CRIKEY: Terror hysteria: Herald Sun plays judge, jury and executioner

What do you get when you cross a blatant disregard for facts and legal due process with a “feral Andrew Bolt column”? The Herald Sun, of course.

Regular Herald Sun readers can now breathe easy, secure in the knowledge that an 18-year-old-man has been found guilty of terrorism by the newspaper and is now buried six feet under the ground. For the past week, the tabloid of choice for Victoria’s McDonald’s patrons to spill their special sauce on has been running a campaign against Numan Haider, his family, their friends and anyone deemed to share their faith.

 Haider did stab two police officers before being shot dead. He likely had his passport cancelled and was suspected of being involved in activities that, had he carried them out, might have been found by a court to have breached the provisions of anti-terror laws.

In the real world, he had not been charged, let alone convicted. No evidence against him was brought before a properly constituted court. But as far as the Hun was concerned, all this is legal mumbo jumbo. Haider was a terrorist who planned to assassinate the Prime Minister, even if police denied there was ever such a plot.

The coverage, the allegations, the group responsibility and the hysteria was relentless. The cover of the Hun on Wednesday, September 24, carried the words “DEADLY THREAT TO ABBOTT”, and the deceased was described on page 2 as “A TEEN terror suspect under investigation for making threats against Prime Minister Tony Abbott”. Following this allegation were 11 paragraphs citing a midnight police press conference after Haider’s shooting, during which no mention was made of a plot to kill the PM. One wonders how the five reporters (Angus Thompson, Anthony Dowsley, Wes Hosking, David Hurley and Simon Benson) could not cite a single source for their allegation.

The headline of Thursday, September 25 screamed “JIHAD REVENGE FEARS” and spoke of “terror reprisals”. The following eight pages ended with a feral Andrew Bolt column arguing that the fault for terrorism inevitably is with the 1400-year-old set of religious traditions shared by almost one-quarter of humanity.

The front page of Friday, September 26 featured a man visiting the grieving Haider family holding what appeared to be prayer beads and a cup of coffee in one hand while throwing a stone with the other. “ANGER ERUPTS AS FAMILY PREPARE FOR FUNERAL” screamed the headline. Sensitive choice of photo to match such delicate journalism. More allegations were made including “DEAD TERRORIST GOOGLED PM’S MELBOURNE TRIPS” and allegations the deceased and his friends planned to ambush police at Hungry Jack’s.

On Saturday, September 27, on page 5, the headline read: “Tears for teenage terrorist lost to hate”. The story commenced with the words: “Numan Haider will be remembered as a teenage terrorist”. The cover page showed a young man attending the funeral wearing a hoodie, a black beanie and a black cloth to cover his face. The headline screamed out “DEATH STARE” followed by “MOURNER WEARS PROVOCATIVE MASK TO FUNERAL” and “RAW EMOTION AS FAMILY BURY DEAD TERRORIST”. Yep, they’re a scary lot when they bury terrorists. 

Provocative mask, you say? Given Fairfax newspapers plastered the wrong kid on its front cover and described him as a terrorist, and given the tabloid hysteria leading to hate crimes, who could blame the young man?

On Monday, Hun columnist Rita Panahi argued that the actions of a fictitious uniform entity called “the Muslim community” was behaving in a manner that “threatens to turn inclusive Australians into frightened xenophobes”. Perhaps she imagines all inclusive non-Muslim Australians read her newspaper.

She then says Muslim leaders need to “finally dissociate the Muslim community from the extremist scourge”. As if they haven’t done so already. But two can play that game. I’ll dissociate myself from pseudo-religious nutcases whose actions I have no control over if you dissociate yourself and your buddies from the disgusting criminal actions of your colleagues that led to the closing of the News Of The World and the imprisonment of a number of its staff. Deal?

The Hun can count its lucky stars young Numan Haider is no longer with us. Imagine if he survived the gunshot wounds. Imagine if he were put on trial and convicted of a serious criminal offence that was not terrorism-related. Defamation lawyers would be queuing up to represent him. Andrew Bolt wouldn’t be able to cry freedom of speech then. And he’d look like a right royal fool if he blamed Islam.

First published in Crikey on 30 September 2014.

MEDIA: The Bolt decision

It must have been an awful feeling for one of Australia’s most loved and hated columnist, a rare moment when he did not enjoy the limelight. But dressed in his dark blue suit and a tie that almost matched the colour of his greying hair, columnist, blogger, TV and radio personality Andrew Bolt was genuinely phased by the judgment of a single Federal Court Judge. For a man who otherwise never shies away from talking about race, Bolt wasn’t amused about being found to have breached the Racial Discrimination Act.

Bolt described the judgment as

… a restriction on the freedom of all Australians to discuss multiculturalism and how people identify themselves. I argued then and I argue now that we should not insist on the differences between us but focus instead on what unites us as human beings.

I personally haven’t read all 470 paragraphs and 143 pages of His Honour Justice Brmberg’s judgment. But the word “multiculturalism” certainly isn’t prominent enough for it to feature in the Catchwords on the first page.

