremism? Nope. For the Reverend Rod Parsley, America's historical mission is to see Islam destroyed.

It isn't clear whether he wants all Muslims (including American congressman Keith Ellison who placed his hand on Thomas Jefferson's Koran during his swearing-in ceremony) to be killed or just forcibly converted. And no doubt Arabic-speaking Christians will be disturbed to know that, far from being a Holy Spirit, Parsley claims Allah is a demon spirit.

Far from disowning Parsley's views, McCain happily accepted Parsley's endorsement in late February, when McCain described Parsley as his moral compass and spiritual guide. But it gets better.

McCain's other wacky man of God, the Reverend John Hagee, labels the Catholic Church the great whore and claims Hurricane Katrina was God's wrath against homosexuals.

A recent University of Maryland survey says 80 per cent of Americans believe their country is run by and for big interests. How many Americans support the few bigots who want the US to lead the next crusade against Muslims, Catholics and homosexuals? How would they vote if they knew McCain says what he loves most about Hagee and Parsley are their views on the Middle East?

With so much silence and double standards among American media, I doubt most American voters will hear about the influence of this pair of prejudiced pastors. Meanwhile, the whispering campaign about Democratic presidential nominee Osa ... woops ... Obama will continue unabated.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer. This article was first published in The Canberra Times on 20 May 2008.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

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EVENT: Bethlehem - Dreams of Home ...

For those interested in all things Jesus-related, there's an excellent exhibition being put on by the Friends of Bethlehem and supported by Marrickville Council (Bethlehem's sister-city) commencing tomorrow at the Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Pidcock Street Camperdown (inner-western Sydney).

Check out the poster below and discover the art of the kids of Jesus' village. And remember these immortal words ...

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.





Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

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UPDATE: Reading list ...


Writing all the way from Alice Springs, Jennifer Mills explains why an Obama victory is written in the stars. I won't even try to summarise it. Go read it yourself by clicking here.

Writing all the way from Sderot in Israel, Mustafa Qadri tells us about an Israeli town that is trying to cope with a barrage of Palestinian rocket attacks.

As I walked around Sderot, I could hear the intermittent boom of Israeli jets thundering over Gaza in the distance. Although physically separated there is no mistaking that Gaza and Sderot are linked.

"Well, it's sad to say but we [residents of Gaza and Sderot] share a common pain," Eric tells me. "We don't feel that we're bringing up our families in a safe environment and the economy here is deteriorating because people do not want to invest in areas that are conflict zones."

Read more here and discover why Qadri should give international law the flick (not that he's a bad lawyer) and consider becoming a foreign correspondent.

And writing from Canberra, Shakira Hussein provides some background on PM Kevin Rudd's refusal to hold a government inquiry into the Exclusive Brethren. She explains why she basically agrees with Kevin-07.

An inquiry that focuses on the Brethren will stigmatise all those who belong to the group, including those who may struggle with the direction the current leadership has taken. It is likely to make the group close in on itself, rather than let in any fresh air.

To be clear, specific problems like the flouting of family law orders should absolutely not be tolerated, but be treated like any other such abuse. But on a broader level, there needs to be a rethink of the way that government funding has empowered exclusivist religious institutions at the expense of social and religious pluralism.

You can read more here.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

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CRIKEY: How The Oz proved Rupert Murdoch's al-Qaida link ...



My old buddy Sheik Dicky Kerbaj continues his series on the nefarious Saudi influence on Muslim institutions. Writing in The Australian today, Kerbaj claims to have revealed "for the first time" the identity of six imams paid by Saudi Arabia.

That's right. Six.

Sydney has some 100 mosques. Melbourne perhaps more. Maybe 20 in Brisbane. All have at least one full-time paid imam. Among the gang-of-six is imam at the Omar Mosque at Auburn. Had Kerbaj visited the mosque, he'd have seen a plaque there clearly stating the mosque is fully owned by the Australian Islamic Cultural Centre, an organisation run by Australia's Saudi religious financier Shafiq Khan.

As far back as September 2005, the Sydney Morning Herald profiled Khan's extensive links to both Saudi royalty and the Howard government. Why would Khan use Saudi money to manage his mosque but not the imam's wages? Some scoop, Dicky.

Kerbaj then makes the extraordinary claim that the six Saudi-paid imams ...

... are leaders of the Islamic community in the country.
Leaders? In what sense? Is he suggesting that these six imams manage all community affairs of Aussie Muslims? Why hasn't anyone told these imams? Why haven't the 360,000-odd people tempted to tick the "Muslim" box on their census forms?

So why should we give a hoot about all this? Because, according to Kerbaj, the Saudis are involved in a huge international plot ...

... to propagate Wahhabism, the puritanical brand of Islam espoused by al-Qa'ida.
Kerbaj continues to peddle this notion, using the phrase in numerous articles including this one from October 2007. Kerbaj is perhaps not aware of ambiguous relationship between al-Qa'ida and Wahhabism.

Of course, if we were to take Kerbaj's logic to its furthest conclusion, we would effectively hold that Wahhabis (especially Saudis) are all potentially linked to al-Qa'ida. As Crikey reported earlier this month, a Saudi prince owns at least a 7% stake in News Corporation. Further, this Prince has been known to directly influence FoxNews reporting on Muslims, even ringing Kerbaj's employer Rupert Murdoch.

Is Kerbaj suggesting that Sheik Rupert bin Murdoch is linked to al-Qa'ida?

Is The Oz becoming a mouthpiece for Usama bin Ladin?

Is Chris Mitchell a closet Wahhabi?

Now that's what I call a scoop!

First published in the Crikey daily alert for 19 May 2005.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

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