OPINION: Dr Tareq Kamleh IS video reaction makes draining the 'extremist swamp' harder

The Death Cult. Perhaps Tony Abbott's most memorable description of Da'esh (also known as Islamic State ISIS, and ISIL). An appropriate description for an organisation whose volunteers and recruits revel in posting on social media photos of themselves holding up decapitated heads. As if they are playing out their own version of Abu Ghraib.

Da'esh is a group whose brutality has even led them to be condemned by al-Qaeda, the terror outfit from which they broke away. Like al-Qaeda, Da'esh has had no hesitation in murdering Shia Muslims, Kurdish Muslims as well as religious minorities in Iraq and Syria. But unlike al-Qaeda, Da'esh wants to be seen establishing a fully functioning state, a place to which believers in its novel form of Islam may wish to migrate and build a new life.

Such a state cannot be established in territory populated with bearded blokes holding up index fingers and/or decapitated heads, deceased "martyrs" and/or kuffar (non-believers) and teenage girls in burqas boasting about luxury cars.

Which makes Dr Tareq Kamleh's 15-minute video perhaps the most effective piece of IS propaganda to date. Kamleh comes across as calm, softly spoken, competent. He uses minimal Arabic religious terms. His face isn't covered with a bushy unkempt beard (the trademark of many a firebrand). He looks like a reformed ladies' man, the kind of well-groomed guy who would impress many a parent were he to come and ask for their daughter's hand or appear at their front door to take her on a date. 

Dr Kamleh isn't speaking from a war zone. Far from living in a death cult, he's in a hospital bringing new life into the new caliphate. The video almost looks like an invitation from a prospective employer to work.

Come and join us. It's nice here. Lots of facilities. All we need is professional people like yourself. I'll see you soon.

The response from political leaders, pundits and religious spokespersons will be predictable. Conservative pundits will move slowly toward their preferred "I told you so" position. They will complain that allegedly chronic political correctness is stopping them from warning Australians about the desperate need to answer "the Muslim question".

Prominent self-appointed spokesmen (and I use the gendered​ sense deliberately) will remind us that Muslims are victims, the subject of discrimination, vilification, increased surveillance and victimisation.

Seriously, in what way was this young doctor who allegedly spent much of his spare time drinking and sleeping around (as if he was the only young Australian professional to do so) the subject of victimisation? Like any other young doctor working long shifts in regional hospitals hundreds of miles from home, Dr Kamleh would have found plenty to entertain himself in Mackay or Perth.

This young doctor was hardly a victim. Yet the Muslim spokesmen will find some of their message – at least as far as vilification is concerned – confirmed by a fair few politicians. The Prime Minister will repeat his talk of draining extremist swamps, an image that reminds this writer of Saddam Hussein's 1993 draining the marshes to destroy the lives of Iraqi Shia Arabs.

And how ridiculous did South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill​ sound when he told The Australian that he was

absolutely" concerned about doctors joining IS and that "We will assist the commonwealth in identifying people that fall into this category and to make sure they don't infect other South Australians with their ideology.

And how exactly will he do this? Will the University of Adelaide Medical School run deradicalisation courses? Will Federal Police be sent to watch over paediatricians at work? Does it really boil down to ideology?

What I am about to write may be a bit difficult for Muslim spokespersons, pundits and politicians to stomach. The fact is that we really don't have much of an idea why young people with plenty of opportunities head off to Raqqa or other territory controlled by Da'esh. We have also put very little money into researching why a tiny group of people take that path.

Let's just say there are 200 Australian Muslims in IS territory at the moment. There are about 400,000 Muslims in Australia. So a grand total of 0.05 per cent of Muslims have joined the "Death Cult". Now Australia's population is just over 23 million. By my calculations, IS recruits are 0.00087 per cent. That's a rather shallow extremist swamp to drain.

But let's just say there is a massive risk of doctors, lawyers, accountants etc lining up to fly to the Islamic Republic of Da'eshistan. How will we find out what their motivation is? By waiting until they appear on a well-produced video, condemning them for joining the biggest threat to civilisation since World War II (as Julie Bishop recently described IS) and cancelling their passports so they can never return and we can never find out why they left Australia and then left IS?

If we are going to defeat IS in Australia (or rather, if it doesn't implode due to lack of demand among local Muslims), our solutions must be based on solid research. By that, I don't mean speculation or theorising. I mean talking to Muslims on the ground. It is a task self-appointed Muslim leaders have never done. And due to lack of funding, academics have found it hard to do.

If the threat from home-grown Islamist terrorism is as big as we are left to believe, let us address it on the basis of facts and evidence.

In conclusion, why did Dr Tareq Kamleh leave behind the alcohol and the girlfriends and the surf? I have no idea. And unless your name is Tareq Kamleh and you are sitting in Raqqa​, chances are you don't either.

Irfan Yusuf is a PhD candidate at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. This article was first published in the Canberra Times on 29 April 2015.

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPDATE I: Another priceless Bolt blogpost from yesteryear.

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

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

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

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

1. a Wikipedia entry;

2. a WikiAnswers entry; and

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

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




Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf




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OPINION: Values blur in good and evil ...

Uncle Sam stands at the top of a flight of stairs, looking more than slightly perplexed. Below him is a windowless chamber its sparse furnishings consist of a lamp, a wooden bench and a closet shaped roughly to the contours of a human body, spikes emerging from its rear wall. A man hangs from the roof, his ankles bound. Below him stand a Caucasian man dressed in a Nazi uniform, a hooded Spanish inquisitor brandishing a sword and a third man in military fatigues and an Arab head-dress.

All three are watching Uncle Sam, inviting him to join them, the third man stating:

C'mon down. Once you take the first step, it's easy.

What I've just described in words is a cartoon by Philadelphia Inquirer cartoonist Tony Auth. It's only now, with debate over the use of torture in the "war on terror", that we're discovering just how deep the Leader of the Free World had descended.

The frequent mantra recited by Western political masters was that we were in a war against terrorists who hated us because of who we are, because of our values. Terrorists despised us for being civilised. They wanted to replace notions such as democracy and the rule of law, which we stood for, with terror and lawlessness. This was a war for civilisation, a fight to defend freedom.

Yet within a mere six months of the 9/11 attacks, top officials of the CIA were happy to flout the rule of law and to breach the very values they claimed to protect. To use the words of North Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, the Bush administration saw the law as a nicety we could not afford.