Multiculturalism does appear, however, in the 8-page summary of the judgment. In paragraph 15, His Honour remarked:

Whether conduct is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a group of people calls for an objective assessment of the likely reaction of those people. I have concluded that the assessment is to be made by reference to an ordinary and reasonable member of the group of people concerned and the values and circumstances of those people. General community standards are relevant but only to an extent. Tolerance of the views of others may be expected in a multicultural society, including from those persons who are the subject of racially based conduct.

In paragraph 22, His Honour notes:

In reaching those conclusions, I have observed that in seeking to promote tolerance and protect against intolerance in a multicultural society, the Racial Discrimination Act must be taken to include in its objectives tolerance for and acceptance of racial and ethnic diversity. At the core of multiculturalism is the idea that people may identify with and express their racial or ethnic heritage free from pressure not to do so. People should be free to fully identify with their race without fear of public disdain or loss of esteem for so identifying. Disparagement directed at the legitimacy of the racial identification of a group of people is likely to be destructive of racial tolerance, just as disparagement directed at the real or imagined practices or traits of those people is also destructive of racial tolerance.

Is His Honour really seeking to limit freedom to talk about (let alone criticise) multiculturalism? Read the rest of the summary. Remember, it’s only 8 pages.

As for Bolt suggesting that he has always insisted on the things that unite humanity, do yourself a favour and just read the comments that he allows to appear on his blog whenever he writes about just about any subject.

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

MEDIA: Andrew Bolt's anti-racism poetry

The January 2011 edition of the notoriously left-wing magazine IPA Review includes a lengthy profile piece on Andrew Bolt by one Tony Barry. It features a revealing poem Bolt wrote and had published at age 13. Barry notes:

It certainly isn't Les Murray, but it is a fascinating insight into the young Bolt's mindset ... it is unmistakenly written as an outsider railing against racism and the mob mentality.

Or is it? I'm not so sure. But I'll let readers be the judge.

Fear
by Andrew Bolt (aged 13)

The jeering, gloating ring of youths
Closed in around a solitary boy,
Teasing and taunting him
Because he was black

The boy staggered from a blow,
The yells grew louder,
Humiliating and bewildering the boy

The colour of his skin was a cause
For ridicule

I wanted to help him
But fear sealed my mouth,
Held me back.

And soon I was yelling with the rest.

By the way, in case you were wondering why I described the IPA Review as a notoriously leftwing magazine, it is because Tony Barry describes The Age as ...

... the notoriously leftwing Melbourne broadsheet.

And when I look at the IPA's website, I notice all these crazy leftwingers like Chris Berg and Julie Novak writing for both The Age and IPA Review. What a bunch of Commies!

OPINION: Asylum-seeker shame rises for some political pundits

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall of the United States embassy in Canberra last November. And to be sitting there watching and listening as that unnamed ''key Liberal Party strategist'' that boat people was a politically ''fantastic'' issue with ''the more boats that come the better''. And if, for no other reason, than to know who that imbecile strategist was!

Oh, to now be a fly on the wall of that strategist's office and see his or her face watching images of the Indonesian fishing vessel with 100 Iranian and Iraqi asylum-seekers on board crashing against the coastal rocks of Christmas Island.

Of course, the political logic of the strategist's comment to US diplomats is really quite straightforward. If the boats stop coming, Tony Abbott would look like a right royalist fool by standing up on Manly beach, budgie smugglers and all, and screaming at the top of his voice: ''Stop the boats!'' If there were no boats hitting Christmas Island, how would voters in nearby marginal Queensland seats feel threatened enough to vote for the Liberal National Party?

And of course, this madness is all the result of our obsession with border security. To secure our borders, we go to faraway places and take part in wars against enemies, many of whom have never heard of us. What we don't seem to realise is that when we take part in wars, we have obligations. We have an obligation that is triggered as soon as hostilities cease and our leaders feel triumphant enough to declare ''mission accomplished''. It's an obligation in international law to restore and maintain basic law and order for the lucky citizens not ripped to pieces by our weapons.

Now let's look at the record in Iraq and Afghanistan. Basically it can be summarised like this: we came, we saw, we conquered, we unconquered and we lost control. Any MP or pundit who thinks Iraq and Afghanistan are bastions of stability should spend Christmas with their family in a "holiday house" in Kandahar or Basra.

Many Iraqis don't celebrate Christmas. One of the most important religious festivals in Iraq is Ashura. It isn't easy celebrating when suicide bombers are out to blow themselves, you and your family to pieces on a holy day.

And if you do happen to celebrate Christmas, things aren't much better. A siege of the Our Lady of Deliverance church on October 31 left 52 worshippers dead. In such an environment, is it any wonder so many Iraqis and Afghans are fleeing?

But Andrew Bolt and other allegedly conservative bloggers keep reminding us of the existence of an orderly queue. Everyone should just take a ticket and patiently stand in the queue and wait for their number to be called.

So where does the queue start for Iraqis? We know that many fled to neighbouring Syria, where living conditions were described in a UNHCR survey conducted in July and August at the Waleed border crossing between Syria and Iraq. One extended family of 13 people was living in a one-bedroom unit.

