CULTURE 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 memory of the Diggers.

The tweets referred to the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mention was also made of Diggers engaging in rape, torture, summary killings and theft in such far-flung places as the Middle East and east Asia. No Diggers were consulted when Scott McIntyre, the journalist in question, was sacked the following day. Nor were any academic historians, such as Professor Phillip Dwyer of the University of Newcastle.

McIntyre brought an unfair dismissal claim against SBS, which was eventually settled following a hearing in the Federal Court. McIntyre used his SBS Twitter account to send the allegedly offensive tweets. That isn’t the case with the latest “controversy” surrounding Yassmin Abdel-Magied.

If you were to rely merely on the headlines and the remarks of a Tasmanian Liberal senator related to a Nazi war criminal, you would think Abdel-Magied had issued a series of tweets from an ABC account describing the Diggers as rapists and murderers. Well, not quite. Here are her words:

LEST. WE. FORGET. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine)

The “unfortunate and disrespectful … cheap political point scoring” can be found between the brackets. The words first appeared on Abdel-Magied’s Facebook page and were subsequently removed and an apology issued.

Storm in a teacup? More like a tsunami in a teacup, if you ask me. All the major newspapers and media outlets jumped on the story, including Fairfax and The Australian, whose report began predictably with “Muslim activist …”. The Daily Telegraph described her as someone

... who labels herself ‘first and foremost … Muslim’.

Gosh, what else was Yassmin hiding among those three dots?

According to The Oz, Abdel-Magied issued the apology

... as people began to complain she had hijacked the Anzac memory for political and religious reasons.

Apparently, personal and racist abuse and calling upon someone to leave the country is a form of legitimate complaint. Which makes sense, really, as the 1130-plus moderated comments to The Oz story included this gem of complaint:

If she continues her Islamic ABC style left – wing rubbish then suggest she go back to an Islamic middle East blood bath ! Sharia law has NO place within Australian democratic society !

And this:

It seems to me that this woman doesn’t like the culture that was in Australia when she arrived from another whose culture she also didn’t like, hence, she’s here. Personally, I think she should go back to from whence she came. Maybe her whingeing would be of more effect in her old country.

And this:

For someone who arrived her as a two year old, people have a classic example of Islam at its best. Indoctrination is the order of the day Australians should be afraid, very afraid.

Other comments spoke of Abdel-Magied’s status as a member of a minority

YOU ARE A MINORITY, AND NEVER FORGET IT. IF YOU SERIOUSLY THINK YOU AND YOUR MUSLIM BROTHER/SISTERHOOD WILL TAKE OVER THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY ANY TIME IN THE FUTURE …

and why her kind should go back to wherever. The pollies will deny it, but we all know they see such sentiments as those of a key demographic.

It would be nice to dwell on the offensive, bracketed words except that there are just too few words to analyse. I will note in passing that Palestine isn’t exactly an Islamic issue. Israel’s nasty wall passes through numerous Christian settlements, among them the birthplace of Jesus. As for Syria, there are Syrian Muslims who support the Assad regime and Syrian Christians who oppose it. And vice versa. 

This concocted mass debate, like those before it and those to come (Newspoll-permitting), shows that we, as a nation, have no bloody idea about our values. Indeed, those who beat their chests the most tend to know the least. The irony of the most nationalistic papers is that they are almost exclusively owned by a man who gave up his Australian citizenship to become an American. Did he, by doing so, increase the average IQ of both our respective nations? Who knows?

I’ve heard stories about Diggers at Gallipoli who refused to shoot at Turkish troops engaged in nemaz (ritual prayer). Perhaps relatives of these Turks are now settled in Australia. Would it be an insult to the memory of our Diggers to suggest we can learn from them something of how to respect other people’s religious cultures? Or must small-mindedness, bigotry and stupidity be the only way to honour our war dead?

First published in Crikey on 26 April 2017

RELIGION: Great, polygamy-promoting Keysar Trad now ‘representing’ Australian Muslims

Keysar Trad has finally hit the big time. Are his PR skills up to the challenge?

Chicago comic Azhar Usman tells a story of trying to convince his workmate to adopt the Islamic faith. The friend is reluctant. The friend says:

I’m not a huge fan of organised religion.

To which Azhar responds:

Hey, man. You need to become an American Muslim. We’re the most disorganised religion on earth!

Australia is no exception. These days, if you’re an Aussie Muslim wishing to find out what’s going on in peak Muslim bodies or Muslim independent schools, you need to have a subscription to Crikey, The Australian (other than the opinion page, though opinion and reportage generally go together) or read a Fairfax paper or the Guardian Australia. For instance, last week the Oz ran a piece on the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) headlined

Muslim leader stands down amid school brawl.

Apart from a court order, I couldn’t see much evidence of a “brawl” in the article. The headline seemed as outrageous as the 160-odd readers’ comments at the end, one of which read:

To soon? OK. I will try again after another slaughter of innocents on Australian soil.

Good to see that comment passed the moderation guidelines of

... anything prejudiced against any religion ...

and

... inflammatory and which will not positively further debate ...

not to mention

... poor spelling.

AFIC’s own website provided little by way of clarification. You can download the latest edition of the group’s magazine (dated January 2015), the annual report from 2014 or catch up on the latest press release, from March 27, 2016, concerning the Brussels attack.

Anyway, back to the school brawl. It appears that the president of AFIC, Hafez Kassem, has resigned. Kassem was relatively media shy. His replacement, however, doesn’t have that problem. Incoming president Keysar Trad is a man you have definitely heard of — unless you’ve just arrived on our planet.

Suffice it to say that Trad’s PR skills need some fine-tuning. More unkind folk may suggest the man is a walking, talking media stereotype. Seriously, every religion has its embarrassing bits. Which raises a simple question: why on earth does Keysar Trad have to bring up a proposal to change marriage laws to allow men to take on more than one mother-in-law?

Such as in 2008 when he told a journalist that he felt the urge to take on a second wife when his existing one was overseas. Or at the 2009 Festival of Dangerous ideas, when he spoke on why polygamy was good for Australia. Or in 2010, when he spoke about polygamy in the context of Centrelink payments. Or in 2012, when he argued laws should be changed to allow polygamy. Or, indeed, when he wrote on the topic for Crikey.

Then there is Trad’s volunteer work as translator and adviser to former Mufti Sheikh Hilali. At times, Trad’s translating skills have been found wanting, as Monica Attard discovered some years back. 

Back in those days, despite being the media’s go-to man for journalists too lazy to approach a woman for comment, Trad’s standing in Muslim circles was limited to being the president of the “Islamic Friendship Society”, which held regular meetings around his dinner table and whose members likely had the same surname.

But now Trad has hit the big time, able to spout his theories on polygamy as titular head of Australian Islam. True, AFIC doesn’t itself have the best reputation among governments and parents paying top dollar to send their kids to AFIC-run schools.

But more important is the problem that anything and everything to do with Islam is seen through the prism of national security, terrorism, radicalisation, etc. It’s a dangerous and divisive narrative that benefits extremists on all sides.

Is Keysar Trad someone who can meet the challenge of challenging the narrative, of defying the stereotype? Can he resist the urge to speak to every journalist who contacts him, to appear on every TV show, to comment on any and every controversy?

