Monday, August 31, 2015

For Whomever Allah wants Goodness

Friday Khutba delivered to HDMS on Friday 28 August 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiOQThVoML8

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Honour and protect your neighbour - Friday Khutba (Sermon) by Keysar Trad, 31 July 2015

Please excuse the stuttering, the speech notes are written in Arabic and I do the English translation on the spot

Ending the Cycle of Minority Blame – Speech by KEYSAR TRAD for the University of Western Sydney conference titled: Advancing Community Cohesion, Towards a National Compact Conference. 15 – 17 July 2015

My respect to the Original custodians of the land and their elders past and present.

Before I cite a few quotes from regular columnists in the major Australian mainstream media who have fuelled the Islamophobia industry in Australia, I would like to offer this insight from Prominent lawyer Julian Burnside, he wrote:  “Right now, Islamophobia is the new antisemitism, and it is dangerous.”

In my spoken speech, I will refrain from using names of those media personalities who perpetuated minority blame, these names and appropriate references are reproduced in the written speech:

The Sydney Morning Herald - Paul Sheehan:
“A de facto world war is under way and it has everything to do with Islam. It is not thousands of lone wolfs. It is not un-Islamic conduct. It involves thousands of Muslims acting on what they believe is their religious duty to subjugate non-believers, as outlined in the Koran.
And the problem is growing, not contracting.”  (11 Jan 15)

In another column he quotes a number of part verses from the Holy Qur’an and part Hadiths and then presents the following ill-conceived conclusion:
“So many Muslims have been encouraged to murder civilians by such exhortations that the rate of violent incidents perpetrated in the name of Islam is staggering, a toll that shows no sign of subsiding.”  (26 May 13)
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/twisting-islam-to-justify-cruelty-20130526-2n535.html#ixzz3fpI4DStv

And towards the end of this same article:
“Not included in the log of violent crimes are the outbreaks of civil violence such as the riots that have rocked Stockholm over the past week, where an urban underclass of predominantly Muslim immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers and their children has erupted in violence, vandalism and attacks on police.” (26 May 2013) (it should be noted that he provides no evidence for the Muslim reference).
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/twisting-islam-to-justify-cruelty-20130526-2n535.html#ixzz3fpIMyYS4

In another article he blames Australians of a Middle Eastern Background for the Cronulla Riots:
“Cronulla, where after yet another assault thousands of people demonstrated about the years of abuse and intimidation from a disconnected, racist, violent, moronic and sexually dangerous subculture.” (13 Jan 2006).

The Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt:
Opens a 14 July 2015 blog post with:
“You might get the impression that many Muslim leaders are treating our police as the real enemy in this battle against Islamist terrorism.
“Whatever the truth of their motivation, such leadership is grotesquely irresponsible and another disturbing sign that Islam may be incompatible with a pluralist and secular country such as ours.”

in an article dated 9 April 2015, he completely misrepresents a University of Melbourne Curriculum study with the following:
“What an offensive corruption of our curriculum. Children are to be taught the fabled best of Islam and the imagined worst of Australia to blind us all to the real challenges Islam poses even to a country that’s peacefully integrated the many more Buddhists here.”
He closes this long article with:
“Only a fool could not see a problem in importing more people from a faith that sets many so apart from, and at odds to, the culture of their host country.”

The same commentator excuses or attempts to rationalise the cold blooded murder by Anders Brievik of 93 Norwegians as being a result of his becoming unhappy about Muslims, he wrote on 25 July 2011:
“Some are left deeply wounded and enraged by a sense of powerlessness and rejection. Which means this is more likely than anything else I’ve seen to be a clue to this explosion of murderous rage:”

Radio 2GB’s Alan Jones:
Here is a selection of his comments about Lebanese Australians over the course of four days towards the end of April 05:
“These mongrels.”
“Lebanese males in their vast numbers not only hate our country and heritage.”
“They have no connection to us.”
 “They simply rape, pillage and plunder a nation that’s taken them in.”
“What did we do as a nation to have this vermin infest our shores?”
“Tell me we don’t have a national security problem in the making.”
“Take the gloves off, and make life a collective hell for these bastards and their followers …”

Nearly eight months later, he or his callers said on air:
“My suggestion is to invite one of the biker gangs to be present in numbers at Cronulla railway station when these Lebanese thugs arrive, it would be worth the price of admission to watch these cowards scurry back onto the train for the return trip to their lairs … Australians old and new shouldn’t have to put up with this scum.”
“Jones: Yeah, good on you John.
John: Now, ah, my grandfather was an old digger and he used to say to me when we were growing up “Listen, shoot one, the rest will run!”
Jones: (laughs)
John: Right?
Jones: (still laughing)”

Rather than standing up for the vilified minorities, both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition come to Jones defence after ACMA found that “Jones was likely to have encouraged violence and vilification of Australians of Lebanese and Middle Eastern background.”