This new lawlessness incorporated the use of harsh interrogation techniques (read torture) such as waterboarding. In this torture, a prisoner is bound to an inclined board, his feet raised and his head slightly below the feet; then cloth is wrapped over his face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the prisoners gag reflex is activated and he feels convinced he is drowning.

One CIA prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libbi, is said to have been subjected to waterboarding that proved so effective that he provided false evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein which led to the 2003 invasion. Al-Libbi made these fabricated claims as he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

Even if we accepted claims by United States lawmakers that torture was used to protect Americans, al-Libbi's torture was clearly used for political purposes to justify a war the Bush administration was determined to fight even before the first jets hit the World Trade Center. Once evil means are adopted even for seemingly noble ends, the lines between good and evil soon become blurred.

Al-Libbi's treatment is just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of people have been detained in various US detention facilities, both known and secret, including in Indonesia, Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Guantanamo Bay. Among them were two Australian citizens David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib.

Yet while US media seem almost fixated with the role that Republican and Democrat lawmakers and US government officials played in ordering and executing torture of detainees, few Australian journalists have considered what role (if any) the Australian government may have played or at least what knowledge it may have had of the torture of Australian citizens at Guantanamo Bay.

And yet now the US is reluctant to settle Guantanamo detainees on its own territory. Meanwhile US President Barack Obama is reluctant to release further documents and photos of torture conducted by the CIA for fear it will further inflame tensions. It is this very secrecy which provides a perfect cover for even more abuse.

Regardless of how painful the process may be, the US must take responsibility for the consequences of its inquisition. Yet all we seem to be hearing from Obama is empty rhetoric about how the US does not torture the same rhetoric used by his predecessor. Obama chose Cairo as the location to give his speech to the nominally Muslim world.

Cairo was also the place where Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was sent by the US to have terrorism confessions extracted from him using the most brutal forms of torture. In his memoir My Story: the tale of a terrorist who wasn't, Habib outlined not just his own torture but also the suffering of other inmates also beaten and drugged.

During his Cairo address to an audience of political leaders and diplomats from Muslim-majority states, Obama admitted the US had acted contrary to its ideals by instituting torture. Yet among governments represented were those which will continue to implement the US policy of extraordinary rendition or the secret abduction and transfer of prisoners to countries that will carry out torture on behalf of the US.

The Washington Post reported on February 1, 2009, that Obama issued executive orders allowing the CIA to carry on with renditions. He further allowed the CIA to detain suspects in facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis. America will effectively now outsource Guantanamo-type operations to the generals, sheikhs, colonels, dictators and presidents-for-life who will no doubt torture not just those deemed terror suspects by the US but also domestic political opponents.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently urged all those involved in the torture process including doctors, nurses, psychologists and lawyers to be pursued and not let off the hook. Australia and New Zealand can play a role in this process, given that both are the only two nations in the Pacific region to have ratified the Convention Against Torture. Yet given the lacklustre performance on the part of John Howard and Kevin Rudd on the treatment of former Australian citizen detainees at Guantanamo, one cannot expect too much from Australia.

Terrorists may hate us for our values, but clearly we don't seem to like our values too much either.

Irfan Yusuf's first book Once Were Radicals about young Muslims flirting with radical Islam was published by Allen & Unwin in May 2009. This article was first published in the Canberra Times on Tuesday 7 July 2009.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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REVIEW: Ambitious cultural journey loses its way ...

A Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands
By Aatish Taseer
Text Publishing, 323pp, $34.95

WE all inhabit the same planet, yet so often we hear phrases such as "the Muslim world" and "the Western world". Do such discrete entities indeed exist? Perhaps those best equipped to answer this question are those with one foot on either side of the divide.

Aatish Taseer, a 29-year-old freelance journalist and the son of an Indian Sikh mother and a Pakistani Muslim father, should have been such a person. That he isn't so is not entirely hisfault.

The two sides of Taseer's family share the culture and language of Punjab, a region in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent shared by India and Pakistan. Islam and Sikhism have inhabited Punjab's geographical and cultural space for centuries. Sikhism is indigenous to Punjab, while Punjabi Islam has adopted the cultural symbols of the land.

My background is a mixture of Indian and Pakistani. Having been reared in a small South Asian community in Sydney, I found it almost impossible to tell Muslims and Sikhs apart. To this day it is easy for me to confuse a mosque and gurudwara (Sikh temple) until the saffron flags of the latter become apparent.

But there is a huge difference between my upbringing and that of Taseer, whose parents' relationship was kept largely secret.

Taseer's father, Salmaan Taseer, became a senior figure in the Pakistan People's Party, at present the governing party of Pakistan. He is a businessman, media magnate and governor of Pakistan's Punjab province.

Aatish's parents met in India in 1980, where Salmaan Taseer was promoting a biography he'd written of his political mentor and former Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Aatish's mother, respected Indian journalist Tavleen Singh, was then a young reporter.

At the time of his parents' brief affair, which lasted hardly a week, Salmaan Taseer was already married with three children.

After his parents' separation, Aatish was reared in his mother's Sikh household in Delhi, under the wing of his loving maternal grandfather. The grandfather had grown up in what is now Pakistan and still corresponded with his best friend from across the border.

Like other Sikhs, the Singhs had to flee their ancestral lands in what became Pakistan during the 1947 Partition, which still leaves some members of the family bitter and resentful towards Pakistan and Muslims in general. To his credit, the maternal grandfather wasn't affected by these sentiments.

'A human being,' my grandfather always asserted, when people asked whether I was being brought up as a Sikh or a Muslim. 'He's being brought up to be a human being.'

It wasn't until 1980, when he was 21, that the author met his father again. Taseer's interest in travelling through Muslim-majority states was sparked after he wrote a story on the July 7, 2005, London bombings for British magazine Prospect. Taseer's father wrote an angry letter ...

... accus[ing] me of prejudice, of lacking even 'superficial knowledge' of the Pakistani ethos. 'Do you really think you're doing the Taseer name a service by spreading this kind of invidious anti-Muslim propaganda?

Taseer was upset by his father's letter, an irreligious Pakistani politician who hardly embodied religious values.

Yet Taseer's language when describing his father is always restrained, consistent with the elegant and often hauntingly beautiful prose of the book, sadly spoiled by serious factual errors exhibiting not prejudice, which would have been understandable, but some elementary research.

In setting the stage for his travels, Taseer writes that the whole Islamic world ...

