Irfan Yusuf is a lawyer, award-winning author, commentator and humorist. His comic memoir "Once Were Radicals: My Years As A Teenage Islamo-fascist" was published in May 2009. He currently lives in Sydney where he is completing his doctorate.
During the period of 2005 to 2010, when I was writing regularly and prolifically, some interesting characters were taking quite a deal of notice. For instance, the Cairns author of the Winds of Jihad blog had been following me almost obsessively. He calls himself Sheik Yermami, and the chap clearly has taken a liking for my work. Here are some descriptors he's used to describe me ...
Serial dreck-blogger ... muselmanic master of spin ... the Pretend-Christian ... Australia’s sharia-shyster ... Islamo agit prop ... If the Fed’s are not onto him yet, concerned readers should bring it to their attention. Irfan should at least be on a watch list. His incitement could have worked. The stirring could have resulted in hundreds, if not thousands of Yusuf’s co-religionists running amok, smashing stuff and killing people ... a fanatical Muslim ... We know that the Manchurian candidate Hussein Obama is a Muzz and a fraud. We know what he represents, and we don’t want any of it.
See, I told you he likes me. But even more endearing is that he has commissioned a cartoonist to illustrate me in various poses.
Here's me as presumably a member of the Taliban. Either that, or as the Indian Prime Minister in his pj's.
Here's me engaging in ... er ... a mass debate with a bunch of portraits on my wall.
Here's me engaging in similar activity, except that I have been mysteriously transformed into an orthodox Jew.
Like hey, Sheik, what's wrong with Jews?? Here's me as an SS officer.
Here's me with Waleed Aly, Anthony Mundine and certain other blokes.
Here's me visiting a mosque on Uluru. Yeah, right. As if I'm fit enough to climb that!
Here's me hanging out with some Indian barrister.
Here's my favourite.
And finally, here's Sheik Yermami's dream-come-true scenario as far as my Australian citizenship is concerned.
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.
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 berealFrenchmen.Marshall Philippe Benoni Petainunderstood 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 likeBacary SagnaorAbou Diabyinto their national side. The French only allow realactualFrenchmen likeFranck Riberyto be their football saviours, not a bunch ofnon-Christian immigrants. Anyone who disagrees deserves to beheadbutted 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 knowhow welcomethese 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.
The following article was first published in NewMatilda on 30 April 2009.
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Political satirist PJ O'Rourke was warmly welcomed by conservatives on his recent visit to Australia. That is, until he cracked that joke about how we should open our borders to asylum seekers.
The problem with the Right is not that it is at odds with progressives or Democrats. The problem with the Right is that it is at odds with reality. It is at odds with facts, with evidence, with science. And that’s why it has been so dangerous. And that’s why it has been so discredited.
That assessment of the Right by former Republican Party partner (and now new-media matriarch) Arianna Huffington before the last US presidential election might easily be applied to Australian conservatives, be they political parties, publications or even think-tanks.
But Australian conservatism has a different kind of parochialism to its American equivalent. Our conservatives aren’t just pro-life and pro-war simultaneously, nor are they uniformly anti-science and obsessed with the teaching of "intelligent design" in schools. Our conservatives manifest their parochialism somewhat differently.
When they’re not beating their chests about religious and cultural issues, some conservatives prefer to pretend they’re radical by challenging what they see as the new orthodoxy of a nebulous group known as "the Left". The editorial writers for The Australian, that elite bastion of anti-elitism, heralded the arrival of American humorist PJ O’Rourke in an editorial published on 25 April. They claimed that "much of what [O’Rourke] said this week would have upset supporters of the accepted wisdom" in relation to the free market and the role of governments in helping us out of the recession. Unlike Kevin Rudd, and like New Zealand’s PM John Key, O’Rourke understands that "economics is about the way the world is, not the way we want it to be".
Janet Albrechtsen, leaping at the opportunity to talk about how clever and witty the Right can be, gleefully cajoled"the hard left of politics" (as in one Margot Saville) to "laugh with us". PJ’s visit is perhaps the first time she’s had a good laugh since her "man of steel" lost the federal election and his own seat, and since US voters elected a man whom Janet’s side of politics doesn’t exactly like.
Still, why should I be surprised? I mean, who better than the employees of an American-owned newspaper to toast a visiting American? I myself am not an American, nor am I employed by Americans. Indeed, the only passport I’ve ever held is an Australian one, and I’m not about to give it up even for the pleasure of owning a few US media assets. But as a long-time fan of PJ O’Rourke, I also wish to join in the chorus of those having a good chuckle at his gags.
However, my aim isn’t to laugh with Janet Albrechtsen and her buddies. Rather, I want to laugh at them. Janet has been among those leading the charge against nasty Afghan, Iraqi and Sri Lankan asylum seekers jumping the invisible (and indeed fictitious) queue and paying people smugglers to transport them to our shores.
PJ happily challenged supporters of the accepted conservative wisdom on asylum seekers and miscellaneous dark-skinned riff-raff when he appeared on ABCTV’s Q&A program last Thursday. In what was a very wise and very funny performance, O’Rourke’s analysis on the show about how we should deal with asylum seekers outshone even David Marr’s.