Syria now holds 290,000 Iraqi refugees, more than 70 per cent of whom have lived there for at least four years. And back in May 2007, The New York Times reported that thousands of Iraqi women have been forced to work in prostitution. The report said:

Aid workers say $50 to $70 is considered a good night's wage for an Iraqi prostitute working in Damascus. And some of the Iraqi dancers in the crowded casinos of Damascus suburbs earn much less ... From Damascus it is only about six hours by car, passing through Jordan, to the Saudi border. Syria, where it is relatively easy to buy alcohol and dance with women, is popular as a low-cost weekend destination for groups of Saudi men.

One Iraqi prostitute told the reporter:

The rents here in Syria are too expensive for their families. If they go back to Iraq they'll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available.

This is the orderly queue we hear about. Imagine what evil people would use people smugglers to jump from such a safe and secure environment. Surely the average Aussie, let alone Bolt and Scott Morrison, would happily bring up their families in such circumstances than spend six months in a leaky boat.

If you had to choose between selling one's daughter into prostitution and borrowing thousands to hit the high seas, the choice would be obvious. If Australian voters were more aware of the realities refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran must face, they would punish politicians who used imbecilic terms like "queue-jumper".

If anything good comes out of the Christmas Island tragedy, it will be that Australian politicians will have received a reality check. Demonising the most vulnerable should now become political suicide. Voters don't have the stomach for images of children smashed against rocks and drowning, even if it means a more humane and sensible asylum- seeker policy.

Finally, here's a Christmas gift idea. Australian-Vietnamese entertainer Ahn Do has just published his memoir The Happiest Refugee: The extraordinary true story of a boy's journey from starvation at sea to becoming one of Australia's best loved comedians.

Irfan Yusuf is a lawyer and author of Once Were Radicals. This article was first published in the Canberra Times on Monday 20 December 2010.

UPDATE I: The following letter to the editor was published in the Canberra Times on 22 December 2010:

Rescue from evil

Good on you Irfan Yusuf for reminding our politicians what drives the Iraqis, Afghans and others to turn their back on their own country and seek refuge in a foreign land ("Asylum-seeker shame rises for some political pundits," Dec 20, p9). These people, who had hoped that the West would rescue them from the clutches of their wicked rulers, now realise that their safety and security was hardly the concern of the armies that dropped in to liberate them. The least we can do for these desperate people is to rescue them from the new evil which our poorly planned mission helped create.

Sam Nona
Burradoo, NSW

COMMENT: Andrew Bolt's World Cup Nightmare ...

It’s amazing what crazy thoughts enter your brain in the early hours. One recent Monday morning, an hour or so past midnight, I was sitting in my room trying to stay awake for the World Cup final. I needed some comic relief. While perusing Andrew Bolt’s Herald Sun blog, I suddenly wondered who the f*ck would fill Fred Nile’s NSW Upper House seat after he retires at the next NSW election. I then came across these words:

Only a fool could not see a problem in importing more people from a faith that sets many so apart from, and at odds to, the culture of their host country.

No more Muslim immigrants. Indeed, Nile finally has someone bigoted enough to replace him.

Still, if Bolt’s wish comes true, there are other Western countries happy to accept Muslim migrants. Especially ones that can play football like Sami Khedira, the son of a Tunisian migrant who holds both German and Tunisian passports. Talk about dual loyalties, ay Mr Bolt?



Khedira managed to score the final goal for Germany the other night against Uruguay. Khedira’s header was magnificent, and did justice to the marvellous corner kick from German striker Mesut Oezil.

Oezil is regarded as one of the best footballers on the planet. He recites verses from the Koran before each game which he says helps him to focus. Oezil acknowledges his game has a kind of racial split personality. He told The Guardian:

My technique and feeling for the ball is the Turkish side to my game, the discipline, attitude and always-give-your-all is the German part.

Talk about conflicting values, ay Andrew?



Like all star footballers, Oezil has been the subject of much gossip. In late June, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that model and Oezil’s long time girlfriend Anna-Maria Lagerblom, younger sister of Pop Star Sarah Connor, had decided to adopt her boyfriend’s faith. Talk about forced conversions, ay Andy? Rumours are rife that the couple got engaged after the game in which Germany defeated Ghana.

Then of course there is 29 year old Dutchman Khaled Boulahrouz. If Bolt was born in Holland, he might have had something in common with Boulahrouz. Boulharouz’s devotion to his country to his country is such that when his daughter Annisa died after a premature birth, he still played. His team-mates wore black armbands in solidarity.



Two other Dutch players with links to the faith Bolt must fear are Ibrahim Afellay [url: ] (of Moroccan descent) and Robin van Persie whose wife is of Moroccan descent.

Bolt will surely faint when he learns of the extent to which the dreaded unintegrateable Islamist jihadist Taliban burqa-wearing al-Qaeda conspiracy has spread across European football. Here are just a few names of sleeper-cell leaders I located on the FIFA website: Hakan Yakin (Swiss-Turkish), Franck Ribery (French - convert), Xherdan Shaqiri (Swiss – Kosovar Albanian) and Serdar Tasci (German – Turkish).

With so many of them blasted European Muslims, it’s little wonder this World Cup was such an explosive tournament. Still, Andrew will be happy that no African teams made it to the final. I mean, we all know how much trouble them Africans cause! I mean, check out this dude ...