Not to be outdone, the Abbott government promised (that it later dropped in return for more draconian security measures) to introduce a repeal of the racial vilification laws (a move named after one of Australia’s leading Islamophobe)
When Andrew Bolt gets caught out for breaking the racial vilification laws, a conservative coalition promises to change the law to suit him.


Back to the Cronulla Riots, those I have quoted along with other commentators, rather than condemn the racist violence, went on the attack against the backlash from Middle-Eastern Youth youth – and the system followed suit, ME youth getting heavy-handed treatment whilst the rioters received very light treatment.
In addition to the example I quoted earlier from Paul Sheehan, here is a classic example from 2gb’s Brian Wilshire:
“Brian Wilshire: We Australians do not have to apologise for anything. My anger is reserved for the politicians and bureaucrats who conspired to bring in people who were guaranteed to be incompatible and have demonstrated that in every country into which they have moved.

“Francis: Absolutely. Look, I couldn’t agree with you more.

“BW: Many of them have parents who were first cousins, whose parents were first cousins, because of the culture - it’s not a religious thing, it doesn’t say this in the Koran - but it’s a cultural thing for some part of the world to have parents who are very closely related. The result of this is inbreeding, the result of which is uneducationable people, and very low IQ.”


 
2GB, Brian Wilshire, 15th December 2005
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1574242.htm

New Matlida columnist Michael Brull highlights some of the impact of Bolt’s Islamophobic commentary including:
“A man threatened to set a Muslim woman on fire.  When she looked to another man for help, he called her a terrorist.
“Another man entered a mosque and threatened to hit a woman with a chair.  He also threw cement bags at the mosque.  Another Muslim woman was physically attacked and called a “fucking terrorist”.  Another Muslim woman was attacked by a large man, who told her to “go back to where you came from”.  His physical assault broke her arm.”  https://newmatilda.com/2014/11/03/why-we-cant-ignore-andrew-bolt#sthash.LHiwNZ49.dpuf

Of course there are other attacks[1], such as the photographing of a Muslim woman on her way to work and posting her image on social networking and denigrating her and her faith[2], filming Muslim schools[3], inciting people, uploading a youtube clip calling for the killing of prominent Muslims[4] and the creation of a computer game whose object is to Massacre Muslims[5] (and recently in the United States of America, the cold blooded murder of 3 Muslim university students[6]). (additional resources)[7]

Yet as these attacks occur – the call is always for Muslims to dissolve into some sort of ideal that sits in the mind of the political and media antagonists.

They lay all the blame for Muslim discontent on Islam and Muslims – taking no responsibility for the hostile conditions they created which have silenced and forced many members of the Muslim community to the margins making it difficult for many Muslims to find work or a clear sense of belonging.
It would seem that the assimilation demanded by Pauline Hanson is no longer their ambition, Sheehan, Bolt and their ilk seem to no longer be looking for Muslims to assimilate, their commentary is profoundly antagonistic to Islam – and through that, Muslims become unassimilable or incapable of integrating into any majority Western country.
Comments such as: “The killing will go on because jihad is built into the fabric of Arab Islam.”
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/jihad-is-built-into-the-fabric-of-arab-islam-20140806-10142h.html#ixzz3frnm8ZbG
and others quoted earlier make it very clear that there is very little room for Islam in such people’s worldview.
This fixation with Islam seems unquenchable

Groups such as: The Q Society[8], Reclaim Australia[9], the ADL[10] (Australian Defence League), Catch the Fire Ministries look[11] like a neo-crusade against Muslims and columnists such as Bolt and Sheehan along with politicians like Senator Cory Bernardi have supported some of these groups.
We now have a parliamentary enquiry into Halal certification (which the senator instigating the enquiry referred to as a “racket”).  The words Halal, Sharia (the corpus of Islamic teachings), Jihad ( the exertion of effort, the greatest of which is to speak up against tyranny) are increasingly used in a pejorative way in public discourse.
Minorities become easy targets when Othering goes unchecked.  Othering is “The process of perceiving or portraying someone or something as fundamentally different or alien.” https://www.wordnik.com/words/othering

Another important tool in creating acquiescence to minority blame is “Projection”, projection is when one projects his own flaws or societal malaise onto others, you call them out for these flaws as if the flaws were not yours, but theirs.  This is part of the problem – if Jihad is built into the fabric of Arab Islam, then what is built into the fabric of cultures that sees their nations going from one war to another under false or at best dubious pretexts?  They project their violent expansionism by accusing Muslims of doing or trying to do or fantasising about doing the very thing that the dominant culture is doing.  An example is the headline to the 8 Nov 13 blog by Bolt: “First off: our freedom restored to criticise the New Racismhttp://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/first_off_our_freedom_restored_to_criticise_the_new_racism/

The hard truths are never told, these are:
1 – The majority of asylum seekers from the Middle East or Afghanistan are here as a result of either foreign intervention through invasions or through the installation or backing of pliant dictatorial regimes.
2 – Some of our youths get involved in anti-social behaviour because they have fallen victim to the same anti-social behaviour that prevails amongst a section of mainstream youth – this behaviour is not imported it already existed here.  The gang rapes of 2000 are not imported, many women have suffered and continue to suffer from rape, violence and misogyny are also perpetrated by members of the dominant culture and have been so perpetrated for far too long.