... stretched between my father [Lahore] and the place where I read his letter [London].

How does Taseer expect his reader to take his understanding of the Muslim world seriously when he excludes from it the world's largest Muslim majority state, Indonesia?

He claims his father's Pakistani Islam emphasises rejection of Hinduism. But this is hardly pan-Islam, as I discovered during a visit to the Javanese cultural capital of Yogyakarta in 2006.

There I saw Muslim artists perform the Hindu Ramayana ballet before Muslim audiences in one of Southeast Asia's oldest Hindu temples. Not all Muslims share the religious chauvinism of some Pakistanis.

Taseer's book covers his travels in Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia (including a visit to the pilgrimage centre of Mecca), Iran and Pakistan. In each country he provides us with tremendously detailed portraits of scenery, but when it comes to people our encounters are limited to the devout yet chauvinistic on the one hand or the irreligious and resentful on the other.

Are we to believe that only an insignificant unrepresentative minority exists between these two poles?

Most unfortunate for Taseer is that his paradigm for understanding pan-Islamic sentiment emerges largely from Hassan Butt, a young British man who for years claimed to have recruited British Muslims for al-Qa'ida.

Taseer brought Butt to prominence in the article that prompted his father's wrathful letter. Yet in December last year Butt admitted to a British court that he was a professional liar who had told journalists (including, presumably, Taseer) stories the media wanted to hear.

It's a shame such an elegant piece of writing is spoiled in a way that may make some dismiss it altogether.

Sadly for Taseer, this book, the product of months of travel and a lifetime of anguish, may vindicate at least some of his absent father's criticisms. It is not a vindication well-deserved.

Irfan Yusuf is author of Once Were Radicals: My Years as a Teenage Islamo-Fascist (Allen & Unwin). This review was first published in The Australian on 27 June 2009


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COMMENT: Dr Greg Barton tries to grapple with Indian terrorism ...

Dr Barton knows plenty about Indonesia. He's written some superb stuff on the subject of Indonesian Islam, and has authored an insightful biography of former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid (known to his people as Gus Dur). He is a sober and thoughtful analyst who has a strong understanding of Indonesian culture and language.

On the morning of Thursday 27 November 2008, Dr Barton appeared on the ABC's morning TV show with Virginia Trioli and Barry Cassidy. I'm not one to bag genuine academics, but I found Dr Greg Barton's performance on the ABC morning show a little disappointing. It's often hard for news programs to find "experts" on short notice, and it's even harder for experts to provide anything more than somewhat vague analysis early in the morning.

Dr Barton seemed completely out of his depth when talking about the Indian situation. A cynic might even suggest that Shane Warne could have provided at least as equally useful analysis on South Asian affairs. But that would be rather unfair.

I took notes of Dr Barton's interview after watching it on the ABC website and stopping and starting the video. The excerpts below are based on my notes.

It is quite surprising. More bombings wouldn’t have been surprising but this sort of attack across the city using guns – that’s surprising.

Attacks on major towns and cities by violent terrorists are common in India. One need only recall the Gujarat massacre in 2002 and subsequent communalist violence in Gujarat. There have also been attacks by Maoist groups on Hindutva politicians as well as Hindutva attacks on Indian Catholics in such states as Orissa. Hindutva groups have attacked other religious minorities as well as members of lower casts. Many of these attacks have involved brazen daylight attacks in busy urban centres including Mumbai, where Hindutva activists are active. Further, quite a few such groups are linked to organised crime gangs. Then there is the spectre of inter-caste violence. All these matters are well-known to Indians and India-watchers.

Dr Barton further claims that the fact that they target those with British and American passports ...

... does suggest an international jihadi terrorist group of the kind linked with al-Qaeda. It doesn’t mean that there are links with al-Qaeda here of course but that ideology does seem to be at play here.

Targetting foreign Western citizens (though some of those attacked included Singaporeans) doesn't automatically make a group linked to al-Qaeda. The group might be a Maoist or militant unionist group (from, say, Bihar or even Maharashtra) who doesn't like Western capitalist influence. Hindutva groups are also unhapy with Western cultural influences such as Valentines Day. There are Hindutva groups unhappy with India's growing friendship with Pakistan.

India is a complex place with all kinds of nuanced conflicts. But the only conflict Dr Barton seems to understand is the kind of conflict that led to the London or Madrid bombings.

Indian authorities have been saying they don’t have a domestic problem. It’s just a problem across the border. This appears further proof of a deep domestic problem.

Indian authorities have repeatedly said that they don't have a specific al-Qaeda presence within their Muslim communities. But they do acknowledge the existence of a range of militant groups, whether they be communalist militants of Hindu or Muslim or Maoist or separatist variety. Indians know they have a domestic problem. Mumbai itself has numerous domestic problems, including violent Hindutva groups and organised crime gangs.

The Indian police, the Indian military especially, are very professional and so we can expect some very good responses from them.

I hope this is true, but many Indians are highly critical of corruption in the police force. However, Mumbai police are supposed to be among the best in Asia, if not the world.

Dr Barton went onto make some perceptive comments about ...

... globalising influences ...

... and ...

... al-Qaeda-type concerns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’m not sure whether one could describe opposition to foreign troops in Iraq and/or Afghanistan as “al-Qaeda-type concerns”. This seems a little simplistic given that such concerns are shared by many Afghans and Iraqis themselves, including lawmakers from these two countries who are deeply opposed to terrorism. They are also shared by leftist groups inside India.

Of course, it may be that Dr Barton's analysis turns out to be absolutely correct and that some group linked to al-Qaeda is in fact responsible. One has to wonder why the group targetted Westerners specifically. Surely one would expect groups like al-Qaeda to specifically target Muslims as they usually do in areas with large Muslim populations.

Dr Barton's experiences and knowledge of Indonesia don't necessarily reflect the situation in Mumbai and the rest of India, where there have always been various layers of conflict simmering below the narrow surface occasionally picked up by Australian media.

OPINION: Western civilisation? What a good idea that would be ...

A journalist asked Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi what he thought of Western civilisation. Gandhi responded: "I think it would be a good idea."

This English-trained Indian barrister knew a thing or two about Western civilisation. He knew European colonial powers had claimed credit for many great ideas - religious pluralism, the rule of law and human rights.

Gandhi also knew that these ideas often weren't practised by their preachers. Before India achieved independence, Western civilisation had produced the Holocaust and the mass murder of Japanese civilians via two atomic bombs.

