This one will not go down well with the hard core, left-wing abusers of anybody who disagrees with their views.

"Homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic should be seen in the same light, as ways of brushing aside opinions we dislike by invalidating the people who hold them.", and:

"Let's cure our language of them."

Not likely to happen on OLO!

Racist bigot Muslims are raping and burning Sweden.

Interesting article, and I tend to agree that 'phobia' can be mis-used. However, phobia is defined in the Oxford dictionary as an 'abnormal dislike'...the interpretation of which is reliant on the definition of 'abnormal'. So it is really open to intepretation as to whether the author is indeed correct in his opinions. A fear or dislike might be be considered normal in some groups and abnormal in others. A phobia does not, therefore, have to be a medical condition...it might be one if it is strong enough. The crux of the matter is what is abnormal or normal. This is definitely open to interpretation. The press will not worry about this when they 'coin' a new 'phobia' for the headlines.

I can see the authors point that phobia in a psychological terms is misused in the current debates. In effect ‘phobia’ has been appropriated by the common lexicon as shorthand for something that may concern the psychological industry.
I accept that this is the reasoning of the author but I have concerns with the limitation of his alternative depiction of the causes behind prejudices albeit that he left himself an out by saying that ‘it is a complex issue’.

I would point out he is a professor of psychology not a social worker, sociologist, ethicist or an anthropologist all of which would have a different take.
That doesn’t invalidate his view only that it should be seen in a context.

The professor didn’t say it was desirable for the harmonious running of a community/society. Although some prejudiced individuals will read it that way.
There are a number of weaknesses in his description:
• He denies emotions have any impact in the debate he leaving the impression that prejudice is reasonable (as in can be reasoned therefore ‘cured’).
• He glosses over man’s innate fear of the unknown and the difference/change. (From the part of society less able to reason an issue through.
• His description also assumes a national sense of morality etc. a highly contentious argument at best. Give that some of the most vociferous prejudices come from older immigrants. (Self preservation?)
• Conditioning and the need for control of its faithful which is apparent in some religious groups.
In essence his article avoids the core issue of the appropriateness of private personal biases being imposed in the wider Public arena let alone public policy. As a highly specific and semantical argument over (psychological industry) term abuse it has merit but a dead fish by any name still stinks. His piece adds little to resolving what a problem in society is.
BTW left wing labels to posts like thisis also definitionally inaccurate.

"Don’t like gays? Hate foreigners? Loathe Muslims? You may be suffering from a mental disorder. People who express these attitudes often find themselves diagnosed with homophobia, xenophobia and Islamophobia."

What a load of bigoted rot - the author could be describing his own intolerance of disagreement and labelling of those who appear to disagree with him.

It is perfectly normal for people to distrust and even dislike others who are different as one of the stages of eventual acceptance. It is about having one's comfort disturbed. Equally the target group have the same feelings and misapprehension, even hatred of new ways.

What we need are professionals who understand this process and are sensitive and restrained in social policy. There is much more to it than dumping a multicultural policy on the electorate, throwing some migrant families in and then abusing both sides for not being nut cases because they have normal, EXPECTED adjustment problems.

When all is said an done, it is a very big ask to import a million new people from a host of different cultures every three and a bit years and expect them and the resident population to have no teething problems at all.

Whoops, misread! Apologies to the author and no more multi-tasking while balancing the lappy.

Well said, however there's a political dimension to this,

Accusations of "Islamophia" are more than just a way of brushing aside opinions, they are sometimes a sinister instrument of policy designed to silence opposition and suppress free speech. The Communists also claimed that dissenters must be mentally ill.

There's an interesting article on 'Darwinism' in this week's issue of 'The Economist'. Sadly, it argues that xenophobia is a deeply ingrained human characteric, according to the latest work in evolutionary biology. This work also demonstrates, however, that skin colour, hair colour and physiognomy have no implications for intelligence.

In other words, prejudice is just prejudice.

The writer is arrogant to assume a professional class's monopoly on certain forms of English. Dictionaries have long described the Greek-derived "phobia" both as general usage for "irrational fear/s", etc., and for specific psychiatric disorders. That psychologists and psychiatrists avoid similar phenomena would rather suggest to us not only their practical challenges in seeking wider treatment regimes, but also the ideological constraints and biases formed within, or at least applied to, such industries.

On those who spread such irrational fears to influence the perceptions of others, "phobia" is often a very apt description. Haslam may be correct that a diagnosis of sorts is unsuited to many or even most who are affected by such fear-spreading. However, we can be sure that "phobia" often applies to those who actively devote themselves to target, exaggerate and even invent "threats" to foist onto the perceptions of others.

So we can see a first group of people, either normally oblivious to those who would rant about "threats", or - more likely - too busy and too close to new migrants, gays, etc., as real people to become very bothered by them as some kind of "pathological type" or "hidden threat".

That is where a second category comes in, as a type actively spreading fear of some mysterious "unknown quantity" somehow attached to the targets of bigotry. Such genuine "phobics" betray their own insecurities so obviously that it is clear how pursuit of bigotry serves some inner purpose of "transferral" for the personal deficiencies and traumas that they have failed to confront and overcome. I saw one such person phone ASIO about a middle-easterner making a 'wrong number' call!

Of course, that is not to ignore a third category typically involved in such processes of bigotry: the cynical manipulator of public perceptions, sensing various opportunities and protections from such phenomena of prejudice.

A fourth category of "accomplice" can become complicit in such phenomena of bigotry. I recall several psych professionals who endorse such divisive and destructive bigotry by targeting the very opponents and victims of the bigotry. For such apparatchiks, bigotry is big, lucrative business.

From the way the article is expressed, the author comes out as a confused poor buggar.

It is like a cast-net of psychological mist thrown to ensnare five quite separate outlooks/issues:

One is the (Nazi/South African-apartheid/USA-Ku Klux Klan) genuinely barbarous mind-set.

Two is that of the One-World outlook where all people, of whatever origin and at their request, must be provided with resources which are at parity with our own.

Three belongs to those of us who have concern for all people, and want to apply the most effective approach to minimizing the reason for whatever disadvantages people of any origin may have; while reasonably maintaining the integrity of the environmental resources upon which we all depend, and which are under our custody.

Four is that of misrepresentation, deliberate or otherwise, of outlook three by referring to it as racism.

Five comprises campaigns by people/organizations, from a commercial perspective, knowingly promoting disinformation to discredit those of category three.

The article could have differentiated between these five issues, but conflated them instead. Does this suggest that the author is psychologically confused?

This article is a pathetic attempt to demonize those who won't accept perverted and unacceptable behaviour . I have met 'nice people' who have been charged with Pedophile. I think that they should be castrated so that they can't destroy any more lives. Surely a psychologist has enough brains to separate the hate of a persons actions as opposed to the person. My views on homosexuality are well known. I happen to know some very nice people in homosexual relations. It does not change the fact that it is an unhealthy lifestyle and should not be promoted. It does not change the fact that the Catholic Priests who abused so many were homosexuals.

You would be in complete denial not to see that Muslims generally are peace loving people however anyone would be a fool to deny the ideology behind Islam is violence and intolerance. All the evidence in the world is not enough to convince the secular humanist who are totally blinded by their own dogmas. Nick appears to be one of them.

Another “Islam is peace” and “some people are delusional” article.

Not once does the article mention the hate and violence perpetrated by Muslims around the world. Of course, to do so would require honesty.

It is as if what the author calls islamophobia is baseless and irrational and Muslims have done nothing to provoke this attitude. It is a one-way street.

To these people, Islamophobia is basically any criticism of Islam. It is an attempt to censure speech and abridge human rights.

I have personally been threaten by Muslims. I have been told by Muslims that they are “going to find out where I live” which I take as a threat against my family. Yet this man, Mr. Haslam, would say I suffer from islamophobia. He makes excuses for people that preach hate, threaten and kill. Pathetic.

Whatever their faults, people that criticize Islam and Muslims because of its hate and violence, do not have any "phobia" of Islam -- much to the contrary. Mr Haslam and company doesn't even understand basic Greek etymologies and their English vocabulary derivatives. The real Islamophobes are the liberals, afraid for their lives or afraid to hurt Muslims’s feelings. I am not afraid of Islam. I despise Islam and Muslims for their ignorance, denial and deception.

Now would some Muslim here care to talk about the Quran and hadith? Would they like to tell me how wonderful and peaceful Islam is?

Hilarious! Barely an hour or so after my posting and several scattergun responses prove my main point about the certain existence of genuinely "phobic" psyches out there!

;-)

Who can tell me which commentors did not even bother to read the article?

(hint: last comments on page2)

if they did bother to read the article, then that's even worse.

How many commentors don't make it past the title before they go in apoplexy?

Funny stuff.

This Haslam character takes the cake for hypocrisy and dismal ignorance!

He writes an article condemning "Islamophobia" and the surreal part is that he wrote on the subject:

Project: Dehumanization: Understanding the attribution of lesser humanness to others (N. Haslam, PI)
Year: 2007-2010

YET... BASED ON HIS UTTER IGNORANCE of the content of the Quran which does this very thing...dehumanizes both Christians and Jews and even worse for mere 'Kafirs' (That's Pericles, Morgan, Bugsy,Bushbasher etc.. )

... he has the temerity..the gaul..the lack of SHAME to write in support of a faith which flagrantly does the very thing he writes against!

9:30 is the classic...."They are deluded" (Jews and Christians)

It is worth noting also that Haslam is Director of "Assylum seekers research group"

So.. let's hope that this associate professer is sent away to 'Re-education Camp' to get informed about dehumanization of non Muslims in Islamic holy writ before he makes an absolute fool of himself by writing as he did here.

TOPIC.. "Islamophobia" (if taken to mean an 'irrational' fear) is wrong, stupid and why is he talking about it AAAAA-GAIN HERE?

"Fear of Islam" though..is not irrational at all... but very soundly based on the documents Islam is based on.

FINAL... Does anyone else notice we seem to be expiencing a plethora of:

-Capitalism..'bad'
-Capitalism..'not good'
-Capitalism..'The end draweth nigh'
and
-Islamophobia...'bad'
-Islamophobia...'no more please'
-Islamophobia...'=Xenophobia, Homophobia and the Plague'

type articles over recent weeks?

Where is DAGGET our resident conspiracy theory watch puppy when we need him?

Oh oH oh... this is just toooo GOOD..... WHAT A GOLD MINE :)

HASLAM: <Indeed, people's values and beliefs are among the strongest predictors of their levels of prejudice.>

COUGH..CHOKE.. errr noooooo KIDDing!

But wait.... does anyone notice that it is OUR beliefs and OUR values which are at fault in regard to our feelings toward Muslims?

Can some one.... anyone.. anyone at all.. show me where Australian culture has a 'belief' which can be identified (like in a written document, inCLUDing the WAP) which supports the dehumanizing or actual 'prejudice' against non Australians? (I don't accept that maintaining cultural homogeneity based on real world observations, history and national experience is such)

BUT THE BEST PART.... is this:

Question first... in regard to our 'anti Islamic' posts... who is it who immediately, vociforously, monotonously and most of all predictably LEAPS to their defense with the accusation as follows:

"You are rabble rousing and stirring up fear and loathing"
"Your fear and loathing ..yada yada"
etc..

Now.. let HASLAM speak :)..this time he is 100% correct....

<<When we ascribe an attitude that we disagree with to its holder's fear, we imply that we are braver than they are. Doing so confuses being unenlightened with being cowardly and it flatters our fortitude.>>

Ohh my.. OOOOOH MY MY MY.. that was so precious...I would have PAID him to say it :)

CJ... PERICLES... BUGSY....BUSHBASHER? :)

This is an interesting article, not least because four commenters have so far totally misconstrued the author's main point, i.e. that prejudice against homosexuals, foreigners and Islam doesn't generally constitute 'phobia' in the technical sense of the word, since most people who are labelled homophobes, xenophobes or Islamophobes aren't consciously afraid of the objects of their bigotry.

Haslam makes a fair point, except that such terms are most commonly used to designate social, rather than pathological phenomena. For example, the term 'Islamophobia' is a neologism that provides a shorthand way of describing a particular constellation of bigotry and prejudice against Islam and its followers, rather than describing the individual psychopathology of an afflicted person. He is correct to suggest that its etiology is social rather than individual.

However, I think he's wrong to reject fear totally as an aspect of Islamophobia. Indeed, several of our most vociferous Islamophobes regularly ascribe their prejudice to what they regard as well-founded fear, based on their interpretations of Islamic sacred texts. Porkycrap is an excellent example of this, as evidenced by his spittle-flecked (and internally contradictory) posts above.

Perhaps Porky should re-read the article, since he clearly didn't comprehend it the first time. He might actually learn something about himself, because overall Prof Haslam seems to know what he's talking about when he's explaining some of the social psychological processes by which some groups of people dehumanise others.

Seriously, you didn't read the article did you Polyboazy?

If you did, then don't try the English comprehension test on the SAT.

CJMorgan wrote: "...he's wrong to reject fear totally as an aspect of Islamophobia... ...Islamophobes...ascribe their prejudice to...fear, based on their interpretations of Islamic...text"

CJMorgan's thinking on Islamophobia is like this:-
(1)...Those criticising Islam are prejudiced <--(CJ's ASSERTION)
(2)...Prejudiced people interprets Islamic texts incorrectly <--(CJ's PRESUMPTION)
(3)...Fear of Islam is irrational, due to incorrect interpretion <--(CJ's ASSUMPTION)
(4)...As fear is part of one's psyche, the auther should include a fear factor <--(CJ's OPINION)
(5)...Those criticising Islam are Islamophobes. <--(CJ's CONCLUSION)

Next, go to (6) and loop continuously (as CJMorgan does):
(6)...Anyone criticising Islam is a prejudiced Islamophobe.
Anyone criticising Islam is a prejudiced Islamophobe...Anyone criticising Islam is a prejudiced Islamophobe....Anyone...

CJMorgan's understanding of *PHOBE* actually makes him a hypocrite because he's a *PHOBE* by his own definition:-
-->>CJMorgan has a fear of Islamophobic violence, arising from his prejudice towards those criticising Islam, based on his frauded interpretations of what he thinks others know about Islam <<--

For CJMorgan to go around abusing others as *PHOBES* without an ability to ever realise his own definition makes him a *PHOBE* is hypocritical and stupid!!

Next, the CORRECT attribute for Islamophobia, as the following explains:-
(A)...Those criticising Islam may or may not be Islamophobic <--(Logical truth)
(B)...Correct interpretation leading to fear of Islam -- Fear is valid, hence not Islamophobic.
(C)...Incorrect interpretation leading to fear of Islam -- Interpretation is wrong, but the fear is still valid, personal and real. Hence this is also not Islamophobic.
(D)...Correct interpretation proves Islam is not to be feared. But a fear persists -- This is irrational Islamophobic fear.

The ONLY possible condition that truly satisfies IslamoPHOBIC is (D).
Such a condition rarely exists, if at all. Hence the author is correct in saying: "LET'S CURE OUR LANGUAGE OF THEM"!!

One diseased person needing a cure-- CJMorgan

Luckily for CJMorgan. According to my definition, CJMorgan is not a *PHOBE*, (because his fear is real and personal, even though his reasoning is thrashy).
And to those whom CJMorgan have labelled Islamophobes-- CJMorgan owes you apologies, big time.

(This is an interesting article indeed. One commenter is a hypocritical fool.)

“Don’t like gays? Hate foreigners? Loathe Muslims? You may be suffering from a mental disorder. People who express these attitudes often find themselves diagnosed with homophobia, xenophobia and Islamophobia.”

This article appears to be written by someone having psychotic disorders. These are serious illnesses that affect the mind. These illnesses alter a person's ability to think clearly, make good judgments, respond emotionally, communicate effectively, understand reality and behave appropriately.

There are many who don’t like the Gays’ life-style. They may condemn the life-style but treat Gays with respect.

In Islamic countries,

(i) Gays are stoned to death, hung or beheaded.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Execution_of_two_gay_teens_in_Iran_spurs_controversy
http://www.amitiesquebec-israel.org/texts/stoning.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/19/AR2006071902061.html

(ii) having pre-marital, or extra-marital sex is stoned to death, but its OK to rape maids in Saudi Arabia especially if the maid is from Indonesia or Philippines.
http://www.amitiesquebec-israel.org/texts/stoning.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_3_55/ai_97347246

(iii) there is fear Hindu and Buddhist temples, churches and otter non-Muslim places of worship.

(iv) paedophilia is openly practised

“An eight-year old Saudi Arabian girl who was married off by her father to a 58-year-old man has been told she cannot divorce her husband until she reaches puberty.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/23/saudi-arabia-human-rights

Islam makes the Muslim to become the most irrational persons ever. No eating of pork because pigs are dirty. In what sense are they dirty? Fear of non-halal foods, in the 21st century? We know what is properly cooked is clean and can be consumed.

Dogs are considered dirty animals. They are dirty because Islam teaches Muslims to be irrational, full of fears, superstitious, cruel to animals with all the senseless animal sacrifices in the 21st century.

The greatest thing the West can do is to liberate the Muslims from the terror of Islam. Islam is what caused the Muslims to be backward, superstitious, delusional and irrational. The movement is already started by two great ex-Muslims, Ali Sina and MA Khan.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/
http://www.islam-watch.org/

You know, after reading this article, that the last place on earth to study psychology is at the University of M*-*-*-*-

Cornflower wrote, "When all is said an done, it is a very big ask to import a million new people from a host of different cultures every three and a bit years and expect them and the resident population to have no teething problems at all."

I agree.

Whilst I have been arguing elsewhere (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8306#130142 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8288#129870 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#52485) against the fraudulent "war on terror" based on the Big Lie of the 'false flag' terrorist attack of 11 September 2001, I still have concerns about high immigration, particularly from countries with cultures difficult from our own and that includes Islamic cultures.

