CULTURE WARS: An uncomfortable intersection of political interests

On Sunday, thousands of fair dinkum real Aussies will gather at rallies across Australia, raising the Australian flag and shouting slogans. Among the places they'll gather is the central Queensland coastal town of Mackay. Coalition federal MP George Christensen will be speaking. On behalf of Prime Minister Tony Abbott? Reading a message from the PM? Who knows.

A previous Reclaim Australia Rally in Melbourne some months back was characterised by the presence of some, er, interesting people engaging in interesting conduct. A fair few neo-Nazis sporting visible swastika tattoos on shaved heads and/or wearing swastika T-shirts and carrying Aussie flags joined the parade. They were jostling and shouting slogans and carrying placards saying "Abbott! No halal certification" and "No Shariah law!" I doubt even Zaky Mallah would do that sort of thing in an ABC studio.

Christensen certainly has more testicular fortitude than Abbott's frontbenchers who have been ordered not to appear on a certain ABC show whose ratings have gone through the roof. Brisbane's Courier Mail reports Christensen declaring he will defy even the PM's orders and attend the rally.

Reading through the 24 pillars of the Reclaim Australia manifesto, I couldn't help but wonder why Abbott would object. There is a call for ...

... [t]he right to exile or deport traitors ...

... which I guess is akin to Abbott's original call for people engaging in terror-like activities to be stripped of their Australian citizenship even if it was their only one.

Where will Indigenous Australians fit in an Australia reclaimed by the far-right white reclaimers? "Equality at Law", screams pillar No. 3, "No more 'cultural considerations'". That should make Andrew Bolt very happy.

The ideology of Reclaim has a distinctly supremacist feel to it. But in case you thought it was fringe, the reclaimers are singing from virtually the same rhetorical and policy songbook as the federal Coalition on cultural and security matters. Despite trumpeting separation of religion and state, Reclaim's manifesto mentions Christian values and rights numerous more times. How often have we heard Abbott and his ministers lecture us on how Australia has a Christian heritage?

It's true that Coalition MPs tend not to jostle and shout slogans and sport swastika tattoos. But as a former federal Liberal candidate, it pains me to say that in so many ways the more contentious political beliefs on issues like culture and citizenship promoted by the Coalition are effectively the same as those of the far right.

It's hard to say who is influencing who. Certainly the Coalition strategy in the 2001 Tampa election was to destroy Pauline Hanson by mimicking her rhetoric on asylum-seekers. Howard would frequently speak of integration and wasn't too fond of multiculturalism.

Ironically, Tony Abbott held the opposite view. He regarded multiculturalism as a fundamentally sound and inherently conservative social policy. Abbott was one of the few frontbenchers who refused to join the chorus of Muslim-phobic and migrant-phobic hysteria around issues of citizenship and national security. In addresses to various audiences, Abbott recalled what it was like for him and fellow Catholics during previous decades when Catholics were demonised.

Abbott is a victim of the far-right. A former staffer of his walked out to join Pauline Hanson. Abbott and his allies worked hard to ensure One Nation was made accountable for financial irregularities. There was little indication in Abbott's quite brilliant manifesto Battlelines that he would go in an extreme direction. True, he did see Australia as within a broader Anglosphere of nations. But his policy platform did not include stripping people of citizenship for spraying graffiti on public buildings.

If Abbott does give the order to the federal member for Dawson not to attend this rally, it will sound almost hypocritical. I have never seen Tony Jones and the Q&A panel and audience wear swastika T-shirts. There has been no jostling or arrests made, nor are racist slogans tolerated. If Abbott doesn't stop Christensen from attending the Mackay rally, it will show he regards far-right white supremacist extremism as being less troublesome than some kid sporting a marijuana cap and suggesting a minister's rhetoric is pushing Muslim kids to join Islamic State.

It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that events overseas appear to have radicalised the conservative side of politics in Australia than they have local Muslims. Today we see far-right lunatics and their Coalition friends using IS as an excuse to beat their chests. Sikh temples are being attacked as the chest-beaters are happy to attack anything or anyone they deem Muslim. Only God knows what Asian Australians will experience should China decide do more than build islands in the South China Sea.

This all shows that discussions (or lack thereof) on national security in Australia are rarely conducted in a sensible manner. Phillip Adams recently wrote in the Weekend Australian:

The current liturgy chanted in unison by ministers prime and junior in the Gregorian manner, including Stop the Boats and Death Cult. They are not designed to encourage discussion but to end it. To drown out doubt, debate, calibration, nuance and context.

The results of repetitious paranoid Coalition rhetoric, channelled through ridiculously rabid columnists and shock jocks, will be seen this Sunday. Hopefully it won't be too ugly.