The children of the recent wave of migrants didn’t introduce drugs into Australia, drugs had been sold by gangs long before migrant youths started to get drawn into the illicit trade.

Gang violence is not exclusive to a few migrant youths, gang violence existed long before migrant youths were introduced to it – the bikie shootout in 1984 on a street in the Sydney suburb of Milperra left 7 people dead. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/milperra-massacre-the-day-seven-people-were-killed-when-bikies-left-comancheros-to-join-the-bandidos-and-let-hell-loose-on-sydney-streets/story-fni0cx12-1227043760622

Blaming minorities is the laziest and nastiest form of deflection.  It transforms the dominant culture into a bully and ironically, the bully projects his crimes onto his victim through the use of Othering and other tools which the minority has limited means to address or against which to seek redress.
Little wonder that some of those who are “Othered” can start to feel like “the Other.”

I don’t ask these cultural warriors to respect my human rights because their attacks show that this would be the least of their concerns.  They have Othered minorities and blamed these minorities for most of their woes.  I tell them that they are pursuing a false pragmatism that cheats their “utopian” society of our abilities.  Depriving highly capable or highly qualified migrants of access to work in their fields and restricting them to menial work[12] is as much a denial to the host culture as it is to the individuals who belong to the deprived minority.  Similarly, youth who rebel against the system and steer towards anti-social activities could, with the right direction in their formative years, be guided to harness their skills for legitimate pursuits where they can contribute constructively to the society.

This minority blame deprives the host/dominant society/culture from the best fruits of all its citizens (or residents) as it denies a section of citizens opportunities to harness their potential the same way others can.  On the pragmatic level, it is a crime against the very host culture by those warriors who claim to be protecting it and as long as minorities are denied the protections available to the rest of society, the chasm within society will increase, the mistrust will increase and racially motivated crimes will increase.

We need to move from this minority blame for our society to move forward, there has to be a very strong bipartisan approach at the political level.  This is not about political correctness nor about curbing free speech.  However, fanciful blame-shifting against the most vulnerable in society is not free speech, it is bullying, it is denialism and it is a betrayal of society.

After the bipartisan approach to protect the quality of life of all Australians, we need to ensure that anti-vilification laws are accessible, affordable and effective – my personal experience with these laws is that they are costly, take a tremendous length of time and can leave the victim footing a huge bill (as I stand on the brink of bankruptcy for seeking to uphold such laws).  The case of Trad v Jones (the vilification took place in April 2005, ten years later and aspects of the case are still unfinished).  Our legal system showed that the higher the court, the less its judges are likely to understand the vilification laws or to understand the right of minorities to live free from vilification.  (not only did this happen in my own personal experience[13], but a supreme court judge refused to accept the evidence of Mr. Mamdouh Habib[14], a former Guantanamo Bay detainee that he was tortured, this case was overturned on appeal after a major expose of the tortures at Guantanamo came to the attention of the international media).

In addition to these laws, the silent majority needs to speak out, I would say “we”, the silent majority, but I am Othered in this debate, so the silent majority of the dominant culture needs to speak out.

I have heard phrases such as:  the Chinese, the Greeks, the Italians, the Vietnamese or the Catholics had to go through this, now it is the turn of the Muslims.  They talk as if this widespread minority vilification is some sort of an initiation ritual on the way to being accepted as Australian. 
The reality is that vilification of each of these minorities is a shameful blight on our history as a nation, we should have learnt from the time we vilified the Afghan cameleers or the Chinese labourers that such vilification is not in the interest of Australia, but instead, our nation has a history of always projecting its problems on the latest minority to arrive at our shores and that unfortunately shows that we, the majority are not taking the most important lessons from our own history.



[13] http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/nsw/NSWCA/2013/389.html

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/nsw/NSWCA/2013/463.html

Trad v Harbour Radio Pty Ltd (No 2) [2013] NSWCA 477 (23 December 2013)    http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/nsw/NSWCA/2013/477.html This matter went through the Supreme Court of NSW, the NSW Court of Appeal, the High Court of Australia and back to the NSW Court of Appeal.  Four of the judges in the High Court returned the matter to the Court of Appeal to judge the defamation not on the basis of what “Right-thinking Australians” would decide, but rather on the basis of what “Ordinary decent Australians” would decide.  This fine-line indicates that the High Court of Australia would rather describe ordinary decent Australians as being non right-thinking people rather than admit that I was illegally defamed.