I believe this was a cause, for example, of the Cronulla riots in 2005 as chronicled by Paul Sheehan on pages 353 to 371 of "Girls Like You".

Whilst this may not be apparent to many, I consider high immigration and multiculturalism on the one hand and the the "war on terror" on the other are but two sides of the same coin.

It's instructive that Rupert Murdoch, that ardent promoter of the deadly Big Lies of 9/11 and Iraqi WMD's, which were the justifications for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, also wants population growth to continue even with the economic crisis we face.

I saw an interesting programme on TV last night about a visit to San Quentin prison. The prisoners there generally associate only with people of their own race. A prison is a place where one needs to have the backing of other like minded individuals for physical protection.

Does this mean that ALL races are prejudiced against others? And I had understood from our resident lefties that only white people could be racist! Are they all phobic i.e. suffering from an unreasonable fear?

The author is of course correct, that those who do not have an argument based on facts, have to resort to labelling the person they are arguing with as a "whatever" ..phobe.

CJ Morgan responds in his typically elitist and condescending manner, and seeks to be more royal than the king in pointing out where he considers the author to be wrong, "Indeed, several of our most vociferous Islamophobes regularly ascribe their prejudice to what they regard as well-founded fear, based on their interpretations of Islamic sacred texts."

Yes CJ, some fears can be well founded, and a perfectly normal instinct for self preservation. If you had been one of the Australians killed by an Islamic terrorist in Mumbai a few weeks ago, your fear would have been well founded too.

As GZ said, CJ is a HYPOCRITE. He wants to "defend" Muslims, a group that he thinks is getting a raw deal. So he vilifies, denigrates, and tries to shut down people who are disgusted by the attitudes and actions that emanate from Islamists, and which are condoned by a large portion of the Muslim population.

There are many Muslims who are not holding extremist views, but we are not helping them by refusing to subject Islam, as with other religions, to cold hard analysis and criticism where it is richly deserved.

He is not doing Muslims any service, because if they persist on the path they are taking, they will reap a whirlwind of retribution, which will hurt innocent Muslims as well as the fanatics.

Interesting how China deals with them:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/19/news/xinjiang.php

Do tell Nick,

How many Muslim countries readily accept Westerners and their religion? Do speak up as the answer is NONE.

So your accusations of phobia are pointed directly at Muslims and nowhere else.

When people come to our country and we hear them making statements about wanting to convert it to Muslim and how they hate Australia and Australians they taint every Muslim as the rest do not speak out against these morons. They keep silent. Why?

They give cause for people to hate and reject them as Australia and Australians do not want yet another damned religion blighting our country. Christians and their lunacy is more than enough.

Here's an idea. How about all the Christians and all the Muslims in Australia go live in Tasmania where they can kill each other and leave us alone. Tasmania's own version of the Crusades. They are used to attempted genocide down there.

Apologies to Tassy, but at least we'd get rid of both lots of lunatics, right?

Oh dear!

This is becoming a real “Gotcha” article.

Even after Bugsy first pointed out how clear it was that some here aren’t reading the article, several others have since posted to show that they're not reading the article either.

Amusing.

It really is revealing to see who here responds with pure emotion at the first glimpse of certain key words, rather than calm rational thought.

Hi Everyone,

When criticising this article, be mindful what the article actually talks about.
The article is quite technical and hence may not always be clear. I may be missing something but I cannot see a significant problem with the article.

I draw your attention to a few paragraphs/sentence in the article:

(1)..."Homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic should be seen in the same light, as ways of brushing aside
opinions we dislike by invalidating the people who hold them."

Example:- CJMorgan labels anyone who criticises Islam as Islamophobic, his way of brushing aside opinions.

(2)..."It could be argued that none of this matters. Perhaps calling attitudes phobias is meant as harmless
metaphor, not as literal diagnosis. But words have consequences..."

It seems people labelled as Islamophobes regard that as harmless and may have actually started to think it is OKAY
to be regarded as an Islamophobe. But the author argues there is a harm involved-- "...consequences...closes the door on dialogue".
I think, identifying with Islamophobe probably explains why some commenters reacted very negatively to this article, thinking it attacks us (Islamophobes). But the thing is, no one is an Islamophobe to start with.

(3)..."Let's cure our language of them."

Exactly, the labelling of homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic are invalid and should be "banned". Those who abuse the terminology severely reprimanded.

My earlier logical explanation for "Islamophobia" prove that people who criticise Islam are not Islamophobic:-
(A)...Those criticising Islam may or may not be Islamophobic <--(Logical truth)
(B)...Correct interpretation leading to fear of Islam <--Fear is valid, hence not Islamophobic.
(C)...Incorrect interpretation leading to fear of Islam <--Interpretation is wrong, but the fear is still valid, personal and real. Hence this is also not Islamophobic.
(D)...Correct interpretation proves Islam is not to be feared. But a fear persists <--This is irrational Islamophobic fear.

The ONLY possible condition that truly satisfies IslamoPHOBIC is (D).
Such a condition rarely exists, if at all.

So it is those (such as CJMorgan) who label others as Islamophobic that are prejudiced and need a fix.

So many have missed the point entirely,you need to forget PC and think.

Haslam is a psychologist and he examines and refutes"Islamophobia" in psychological terms and only briefly discusses the use of accusations of "Islamophobia"to dismiss dissent,it is a limited analysis. Any one who is prepared to accept all criticisms of Islamic ideology as impelled by prejudice,or an example of "racism", is what the Bolsheviks called a "Useful Idiot." The threat is the infiltration of a totalitarian ideology into a secular state, not individual Moslems. Robert Mugabe claims legitimate criticism of his appallingly brutal regime as "racist" doesn't he?

“The threat is the infiltration of a totalitarian ideology into a secular state, not individual Moslems. Robert Mugabe claims legitimate criticism of his appallingly brutal regime as "racist" doesn't he?” (Mac’s comment).

The threat often does come from totalitarian ideology, but not necessarily a god-related one. The threat reaches beyond secular issues.

During the past decades many an instantaneous rush to cry “racism” has been made to close down rational debate on matters other than religion. The accusation, and resulting threat to free discussion, has also been used frequently by the unprincipled as a weapon of disinformation.

The issue covers a wide spectrum and, I repeat, could have been covered with much less obfuscation.

Exactly, mac

Haslam is attempting to apply a strictly clinical interpretation to words that have much broader meaning. We don't hear doctors bemoaning the fact that the word 'cancer' has wider non-clinical meanings, and curiously Haslam doesn't choose to take issue with psychological terms like 'neurotic,' 'anxious' or 'depressed,' whose common meanings are considerably different to the clinical definitions.

He is also showing considerable ignorance of how language works. Yes, these three terms appear to be coined words, with xenophobia coming first from a combination of Greek roots: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=xenophobic There's a long tradition of coined words in English - the prescriptive dictionaries of Webster and Johnson are full of them. Coined words are quickly forgotten if there's no need for them, but where they represent a way to express a previously unknown or un-discussed concept, then the word sticks, cf. platypus, post-modernism, and many others.

Clearly we have a need for terms that express fear of and/or prejudice against muslims, foreigners and homosexuals. If we didn't, these words would have dropped out of the language again as soon as they were coined.

Frankly, in the case of homophobia, I'd prefer an alternate term, because the lumping of two ideas (fear of and prejudice against) makes it unwieldy, enrages those who would admit to one but not the other, and gives every homophobe the opportunity to deny the prejudice, in the absence of the fear. I suspect the same applies to 'xenophobia' and 'islamophobia.' However until someone comes up with better terms, they're all we've got.

In arguing that there are no such clinical conditions as islamophobia, homophobia and xenophobia, Haslam is vacating the field, leaving the terms open to every interpretation except the clinical ones. Yet he wishes to "cure our language of them." Is he proposing to replace these terms with others expressing fear of/prejudice against particular minorities? If so, let's hear his suggestions.

Or is he arguing that these terms should be removed from the language altogether, in some kind of Orwellian attempt to shut down dialogue on these issues by removing the means to talk about them?

Yep, time again to get out those fridge magnets, dial up ASIO, then put the jigsaw together to assemble a picture of Big Bad Dr Haneef! Islamophobes? “Cretins” does just perfectly.

AdamD's point is similar to mine: a real “gotcha” article, or gadfly/flypaper piece, or so it may seem at first given the many irrational (and yes, “phobic”) responses! Take a bow: runner, kactuz, Polycarp, Philip Tang, RobbyH.

But it is unintentional. It's just a poorly structured article, where the title's expansion line/sub-title (“Prejudice flourishes...”) and the first rhetorical paragraph mislead as to the general thrust and main point. Haslam actually believes that his field of business must be allowed to monopolize the Greek-derived English “phobia/phobic”. Yet by “phobia” we refer to “irrational fear”, regardless of whether Haslam's industry certifies or otherwise diagnoses such fear. Also, Haslam apparently lacks the guts to state so explicitly, but his argument implies that there are rational grounds for a fear of Islam!

For those who still miss it, the phobics' fish trap is the title's expansion line/sub-title: “Prejudice flourishes among people who are cold, callous, inflexible, closed-minded and conventional.” Now that sentence does not really capture the article's general thrust or main point at all. But it does provoke those paranoid “culture warriors” who bite prematurely at any apparent defence of their bête noir i.e., Muslims and their religion. Remember: the word “paranoid” above (for “culture warriors”) has a close synonym in “phobic”.

Therefore, in trying to secure an industry monopoly on the lexicon, and in the process delete “Islamophobia” from that lexicon, Haslam accidentally and ironically netted a catch of “Islamophobes”, identifiable by their irrational responses (others slipped through the net or dodged it from a safe distance). This forced shrewder, colder “culture warriors” like mac to try putting that rabble in order.

But notice that such irrational fear, alarm, hostility, loathing, prejudice, etc., is part of precisely that manic projection that gets a Brazilian shot dead in London, Haneef detained, held incommunicado and deported, and various and much vaster levels of atrocity in diplomacy, warfare and transnational organized crime (including terrorism).

Great article and some very good replies e.g. by CJ.

Oh dear,
Despite having had a few glasses of wine this afternoon in the spirit of xmas, I'm now quite aware that I'm guilty of having assumed that homophobia and Islamophobia would be classed under "Mental Illnesses".
I believe I even advised Poly to seek help from a psychiatrist at one stage. Oops!
I can accept that I was wrong about these 'phobias' being mental illnesses, and even won't hesitate to apoligise for that.
Sorry Poly, it appears you don't need help for a mental illness after all.

Having said that, I do still believe that these "phobias" are treatable whether these kind of "phobias" are illnesses or not (I'm not sure what terminology to use for these "illnesses" anymore, LOL).

I believe that (social) phobias like this are treatable because they are learned and anything learned can be un-learned.
The good news is that Poly et al can still seek help, although perhaps not from a psychiatrist.

Merry (and sane!) Christmas to all!

So what exactly is the point of using a word with the suffix ‘phobia’? If it means prejudice or fear then why not use the words prejudice and fear. If you tack it onto homo, Islam, xeno then presumably it means fear and prejudice against those particular groups. So is the fear and prejudice of every other grouping of human beings in the world also entitled to be ‘phobic’? Christianphobia, Catholicphobia, Baptistphobia, Scientologyphobia, Communistphobia, Democracyphobia etc. We would have thousands of them. The word becomes meaningless.

If the word is not being used to enrich our language then there must be some other agenda at play. Using words like phobia when it is not necessary to do so is more than likely an attempt to cast a slur on anyone who does not agree with certain ideas or behaviour of the group using the word. It is meant to suggest that there is something psychologically or irrationally wrong with the opposition. That is why they use ‘phobia’ – it has connotations (themselves probably based on prejudice) that anyone with a phobia is not as well adjusted as someone without one.

We need to look for the motivation when groups begin changing the English language. Is it a contribution or is it a weapon of aggression to try and make any opposition go away?

Don't worry Robby H you and all others who have rejected Christ will have a home for eternity and I am sure it won't be pleasant. I do sincerely hope you repent of your stupidity before then.

I frothed..I foamed..I ranted.. and I was wrong!

No problem Celivia :) I also am now forced (by my own realization of the deeper content of the article) to apologise to the Author who I realllly thought was out to get us :) based on the sentences

1/ Prejudice flourishes among people who are cold, callous, inflexible, closed-minded and conventional,

2/ Don’t like gays? Hate foreigners? Loathe Muslims? You may be suffering from a mental disorder.

But firstly.. while I don't fall into those categories of hate/loathe etc toward people.. I can be ticked off as feeling that about:
a) The sexual behavior of gays
b) The beliefs/doctrines of Islam.

So..quite wrongly, I thought he was writing a rant against anyone who criticizes Islam or homosexual behavior etc..

By my second post, it was dawning on me that the article was quite helpful in diagnosing the clinical condition of Pericles CJ and some others :) well..ok..it's not a clinical condition.. just a very shabby and poor attitude where they frequently USE the terms of Islamophobe against Islams critics..
NOW.. we know..that based on sound psychology, they are doing this to bolster their own insecurities and enhance their sense of "I'm braver than Poly" kind of thinking.

How does Haslam describe this attitude? :) "a disorder" a hearty 7fold amen to that.

While some on the sharp end of Pericles rapier wit and CJ's sabre or Bugsy's blunt object might feel....

"In this position it is no surprise that people feel belittled or derided as attitudinal barbarians."

to quote Haslam, for me it's like water off a ducks back :)

We conservatives may now join the fray with renewed vigour now that our opponents have been unmasked as the 'attitudinal barbarians' they really are :) (and that we knew them to be all along)

Hmmm... I think I'll recommend Haslam to the Coalition as a campaign planner :)

This is too funny.

The author was essentially making the point that Islamophobia in most instances, is an incorrect term.
I agree wholeheartedly. In my many stoushes with the anti-muslim brigade on these threads, I've tried to stay away from the term. Double check if you don't believe me.

Having said that, the author points out that 'phobias' are an irrational fear, (not hatred or just plain prejudice or bigotry).

Now... it gets really amusing when we analyse the fact that so many people jumped in to attack the article, because they thought it was coming to the defence of muslims. In fact, they were so opposed, and so damn heated up on the subject, that they didn't even read long enough to realise that it was actually closer to supporting them than opposing them.

So, they simply saw key words and reacted somewhat irrationally.

I won't say that they acted in an Islamophobic manner, because it wasn't about fear... no, this article proved something more along the lines of thinking before speaking, something that the most extreme ideologues on both sides are guilty of doing.

Or, to say it using my preferred vernacular: cantankerous idiocy without proper reflection or objectivity.

(close enough, though).

mil-observer,


1. I'm not sure what you mean by "culture-warriors", perhaps it refers to those totally non PC individuals who are not cultural relativists and regard totalitarian theocracies as backward and oppressive, perhaps you could point out a progressive majority Islamic state. So you see, Grasshopper, there are indeed rational grounds for a fear of Islam. Ask the Copts in Egypt, the Assyrians in Iraq, the Christians in Pakistan, there is not enough space here to enumerate Islam's victims world-wide. We could argue that there is no present danger to Australia, perhaps.

2.Haslam's article seems clear and well structured to me, although limited necessarily to a psychological analysis. You read into the text your own biases, which is what you accused others of doing.

You're not one of those dreadful "postmodernists" are you?

3.Provide some examples of "Islamophobia", I might agree.

Be cautious in assuming the moral high ground you may have nothing to stand on, every culture has negative or disfunctional institutions, not just ours. I suggest that if you want to arrogantly presume to read my mind get yourself a crystal ball, it will serve just as well as your previous attempt.

Finally, I'm sure that the "rabble" are big enough to look after themselves, they don't need my help.

Having re-read the thread, I'm now of the opinion that we could solve the problem very simply by replacing "Islamophobia" with "boofheaded, misanthropic stupidity". I think that would cover the various odious sentiments expressed here by those who are apparently offended by being referred to as Islamophobic.

Have a great Saturnalia, everyone!

Yes CJ, henceforth don't ever refer to them as Islamophobic, OK?

There's some irrationality there certainly, but it's not a 'phobia'. So, in the interests of continuing the discussion and not 'shutting down debate' perhaps we should use the phrase "lollipop an Christmas cracker" instead.

In this way the lollipop an Christmas cracker brigade can feel all warm and fuzzy while discussing how to control a wayward portion of the worlds humanity that they feel rationally afraid of.

I'd be most interested in Pericles and CJ's comments about this:

"Muslim Enclave" "muslims only" housing project.

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=113035

Which includes this statement from the Muslim Council of WA's religious advisor.....

“In South Africa, because of apartheid, all different communities were set up and it worked well. It kept people separate. We can be together in terms of our contribution to the wider community.”

I think I'll report him to Desmond Tutu :)

I don't feel it is 'Islamophobic' to have concerns about this kind of trend.....

I'll comment Polyboazy, even though I'm only 3rd on your list :(

I feel sad for these people, especially that they feel that apartheid works well and that this development will help them in some way. I wonder where they might get that idea idea from. Yes, we all know it won't, but I don't want to stand in the way of them making their own mistakes.

Porkycrap: << I'd be most interested in Pericles and CJ's comments... >>

I can't speak for Pericles, but I'll consider your request after you've addressed your latest lies, that have been exposed in this concurrent thread:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2405#53221

Personally, I think that Porky's Islamophobia is just one manifestation of a deeper and more extensive psychopathology. But that's only my opinion, and I'm not as well qualified in psychology as Prof Haslam is.

The fact is that Mr. Hasham has written a mumbo-jumbo that that throws about words like fear, prejudice, phobia, etc… and associates them to emotions, attitudes, value and beliefs…. Never ever does he link any of these to actions and ideals.