Irfan Yusuf is PhD candidate at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. First published in the Canberra Times on 17 July 2015.

HUMOUR: Islamic French superheroes

It’s often said that Paris is the city of lovers. Which might make you wonder whether such wimped-out lovey-dovey Parisian types might ever need superheroes to protect them. After all, isn’t love supposed to conquer all?


But like any big city, the real Paris is a place where organised crime and terrorism can flourish. This might explain a recent decision by the board of multinational Batman Incorporated to expand its operations beyond Gotham City, with new branch offices established in Paris and Tokyo.

Heading up the Parisian operation is some bloke named Nightrunner. Nicely tanned and sporting black and grey tights, Nightrunner is on a mission to defeat a group of highly organised criminals and leftist and rightist terrorists carrying out high-profile assassinations.

There’s just one problem. This particular Frenchman isn’t really French at all. One righteous blogger, Warner Todd Huston, complains that DC Comics and “Batman couldn’t find any actual Frenchman to be the ‘French saviour’”.

It’s easy to laugh off the likes of Huston as just a bunch of far-Right fruitloops. But their claims seem to resonate across so much of the mainstream. For a change, let’s try and take Huston’s argument a little seriously. Not too much. Just a little.

So what’s so un-French about Nightrunner? Apart from Nightrunner’s attire suggesting dubious sexual preference (heck, real blokes wouldn’t be caught dead in black and grey tights!), what else could any conservative blogger have a problem with?

I did notice that Nightrunner’s skin is of a slightly darker Mediterranean shade. Does Mr Huston imagine that persons of Mediterranean appearance aren’t welcome in a country with a Mediterranean coast? Not exactly.

You see, DC Comics has decided that the ‘French saviour’, the French Batman, is to be a Muslim immigrant ... The character’s name is Bilal Asselah and he is an Algerian Sunni Muslim and an immigrant that is physically fit and adept at gymnastic sport Parkour.

Mr Huston goes further:

The whole situation is a misreading of what ails France. The truth is, neither communist union members nor neo-Nazi parties are causing riots in France. Muslims are. Yet DC Comics is absurdly making a Muslim immigrant the 'French saviour'?

Bloody oath! These immigrants can never be real Frenchmen. Marshall Philippe Benoni Petain understood this well. He was a French national war hero and eventually headed the government of the French State during the 1940s. Petain’s government managed to rid France (which in those days included Algeria) of many nasty foreign types – Jews and Gypsies. I wonder how Petain would feel at his beloved capital having yet another foreign superhero!

Huston continues:

This is PCism at its worst. Not only that but it is pretty condescending to France, too. France is a proud nation. Yet DC Comics has made a foreigner the 'French saviour'. This will not sit well with many Frenchmen, for sure. Nor should it.

Huston is absolutely right. The French have had experience with nasty undisciplined foreign Mozzlems. This explains why they never allow Muslim guys like Bacary Sagna or Abou Diabyinto their national side. The French only allow real actual Frenchmen like Franck Ribery to be their football saviours, not a bunch of non-Christian immigrants. Anyone who disagrees deserves to be headbutted by this dude.

And so we have a problem. To fight Parisian terror, the folks at Batman Incorporated have chosen a superhero whose background means he is genetically disposed to being a nasty Ay-rab Mozzlem jihadist Islamist fundamentalist Islamofascist extremist Talibanist terrorist.

Seriously, if Batman had to choose an immigrant as the first French superhero, couldn’t he have found a Christian? Perhaps a Christian of Romanian heritage, a kid emerging from a Roma gypsy camp and with a history of fighting street crime. French people love gypsies because they’ve never been involved in rioting anywhere in France. We also know how welcome these good European Christian Roma folk are made to feel in the Republic. Just ask the current head of the French State, Nicolas Sarkozy.

OK, I've tried my best to take Huston's argument seriously, but I just can't. The idea that migrants from particular backgrounds cannot be saviours of their (or their parents’) adopted country is just ridiculous. It’s too dumb even for the world of comic strips. If only it was too stupid for certain elements of the allegedly conservative blogosphere.

First published on ABC The Drum on 18 January 2011.

VIDEO: When is a church not a church?

RACISM: Germany's answer to Glenn Beck?

If you thought Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book contained gross generalisations, wait till you get your hands on the German Central Banker Thilo Sarrazin's book. Published in German as Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany does away with itsel").

So what does he say that is so offensive? According to DW:

At the launch, Sarrazin reiterated his beliefs about the threat of Muslim culture to European societies. He told reporters that Germans were in danger of becoming "strangers in their own country" and demanded stronger checks on immigrants.

