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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OPINION: Al-Qaeda terrorist chief deserved to die

The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi should be cheered by Muslims, writes Irfan Yusuf.

The real celebrations on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will be on the streets of Iraq. More than 25,000 Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence directly orchestrated by the Jordanian-born terrorist since the destruction of a Shia Muslim shrine in February.

Zarqawi’s life personified self-evident truths too often obscured by such neo-conservatives: politically inspired violence of groups like Al-Qaeda and Jamaah Islamiyah claims many more Muslim than non-Muslim lives, and that terrorism hardly deserves the label Islamic.

Since the September 11 attacks, neo-conservative writers have lined up to recite the mantra that Islamic theologies and cultures preach violence. The natural corollary of this claim is that the West and the Muslim world are on some inevitable collision course. .

The arguments has even captivated prominent theologians like Australian Cardinal George Pell, who relied heavily on such sources during his February speech to a Florida Catholic summit, concluding the Koran is a document that preaches violence toward non-Muslims

Zarqawi and his colleagues represent a form of blasphemy truer than 100 Danish cartoons, in which establishment of their form of Islamic state become an end in itself. God must play second fiddle to the establishment of God’s state, even if it means flouting God’s own prohibitions on killing innocent civilians.

Zarqawi formed a key plank of Al-Qaeda, a network formed from the remnants of more radical veterans of the Afghanistan conflict. A number of Al-Qaeda operatives (including Osama bin Ladin) received training and support from the US, which used the various Mujahideen groups to fight a proxy war against the Soviet intervention forces present in Afghanistan since 1980.

All were fed anti-Shia propaganda produced by religious scholars close to the Saudi royal family, close allies of the US. Shia Muslims make up around 12% of the world’s Muslims. It is the dominant sect in Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan. Substantial Shia minorities also exist in Pakistan and a number of Middle Eastern states.

Shia Islam is the official religion of Iran’s theocratic regime. The US-sponsored Afghan “jihad” coincided with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran. The US, together with its Western and Arab allies, supported Iraq with weapons, finance and intelligence. The war was sold to Sunni Muslims as a battle against resurgent Shia heterodoxy.

Polemical anti-Shia literature flooded Muslim communities across the world (including Australia), much of it published by religious institutions financed by the US and Saudi Arabia.

This anti-Shia propaganda push has come back to bite the US in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban regime fed on anti-Shia sentiment to conquer Afghanistan. Regular Taliban massacres of Shia Tajik and Hazeri tribesman saw waves of refugees flee to all corners of the globe, including Australia.

Zarqawi used anti-Shia rhetoric to inspire sectarian violence. In an audio recording released on jihadi websites in April, Zarqawi echoed the sentiments of typical Saudi-financed anti-Shia propaganda: “Wake up, pay attention and prepare to confront the poisons of the Shia snakes. Forget about those advocating the end of sectarianism.”

Zarqawi’s war was regarded by few Iraqis as a religiously-sanctioned jihad or just war. BBC Monitoring cited one elderly Iraqi man expressing joy at Zarqawi’s death. “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi deserves to be cut into pieces because he hurt, killed the people and slaughtered the Muslims”.

Hardly a tribute given to a martyr.

(The author is a Sydney lawyer and occasional lecturer in politics at Macquarie University. This article was first published in the Brisbane Courier-Mail on 12 June 2006.)

INDONESIA: Cartoon wars between Australia & Indonesia

Drawing wrong conclusions

IT was a dog of a weekend for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer with relations between Australia and Indonesia almost hitting another low.

It all started when Australia granted temporary asylum to 42 West Papuans who claimed they were being mistreated by Indonesian authorities. Indonesia recalled its Australian ambassador. From there, things just kept getting worse.

My Canberra sources advise the Indonesian ambassador was exceptionally miffed by the recall. He'd already spent $50 on his ticket to attend the fundraiser for the Canberra Islamic Centre that weekend.

Muslim comic Amro Ali was the star act at the dinner, taking the "puss" (to use less offensive Kiwi pronunciation) out of Muslim reactions to all things Danish – including some advice for Danish companies suffering from Arab boycotts. With demand skyrocketing across the Middle East, Amro suggested the Danes switch from exporting ice cream and pastries to Danish flags.

The present dispute between Australia and Indonesia has now escalated into a cartoon war whose recurrent themes make Australian tourism advertisements look a "bloody-hell" lot less crass.

An Indonesian tabloid, Rakyat Merdeka ("People's Freedom"), published a cartoon showing a dingo with a head resembling Prime Minister John Howard engaged in a morally compromised position with another dingo resembling Downer.

The caption has the dominant prime ministerial dingo saying to his mate: "I want Papua!! Alex! Try to make it happen!" The heading was "The adventure of two dingo (sic)".

The PM-dingo reference to Papua was in the context of claims by Indonesian nationalists that Australia was plotting independence for the province of Papua.

The newspaper is famous for offending Indonesian politicians and breaking corruption scandals. Its editors seem to spend more money defending defamation suits than on news gathering.

One of many newspapers competing for a readership hungry to take advantage of the liberalised political and media environment. Rakyat is apparently an Islamic-leaning paper. This humble writer fails to find the Islam in such a cartoon.