What this article is saying is that these “phobias” are irrational and counterproductive and therefore should not be used. The problem is that fear, dislike and phobias are often justified by events and ideas that can cause harm. What he is saying is that fear or dislike of the hate and violence Islam teaches is a delusion and not important. Notice that he says "Fear of terrorism contributes" to anti-Muslim sentiment, not "Terrorism contributes," as if terror is just intangible, unreal dream.

Mr Haslam develops this concept in his article “Attitudes towards asylum seekers the psychology of exclusion” in which he dismisses opposition to illegal immigration as the product of bigoted, ill-informed, immature people without the high moral standards and sublime intelligence he possesses. Not only that, he sees “germs of truth” in the accusations of “deeply-rooted racism or xenophobia”, which contradicts his statement here.

Oh, by the way, Haslam forgot to say it, but he is THE director of Researchers for Asylum Seekers (RAS), a group that, in simple terms, wants unlimited, unsupervised, uncontrolled immigration to Australia, and if you don’t agree, it says you are an evil bigot. He believes that people here should not only have no control over immigration, but should not even criticize those who enter the country illegally because it may have “negative impacts on their mental health and wellbeing.”

To those here who say some of us didn't understand the article... It is not about islamophobia being unproductive as a description or label. What Hasham is really saying is that attitudes and beliefs, even when based upon facts and events, should also not be considered valid emotional or intellectual responses. He doesn't want people to have an opinion or to act upon those opinions, at least when it comes to certain groups he advocates for.

No, you're way off target mac. There is no "rational fear" of any religion. Whatever situations and labels may arise in the day-to-ay scenarios where some scary people may invoke religion, or have religious motives somehow attached to them, well they are separate issues. But fear of a religion, including Islam, is quite self-evidently irrational.

I'm not scared of Islam, Catholicism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, or Scientology for that matter. If fake profundities and contrived analysis by Haslam/yourself and associates lead you to claim that my expression of calm and fearlessness is some kind of machismo, well I don't care either.

I don't need to give examples of "Islamophobia": thousands of insecure bigots have beaten me to it by their own initiative. And contrary to TRTL's generous assessment, the Islamophobes' irrational responses to this thread did go some way to proving their own irrational fear. They over-reacted to an imagined threat to their cause and indeed, to their very insecure identity.

Anyway, I already mentioned Haneef twice, and the London tube shooting case once. They are glowing examples of over-reaction caused by irrational fear, or unhealthy psychic preoccupation with an imagined threat i.e., more specifically "Islamophobia".

On reading back the posts here, it seems that I have indeed picked yourself and/or Haslam (perhaps one and the same) for the "culture warriors" that you increasingly appear to be. Champions of Egyptian Copts and Assyrian Christians indeed!

A few points:

1. The main point of the article is not to shut down debate, surely. There are very few issues that dont have 2+ sides to it (in fact the term 'issue' implies that). Surely most, if not all, issues that appear on Online Forum are debatable.

People who attack others rather than their line of argument, do so in order to shut down debate. They are the genuine phobes. They are also the most prejudiced, according to the author's definition, and I agree with him here: "the emotional signature of prejudice is much more frequently anger, contempt or disgust". Again, this is evidenced in the way some posters debate others. It's all personal and laden with ridicule and invective.

2. Haslam's article initially appeared in the Australian, yes, but under the heading: "Bigots are just sick at heart", not "What's wrong with Islamophobia?" Would be interesting to know whether that was the author's chosen title or The Australian's title.

3. Given that people in the Islamic faith face death for apostacy, this explains why few Muslims critique, speak out against or leave their faith. These people are Islamophobic as well in the true sense of the word, as were the hoards of western journalists who refused to stand up for their freedom of speech values following the Cartoon Controversy, yet routinely poke fun at/show contempt for Christianity (eg the artwork "Piss Christ"). What happened to Theo Van Gogh and the numerous others who have met with or been threatened with a similar fate has cowered many from speaking out against Islam. This reaction is undeniably genuine and justified "Islamophobia". Of course there other instances of prejudice toward groups which are just blind prejudice and not phobic at all.

Mil-observer,

I disagree with some of your earlier comments:-

(1)..."...many irrational (and yes, 'phobic') responses!"

None of those you named are irrational with their response. It's likely they didn't bother to fully read the article. I do that sometimes. I'm not obliged to read articles to debate someone.
A result of prejudice?? No. I have hinted the word Islamophobic was used so often, those wrongly accused naturally and quickly felt offended. So their reaction is not even a prejudice, but understandable.
Rather, those using such misguided terminologies are at fault by prejudicially closing down two-way debate.
CJMorgan, I assert is an obvious individual who has IRRATIONAL FEARS of some sort of "Islamophobic violence", whatever that may be.

(2)..."...such irrational fear, alarm....prejudice, etc...that gets a Brazilian shot dead in London, Haneef detained.

It's only wisdom of hindsight that allows you to uphold that smug "I-told-you-so" "over-reaction" attitude.
You wouldn't be any wiser if that Brazilian and Haneef were indeed terrorists. Or your job is actually a security job that involve looking out for a suicide bomber.
Don't forget the London killing was a DIRECT result of REAL FEAR coming from an earlier terrorist act in LONDON.

(3)..."Haslam....implies that there are rational grounds for a fear of Islam!"

I certainly agree there are rational grounds for a fear of Islam.
If you insist there can be no rational grounds for a fear of Islam, then you are part of what the author described under "Prejudice has more to do with beliefs and values..."

For example, Muslims outght not fear Islam. Otherwise he/she is irrational. ( Hence Islamophobes probably only exist among Muslims). But like KGB mentioned, don't we sympathise with such Islamophobes who want to leave Islam, yet too fearful of apostasy edicts??
Also, extrapolate that, it is likely people who sympathize with Muslims will not fear Islam. You & CJMorgan probably included.

(4)..."I don't need to give examples of Islamophobia": thousands of insecure bigots..."

Come on, some honesty here please.
Name one single "...insecure bigots...".
How about calling me one and I will prove to you that you are wrong??

The article does not differentiate between Muslims as a people and Islam as an ideology and “religion”. A near 100% of Muslims are born into that religion and are not allowed to leave the “religion” without having their lives threatened.

The author uses “phobia” in a very narrow sense as defined in the field of psychiatry. He describes the people who are critical of Islam as prejudiced --“are low on two quite different personality factors: agreeableness and openness”, ”among less rather than more educated people”. The term ‘Islamophobia’ is a misuse of psychiatric language according to him.

The field of psychology and psychiatry is often subjective and controversial.

[quote]
“Psychologist Roger Mills, in his 1980 article, "Psychology Goes Insane, Botches Role as Science," says:

‘The field of psychology today is literally a mess. There are as many techniques, methods and theories around as there are researchers and therapists. I have personally seen therapists convince their clients that all of their problems come from their mothers, the stars, their bio-chemical make-up, their diet, their life-style and even the "kharma" from their past lives."

With over 250 separate systems of psychotherapy, each claiming superiority over the rest, it is hard to view such diverse opinions as scientific or even factual.’

World-renowned research psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey is very blunt when he says:

"The techniques used by Western psychiatrists are, with few exceptions, on exactly the same scientific plane as the techniques used by witch doctors." [unquote]

The critical view of Islam by non-Muslims and some Muslim themselves is not based on prejudices but rather what is happening in the Islamic world and Muslim-majority regions of a non-Muslim country, e.g. Kashmir in India, south Thailand in Thailand, Mindanao in the Philippines, Xinjiang in China, Chechnya in Russia, Kosovo in Serbia, pockets of inner cities in the UK.

mil-observer

Had the AFP been more careful in their investigations and the Indian government was more helpful in providing vital information, it is without doubt that ‘Dr.’ Haneef would be found guilty as charged.

The Indian government was unhelpful to providing information regarding Haneef when asked by the Australian authorities. However, after the massacre in Mumbai by Muslim militia, they would willingly cooperate in the future

I find it interesting that the entire topic of “Islamophobia” - the term's origins and usage – elicits opposition largely united around one defence i.e., a defence, or at least justification, for “fear” of Islam. Most absurdly, the defenders of such fear insist that the fear is “rational”. They sometimes refer to others as the actually fearful: Copts, Assyrians, Pakistani Christians, and even Muslims themselves. However, such illustrations merely transfer or project from within, after almost open admissions by those who defend Islamophobia in practice, but who oppose the term because of its pathological connotations. It is the commentators themselves who harbor the fear, however they may variously express it, or insist that theirs is a calm, mature and reasoned position.

Be crystal clear on one essential point: “fear” is itself not a rational phenomenon. Although fear may have perfectly understandable causes, it is instinctual and emotional. To claim that some experience of fear endorses, or justifies, a worldview, is irrational and very dangerous. It would be just as absurd if we constructed worldviews on experiences like envy, hunger, sexual ecstasy, hatred, elation, sadness, etc. In short, the ensuing political effect would be irrationalism, and probably immoral by traditional norms. As phenomenological debate, politics would degenerate into futile contests between competing subjectivities.

The quality of political debate and its surrounding culture seems to have descended to just such levels of degeneracy. When a culture allows fear to become so respectable, it weakens itself profoundly by fostering paranoids and cowards as normal and healthy. Cynical opportunists manipulate fear for their own ambitions, in endless pursuit of inefficient, unproductive, wasteful and disruptive “security” activities against “the fear”.

I used to work in that industry, and I witnessed such decay first hand. The Islamophobes and their minders have largely won their “culture war”, in a sense, and I see little chance of western recovery from this illness. But for the record: I told you so.

As fear-based irrationalism entrenches, the irony looms like a monster: the qualities of the imagined object of fear – oppressiveness and freedom-hating - gradually consume the new polity.

Mil-observer wrote: "Be crystal clear on one essential point: 'fear' is itself not a rational phenomenon"

It's crystal clear to me Mil-observer is wrong here.

Fear is merely an emotional outcome, like "happy" or "angry". They involve at least one input (e.g. object of fear); one process (a.k.a. human mind) and experience (a.k.a. human memory).

If the human mind is faulty (eg. insanity), then whatever emotional outcome is likely to be irrational.
If the human mind is well but there is a lack of knowledge (ie. deficiency in memory), an emotional outcome could be incorrect (eg. not feeling fear when one should). Even so, such a wrong emotion is still rational. What needs to be rectified is the short-coming in knowledge.

What is important is the human mind. That completely determines whether an emotion is rational/irrational.

A robot can be programmed to show "fear" by blinking a red beacon, to show "happiness" by blinking a blue light when different sets of conditions are met. There is nothing much to it.

Suppose an object caused an incident yesterday. If the same object is presented in the same manner today, the same processing coupled with memory of previous event should produce an expected emotional outcome. That'd be a completely rational and predictable outcome.

If you believe there can be no rational fear of Islam, then my natural question to you, (assuming your mental processing is sound) -- Do you REALLY understand Islam and what it is doing??

mil observer,

"As fear based irrationalism entrenches..............", You really are a postmodernist! What in the name of reason does that drivel mean,really. The text is everything, reality is nothing? You are caught in a loop of textual analysis, I could say you are projecting your fears on those whom disagree with,and creating straw men, however I don't resort to ad hominem arguments.(Google the "Sokal Hoax") it will be enlightening. I think you admit that minorities in Islamic nations are fearful, why are they fearful, is their fear irrational? They are fearful because they are murdered ,oppressed and robbed in the name of Islam, that is an external reality, beneath your consideration it appears,since it would undermine your thesis. You fail entirely to grasp the proposition that accusations of "Islamophobia" can be cynical manipulations of Western fear of the "racist" label. I and some of the "rabble" are shrewd enough to realize this,we also understand. the menace of theocracy.

A thought experiment for you- you are in a market square in an Islamic country and you wander about shouting( clearly, in the vernacular)
" Mohammmad is a lying bastard and a murderer".................

that's your lesson in politics, ethics and manners for today, Grasshopper.

I've found the last few posts to be quite interesting. I think we have quite a productive topic for discussion if we don't end up descending too far into ad-hominem commentary.
(I realise my last post had a fair amount of ad-hominem commentary, however in my defence I was directing it toward examples of poorly directed vitriol rather than any given posters in particular.)

I see both sides of the coin, but I think you're actually making different arguments against each other.

In relation to the posts on the validity of fear, mil-observer, GZ-tan and mac, you're all right, but it's because you're not actually debating the same specific thesis.

Fear is indeed a valid reaction, like anything else. It's not something we can control. So if you're arguing that fear is a valid reaction to certain circumstances, then of course - your point is duly noted and it can't really be refuted.
I think anyone who wouldn't feel a certain degree of fear in something like a dangerous, brutal wartime situation, would not be
a psychologically sound individual.

However, the point mil-observer makes is what interests me more as it has a few more layers to it - is fear a rational base on which to build a society?

On one level, I don't see how we can pretend there isn't an element of fear in the development of policy.
Taking it back to brutally simplistic levels, why else do we keep a defence force, if not to defend against threats? And what is a threat if not something we harbor a kind of fear of?

Now that being said, using emotional input when judging our policy tends to have a hidden assumption that we are in some way, reducing 'pragmatism' as the driving force of our society. Ultimately, pragmatism should be the paramount decider.

So we are stuck in a loop. Does fear cloud pragmatism, or do we accept that fear is inherent in any decision that can have negative outcomes?

It's a bit of a quandary, because clearly, the answer to both questions are 'yes.'

Cont'd.

Cont'd

When you think about it further, the question becomes murkier - are we discussing emotional 'input' into developing our society, or are we discussing results?

Aside from generically using the term 'happy' to describe the goals of society, I don't think we can really aim for an 'emotional' result for society. We can only discuss pragmatic outcomes.

So, when I consider the simplest pragmatics of this situation, I can't help but note these simple points I've already pointed out:

1. We DO have the ability to shun and combat extremist groups.
2. We DON'T have the ability to shun Islam in its entirety for the following reasons:
- the spread of Islam and the fact that it's already embedded within society.
- the majority peaceful muslims who would be victims.
- the likelihood that this would empower the more violent fringe movements, who could use this to their advantage and recruitment, thus increasing the violence.
- the fact that in vilifying a major religion, we turn our back on the universal principles of equality which I believe are really the only thing which we have that gives us any kind of moral high ground.

I really believe that such hostile commentary about Islam really harms us more than it helps.

I'm not making these comments from a warm and fuzzy far leftist position.
I'm being brutally pragmatic - answer me this, do you really think that consistently reinforcing the message that all muslims are evil helps or hinders us, given that we CAN'T simply wage an old fashioned war here?
Wouldn't it be better to reinforce the peaceful interpretations?

I don't give a damn which is the 'right' interpretation. I don't believe there is such a thing. Hell, I don't think any religion is more than tarot voodoo which allows the practitioner to create a reflection of themselves they want and can impress upon others.

But if you do believe Islam is evil, then shouldn't you help us 'subvert' it into a peaceful religion, instead of making it a hostile one and handing power to the most hostile elements?

On the other hand TRTL muslims can do a lot to help themselves and gain very significant credibility by doing so.

Here is what one commentator suggests:

"If Muslims want to end "Islamophobia" instantaneously, here's how they can do it:

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

If Muslims do those five things, voila! "Islamophobia" will vanish."

Now an article by a muslim commentator on this would make a very interesting OLO piece.

Check this out: ‘Islam is incompatible with democracy’

Radio National IQ2 debate: http://abc.com.au/rn/summer/2008/talk/IQ2/

This will be broadcast next Monday evening, but you can listen to the whole debate now.

TRTL,

I agree with you arguments, up to a point- It's our right to utter hostile comments in reference to Islam, Christianity or any superstition we choose, if believers are offended, it's their problem not ours, these liberties cost thousands of innocent lives to secure. Hare-brained notions of multi-cultural harmony should not be allowed to subvert our freedoms. Moslems come to Australia because it offers a superior living standard, which is the result of a secular democratic state, the rule of law and the benefits of science, these are usually non existent in their homelands.Why? Haslam only briefly referred to the use of accusations of "Isalmophobia" as efforts to shut dissenters up. Islam is just one religion amongst many in a liberal democratic state, many Moslems just cannot understand this. There are plenty of websites that claim that Islam is a uniquely violent belief system,I won't comment on this aspect, that's best left to the experts, however you should read bigmal's comments carefully

bigmal,

Exactly!

Dear Mil Observer....*Hands Mil Ob a pair of newly calibrated Mil Spec binoculars*....

I'm afraid you are making some totally silly statements.

One such is "Fear itself is not rational" err.. 'rubbish'...

The UN Charter on Refugees uses the term 'well founded fear'....

Fear is what you feel when faced with a threat you know is for real.

Fear is what I felt when the predeeding year of RAAF apprentices told us that if we ever fought back against them, they would make sure we were hospitalized for a goodly period. It was for that reason that I didn't fight back when being pummeled mercilessly until I was black and blue by one particular person. It had nothing to do with 'ability to fight back' against an individual..but everything to do with FEAR of being hospitalized and losing the opportunity to complete my valued training. (at that stage the failure of just one weekly test was enough to see us kicked out)

Fear.can be very ratonal..... SOME fear is not.

Fear for your physical safety concerning a Christian following Christ's example is absolutely irrational. Fear of a literalist Muslim, claiming he follows Mohamad's exmaple is quite rational. Ask Theo Von Gogh..oh wait.. we can't..he's dead.

Fear of Islam should have nothing to do with anecdotal behavior of Muslims.. rather..with the teachings of Islam itself.

Anecdotal behavior which confirms these beliefs is a bonus.
"Muslim Enclave in WA"...kinda supports this hyothesis.