You don't need to know German to read that kind of sentiment. Just listen to the likes of Pauline Hanson, Fred Nile or Andrew Bolt.

But it gets better. Philo also talks about the existence of a "Jewish gene". What a ridiculous suggestion.

"All Jews share a particular gene," Sarrazin said in an interview published on Sunday. "That makes them different from other peoples."

Still, why should anyone complain about that? After all, he was only saying about Jews what a certain American citizen has said about Muslims.

Perhaps FoxNews could have its own German language version. And with Thilo Sarrazin, Mr Mrdoch might have his own Glenn Beck.



Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

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VIDEO: Where are the Muslim and Sikh attackers of abortion clinics?

It's just stupid logic. Where are the Southern Baptists flying planes into buildings? True, but then where are Muslims (or Sikhs often stupidly mistaken by bigots to be Muslims) attacking abortion doctors and clinic in the name of Jesus? You can go on and on about this nonsense, but what would it achieve? Would it make any of us feel safer? And actually be safer?

Social cohesion is an essential prerequisite for national security. Fruitloops who can only see the world in an "us" and "them" manner and who engage in infantile group-hate-speech, are themselves a threat to national security.



And here is a graphic taken from a post on a blog hosted by a mainstream newspaper, London's Daily Telegraph.



Which just goes to show that you don't have to be on the fringe to be a fruitloop.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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

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



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

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

CRIKEY: Why question defence force loyalty because of religion?

A spokesman for the Defence forces last Friday reiterated this truism:

Eligible people may join the ADF irrespective of their ethnicity, race or religion.

Alan Howe, executive editor of the Herald & Weekly Times, described this remark almost dismissively as

... the strictly politically correct line.

Howe’s column, also published in the Brisbane Courier Mail, began with these words:

There are 2006 Muslims in the Australian Defence Force.

He describes suggestions that none have been investigated after the Fort Hood massacre as

... a bold call.

He claims allied Christian soldiers had no hesitation in killing German (presumably Christian) soldiers and civilians during the Second World War, despite the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers being the battle cry. He ends with this:

If the god in any soldier’s life looms larger than his or her responsibility to Australia, we have a problem.

Meanwhile, one of Howe’s more hysterical colleagues, a certain Andrew Bolt, starts his column by what he sees as the first fact a “real journalist” would tell you to explain why the Fort Hood killer did what he did:

The Fort Hood killer, army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, was a Muslim. He shouted ‘God is great’ in Arabic as he opened fire.

So why question the loyalties of Australian servicemen and women who happen to tick a particular box for religion on their census forms? Is Howe trying to do a Nile?

Perhaps the answer to my question can be found in a fatwa issued by Sheik Rupert bin Murdoch in 2006:

You have to be careful about Muslims, who have a very strong, in many ways a fine, but very strong, religion, which supersedes any sense of nationalism wherever they go.

But how will we tell exactly who is a Muslim? By the colour of their skin? Will a white Bosnian with a Muslim mum and Orthodox dad count as Muslims? Or a white man married to a Muslim woman? Will we know Muslims by what language they speak at home? Most Arabic speakers in Australia are Christian. Again, a fatwa from Ayatollah Murdoch provides guidance: Muslims are the ones with genetic defects from marrying their cousins.

And the best refutation for this bigotry and stupidity comes from Feroze Khan, the father of fallen US soldier Kareem R Khan, who told a journalist:

My son’s Muslim faith did not make him not want to go. It never stopped him … He
looked at it that he’s American and he has a job to do.

Our troops have a job to do. We should allow them to do it and not waste their or our own time with moronic speculations based on isolated incidents.

First published in Crikey on 12 November 2009.



Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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VIDEO: New relief from racial tension headaches ...

A must for all Andrew Bolt readers!

RACIAL TENSION HEADACHE @ Yahoo! Video

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BLOGS: Andrew Bolt's tabloid excuses ...

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

Bolt has a serious dilemna.

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

(At least they will until they are banned!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EVENT: Allah made them hilarious!!

The awesome threesome of Allah Made Me Funny are touring Sydney for the second time. They fly in for a show this Wednesday at the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta before heading off to the World's Funniest Island festival in Sydney Harbour over the weekend for a couple of shows.

Here's the trailer from their movie.



And here is a report from Al-Jazeera English.







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BLOG: Daily Telegraph opinion editor publishes call to virtual Muslim genocide ...

I wonder if Michael Danby will make a speech in Parliament about this.

Tim Blair, far-Right opinion editor of the Sydney tabloid Daily Telegraph, published a comment on his blog that literally calls for Mecca to be destroyed and facilitated all-out war in South Asia and the Middle East involving invasions of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria etc.