First published in Crikey on 02 August 2016

EGYPT: An Israeli view of the Muslim Brotherhood

In 2006, Dr Israel Elad Altman wrote a paper for the Hudson Institute, a neo-Conservative thinktank, on the subject of Democracy, Elections & the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Dr Altman is a Senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy, at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. he holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from UCLA. Here are some excerpts from that paper ...

Western governments, including the government of the United States, are considering the MB and other “moderate Islamist” groups as potential partners in helping to advance democracy in their countries, and perhaps also in eradicating Islamist terrorism ...

Altman writes about a generational shift in thinking within the MB. He doesn't view the organisation as an ideological monolith.

For almost two decades, two distinctive age groups within the MB have been waging an internal ideological struggle. The first group—the “old guard”—was formed during the harsh experience of the MB’s repression under the former Egyptian ruler Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser ... are generally more zealous, conservative, and committed primarily to long-term religious missionary work (dawa) and to preserving the movement’s unity.


By contrast, the second or middle generation is made up largely of the student leaders of the 1970s, when Anwar al-Sadat allowed the MB to take over the university campuses. Several of its representatives are more open to change. They assign greater importance to the political work of the MB, rather than its missionary activities. The also see Egypt—rather than the Muslim world — as the MB’s real frame of reference, and show interest in building alliances with other political organizations. The old guard, meanwhile, remains deeply suspicious of other political groups and unforgiving toward such former political rivals as the Nasserists, Arab-Nationalists and Marxists.

The MB has been the subject of an ideological and political split out of which a new party formed.

The dominance of the old guard in the MB leadership caused some second-generation members to leave the movement and form the al-Wasat Party, often described as the “Center Party,” in 1995. But others stayed, including ‘Abd al-Mun’im Abu al-Futuh, one of the most dynamic and articulate spokesmen of the second-generation reformist faction and a member of the MB’s supreme decision-making body, the Guidance Bureau (Maktab al-Irshad). He asserts that Islamic discourse is not holy; rather, it is based on human judgment (ijtihad) and can be revised and updated. The Islamists’ arguments are therefore the products of their human understanding, not of Islam. And unlike traditional Islamists, Abu al-Futuh sees democracy as more than just an unavoidable means of reaching power: It is a unique fruit of human experience that has intrinsic value. He rejects, moreover, the religious component of democracy. To him, democracy simply means rule by the people, not “the people ruling by Allah’s law.”

So who is this Abu al-Futuh? And what does he believe in?

Abu al-Futuh considers the Caliphate to be a purely political, nonreligious matter. In modern times it is akin to other types of political unity, such as the European Union ...


... Abu al-Futuh and his allies advocate true political pluralism, equal citizenship for all the country’s nationals, regardless of religion, and rotation of power in accord with the people’s choice. It would even be acceptable to them if a Christian were elected to power in a Muslim-majority country. Abu al-Futuh seeks, furthermore, to eliminate the MB in its present form and to terminate all its covert and external activities, including its involvement with the International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood. He wants it to become instead an Egyptian political party, fully open to public scrutiny. Abu al-Futuh asserts that resistance to this change comes not only from the MB’s old guard, but also from the regime itself. He also claims that government repression of MB activists has been directed primarily against potential reformers, suggesting that the regime is colluding with MB hardliners to block the movement’s evolution in a more democratic direction ...

The MB did organise some rallies in 2005. For some reason, these collapsed after a deal was allegedly struck with the Mubarak regime.

... On March 27, 2005, the Muslim Brotherhood organized a street demonstration in Cairo to call for political reforms. It was the first demonstration on domestic issues since President Mubarak came to power, and it triggered a series of other protests in both Cairo and the countryside that led to the arrest of as many as 1500 MB members, including senior ones. This development broke a long-standing informal truce between the regime and the MB — a truce that allowed the movement to practice its missionary or dawa activities as long as it refrained from challenging the regime in the political arena. The demonstrations indicated to many that the MB was abandoning its traditional strategy of avoiding outright confrontation with the state.


Yet by the summer of 2005, the MB demonstrations were over.

Here is a nice succinct summary of the Emergency Laws.

... the Emergency Laws (which were implemented in 1967, lifted in 1980, and re-imposed in 1981, following Anwar al-Sadat’s assassination. These laws grant authorities power to detain people considered a threat to national security without charge and practically indefinitely, to try people before military tribunals, and to ban public demonstrations).

The MB, according to Altman, isn't sure about exactly where it stands ideologically and politically. In this sense, it could probably enter into a workable coalition with the Parliamentary wing of the Liberal Party of Australia.

... the movement’s continuing oscillation between two competing orientations: its political orientation that led it, at least temporarily, to join other opposition groups in an attempt to force political change; and its dawa orientation that makes it unwilling to risk the long-term endeavor of Islamizing society for short-term political gains.


... Nervous about sliding into a fatal confrontation with the regime, the old-guard leaders have undercut repeated attempts by second-generation leaders and their impatient younger supporters to confront the regime directly. In securing the movement’s survival, the MB’s missionary endeavor and its commitment to the Islamic state and implementation of sharia take preference.

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CRIKEY: Costello shows little faith in the possibilities of education ...

In 1980, I started grade five at Sydney’s only Anglican cathedral school. My parents wanted to send me to a school which taught their values. But my parents are not Anglican. They are South Asian Sunni Muslims. Among my closest friends at school were a Jew, a Mormon and an atheist brought up in a nominally Catholic family. Their parents may have sent them to the school for similar reasons.

But Peter Costello thinks the main reason parents send their kids to a Christian school is this:

Parents who choose to send their children to a Christian school have a reasonable expectation that the child will get a Christian education. How could the school fulfil its obligation to the parents if it is required by law to employ non-Christian or anti-Christian teachers to provide it?

Perhaps Mr Costello should consult his well-heeled constituents of Sikh, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and other non-Christian faiths to find out why they choose to send their kids to exclusive (often selective) Christian schools. Perhaps having a name like Sydney Grammar or St Andrews on one’s resume can help overcome the prejudice of employers at allegedly unpronounceable surnames.

Presently religious institutions and faith schools are exempt from the provisions of anti-discrimination legislation which forbid discrimination in employment on the basis of religion. This could change in Victoria, and Costello writes in both The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald expressing his opposition ...

... to restrict the freedom of religious schools to choose their employees on the basis of their religious faith.

I’ve acted for both Muslim and non-denominational independent schools in workplace relations matters. Muslim schools employ non-Muslim teachers, only requiring them to display respect and empathy to Muslim religious values. Female teachers aren’t required to cover their hair. School principals told me that they had to hire non-Muslim staff as there weren’t enough Muslim teachers.

This presumably means these schools would take advantage of discrimination exemptions and employ only Muslim teachers if they had half a chance. Would Costello support Muslim schools insisting Muslim kids only be taught by Muslim teachers? Perish the thought! This kind of non-integration and breach of Australian values is what Costello so often pontificated on when he was treasurer.

I’d be appalled by the idea of kids from Islamic schools not having non-Muslim teachers. Hopefully by the time there are enough Muslim teachers, the law will have changed so that neither Muslim nor any other faith schools can discriminate. Religious and cultural cocoons aren’t healthy for children or for social cohesion.