Response to bigmal's interjection first, just to show its circular futility:

“If western liberalists want to end hostility against themselves instantaneously, here's how:
1. Focus their indignation on liberalists committing violent acts in the name of Liberalism, not on non-liberalists reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just 'terrorism', but any intention to violate sovereignty (or the constitutions of Islamic/non-Liberalist states) with regime change even by peaceful means/embargoes.
3. Teach liberalists the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-liberalists on an indefinite basis.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in liberalist institutions all over the world to teach against the ideas of imperialism and western supremacism.
5. Actively work with non-Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend imperialists within Western expatriate communities.
If westerners do those five things...”, etc.
[I don't advocate the above prescription: it's patronizing, presumptuous, and futile]

But bigger problems with bigmal's take on things arise in the forensics of non-state terrorism. What if bigmal's omniscient-seeming “threat assessment” (done in advance!) is inaccurate?

Recall from the '70s and '80s how the UK government and press attributed any UK terrorist outrages to the IRA or “factions”. Much public evidence since has revealed puppet operations for widespread assassination of IRA, non-IRA and anti-IRA subjects – many claim bombings too (via anti-IRA targets, British agents sought to confirm their “loyal” reputation among IRA circles).

Think outside of your loop for a moment. Imagine that you sought to destabilize or coerce a state with terrorist mayhem in order to force trade privileges, regime change, disrupt a rising rival or alliance, quash dissent, impose strategic cooperation, etc. Would you launch terror with your own forces, or a proxy – say operators run from Dubai or Saudi, via organized crime networks like that of Mumbai smuggling kingpin Dawood Ibrahim?

Of course, you'd cultivate desperadoes, preferably home-grown and with a suitably traumatized and hopeless family background of loss from ethnic and/or sectarian political warfare. What was that Bolshevik term again? Ah, “useful idiots”!

International law, publicity and diplomacy make proxies crucial in most modern terrorism.

TRTL, you're still defending fear as a motive and basis for decision-making. Check back on your statements:

TRTL: "Fear is indeed a valid reaction, like anything else". No, rather: "Fear, like anything else, is not necessarily valid at all". By "valid", I understand in this context the meanings "just, sound, well-founded".

For example, a child bitten by an attack-trained Doberman may learn to fear all dogs, even friendly Pomeranians and Samoyeds! While the child's fear is understandable, especially around the time of being bitten, it is unsound and unjustifiable for the child to learn and behave by perpetuating the experience of fear itself. If the child is to develop well in this case, it must overcome fear of all dogs.

TRTL: "I think anyone who wouldn't feel a certain degree of fear in something like a dangerous, brutal wartime situation, would not be a psychologically sound individual". Many medals have been awarded to many people precisely because they have developed such mature self-control that they overcame their fear in order to singlemindedly achieve their goals in the face of direct, extreme dangers. I do not claim that fear is, or necessarily should be annihilated in such cases; most cases of such courage demonstrate exemplary spiritual/psychological soundness.

For a more routine example, when I made my first parachute jump, a friend and I tested our heart rates throughout the process. We wanted to disprove an ABC documentary showing a supposedly “objective” test of physiological responses to various situations, including parachuting, where the journalist's heart rate went hyper. Both myself and my friend managed a walking-pace heart rate (20 above resting) just prior to jumping, then a soft-exercise rate (40—60 above resting) immediately after canopies opened.

“[Fear]'s not something we can control”. We can and should, just as we try to control other emotions, instincts, and our appetites. Cynical politicians and security bureaucrats would of course disagree, privately, “off the record”, or under carefully guarded pseudonyms. But such people now seem driven entirely by greed for more power and money.

TRTL,

Some good thinkings there.
But the suggestion "..if...Islam is evil, then...'subvert' it into a peaceful religion..." is an oxymoron.

Exactly how do you 'subvert' Islam?? Does that mean changing the nature of Islam??

Nevertheless, let's see if we can develop some ideas.

Like any ideology, Islam is a force, very large force.
To neutralise a force, it must be (i) weakened, and (ii) actively counter-balanced by opposing forces.

Approach (1)...Directly weaken the force of Islam
This is very important.
Actively expose Islam as a religion based on Mohammed's lies. This is one way to weaken the Islamic force-- By challenging Islam's credibility and legitimacy.
Some benefits:- (i) Some (intelligent) Muslims will see the light and leave the religion. (ii) The religion will be ideologically and socially weakened.
Actively challenge Islam's credibility and spread the words.

Approach (2)...Maintain and Extend forces that oppose Islam
In fact many non-Islamic activities are inherently anti-Islam. (Even High School Musicals are strongly anti-Islam in many ways) But many forces lost their effectiveness due to political-correctness.
To avoid too many details, suffice to say here that, we must be vigilant all Muslims/Islamic Institutions abide by Australian values. (Example: No seggregation of sexes is permitted in Islamic schools).

Approach (3)...Avoid diminishing forces that directly / indirectly oppose Islam
Be brutally pragmatic. If Communists were to rise up to take control of Saudi Arabia, DO NOT oppose the communists!! Hopefully the communists will clean out Islam religion and Saudi Arabia will start anew as a typical secular state in future. ( Of course, this is purely hypothetical and assuming no one cares about the price of oil).
Now Atheists please TAKE NOTE...
More relevantly, do NOT lump Christianity and Islam as one in your attacks/criticisms. Christianity/Judaism are very important anti-Islamic forces in the West. Especially Christianity is a viable option for Muslims who leave Islam

We need to differentiate fear from paranoia.

Fear is an essential survival mechanism. On that basis, it's a tough sell to argue that fear is irrational.

When fear becomes paranoia, that's irrational. Paranoia is based on ignorance.

The opposite of paranoia is being overconfident / overtrusting or being in a state of denial. This serves to protect people in the short term from facing up to harsh realities.

We want neither the paranoids nor the deniers telling the rest of us what to think.

To be fearful of the potential influence of Islam on western society is far from irrational. The (solid left) UK Guardian reported on a poll in 2006 on the Muslim community which found that:

40% backed bringing in Sharia law (which backs stoning/amputations) into parts of Britain
20% expressed sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the July 7 London suicide bombers which killed 52 people.
1% said the London attacks were "right"

Does it mean one is a prejudiced right wing fascist for thinking that these stats are "alarming"?

Far from it. The Guardian continues:

(Left wing Muslim politician)"Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP appointed to the task force set up after the 7/7 attacks, called the findings "alarming"." (contd)

A rational person will be very concerned about these figures, as the left wing UK Labour Party was, including some Muslim officials.

A paranoid person would conclude that all Muslims are untrustworthy.

Someone in a state of denial would say that even debating Islam as a threat is counter-productive. A prejudiced denier would go further and suggest that expressing concern about Islam is evidence of some kind of character defect and pile on the personal contempt & ridicule. (aim: to shut down debate. Phobic of alternative points of view)

A rational person would look at the survey in its entirety, which also includes the following:

75% said they did not sympathise with the bombers.
91% said they felt loyal to Britain
41% were against bringing in Sharia to the UK (slighly more than those who wanted Sharia).
99% did not support the actions of the London bombers.
(and in a 2007 study reported in the left wing UK Guardian, and carried out by a conservative leaning think tank...)
84% said they believed they had been well treated in British society
28% thought the authorities had gone over the top in trying not to offend Muslims.

A rational person will say that not only are these figures alarming, but that we need to "win the battle of ideas within some parts of the Muslim community and reinforce the voice of moderate Islam wherever possible."

and "to ensure that Muslims, and all faiths, feel part of modern British society."

That's excactly what both sides of parliament said.

A rational person will known that (respectable, but open) debate is one way to ensure this.

Sources:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510866/Poll-reveals-40pc-of-Muslims-want-sharia-law-in-UK.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/jan/29/thinktanks.religion
http://www.midsussexfreethinkers.org.uk/ShariaLaw.html (Guardian page)

BIGMAL.... I can raise you a few more.....

CHALLENGE.. to any MUSLIM.

1/ Denounce Military violence to extend the rule of Islam!

ME.
I hereby absolutely and without reservation DENOUNCE Military or civil violence to extend the 'rule' of Christianity. It is abhorrent, unGodly, and without Biblical foundation. Any Christian who wishes to take issue with me on this, may make a time and place and I'll be there to argue it.

2/ CONDEMN UTTERLY, POLITICAL ASSASINATION in the name of ISLAM.

ME. Without reservation..I absolutely CONDEMN and REJECT assasination of political enemies in the name of Christ!

3/ CONDEMN UTTERLY, (Pre-pubescent or underage) CHILD ABUSE by OLD MEN - THEIR MARRIAGE, SEXUAL consumation and/or divorce.

ME.. I utterly condemn the practice of old men 'marrying' little children, it is unbiblical, outrageous, degenerate and disgusting.

4/ CONDEMN UTTERLY THE PROMISCUITY IN MUSLIM RELIGIOUS LEADERS.

ME.. "I condemn completely any extra marital sexual relationship by a Christian, and the marriage of any Christian to more than one woman at the same time"

THE PROBLEM...is... for each of these points.. the Quran and/or Mohammad's example.. ALLOW such things.

Expecting a high profile Muslim who's address might be known to say such things would be like pulling a well rooted wisdom tooth.

As soon as critics of critics of Islam realize these things...the allegation of "Islamophobia" will dissappear.. as BigMal said.

I agree. Once Muhammed's deranged message is exposed for what it is, "Islamophobia" will be a thing of the past. Hopefully, this will occur in our lifetime.

In the debate recommended by Ludwig, there were bodyguards to protect one of the debaters, Daniel Pipes. He mentioned one Sudanese Muslim reformer Mohammad Mahmoud Taha who tried to give a different interpretation of the Koran.

What Daniel Pipes did not mention is that Taha was executed by the Muslim government of Sudan in 1985.

http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2007/01/islamic_pacifis.html

An honest interpretation of the Koran and the hadiths necessitates one to conclude that Islam, like Nazism, espouses violence to achieve its aim. Like Nazism's objective of having a pure Aryan race, Islam aims to set up the community of believers (ummah) through shariah law.

It appears that there is no way of reforming Islam; much as Nazism was destroyed in a war, Islam has to be treated in a similar manner. The places that spreads this ideology of hate and murder are the mosques, maddrasahs (Koranic schools), Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran.

To respond to a few posters:

GZ Tan, I think you're missing my point. You're talking about 'weakening' Islam. I never said any such thing. I said that I think all major religions have multiple interpretations and I think people can look into a religion and see what they want.
What I said was, that if people such as yourself see Islam as only a 'bad' religion, then perhaps, we can encourage the peaceful types. You may see this as 'subverting' the religion to something else. I see it as promoting a more peaceful aspect. In any case, our end goal is the same.
However, I never said anything about 'weakening' Islam. Practitioners would quite rightly find this insulting and never take part in it. However, those who follow peaceful interpretations would accept encouragement of their kind of Islam - but not if it was said to be 'weakening' their religion.

Quite an important difference. Those who are interested in simply seeking harmony between religions can see it.
Those who would prefer to convert others to their religion, tend to refuse this option, because it doesn't suit their preferred result - something I have little patience for.

Philip Tang - so what that proved to me was that it was possible for Taha to espouse a different form of his religion.
The powers that be didn't want this and he was assassinated. Very regrettable. However, it shows me that with different people in charge, it's possible for other interpretations to exist.

Polycarp, I don't disagree with your recent post, however I'd take some note of the 'extra-marital' bit. Frankly, provided they're not harming children or forcing people against their will, people's sexual habits are their own business.
None of yours or anyone elses.
I'd scrap that one, but concur with the rest, however you need to also acknowledge that those who do speak out risk the fate of Taha, as mentioned by Philip Tang. As you yourself screech so often, we're dealing with a political element as well.

Cont'd.

Cont'd.

The other key point is that when moderates attempt to defend their religion, you and others attack them.

Witness every attack you yourself have made on people such as Irfan Yusuf.

If you want moderates to speak out against the bad aspects of Islam, then I agree, it must happen.
However, to make this environment possible, we have to stop damning people who do defend their faith.

Why?

-Because when they speak out against the radical elements, they are effectively aligning themselves with the western forces opposed to these radicals.
-They can't align themselves with people who refuse to listen to any defence of the religion without attacking them.

Anyone can see this would be tantamount to giving up their religion - something they would be no more willing than you, to do, polycarp. Nor should they - however, deep down, this is exactly what you want. You're goal isn't just to get them to be peaceful, it's to convert them. Which is why we have a problem.

Add to that the fact that they may be murdered for speaking out, and it's not the simple, easy thing you suggest.

Mil-observer:

This is a semantic argument. The soldier does feel fear, he doesn't act upon it. Everybody feels fear, it's part of our chemical makeup, thus, it's natural.
Fear can be defined as pure emotion, or it can be defined as categorising something as a threat - something which all people and countries do. The soldier is at war because his country has a 'fear' that there will be negative consequences if they do not enter combat.

It seems that Prof Haslam is incorrect, at least as far as our resident Islamophobes are concerned. Fear of Islam feeds their bigotry, but they claim it is a 'rational' fear, given the heinous nature of the Muslim religion.

However, it's only rational if the subjective fear is based on a rational premise. This, I would submit, is not:

<< ...much as Nazism was destroyed in a war, Islam has to be treated in a similar manner >>

It seems to me that, despite their various affectations to 'rationality', our resident Islamophobes share with their fear a propensity to imagined confrontation. Just as well they're invariably sitting behind computers fantasising rather than out on the streets enacting their fantasies, I guess.

TRTL - as ever, very well said.

Dear TRTL that was a most progressive post. I'm seeing a dim glimmer of hope here :)

You said:

I'd scrap that one, (the promiscuity one ) but concur with the rest, however you need to also acknowledge that those who do speak out risk the fate of Taha, as mentioned by Philip Tang.

2 majorly important points emerge from the quote I used here.

1/ The public face at least of Islam should be 'pure'. What people do behind closed doors with consenting others is indeed their business.. I'm referring to 'policy' or doctine.

2/ The fate of Taha? AB-SO-BLOODY-LUTELY excuse my french but that little pearl of yours is the epicentre of my opposition to Islam. That 'is' Islam (in the strict technical/theological sense)..but for sure it is not everyone's Islam.

I quite agree there are various 'interpretations' which we can observe here and there, but for us to encourage a version which is acceptable to us, would still involve them willingly declaring as per my list. That kind of Islam would in truth not be 'Islam' historically.. it would be regarded by most Muslims as a cult.

The only way you could verify this would be to research it.

I think the main area we differ is on this issue of "interpretation"...

My view is this. The 'true' Islam is that practiced and taught by:

a) Mohammad
b) Quran
c) Hadith
d) The first 4 'rightly guided' Caliphs as they are referred to.

If you ask around some Muslims... 'Who or what are the 'rightly guided Caliphs'...they will tell you they were

-Abu Bakr
-Othman
-Umar
-Ali

It was they who immediately succeeded Mohammad.

I think you have been infected with Post Modernism :) "Each persons truth is true for them" kind of thing.

We'll continue your therapy until we fix u :) *Poly ducks the flying shoe*

TRTL

I wonder if I have misunderstood,this seems like another call to surrender our liberties in the name of "harmony" and become Kuffars.

So we have to stop criticizing the excesses of Moslems in order to encourage a more moderate Islam, I see, if we offer no resistance to Sharia law in Australia and remain silent when some Moslems are offended this will encourage "moderates", where ever they are, to introduce a reform movement, doesn't seem likely to me.Obviously it will encourage the mischief makers. If the Islamic world isn't capable of producing its own reformers,without outside assistance, it is seriously and dangerously disfunctional. This is just the point many people posting on this blog have said.

So, why isn't fear of extremist Islamic terrorism 'rational', Christopher?

After all, they did fly those planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 as you keep insisting and they did blow up those trains and buses in London and Madrid, didn't they?

Now now, James (daggett et al) Sinnamon, as you know "Islamophobia" refers to fear of Islam rather than fear of "Islamic terrorism".

If you were to substitute "Islamist" for "Islamic" in your last bleat, you might be talking about something defensible.

And yes, now that you mention it, on the evidence I've seen (including yours) it does seem most likely that Islamist terrorists were responsible for those atrocities.

TRTL: the article originally concerned semantics of “phobia”, so your point on “semantics” seems redundant. We're discussing whether fear should drive our worldview on the vast topic of Islam (other xeno- and homo- fears could be discussed too, but they slipped past the obsessives here), and whether views of Islam are still “rational” when driven by fear. I maintain that such views are irrational and therefore “phobic”.

TRTL: “The soldier does feel fear...doesn't act upon it”, etc. You're making similar mistakes again by constructing universal, sweeping statements from your own subjective assumptions or inferences. It is well known that some soldiers, at least sometimes, actually feel NO fear, while others DO act upon fear; many witnesses and interviews confirm fearlessness in soldiers like Albert Jacka and Audie Murphy.

Also, who implied fear's not natural, etc.? And if strategic analysts use fear in “threat assessment” they must be sacked; such fear caused those Howard w@nkers to embarass Australians even further with their “kids overboard” and “pre-emptive” strike fantasies.

But cautionary notes to the above definitions (for those anti-Islam bigots still confused about their own paranoia):

“Well-founded” applies here to the term “valid” introduced by TRTL (obviously excluded from the Islamophobes). The term “well-founded” is a quite separate discussion to our more basic one exposing fallacies claiming that “fear is or can be rational”; notice that I merely assert that fears may not necessarily be valid or well-founded.

It would be circular or futile to confine the discussion to “whether Islamophobia is 'well founded'”, though Islamophobes would prefer that in order to keep emoting hateful invective and vilification. However, by comparing the key terms “rational” and “fear”, we clarify “irrational fear” or “phobia”, thereby effectively diagnosing Islamophobes' obsessive condition.

In light of his association with “asylum seeker” research, Haslam now seems like a nasty snake. Perhaps one of those wacko fundy-evangelical “born-again Christian” types I recall from Melb Uni? Those people are still sore about their fundy preacher icon and party clown Peter Costello – ah, now there's another discussion about “cowardice”!