Here it is:

The US should have immediately attacked Mecca with a nuclear strike and brought the war to the heart of Islam.

They should have let the Indians off the leash to do what they want with Pakistan and Afghanistan, told the Israelis that they can smash the Jordanians, Syrians and Gypos, then landed half the USMC in Libya and Lebanon and steamrolled east and south until they linked up with the Israelis.

The US Army and the other half of the USMC should have been deployed to the Gulf and launched an invasion of Saudi and Iraq and pushed toward Syria.

Everyone else should have been told to eff off until the job was done and then some.

This is where Bush failed. He was too soft on them. Too soft.

Islam delende est.

murph of Blackheath (Reply)
Sun 13 Sep 09 (12:06am)

Wholesale massacre and genocide. Tim Blair allows it on. He thinks it satisfied his newspaper's moderation policy. His editor Gary Linnell doesn't seem to mind. And the Member for Federal Ports hasn't said a word yet.

But hey, it isn't racist to call for people to be murdered and bombed and turned into compost on the basis of their deemed religion. I mean, religion is a matter of choice, isn't it? And Muslims aren't a race, are they? It ain't genocide, is it?

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: Mr Danby and racist comment moderation ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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HUMOUR: Bolt becomes colour blind ...

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

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

Only racist if whites are punching, not punched

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



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

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



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


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



Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPDATE I: Another priceless Bolt blogpost from yesteryear.

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

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

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

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

1. a Wikipedia entry;

2. a WikiAnswers entry; and

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

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




Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf




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RACISM: Middle Eastern religious leader labels Obama "slave" ...

Here's something you won't find mentioned at Andrew Bolt's blog. The leader of Israel's Shas party recently described US President Barack Obama as a slave.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is regarded as the spiritual leader of Shas, a Jewish fundamentalist party which supports the building of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Yosef was speaking in opposition to pressure from the Obama administration to cease building new settlements in the West Bank.

Here's how one news outlet reports it:

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, has slammed U.S. President Barack Obama, describing him as "a slave" who seeks to rule the world and control Tel Aviv's affairs when it comes to construction of settlements in occupied Jerusalem, reports say.

"American insidiousness tells us to build here and not to build there, as though we were slaves working for them," he said in his weekly sermon Saturday, adding: "We live in a time when slaves are governing us and are trying to control us."

Turning down the Obama administration's request to stop illegal construction of settlements on Palestinian occupied territories, he said: "We are not employees of the Americans.. and Israel does not work for the United States."

Yosef then takes a leaf out of the book of Andrew Bolt and his blog fan club, making a racist attack on Arabs and wishing for their destruction.

The senior Rabbi then addressed the issue of Haram al Sharif (Dome of the Rock) saying: "...and where is our temple? The situation there is cause for grief. There is nothing there but evil Arabs who are occupying our lands…and I hope that the messiah will appear soon to destroy them."

The comments about Arabs were also reported by JTA which for some reason toned them down a little to read ...

Where is our temple? There are Arabs there!

Yosef isn't, of course, representative of mainstream Jewish opinion. Unlike Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair, I won't attempt to sheet home responsibility for his racist statements to Australians who happen to tick the "Judaism" box on their census forms. Nor will I demand that "moderate Jews" everywhere speak out and condemn these remarks, failing which they risk being labelled "Judeo-fascists". I know that Yosef is known for making obscene and imbecilic remarks that have even directly offended Jews.

Born in Iraq in 1920, Yosef is a former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel and a controversial figure who has in the past referred to Arabs and Palestinians as "snakes" and "vipers" who were "swarming like ants" ...

In 2000 he sparked outrage when he said that the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust did "not die for nothing," but were the "reincarnation of Jews who had sinned" in previous generations.

Members of Yosef's party are being linked to a massive money laundering and illegal organ trading investigation by the FBI. Among those whose organs were removed were impoverished Israelis. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports ...

Politicians expect the amount of funds contributed to institutions affiliated with or close to Shas, and its spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, will feel the pinch almost immediately ... One of the major figures arrested in the suspected money laundering case is Rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, who is considered very close to Rabbi David Yosef, one of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's sons ... Another person arrested in the affair is Rabbi Edmund Nahum, who is considered very close to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef himself. Nahum was also involved in raising funds for the Yosef family institutions.

The Israel Police and the Justice Ministry's Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority will soon start investigating the Shas and other Sephardic institutions' yeshivas implicated in the scandal. The investigation may also include the banks suspected of transferring the allegedly tainted funds.

I guess it's hard to be a racist and a financial cleanskin at the same time no matter what your religious affiliation is.