Gandhi also knew a thing or two about jihad. As a young lawyer practising in South Africa, Gandhi was given a copy of the Koran by a Gujarati Muslim client, as well as a first-class train ticket. After boarding the train, Gandhi was removed from the first-class carriage for being a coolie. This Hindu sat on the platform and opened up the Koran. He found verses calling on him to wage jihad, a just struggle, against oppressors.

From these verses was born the Natal Indian Congress and the anti-apartheid struggle. Prominent people of all faiths, including Muslims, supported that struggle.

Many were killed, tortured or imprisoned by the apartheid regime. One of them, Dullah Omar, was appointed by Nelson Mandela to be South Africa’s first post-Apartheid Justice Minister.

One wonders what Gandhi would think today of the abuse of the jihad verses by terrorists from groups like al Qaeda, who combine Islamic theology with the worst excesses of European nationalism to produce something resembling national socialism.

Muslim theocratic extremists abandoning terror and fighting real jihad? Now that would be a good idea.

While Bin-Ladin sits in his cave pontificating about conspiracies between "Crusaders" and "Jews" (and even "Hindus") to kill Muslim civilians, his followers are murdering innocent Muslim civilians across the world. Each week, a suicide terrorist in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or some other Muslim country takes place, killing at least as many civilians as the 7/7 London bombings. It’s no coincidence that the first victim of the 7/7 London bombings was a devout British Muslim girl named Shahara Islam.

Of course, hypocrisy and double standards don't just exist in the Islamic world. The bin Ladens of the West, neo-conservative leaders who have the blood of Afghan and Iraqi innocents (not to mention American and allied soldiers) on their hands, are also throwing their principles out the door.

The treatment of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay is a classic example of where Western civilisation is becoming little more than abstraction. In his recently published book Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law, international law professor Phillipe Sands, QC, exposes unethical Defence Department lawyers joining forces with neo-conservative politicians to produce the Acton Memo.

This document, signed by Donald Rumsfeld on December 2, 2002, enabled interrogators at Guantanamo Bay (and later at Abu Ghraib) to lawfully commit acts of torture in violation of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.

The Canadian Government was recently ordered by a court to release video footage of one of its citizens, Omar Khadr, being interrogated at Guantanamo Bay. It isn't exactly pleasant viewing.

Khadr was 16 at the time the footage was filmed in 2003. He was 15 when first captured in July 2002 during a US raid in which his father was killed. After being shot in the back, he was taken to the notorious Bagram Air Base, where he was often brought to interrogation on a stretcher and denied pain medication. Canadians didn't have much sympathy for this child soldier.

The situation is complicated by the fact that Khadr's brother is currently before a Canadian court fighting US attempts to have him extradited to face terrorism charges. Stephen Harper's conservative Government is showing as much disdain for Khadr as former PM John Howard showed towards Australian detainees David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib. Khadr's lawyers hope release of the video may change all that.

Should a person accused of committing terrorism offences when a child be kept in such conditions? Some say that Khadr, whose father allegedly had strong links to al Qaeda and was a fundraiser for the terrorist network, is still dangerous. These people might like to view the video of Khadr's interrogation and watch this boy pleading for Canadian interrogators to help him.

They might also remember that he hardly had a choice in growing up in a household where his father espoused radical views, even encouraging Khadr's brother to become a suicide bomber. One can hardly expect a child to recognise his father's charities were in fact funding extremist groups.

No adult, let alone a teenager, should have to spend years in a steel mesh cage at Guantanamo Bay undergoing brutish forms of interrogation and detained without charge or trial until years have elapsed. The criminal justice systems of all civilised nations treat child defendants differently to adult ones.

When some Western countries condemn the likes of Robert Mugabe but are happy to commit human rights abuses against their own civilians, they simply confirm what Gandhi suspected all along - that Western civilisation perhaps really is just a good idea.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and writer. An edited version of this article was first published in the New Zealand Herald on Tuesday 22 July 2008.



Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

CRIKEY: The 9/11 accused deserve a fair trial

If I argued that those arrested for online child p-rnography deserve a fair trial, would anyone accuse me of being an apologist for child p-rnography?

If I suggested that a former senior cop charged with drug importation deserved a fair trial, would anyone accuse me of being an apologist for drug trafficking?

But if I suggested that the five men charged with being responsible for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington deserve a fair trial, I’d be labelled by some as an apologist for terrorism.

Indeed, some would look at the name my parents gave me, the city I was born in and other factors completely beyond my control and cast a host of aspersions.

It’s as if no-one having the same combination of ethno-religious factors died on that fateful day in New York or Washington.

What would these people say if someone named Stephen David argued that the al-Qaeda five deserve a fair trial? In fact, Colonel Stephen David is Chief Defence Counsel for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Wallid bin Attash and Mustapha al-Hawsawi. David says that the process used to try these five defendants ...

... is a fundamentally flawed process … Our nation deserves better than this.

Here's an excerpt from AFP's report as appearing in today's The Australian:

All dressed in white and without handcuffs, the five - including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, which killed about 3000 people - were seated at a table with their military defence team.

Khalid, a Pakistani, and his alleged co-conspirators Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Wallid bin Attash and Mustapha al-Hawsawi all face the death penalty if convicted by the military commission on the US base on Cuba.

Charges against them include conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property, terrorism, and material support for terrorism.

The men appeared relaxed as they chatted in Arabic, waiting for the start of the hearing, atwhich the charges will be read by judge Colonel Ralph Kohlmann.

The judge opened the military commission by saying the Government would consider any statements by the five as confidential because of their detentions in secret CIA prisons.

"Any statement by any of the detainees is presumptively classified," Colonel Kohlmann said.

That meant there was to be a 20-second delay before the defendants statements were broadcast by video to the nearby purpose-built press room, to allow prosecutors to cut sensitive information.

At the start of proceedings, Khalid threw out his defence team and said he would represent himself, before adding that he wanted to be sentenced to death and become a marytr.

All the suspects were arrested between 2002 and 2003, and transferred to the controversial base on Cuba in 2006, allegedly after spending years in secret CIA prisons ...

The military tribunals have been mired in controversy since they were established by President George W. Bush at the end of 2001. In 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled they were illegal, but then Congress adopted a new law allowing for them to be re-established and for indirect witness statements or testimony won under duress to be submitted as evidence.

Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser to the military commissions, said the defence team had been granted "extraordinary" rights.

But he noted that if they suspects were acquitted, the they could still continue to be held until the end of the so-called "war on terror".