UWS speech on countering radicalisation April 2015



Countering the Radicalisation of Muslim Youth

Speech prepared and delivered by Keysar Trad
For the Open Forum

University of Western Sydney


6:00 PM Wednesday 8 April 2015

Parramatta South Campus, Building EZ (Female Orphan School).



Introduction:
Australians, including myself, are concerned about radicalisation in society in general and radicalisation of Muslim youths in particular.  This concern is the main reason that I agreed to prepare this research and present on this topic when I was asked by Dr. Sev Osdovski, the director of Equity and Diversity at the University of Western Sydney.
It is believed that as many as 90 Australians maybe involved in militant activities in Syria and Iraq[i].  Some reports suggest that as many as 150 to 200 Australians are or maybe in Declared Zones and maybe involved in militant activities[ii].
I hope today to have an honest discussion on the topic of countering radicalisation of Muslim youth.  I do not aim to be politically correct this evening, some of what I am going to say is going to make some of you agree with the judge who declared me dangerous.  If you do, then you are a “decent Australian with an average knowledge of the world”, but according to both the High Court and NSW the Court of Appeal, you would not be a “right thinking Australian”.  Because our courts have made a clear statement that “decent Australians” are not “right thinking”[iii].
I wish to make it very clear that as far as I am concerned, the group ISIS is neither Islamic nor can it be described as a State.

Methodology in addressing radicalisation
Turning to our issue of countering radicalisation of Muslim youth, I would like to turn our attention to the simple fact that under normal circumstances, before prescribing a remedy, we need to all understand the backdrop, the real catalyst for radicalisation, only when we acknowledge the reality of these catalysts can we truly prescribe the right treatment to counter this radicalisation.  Denying the root causes is like applying a Band-Aid to an open wound before cleaning and disinfecting it.

What category of radicalisation are we addressing:
By using the term radicalisation, I am referring to the specific phenomenon of joining a militant group.

Is it fair to blame religion:
There are many pundits who blame Islam, in fact an Islamophobia industry has been built around this blame-shifting.  This simplistic finger-pointing at religion will only serve to increase radicalisation, it will not reduce it.  Finger-pointing at the religion of a quarter of humanity only reinforces feelings of victimisation and alienation.
A review of history will clearly show non-religious ideologies to have caused more deaths, more destruction and more bigotry than religion.
Here are a few examples:
The first and second world wars (approximately 70 million people)[vi]
The colonisation of the Americas – (Wikipedia)
Dobyns (1966) estimated a pre-contact population of 90-112 million. Denevan's more conservative estimate was 57.3 million.[18] Russell Thornton (1987) arrived at a figure around 70 million.[19]Depending on the estimate of the initial population, by 1900 the indigenous population can be said to have declined by more than 80%, due mostly to the effects of diseases such as smallpox, measles and cholera, but also violence and warfare by colonizers against the Indians.[vii]
The enslavement of Africans and shipping them to the United States.  Recently revised estimates report numbers of up to 12.5 million free human beings enslaved and transported to the New World with up to 20% that is 2.5 million dying on the way.[viii]
The “settling” of Australia. (to write up)[ix]
In modern times
The Human Trafficking industry (estimated up to 27 million today)[x]
And Alcohol kills 15 Australians  each day (Victoria Health Study)[xv]and 2.5 million people a year worldwide (New York based National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence)[xvi].  Just as an aside before someone tells me that this is a choice: We force people to wear seatbelts for their “Safety”, we force people to drive slowly “for their safety”, we punish people who drink and drive for “safety”, but we don’t stop people from smoking and excessive drinking of alcohol.

Grievances affecting Muslims:
Now let’s turn to grievances specifically targeting Muslims:
The years of wars: Iraq’s first and second and most recent invasions, occupations and wholesale pillaging of the country. Figures vary widely depending on the source.  Professor Francis Boyle in a statement before the Kuala Lumpar War Crimes Tribunal said: “Approximately 3.3 million Iraqis, including 750,000 children, were “exterminated” by economic sanctions and/or illegal wars conducted by the U.S. and Great Britain between 1990 and 2012”[xvii]. 
The invasions and mismanagement of Iraq have been described by author and former Office of Homeland Security staffer, Michael O’Brien as creating the ultimate breeding ground for the Islamic State[xviii].
The scandalous crimes by Blackwater security contractors against the people of Iraq.  Blackwater’s mercenary army is made up of former military personnel from a number of countries around the world.  Blackwater has been accused of unprovoked massacre of at least 17 Iraqi civilians and other crimes.[xix]
The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. It is so difficult to get actual numbers for Afghan casualties.  Much of the information out there is dedicated to coalition casualties and not Afghan casualties, but estimated deaths = 21,000.  The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama)[xx] detailed 17774 death and 29971 wounded, with 2014 being the deadliest year where 3699 were killed and 6849 wounded.  Coalition fatalities from Oct 2001 to 6 Dec 2012, according to the American Government’s Congressional Research Service[xxi] were  2156 US fatalities and 1059 Coalition partners.  This same report gives a figure of Afghan fatalities over the same period as 18068 and many more wounded.
The notorious Gunatanamo Bay torture prison where prisoners were subjected to various forms of torture[xxii], the US Centre for Constitutional Rights listed varied types of torture in a 2006 report, viz:
Psychological Abuse
Physical Abuse
Medical Abuse
Sexual Provocation, Rape, and Harassment
Religious and Cultural Abuse
Pre-Guantánamo Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment
This was institutionalised torture that was kept secret by force of law[xxiii] and when a victim of this torture included his account in a court case in Sydney, the judge refused to believe him[xxiv] and gave a judgement against him.  This was the same judge who found me to be dangerous.[xxv]