Then again, Anglican cocoons didn’t harm me. Back when I was at school, to be employed at St Andrews as a teacher, you had to show some kind of commitment to Christianity. Some teachers evidenced this by a letter from their parish priest. We’re not sure exactly how my popular Year 11 English Teacher, Mr Scott, evidenced his Christian commitment. But at the last St Andrews’ Class of ’87 reunion, one of the lads recalled Scott had a habit of wearing polka-dotted ties. I’m not sure if he still wears them to work.

First published in Crikey on 29 July 2009.

COMMENT/MEDIA: The Times of London recycles Kerbaj?

Richard Kerbaj, formerly of The Australian and author of numerous articles displaying his Lebanese-and-Arabic-speaking skills, has now moved to London to take up a post at The Times. Both The Australian and The Times are owned by Rupert "Muslims-marry-their-cousins" Murdoch.

You can check out Kerbaj's skills at reporting on radical thick-Sheiks by clicking here. Also interesting is correspondence sent by ABC's Media Watch here. You can also read Imam Sheik Ayatollah Hujjat al-Islam Khoury Sayyid Michael Stutchbury's response clarifying Kerbaj's Arabic-language skills here.

[UK readers will be amused by Kerbaj's colleagues at the Melbourne Herald-Sun confusing Abu Hamza with Abu Hamza.]

Kerbaj's latest piece in The Times actually isn't so bad. He discusses plans to purge "Muslim spiritual leaders" who turn a blind eye to violence against women. In theory, it might well be a good idea. Lay persons shouldn't get away with turning a blind eye to violence against women. Why should religious leaders?

[Though given Kerbaj's past performance with labelling, one wonders whether in this particular article, by the term "spiritual leader", he means an imam. Or does he mean a pir? Or a murshid? Or how about a hoca? Or a maulana? Or even a molvi? Or how about a sidi? And why has he stopped using the term "Muslim cleric" as he often did in Australia?]

I'm not sure if Kerbaj will focuss much of his time at The Times focussing on UK Muslim issues. But just how qualified is he for this task? Does Kerbaj have any clue who leads the liturgy and educational needs of Britain's various Muslim sects and cultural groups? Can Kerbaj identify one maslaq from another? Does he understand the differences between various shades of Deobandi, Barelwi and Ahl-i-Hadith? Does Kerbaj speak Urdu or Bangla?

These questions are pertinent. After all, in Australia so much of Kerbaj's information came from various Lebanese groups whose political nuances he had little understanding of, despite his own Lebanese heritage.

Much of Kerbaj's information on Aussie Muslim management issues came from followers of Abdullah Hareri and the al-Ahbash sect. One wonders whether in London, Kerbaj's sources come from the equal and opposite of al-Ahbash i.e. the followers of Nazim al-Qubrussi (attacked on an al-Ahbash website here) and and his student Hisham Kabbani?

One of Kerbaj's main sources in his recent story is Irfan al-Alawi from the UK branch of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism. Al-Alawi claims to be a follower of a Yemeni Sufi master who has close associations with Imam Hamza Yusuf Hanson of the Zaytuna Institute.

[The Executive Director of that Centre's head office in the United States, Mr Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, whose profile you can read on that wonderful blog Jewcy where you'll also find a fascinating post on why he sees Islam as "Judaism for the Whole World". Amir Butler claims here that Schwartz is a follower of Hisham Kabbani, though Schwartz doesn't mention Kabbani at all in this interview with National Review Online. Schwartz claims to be a proponent of traditional Islam and Sufism, though his repeated personal attacks on Imam Hamza Yusuf Hanson (a prominent proponent of traditional Islam) borders on obsessive.]

Australian readers will be familiar with Kerbaj's usual mantra that Wahhabi Islam is virtually a unitary phenomenon espoused by Usama bin Ladin. He repeats this mantra for the consumption of UK readers in his latest piece ...

During its investigation the organisation - the British arm of a longestablished US think-tank - received a number of complaints about imams who had turned a blind eye to cases of domestic violence, many of whom are followers of Wahabbism, a puritanical interpretation of the Koran espoused by Osama bin Laden.

Some readers may wonder why a White Ribbon Day Ambassador like me should object to a report the publication of which is clearly in the public interest. Surely religious leaders of any congregation turning a blind eye to domestic violence must be exposed and shamed. Why should Muslims be any exception?

Muslim spiritual leaders could be denounced publicly by their own community as part of a campaign to expose imams whose silence on domestic abuse is leading to women being burnt, lashed and raped in the name of Islam.

Muslim scholars are to present the Government with the names of imams who are alleged by members of their own communities to have refused to help abused women. Imams are also accused of refusing to speak out against domestic abuse in their sermons because they fear losing their clerical salaries and being sacked for broaching a “taboo” subject.

Some of Britain's most prominent moderate imams and female Muslim leaders have backed the campaign, urging the Home Office to vet more carefully Islamic spiritual leaders coming to Britain to weed out hardliners. A four-month inquiry by the Centre for Islamic Pluralism into domestic abuse has uncovered harrowing tales of women being raped, burnt by cigarettes and lashed with belts by their husbands, who believe it is their religious right to mistreat them.

At least 40 female Muslim victims and many social workers from northern England - including Bradford, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham - were interviewed as part of the inquiry, which is expected to be published next month.

And why should someone like yours truly, who has a history of criticising a young Sydney imam and a former Australian Mufti for their ignorant and dangerous comments on sexual assault victims, have a problem with Kerbaj doing the same?

The problem is that Kerbaj might be accused of using domestic violence as an excuse to play a game of journalistic sectarian wedge-politics. The last thing we should be doing is believing that the only imams who justify or turn a blind eye to domestic violence are Wahhabis and the Tabligh Jamaat, whom Kerbaj claims is ... wait for it ...

... accused of radicalising young British Muslims with its orthodox teachings.

[One wonders how some of Kerbaj's sources, who claim to be more true to Islamic orthodoxy than the TJ, would respond to Kerbaj's claim that orthodox Islam radicalises young British Muslims.]

But my real objection to Kerbaj's article (at least based on my own reading of it) is the same as my objection to any attempt to focus on one group of domestic violence perpetrators whilst ignoring another group. Or my objections to scribes, pundits and politicians behaving like defenders of sexual violence victims when it suits their prejudices.

Here's an excerpt of what I wrote about this topic in the Australian Jesuit publication Eureka Street ...

This isn't just another case of inconsistency inspired by sectarian prejudice, of what's good for the Muslim goose being not good for the non-Muslim gander. The clear message is that misogynistic or insensitive remarks about sexual assault victims are only worthy of universal condemnation if those making the remarks belong to the 'wrong' religious, ethnic and/or cultural background ...

When sexual assault becomes a cultural or sectarian wedge, it demeans and insults the suffering of all victims and their families. It also opens to question our society's commitment to unconditionally ending violence against women.

On the other hand, Kerbaj might argue that he wasn't expressing any opinion. He was merely reporting the facts. However, consider these points ...

a. Is the CIP the first and/or only UK Muslim group to tackle community attitudes toward domestic violence?

b. What standing does CIP have in mainstream British Muslim circles? I'm not just talking about religious circles but also cultural (e.g. South Asian) and language (e.g. Hindi/Urdu, Punjabi and Bangla) circles.