So what does PJ say about asylum seekers? What does he say about how conservatives in America deal with the issue? While fellow panellist Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop was frothing at the mouth that "since last August there has been an increase in the number of people arriving by boat" and how "the people smugglers are back in business", PJ had this to say:
You know, we in the States have much, much more experience with being all wrong about immigration than you do. I mean 36,000 you said in Italy? … We laugh. That’s a day in the United States. And we are so wrong about it. I mean, build a fence on the border with Mexico, give a huge boost to the Mexican ladder industry, you know […] the thing is when somebody gets on an exploding boat to come over here - they’re willing to do that to get to Australia - you’re missing out on some really good Australians if you don’t let that person in.
With righteous indignation, Julie Bishop made some indistinct noises about smugglers. To which PJ responded:
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. You know, if you open your borders, you don’t have people smugglers.
Then PJ did something that will probably put him in the bad books of many in Australia’s conservative establishment. He actually suggested Indigenous people might have something to say about all this.
I’m not seeing any Aborigines on the panel here. I am not a Comanche or a Sioux. You know, my people came over to the United States in a completely disorganised way. Doubtless by way of people smugglers […] I really believe in immigration … Let them in. Let them in. These people are assets. [O]ne or two of them might not be, but you can sort them out later … Oh, I think conservatives are getting this wrong all over the world, I really do.
And when Bishop finally pleaded for an "orderly migration system", O’Rourke wondered whether such a system would have turned back his ancestors.
O’Rourke’s commonsense approach may be the kind of feel-good pinko-lefty elitist inner-city nonsense one would expect of the Fairfax/ABC cabal. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why, when the Australian had so much else to say in support of PJ’s take on the world, that paper didn’t even canvass, let alone champion, PJ’s views on asylum seekers. Weren’t the jokes funny enough? Or is PJ just one of those "moralising elites"? Do Janet and her colleagues lack a sense of humour? Or (to use Huffington’s analysis), are they simply at odds with facts, with evidence and with reality?
Why is Fred Nile's self-styled Christian Democratic Party running 9 candidates for the Lower House seat of Bradfield? Maybe because the average human brain has 9 times the amount of power as the average CDP brain.
Certainly whoever came up with the following questionnaire didn't have much grey matter to play with.
The most important political (as opposed to theological) issue for the CDP is affirming that Jesus Christ is the son of God. The New Testament may call upon us to render to Caeser what is owed to Caeser, but Fred wants us to render all to his CDP's theocratic dogma.
Then there is Fred Nile's reference to "brave Israel". We need to back it even if it means "blockading Iran". And what dorm should this blockade take? Perhaps the kind of blockade which the people of Bethlehem currently enjoy?
But the most hilarious is Fred's call for free "4G" mobile calls and free data. Fred's really up with the technology. No doubt Fred will soon change his mind when he finds out just how much more widespread porn will become.
Still, all this does raise an interesting question for neurological research - just how little of one's brain is required to vote for any one of the nine CDP candidates in the Bradfield ballot?
I’m sure readers will remember that show National Bingo Night. Readers of South Asian heritage will have particularly fond memories of the Bingo Commissioner who kicked so many goals for their ancestral culture in Australia with this classic performance.
How could we ever not forget?
Dr Tanveer Ahmed had more than just failed TV game shows in his comedic repertoire. Indeed, perhaps his best comic performance has been convincing the neo-Conservative Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) that he is also an eminently qualified to be appointed a visiting fellow with research interests in:
… Islamic affairs, South Asia and the health sector.
Ahmed’s expertise in and contributions to psychiatry are well documented. His latest contribution to Islamic affairs (whatever that phrase means) consists of a review of the book by yours truly, published in the Spring 2009 edition of Policy magazine published by the CIS.
Normally I wouldn’t waste $9.95 on this allegedly intellectual magazine. However, it had one of my all-time favourite writers - PJ O’Rourke - on the cover. Yet as I found out after I had parted with my cash, all they had from PJ was an interview he did with some bloke who does a radio show on Radio National. I could have just as easily read the same interview online on the ABC website for free! Indeed, I had already downloaded the podcast back in May!!
Anyway, Ahmed’s review makes interesting reading for his complete objectivity. He sticks to the issues. He avoids making personal attacks. He’s not interested in innuendo. Consider this paragraph:
Yusuf also fits the profile of those vulnerable to radicalisation in other ways, for it is the socially awkward who are most likely to turn to Islamist teachings for a sense of social connectedness, in much the same way that other disaffected adolescents may become punks or Goths. Yusuf writes of being bullied because of the colour of his skin while in primary school. He is also obese. In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, an Iranian blogger captured it beautifully when he describes the religious police as ‘those young men least likely to ever attract the opposite sex but then find the government tells them they are special and gives them guns to prove it.’
Ahmed continues with this prediction:
Yusuf will remain controversial and disliked by many, including some Muslims.
Yes, I am disliked by the likes of Keysar Trad, Andrew Bolt, Mark Steyn, Daniel Pipes, Tim Blair and Tanveer Ahmed. The latter two seem to relish making references to my physique. It is true. I am fat. Still, my message to them is ...
And for some ailments there is NOOOOOOOOOOOO cure. Not even if you are a medical practitioner.
UPDATE I: Speaking of Daniel Pipes, Ahmed's review describes Pipes as a "US Middle East expert". Ahmed famously shared the podium with Pipes arguing the proposition that Islam and democracy are incompatible. To argue that Islam and democracy are incompatible implies that Muslims cannot live as productive citizens in a democracy. Given that Pipes seems to believe that Barack Obama was (and possibly still is) a Muslim, one wonders how Pipes can explain a current or former Muslim now becoming President of arguably the world's most successful democracy.
UPDATE II: An interesting discussion on Tanveer's review can be found at the blog of Policy editor Andrew Norton here.
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.