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COMMENT: Always be polite when wishing a woman be raped ...

In an extraordinary defence of Mel Gibson published on the Herald Scu ... woops ... Sun website, Andrew Bolt makes this remark:

Gibson, it’s said, is now finished in Hollywood after Oksana Grigorieva, mother of his daughter, taped him ranting over their relationship and her flaunting of her siliconed body.

For instance: “I am going to come and burn the f------ house down.”

And: “You look like a f------ pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n------, it will be your fault.”

Now we have celebrities demanding Gibson’s films be boycotted, but why is he the chief villain here? I don’t approve of his language, but approve even less of Grigorieva’s entrapment of him - and the exposure of what he had every right to expect was a private conversation.

Yep. Mentioning rape is fine in the context of a private conversation. But try to be polite about it. Don't use impolite language.

And you thought Keysar Trad's defence of Hilaly was bad.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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OPINION: Who Made The Dogs Bark?

This article was first published in NewMatilda on 6 September 2006.

___________________

Howard and Costello's comments about Australian Muslims are classic examples of the dog whistle, writes Irfan Yusuf.

On 1 September, on Radio 2GB, there was the following dialogue between Prime Minister John Howard and a talkback caller:

PRIME MINISTER: what I want to do is to reinforce the need for everybody who comes to this country to fully integrate and fully integrating means accepting Australian values, it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language, if you don’t already speak it, and it means understanding that in certain areas, such as the equality of men and women, the societies that some people have left were not as contemporary and as progressive as ours is.

And I think people who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have to learn very quickly that that is not the case in Australia. That men and women do have equality and they’re each entitled to full respect. I think Australia has benefited enormously from immigration

[A]nd I think there is a section, a small section of the Islamic population and I say a small section and I’ve said this before which is very resistant to integration. And this is a worry of their community as much as it is of the rest of the community.

RADIO PRESENTER, CHRIS SMITH: Is there own community doing enough to tell and weed out these people?

PRIME MINISTER: Some are, some are, and some aren’t. Most of the Islamic people I know are as appalled by the attitude of a small minority as you are and I am. But there are some who see appeals for people to fully integrate into the Australian community, they try and turn that into some kind of act of discrimination against them and I think that’s the sort of thing [the CALLER] is reacting against and she’s quite right to do so.

Howard was still defending his comments at the time I wrote a response published in the Canberra Times. On the same day, he climed to have ‘clarified’ his comments.

As usual, Howard was testing the waters. He was blowing a whistle and testing how loud the dogs barked. And boy, did the dogs bark loudly!

Sheik Rupert bin Murdoch’s Limited News went crazy. The Australian’s Dick Kerbaj started the howling his sub-editors giving his 1 September article the explosive headline: ‘PM Tells Muslims to Learn English.’ (The fact that most Muslims speak better English than Kerbaj speaks Arabic didn’t occur to the headline writers.)

Piers Akerman followed closely behind, showing off his Arab cultural expertise by claiming Syrian-born female psychiatrist Dr Wafa Sultan was really a bloke. (He now claims it was a typo.)

The headlines flowed thick and fast the Daily Telegraph’s Luke McIlveen exaggerating both the PM’s words and some Muslim responses.

Predictably, Peter Costello tried to out-Howard Howard, while the PM himself went in the other direction telling every man and his Middle Eastern dog more or less that ‘99 per cent of Muslims make really good hommus! Only 1 per cent add extreme garlic!!’

On Sunday night, I was relaxed and comfortable in Canberra watching re-runs of Family Guy when Channel 9’s Today Show phoned to ask me to go head-to-head with Andrew Bolt. I reluctantly agreed.

The next morning, a limousine picked me up and took me to the Canberra studio of WIN-9. They hooked me up with a microphone, though there was no screen for me to see either Bolt or my interviewer Karl Stefanovic.

This was supposed to be a cultural show-down, an old-fashioned ‘death match’ from the days of World Championship Wrestling, beamed live across Australia and New Zealand. I was to be the dude defending non-English speaking, wife-beating Mullahs. Bolt was meant to be the reasonable Dutchman defending good ol’ Aussie values.

They played Costello’s sound bite in which he basically said that Muslim leaders need to condemn terrorism so that Muslim converts could get the message that real Islam isn’t a radical violent political ideology. It was the first time I’d heard it. I was shocked. How could this brilliant industrial lawyer now shoot himself in the foot again?

Here’s how the conversation went, more or less:

KARL: Let me start with you, Irfan. In what sense is Peter Costello wrong in suggesting Muslim migrants should preach true Islam and condemn terrorism?

ME: Well, Karl, I have to tell you that I can find nothing wrong in Costello’s statement you just aired.

BOLT: Well I’m really pleased to hear that, Irfan, but there are still crazy clerics and their interpreters opposing the PM and Costello. When will you Muslims oppose these radical clerics?

ME: Andrew, you are right as well. There are extreme clerics threatening people’s lives. There are clerics preaching terror. Then there are clerics opposing stem-cell research that could save people’s lives. There are even clerics threatening the health and lives of women by lobbying to limit access to abortion for those who genuinely need it. It’s terrible!

KARL: Andrew, what do you say about that?