Contextual dictionary definitions diagnose Islam-haters/Islamophobes here. By such definitions, fears cannot be “rational” phenomena. Although not necessarily opposing reason directly, fears are categorized as EMOTIONS/FEELINGS, distinct from faculties of REASON. Verbatim:

FEAR...
wordreference.com: “A1...an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight) A2...a profound emotion inspired by a deity; 'the fear of God B1...regard with feelings of respect and reverence; consider hallowed or exalted or be in awe of; 'Fear God... B2...be afraid or scared of; be frightened of; 'I fear the winters in Moscow'; 'We should not fear the Communists!'...B5...be afraid or feel anxious or apprehensive about a possible or probable situation or event; 'I fear she might get aggressive'"

Merriam-Webster: “transitive verb 1.archaic: frighten 2.archaic: to feel fear in (oneself) 3: to have a reverential awe of <fear God> 4: to be afraid of: expect with alarm <fear the worst> intransitive verb: to be afraid or apprehensive <feared for their lives>”

RATIONAL...
wordreference.com: “1. having its source in or being guided by the intellect (distinguished from experience or emotion); 'a rational analysis' 2. intellectual, rational, noetic - of or associated with or requiring the use of the mind; 'intellectual problems'; 'the triumph of the rational over the animal side of man' 3. consistent with or based on or using reason; 'rational behavior'; 'a process of rational inference'; 'rational thought'.”

Merriam-Webster: “1) a: having reason or understanding b: relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason.: reasonable <a rational explanation> <rational behavior>”

Simple claims “fear of Islam is/can be rational” exposed “Islamophobes” here as did many irrationally condemnatory responses to Haslam's subtle anti-Islam article. Taken together with the claims posted, clear definitions confirm “Islamophobia”. Whether more the “aggressive paranoid” or “cowardly obsessive” variety, good shrinks could assess. Avoid Haslam though: he seems to be in closer company with Islamophobes than he at first seemed.

Islamophobes: good luck dealing with your delusions and/or obsessive fears. Remember not to harm anyone else (including Muslims) during that process.

Christopher wrote, "on the evidence I've seen (including yours) it does seem most likely that Islamist terrorists were responsible for those atrocities."

I think it's safe to assume that either Christopher knows that to be untrue, or he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Otherwise, Christopher would surely have demonstrated some comprehension of the 9/11 controversy after more than 3 months.

So, whilst posturing here as an altruistic 'politically correct' opponent of bigotry, Christopher sees nothing at all wrong with promoting the Big Lie of September 11 that was and is being used as the ultimate justification for wars that have claimed the lives of probably well over a million Muslims.

TRTL,

Do you know it had been shown a lion can peacefully co-exist with a lamb??

A display at the 1904 World's Fair and Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St.Louis attracted lots of attention--
A lion and a lamb were seen together in same cage, peacefully interacting.
The audience was very impressed. But they had no idea this was only possible because a new lamb had to be put in about every 2 days.

Will a lamb ever be safe with a lion?? Yes perhaps, when something goes wrong with the lion, (like it's dying, too weak to attack the lamb).

If the nature of a lion cannot change, I'd like to be warned about the lion, be protected from it.
Someone trying to change a lion to be "peaceful" may lull me into a false sense of security.

Similarly, Islam can only be truly peaceful if its nature can be changed.

The ONLY WAY to truly transform Islam into a more peaceful religion is to re-write Koran, (with violent messages toned down or stripped out).
But this is impossible in reality. It's TOO LATE!!
Islam is already too strong to change. Any moderate who seriously try to change the nature of Islam will eventually be killed.

To do this, you need a country with majority Muslims agreeing to rewrite the Koran. Still this is not enough. We need the UN to spearhead such a project with determination!!

Do you see this happening??

Trust me-- Encouraging the peaceful moderates will ultimately play into the hand of not-so-peaceful type.
I'm not suggesting not to encourage the moderates. That happens all the time. But above all we must be vigilant!!

For a free-society to co-exist with Islam, the key is not to placate Islam, but to actively weaken it and challenge it.
Hopefully a polarisation exists in the Islamic community. Then you can tell who are moderates and where are the extremists.
This way we're constantly reminded of the true nature of the beast and be well-protected from it.

Mil-observer,
You're thinking too much, getting twisted in knots. Here's my tip-- K.I.S.S.

GZ,

I agree, Islamic ideology is by its nature a threat to democracy, earlier generations faced the threat of a secular religion, Communism. However Communism failed because it couldn't deliver the goods in this life.It's not easy to demolish a superstition that promises rewards in the next life and was founded by a psychopathic bandit.

mil observer,

GZ is correct,you are wandering off into psycho analysis and becoming increasingly offensive,personal and irrelevant,it's all the result of an excess of post modernism.

Yes, I agree with those who say the moderates must do something.. Also I’ll add that observers of this need to start setting up apostasy refuges for those who wish to leave Islam.

I am sure it’s already been mentioned how offensive this article is, lumping the *phobes in to one basket of sexual religious (I can’t even remember the last one). Also renaming it prejudice and saying it is what ever it was to do with blood and soil is just troll like flaming of people the author doesn’t agree with.

I read this some time before Chrissy… so if I am a tad off in any miniscule word analysis, forgive me. I just wanted to add my voice to the condemning of this article as a phobic, prejudice or what ever word is permitted this week for basically bad.

But yes, reform support via apostasy and beer bikinis and fun never hurt anyone.

The reason I think the moderates must act is they are the only ones who can, as claimed they are the majority… and most attempts by others are dammed.

Some CONTRASTS.

1/ MUSLIMS in a DEMOGRAPHIC MINORITY (Australia)

<<LOCAL councils around Australia have been warned they risk imposing a "ghetto mentality" on the Islamic community if they continue to oppose religious projects such as the controversial proposals to build Islamic schools at Camden and Bass Hill.

The warning was issued yesterday by the founder of the Islamic Friendship Society, Keysar Trad, as he opened a prayer centre at St Marys.>>

2/ MUSLIMS IN A DEMOGRAPHIC MAJORITY SITUATION (Egypt)

<<“One thousand Christians were today trapped inside the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in West Ain Shams,Cairo, after more than twenty thousand Muslims attacked them with stones and butane gas cylinders. The Church's priest Father Antonious said that the situation is extremely dangerous.

The Muslim mob that attacked the church blocked both sides of the street and encircled the church building, broke its doors and demolished its entire first floor. The mob were chanting Jihad verses as well as slogans saying: we will demolish the church" and - We sacrifice our blood and souls, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Islam".

When the security forces tried to disperse the mob, they went to nearby homes and shops owned by Christians, and were armed with sticks, butane, knives and other sharp objects. Witnesses said the mob included children from as young as 8-years old to men of over 50-years old, in addition to women.>>
(source http://www.aina.org/news/20081126035704.htm )

REASON for the ATTACK:

http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=news%E2%8C%A9=en&length=long&idelement=5705

Objecting to a newly constructed extension to the Coptic church of St. Mary and Anba Abraam in Ain Shams, the huge crowd of angry protestors gathered outside the church at around 5 p.m. following a consecration service for the addition earlier that day.

COMMENT:

1/ 20,000 is not "a few radical Islamists"
2/ "Extensions" to existing churches are not allowed under the Charter of Omar/Code of dhimmitude. (=cultural genocide)

Do any of us see the connection between 'demography' and the tone of the Muslim community towards non Muslims?

Agree with the majority that it's not an insignificant minority of Muslims that harbour societally dangerous ideas (which is seemingly obvious). Polycarp's latest drives the point home. But the reality is, as said above, that we are living in a multicultural world. What are our options other than to be inclusive? (after all, that's where the west's strength comes from in my opinion) But without external pressure, where is the internal incentive for reform efforts to be made quickly?

Agree partially that a distinction needs to be made between Islam and Islamic terrorism. I dont think "Islam" is the sole or even major cause of "Islamic" terrorism. Islamic terrorism I think is driven by an essentially parochial and uneducated worldview that pines for a mythical idyllic bygone era or a blissful future one, combined with perceived injustices against Muslims, which are drilled into them every day by a lack of exposure to other cultures and ideas, and overexposure to the all importance of ("our") religion and ("our") people (Muslims). The religious component to this (it wouldnt matter which one) turns it into a potentially explosive cocktail. In that sense it's no different from Christianity per se. Christians of yore have used all sorts of excuses, supported by quotes from the Bible, as justification for witch trials, inquisitions, mass murder. The OT is full of death and destruction in the name of God. Granted, Christian acts of terror took place hundreds of years ago and Christians have as a whole long since moved on with the Enlightenment. Muslims will move on in the future too as they are brought into modernity via a globalised world. But it will take patience on our part too and a desire to bring them on board.

This idea that Muslims love death and hate life I don't buy. It's mostly false bravado. Look at the Israeli raids going on now and watch hardened Hamas jihadists cry their eyes out over their dead. I couldnt help thinking, hang on, I thought you guys said you wanted this - to die in holy jihad? Apparently not.

CJ Morgan's earlier statement rounds off the entire definition of "Islamophobia" where addressing "if the subjective fear is based on a rational premise". For me CJ's statement, and the example of comparative absurdity in an Islamophobic reference to Nazism in this context, tie off a definitional loose end on "Islamophobia". My own distinctions between "reason" and "emotion" here probably seem too purist, but they also demolish Islamophobes' claims flat to the ground when we read the directly absurd claim "fear of Islam is rational".

The most sickening aspect of the Islamophobes' fear-mongering hysteria and promotion of hatred is that they will sometimes provoke some defensive and retaliatory response among some Muslims and their allies, however minor amid a general attitude of forbearance and self discipline. That dynamic would be the self-fulfilling prophecy Islamophobes most enjoy ("Look! They're shooting at us - in Kandahar!"). Such is also the spiral of hostility sought by the cynical, dishonest and power-mad manipulators behind all political campaigns around religion and fear.

Perhaps equally reprehensible in such campaigns are the fundy, "born-again" evangelist "Christian Soldiers" who address any other religions - and often traditional Christian denominations too - as mere targets for conversions. I recall many such sickoes from uni: they regard their mission as just some exciting contest for souls, where conversion affirm their sense of "victory" and supremacy; it's actually a big business.

States need to assert their responsibilities in cases like this, as in Indonesia, where such activity is formally prohibited by law and the perpetrators even jailed and/or deported. In other cases of Indonesia's religious-based destabilization of Muslim and Christian communities, local thugs involved in forced "conversions" have been tried, jailed, and sometimes shot too. Of course, the death penalty is another contentious matter, but the Indonesian response to such destabilization by fanatics is largely exemplary.

James Sinnamon/daggett/et al: << Christopher would surely have demonstrated some comprehension of the 9/11 controversy after more than 3 months >>

If you're referring to your profoundly stupid "9/11 Truth" thread, I began reading it thinking that you seemed a tad obsessed with your conspiracy theories. When I last looked at it I came to the opinion that you're a full-blown conspiracy theory nutbag, and therefore not worth bothering with.

If you're bored with beaten up by Paul.L, go and find another wingnut to play with. This thread's about Islamophobia.

ISLAM the GAZA ATTACK and QURAN SURAH 9.

Understanding the above related incidents will assist us in understanding what and how the future of any Muslim community in Australia could develop.

1/ HAMAS declares the 'treaty over'

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas on Thursday declared an end to a six-month-old Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip, raising the prospect of an escalation in cross-border fighting.

Quran Surah 9:1

1. Freedom from (all) obligations (is declared) from Allâh and His Messenger (SAW) to those of the Mushrikûn (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allâh), with whom you made a treaty.

OUTCOME. As for Mohammad, so for Hamas..WAR! Mohammad chose his moment better than Hamas though.. when he was strong. With Israel though, there will be no humiliating 'Yarmuk'...no..more likely a destroyed Gaza, deserved completely by those to declared the treaty 'ended'..ie.. Hamas.

COMMENT: When the Muslims of Mohammad's day or those of HAMAS's day end a treaty.. the result is the same. It means THEY intend to attack others.

In terms of Islamic theology and doctrine. Unless a 'treaty' exists between the Ummah and Dar ul Haab, then a state of war exists.(declared or not).

Western minority Muslim communities will argue that they have an implied 'treaty' with the 'infidel' states.

The current thinking is "Ummah" -related as per Kalim Siddiqui, founder of the Muslim Parliament of Britain:

<<He underlines that Islam is a "political religion", which,
according to him, implies that Muslims in the West, for instance in Great Britain, should develop their Islamic identity and culture as part of the worldwide Umma. The first step towards this goal is to create and INSTITUTIONALIZE a unity at the national level, which was
attempted by Siddiqui by his creation of a "Muslim Parliament", in 1992>>

If that Institutionization gains sufficient momentum, eventually there will be a 'declaration of end of treaty' towards we non Muslims.
I would rather fight the battle with a sappling than a grown tree.

Christopher wrote, " When I last looked at it I came to the opinion that you're a full-blown conspiracy theory nutbag, and therefore not worth bothering with."

So, you keep saying, but as I said, you have yet to demonstrate any basic comprehension of your own of the 9/11 controversy.

Christopher wrote, "... go and find another wingnut to play with."

Why would I be interested in 'playing' with a seeming imbecile, whose only emotional response to the atrocity of September 11, the subsequent loss of civil liberties and the subsequent "war on terror" with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, is to have been "entertained" or "amused"?

Christopher wrote, "This thread's about Islamophobia."

Of course it is, Christopher, and "Islamophobia" has nothing to do with the belief that "Islamist" (if you insist) extremists perpetrated the September 11 terrorist attack as well as the London Tube bombings and the Madrid train bombing?

To peddle such lies, whether knowingly, or in wanton ignorance, which are responsible for so much death and destruction, whilst posturing as a virtuous politically correct anti-racist seems to me to be amongst the greatest of hypocrisies.

As it happens, this is exactly what is also peddled in that 'politically correct' propaganda arm of Bush's New World Order, namely Rupert Murdoch's News Limited.

In spite of Polycarp's bloodthirsty rants calling for endless crusades in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere, I think his concerns about "Christian" nations being demographically overwhelmed by people from Islamic cultures are legitimate.

Mark Steyn said this on ABC Radio National's Counterpoint on 15 November(http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2008/2444672.htm):

"(Islam is) the fastest growing population group on the planet. By some accounts it's up to 25% of the global population now. It's the principle source of population growth in Europe and it's the principle source of population growth in Canada now, and whether we like it or not, Western societies are going to be grappling with the question of Islam and the accommodation of Islam for many decades to come. ... Islam has tremendous cultural confidence and a tremendous demographic wind at its back and western civilisation is faint-hearted, on the ropes and in deep demographic decline and so they don't really need to fly planes into buildings, because in cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Malmo in Sweden, most French cities, most German cities, Manchester, Bradfield, Sheffield in England - they will be taking possession of the keys to those buildings simply through demographic advance in the next few years."

I couldn't tell whether or not Steyn welcomed this. However, I fail to see why one group of people who are prepared to restrain their population numbers, namely Europeans, should, as a consequence, become minorities within their own countries.

daggett: populations do not stabilize or moderate when they are subjected to ongoing warfare, uncertain nourishment and other such urges into diaspora. On the contrary, populations often spike upwards in response to such conditions, because people generally perceive a need to ensure a basic triumph of human life over adversity: procreation is the surest way to do that, and that is a good, life-affirming response in the circumstances. Check the population spikes of post-Shoah Jewish people, for example, or of China after the devastations of Japanese imperialism, civil war and cultural revolution. Expect Gaza's populace to make a similar response after repeated large-scale terror and embargo there, and Iraq after its post-2003 bodycount of 1 million-plus. It seems at best premature, if not offensive, to assume that demographic stagnation or regression is a good thing; again we seem to be returning to that poisonous, anti-human Malthusian stuff even in this non-global-warming-scam thread.

I should add that European population declines are hardly the result of some "effort to restrain population numbers"; such declines are due more to greater egotism and near-compulsory commitment to full-time employment among both parents in western nuclear families. Cultural factors confirm such basic degeneracy e.g., married couples proclaiming proudly that they intend to have no children; inefficient and elaborate IVF and surrogacy treatments, and; notions of same-sex marriage. Many acquaintances of my own age are horrified to learn that I have children: they accept the idea that children are like an affordable luxury for rich oligarchs, not underpaid menial workers like myself.

Finally, your quote of Steyn's comment "the question of Islam" has an especially sinister ring to it, echoing earlier ages' rubbish about "the Jewish question", "the Irish question", etc. All very Malthus or, perhaps in Steyn's case, rather Kapo?

While Dagget morphs increasingly into a man of reason :) (for agreeing with me)... Mil Observer is morphing rapidly into 'credibility destructo' mode and is looking increasingly like an elitist left winger who manifests all the symptoms of "Ignorance of Islam" syndrome.

Dagget...your quotes from Steyn etc are very persuasive, as they are based on verifiable demographic and literary facts.
I wish you could apply the same level of reasonableness to 9/11 and other horrific incidents, but you can't be perfect :)

Half good is better than no good.

I invite the perceptive reader to check out these 2 documents.

"Loyalty of Muslims to Non Muslim Rulers"

http://www.interculturelecommunicatie.com/download/loyaliteit.pdf

Pages 7 (last paragraph) and 8 (first paragraph)

Then.. peruse this one:

"Conditional" Loyalty to non Muslim rulers.(the condition is that Islamic goals can be persued, i.e the Islamification of the host society)

http://www.muslimparliament.org.uk/MuslimManifesto.pdf

These are rich in their capturing of the various contradictions in modern Islamic thinking. The first one asserts it is possible to have a modern interpretation of Islam... (but is flawed in the first paragraph of page 8...can you see it?)

The second is pretty much a subdued declaration of war to those familiar in Islamic theological parlance. (such as myself... no.. not arrogance, just fact)

This document refutes the idea of abandoning Jihad, whereas the other one embraces the idea. The problem for Westerners is..the one which embraces it seeks to be the representive code for all Muslims in the UK.

There are many danger signals in that manifesto...but it takes a careful read to see them.