Some years back, I was handed a copy of the MMG ("Muslim Marriage Guide") to read in place of holding a bucks night.

The MMG sadly didn't illustrate any theologically appropriate matrimonial positions. But it did warn of severe divine retribution resulting from . . . um, perhaps I'll use Freddy Mercury's phrase of "riding one's bicycle". So when Bill Leak from The Australian decided to respond to the Indonesian paper, he probably said to himself: "Bugger it! I'm going to give those Indonesians some nasty goreng!"

Leak drew a cartoon of an Indonesian – said to be generic but resembling President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – as a dominant dingo mounting a Papuan dingo with a bone in his nose.
The Indonesian addresses his mate with the following endearment: "Don't take this the wrong way" and the caption reads: "No Offence Intended".

Downer immediately went into damage control, telling reporters his Government "does not condone in any way" the cartoon and "disassociated" itself from it.

"From a personal perspective, I find the cartoon tasteless and offensive and see no merit of any kind in its publication," Downer said.

So once again cartoons are dominating headlines in Indonesia and Australia. However, on this occasion, the Muslims are having a good laugh.

It was reported the president of the world's largest Muslim country laughed when told of the cartoon. Only God knows what the dingoes are thinking.

(Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and occasional lecturer at the School of Politics at Macquarie University. This article was first published in the Brisbane Courier-Mail on Tuesday 4 April 2006.)

SECURITY: Some thoughts on the latest Bali bombing

TERRORISTS have struck again in Bali.

Tourists - Australians, Japanese, Germans - are among the dead and wounded. Even a 16-year-old Australian killed. Why?

This was peak tourist season in Indonesia. Tourists bring money. They spend it on the local economy. Indonesians benefit.

Indonesians are employed. Indonesians are fed and clothed. Food is placed on the sofra (traditional cloth spread on the ground and used as a dinner table) of many an Indonesian household. And Indonesians are the biggest losers from terrorism.

Next January, I hope to be travelling with a delegation visiting Indonesia. Each year, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade sends select younger Australian community leaders (I say ``younger'' because I feel quite old) to visit Indonesia and have a two-week taste of our neighbour.

Naturally, one of the places we will visit is Bali. And for obvious reasons - Bali is a place where so many of our countrymen and women lost their lives to the scourge of terror.

Different reasons are given for the Bali terrorist attacks.

Prime Minister John Howard describes it as an attack on democratic Indonesia, an attempt to destabilise the country and punish it for adopting a more democratic model.

South Australian magistrate Brian Deegan, who lost his 22-year-old son Josh in the 2002 Bali bombing, says it was an attack on our foreign policy.

I have my own theory. And try not to be too surprised when you read it. And it does involve a short history lesson.

I believe the Bali bombing was an attack on Indonesian Islam.

Some 700 years ago, Yemeni traders brought Islam to this part of the world.

They settled in the region that roughly coincides with Malaysia, Singapore and northwestern Indonesia. These were the centres of South-East Asian trade.

The various indigenous tribes of merchants in the region had no system of accounting or serious writing. Small disputes over trade would flare into tribal battles.

The Yemenis saw this and introduced a system of numbers and accounting which we still use today. The Yemenis also introduced a system of resolving commercial disputes based on sharia law.

In Indonesia, when people think of sharia, they don't think of chopping hands and stoning adulterers.

They think of banking and finance and trade law. They think of what the Yemenis brought them.

Most Yemeni traders came from a tribe known as the ``Bani Alawi''.

They were direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. In the towns and villages around Penang and Aceh, you will find more direct descendants of the Prophet than even in Saudi Arabia.

And the People of the House (as Muslims refer to the Prophet's descendants) are known for certain qualities. They are scholarly. They are soft-hearted and compassionate. They are calm. They are spiritual. They inspire love, not hatred.

The Yemeni traders were sufis who brought a kind of Islam that focuses on spiritual purification and social reform.

Sufis work with people of all faiths in an effort to bring peace and prosperity to the world.
In New York, a sufi imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf regularly hosts dinners with Jewish and Christian New Yorkers.

In India, the poor and depressed of all faiths and no faith in particular find refuge at the tombs of sufi saints.

Sufism is grassroots popular religion in just about every Islamic country, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yet it is in Indonesia and Malaysia that this peaceful sufic vision of Islam has found its home. And it is no wonder that the majority of the victims in the Bali bombing were Indonesians themselves - Hindus and Muslims.

The terrorists' version of Islam has no room for sufis. The terrorist religion is about war, not peace. It is about hatred, not love. Sufis teach that you bring people closer to you and your faith through love and service to others.

Terrorists teach that you convert people by killing them, by bringing tears to the eyes of their families and loved ones, by driving fear into their communities.

Terrorists bring out the worst in themselves and others. They are a scourge on humanity.
Those who take innocent lives must be brought to justice. Those who destroy communities and economies and nations must be stopped. Sufi Islam brought peace to this region of the world.

Today, the terrorist ideology masquerading as Islam is bringing war and violence and tears to the region. Those who care about Islam should be at the forefront of fighting terror.

This article was first published in the Courier-Mail on Tuesday 4 October 2005.