There are other factors to consider. Perhaps Kerbaj would have factored all these points in if he'd been provided with a more generous word length. And as I've already said above, Kerbaj's article isn't as bad as his past work, some of which does little more than perpetuate a Team America take on Muslims. When it comes to identifying Islamic sectarian nuances, at times Kerbaj has tripped over even the most basic kindergarten stuff.

UK readers of this blog should keep a close eye on Kerbaj's work. At the same time, we should all remember that it often isn't easy for journalists to report on such issues.

(Thanks to PK and BC for the tip-off.)

UPDATE I: Another article (in fact a case study of one victim ignored by her local imams) by Richard Kerbaj is well worth reading. This is really disturbing stuff. We can bag reporters like Kerbaj all we like. But who is going to protect women like 'Aliya'?

UPDATE II: I've written about Kerbaj at some length in various Crikey pieces, some of which can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Israeli columnist accuses Daniel Pipes of lying about Senator Obama ...

Daniel Pipes has again tried to run some sort of crazy line about Senator Barack Obama's religious affiliation. In a column for the Jerusalem Post, Pipes repeats his claims that Obama, if not currently a Muslim, was a Muslim at some stage.

Some readers will be wondering what difference does it make. After all, there is nothing in the US Constitution which bars an American of any religious affiliation from holding the highest office in the land.

That may be the legal position. But Pipes, a columnist who isn' exactly known for his love for Muslims, wants American voters to imagine that there is some possibility that Obama may well be a Muslim. Hence Pipes makes the following extraordinary claim ...

... Muslims the world over rarely see him as Christian but usually as either Muslim or ex-Muslim.

And what is his proof? A statement from Colonel Gaddafy-duck, a few columnists, a conversation in Beirut between a baker and his customer, one or two remarks from academics here and there and this line from someone whom Pipes describes as "the President of the Islamic Society of North America, Sayyid M. Syeed".

Really, Mr Pipes? Is Sayyid Syeed the President of ISNA? How come no one has told Professor Ingred Mattson of this? Did Pipes instal Syeed as president while nobody was watching? When did Syeed make these remarks? Was it well before Obama began his presidential quest?

Pipes claims that Muslims are required to have a certain view about Obama. And what is that view? And which Muslim theological of juristic source does he rely on?

Lee Smith of the Hudson Institute explains why: "Barack Obama's father was Muslim and therefore, according to Islamic law, so is the candidate. In spite of the Koranic verses explaining that there is no compulsion in religion, a Muslim child takes the religion of his or her father... For Muslims around the world, non-American Muslims at any rate, they can only ever see Barack Hussein Obama as a Muslim."

Wow. That's a reliable source. Check out Lee Hudson's background here. What are his qualifications in Islamic theology or sacred law? Here they are ...

Yep, that's the extent of Lee Smith's qualifications in Islamic sacred law and theology.

Pipes chose not to quote Smith's other comments in his article. Here is how Smith describes Muslim societies as a whole ...

Sure, there are numerous instances of dark-skinned people who won respect in the Muslim world ... But generally, it should come as no surprise to anyone save the most cloistered third-world fantasists, that a society which discriminates against sex, religion, ethnicity, language, nation, tribe, and family is not likely to have very progressive attitudes about race. Arab society, like many others, has a race problem ... It's not clear to me why Americans seem now to be trying to export a very un-American idea - that a man's color and his faith matter.
Lee Smith, a visiting fellow in Hudson Institute's Center for Future Security Strategies, is currently based in Beirut, where he is writing a book about Arab culture.

What the ...? Is this guy for real? Is he alleging that Arab society and Muslim society are one and the same thing? Is he suggesting that Muslim societies all have very unprogressive views on just about every collective trait? And what is so un-American about having a President of a particular colour or ancestry? Did Smith object to President George W Bush making an issue of his ability to speak Spanish during his campaign?

Returning to Pipes, he ends his analysis with this curious claim ...

In sum, Muslims puzzle over Obama's present religious status. They resist his self-identification as a Christian, while they assume a baby born to a Muslim father and named "Hussein" began life a Muslim.

Er, which Muslims are doing the puzzling, Mr Pipes? The handful of Arab columnists and the Beirut baker?

Now here is the shocking news for Mr Pipes? Muslims believe that we are born Muslim regardless of who our father is and what religion he may or may not have. So Muslims believe that even someone who hates Muslims as much as Pipes was in fact born a Muslim. It's a simple concept called "fitrah" or inherent purity. We are all born with it. Islam has no concept of original sin. Yes, Mr Pipes, even you were born Muslim. Deal with it.

Here is what Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston describes Pipes' claims about Obama and religion ...

What may frighten some Americans about Barack Obama is his very excellence. His fiercest critics have so far had little else to go on.

But if he is truly that scary, why is it so necessary to lie about him?

If the real truth about him is so frightening, why is it so necessary for someone like Daniel Pipes to ingeniously resuscitate the lie that Obama is a Muslim?

If the actual facts are so damning, why was it so necessary for Fox and others to pump up the packet of hardbound fictions called Obama Nation, a miserable book whose manipulative distribution propelled it to a debut at the top of The New York Times best seller
list?

There will be those for whom race is the deciding issue, but I believe their numbers are few.

So there you have it, folks. A columnist in an Israeli newspaper accuses Pipes of lying, and implies that Pipes is trying to turn race into an issue in this election.

OPINION: Risk of marginalisation in Western talk of the universal ...

It takes a lot of guts for a non-Catholic to comment on World Youth Day, especially one like me who has an enormous soft spot for Catholics.

It all started in the mid-1970s, when I was the only brown-skinned boy at Ryde East Infants School in north-western Sydney. Having lots of female friends (it was more pity than attraction) wasn't the main reason I was bullied. Rather, it was that I looked like an Aboriginal, something a teacher advised me to take as a compliment as it made me more authentically Australian. Plus, my mum (in her exotic, gorgeous saris which made many a hippy mum extremely jealous) dressed differently.

As if that wasn't bad enough, some bullies used to accompany me home, demanding protection money in return for protecting me from even meaner bullies. It was schoolyard mafia at its worst.

Then, one day while walking home from school, I noticed a blond-haired, blue-eyed kid who wore a slightly different school uniform to me. He wore a blue shirt that had a small yellow cross embroidered onto it, and his school bag was emblazoned with the words Spiritus Sanctus.

I couldn't understand exactly why he was being teased and bullied. After all, he looked just like the bullies. This anomaly in playground mafia discrimination policies really confused me, and one day I confronted one of the bullies.

''Why are you teasing him? He looks just like you. I'll bet his mum doesn't wear a sari.''

''He's not like us at all. He's a f---ing Catholic!''

I ran home overjoyed by this news, which I excitedly shared with Mum. Her response was to befriend every Catholic in the street. Suddenly, I didn't just have South Asian aunties, I also had Maltese and Italian and Irish and even Aussie aunties as well. I became a culturally liberated six-year-old. For Mum, it was a case of showing solidarity with the fellow oppressed.