I couldn’t see what happened next, but I could hear Bolt jamming the word ‘Hezbollah!’ into each sentence as many times as possible. I sat back and tried not to snigger. Karl called it game, set and match.

Back in the Channel 9 limo, I switched on my phone. Calls arrived in quick succession from Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and Allah-knows where else. They were all from women : ‘Good on you. That bastard is so anti-abortion!’ ‘Well done for exposing the real extremists!!’

(OK, I’ll admit they were from my buddies.)

So Howard and Costello have placed the final nail into the anti-Muslim hate speech coffin. Their combined message can be summarised as follows:

Ninety-nine per cent of Muslims are perfectly integrated, speak English, adopt Australian values, and treat women as badly as the rest of us do. Converts need pastoral support to understand Islam isn’t violent or terroristic.

Thanks, John and Pete.

Now the Bolts and Akermans and Albrechtsens and Stones and Steyns and Sheehans and Devines have lost 70 per cent of their content. They can no longer say Muslims have inherently violent misogynistic cultures, or claim Islam is inherently violent, without directly contradicting their political masters.

It also means that Howard and Costello have effectively dismissed Rupert Murdoch’s suggestion that Western Muslims are likely to suffer from dual loyalties. Because every time they make such claims, I’ll be quoting Howard & Costello.

And throwing in a few stem cells for good measure!

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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MEDIA/BLOGS: Bolt gets bitchy!

When I first read Andrew Bolt's vicious personal attack on ALP Federal Minister Kate Ellis on his bog following her recent appearance in Grazia magazine, I imagined it must have been jealousy on his part. Heck, if Alexander Downer can wear 8 inch stilettos, why can't Bolt?

But I never expected such a bitchy headline ...

Thick head flaunts thin body ...

... and then makes this extraordinary remark in his blogpost ...

I know Kate Ellis didn’t get her job thanks to her brains ...

So how did she get her job, Andrew? Methinks MP's tend to get their jobs by convincing the electorate to vote for them. Is Andrew Bolt prepared to suggest in writing how Ellis got her job? Or is he afraid of getting another tap on the shoulder from his in-house lawyers?

Perhaps Bolt's problem is that most female politicians don't look more like this ...

COMMENT: On national security, Bolt can't see beyond his own prejudices ...

Three Australian citizens have had their names appeared on forged passports used by Israeli security agents to carry out an assassination of a HAMAS official in Dubai. Some years back, an Israeli diplomat was expelled for trying to secure forged Australian passports. One former Mossad operative claims that Mossad has a veritable factory producing forged Australian travel documents. Who knows how many Australians could be implicated in assassinations and other forms of terrorism?

But Andrew Bolt simply cannot see beyond his own prejudices. And he refuses to say even one nasty thing about Israel, a country he visits so often on all-expenses-paid trips. For Andrew, it is always the dreaded Mozzlems who are the worry.

VIDEO: Bush appointee makes Blair & Bolt look like stupid racists ...

Not all American conservatives are boofheads. Just look at this Bush appointee who appears on the Rachel Maddow show ...



Notice what this Bush political appointee has to say about wingnut conservatives. That's right. A Bush appointee. Even Bush would not be stupid enough to appoint wingnuts, who must seek employment instead as bloggers and opinion editors in American-owned tabloids.

And so we have a guy appointed by former US President George W Bush telling us that the likes of Blair and Bolt are supporting an agenda that is racist and could damage the morale of American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

CRIKEY: Why question defence force loyalty because of religion?

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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BLOGS: Andrew Bolt's tabloid excuses ...

Excuses, excuses. Andrew Bolt is full of them. And after reading this entry on his blog, I'm convinced Bolt is full of it.

Bolt has a serious dilemna.

I now face a moral dilemma. My intention has been to allow on this blog a discussion that is as free as possible - freer, in fact, than you will find on virtually any other blog. Even my worst critics, several of whom post here almost every day, will concede that I have enabled just that.

(At least they will until they are banned!)

And the debate has also at times degenerated into nasty slanging matches, particularly when overworked moderators, flooded by as many as 12,000 comments in a week, have let through things we did not properly read or consider.

Why didn't you properly read them? Doesn't your moderation policy say that you will read them? Aren't you legally obliged to read them now that you have made a representation to this effect?

... suggestions are being made that by allowing a platform that includes in the crowd of thousands a few cranks - students? leftists trying to cause michief? nutters?- that perhaps the ABC should think twice before inviting me on. Silly, I know, but I suspect this is not an issue that will go away. And then there’s the real risk that one day we’ll slip up and allow on a comment that will get us sued, with me dragged into it once more as the man who “allowed” this all to happen.

Andrew, you know full well the identity of many of those defamatory, offensive and racist leaving comments on your blog.

But maybe I'm being harsh. Maybe I should consider the moral dimension to all this.

So as you can see, against my duty, as I perhaps arrogantly perceive it, to allow as free a discussion as possible, there is my ego and my self-interest in protecting my reputation. I should also admit that taking off the comments function should free up more than 10 hours of every choked week. What’s more, reading and checking those comments that I can get to can eat at my optimisim as well as my time. You should see the stuff we must delete - or, rather, you shouldn’t.

We don't need to read what you delete, Andrew. What you allow through is worse than bad. Readers can read this long litany of examples and judge for themselves.

