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The Forum > Article Comments > 'Four Corners' blames non-Muslims for extremism > Comments

'Four Corners' blames non-Muslims for extremism : Comments

By Leon Bertrand, published 14/3/2008

To deny or ignore the anti-social behaviours which have caused hostility towards Muslims will not help anyone.

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Cow Towner,

I believe you twisted your story when alleging that a train conductor didn't want some "terrorist" on his train.

It is more likely the conductor was a hateful racist and simply wanted to bully a white foreigner. Quite definitely not because he regarded white people "terrorists".

Racist crimes and religion-induced crimes are two different things. It's wrong to put them in the same basket.
Posted by gz, Friday, 14 March 2008 8:34:35 PM
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Four corners had a clearly biased position.Why does the smallest minority group in our country give us and themselves the greatest amount of grief?No other religious group or belief system causes so much angst as the Muslims.Could it be their intransient attitudes and philosophies?

This friction was happening way before Sept 11.It started in the early eighties.I remember the shooting up of the Statue of Our Lady in Parramatta by Muslim Lebs on Christian Lebs,the Council's solution was to have the statue removed on the grounds that it was too large and incited religious friction.

We are told by the ABC to be more tolerant for fear of the violent ramification that may ensue.Who is holding who to ransom?

Muslims have created this rod for their own backs.I see no olive branches eminating from Islam, nor do I see tolerance towards other philosophies.
Posted by Arjay, Friday, 14 March 2008 9:00:59 PM
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Italians, Greeks, Chinese, and Lebanese (Christians) have come to Australia and, in spite of experiencing early rejection and outright racism from some Australians, most have integrated well into Australian society, and many of them have done exceedingly well.

All the Lebanese Muslims seem to be able to do is whine about how they are being "victimised". The Four Corners programme simply indulged this self-serving weakness and lack of character.

The blame was predictably put on the "white red-necks" who, according to the programme, for no apparent reason, are objecting to their presence in this country.

There was little or nothing about the years of abuse suffered by the residents of Cronulla, which led to the outbreak of violence against the Lebanese thugs.

Is there something about Islam that leads to these outcomes? I think there may be.

These Lebanese Muslims should be grateful that they have been given the opportunity to make a go of it in this great country. As an immigrant myself, I know I am grateful for the opportunities this country offers.

They should get some backbone, start doing some hard work, and stop whining and get on with it, as other successful immigrants have done.
Posted by Froggie, Friday, 14 March 2008 10:11:44 PM
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Blame Fraser

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon#Demographics_and_religion

Muslims in Lebanon – about 60%, Christians – 40%

% of Muslim Lebanese in Aus - under 40%.

There were 3 major waves of Lebanese immigrants to Aus. The 1st 2 integrated successfully. The 3rd group – overwhelmingly Muslim, did not - 1976 following civil war.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20996448-601,00.html

Fraser was warned by immigration officials that:

“it was accepting too many Lebanese Muslim refugees without "the required qualities" for successful integration.”

“The Fraser cabinet was also told many of the refugees were unskilled, illiterate and had questionable character and standards of personal hygiene.”

So how does Fraser answer the charge of responsibility for today’s problems, eg Cronulla riots? In the way Fraser or any true lefty does – pass the buck.

“Fraser rejected yesterday any link and said modern Muslim youth felt alienated because governments had not done enough to help them integrate into the general community.” ….. but not his government. What did HE do from 1976 to 1982?

“But demographer Bob Birrell said the relatively depressed nature of Sydney's Muslim community could easily be linked to the lack of education and work skills of the 1970s migrants.”

“In September 1976, as a humanitarian response to the civil war …. cabinet agreed to relax rules requiring immigrants to be healthy, of good character and to have a work qualification.”

“(Fraser) said it would be wrong to assert that current tensions in the Muslim community came about because his government had allowed "bad people" to enter the country. “I think the EDUCATION SYSTEM and the COMMUNITY have got to take a pretty fair part of the blame (for current problems)” "

“Whereas earlier Lebanese intakes had involved an even split of Christians/Muslims, the submission said 90% of the migrants were Muslims and that a high percentage were illiterate and unskilled.”

“Dr Birrell, who heads Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research, said a study last year had shown Lebanese Muslims in southwest Sydney were less well-off economically than Lebanese Christians….this reflected the lack of work skills and education of many of the refugees who arrived in the 1970s.”
Posted by KGB, Friday, 14 March 2008 10:53:11 PM
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Interesting how Bertrand glosses the opening scenes of the program, featuring a mob of foul-mouthed yobbos saying

"MAN 2: Filthy grubs. Dirty filthy grubs.

MAN 3: No-one wants you here.

MAN 4: F@#* off wogs, go back to your own country Mohamed.

MAN 2: We pay our tax mate and we don't want ..."

as "anti-Muslim sentiment". I'd call it xenophobic hatred of the ugliest kind. Bertrand doesn't even mention the even more disgusting footage of the Cronulla riots.

Bertrand's thinly-veiled Islamophobia pervades the rest of this miserable excuse for an article.

Bertrand: "Gandhi Sindyan was the only person to bring a sober perspective to the program".

Bertrand conveniently ignores the participation of Prof David Wright-Neville, of Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Centre and formerly a counter-terrorism analyst of the Office of National Assessments in the Dept of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Instead, Bertrand intentionally distorts the words of Waleed Aly at a seminar at the Monash Centre, while completely ignoring those of Wright-Neville.

Bertrand: "She speaks with Waleed Aly from the “Global Terrorism Research Centre”, but he is simply an Islamic spokesperson and community leader, who opposes the banning of books which promote terrorism. So Neighbour has done the equivalent of asking a trade union leader for an opinion on industrial relations: you are never going to get an objective, disinterested answer"

[cont.]
Posted by CJ Morgan, Saturday, 15 March 2008 9:25:00 AM
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[cont.]

Here's the actual transcript:

"WALEED ALY, GLOBAL TERRORISM RESEARCH CENTRE: It seems to be characterised methodologically almost by a kind of belligerence; that is that we feel the more aggressive we can be, the harder we can be, then the better that is, that it’s better to err on the side of being aggressive than to err on the side of being soft.

Now I can understand where that comes from, it kind of makes intuitive sense. But the problem is that as we repeat that approach what we actually end up doing is exacerbating the problem. We set in motion drivers that move us towards greater radicalisation."

"DAVID WRIGHT-NEVILLE: In this sense the injudicious use of hard power can in fact feed the process of terrorism.

SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Associate Professor David Wright-Neville specialises in the psychology of terrorism. His research echoes studies worldwide which show that alienation is a critical factor in creating terrorists.

DAVID WRIGHT-NEVILLE: Nobody is born a terrorist. In any society...only a few people will make the transition from membership in mainstream society to the point where they’ll involve themselves in violence here at the end of this transition.

Terrorism is a process, people pass through a series of processes. Along the way they cross what one might call the alienation threshold, at which point they begin to disengage from society and mix in groups of people who are similarly alienated, who have similar experiences, who feel collectively as if society is against them and excludes them from involvement in all mainstream activities...

...Once they’ve crossed the violence threshold they begin to ethically disengage from society and they’ll begin to contemplate killing others outside of that particular in-group into which they’ve gravitated.

Alienation is critically important. Most terrorist research shows that unless the person is alienated, coupled with feelings of humiliation, disempowerment and so on, it’s very unlikely that a person will become a terrorist."

While omitting the clearly "sober" perspectives of these experts, Bertrand instead refers us to notorious lunsr right blogger Tim Blair.

I could go on, but what's the point?
Posted by CJ Morgan, Saturday, 15 March 2008 9:28:07 AM
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