Many years later, during a divinity class at a low-church Sydney Anglican boys school, my very conservative chaplain (he was a huge fan of Fred Nile) joined the Ryde East playground mafia in indoctrinating me against Catholics. He was rather less ecumenical than my mum, and even claimed that the beast labelled 666 in the Book of Revelation referred to the Pope.

In fact, the chaplain always referred to them as Roman Catholics, to emphasise they weren't real Catholics. It was at that time that I learned the actual meaning of the word catholic universal. Surely the Sydney diocese of the Church of England had a greater claim to being universal.

Muslim Australians love to whinge and complain about discrimination. But what we've gone through at the hands of pseudo-conservative governments (often in response to the pseudo-sensible remarks of imbecilic thick-Sheiks) is only a fraction of what Australian Catholics have had to put up with for more than a century.

So it's with great joy that I watch members of my mum's coalition-of-the-bullied celebrate World Youth Day in Sydney. I'm really glad that Catholics have come this far, from the days when kids from Catholic schools in my street used to get bashed up, to now openly celebrating their faith in the presence of the Pope.

But based on my experience with so many official (and allegedly universal) Muslim gatherings, I have some reservations.

Both Islam and Catholicism are universal faiths. Islam, like Catholicism, has historically been fairly culturally neutral, taking on the indigenous cultural symbols of places it has settled in. Yet some Arabs always try to dominate so much of the Muslim agenda.

The largest Catholic country on earth isn't in Europe. It is situated in the largest Catholic continent on earth South America. I was happy to see images of Brazilian pilgrims playing traditional drums and swaying their hips. If only allegedly orthodox Muslims made more room for pulsating Indian qawwali songs and Indonesian wayang shadow-puppet shows. However, I wasn't terribly happy to hear Cardinal George Pell talking about declining birth rates in the West.

No doubt, I too am concerned about Albanian Muslims and Portuguese Jews reproducing less than their ancestors, just as I'm peeved about the offspring of European (and indeed Western) Muslim migrants engaging in cultural integration by having as few kids as their Christian fellow citizens.

However, I really can't see the need for Catholic clergy or Muslim media commentators to take on the role of Western demographers. What do European birthrates have to do with Catholics from Goa or Bolivia?

World Youth Day cannot be allowed to become a huge spectacle of Western Catholicism, and hence potentially unrepresentative of international Catholicism.

So much of the prejudice that underpins those claiming to speak on behalf of our Judeo-Christian heritage is the same prejudice that led Aussie bigots of yesteryear to despise Jews and Catholics. It is built upon transforming universal religious and cultural symbols into racial and sectarian weapons of mass exclusion.

I don't believe Cardinal Pell was playing with weapons of mass exclusion in his comments about population decline in the West. However, I must wonder at the wisdom of such remarks, given the presence of so many non-Western pilgrims who regard themselves as equally Catholic as my mum's old European Catholic friends.

Why reinforce the mistaken notion that the terms Christian and Western are synonymous?

When a truly universal sense of Christianity sinks into our nation's collective psyche, the chances of bigoted politicians and media personalities successfully using our Christian heritage as a cover for their un-Christian attitudes will diminish.

Perhaps then Australians who look different (including those resembling Jesus and his mum) won't feel like foreigners and outsiders. Amen to that.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and writer. This article was first published in The Canberra Times on Friday 18 July 2008.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

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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COMEDY: Israeli newspaper profiles American comic ...

Israeli newspaper Haaretz profiles American comic Azhar Usman, co-founder of the Allah Made Me Funny tour. The report includes a video in which Usman says he would lobve an invitation to perform in Israel.

That's all good and fine. But if Usman did go to Israel, how on earth would they recognise him as Muslim? With his trademark beard and cap, Usman may well be confused for a member of the Beni Israil community from Mumbai.

Plus Usman has had plenty of exposure to Jewish religious cultures in America.

Usman, who is of Indian origin, grew up in Skokie, Illinois, a Chicago suburb with a sizeable Jewish population America (and Jews specifically for that matter) has a rich tradition of ethnic humor, and Usman has succeeded in making a living out of it.

I really hope Usman gets an invitation to perform in Israel. I also hopes he accepts it. Comedy can and must be used to build bridges. Leave the building of walls to politicians.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: That bloody Moslem Obama ...

Forget about actually being one. It's bad enough if your dad is one or if you even have a name that makes you sound like one.

There was a time when European Jews used to flock to the lands of this "one" to seek protection. Today, some of their descendants are actively involved in drumming up venom and hatred toward any person deemed to have even the most tenuous link to "one".

Under the heading "But did you know he's a Muslim?", Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston talks about the resistance Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama is having in Jewish circles both in the United States and Israel.

Some cynics would argue: "Well, what do you expect? Those blasted Moslems are blowing themselves up in cafes in Tel Aviv and in Yeshivas in Jerusalem".

Yep, just like some Muslims tell me: "Irfan, why do you bother with them Jews? After all, they are the ones spreading hatred and venom against us through their columnists and think tanks and lobbyists".

But should I presume that all Jews are as hate-filled as Daniel Pipes or "Mad Mel" Phillips? Or that all Jewish organisations would sponsor and promote speaking and lecturing tours by Raphael Israeli?

Where do I find the Muslimphobia in George Soros? Or in Sven Alkalaj?

Not all Jews hate or despise or even resent Muslims, nor vice versa. But the Obama effort to secure the Democratic nominee is exposing some really ugly shades of opinion within Jewish circles that were not as apparent or widespread during Congressman Keith Ellison's entry to Congress.

Returning to Burston's column. He begins with Mel Levine, a former Board member of the hawkish American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as well as Middle Eastern adviser to Al Gore and John Kerry. he is now a key foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama. And whether in the US or East Jerusalem, Levine must put up with a "viral rumor campaign" about Obama allegedly being in some way a Muslim. Here's how Levine puts it to Burston ...

A couple of Israelis I've spoken with - very smart, well-educated, thoughtful Israelis - told me that yesterday. I was a little taken aback, but why should I be surprised, when Americans tell me that all the time?

Levine claims that the venom directed toward Obama is unprecedented. Writes and quotes Burston ...

... [Levine] has never seen the likes of the ongoing mass e-mail campaigns, which have leveled a succession of allegations against Obama, branding the senator a secret anti-Semite, a closet Muslim who took his official oath of office with his hand on the Koran instead of the Bible, and a disciple of fiery Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, further alleging that several of Obama's Mideast policy advisors are pro-Palestinian haters of Israel.

"I've been involved in politics for quite a long time, and I've never quite seen anything like this before," Levine says of the e-mail campaigns. "It's offensive to me, particularly as a Jew who cares very deeply about Israel and bipartisan American support for Israel, because the e-mails are filled with lies, innuendos, distortions and misrepresentations about someone who has been, and is, an extremely good friend of Israel, a strong supporter of Israel, a good friend of the Jewish community, and someone who has been a leader in helping to repair black-Jewish relations in the United States in a courageous way."

E-mails portraying Obama as bad for the Jews appeared in great numbers ahead of hard-fought primaries in states with significant Jewish populations, such as California, New York and Ohio.

The Obama camp has worked intensively to counter e-mails hinting at or "proving" the Democratic senator's ties to Islam, among them the photo of a turban-clad Obama and a Fox News video clip of radio talk show host Bill Cunningham saying, "His parents called him Barack Hussein Obama, not me."