Bolt has no more excuses left. There is no real moral dilemma. There is the law. Bolt must obey the law, just like the rest of us. Bolt must follow his own moderation charter. He must not publish material that is racist, sexist, homophobic etc. He must not breach anti-vilification laws, and he must not publish comments that breach such laws.

So what if he must moderate 12,000 comments a week. He works for News Limited. He works for a multi-billion dollar enterprise. And such an enterprise and its employees must obey the law just like the rest of us. There's no moral dilemma involved in the Rule of Law.

If Bolt continues to make excuses and continues to rebuff the law, there could well be consequences, both for him and his employers. It's as simple as that.

COMMENT: Mr Danby and racist comment moderation ...

Mr Michael Danby, former editor of what used to be called the Australia-Israel Review and now Federal Labor Member for Melbourne Ports, has a go at two popular Australian websites - Crikey and NewMatilda. He engages in a grievance mass debate in the House of Representatives on 7 September 2009, the contents of which can be read here.

Mr Danby was scathing of these websites' moderating comments that he regarded as anti-Semitic and racist comments appearing after articles. Here are some terms he uses to describe comments published here on the subject of the Israel/Palestine conflict:

... unmoderated, unleashed and unhinged comments on their websites ... the broad slabs of hate speak published in the comments section following each article ... Newmatilda publishes blatantly bigoted commentary, even though the magazine explicitly reserves the right to moderate that commentary if it is abusive or promotes hate. Only since being exposed has Newmatilda stopped publishing race hate in its comment columns.

... Crikey and its editor, Jonathan Green, have made no explanation or issued no apology. Eric Beecher, the owner of Crikey, who hails from a similar ethnic cultural background to me, owes an explanation for Crikey’s publication of these hate filled comments. Such comments would be suited for publication in Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer.

I write for both websites on a fairly regular basis. Much of my writing for Crikey has been to expose racist commentary moderated in blogs published by far better resourced international news outlets. I have also exposed racist commentary made by bloggers and columnists, some of whom Mr Danby has accompanied on trips to Israel.

If Mr Danby is serious about racism on websites, he should consider making an issue of what is published in the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph. He should consider some of the anti-Lebanese, anti-African, anti-Muslim and anti-Aboriginal commentary published on the blogs of Tim Blair, Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman.

Perhaps Mr Danby could provide some examples of comments left on NewMatilda and/or Crikey comparable to the ones found here or here or here. Or how about these?



All this begs one question: Is Mr Danby's refusal to attack these columnists' toleration of clearly racist, violent, xenophobic and fascistic remarks somehow related to their being solid supporters of the most far-Right views inside Israel? Would Mr Danby be more vocal in his criticism of these bloggers if they were somewhat less supportive of Israel?

OPINION: Freedom of speech is good but must be used wisely ...

Former prime minister John Howard once said that when you change the government, you end up changing the country. There's no doubt that Howard's exit from the Lodge has changed how public discussion on a raft of issues is carried on in this country.

Howard prided himself on allowing freedom of expression to flourish in Australia free from the constraints of political correctness. Yet in some areas, political incorrectness and outright bigotry have not served us well. And they continue to do us disservice.

On national security, advertisements and campaigns (including a very expensive fridge magnet) warned us to be alert but not alarmed. Yet so much of the rhetoric coming out of Canberra, not to mention our involvement in the Iraq disaster and the Howard government's disdain for Australian citizens trapped at the Guantanamo gulag, did plenty to divide different sections of the Australian community without any dividends in terms of increased safety.

Howard rarely hesitated to remind us of that small number of Australians of certain suspect backgrounds who were either hostile or just didn't respect our way of life or refused to integrate into our Christian (or in a rare moment of ecumenicalism, our Judeo-Christian) heritage (perhaps of 40,000 years' standing) or placed pressure on our migration system more than any other group.

Recently in a lecture at Melbourne University, Howard attacked the media for its relentless pursuit and character assassination of a very, very decent man the decent person being Peter Hollingworth whom Howard appointed as governor- general. Hollingworth resigned in May 2003 after outrage when his handling of child abuse allegations during his period as Brisbane Anglican archbishop was revealed. He was accused of showing minimal if any compassion for sexual assault victims in much the same way as Hilaly's comments about uncovered meat and the allegedly disproportionate sentences handed out to the Skaf brothers also showed gross insensitivity to sexual assault victims.

In defending Hollingworth and attacking the media, Howard was playing a role similar to that played by Hilaly's translator and spin-doctor Keysar Trad. Howard also showed his own double standards that underpinned so great a part of the cultural wars he fought so hard.

During Howard's term, almost any terrorism-related arrest or event would be accompanied by some comment about integration or culture or values or our way of life. The war against terror was little more than another instalment of wider culture wars. Meanwhile, practical issues that actually would have made us safer (such as proper airport security) were all but ignored, to the extent that, recently, a few alleged bikies were able to bash a man into virtual pulp at Sydney Airport. No doubt the victim of those attacks wouldn't have been concerned with a certain small portion of non-integrating migrants.

In light of the recent Melbourne terror raids, perhaps it's a good time to remind ourselves of the basic messages which Islamist terrorists are seeking to convince vulnerable young people of.