The notorious tortures of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib by US troops are well documented with US male and female soldiers taking “selfies”[xxvi] with their victims stripped naked and smeared in faeces or blood and many horrific pictures that detail unspeakable[xxvii] acts of torture. (refer Major General Antonio Taguba’s report)[xxviii]
The Incessant Israeli pogroms against Palestinians, the invasions, arbitrary arrests, home demolitions and illegal settlements and the invasion of neighbouring Lebanon.  Israel ignoring UN resolutions and still getting blind support from key Western nations.  Recently, the United Nations Office of Coordination and Humanitarian Affairs[xxix] found in 2014, the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) saw the worst escalation of hostilities since 1967.[xxx]
The pogroms against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the UN listed them as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world[xxxi], yet it would seem that nothing is done to stop this persecution.  Out of their population of nearly 1 million, 140,000 have been displaced entire villages have been destroyed and the actual death toll is unknown to this day but is estimated to be over 15000[xxxii] over the few months since the June 2012 outbreak in violence.[xxxiii]
The Oppression of Muslims in:
Chechnya, The Russian persecution of Chechen is historic and continues unabated, from Stalin’s mass deportations to Syberia in 1944 where an estimated 1 million Chechen’s were packed into cattle cars[xxxvii] with many dying on route. [xxxviii]
The massacres against Muslims in the Central African Republic, refer Human Rights Watch report “They came to Kill[xl].  Muslims were hacked to death, set on fire, raped, tortured and in some cases, eaten[xli] by Christians.[xlii]  In its call for a Special Criminal Court, HRW states: “Since 2012, extremely serious crimes have been committed in the Central African Republic, constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity. They include murders – including some that were politically and ethnically motivated, massive displacement of the population, and the looting and wide-scale burning of villages.[xliii]

The persecution of Muslims in Sri Lanka[xliv] by Sinhala Buddhists in recent years.
Somalia, where the US kept fighting unfriendly groups until they ended up creating the feared al-Shabab and where ordinary citizens continue to get persecuted.  Whilst the media is quick to report al-Shabab atrocities, we hear nothing about Somali women and girls being sexually abused by African Union soldiers[xlv] on their bases.  It would seem that Somalis aren’t even safe from the “peacekeeping” forces..  HRW also reports: “Both al-Shabaab and the forces arrayed against it—a combination of Somali government security forces, troops with the African Union Mission in Somalia, Ethiopian government forces, and allied militias—committed abuses, including indiscriminate attacks harming civilians and arbitrary arrests and detentions.”
The military coup in Egypt[xlvi] where civilian protestors were shot and killed by government forces and numerous protestors were arbitrarily arrested and incarcerated, where opposition supports are harassed, raped and killed. (and little over 2 decades earlier the military coup against the democratically elected government in Algeria[xlvii]).
Uzbekistan, where a brutal dictator by the name of “Islam” Karimov, a friend to both George Bush[xlviii] and Barak Obama[xlix], boils his opponents and is accused of massacring hundreds of peaceful protestors.[l]
The impunity enjoyed by the despots in these countries is probably what encouraged the leaders in Bangladesh[li]to suppress Muslim protestors leading to the death, arrests of many and the executions of political opponents.
Syria – the conflict that has drawn a number of Australians - has suffered the worst repression since the peaceful protests of 2011, the United Nations has described the situation in Syria as “the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world today”[lii].  This crisis has seen more than 9 million people internally displaced and several million taking refuge in neighbouring countries.  According to the United Nations, 191,000[liii] reported deaths. The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates 85,000 cases[liv] of enforced disappearances, including women and children.  The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights[lv] has found that some of the cases of enforced disappearance were of people taken out of medical facilities and others taken at checkpoints whilst they were on their way to seek medical attention.  The inability of the international community to address this humanitarian Crisis has been a major driving factor in drawing young people from all around the world to address this crisis.