So Obama might have ties to Islam. So his father and step-father may have been Muslim. So Obama may have attended a school in Indonesia and may have even entered a mosque. What should we make of this? That he is a Jew-hating extremist moron that will enter the White House wearing a suicide vest?

Hardly 100 years after the Dreyfus trials, we are seeing the similar strains of innuendo being thrown around. I'm no fan of Obama or MacCain or Clinton any any other Presidential hopeful. But this kind of nonsensical ethno-religious lunacy is poisoning American politics. It also isn't doing alot for Jewish-Muslim relations.

Then again, some Jews are as disinterested in such relations as some Muslims.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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REFLECTION: Vale John Ilhan

John Ilhan died today of a suspected heart attack.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.
(From God we come, to God we return.)

He was just 41 years old.

Here are a few of his statements ...

Loyalty first and foremost to Australia should also be remembered by some religious leaders, including some radical Muslim leaders in Australia, who pretend to speak for the faith, but instead promote intolerance and hatred.

My Muslim faith qualifies me to strongly denounce any racist and inflammatory comments made by any Muslim leaders because they perpetuate a stereotype that is unhelpful and dangerous ...

I love Australia for what it stands for. It embraces opportunity, inclusion and, most important of all, mateship. What Australia has taught me is that if you give something - like the hand of friendship or provide a service that fulfils a need - you will be repaid many times over. They say that America is the 'land of opportunity', but I say Australia is. I'm a good example - a working-class boy made good.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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OPINION: Tony Abbott's respectful message to Muslims

The old man lay on his death bed in Melbourne. Decades of political and ideological struggle were reaching an end. At his side during these last moments were his family and close disciples.

And few could claim to be a closer disciple of the late Bob Santamaria than Tony Abbott. Few ministers are maligned for their religious faith as the Federal Health Minister. Mr Abbott knows what it is like to hold unfashionable views.

If the religious and political culture of conservative Catholics is unpopular in most sectors of the media, the religious and political cultures of virtually all expressions of Islam are regarded in the current climate as sinister and dangerous.

Conservative Christians, including Catholics, have been at the forefront of demonising Muslims. Columnists like Mark Steyn use satire to hide their deepest hatred for all people and things Muslim. Polemical pseudo-intellectual websites like JihadWatch.com, maintained by conservative Catholic Robert Spencer, are relied upon even by men of the intellectual stature of Cardinal Pell.

In such an environment, one could imagine anti-Muslim hostility to be a comfortable fall-back position for an ambitious parliamentarian. One would expect that with influential persons like Rupert Murdoch openly questioning the loyalties of Western Muslims, and with his views being often parroted by his flagship tabloid columnists and string-puppet reporters, a man viewed as a possible future Prime Minister would be happy to move up the ladder by stepping on a tiny marginalised group of 300,000 people.

To his credit, Tony Abbott has resisted the temptation. He has consistently defended multiculturalism when the PM and his Treasurer have questioned its utility. Abbott has even delivered a speech defending it as an essentially conservative value to a hostile group of Young Liberals and allowed his views to be published in otherwise hostile publications such as Quadrant.

Indeed, Abbott has prepared to criticise even members of his own conservative wing in the NSW Liberal Party. Last year he criticised calls by colleagues to ban the wearing of the hijab in state schools, despite such policies being adopted and supported even by Liberals in Abbott’s own electorate.

Muslim Australians seem to have few friends in the present Federal Government (or indeed in the Opposition). Tony Abbott has defended Muslims at times when it was simply not in his interest to do so. Hence, when he speaks about Muslims in a sympathetic and non-hostile manner using measured and sensitive words, the least Muslims should do is consider his argument.

In an address to a religiously mixed crowd under the auspices of the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta on Friday 15 September 2006, Mr Abbott made some pertinent observations. Unlike his colleagues, Abbott did not pretend he was an expert on Islam or talk at Muslims in an insulting and patronising manner.

Mr Abbott made clear his observations were made “as an outsider”. He expressed his empathy with Muslim males lectured by pundits to show respect to women in a dominant culture objectifying women in media and popular culture. He also understood why many Muslims would be cynical of a civilisation which preaches peace but which massacres civilians even in just wars.

Abbott reminded his audience that ethnic and religious tension wasn’t new to Australia. He reminded us of the prejudice faced by Catholics and of their struggles in such incidents as the battle of Vinegar Hill.

Abbott seemed to scold his Liberal colleagues by observing that the cause of communal reconciliation and harmony was harmed by sermonising and sanctimony. At the same time, he reminded his audience that friends should be able to express their feelings frankly.

It was here that Mr Abbott began his tentative personal observations. He said that whilst there was no shortage of Western critics of Western culture, Muslim critics of Islamic cultures seemed few and far between. He felt that Islamic societies seemed to lack a defined pluralism, and that the demarcation between what belonged to Caesar and what belonged to God was not clear. Further, his impression was that Muslims found it hard to tell the difference between sins and crimes.

Abbott observed that Westerners would find Islamic cultures easier to appreciate if those speaking for Islam were visibly more keen to condemn terrorism and less keen to debate Western transgressions, especially considering most terrorist victims are Muslims. Further, Western Muslims able to observe both forms of culture could play a special role of helping both the West and Muslim nations understand each other.

Elements of Abbott’s speech are, in my opinion, plainly wrong. Perhaps he needs to read further on the matter and talk to Muslim Australians, including Muslims inside the Liberal Party. But Abbott was humble and honest enough to admit that he was speaking from hurriedly drawn-up notes and as an outsider.

Muslims honest with themselves will recognise the Health Minister is not alone in holding such views. They should also recognise that he is exercising not mere diplomacy or politics but genuine respect.

Perhaps the most important advice Abbott had for his audience was that religious people shouldn’t be afraid to allow their faith to be hung up for scrutiny. “Something which is from God will prevail. All else will pass”. This simple truth is shared by both Christians and Muslims.

Abbott showed the tolerance and respect for Islam that is to be expected of a genuine Christian. Hopefully genuine Muslims will consider carefully his sincere words of advice.

OPINION: On Pompous Popes & Futile Protests

Recently an Australian Catholic Cardinal expressed the view that the Koran preaches violence. His view was based on a partial reading of an English translation of the Koran coloured by the views of an Israeli polemicist known for her extreme hatred of Muslims. When pressed, the Cardinal admitted he could not even remember which translation of the Koran he had relied upon.

How do I know this? Because I spoke to him myself. I approached him at a gathering and asked him politely about his views. I used a reasonable line of questioning, and was able to illustrate to those listening that the Cardinal’s views were based on his own ignorance combined with reliance on limited and hostile sources.

Of course, I could have taken the absurd and pointless route again being taken by Muslim crowds in some parts of the world. I could always gather a mob together and march in the streets, wasting my time and everyone else’s and achieving nothing except a sore throat and awful media coverage.

I would like to think that Muslim mobs had learnt from the PR disaster that accompanied protests against the Danish cartoons. On that occasion, corrupt and unelected Muslim leaders manipulated state-owned media and government-employed religious leaders to incite their masses into frenzies of violent futility.