Firstly, they say that the terrorist agenda is perfectly consistent with Islam. I've yet to hear that message repeated in any mosques in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Wagga Wagga, Griffith, Wollongong or any other Australian Muslim congregations I have visited. But I have read that message recently on the website of a newspaper boasting to be Australia's biggest selling paper.

On Wednesday, August 5, 2009, columnist Andrew Bolt used these words on his blog:

The rise of yet another Islamist terror group suggests there is something in Muslim or Arabic culture peculiarly susceptible to the call to violence ... While false, there is yet a grain of truth in the maxim that while not every Muslim is a terrorist, every terrorist is a Muslim.

I'm not suggesting Bolt shouldn't be allowed to question the involvement of any belief, religion or ideology in terrorism or violence. But to suggest that certain groups are more culturally susceptible to violence is just plain stupid. To suggest that Somalis or Lebanese or Muslims are more susceptible to violence is like suggesting that conservatives of Dutch heritage are more conducive to racist violence due to their direct participation in the Holocaust, South African apartheid and the colonisation of Indonesia.

The second message the Islamist wackos want Muslim kids to believe is that they will always be marginalised in Australia and will never be accepted as part of the mainstream. And again, it is pundits like Andrew Bolt who confirm this message by furthering a process of marginalisation.

Bolt has used his columns and blogs to engage in vilification of a host of groups:
Somalis, Lebanese, Pacific Islanders, Sudanese, Africans, Muslims and so on. Of course, we still must be concerned about the possible Talibanisation of local Muslims. But those concerns aren't furthered when we have columnists and shock jocks using Talibanesque language.

Groups like al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab want their potential recruits to feel marginalised. Andrew Bolt and others are serving their purpose. Osama bin Laden need not lift a finger when he has at least one Herald Sun columnist doing the job for him.

National security is about keeping all Australians secure regardless of their cultural background. And as our law enforcement agencies know so well, social cohesion is a key element of national security. The logical corollary to this, of course, is that those who threaten our social cohesion, be they imbecilic imams or prejudiced politicians or callous columnists, are threatening our security.

Irfan Yusuf is author of Once Were Radicals: My Years as a Teenage Islamo-fascist (Allen & Unwin, 2009). This article was first published in the Canberra Times on Wednesday 12 August 2009.




Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: On the perils of vilification - the warped logic of banning al-Manar ...

There are many good arguments for and against allowing the Lebanese Hezbollah-run TV station al-Manar to be broadcast in Australia. One good reason not to allow al-Manar to be broadcast is the possibility that programs inciting racial hatred or racist violence could be broadcast.

Hence Colin Rubenstein, Executive Director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), pointed out in The Age last week that

[t]he station broadcast a 30-part series in 2003 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan based explicitly on the famous anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The broadcast of myths about ethno-religious groups is hardly a good idea.

Yet sadly, just as Jews are vilified in Arab media, similarly persons of Arab and/or Middle Eastern heritage are vilified in Hollywood and in television. As Dr Jack Shaheen illustrated in his book and documentary Reel Bad Arabs, for over a century American movie goers have been subjected to a barrage of images portraying Arabs as violent, ruthless, savage, evil. He says:

Arabs are the most maligned group in the history of Hollywood. They are portrayed basically as sub-humans.

Such stereotypes are repeated in print. Last week Andrew Bolt wrote on his blog:

The rise of yet another Islamist terror group suggests there is something in Muslim or Arabic culture peculiarly susceptible to the call to violence … While false, there is yet a grain of truth in the maxim that while not every Muslim is a terrorist, every terrorist is a Muslim.

And today that same ignorant stereotype is repeated by Bren Carlill, an analyst at Colin Rubenstein’s organisation. Writing in The Australian, Carlill claims:

…while a majority of Muslims aren’t terrorists, the majority of terrorists are Muslim, an uncomfortable fact that shouldn’t be ignored for the sake of political correctness. It is rare to find a Muslim terrorist who acts only for a secular, nationalist cause.

Yes it is if you’re selective about whom you label terrorists.

Like all stereotypes, Carlill’s analysis doesn’t quite make sense. Most Muslims aren’t terrorists. Most terrorists are Muslim. Most Muslim terrorists are terrorists because they are Muslim. The logic is too warped to be even considered circular. And so we have one AIJAC person telling us that we should ban al-Manar for promoting ethno-religious stereotypes while another AIJAC person tells us we should ban al-Manar on the basis of an ethno-religious stereotype. Go figure.

First published in Crikey on Tuesday 11 August 2009.

HUMOUR: Bolt becomes colour blind ...

Andrew Bolt, the Herald Sun's token Dutch columnist, has succumbed to a strange case of colour-blindness.

Writing on his bog (no, that wasn't a typo), Bolt uses the headline:

Only racist if whites are punching, not punched

He complains that we only call violence racist when it is committed by whites against non-whites, not by non-whites against whites.



And his first example was this story involving the suspended sentence of a former Macedonian army soldier Edmond Malikovski who was part of a gang calling itself "Noble Park Bosnians".