By now you get the picture of the inability of the international community to set its priorities when it comes to saving human lives.  However, this is not my topic, this brief introduction is meant to outline some of the pressing problems that in one way or another contribute to the radicalisation of youths.
Having said this, I am not putting all the blame on Foreign policy, it is but one factor of many, I will address the main local factors now.

Australian Muslims do not want their children radicalised:
The families who have lost children to the modern paradigm of radicalisation are very very happy that our nation, like many other nations, has made this issue a higher priority than alcohol or passive smoking deaths, or even any of the atrocities that I had already mentioned.  These families hope that this extra attention will somehow bring their children back.

Local factors as catalysts for radicalisation:
When we look to more local factors that feed into the Anger, the frustration, the inability to get an audience for your concerns, some real, some imagined – the general gloom and despair over an uncertain future – we find:
          a growing sense of injustice, (examples provided later).
a vitriolic media[lvi], (of course not all the media is vitriolic, it is sections or segments, and not all shock jocks are vitriolic, it is some of them, but the vitriol has been used as a very effective tool in fear-mongering and thereby marginalisation).
opportunistic political commentary[lvii],
the shortage of employment opportunities leading to a higher rate of unemployment amongst Muslim youths, (refer footnote xix)
regular reports of harassment of Muslim women[lviii], and
the years of systemic discrimination – some imagined – but much of it is real.
All the above factors compound to different extents the sense of victimisation and alienation amongst youths in general and Muslim youths in particular.  All these factors compound to make people feel that they have been robbed of a sense of belonging and that their dignity has been severely threatened.
Q society[lix], catch the fire ministries[lx] or any other group that brings notorious Islamophobes[lxi] (such as Girt Wilders, Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali to name a few) to Australia to speak about Islam is a group that ends up creating further division in Australian society, further misinformation and thereby ends up alienating Australians from other Australians, especially Muslims.
These groups, along with the radical elements in our media and political establishment have created an Islamophobic industry that generates a following for them and thereby a type of income.  Their misinformation makes it clear that they are not interested in the facts about Islam.  The fact that they distort realities to project a paradigm that this trickle of Muslims who are a minor fraction of 1% of the nearly 2 billion Muslims around the world is somehow the true representative this great religion and that the rest of the Muslims are waiting for an opportunity to do likewise.  This is not true, but as untrue as this myth is, it does appeal to the lowest common denominator in society which ends up feeding into the cycle of division, mistrust, alienation and the loss of a sense of belonging.

Political sophistry is also a factor:
Further, when people in general see the extracts from the 251,287 leaked wikileaks cables[lxii] and the subsequent persecution of heroic whistle-blowers[lxiii] like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden over their crucial revelations, people start to understand that our “free world” is governed through sophistry and deception.  This is enough to make many people completely lose their trust in the systems around them. 

Zero tolerance and double standards:
Add to the aforementioned, the authorities who for years practised zero tolerance up to mid 2000[lxiv], the judiciary that sentences Muslims to extended prison time but ignores (the creator of Muslim Massacre[lxv] and the ADL (Australian Defence League) or its offshoots who published a kill list of five leading Australian Muslims, not one of these people has been charged or prosecuted over these crimes, but a Muslim producing a book of articles collected over the internet outlining that in times of war, the political leaders of the invading nation can be targeted is now languishing in gaol (Bilal Khazal)).  The system that pursues Muslims over any whisper, but ignores the likes of talkback shock jocks and tabloid commentators who are constantly polarising views and dividing society and turning Australians against fellow Australians is a system that loses the confidence of its persecuted victims.
Groups like the ADL, Reclaim Australia, the Q society, Catch the Fire Ministries and the Christian Democratic Party are all able to profit from the Islamophobia industry with complete impunity.  Former or current members of the ADL are suspected of publishing a Youtube clip targeting 5 Australian Muslim leaders for elimination, a year later, we don’t hear of one person being prosecuted over this kill list.  We kept this out of mainstream media to deny this group airtime, but the video clip is available.
Then there is the case of the medical student[lxvi] for whom a new law was introduced with retrospective effect.  He was incarcerated, kept in solitary for five weeks, eventually, the court threw out his case, but not before he endured the cruelty of an Islamophobic apparatus that operates with impunity.
Contrast his case with the former president of the Northern Territory Labor party who was released without charge on his return to Australia after he “joined Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic state”.  This is a clear breach of the Foreign States Incursions Act.  We don’t know if this person was paid for his services, if so, he is not ideological, but if he wasn’t, then the much more serious question arises:  If this conflict can incite intelligent, educated grown men to go and fight, then its effect on victimised youth will be even greater.  I have been condemned by a Kurdish Australian for calling for the law to be applied evenly in this case.  Let me clarify, I support the human rights of the Kurdish people, but the issue is about the uneven application of our laws that feeds into the sense of injustice, alienation and marginalisation.  Now the question, why is the Kurdish Australian who condemned me able to openly call for people to fight alongside the Kurds – who were a listed terrorist group only a short time ago – without being exposed to our new counterterrorism laws?
These duplicitous standards in our various law enforcement apparatus in Australia add to the sense of victimisation and alienation amongst Muslims..