As I type these lines, thousands of Muslims in the Darfur region of Sudan face certain death, whether by disease or starvation or bullets. Lebanese Muslims are struggling to rebuild their homes and their lives.

Muslims in Gaza are facing economic and social collapse. Muslims in Afghanistan face civil war as the Western-backed government struggles to defeat a Taliban militia we were led to believe was defeated years back.

Muslims in Pakistan are still suffering from the effects of the earthquake. Muslims across Asia continue to rebuild after the devastating tsunami. Muslims in Kashmir find themselves caught between fanatical militants and merciless Indian troops.

With all these difficulties facing Muslims, of what significance are a few throw-away lines from an ageing Pontiff? And why allow the sheer absurdity of his words be overshadowed by the greater absurdity of violent and hysterical response?

Muslims are beginning to behave in the same manner as European Catholics have until recently. At the height of their power, Muslims were quite happy to allow non-Muslims to criticise their faith.

Spain was home to a physician and religious scholar named Sheik Musa bin Maymoun. Sheik Musa spoke and wrote in Arabic. One of his many treatises was a work entitled (in English) “Guide to the Perplexed”. In this book, Sheik Musa sought to compare the three Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Sheik Musa’s conclusion was clear. Judaism was superior to its sister Abrahamic faiths, Islam and Christianity.

The Muslim response? Muslims who disagreed with Sheik Musa’s views did so by writing reasoned responses. Spanish Muslims still consulted Sheik Musa’s expertise in medicine. Sheik Musa himself wasn’t attacked, and copies of his book were not burnt until Catholic armies took back Muslim Spain. Burning books and effigies was too uncivilised for those polished and proud Muslims.

Sheik Musa was in fact the great Andalusian rabbi Maimonides. His critique of Islam, together with his skills as a physician, led the Kurdish general Saladin to appoint him as chief medical officer to the army that eventually conquered Jerusalem from the Frankish crusader kings. Maimonides went onto become one of Saladin’s closest and most trusted advisers.

(And in case you are wondering what Maimonides looked like, check out the statue of the dude in the turban and robes on the top right-hand side of this blog.)

Islam was robust and strong enough in those times to withstand Maimonides’ criticism. Muslims were sensible and educated and civilised and confident enough to be able to accept criticism. They could debate their critics on an intellectual level without having to resort to violence or being highly strung and reactionary to even the mildest rebuke.

In an environment as free as Australia, a humble layman like myself can expose the relative ignorance of a Cardinal. I can do this using intellect and logic, far more powerful tools than behaving defensively or threatening violence.

Muslims offended by the Pope’s comments about Islam and history are better off addressing these arguments than condemning the Pope. If Muslims become defensive or even hint at violence, they will merely be personifying (and thus confirming) of the Pope’s claims.

Muslims should challenge the Pope to name even one soldier or military commander who took Islam to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country. He should be asked to show where a Muslim ruler has murdered 6 million Jews or where Muslims have conducted a Spanish-style Inquisition. He might also advise of which Japanese city Muslims dropped an atomic bomb onto.

The fact is that both Muslims and Christians have had blood on their hands at various points in their history. People have murdered, raped, terrorised, looted and burnt in the names of both Christ and Allah. We are all living in glass houses, and none of us is sinless enough to be able to cast the first stone.

It’s only to be expected that the leader of a missionary faith will criticise other missionary faiths. Just as we expect Don Brash to criticise Helen Clark or Kim Beazley to criticise John Howard or Hillary Clinton to criticise George W Bush. Thankfully, clerics tend to be more polite than politicians most of the time. But criticism (including self-critique) is part of the Abrahamic tradition.

Further, there are enough Christians (including Catholics) of goodwill who will be happy to criticise the Pontiff’s comments. Already, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt has issued a strong response.

My advice to any Muslim genuinely perturbed by the Pope’s comments is simply this - if you can’t stand the missionary heat, you should think about getting out of Abraham’s spiritual kitchen. If you are unhappy with the reason and restraint your religious heritage insists upon, you should find yourself another religion.

COMMENT: Howard Should Think Twice Before Listening To Muslim Peak Bodies

Muslim community governance mirrors that of Australian government. Just as we have local councils, Muslims have local mosque societies. These come together to form state and territory councils, similar to our state and territory governments. These councils there come together to form the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC).

Every catholic has heard of Cardinal Pell. Every Anglican has heard of the Jensen’s. But take a walk down Auburn Road in Auburn. Ask the average Muslim whether he or she has heard of AFIC.

Huh? AFIC? Is that some kind of new chocolate ice cream? Cadbury Afic – creamy chocolate filled with extra nuts.

AFIC’s meetings are closed to ordinary Muslims. Further, in NSW, AFIC has made it a practice to create its own rotten borough Islamic councils when it disagrees with existing ones. Already, within a space of 5 years, it has created 3 Islamic councils.

In 2001, it established the Supreme Islamic Council of NSW to replace the Islamic Council of NSW. Then, when it fell out with the Supreme Council, Muslims were already cracking jokes about its replacement and predicted it would be the Super-Supreme Council.

AFIC now has eyes on closing down the Islamic Council of Victoria, one of the few bodies that have acted constructively in relation to the London bombings. AFIC is attempting to find legal loopholes to replace ICV with a Victorian pizza council.

As a result, Muslim New South Welshmen refer to their peak bodies as “the 3 pizza councils”. It all makes for good after-dinner humour. But with the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in legal fees in Supreme Court battles, few Muslims are now finding it a laughing matter.

AFIC projects itself to governments as the voice of Muslim Australia. Yet it rarely if ever consults with Muslim Australians. The extent to which it is out of touch with Muslim Australia was illustrated after the terrorist attack on Istanbul.

Turkish Australians are perhaps the largest and most established ethnic group in the Australian Muslim communities. Turks control more mosques than any other community, including in rural and regional areas. But when Istanbul was the subject of a terrorist attack, AFIC described the attack as one on the capital of Turkey.

All AFIC had to do was ask one of 200,000 Aussie Turks what the capital of Turkey was. Even “Crazy” John Ilhan knows the answer to that question. Then again, at least they issued a press release on the Istanbul bombing. AFIC’s website has no release over the London bombing.

Believe it or not, the Department of Immigration awarded AFIC a large grant under its “Living in Harmony” project some years back. AFIC spent the money on hiring a media adviser and publishing a few issues of a newspaper. When the grant moneys finished, so did the paper.

AFIC has no idea of who it is representing. It has never conducted any survey or study on Muslim needs or attitudes or social trends. Before the Iraq war, AFIC claimed Muslims as a whole were against the war. And on what basis did they reach this conclusion? Who knows.

Among AFIC’s more controversial decisions was the creation of the position of “mufti” as a means of securing permanent residency for Sheik Taj Hilali. The Sheik’s appointment was particularly controversial given his inability to speak fluent English and his being imam of a mosque whose executive only allows Lebanese to be full members.

Now it seems that AFIC will be representing Muslim Australians at a proposed terror summit. And what steps has AFIC take to consult with local Muslims on the matter? What surveys or structured consultations has AFIC held with mosque congregations, university students, academics, business people and professionals that make up this dynamic and upwardly mobile faith-community?