Anyone care to list a few?

If we look at these, we will all be in a more educated position about the matters we often discuss.

I've attempted to raise a thread about them. (don't know if it will get up yet)

Porkycrap, former missionary in a Muslim country: << the Islamification of the host society >>

Er, wasn't your object the 'Christification' of the host society? What's the difference, and how Christian is Malaysia following your efforts at Christian 'jihad'?

<< There are many danger signals... >>

Yep. Check out Porky's own quest for Christian 'Sharia' law:

<< I believe homosexual acts should be illegal >>

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2405#53334

Given that Muslims are a tiny minority in this country, and that various versions of godbothering Christianity (including Porky's Brethren) have the ear of government, I'm personally much more concerned about the resurgent influence of Christian religionism than I am about Islam.

I wouldn't say I'm afraid of them though. Just the consequences for us all if we let them get away with turning back the clock.

The irony of this discussion is earth shattering.

With the possible exception of Catholicism, Islam is the most homophobic and xenophobic of all the world's religions. A review of current Islamic literature, news, debate and discussion reveal a deliberate loathing of gays and non-Muslim culture. Our very own 'Muslim Village' forum at the 'Islamic Sydney' website is a typical case in point.

So, Nick Haslam is asking us to perform an absurdity. We, the tolerant, are supposed to tolerate the intolerant!

I was living in Brisbane when 9/11 happened. Both my wife and I came to the defence of Muslims being refused service at shops as it wasn't them who flew the planes. We understood such fears yet were disappointed with the behaviour of our fellow Australians.

Our views of Islam in Australia all changed when we lived in Sydney from late 2002 to late 2004 where it became impossible to go into Sydney without some Muslims making comments that went from offensive to threatening, especially when I had one of my young daughters with me.

Also a problem was being attacked. The first time, I threw a young Lebenese fella against the concrete wall. The second time, I found myself approached by about 6 young Muslims all wanting to fight me as I walked the city street alone. This was until I found 6 or so young Chinese men who stood with me, challenging them for a fight right there and then. Yes, these young Muslims all fled with their tails between their legs.

After Sydney, I would like to see Islam eradicated in Australia. You can the Europeans wanting the samething now after how their hospitality has been returned with extreme violence.

Well CJ, I understand that Malaysia has been rather tolerant towards the presence of preachy fanatics / soul-snatchers in its midst. From what I've seen, read, and perceived from Malaysian friends, Malaysia's population also suffers from more than the usual inter-religious suspicions and enmities, though quite possibly less so than in Australia, as threads like this would suggest. But such immaturity would be at odds with Malaysia's otherwise highly successful demographic character of multi-ethnicity and inter-ethnic hybridity. Anyway, what I can confirm fully is that when Indonesia deports door-knocking soulhunters, it often boots them next door to KL.

Indeed Malaysia's close neighbor Indonesia has actively hunted down such religious bugbears since its birth, when dealing with Dutch manipulations of the same, along with its own colonial legacy of a Southeast Asian Apartheid with toxic religious baggage. However, the Dutch did not even come close to achieving the horrendous inter-religious bloodshed as fostered by the British under Mountbatten with the partition of “India” and “Pakistan”. Also, the Indonesian outlawing of conversion safaris involves a considered and escalated response, all the way to shooting such missionary predators dead, if necessary.

TR: you just fell into an accidentally constructed bearpit that snares “Islamophobes”. Now, from the (main) substance of his Murdoch-published article, Nick Haslam did not intend to entrap Islamophobes but rather try to destigmatize them by attacking the very description “Islamophobe” as being an unauthorized term by his particular field of racketeers, as if some kind of copyright violation. At this stage, my guess is that Haslam is one of the fanatical soul-snatching / conversion gurus typical of the zealously networked fundy-evangelist scene in this country's uni campuses. Haslam's touch-feely-seeming “asylum seeker research” could have easily involved such extra-curricular pursuits.

Btw TR: Your idol Hitchens is a coke fiend – not healthy.

Spidey: where were you when Jackie Kelly and co were creating those wonderful pamphlets in western Sydney before the 2007 fed election? Oh, you were vigilantly patrolling Cronulla's beaches, and there's that funny rivalry thing too because you're from old Queensland Nationals!

Mil-observer wrote:
"...I understand that Malaysia has been rather tolerant...from Malaysian friends..."
"Malaysia's population...inter-religious suspicions and enmities...less so than in Australia..."
"...Malaysia's...highly successful...multi-ethnicity and inter-ethnic hybridity..."

My conclusions:
(1)...You're ignorant about Malaysia.
(2)...You're ignorant about Australian values, by the way you make comparison with Malaysia.

In an earlier post, Mil-observer wrote:
"...local thugs involved in forced "conversions" have been tried, jailed, and sometimes shot too..."
"...the Indonesian response to such destabilization by fanatics is largely exemplary."

My conclusions:
(3)...Labelling Christian preachers as "local thugs" when their lives are endangered in a majority Muslim country full of Islamists extremists, makes you a fool.
(4)...Regarding Indonesian response as "exemplary" makes you a fool.

Mil-observer,
Get both your ears closer so I can spit in them -- YOU'RE an IGNORANT FOOL !!

Polycarp,

In regard to 9/11, given that you have yet to demonstrate any comprehension of the case of the 9/11 Truth movement, how can you know for certain that when you hold Islamic extremists responsible for the attacks of 11 September 2001, you are not breaking the 9th commandment:

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour"

Like you, I believed that they were the principle perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocity for at least five an a half years.

I now know that not to be the case.

Whilst it is true that the hijackers themselves were deluded patsies, who believed that they were striking a mortal blow against the Infidel West, the orchestrators of that attack came from within the White House.

I suggest you take the time to find out why many credible people, including those listed at http://patriotsquestion911.com/, no longer hold Islamist extremists responsible for the attacks.

---

I am far from uncritical of Islamic culture, and as I said before, I think we should be concerned that this country and Europe stand to be demographically overwhelmed by people from Islamic cultures.

However the solution to that is to control our own borders and not for the US, Australia and Britain to invade their countries, kill and maim hundreds of thousands of their people, plunder their oil and their publicly owned assets.

---

mil-observer writes, "Finally, your quote of Steyn's comment 'the question of Islam' has an especially sinister ring to it, echoing earlier ages' rubbish about 'the Jewish question', 'the Irish question', etc. All very Malthus or, perhaps in Steyn's case, rather Kapo?"

I think you're a bit fixated with terminology. What title then do you think that Abram Leon, who perished in the Holocaust, should have given to his study of the role of Jews in Western society (http://www.marxists.de/religion/leon/)?

---

Anyone who grasps the fact that this is a finite planet must necessarily be a Malthusian.

To fail to grasp the peril that excessive human numbers place on our future would have to be the greatest single psychosis of our age.

Hi GZ... your last rather volatile barb aimed at the unObservant one :).. was close but not quite right.

1/ IGNORANT.. most likely...
a) he seems to be blissfully unaware of the real world in Malaysia and Indonesia for non Muslims.

b) He seems to be also unaware of the political history of the 2 Eastern states of Malaysia's federation, Sarawak and Sabah, and the associated demographic reality.

2/ FOOL. Not yet... we can call him a genuine 'fool' once he knows what he should in order to have some credibility here.. the knowledge of real world Islam in places such as Malaysia and it's more general doctrinal/theological position. If he reads the links I've provided, then he will be in a marginally better position to speak meaningfully.. but he also needs to exhibit a much more informed understanding of historic Islam first. A good place for him to begin would be the Tafsir of Ibn Kathir here. (on surah 9 of course)
http://www.tafsir.com/Default.asp
Why should he read Ibn Kathir's work? Easy.. because he is described as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Kathir

<<Ibn Kathir wrote a famous commentary on the Qur'an named Tafsir ibn Kathir which linked certain Hadith, or sayings of Muhammad, and sayings of the sahaba to verses of the Qur'an, in explanation. Tafsir Ibn Kathir is famous all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the Western world, and is one of the most widely used explanations of the Qu'ran today.>>

THEN.. after all that.. if he still maintains his 'lefty jingoistic' posture.. we can sincerely call him "a fool"..

Let's hope that once he has been duly re-educated, his contributions will be more favorable to our security and cultural/social cohesian as a Nation.

CJ... rather predictable :) ur so easy old son *smile*

Thanks God-Zilla. If you re-read my post you just might realize (fingers x'ed) that I was actually criticizing Malaysia's “tolerant” (relative to Indonesia's) treatment of soul-hunting, God-bothering, conversion con-artists (“spiritual extortionists” is another useful term). Anyway, as other OLO commentators can confirm, I oppose the notion that “tolerance” is some kind of virtue; in fact, “tolerance” means literally “to put up with”, so that is hardly a virtue at all. Just imagine say a classic puritan and supremacist WASP family (you may know of such) “tolerating” a working-class Catholic family renting in the same street. “We deny them work, get our police to harass them, disparage them as sub-human idiots, enjoy recalling that our ancestors culled them occasionally back home”, etc., “but we TOLERATE them”!

Also, I never labelled Christian missionaries as “thugs” at all. I've found that such people usually lack the guts and honesty to try their line of business in the manner shown by their thuggish counterparts and adherents.

daggett: there should be no “question of Islam” for non-Muslims; the terminology is sinister, just as is Steyn's fixation on Muslim birth rates compared to those of non-Muslims (esp. “Christian” and Jewish, presumably). That is why I emphasize a need to procreate as a positive response: to that same effect, I could also just tell yourself and Steyn to “go and get f'ed” in a perfectly life-affirming, positive sense of course. Steyn's own ethnic and religious brethren in the Gaza ghetto might show similar restraint by saying much the same, provided they are not beset by trauma of seeing maimed children.

Yes, daggett, the dogmas are indeed Malthusian when asserting “finite resources” and a fear of human population. This planet has massive untapped resources and, most important, infinite human potential to improvise new, more efficient use of curently exploited resources. Not a psychosis at all, but a faith in humanity confirmed by keen study of history, various cultures and a warm sense of hope gathered from my many Indian, Chinese and Indonesian friends (you know, the ones typically accused of “overpopulation”).

Muslims are often bigoted against others. Take the case of the race hate murder of Kriss Donald.

On 16 March 2004, Donald was abducted from Kenmure Street, beside the Pollokshields Bowling Club at the foot of McCulloch Street where he lived with his mother, younger brother, and three sisters. The gang who kidnapped him took him on a 200-mile journey to Dundee and back while they made phone calls looking for a house to take him to. Having no success at this, they returned to Glasgow and took him to the Clyde Walkway, near Celtic Football Club's training ground.

There, they held his arms and stabbed him 13 times. He sustained internal injuries to three arteries, one of his lungs, his liver and a kidney, and was doused in petrol, set on fire and left to die.[1]

The five men convicted of the abduction and murder, all of whom were British of Pakistani origin, were convicted of racially aggravated offences. After the murder, some of Donald's attackers fled the United Kingdom and sought refuge in Pakistan. Three suspects were arrested in Pakistan in July 2005 and extradited to the UK in October 200

Malaysia population includes Malays, Chinese, Indians and natives of Sarawak/Sabah.
The Malays are Muslims BY LAW and forbidden from converting to other religions !!

A force is ever present from the Malays to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state, to the peril of non-Muslims.
A counter-balancing force is the Chinese who are mainly Buddhists, proud of their ancestry, (especially now that China is rising on the world stage). Another important counter-balancing force is the natives of Sarawak/Sabah who are significantly Christians. ( Polycarp, THANKS to missionaries from western countries, including Australia).

Both Chinese and Indians suffer in Malaysia due to unfair government policies heavily biased in favour of the Muslims (Malays). The Indians suffer the most in Malaysia. To highlight their plights, would you believe, they actually initiated a lawsuit in 2007 to sue the British government for bringing Indians to Malaysia in the early days. The damage claim was one million sterling pounds for every Indian.

As an Indian grassroot politician put it:- "After a century of slaving for the British, the colonial government withdrew after granting independence and they left us unprotected and at the mercy of a majority Malay-Muslim government that has violated our rights as minority Indians,"

There is an ever-present undercurrent of racial tension that most non-Muslim Malaysians would not mention in public, for fear of retribution, (by the Muslim Malays).
The May 13 (1969) Chinese-Malay race riot in Malaysia should suggest something about race-relation there.

I wonder who are Mil-observer's Malaysian friends that have provided him with rosy one-sided view of the country. They must be the Muslims !!
Which would explain why he chooses to describe Christian missionaries/preachers with disparaging terms such as "thugs", "soul-hunting", "conversion con-artists"; "spiritual extortionists".

Some people have no idea what's going on, and confuse about right & wrong !!

I find this a great article. I've frequently said that this name-calling was a way of avoiding the issue, as well as insulting the person whose opinions you disagree with.
And as you said, Leigh, this won't go down well with the so-called progressive left. This is, indeed, one of the reasons I left them.

Well said mil-observer. I obviously watch too much of the ABC and assumed the article to be 'left-wing' by the title. Just goes to show - don't skim.

Anyway, I think that the terms Islamophobia and homophobia have their valid uses. Some people do take their dislikes to an irrational level. And this is evidenced by 'gay bashings' and the nasty vilification of any women wearing a hijab.

However, the ideology of Islam deserves most of the literary criticism it cops from its detrators. Social liberals have a right to be sceptical of such a totalitarian and spiteful religion, or should I say political movement.

BTW I do like the writing of Christopher Hitchens. A genius no doubt. But I much prefer AC Grayling.

Oh Boy, this article is so full of non facts, where do I begin?

The only thing Nick Haslam got right in this whole article was the fact that people are acccused of being phobics to shut off debate. Name calling has always been used as a weapon to shut your opponent down even in the school grounds, you don't need a pychology degree to know that.

Non facts in Nicks article.
1. prejudices are more common among less rather than educated people. Fact-: The Germans were a very educated advanced society, leading the world at that time in some advanced inventions. Didn't stop them slaughtering 6million people though.

The Japanese have always been an educated civilised race, didn't stop them slaughtering 15million chinese though and that was only about 70years ago.

Gerry Adams from Sinn Fein, the IRA leader looked very intellectual and educated to me.

2. Fear reflects a perception of danger not transgression.
Why does a dog attack when you come on to it's owners property? It feels a sense of FEAR that your transgression may prove dangerous.

Honestly I could question a lot more of the validity of statements made in this article but it is past midnight and I can't be bothered so I think I will go to bed.

Mill Observer- Irrational fear, alarm, hostility, loathing and prejudice that gets a Brazilian man shot dead in London, and Haneef detained.

Is it irrational after a train full of people has just been blown to pieces on the London underground, to shoot someone who runs and tries to board a train when called out to by guards who are trying to protect the public. What if he had, had a bomb and the guards didn,t fire and another hundred people were killed? They did the right thing in the circumstances. What if your family had been on that train and the guards didn't shoot. Then you'd be blaming them. Fair go.

As for Dr. Haneef, his sim card was found to have been used by terrorists should the authorities have not investigated? Of course they had to hold him for a period of time because if he had been involved, the first thing he would have done when they let him go is flee the country. You can't investigate things in one day it can take weeks to verify evidence especially when you are trying to get it from overseas authorities.

What's the beef? They did their job found there was no evidence to directly convict him and let him go. Job done, innocence proven. Public once more protected from possible threat, that includes you and your family as well as mine and everybody elses.

If you were in charge of protecting the public what would you have done? Not have acted at aLL.

Dear Mil Observer...I assure you... the reason 'we' missionaries/evangelists/general Christians don't adopt thuggish attitudes and approaches is definitely not the lack of 'guts'.

It is the lack of carnality. Our message is a spiritual one..it is about souls being saved from eternal oblivion.. being brought FROM the kingdom of darkness INTO the kingdom of Light.

The early China Inland Mission workers buried more of their own children than they could count in converts... it was very hard slog against disease and sometimes violent opposition.

I cannot imagine trying to drag someone kicking and screaming into that kingdom of love.

"Yes.. (punch) you WILL! (kick kick) become 'Christian' NOWWWWW (baton thrust to the groin)"

It's so laughable Mil... in the case of Malaysia (sarawak) the people I worked with came TO the Missionaries and requested they come and teach them about Christ. It was a word of mouth thing..their relatives in Indonesia had early contact with missionaries and they could see the changed lives..... they wanted what their relatives had.

I think some posters expect too much of any one article - there are more than one reasons for any set of behaviours and beliefs that look similar, and Nick Haslam is trying to put together an explanation.
Although I like this article, one aspect I don't like is that Haslam has no room for a conclusion which is not either a phobia or a prejudice. He then explains that 'phobia' is inappropriate, as the behaviours and beliefs don't fit the clinical definitions.
The implication then is that prejudices are the only other option. To be prejudiced is to have pre-judged a situation, object or, more commonly, a person on limited or no direct evidence. But what of those who have had direct experience, and have come to a conclusion from that evidence?
The so-called progressive left was the loudest in condemning those who were sick of the behaviour of the (mostly) Lebanese at Cronulla, and called for a protest against it. (A protest which was to be unarmed, against a group which they often found to be armed, and was armed when they carried out reprisal attacks.) Many from the Cronulla crowd loudly said, "It's not about race. It's about behaviour."
For comparison, look for the article published in the Australian a short time afterwards. It was written by a policeman who spent 4 years responding to Lebanese males' offensive behaviour at Bondi beach. (Sorry I don't have a link.) After 4 years of being arrested for offensive behaviour, they moved elsewhere - to Cronulla. Their behaviour appears not to have changed.
A reasonable person can come to a reasonable conclusion once direct experience has been had. And it can be a negative conclusion, based on negative experience. It might look like prejudice to the uninformed, or to those who think they have all the answers and won't listen

No TR: Somehow you caught the epidemic “Islamophobia”. And if you want “totalitarian and spiteful”, you can hardly beat Christopher Hitchens. After the latest 1-million+dead Iraq crime that he backed, he could almost qualify as a warmonger too, except he's a Chickenhawk like the neocons who pushed it officially, or its ideological tour guides like the very recently dead Islam-hater SP Huntington.