In the midst of this – we have young Muslims whose parents came to Australia either as part of the brain drain[lxvii] or that other category that can be described as “flight for your life” migrant or refugee.  Many of these youths are left feeling that they had been robbed of nationality and the important sense of belonging – They look to fit in whilst searching to protect their dignity. 
Try and develop an Islamic Centre to cater to the needs of Muslim youths and you find the invasion anxiety rearing its head, neighbourhoods mobilise, a simple development application that should be routine ends up stealing the imagination of communities and adding to the feelings of victimisation.[lxviii]

The arguments and the enticements:
It is hard to argue with a young person who starts to cite all these issues – you can see the fire in their bellies – you in fact feel the same fire yourself, but you have learnt that you can only quench it the hard way, the time-consuming, stress-filled way because you know that every arena has its unique terrain and its own terms of engagement.

This is not to suggest that young people, even adults fully comprehend these grievances, but this long list – which is by no means exhaustive – does raise numerous causes of concern for members of a beleaguered community who witness regular persecutions of varying natures.

These are the very catalysts that groups like ISIS use to win recruits, ISIS does not say: Join us to save the Rohingya, they may or may not know or care about the Rohingya or many of these causes.  Their biggest appeal to youths is: Join us and you will belong, you will not be discriminated against, you can go wild, let loose your facial hair and you become the law.

Media responsibility:
The media laps it up – when they show an image of a young person whose family is praying for his safe return, standing before a large group of armed men, as if the new recruit – barely out of Australia - is now a leader of an entire platoon.  This young person who could not get any meaningful audience for his concerns is now addressing an entire nation from the Prime Minister down and making a list of demands.  If you are a young person feeling the victimisation, this clip is a very appealing sense of empowerment[lxix], and our media made sure that this clip reached as many people as possible. 
The media in lapping this up and propagating the fear are also serving the recruitment drive of ISIS, they are getting ISIS’ message to a broader audience.  Then, media commentators try to use this to justify the false cliché: Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.  They seem to have a very short memory and they forget the IRA, the Basque separatist and the many other groups that continue to commit acts of terror to this very day.[lxx]
Islamophobic rants in the media have also led many Muslim Australians to have a complete distrust of the mainstream media.  This mistrust is best described in the below.  Please note that I have attempted to simplify the argument to its basic elements:

Reality
Reality
Perception
Media says that I am bad because I am a Muslim
I know that I am not bad, I am good.
Media tells lies to sell its product
Media tells me that ISIS are committing atrocities
This media lied about me, so it coule be lying about ISIS
Media tells lies to sell its product
ISIS tells people that it is trying to establish an Islamic State and implement Shariah.
The media tells people that ISIS wants an Islamic State and Shariah
The Media is criticising the idea of Islamic State and Shariah, therefore, the media is criticising Islam

The media might succeed in convincing those amongst their mainstream readership whose knowledge of Islam might be contaminated by years of Islamophobic reporting[lxxi].  However, this irresponsible media commentary infuriates Muslims and infuriates those who believe it, it creates serious rifts and thereby animosity and Islamophobic attacks on innocent Muslims[lxxii].  This irresponsible antagonistic approach to Muslims perpetuating the cycle of mistrust, suspicion, lack of belonging and alienation which can lead to radicalisation.
If I was to present imagery of atrocities and blame them on Muslims, many people will believe without evidence.  However, if these images were to be blamed on let’s say Blackwater, or US troops[lxxiii] and I will be required to provide very extensive evidence.

The vast majority of Muslims have resisted radicalisation:
Most Muslims have not made the move to radicalism or militancy.  The vast majority of Muslim leaders and scholars worldwide have condemned the actions of ISIS.  Muslim parents worldwide dread the appeal of ISIS and pray earnestly that their children are not deceived into ISIS’ Siren calls.
But a trickle has been impacted and this trickle estimated between 90 and 200 Muslim youths have left Australia and are feared to have aligned with militant groups overseas.  The vast majority of youths have succeeded in resisting the radicalisation catalysts and I thank Allah for that.