Defence Counsel Colonel Stephen David should be glad I’m not one of the judges. I’m convinced of the guilt of at least 2 of these men, having read the masterful work of journalists Yosri Fouda and Nick Fielding called Masterminds Of Terror: The Truth Behind The Most Devastating Terrorist Attack The World Has Ever Seen.

Fouda was chief investigative reporter with Al-Jazeera who spent 48 hours with both Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in a secret Karachi location. Fouda includes in the book the full transcript of his interviews with RB & KSM as well as RB’s own written justification for the attacks.

These men followed a demented politicised theology that was more anarchic than monotheistic. Some may wonder why it is that more Muslims than non-Muslims die from attacks by terrorists like KSM. Why don’t these men make exceptions for their own kind?

The reason is simple – according to al-Qaeda theology, virtually all Muslims are infidels, and the blood of an infidel (including my blood) can be spilt with impunity. Unless Yosri Fouda is making it all up, these men are guiltier than sin.

Yet still they deserve a fair trial. Evidence should be obtained without the use of torture in secret locations. Due process, not kangaroo court process, must be applied. If fair trials can be granted to suspected war criminals, surely they can be granted to terror suspects.

We hear it time and again from chest-beating politicians – the terrorists hate us because of our values. By denying terror suspects a fair trial, we are showing we hate our values at least as much.

An edited version of this piece was first published in the Crikey daily alert for 6 June 2008.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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

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

That's right. Six.

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

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

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

... are leaders of the Islamic community in the country.

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

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

... to propagate Wahhabism, the puritanical brand of Islam espoused by al-Qa'ida.

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

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

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

Is The Oz becoming a mouthpiece for Usama bin Ladin?

Is Chris Mitchell a closet Wahhabi?

Now that's what I call a scoop!

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

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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OPINION: Griffith IRU controversy ...

Al-Qaeda's latest recruits showing off their camouflage and weapons ...







Attempts to whip up hysteria over Islamic issues

It's good to see The Chaser boys let off the hook. Their silly APEC Summit prank illustrated just how ineffective expensive security-related hysteria can be. Despite costly and thorough security precautions, Chas Licciardello (dressed up as Osama bin Laden sitting in a limousine sporting the Canadian flag guarded by a few blokes sporting badges printed with insecurity) came within metres of President Bush's hotel.

One newspaper that has turned security-related hysteria into an art form is The Australian. In recent times, reporters Richard Kerbaj and Natalie O'Brien from The Australian have made use of the Anna Coren-style segue to link all kinds of people to international terrorist organisations. The result has been material which will generate a few laughs down at the Canberra Islamic Centre, even if it makes non-Muslim readers feel like reaching for their National Security Hotline fridge magnets.

In one recent article headlined "Christians should wear veil", O'Brien claimed former Mufti Sheik Tajeddin Hilaly says the Bible mandates the wearing of the veil by Christian women.

Whilst this is an improvement on his "catmeat" remarks, I couldn't find anywhere in O'Brien's article where Hilaly actually spoke of Christians being told to wear veils. The only vaguely suggestive comment from Hilaly O'Brien could quote was him saying the Virgin Mary is often depicted with a veil covering her head.

This is a scurrilous suggestion! I trust O'Brien and her editor will insist the Pope refutes all suggestions of Mary being depicted with a covered head during his World Youth Day address.

The Australian also reports that Griffith University in Queensland is in the process of becoming a Saudi-style madrassa, where female students will be forced to wear veils over their heads and faces and where the grand international al-Qaeda jihad will be launched to transform Australia into a sharia state.

OK, that's a slight exaggeration. The actual story is that Griffith University accepted an injection of $100,000 from the Saudi embassy for its Griffith Islamic Research Unit, a postgraduate research facility.

In January 2007, a consortium consisting of GIRU, Melbourne University and the University of Western Sydney won approval from the Commonwealth to form the National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies. The Australian Government's initial investment into the NCEIS (which presumably will also benefit Griffith University) is $8 million.

So will Griffith accepting 1.25 per cent of this amount from the Saudi embassy mean the university will be pressured to adopt the rather unsavoury theological line of an unsavoury regime with a human rights record that makes it fit to host the next Olympics?

Of course, Griffith isn't the only university to be the subject of media controversy over accepting cash from foreign governments. As Griffith Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian O'Connor points out, the Saudi Government has entered into similar arrangements with Oxford, Harvard and Georgetown Universities, the latter being a private Catholic university.

O'Connor's arguments, made in an op-ed published in The Australian, have been attacked by that newspaper for being partially plagiarised from Wikipedia. Interestingly, the same newspaper had no hesitation in defending one of its own columnists who in 2002 not only plagiarised but also distorted the writings of European academics to suit her race-based agenda. I guess what's good for the gander isn't good for the goose.

So should Griffith Uni have taken the money? I'm no fan of the Saudi Government or of its official creed. But I wonder whether the Saudis have gotten value for money.

None of the research topics of PhD candidates of the centre display any strong inkling of Wahhabism. One candidate is studying the prevalence of domestic violence in Muslim communities. Malaysia's de facto opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, is researching Asian Renaissance, hardly a topic of interest to Saudi religious police enforcing the country's strict veiling laws.

Then again, I could be accused of bias. After all, Griffith Uni did pay for my airfare and accommodation to attend and speak at their recent conference. Naturally someone like me, who has used just about every public forum in Australia and New Zealand I could get my hands on to lambast Saudi-style Wahhabism, is clearly someone the Saudi ambassador would be delighted to share a conference program with.

Back to The Chaser crew. It's always a joy to see them poke fun at Channel 7 Today Tonight host Anna Coren manufacturing segues out of two unrelated topics. Richard Kerbaj, a reporter for The Australian, has also put segues to good use.

Griffith's centre is headed by Dr Mohamad Abdalla. Kerbaj claims Abdalla is a leader of an allegedly shadowy group called the Tablighi Jamaat, an international Sufi reform movement with tens of millions of followers worldwide. Kerbaj tells us that the TJ are linked to al-Qaeda and the London bombings. How so?

Because al-Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid and at least two of the London bombers attended TJ gatherings. I doubt even Anna Coren could come up with such an outrageous segue.

South Asian readers will confirm that current and former TJ members include former Indian President Dr Zakir Hussein and former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The International Herald Tribune reported that at one TJ gathering in Tongi in Bangladesh, some three million Muslims attended.