I should add “snake oil salesmen” to the disparaging terms for missionary-neocolonialists, but that would be sexist.

My Malaysian friends are all non-Malay and non-Muslim (most Catholic, a few Buddhist-Taoist). I have known Malaysian Muslim acquaintances in the past, but only temporarily through work. They were good people too. My Malaysian friends have no serious problems with the ethnic and religious situation in their homeland; most have kept their citizenship and homes back in Malaysia too. They are constantly appalled by the fear and general ignorance in this country not only about Islam and Muslims in particular, but towards Asia in general. They find it kinda funny though, so we always get a good laugh out of it. Have to laugh really! And no, in anticipation of your next prejudiced guess: they don't work for the Malaysian Govt – never have – they're all in private sector firms, several western-based.

Malaysia's ethnic and religious patchwork is a success story precisely because it has functioned out of a post-colonial wreck which was itself built out of anti-communist counterinsurgency war. That war had its own serious ethnic components: the Bumiputera system has many flaws and local critics, but it is interesting to see where much of its policy resembles more recent official treatment of indigenous Australians here.

One obvious flaw in the Malay-Bumiputera legacy is the official indulgence towards missionaries through much of Malaysia's existence. Such disruptive snake oil is simply a continuation of colonial practice. It is as though Dayaks have been encroached on and exploited from two sides: Malay and Chinese opportunists on the one hand, and western Christian missionaries on the other.

A race riot in 1969 eh?

sharkfin: the circumstances leading to the London Tube “killing” (“murder” is a more fitting term) had no resemblance to any of the scenarios for “terrorist attack” even as presented by compliant, gullible and/or corrupt journalists. The Haneef case and its contrivance around the “Glasgow attack” is more a matter of ridiculous hyperbole. The modus operandi of the “attack” and its sleuths' SIM card detail had the clear signs of amateurish fit-up: think Jackie Kelly's pre-election household and the clumsily inflammatory pamphlets. Either you're just winding me up, or you're being had.

Perhaps the biggest and most obvious lie is that about “suicide bombings”. It has become so commonplace for TV news to claim a “suicide bombing” when a detonation has not even had the most basic forrensic investigation; not to ignore that such attacks do occur (as in Palestinian cases), but there are key, highly sensitive diplomatic cases where such detonations are not suicidal, but plainly homicidal from remote control. That such obvious facts are not reported is a scathing commentary not only on the media, but on the entire web of “terrorism business” that has been imposed on us.

How can you claim “they did their job”? I worked many years in that field and your claim is absurd (they'd recruit you fast though!), apparently very gullible and naive. Imagine: “Quick, there's a darkish-skinned guy with a package, running to a train!” Yeah, right. Another day at the office for Keystone's terrorbusters. Their job is supposedly to watch for that rare moment when a package-laden commuter runs to catch a train, because that must be how such attacks are made? Then there's the post-bombing CCTV!

Your criticism of the Haslam text is quite correct, but it seems equally gullible, taking at face value his glib reference to “prejudice” (notice the irrelevant sub-title too). As we can now expect from Murdoch a la FOX, such articles are meant to provoke and incense the fair and critically minded, and marginalize them among the many readers either too simple or too busy to check just what is being said.

Mil-observer,

I'm not surprised your Malaysian friends are non-Malay-non-Muslim. I have plenty of those. None openly complains about Malaysia either. A close friend in KL owns a business, told me he bribes "everyone" in government departments to get things done. Corruption is a way of life in Malaysia. But his grief is failure to have a child, not whether there's corruption, lack of freedom/justice in Malaysia.

I don't expect Malaysians to grasp the meaning of freedom and democracy. My friends are mostly successful economically and never seem to desire freedom/democracy anyhow.

Humans can be very resilient. But human minds becomes warped and get muddled about right and wrong, when survival is the main consideration.

When asked about injustice and inequality, a Malaysian shrugged his shoulder that we (Chinese) are living in someone else's (ie.Muslim-Malays) terrority, so put up,shut up. (What a weird attitude).
Even some relatives think it's alright to appease the Muslim-Malays with unfair advantages, (to lessen ethnic-tensions from them).

I openly mentioned Malaysia racism once, a colleague (Malaysian) looked in horror and protested, "No,no,no...". For a moment I couldn't believe his reaction...how could he not admitting institutionalised racism there??

One close relative only truly understood freedom,democracy after migrating here.

A close relative (in KL) confides in me readily how he feels. "KL is a sick place". A country is judged by the way it treats the minority. "In Malaysia, the majority (Muslim-Malays) bullies the minority".

Depending on your "friends" and your prejudice, different stories can be made up.

But the 1969 race-riot was a FACT. Plights of ethnic Indians is FACTUAL (including many poor Chinese).
Despite denials, it's doubtless Malaysia has many "unseen" problems.

To say your non-Muslim friends are constantly appalled by Australian fear and ignorance about Islam and Muslims...makes you a snake-oil salesman, a con-artist with words-- You words cannot be trusted!!

To attack preaching of Christianity in a majority Muslim country, when Malays are compulsory Muslims BY LAW, when the Dayaks themselves accept preaching, indicate you're prejudiced and cannot get the balance right.

Your mind is as warped as many Malaysians living in denials.

'No TR: Somehow you caught the epidemic “Islamophobia”. And if you want “totalitarian and spiteful”, you can hardly beat Christopher Hitchens. After the latest 1-million+dead Iraq crime that he backed, he could almost qualify as a warmonger too, except he's a Chickenhawk like the neocons who pushed it officially, or its ideological tour guides like the very recently dead Islam-hater SP Huntington.'

I'm not sure why you keep linking me to Chris Hitchens. I am perfectly capable of estimating the religio-political ideology of Islam on my own without someone holding my hand. Having lived in Khamis Mushayt and a small one bedroom unit adjacent to a large mosque in Riyadh for 3.5 years I feel that I am reasonable well informed. And yes I have some good Muslim friends as a result.

However, I don't confuse Muslims with Islam. They are two separate entities. The former is a human being trying to come to terms with the confusion of life like the rest of us, and the other is a totalatarian and spiteful ideology perpetuated by a succession of delusional Imams. The fact that most Muslims ARE decent people is a testament to the human spirit and its amazing ability to rise above the religious brainwashing that begins at birth.

Anyway, I'm off to listen to Sheik Mohammed Feiz on YouTube. He's comes highly recommended by many young Aussie Muslims. Apparently child martyrdom and Jew hating are beneficial pastimes if you want to impress that demanding deity called Allah

GeeZuz: get it right. You're the mouth-frothing Islamophobe, so just going by your obsessiveness yours would appear to be the warped head. As one other OLO-er once said to the Islamophobe den: what did you guys ever do before UBL and 911? It must have been terrible.

As you can confirm from my text, I understand Malaysia has problems with its Bumiputera system; one such, probably caused by corruption via western missionary imperialists, was that the state set no officially recognized religion for Dayaks. As a minority Bumiputera ethnicity, that was a mistake, and denied them the protection afforded most Malay Muslims against becoming an indigenous minority themselves. Other obvious related problems came from allowing missionaries in, whereas Indonesia would have had such predators breaking rocks or practising their parasitism far away from Indonesia. Nonetheless, Malaysia is an amazing achievement, especially its confident resistance during the '97 onslaught led by Soros (this time around it seems Indonesia's turn to lead such resistance).

More recent Malaysian corruption is clear from western bankers' toady Anwar Ibrahim, who's trying to foment Indian and Chinese discontent, just part of the deal from his western backers. If UMNO boffins had spine over this issue, they'd figure how to deport Anwar too.

But you're really kidding yourselves with your cherry-picking on “Islam”. Indonesia's anti-missionary stance applies to sects like Al Arqam and Ahmadiyah (and Wahabbism itself too).

TR: the Saudi fundies are precisely the type actively courted by the west over many decades, starting in Whitehall; Wahabbism has been encouraged from the same quarter, just as the UK itself became the haven for fundy, comic-book militancy, like a “showcase” but also a petrie dish for disseminating terror. The Mumbai operation appears to be the first major overseas test of such processes. The UK press backtracked into self-censorship after its initially widespread reporting of the many UK citizens conducting the Mumbai operation (Oz press, forget it – beside neolib ABC—SBS, there's christian fundy Stokes, and little else).

Yes, Hitchens is not only a coke fiend, but he loudly and repeatedly backed a massive war crime. Some genius.

Mil-observer wrote:
"...Malaysia has problems....that the state set no officially recognized religion for Dayaks....that was a mistake, and denied them the protection afforded most Malay Muslims..."

It is very clear...
(1)...Mil-observer insists that the natives of Sarawak (a part of East Malaysia) should have been forced to be Muslims by legislation, by the state of Malaysia.
(2)...Mil-observer thinks forcing the Dayaks to be Muslims will "protect" them from Christian missionaries/preachers.
(3)...Mil-observer thinks it's wrong that the Dayaks people should have a freedom of religion.

Mil-observer boy, listen up !!

I had only read a few posts from you earlier when I concluded that you're an IGNORANT FOOL who actually does not grasp Australian values of freedom and democracy.

I was right in coming to that conclusion, that you're an IGNORANT FOOL !!

The evidence is plain to see by all !!

Thanks Gee-Zuhz: you just sh@fted yourself in public. Not a pretty spectacle, but a funny one. I just lerv the touch about "Oss-traylian values" too: yum, how very "Cronulla". Shouldn't you try waving that flag in Afghanistan, or are you feeling a bit squeamish with bad knees too?

No, I never wrote or implied anything about Dayaks and Islam. Malaysia's Dayaks - like their cousins in Indonesia - have a background of animist religion. That is probably another big reason why KL did not get its head around institutional protection of Dayaks' religious heritage. Another related challenge was infrastructure and, more obviously, education. Some slack KL officials obviously took the easy option of allowing missionaries in to cover much activity that should have been the state's responsibility in the first place. I understand that similar processes happened among Indonesia's neighboring Dayaks, where slack Soehartoist officials turned a blind eye to missionary activity, while squeezing serious loot out of the spoilt, naive and soft-headed fundies.

So have another cup of invective, paranoia and megalomania, and I'll watch what you vomit up next.

mil-

You have a really abusive manner of addressing people.

" GeeZuz: get it right. You're the mouth-frothing Islamophobe, so just going by your obsessiveness yours would appear to be the warped head. As one other OLO-er once said to the Islamophobe den: what did you guys ever do before UBL and 911? It must have been terrible. "

" So have another cup of invective, paranoia and megalomania, and I'll watch what you vomit up next. "

Your the one frothing.

All the name-calling and the anger (as opposed to passion) is very childish and a sure sign that the poster has forfeited the debate, both logic-wise and values-wise. It might work to a certain extent in a verbal debate where style over substance can win out. But in a written debate where it is so easy to quote the poster, the tactic is suicidal, no pun intended.

Most of you are so far off-topic you've disappeared over the horizon, those people who are really interested in the article will find this essay alarming. "Islam and human rights" on this site
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=daceykoproske_29_1 It reveals the real agenda.

Mac,

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=daceykoproske_29_1

Many thanks for this reference.

It does highlight the seriousness of the situation, and should therefore be prescribed reading for all--but I bet there are not many pollies and policy makers in Canberra even remotely aware.

Thanks (meredith & kgb). Your application of a double standard here (“affirmative action” for fundies?) is an implicit compliment, and I appreciate it. Yes, I do have higher standards, including a consistent sincerity in substantiating my arguments and lending them sensible structure. That's why I went to such length and detail qualifying my identification of “Islamophobia” in this thread.

This is also a very strategic issue. Statist and legal regard for Islam within Malaysia does not treat the Muslim identity as more or less identical to “Malay” identity: significant Chinese, Indian and Iban Muslim minorities would dispel that notion. Malaysia does, however, aim to prevent recurrence of the fate of Singapore's Malays or, perhaps more profoundly, the colonization of the Philippines where, against colonial war and missionary peace, some sixteen Malay sultanates fought against overwhelming odds. Muslims held out only in Mindanao and other southernmost islands; anti-colonial resistance was much harder to coordinate among those where missionary surveillance and divided loyalties predominated. Another historical analogy sometimes used by Malaysian leaders is the plight of indigenous Australians – hence my comparison between the Bumiputera system and more recent Australian programs and policies aimed at countering the effects of dispossession, lost cultural heritage, family breakup, etc., among aboriginal communities. Past missionary intervention had some ameliorating and even positive effects, but it mostly either exacerbated or consolidated processes of profound dislocation in indigenous culture and identity.

Given the strategic nature of these matters, state sovereignty is a critical factor. China's suppression of Falun Gong is strategically driven, whereas Indonesia's higher-proportion of Malay-sourced ethnicities are probably less vulnerable to such latter-day imperialism. Malaysians decided to preserve Malay culture via Islam, identifying Islamic heritage as the strongest source of resistance or, at least, a preferable bulwark when compared to the confusion offered by modern Christendom e.g., secular/moral majority, gay clergy/prohibition, creationism/science. Then there's the greater contradiction in a separate opposition of “secular humanist” liberalism. It is interesting that such modern crusades focus most of their zeal on other, mostly non-Christian cultures (but Islam gets a disproportionate amount of their heat compared to say Hinduism too).

Yes, thanks for the link Mac. A very nice website.

mil-observer: there you go again. It is typical of the Muslim and 'rabid left' mindset to shoulder all the blame on Western governments and institutions. Rather than see intercivilisational politics as a 'two way street' you choose to ignore the obvious deficiencies of Islamic ideology. A deficiency that has existed and grown since Mohammed the Prophet decapitated the Banu Qurayza in an act of genocide and then screwed a succession of young women.

Wahhabism and all its associated sexism, intolerance and violence is a direct result of Islamic culture. All you doing mil-observer is exaggerating the impact of British foreign policy to the point of irrationality.

mil observer,

Finally, you appear to have given up postmodernism,in my opinion, this has not been an improvement.

What a fascinating, but irrelevant, excursion into modern South East Asian history,what does it have to do with the topic of "Islamophobia".You appear to be saying that Moslems use Islam as an ideological weapon against the West, yes I know. Islamic societies were backward and disfunctional before the first European invader set foot there.Where are your arguments going next, you've painted yourself into a corner. Congratulations on your aspiration towards "higher standards, unfortunately, if we disregard the space in your posts occupied by ad hominem arguments( which you started) there's little substance remaining. You are simply defending the indefensible, by maintaining that violations of human rights are part of an heroic anti-colonialist struggle, what banal sophistry. We've heard this nonsense from assorted Third World tyrants for decades.

mil-observer
“Malaysians decided to preserve Malay culture via Islam”

Rather silly to make such a statement because Islam is killing off traditional Malay culture.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06109/683369-82.stm

Do you think Arab Muslims are going to welcome Muslims of other nationalities? Certainly not!

Non-Arab Muslims are stooges of Arab imperialism. The Arab Muslims look down on non-Arab Muslims, killing them, like in Sudan where the Black African Muslims are systematically killed by Arab militia.

Indonesian Muslim maids are being raped by their Muslim-Arab employers.

“The article said that a female Indonesian worker who had worked as a housemaid in Saudi, had been tortured to death by her employer. Then when the case was presented to the Saudi ambassador in Indonesia, the ambassador said that it was the will of Allah, with no apology given.”
http://www.themidnightsun.org/?p=2404

Non-Arab Muslims should stop romanticising about Islam, and belonging to some “Muslim-Arab culture”. When the tsunami struck Indonesia, the Arab-Muslims were no where to be seen in aid-relief of their fellow Muslims in Acheh. Instead almost all the aid-relief was carried out by non-Muslim organisations.

Thanks too for that article, mac. That was a wake-up call for me.

IMO that article answers perfectly the question posed: what's wrong with Islamophobia? (ie fear of Islam)

Answer? Nothing, but if you disagree, please read mac's linked article & then reconsider.

I'd be interested to see what liberals (ie the left) make of this one. I do hope they read it. It's sure to divide them, but I would say most liberals will be very concerned about it (& liberal-minded people on the right too).

I was shocked at the time of the Cartoon Controversy at the abject failure of the western world's liberals to stand up for their values, primarily, freedom of speech values. Freedom of speech is such an important value that I think it trumps all. Some people say there should be limits, and I'd agree ("fire" in the building etc) but as long people are attacking ideas as opposed to people, I really cant see a problem. People will never escape enlsavement unless they are free to speak for themselves and to choose.

We had a forum on OLO on this topic some time back and I inlcuded a list of quotes from people who are universally admired in the west for their wisdom. We shouldn't forget what they said.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1520&page=0#28588
22 February 2008 8:56:40 PM
22 February 2008 9:01:55 PM

For liberals who genuinely fear religion (& in particular Christianity) I would simply say: If things go this way (as per mac's article), there is nothing stopping Christianity from doing the same thing. Is that what you want? If not, time to shake off your animosity toward those who dare to question Islam (or any other mindset, for that matter)

KGB,Bigmal&TR,

Thanks for the feedback, too many people seem to regard "Islamophobia" and its implications as a community relations problem.

KGB,

I agree with your comments about the Left/liberals, most of the "anti-islamisation" sites I see are right-wing. Probably, since the alarm in regard to Islam was first raised by the Right many on the Left rejected the warning instinctively, and have tried to characterise opponents of creeping islamisation as motivated by prejudice. They have traded their old ideals of liberty and a secular state for multiculturalism, and they are trading with the enemy.

The Tang-linked article concerns the withering of ancient animist and Hindu ritualistic dance theatre (Mak Yong) and Wayang Kulit shadow puppet theatre, within Malay culture. That means it's a “cultural heritage” issue for starters, not a strictly clear view of the living “Culture” itself. Lost cultural heritage is a universal challenge, but Islam's overall effect on such quaint cultural forms is probably less severe than that of Playstation or Nintendo Wii.

