Friday Khutba delivered to HDMS on Friday 28 August 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiOQThVoML8
Monday, August 31, 2015
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
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
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
“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
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 Racism”
http://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:
Naziism (R. J. Rummel, in a study published by
the University of Hawaii gives a figure of 20,946,000 people killed)[iv]
Communism under Stalin (estimated to have killed 20 million
people and his involvement in the second world war cost another 20 million
lives)[v]
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 drug trade (UN Office on Drug and Crime estimates
200,000 Heroin, Cocaine and other drug related deaths a year)[xii]
Passive smoking (according to the World Health
Organisation kills 600,000 people a year including 165,000 children)[xiv]
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:
China (where Imams are forced to tell youths
that prayer is harmful to health[xxxiv]) refer also to Human Rights Watch’s
report “Devastating Blows: Religious
Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang”[xxxv],
HRW reports that “The
Chinese government is directing a crushing campaign of religious repression
against China’s Muslim Uighurs in the name of anti-separatism and
counter-terrorism”[xxxvi]),
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]
Kashmir. Human Rights Watch has documented Rapes, Torture,
Disappearances and Extrajudicial Executions of Muslims including attacks on the
media and the killings and threats against human rights workers.[xxxix]
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]
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.
[ii] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/is-syria-turning-our-idealistic-youth-into-hardened-jihadis/story-e6frg6z6-1226630278661
[viii]http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2012/10/how_many_slaves_came_to_america_fact_vs_fiction.html
[ix] http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-56_u-426_t-1075_c-4149/WA/10/Impact-of-European-settlement-on-Indigenous-people/_tb-v
[xv] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-31/15-australians-die-each-day-from-alcohol-related-illness-study/5637050
[xix]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/blackwater-faces-war-crimes-inquiry-after-killings-in-iraq-396686.html
Refer also to the 2008 book Blackwater, the rise of the
world’s most powerful mercenary army by Jeremy Scahill http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/96491.Blackwater
[xxiv]
http://www.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/mamdouh-habib-gets-5000-damages-20100819-12rrm.html
[xxv]
Other useful material on Guantanamo Bay:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-gittleman/guantanamo-bay-secrecy_b_4966373.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-gittleman/guantanamo-bay-secrecy_b_4966373.html
Secret US endorsement of severe interrogations:
[xxx]
Further reading: http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/04/gaza-israeli-soldiers-shoot-and-kill-fleeing-civilians
Deir Yassin: http://www.deiryassin.org/mas.html
There is a lot more, almost 100 years of history since
the Sykes Picot agreement and the Balfour declaration: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/britain-and-france-conclude-sykes-picot-agreement
[xxxi]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/un-dozens-of-rohingya-muslims-massacred-by-buddhists-in-rakhine-burma/
[xxxiii]
Additional resources on the Rohingya:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/16/opinion/nicholas-kristof-myanmar-documentary.html?_r=1
[xxxviii]
Additional resources on Chechnya:
[xli] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2542662/Footage-emerged-cannibal-eating-leg-Muslim-Central-African-Republic.html
[xlii]
refer also : HRW’s report: I can smell the dead, the forgotten crisis in the
Central African Republic.
refer also: https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/12/18/central-african-republic-sectarian-atrocities-escalate
,
[xliii]
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/10%20arguments%20en%20faveur%20de%20la%20Cour%20penale%20speciale%20RCA%20-%20pour%20partenaires%20EN_final_clean_web%20version.pdf
[xlix]
http://morallowground.com/2012/02/02/obama-restores-military-aid-to-uzbekistan-whose-brutal-dictator-islam-karimov-boils-opponents-alive/
[lii] http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/syria-6-facts-start-4th-year-syria%E2%80%99s-conflict
[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
[lvii]
Cory Bernardi
Sophie Panopolous
Bronwyn Bishop
Peter Costello
Jackie Lambie
Pauline Hanson
Rev Fred Nile and the Christian Democrats
[lviii]
http://www.theage.com.au/national/harassment-of-muslim-women-on-the-rise-in-melbourne-20150224-13ngg1.html
[lx]
Catch the Fire Ministries:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not easy to find on that list, so
here is a link about her too: http://www.alternet.org/media/anti-islam-author-ayaan-hirsi-alis-latest-deception
[lxiii]
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1129/WikiLeaks-Bradley-Manning-isn-t-a-criminal.-He-s-a-hero
[lxiv]
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Zero-tolerance-not-the-answer-crime-stats-chief/2005/03/14/1110649107925.html
[lxv] http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/outrage-over-muslim-massacre-game/2008/11/03/1225560701575.html
[lxviii]
QLD MP Steve Dickson agreed to present a petition to parliament to ban future
mosque projects in QLD: http://m.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/dickson-to-deliver-mosque-petition/2580458/
[lxxi]
refer: Dog whistle politics and journalism: http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Dog_Whistle_Politics_and_Journalism.html?id=XKqKAQAACAAJ
News Overboard: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=N-cyAAAACAAJ&dq=News+Oberboard,+Iaian+Lygo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=i24qVYvlCMKsmAWB04HwAw&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA
[lxxvii]
This link is in Arabic, it gives bio data on Dr. Al Sallabi: http://shamela.ws/index.php/author/1150
[lxxix]
http://www.watoday.com.au/comment/smh-letters/injustice-an-excuse-for-retribution-20150410-1mhr7y.html
[lxxx]
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/university_gives_the_stage_to_trad_to_preach_a_lethal_resentment/
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