Twenty-20 cricket fans will be pleased to note that champion batsman Shahid Afridi, who plays for the Deccan Chargers in the Indian Premier League, is also a TJ member.

Applying Kerbaj's logic, that means the Indian Government, Pakistani Muslim League Party, at least three million Bengalis and the Deccan Chargers (including perhaps Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds) are all linked to al-Qaeda. Go figure.

Al-Qaeda's new logo ...

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and writer. This article was first published in The Canberra Times on 1 May 2008. May Day, May Day!!

COMMENT: How the Washington Post proved Greg wrong ...

In a column dated 22 March 2008, Greg Sheridan confidently wrote that the regime of Saddam Hussein was directly linked to terrorists from groups that formed part of al-Qaida's umbrella.

Well, sort of. Here's an excerpt from his column ...

Newly published Iraqi documents reveal just how extensive Saddam's involvement with international terrorism was. The summary of these documents, published under the heading Saddam and Terrorism, has been reported across the world and read by almost no one. Its first paragraph reads:

"The Iraqi Perspectives Project review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism. Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the US ...

The world was misled about this report because of the focus on one single sentence of the report, which said: "This study found no smoking gun (that is, a direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qa'ida."

However, the report does portray a vast network of Iraqi support for terrorist organisations that includes numerous groups the report identifies as "part of al-Qa'ida". The misleading and declaratory sentence presumably refers only to Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida central itself. For example, the report states: "Captured documents reveal that the regime (of Saddam) was willing to co-opt or support organisations it knew to be part of al-Qa'ida, as long as that organisation's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision." This included, for example, Saddam providing financial support for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy.

Acknowledging this support, but saying there's no smoking gun directly to al-Qa'ida itself, means the report is taking an incredibly restrictive and precise view of al-Qa'ida.

But in any event this report is not claiming, as wrongly reported in the wires, that there was no link with al-Qa'ida, merely that it found no absolute smoking gun in the translated documents ...

The new report is also important in showing how much in common Saddam had with al-Qa'ida ideologically. Saddam always wanted to glorify himself as the centre of a new pan-Arab nation rather than establish a new universal caliphate glorifying Islam, as was bin Laden's ambition.

So Usama bin Ladin wanted to be a pan-Arab leader. In what sense? Was bin-Ladin an Arab nationalist in the tradition of Gamal Abdel Nasser?

But what of Sheridan's claims of strong ideological affinity? Well, believe it or not, the Washington Post has also dealt with these same documents. In a report dated March 26, 2008, the Post says ...

Media reports on the Pentagon's five-volume translation of truckloads of Saddam Hussein- era documents tended to skim the surface, picking the highlights and the obvious, such as the absence of evidence of an "operational relationship" between Hussein and al-Qaeda.

"By the middle of Volume 5" of the tome prepared for the military's Joint Forces Command, Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists tells us, "most people will have entered an altered state of consciousness." But not the eagle-eyed folks over at the federation, who sifted through the review and came up with a stunner.

It's in a 50-page analysis by Iraq's crack military intelligence crew that "disparages the austerely conservative Wahhabi school of Islam by claiming that its eighteenth century founder, Ibn 'Abd al Wahhab, had ancestors who were Jews," the FAS reported.

Talk about burying the lead! Who cares about warmed-over stuff about Saddam and Osama? Now, this is news.

The shocking Iraqi analysis says that Ibn 'Abd al Wahhab's grandfather's true name was not "Sulayman" but "Shulman." (Of course! The Saudi Shulmans! ) "Tawran," a source often cited by Iraqi intelligence in the reports as an expert, "confirms that Sulayman, the grandfather of the sheikh, is (Shulman); he is Jew from the merchants of the city of Burstah in Turkey, he had left it and settled in Damascus, grew his beard, and wore the Muslim turban, but was thrown out for being voodoo," the Iraqi document says, according to a Defense Intelligence Agency translation.

Anti-Wahhabi polemical works of both Sunni and Shia variety frequently alleged Ibn Abdul Wahhab had some Jewish ancestry, as if this is enough to discredit him. The irony is, of course, that Jewish ancestry is NOT passed through the paternal line but rather through the maternal line. In other words, Ibn Abdul Wahhab's grandfather's religious affiliation is only of some polemical interest if he was his maternal grandfather.

Now in what sense does Saddam Hussein have ideological affiliation with bin-Ladin when Hussein's official government records happily reproduce anti-Semitic insults about the ancestry of the man who founded a sect that bin-Ladin and his followers strictly adhere to?

Go figure.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

REFLECTION: Meeting Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a woman with a mission. The problem is that I’m not quite sure what her mission actually is. And to make matters more interesting, after reading at least 100 articles about her (not to mention reading her The Caged Virgin and sitting with her for 40 minutes), I’m not sure if she knows what it is either.

If her mission is to increase sales of her books (including her autobiography Infidel), she certainly is achieving her mission. She is without doubt the star of the show at this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival, and her book was by far the biggest seller. But apart from dollars and euros, does she have any other goals?

I spoke with Ayaan Hirsi Ali this afternoon. Joining me during the interview was Jose Borghino, editor of the online magazine NewMatilda.com. I don’t wish to give too much away at this stage as I would otherwise be operating off my own recollections of the discussion. If you wish to know what transpired, you will have to subscribe to NewMatilda.com and part with A$77. It isn’t much for a yearly subscription of a superb publication.

I am, however, prepared to share some impressions.

Firstly, I know that many of Hirsi Ali’s allegedly conservative supporters such as Paul Sheehan are obsessed with her good looks. However, Hirsi Ali has a very strong mind and resents being treated as “just a pretty face”.

Secondly, Hirsi Ali is not an archetypal American conservative. In fact, she has views that would make many American conservatives reject her (and it seems many are starting to already).

For instance, when it comes to abortion, Hirsi Ali believes women shouldn’t be barred from access to abortion. She doesn’t believe it should be used as a contraceptive, but she does believe that women should have a choice.

Hirsi Ali is also deadly opposed to the teaching of Creation “science” in schools. In fact, she is opposed to the policies of Christian conservatives who want to bridge the separation or church and state.

She wants Muslims to adopt the values of the European enlightenment. Hirsi Ali hopes that Muslims can come up with an interpretation and understanding of their texts which is consistent with enlightenment values. She doesn’t believe one exists, but claims to have an open mind about the possibility.

