SPORT/RELIGION: We can slap away Eddie McGuire's 'mussie' comment. The real problem is the use of 'footy'

Australian Muslims have a sense of humour and no problem being likened to insects; what gets me is calling Australian rules "footy". 

What on earth was Collingwood boss Eddie McGuire on about when he described Victorian Sports Minister John Eren as a "Mussie"? Or should that be "Mossie"? Or is this the new slang for "Muslim"?

And why should non-AFL people like myself care?

Because apparently McGuire was being racist. And racism affects us all. Apart from Muslims, of course. Muslims aren't a race but rather some invading alien species from the Planet Gsjhtr%$hj.

Personally I don't see what the big deal is. It isn't the first time I've been named an extremely annoying insect.

At my all-boys Anglican Cathedral school, there were three non-Anglicans who wore our non-believing hearts on our sleeves. Brian was Jewish, Tim was an atheist though his Catholic heritage made him a non-believer among super-low-church Anglicans. I was the Muslim.

We'd give our school chaplain hell, but we also happily threw dirt at each other using unfortunate stereotypes. When the stereotypes no longer stuck, we had to use more novel approaches.

One morning, Tim approached me all excited. "I killed one of your type in the shower yesterday. I slapped him dead just as he was about to bite me and suck my blood." I was confused. Tim clarified with a question.

Aren't you a Mossie?

Brian made sure everyone in our year knew Tim's new terminology. Soon blokes would find a mosquito buzzing around in the playground, point to it and ask my permission.

Do you mind if I flatten one of your cousins

? Another would remark:

How come you never seem to have mosquito bites? Oh yeah, I forgot. They never attack their own.

Some years later at university, I befriended an Anglo-Australian Muslim convert. Dave who had been around the mosque and religious organisation scene for more than a decade. Like many converts during the 1980s, Dave was not made to feel very welcome in a scene dominated by "ethnic" Muslims who treated converts with disdain or distrust.

Convert experiences were very similar to those of young Muslims like myself who resented religious spaces that treated Islam as cultural relics of life "back home".

I mentioned to Dave about how I was referred to as a "Mossie" at school. He had a good chuckle.

Mate, that's nothing. One of the earliest converts in Sydney was a bloke named Yusuf. He was doing a PhD and was organising activities for converts.

Yusuf understood that converts were often subject to pressure from fringe Muslim groups. He knew converts needed educational programs that reflected Australian norms so he produced a newsletter which was sent to more than 500 converts across the country. It was the 1970s and with no email or Facebook back then, it was all cut and paste and licking stamps onto handwritten envelopes. The newsletter was for Australian Muslims, for Muslims who saw Islam as something for Australia and not just a carbon copy of whatever was happening in Ankara or Lahore or Tripoli.

And the name of this publication? The Aussie Mossie.

Apparently the subheading was: "Watch out or we'll bite!"

Yes, Australian Muslims had a sense of humour, an understanding of Australian abbreviation and even an ability to rhyme. Muslims have been happily describing themselves as "Mossies" for more than four decades. So much for not integrating.

Nowadays, the biggest group of Muslims here are those born in Australia. Most of us are Aussie Mossies.

Thanks to events happening overseas, we're getting a rough ride. We're told to say our faith is one of peace like we really mean it. Our ladies are subjected to both domestic violence at home and non-domestic violence on public transport. Across the country, crowds of thugs and neo-Nazis are holding rallies to reclaim the country from us.

There are some real haters out there. But I'm not sure if Collingwood boss Eddie McGuire is one of them.

For starters, spotting the Sports Minister as a Turk isn't something that should come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about McGuire. Seriously, McGuire grew up in Broadmeadows. He knows a Turk when he sees one.

But there is one thing I'm deeply offended about, not so much as a Muslim and as a decent human being. The story about McGuire's comments was placed on the Fairfax website headed "REAL FOOTY".

Fancy describing a game where huge men wear tiny shorts as footy, let alone real footy. I'm deeply offended and demand an apology.