Mr Howard needs to involve Muslim Australians in national security issues. Muslim Australians have a knowledge and understanding of terror groups which will prove invaluable to fighting this scourge. But Mr Howard and other mainstream leaders should think twice before taking the representative capacity of bodies like AFIC for granted.

Like their Jewish cousins, Muslims are not fond of consuming pork. But for many Muslims, pigs will sooner fly into the mosque to lead the Friday prayer before they will feel AFIC is representing them.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005


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MEDIA: The Power & The Passion: Mel Gibson's movie through my eyes ...

I have admitted to a lot of things on this website. I have admitted the debauchery and corruption of my Mughal ancestors. I have admitted to being a non-neo-Con medium-sized-C conservative. I have acknowledged watching movies about Indian prostitutes. I have even acknowledged having a spiritual connection with bikies.

Today, dear readers, I acknowledge that my parents chose to send me to an Anglican Cathedral School. For 8 years, I was a proud student of Sydney’s only Anglican Cathedral School. Whilst my relatives languished at Trinity Grammar and Newington College, I can say that I wore a safari suit and a boater at St. Andrews Cathedral School.


My Near-Conversion at St. Andrews

Each week I would go to chapel services in the Cathedral. Each week we would have one hour of divinity. I could have been exempt, but my folks forced me to go. I read the Good News Bible, the Revised Standard Version (both 1952 and 1971 versions) and came close to having myself baptized in Year 6.

St. Andrews was a boys-only school (it was not until years after I left that the school felt secure enough to introduce limited co-educational classes in senior years) with a strong low-church evangelical Anglican tradition. It also had a world famous choir. My voice was good enough for me to become the first Muslim chorister in the St. Andrews choir. My parents refused my requests. Was it religious objections? Was it a fear that I might get baptized? Was it fear that my soul would be damned by singing hymns in praise of the holy trinity?

Nope.

Thumhara parhayi pe bohot zyada asar parega!

(Translation: “Your studies will be affected too much!”. In reality, it meant: “We want to maximize your chances of becoming the 10 trillionth Indian doctor.”)

Anyway, it was at St. Andrews that I discovered another kind of music. It was the powerful sounds, passionate lyrics and atrocious dancing of Peter Garrett and his band Midnight Oil. Their hit single “Power and the Passion” became an anthem for the hard-rocking St. Andrews lads. And the school never discouraged us given the strong Christian streak in Garrett’s music.

The only problem I had at St. Andrews was the image I had of Christ himself. I was prepared to accept that he may have died for my sins. I was happy to acknowledge that he may have risen from the dead. But how could this Middle Easterner be portrayed as having blue eyes and light brown hair? I had a Lebanese Christian friend at school who hard dark brown hair and black eyes. I asked him about it, and he too was a bit confused.

The Ay-rab Looking Christ

But now one of my fellow Aussies, Mel Gibson, has changed all that. And how grateful we all should be. Mel Gibson’s movie attempts to portray Christ as he actually was. This is not the Yankee Christ of the Hollywood blockbuster “King of Kings.” Nor is it the soft-spoken English Christ from “The Life of Brian.”

Gibson strips Christ of all the Western mythical and cultural baggage to reveal a man who has more in common with someone being bashed by an Israeli soldier than with the soldier. Christ’s female companions are shown as having more in common with the Palestinian girls in Hebron being harassed by Jewish settlers than with the Jewish settlers themselves.

And what language does Christ speak? Is it American English? Is it modern Europeanized Israeli Hebrew? No. It is Aramaic, a cognate language of Arabic (and ancient Hebrew) still spoken in parts of Iraq and Syria by the Assyrian Christians. In fact, all their services are in Aramaic, and their church music and hymns are in Aramaic. A far cry from St. Andrews choir!


Hysteria at the Middle Eastern Christ

And what has been the reaction? Well, some people are scared that we are all going to start hating Jews as much as some Jews would like us to hate Arabs and Muslims. Some people are scared that Mel Gibson has become Catholicism’s answer to Daniel Pipes, someone determined to spread innuendo and lies in an effort to demonize a whole community.

After years of Hollywood portraying Arabs as demons and devils, you can imagine how upset these image-makers might feel to see their investment going to waste now that Christ himself walks and dresses like an Arab, speaks a dialect of Arabic and has a beard--not to mention that his mom and female companions are seen wearing a piece of cloth many Western politicians would like to see banned.

This is not the Christ which some people want Western Christians to see.


Historical Revisionism

Further, some Jewish organization representatives are upset with the movie for undermining their position denying any Jewish role in the plot to kill Christ. So just what religion were the Sanhedrin of the time following? Were they Parsees? And the crowds that jeered and watched the entire scene of people carrying their crosses up Golgotha. Were they Druids? Or did Jerusalem become Hindu for a day?

According to the New Testament, Jewish authorities of the time were involved in the plot to murder Christ. Muslim tradition even quotes Medinan rabbis boasting to the Prophet Muhammad that they (the Jews) killed the Muslim Messiah.

So what?

Even if the Jewish authorities at the time were involved, does that justify the atrocities committed against Jews throughout the Dark & Middle Ages? Or the Atrocities committed by the Nazis? Of course not.

Many religious communities have spiritual ancestors with blood on their hands. So do many ethnic, political and other communities. How many Jews and Muslims did the Spaniards and Portuguese kill as part of the Inquisition? How many Sikhs were killed by Aurangzeb’s mob? How many Hindus were slaughtered by Mahmud Ghaznavi’s armies? Does that mean the Spanish should deny the Inquisition ever happened in case they suffer an invasion by Arab League countries? Does that mean BJP mobs were justified in slaughtering Muslims in Gujarat?

Denying history will not make any difference to the occurrence of hate-crimes. There will always be Christians who never forgive Jews, Jews who never forgive Christians, Hindus who never forgive Muslims, Muslims who never forgive Sikhs. And a God who will be happy to forgive the lot of them if they just stopped fighting and tried to get along!


How Should Real Conservatives React?

This movie can be a source of mutual understanding between Muslims and Christians. Muslims believe that Christ, like so many of God’s Prophets, suffered at the hands of his own people.

Neocons (or rather, pseudo-Cons) may want war between the Christian and Muslim worlds. But such a conflict between two sets of Christ’s followers would be a disaster for world peace. Any step we take to bringing our two worlds together and foiling the neocons’ divisive attempts will be good for world peace.

That means we need to actively defend Mel Gibson’s right to use his chosen medium (film) to express his religious beliefs. In the battle between the power of the neocons and the passion of Mel Gibson, we need to put our weight behind the spiritual passion of one believing man.

Sensible Muslims should not be afraid to have some involvement in this debate. They welcome the film’s portrayal of Christ as a speaker of Aramaic and as someone who followed a culture still practiced throughout the Arab world.

Sensible Christians should see the movie as an opportunity to learn more about the culture that Christ followed. They should also understand how Christians in that part of the world continue to suffer.

Sensible Jews should tell their community spokespeople to just shut up and siddown. By protesting the movie's basic Christian message, they are undermining the whole concept of a 'judeo-christian' culture. Then again, is that really a bad thing?

As for me, I will react to the movie by going and seeing it a second time. See you all at the Belco cinemas!

Words © 2004 Irfan Yusuf




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