Hirsi Ali seems to believe that there is little difference between the AK Party and al-Qaeda. She supports the maintenance of Kemalist secularism, and believes the AK Party wants to introduce sharia law by stealth. She also supports a military intervention to stop the AK Party, and suggests Muslims should be forced to adopt what she sees as secularism even if it is not popular.

The first translation of the Qur’an Hirsi Ali read was the one by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. The views she expressed to me about the Qur’an are certainly different to the ones she has expressed in other media appearances. Is she being misquoted?

Jose asked some absolute gem questions, but I’m afraid you will have to wait until you subscribe and the recording and our articles are placed on the NewMatilda.com site.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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SPORT: Saving Pakistani cricket from the jaws of victory ...

Back in the mid-80’s, when I was still in high school, a record company executive turned comic named Billy Birmingham produced his first parody of TV cricket commentators. Calling himself “The 12th Man”, Birmingham’s CD’s featured legends like Ritchie Benaud and Tony Greig using language unfit for reproduction here, not to mention some excellent spoofs of Pakistani cricketers’ names (Wasim Akram was “Was-he a-Crim” and Javed Miandad was alternately “I-broke-me-hand-dad” and “Jar-vegemite-for-me-and-dad”).

The recordings were hugely popular on both sides of the Tasman. Birmingham even won an Australian Music award, beating such big Aussie music names as Midnight Oil and Crowded House.

In receiving his award, Birmingham mused:

The fact that someone like me could receive this award and beat all those big names really says something about Australia. Though exactly what it says, I’m not exactly sure of!

And seeing photos of Pakistanis burning effigies of an Australian empire appearing in Australian newspapers certainly says a lot about Pakistan. Though at this stage, I’m not sure what.

Of course, this isn’t the first time effigies and flags have been burnt in Pakistani streets. In February, at the height of the Danish cartoon controversy, I wrote in the New Zealand paper The Dominion-Post (which published all 12 cartoons):

In my birthplace of Karachi, frenzied Pakistanis hit the streets with protests that did more damage to the Pakistani economy than to anyone in Denmark … Then again, some of these men … will protest each time they think a Pakistani batsman is given out “lbw” unfairly.

Not much has changed. Except that this time the burnings and protests concern the religion that people across the Indian sub-Continent are passionate about – cricket.

No amount of religious or political controversy can captivate the people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka more than a game of cricket. Particularly if their home side is playing. I’ve seen this on numerous trips visiting relatives and family friends in Bombay, Karachi and Lahore.

Indians and Pakistanis are known for their hospitality. Uncles, aunts and cousins line up to take you shopping or site seeing or even to check out potential marriage partners. (Yes, having an Aussie passport gives you that instant edge in the marriage market!)

But when the “kirkit” is on, good luck if any relative sets their eyes off the TV set and offers you a cup of tea.

A journalist friend told me she did some freelance work in Peshawar and Islamabad following September 11 2001 and in the days leading upto the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. She witnessed Western journalists almost tripping over themselves covering a few thousand pro-Taliban rioters or attending the latest press conference from the Taliban ambassador.

A few thousand pro-Taliban protestors? In Pakistani cities like Karachi with a population in excess of 11 million? Yeah right. Sounds as significant as one of Imran Khan’s ex-girlfriends.

And what were my friend’s Pakistani journalist colleagues doing? They were too busy glued to their TV screens watching and admiring the fine form of the touring South African side. She later told me:

The way they spoke about Alan Donald, I almost thought he was a Western convert who’d joined al-Qaida!

Cricket really is an obsession among Pakistanis. Virtually all my Indo-Pakistani uncles, from Sydney to Christchurch, are obsessed with the game. Discussions and even full-scale arguments happen over the performance of a batsman, with overweight and middle-aged men who look like they’ve never set foot on a field suddenly speaking with the authority of expert coaches and selectors.

Almost as funny as watching Pakistan’s not-exactly-underweight cricket captain Inzamam-ul-Haq saving his team from the dangerous clutches of certain victory to the relative safety of the dressing room and defeat by forfeiture. But hang on - did I just hear someone scream out “bookies”?

And if Pakistan’s cricketing fundamentalism had a Grand Mufti or Ayatollah, it would have to be former fast bowling legend (and playboy) turned conservative politician Imran Khan. Describing Aussie Umpire Darrell Hair as a “mini-Hitler”, Imran is now quoted in London’s Daily Telegraph calling upon Pakistani players to sue.

And if they pay me enough, I’d be happy to represent them.

Still, I guess it’s better than Imran calling for the Australian High Commission in Islamabad to be burnt down. His litigious suggestion might have had legs but for a joint statement endorsed by the Pakistan Cricket Board which reads: “In accordance with the laws of cricket it was noted that the umpires had correctly deemed that Pakistan had forfeited the match and awarded the Test to England.”

But will that stop Pakistan’s cricket mullahs from their wild protests? Will it stop the burning of Hairy effigies? And will it stop my uncles from issuing instant cricket fatwas at dinner parties? As if.

A Jewish friend once joked with me that Israel is a nation of 4 million Prime Ministers and 1 citizen. Pakistan, a nation also built on the basis of ethno-religious heritage, is a case of having 179,999,988 coaches and selectors and 12 players. And so my advice to Kiwistani cricket fans who, like me, find themselves unable to understand this typically Pakistani dummy-spit is simple - go figure!

(The author is a Karachi-born and Sydney-based lawyer and proud owner of a full set of “12th Man” CD’s. A version of this article was first published in the Christchurch Press on 25 August 2006.)

COMMENT: On Western culture and Steyn

In today’s Crikey alert, Christian Kerr wrote:

Give me western culture any day. Even if it is just Mark Steyn’s Song of the
Week.

I agree with him. Give me Western culture any day. I’d rather live north of the Sydney Harbour Bridge than in suburban Karachi. And I’m the first to criticise leaders of nominally Muslim states, local Muslim leaders, terrorist goons, imbecilic Muslim protestors, quiescent Muslims slow to condemn terrorism from among their ranks, Muslim societies that oppress women and local thick-Sheiks.

I also have no problems with respecting and even participating in non-Muslim religious events.

But it makes me sick in the stomach when I see allegedly conservative politicians and media suggest that preserving Western values and further the goals of national security means generating hatred toward and derision of anything even remotely related to my ethno-religious heritage.

And it makes me even sicker when Steyn speaks and writes that the best way to stop people converting to Islam is to convince them that it’s better and cooler to be Australian or Canadian or English or French than to be Muslim. As if you cannot be Muslim and Aussie or English at the same time.