And if it's true that the minister prefers to play "soccer", well I'm happy he leads by example. Because REAL footy is played throughout the world with feet, not hands.

Irfan Yusuf is a PhD candidate at Deakin University and has no interest in AFL. He is the author of Once Were Radicals: My Years as a Teenage Islamo-Fascist. This article was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 11 August 2015.

VIDEO: Final reflections on the World Cup result ...

Thanks to EH.

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POLITICS/UK: BNP wants to set up a penal colony ...

Well, it looks like Nick Griffin, the Grand Ayatollah of the British Nazi Party (BNP) wants to be a serious contender in the upcoming UK elections. And his policies? Well one involves establishing a penal colony.

A future Queen's Speech written by ... Griffin ... would include legislation to make beer cheaper in British pubs, introduce formal bank holidays for all national saints' days and reintroduce capital punishment for drug dealers and child murderers. Householders would be allowed to defend their property by "whatever means necessary" and a penal station for extremely dangerous criminals (including rapists) would be built on the British island of South Georgia. Out would go wind turbines and foreign aid and in would come a new high-speed 200mph magnetic levitation inter-city rail network. Traffic congestion would be brought under control by curbing the "immigration invasion".

Why send British illegals to South Georgia? Why not send them to Sydney? Heck, we already have tens of thousands of illegals working here anyway. Let them do some hard labour in the market research phone rooms of Chippendale and Manly. Let them suffer in the heat of Wilderness Society bear suits as they ply for donations on the city streets. And let them weep and gnash their teeth oceans away from home as they watch us colonials cheer and laugh as England is defeated by New Zealand in the World Cup in South Africa.

Read more about Griffin's nutty agenda here.

SPORT: Palestine scores a goal on home soil ...

While Israelis look set to elect the anti-peace Likud Party, the Palestinians will be cheering their national football (i.e. soccer, for all you NRL/AFL/Rugby freaks) team which played its first game on home soil on Sunday. Previously its fixtures have all been played in one of the Gulf States.

The friendly game is against Jordan, whose population is majority Palestinian, meaning people on both sides will likely be supporting the same team. Ironically, Palestine coach Izzat Hamza is Jordanian.

The Jordanians arrived over the weekend in ar-Ram, just outside Jerusalem, to play at the newly-built Faisal Husseini Stadium that seats some 6,000 people and whose pitch is made from waterlogged synthetic grass. Its construction was financed by France, Saudi Arabia and Gulf states as part of FIFA’s GOAL program which assists the national teams of impoverished and soccer-crazy countries. Other beneficiaries have included the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan (collectively known as Futbolistan).

Palestine is ranked 180th in the world. Still, that didn’t stop FIFA head Sepp Blatter from cutting the ribbon and sticking around to watch the game. Palestine was defeated by China in its last game by 3 goals to 1, and hence didn’t qualify for the 2010 South Africa World Cup. Neighbour Israel is still in its qualification stage.

Palestine was given nation status by FIFA in 1996. The old Palestine Football Asociation, formed in 1928, consisted almost exclusively of Jewish players and was predecessor to the Israeli FA. Although the modern PFA represents teams and players from both the West Bank and Gaza, the Gazans cannot take part in the Palestinian competition due to a stricter Israeli blockade which has been in place since forces close to HAMAS seized control of Gaza from the forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestine’s official competition has felt the brunt of the Israeli occupation. Previous club games have been affected by the opening and closing of Israeli checkpoints, with players and supporters stranded. The friendly game against Jordan was no exception, with the stadium close to the so-called barrier that separates Israel and parts of the West Bank from other parts of the West Bank. Hopefully, the game will have served as a nice diversion. As Palestine’s team captain Rami Rabi told The Guardian: “Whatever happens, we intend to give the fans two hours of happiness to forget about their problems”.

And who won the match? Well, it was a draw. Still, the Palestinians did score the first goal. What an electric moment that must have been for the entire nation.