How do we counter the Siren’s call to radicalisation?
Former Grand Mufti of Australia, Sh. Taj Aldin Alhilali, has published books on the topic of de-radicalisation in the Arabic language told me when I put the question to him that he would start by telling young people about their varying levels of responsibility, viz:
·       Responsibility towards their own personal safety and wellbeing, and
·       Responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of those around them.  Islam teaches a principle of “No Harm”.
This is a very important starting point, we need to build on this advice by ensuring that society meets its responsibility towards the needs of its own citizens, the principle in Islam is that every person is responsible for their own actions and not the actions of others.
Although the level of self-control this advice requires is exacerbated by the various inequalities that Muslim youths face, we can see that the vast majority we need to couple this advice with essential positive action that can only be administered at the level of government.
There is no one quick fix for all these problems, but apart from Islamic education to our youths, we need our authorities to start with implementing policies and procedures that ensure:
Fairness, especially in employment opportunities, various studies have found a disproportionately higher rate of unemployment amongst Muslim youths in Australia.[lxxiv]
Egalitarianism and equal access,
Empowerment through the political process, that is, to educate youths through their schooling that they can bring about policy change through proper peaceful political representation, and
Addressing each and every concern that I raised above individually, so far, our government has responded with increased security measures including declared zones that practically reverse the onus of proof, passport cancellations, profiling at airports and harassment of Muslim passengers (75,906 people likely to be all Muslims harrassed at our airports from August last year to February this year[lxxvi]).  These government responses, rather than fixing the problem actually exacerbate it because they add to the feeling of victimisation and disempowerment.

Some of these steps were followed by the contemporary Libyan Muslim scholar Sheikh Dr. Ali Al Sallabi[lxxvii].  Dr. Al Sallabi engaged with 6 of the most senior insurgent leaders in Libya during the time of the Gadafi regime and managed to convince them of the error their ways purely by countering their arguments with religious references.  Dr. Al Sallabi was so successful in fact that the 6 wrote a book pointing out the error of their previous ways and expressing remorse and repentance.  The book is title can be translated as: Corrective studies to understanding Jihad, Hisba (accountability) and passing judgment on people.  These six leaders also took upon themselves the responsibility of reaching out to their former followers to bring them to the same understanding as reported by Carnegie Endowment[lxxviii].

Part of the success of Dr. Al Sallabi is also owed to a mindset that the radicals were “his people”, his “fellow citizens”.  This mindset projects a notion of care.  He is helping de-radicalise these individuals not just to save others from their harm (the second point made by Sh. Hilali above), but also to save them and save their souls (the first point referenced by Sh. Hilali).  Because no decent person wants the death of an innocent on his conscience.


Post Scriptum:
1 – In the delivered speech, I did summarise a precept that Muslims are not permitted to transgress or initiate hostilities, that we welcome peaceful debate.  I did add that however, if our opponents resort to non-peaceful means, we do reserve the right to defend ourselves in and retaliate in kind.

2 – As to be expected, the Islamophobic industry in Australia, instead of seeing this research as an earnest attempt to address their projected fears and concerns have attacked this speech.  The first attack I witnessed was in twitter abuse that was sent to me, then in letters to the editor (the editor chooses which letters to publish)[lxxix], and an article by one of Australia’s leading Islamophobes.  Not to be outdone, another Islamophobe[lxxx] also put out an article on his blog and a TV presenter verballed me[lxxxi] by manipulating my words and extrapolating a fallacy after hurling several derogatory remarks against me[lxxxii].  Oddly, none of these three culprits picked up the phone to ask me for clarification, they merely embarked on a character assassination rant.  Rather than addressing the problem, the Islamophobia industry has proved my assertion that they exploit everything to perpetuate Islamophobia and choose to live in denial as to the ramifications of their irresponsible actions.
The Islamophobia industry is responsible to a large extent for the rift within Australian society and until Australia is able to introduce laws to promote harmony and protect minorities from vilification, more and more Australians are going to feel alienated and victimised.  The majority will, as they have, continue to be patient and persevere, but some will say enough is enough and look for elsewhere to find a place to belong.

3 – I did not make mention in this speech of the use of “unmanned drones[lxxxiii]”, the intervention in Pakistan[lxxxiv] or Nicaragua[lxxxv] or the bombs dropped by the USA on Hiroshima or Nagasaki[lxxxvi] or the Vietnam[lxxxvii] or Korean[lxxxviii] wars though all these are very significant, as it stands, the list of injustices is very long.



Secret US endorsement of severe interrogations: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?_r=1&ei=5090&en=8d75a80eddaf32b7&ex=1349150%20400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&

[lvi] Andrew Bolt:

Paul Sheehan

Alan Jones

Jim Ball
http://jimball.com.au/islamic_issues.htm (This is from his own website, so he could edit it without notice)

I had intentionally left Piers Akerman out of this list up until he published an article on Sunday 12 April 2015 attacking this research.  I had left him out because of the prolific nature of the Islamophobic rhetoric by those above, but it would seem that his actions would earn him a place here: HTTP://WWW.DAILYTELEGRAPH.COM.AU/NEWS/OPINION/PIERS-AKERMAN-MUSLIM-GRIEVANCE-IS-A-SELF-SERVING-EXCUSE/STORY-FNI0CWL5-1227299982447