Western culture is my culture, and doesn’t conflict with my religious heritage. If Steyn and his fellow travellers cannot accept the pluralism of Western culture, they should find another culture.

I respect and support what the CIS does, and I don’t expect them to always invite imams and Muslim apologists. But having Steyn on stage is as offensive to Muslims as having David Irving on stage would be to Jews. But to be fair, one of the CIS’s own senior scholars (Owen Harries) deftly demolished Steyn’s entire argument.

If the CIS are genuine about open and honest debate, they should at least enable an unedited transcript of the entire function to be made available to the public. Unedited. Leave all the ugly bits in. Including the altercation between Steyn and myself. Including the bits where Steyn gives advice on how to stop people converting to Islam. Including where Steyn describes Islam as an “apocalyptic” faith engulfing Europe, and that Islam cannot exist in a pluralistic society.

(And also leave unedited the brilliant surgical analysis of Owen Harries as well.)

Steyn aked me to look into my heart and ask who is committing the terrorist acts and why. I know who they are. And if Steyn could look into their hearts, he'd see that his rhetoric fills the bin-Ladins and Zawahiris with joy.

Steyn’s attempts to marginalise and demonise Muslims will only serve the interests of al-Qaida in the long run. Terrorist recruiters want ordinary Muslim citizens of Western countries to feel alienated, saying: “They hate you. They’ll never accept you. Come and join us”.

If I believed everything I read and hear from Mark Steyn reflects official government policy, I’d probably believe them. Steyn is doing al-Qaida’s work, whether he accepts it or not.

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.)

BOOKS: Genuine Expert Explodes Terror Myths

BOOK: Terrorism Explained: the facts about terrorism and terrorist groups
AUTHOR: Clive Williams
PUBLISHER: New Holland Publishers, Sydney
2004
Recommended Price $24.95

___________________

In our post-September-11 world, every man, woman and dog is popping up as an expert on terrorism. Terrorist “experts” are being bought and sold in the market of ideas, and many are happy to sell themselves to the highest bidder. Many have little in the way of formal training and genuine hands-on expertise.

One terror expert has appeared regularly on the terror circuit, speaking across the world and even appearing in Australia as a guest of the Centre for Independent Studies.

Dr Daniel Pipes has been described by ever-perceptive Miranda Devine as an “Islam scholar”. He holds a PhD in medieval European history from Harvard University, and apparently speaks and reads fluent Arabic.

When it comes to modern Muslim political radicalism, Dr Pipes’ qualifications make him as useful to serious understanding of the phenomenon as Sheik Hilali’s extensive qualifications make him as an adviser on youth affairs to the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.

After all, what Pipes describes as “Islamism” bears little resemblance to Medieval European or even Medieval Muslim thought. And most Muslim extremists read material written in Urdu and Farsi.

Dr Rohan Gunaratna is another fascinating study in terror expertise. When he is not engaging in group defamation of Tamils, Dr Gunaratna lambasts Western governments for … wait for it … not protecting democracy by denying Muslim communities civil liberties.

A bit like suggesting mass-floods as a solution to tsunami-ravaged areas in Tamil Nadu. Then again, given Gunaratna’s record with Tamils, we might actually be reading him suggesting this!

Clive Williams doesn’t fit into either of these categories of alleged expertise. This Australian author teaches anti-terrorism to students at the Australian National University. Before embarking on an academic career, Williams served as an Army intelligence officer and was awarded the Medal for Gallantry in Vietnam.

Unlike presumed experts on terrorism, Williams has been involved in defence intelligence collection and analysis for over 3 decades. He has not merely been writing columns for New York tabloid newspapers or generating editorials in multiple languages on personal websites.

And like all real experts. Williams can see all sides of the argument. He argues that major terrorist incidents will continue to occur in western countries, especially the United States. Reason? Williams writes in his Preface:

“This seems inevitable given the insensitive way in which many minority Muslim sections of the US population have been treated, the increased Muslim anger against the United States as a result of its international counterterrorism campaign post-September 11, its unqualified support for Israel and the continuing detention of alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.”

Perhaps Messrs Howard, Ruddock and Downer should take the short drive from Parliament House down to the ANU campus in Acton and learn some valuable lessons from Williams. They might wish to anonymously sit in his lectures or tutorials. Perhaps their advisers might join them in this quest for genuine knowledge.

Perhaps the most attractive aspect of Williams’ book is his resistance of the common presumption that only Muslims can be terrorists. Williams debunks this theory with 2 simple ingredients – facts and logic.

First, Williams does not leave definitions to innuendo and group-smear. He provides a clear definition, explanation and classification of terrorism. He then charts out the history of terrorism and its various religious, secular and other manifestations. Williams provides various categories of terrorism not as water-tight compartments but rather as aids to understanding the complexity of motivations that lead persons to call themselves and/or innocents.

In Australia, Williams’ analysis seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The Commonwealth continues to proscribe only Muslim extremist groups as terrorist organisations. This despite growing evidence of religious extremism in other communities.

The London bombings coincided with the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre by Bosnian Serb forces led by General Ratko Mladic. Some 60 people died in London, whilst over 6,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred in one of many incidents of slaughter in July 1995.

Abundant evidence exists of Australians of Serbian Orthodox and Catholic background being involved in supporting, aiding and participating in the massacres and gang-rapes and other war crimes that took place in Bosnia during the war.

Evidence also exists of certain Australians actively being involved in efforts to derail the Middle East peace process by actively supporting opponents of the Israeli government’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Indeed, Daniel Pipes himself has written in support of extremists and against Ariel Sharon’s peace initiative.

Williams is not afraid to name names and identify individuals and groups (Muslim or otherwise) known to be involved in terrorist activities. He also provides lucid analysis of various forms of terrorism, their sources of finance and the real extent of their threat. All this without paranoid calls for the eradication of all civil liberties and declaration of a state of emergency.

Williams’ book is certainly not written with a view to winning elections or ratings wars. Nor does it make for entertaining tabloid reading. But what Williams does do is provide a balanced account of the real threat facing Australia and other western countries.

(For a limited time, readers can obtain a copy of Clive Williams’ book for $16.50 including postage and handling to anywhere in Australia. Purchasers of 5 or more copies can pick them up for $11 each. Hurry as there are very limited copies left. For further details, e-mail sydneylawyers@yahoo.com.au)

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

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