COMMENT: Angela Shanahan and Lebanese fertility ...

Angela Shanahan, a columnist for The Australian, has every reason to be concerned about the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt, who are regularly the subject of discrimination by the Mubarak regime, not to mention threats from a minority of Muslim wackos.

Though in defending the Copts, she might consider her targets as well as the old adage about people in glass houses.

In a recent column, she makes these remarks:

As for the international reaction to the New Year's massacre, it was condemned by many heads of state and foreign ministers, although in the past few have bothered with the fate of the Copts, including our own Kevin Rudd, who was singled out by the Australian Coptic movement representing our own 80,000 Australian Coptic Christians of Egyptian origin.


Referring to Rudd's December visit to Cairo, the movement observed that although he was in Egypt for three days, and met Mubarak, "he failed to convey . . . concern over the ongoing persecution of Egypt's indigenous population".


According to Day, ignoring the Copts on this occasion was partly driven by timorousness from Rudd in the face of Australia's own large and possibly strategically significant Muslim population. In an interview with the Cairo daily Al-Ahram he estimated that population at "a million", about 4.4 per cent of the population -- a startling figure compared with the 2006 census figure of about 340,000 or 1.7 per cent.


However, the Islamisation in many urban areas of Australia, such as Sydney's southwest, is slowly proceeding.


Lebanese Muslims in particular have a fertility rate four times the average.

What the ...? What do Lebanese Muslims in Lakemba or Bankstown or Arncliffe have to do with Kevin Rudd's failure to mention Coptic persecution during a recent visit to Cairo?

And what does Lebanese fertility have to do with the price of bread or eggs that poor Angela fed to her own nine children?

How many English and/or Australian women give birth to nine children? And do Catholics having lots of kids have any impact on our foreign policy? Why bring this up in the first place?

Surely Angela should know what kind of nonsensical prejudice was used in England and Australia about Catholics over-breeding and having lots of kiddies to take over the nation. Monty Python had enormous fun with such prejudices in this skit ...



... and this one ...



Words © 2011 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.

BOOKS: Robert Baer on the Iranian superpower ...

I’ve just finished reading a ripper-of-a-book by former CIA operative Robert Baer about Iran. The book is entitled The Devil We Know: Dealing With The New Iranian Superpower and was published in 2009.

I kept detailed notes of the book for the prologue which I’d like to share if for no other reason than that I’d like to throw them out and return the book to my shelf. So here goes:

[01] Iran’s war with the United States was undeclared on Iran’s part and largely ignored on the US’s part. The US at one stage was too busy fighting the Cold War.

[02] Iran and its proxy Hezbollah found ways of fighting an unconventional war against the US with precision-guided rockets, roadside bombs and human suicide bombs.

[03] The Gulf has 55% of the world’s oil reserves which Iran is now close to controlling.

[04] The cult of martyrdom plays a central role in Iran’s political ideology. Iranians say that no army can come in the way of martyrdom.

[05] Iran believes it has enough military power to challenge US interests in the Gulf. Iran is the new superpower, with unconventional warfare methods that could easily bring a conventional army to a standstill.

[06] Iran has all but abandoned Khomeini’s revolution. It is a rational actor which coldly and methodically pursues its national interest. Scratch at the veneer of Islam and what you get is old-fashioned nationalism.

[07] Iran’s proxy Hezbollah was the irst military force to defeat Israel on the battlefield since it was founded. Hezbollah defeated Israel again in the 34 day war of 2006. Israel withdrew with heavy losses achieving not a single military objective, and indeed strengthening Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon.

[08] US interests in the Middle East were founded on the old Sunni order which has all but collapsed.

[09] This book is about defining Iran’s imperial drive.

This book is a riveting read, though at times it is prone to generalisations and a fair bit of the explanation of Sunni and Shia theology is just plain wrong. However, the basic proposition is well-argued and compelling.

You can read an excellent profile of the author by Rod McGuiness here.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: On ACMA, al-Manar TV and the search for consistent treatment of all forms of racism ...

I know this won’t make me very popular in some circles. But when it comes to combating racism and sectarian prejudice in broadcasting, could we have some consistency please?

The Age has reported here and here about attempts by ACMA to stop the broadcast of the al-Manar TV channel apparently linked to the Lebanese political party Hezbollah, whose military arm has been designated a terrorist organisation.

Some are unhappy because ...

... Al-Manar's political talk shows feature guests from terrorist organisations.

Well, so do many mainstream Western TV stations. Is it wrong for us to understand the rhetoric of those we are fighting?

It’s also a problem that al-Manar is ...

... fiercely anti-Israel and anti-US... and often broadcasts the final messages of suicide bombers.

Well there are plenty of Israeli media outlets that could be deemed anti-Israel. And how often do we see Western media outlets also broadcasting excerpts from the televised wills of suicide bombers?

Australia-Israel Review editor Tzvi Fleischer complains that al-Manar ...

... is very anti-Semitic, with some very nasty stuff.

That may well be true. But some of the speakers the Review publishes host also engage in quite extreme diatribe against other semitic groups and faiths. Speakers like Daniel "don’t-vote-for-Obama-because-he’s-Muslim" Pipes and the rather nutty Melanie Phillips.

Then there are the good folk from the Anti-Defamation Commission whose chair quite legitimately complains of al-Manar ...

... inciting violence and hatred.

Unfortunately, their former CEO has been inciting some unfortunate attitudes here, as well as attempting to defend a rather nasty Israeli professor.

And some of Roland Jabbour’s soundbites on behalf of the Australian Arabic Council aren’t too helpful. The Age reports Jabbour as arguing that:

... he would not call Jews the offspring of apes and pigs, but that in the context of "the crimes of the state of Israel" it was reasonable for al-Manar to do so and to portray Israeli rabbis as killing Christian children to use their blood in Passover meals.

I’m sorry, but it doesn’t matter what Israel does to Palestinians or Lebanese of various faiths. Repeating this kind of racist trash is never acceptable discourse because it offends even Jews that have about as much support for Israel as Robert Fisk. It is also deeply offensive to many Muslims, including ones that certain people at The Australian love painting as extremist.

Finally, I hope ACMA isn’t bullied and threatened by Hezbollah supporters in the same manner as it was by certain bigoted broadcasters and their often equally bigoted parliamentary patrons.

First published in the Crikey daily alert for Friday 22 August 2008.