So white people are now being punched by nasty non-whites from Macedonia and Bosnia Herzegovina and the media refuses to report it for what it is - racist violence. How terrible. And in case any readers have trouble recognising just how non-white Bosnians and Macedonians are, here are some photos of Bosnian girls holding up their national flag ...



... and here are some dark-skinned Macedonian girls.


Feel free to suggest any cures for Andrew's colour blindness by writing to him at BoltA@heraldsun.com.au.



Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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MEDIA/BLOGS: Introducing Usama bin Ladin's new recruit ...

Usama bin Ladin has being trying desperately to convince young Muslims living in Western countries of certain things ...

a. That his terrorist agenda is perfectly consistent with Islam.

b. That Muslims living in countries like Australia will always be marginalised and never accepted as full citizens.

c. That Muslims have an obligation to join his struggle against ... um ... he's not quite sure. Possibly the West, possibly Muslim rulers, possibly Shia Muslims, possibly Muslims who don't support his agenda.

Anyway, bin Ladin's popularity in nominally Muslim countries has been waning. But in Australia, bin Ladin has found an important ally. Here's a photo of Usama bin Ladin's most important Australian propagandist.




Only someone with bin Ladin's mentality, jaundice and ignorance could pen words like this:

The rise of yet another Islamist terror group suggests there is something in Muslim or Arabic culture peculiarly susceptible to the call to violence ... While false, there is yet a grain of truth in the maxim that while not every Muslim is a terrorist, every terrorist is a Muslim.

I always thought Arabic was the name of a language, not a culture. And what on earth is "Muslim" culture? Do Muslims all share a single culture that is distinct from every other culture? What are the features of this culture? Where do I find it? On which planet? In which galaxy?

And Andrew bin Bolt's monocultural jihadists are ever-ready to assist:

Charles replied to Andrew
Wed 05 Aug 09 (11:08am)
I don’t really buy this idea that extremism is a ‘perversion’ of Islam. One strong characteristic of Bin laden and the others is that they are very thorough in justifying their own actions in terms of the principles of Islam, and the Quran, far more so than most ‘moderates’. Their actions are consistent with those of Mohammad himself and his successors.

cohenite replied to mick maggs
Wed 05 Aug 09 (11:54am)
... Islam has a declared intention of dominating the world; so we have the most oppressive type of social structure the world has seen stating their war against the rest; not even communism did this and the nazis were not as brazen.

Al Qaeda, al Schmaeda, Al Shabaab, al schlabbab: what’s the difference?
Certainly not skin color. All follow the Koran and the hadith, the sayings and tradition of their profit Muhammad.
Looking for differences among these groups is an unnecessary detraction.
A single Muslim who takes his religion seriously can be afflicted by “Sudden Jihad Syndrome”, how many examples do you want?
Red Baron of Sydney (Reply)
Wed 05 Aug 09 (10:41am)

“...something in Muslim or Arabic culture peculiarly susceptible to the call to violence.”
Yes, it’s called “the Koran”, with its insistence that The Believer either: 1) calls on the infidel to convert; 2) that the infidel accepts an inferior status (dhimmitude), or; 3) the infidel is killed.
Alex of Belconnen (Reply)
Wed 05 Aug 09 (10:48am)

Shaykh bin Bolt must be mighty pleased that he has assisted bin Ladin. And the Herald Sun, Australia's biggest selling newspaper, must be happy that it has provided a platform for bin-Ladinesque sentiment.

UPDATE I: Another priceless Bolt blogpost from yesteryear.

UPDATE II: Actually, there's another sense in which Bolt is doing bin Ladin's work. I spoke about this some years back during an interview with Terry Lane on Radio National's The National Interest. Here is an excerpt from that interview during which I discuss how Liberal backbenchers calling for hijab to be banned from state schools were assisting bin Ladin.

... I think what we're seeing is a Talibanisation in Australia of our culture. Bronwyn Bishop, Sophie Panopoulos, these represent the Talibanisation of Australia. We're seeing al-Qae'da in an Australian form coming out, demonising people, demonising Muslims. This is what al-Qae'da wants. I mean Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Panopoulos are doing Osama bin Laden's work. Osama bin Laden doesn't have to lift a finger, because he's got Liberal backbenchers doing the work for him. He wants Muslims to feel marginalised in this country, a community that's been at the heart of this country of mainstream Australia for over 150 years. He wants them to feel marginalised. He doesn't have to do anything because he's got Bronnie and Sophie doing it for him. So Osama will be sitting in a cave, clapping his hands when he reads some of the - I mean he's probably got his laptop with him, he's clicking on to the ABC website, and there he is in his cave saying oh, very good Bronwyn, thank you, thank you.

Bronwyn was, naturally, somewhat disturbed by my remarks and immediately hit the airwaves with her response. You can read it all here.

UPDATE III: It looks like the only support Bolt can muster on the blohosphere is from one of tabloid moron Tim Blair's mates who calls him/her/itself Margo's Maid. This poor imbecile has decided that the ultimate sources for defending Bolt's lunacy consist of:

1. a Wikipedia entry;

2. a WikiAnswers entry; and

3. a single wacko internet discussion forum run by a bunch of kids!

Seriously, with scholarly expertise like that, who needs to consult with the works of people like this chap, this bloke and this lady?




Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf




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