The WSJ-Murdoch article (from that clique who brought us the Iraq mass-war crime) attributes such cultural loss to “Muslim rules” undermining Malay youths' presumed “authentic” mixed or syncretist identity. By contrast, Malaysia's Culture Minister refers to more overt Islamization as “part of the process of searching for identity”. He was entirely correct, but Tang and other Islamophobes would claim that the demise of such ancient cultural forms as Mak Yong and Wayang Kulit proved the insidious and virulent global menace called “Islam”.

Malaysia's youth (like those in Indonesia and even the Mid-East) are subjected to a heavy diet of western popular culture, including much English language terminology, with less but significant contributions from such other sources as Bollywood and Hong Kong. But Tang's scare story refers to one Arab word replacing a Malay one – for the term “to pray”! And the Arab-derived version has less syllables - shock, awe, and horror! If the WSJ hack had half a clue, he'd realize that that Arab term has been used for centuries throughout Southeast Asia anyway (take a few deep breaths and think calm thoughts Tangy). Yep, scary but true. In fact, Arabic language influenced South and Southeast Asia since one millenium ago.

Language is the heart and soul of culture; some define the two as interchangeable terms. So, “Malaysians decided to preserve Malay culture via Islam”, and their language's good health suggests the decision was probably the best given their ethnic Malays' more precarious identity. Unlike Indonesia's indigenes, Malaysia's coexist with proportionally much larger and more powerful Chinese and Indian minorities. That's why Bumiputera policy elicits comparisons with counterparts for indigenous Australians.

So much for Tang's “research”.

[cont.]

But Tang's hate-mail against Arabs is especially disgusting. If cherry picking thus, we can find many similar crime stories elsewhere: horrific treatment of Indonesian maids by nominally “Pentecostal” ethnic Chinese, for another example of proportionally large employers of Indonesian maids. We have also seen some hate-spreading from minority nutters within such evangelical quarters too. Unlike Islamophobes, I don't use such cases to vilify religious traditions themselves as threatening or deviant, conflated with some apocalyptic notion of “civilizational threat”. However, I do identify two ailments when a minority of ratbags dare show their sick heads: “Islamophobia”, and missionary hypocrisy via opportunistic bandwagon-jumping on neoliberalism's various war drives.

Tang's reference to Sudan is interesting, but seems more fantasy than fact. The Chinese Government, to its great credit, has bravely persisted in offering much-needed infrastructure work for Sudan in exchange for exploration and other access. Again, this is a globally strategic situation where greedy, petulant rejects foment warfare in order to bring about regime change and thus circumvent expansion of Chinese influence, however beneficial - indeed novel - such influence is in a continent long treated as little more than a quarry and carpetbaggers' billboard advertisement for their big “missionary altruism” business.

But the inspiring part of all progress in such countries, not only Muslim countries but their non-Muslim allies too, is their clearly close proximity to historic and strategic victory against enormous odds; it's always great to see a win for those who didn't pick the fight. My friends and I inhabit a very big corner, and it just keeps getting bigger.

[mac, your “pomo” quips just might look like a sophisticated and learned distraction to some. So finally, there's my tiny red herring in response to that little trawl]

TR, while on the subject of “sophisticated”: what exactly is “intercivilisational politics” (did you get that from Star Trek or from that neocons' Klingon Huntington)? And “a two-way street” (maybe something to do with a road map)? Are you snorting your liberalist idol Hitchens' supply while watching “smart bomb” videos from Iraq?

[Then TR's clanger: “Islamic ideology”!] Er, which one? Wahabbism?

No mil-observer. I call it as I see it. And I and know an insane ideology and an insane person when I see them.

Only fruitcakes talk to angels called "Gabriel", bang 9 year girls, shag their adopted son's wife (granted, Zaynab was a looker) and decapitate POW's. (The list goes on....)

And only the brainwashed would consider Mohammed a suitable point of departure for a world-view and civilisation.

The non-brainwashed have every right to be extremely sceptical. This is as obvious as the nose on your face.

As for the evidence that Islam does in fact turn (some) well balanced people into angry frustrated paranoids - I offer exhibit A - you.

Yeh, stuff the Uni banter, this religion is killing people. and not just one or 2 but thousands. It's not ok.

NIL-observer

Islam, the Self-Perpetuating Tool of Arab Imperialism is the concept from a jihadist turned apostate, Anwar Shaikh.

“Anwar Shaikh was born on June 1, 1928 in Gujrat, the then greater India. His family was extremely religious, which influenced him to follow Islam with passion. In 1947, India was in a process of independence from Britain, and Muslims and Hindus were in a civil war. At this time, Anwar Shaikh, a young Muslim zealot killed two Sikhs and one Hindu without any remorse. His religious conviction was akin to that of a typical Muslim Jihadist, of the sort we see today.”

He repented of what he did and became a Hindu.

http://www.islam-watch.org/AnwarSheikh/Islam-Arab-Imperialism7.htm

The enlighten Muslim would no longer be a Muslim but become secular, or an ex-Muslim like Dr. Mirza

“The Islamists and Mullahs told me: ‘it is the sacred duty for the Muslims to kill kafirs. Hindus are kafirs therefore it is our duty to kill them.’ I asked him if it is written in the Qur’an or hadiths to kill Hindus. The Mullah replied: yes. At that time, it was not possible to verify the Mullah’s assertion since I did not understand a word of Arabic and there was no translated Qur’an available to me.”

http://www.islam-watch.org/SyedKamranMirza/Walking-Away-From-Islam.htm

Tang, in my previous two replies I wiped a dirty, bloody floor with your posts and their vitriolic attempts to debate issues around a regional Muslim culture, discussed in the wider context of this thread and its article. I appreciate that you probably feel uncomfortable about such surgical treatment of your posts, while your parents and/or others who paid for your education may feel even worse if they see the results here. Your latest response made no effort to counter my fine-sliced dissections of those various glib claims you made about Arab, Malaysian and Indonesian Islamic cultures. Therefore, your follow-up is really akin to just more anti-Muslim hate-spam (not that we haven't seen that before on OLO).

Yes, Tang, like your colleagues here, your own witless, reflexive posts are too kind to me. Your jibe “NIL-observer” was revealingly apt: it seems you meant that I observed the emptiness, the lack of argumentative substance, symbolized by your hatred and that of like-minded commentators. Of course, I could add that it's obviously a “One-Nil” win for my observations, but that would miss the fact that you also scored a devastating “own goal” by slagging Haslam in your first effort on this thread.

Islamophobes like Tang seem to relish and cherish tales of Muslim apostasy; that's probably because Islam often ranks as the world's fastest growing faith. Islamic trends run contrary to such western achievements as: demographic decrepitude; family atomization; gay marriage; voluntary childless marriage; no marriage; viagra-led divorce among the grey majority; late childbirth; and now the greatest economic crash in the history of imperialist usury.

Whether avowed Liberal “Humanists” (a sacred cliché) or card-carrying “born-again” fundy crusaders, Islamophobes are oblivious to the major, critical psychological irony of their deluded terrorism fairy tales and “clash of civilizations” fantasies. I refer here to the fact that the more Islamophobes displace attention from their own societies' degeneracy - by exaggerating and contriving some distant, alien, existential threats in Islam - the more they guarantee the demise of the very western societies and traditions which they claim to praise and uphold closer to home.

[cont.]

TR: why do you say that Islam's “final prophet” violated an underage girl? This seems to be another case which excites in you repeated dwelling and imagining on illicit sexuality. I understand rather that Koranic cases actually involved legal betrothals in a custodial sense, (“marriage” assumes consummation at any time) enacted like adoptions to protect females otherwise very vulnerable amid anarchic warfare, societal chaos, and such barbaric practices as slavery (especially in prostitution), and gender-determined infanticide. Those circumstances describe the origin and, I claim along with many Muslim feminists, the original historical context justifying Islamic polygamy.

Why must such argument mean “brainwashed”, whereas you imply a shattering revisionist's historical accuracy with your inflammatory and offensive accusations and vilifications? Or do you just have it on the reliable authority of inspired Islamophobes (Hitchens' mate Sir Salman “Scruffy” Rushdie perhaps)? Or does it just make you feel tough to know that you can spit the worst insults at many millions of peaceful people, while confident that you face no immediate consequences? Rather, it seems obvious that you mean such thin but shrill bravado to overcompensate for some deep, complex fear a.k.a. phobia.

But say hi to your mate Hitchens for me, if you get a word in between his drafts backing an illegal war – a war that would have got its prosecutors hanged in 1946 – and his more recent twists and turns over “torture”: a pompous narcissist no doubt. Your admiration there expresses not only deep hostilities and other frustration, but also some deep enjoyment of the kind of antagonism and cruelty that people like Hitchens inspire and promote. Remember: that death count exceeds one million now.

meredith: your comment echoes your sentiment on a recent OLO thread on Gaza i.e., “GO Israel!” What compels you to become cheerleader for ideologues whose response to offers of peace negotiations is: bombs, artillery and guided missiles into civilian-populated areas? Does your aggression come from the same source as TR's? Do you realize that your euphoric support for aggression compels corresponding spite for Islam, if not also for Arabs too (a la Tang)?

Most of the Middle Eastern Christians I speak to, who have immigrated here to Australia from many nations tell me they think Islam is THE PROBLEM for Muslims who in turn make problems for their fellow Christians. The few who say different are the ones I've never met, who appear on TV living in Lebanon and other places who betray their Christianity by putting the blame upon all religions thus being ungrateful to their parents and ancestors who put up with periodic massacres and forced Islamisation.

Dear Mil Observer.. clearly you need some more therapy :) I'm up to the task.

TR said:

<<Only fruitcakes talk to angels called "Gabriel", bang 9 year girls, shag their adopted son's wife (granted, Zaynab was a looker) and decapitate POW's. (The list goes on....)

And only the brainwashed would consider Mohammed a suitable point of departure for a world-view and civilisation.>>

You seemed to mock his claims? Granted.. TR was very colorful and decidedly vulgar in his tone, but every point he made is soundly documented in Islamic history. If you wish to have chapter and verse, I'll supply them, but for more detailed discussion look up each point in "Answering Islam" you will find reference to Islamic works in abundance, and the original sources.

BUT...wait...there's more. You could always simply take the word of Mousab Hassan...the former leader of the 'West Bank Hamas Islamic Youth Movement' who's father is still a pre-eminent Hamas political leader (albeit in Meggido prison) he saw the light which is apparently still eluding some here..that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that those who believe in Him have life in His name!

His opinion of Muslims now.. and Islam, is that anyone who reads the Quran and believes it is from God is 'sick' (his words..not mine)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmmujStCGxM

The full interview is mind blowing..

Come join me at the next 'pro Hamas' rally :) we can both condemn the rockets which target women and children in Israel.

Porky: << clearly you need some more therapy :) I'm up to the task >>

Clearly the lunatic has taken over the clinic. The image of Mr Bean in the dentist's surgery comes to mind.

<< The full interview is mind blowing.. >>

Evidently.

mil observer,

Based on the old theory of the monkey, the typewriter and the complete works of Shakespeare, you have finally made a sensible comment. I agree,in general, with your criticism of Israel, the country is a predator on the Palestinians. Many in the West seem to regard Israel as an ally in the anti-Jihad struggle,that nation fights its own unjust 'wars', for its own reasons, against the mainly defenceless Palestinians. Israel is no friend of ours.

It is so clear that the people you speak of are the non-west. Racist, look no further than Japan. Homophobic? Well, by definition ALL Muslims have to be.

Misogynists? Again, Muslims.

IT SEEMS THAT THE WRITER HAS IT CONFUSED. THE SOCIETIES THAT WELCOME THESE BIGOTS (that is, all the good, civilised, western countries with health care and benefits that these sick, vile valued humans steal from us while plotting our downfall - really just a symptom of extreme envy and racism) ARE THOSE THAT ARE

ALL WE DO IS REACT, OR LEAVE....KNOWN AS WHITE FLIGHT. MUSLIM ENCLAVES HAVE MADE LIVES HELL FOR THEIR INFIDEL HOSTS. SICKENING. I WILL ENDEAVOUR TO PASS A LAW THAT REVERSES THE VILE MULTICULTURALISM POLICY AND SEND THE BIGOTS BACK TO THEIR VILE HOMELANDS, WHERE INDIVIDUALISM MEANS NOTHING AND WOMEN ARE BABY FACTORIES.

YOUR ARTICLE WAS A JOKE. BIGOTRY BY VERY DEFINITION IS NON-WESTERN IN NATURE.

LOOK AT OUR GENE POOL IN THE WEST. WE HAVE ALWAYS MIXED, WHICH IS WHY WE ARE THE MOST ATTRACTIVE RACE PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY. IN-BRED RACISTS LIKE ARABS AND ASIANS DON'T MIX AND ALL LOOK THE SAME.

NATURE REWARDS THOSE WHO AREN'T BIGOTS, LIKE EUROPEANS.

Mac,

Some might yes, but i think a great many have been so full of hope for Israels survival way before 9/11 or realization of the dangers of Islam...

The returning of Israel to the Jews by the world community after the holocaust was good and right. They have a right to defend it.

That Israel is strong and healthy enough to do so is not a crime it's a credit as it would be to any people.

I feel deeply for the Palestinians civilians becoming so desperate that they vote in the terrorist Hamas and that they did this and were starving under Fatah etc is not Israels fault. I sincerely hope they soon elect a saner body who at least recognized Israels right to exist, for a start.

I am stunned at people outside of this war not seeing the evilness in the proposal that a people have no right to exist. The support of terrorist Hamas to me is utterly criminal.

In reply to; mil-observer, Tuesday, 30 December 2008 7:41:36 AM(page 15)...

I was living where I am now in Central Queensland. Obviously you are one of these people who are quick to attack the white Australian when it is Islamic peoples causing far too many problems there. Where I live now, we see many white Aussies moving here, fleeing the chaos of imported violence. Those who remain, who pushing their children into private schooling they cannot afford so they are away from the violent school cultures of Islamic influence.

Yes, I am a former Nationals member, a political party which supports multiculturalism which for record, I do not. I believe in a majority white european population in Australia. Far less violence comes from them.

For those who keep posting about Cronulla Beach which I fondly refer to as, "Cronulla Day", where not just 'White Australians' protested against Islamic Violence and treacherous politicians, but people of many origins including Maoris, Aboriginals, Chinese, etc where all there together.

In fact, I remember a Sydney newspaper with a headline calling them white racists, only to have right underneath a photo of a young Maori or Pacific Islander man holding a sign calling for Muslims to leave. Now that is one funny looking white supremecist.

Australia has held out their arms and shown their hospitality and like in they have done throughout Europe, responded with violence.

Benjam1n: "NATURE REWARDS THOSE WHO AREN'T BIGOTS, LIKE EUROPEANS."

Well, I guess you're screwed then.

Bummer.

meredith,

I'm quite prepared to discuss Israel and the Palestinians at length,as I have already, however it's OT here. What I think is relevant is the mistaken notion that my enemy's enemy is automatically my friend, definitely not in Israel's case. Uncritical support of Israel and devaluation of the Palestinians as human beings undermines the West's political arguments (against Islamisation) which after all, are based on human rights principles.

Mac.

No probs, all I am saying is a lot of Israels support from the world has nothing to do with disliking Islam... It's the WW2 resolution for many people.

Actually may as well use the post to go on and voice the point that it's NOT islama-prejuphobic to care for Israels survival..

Instead of sending medical aid to the Palestinians, the Malay Muslims in Indonesia are calling for a “holy war” against Israel. This is the typical imprisoned mentality of the non-Arab Muslim response when their Muslim-ARAB masters are in trouble, but remain quiet when Indonesian Muslim maids are regularly raped by their Muslim-Arab masters.

The fight between Palestine and Israel is strictly a localised affair and yet Muslims the world over are getting emotional over Israel’s legitimate self-defence.

Perhaps nil-observer can put on a turban, grow a beard and lead a camel-cavalry charge against the Israeli tanks shouting ‘allah u akhbar’

http://news.id.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1956980

Mil-observer

An Arab ex-Muslim (Ibrahim Lone) writes about Islam, in particular Wahabism is the philosophy of the Superiority of Arabs.

“Wahhabism reiterates the same philosophy which the Prophet of Islam had brought about to the 1400 years ago. The philosophy of the Superiority of the Arabs. Before we proceed further, let us understand what Wahhabism is not about. Wahhabism is not about religion, its not about spirituality or God, it is about the superiority of the Arabs over all other nations.”
http://www.islam-watch.org/Ibrahim.Lone/Wahhabism-Foundations-and-Dangers.htm

A Malaysian Muslim Syed Akbar Ali published a book in which he argues that countries with a Muslim majority population have collapsed economically, politically and socially.

With a particular focus on Malaysia, the thesis of the book is that growing Islamisation of the political and social climate in Islamic countries are causing democracy and freedom to be threatened by religious irrationalism. He showed how the curtailing of democracy and freedom of speech have caused those countries to collapse.

http://www.thai-blogs.com/index.php/2006/12/03/malaysia_and_the_club_of_doom_the_collap?blog=17

[yes, I identified Wahabbism accordingly]

Diagnoses of "Islamophobia" never actually killed discussion and debate at all (as Haslam claimed). Rather, the suppression was from bigots' alternating corruption and avoidance of debate by instead making calculated, gratuitous provocations usually via inflammatory lies. On this aspect, I can see that Haslam's sub-title line about “prejudice...among people who are cold, callous, inflexible," was very sharp (even though misplaced structurally). So I must concede that my suspicions (later conclusions) on Haslam's intent were unfair and premature, based on prior effects of organized and polarized views about the very subject of “prejudice” itself. That realization was promised within the kernel of Haslam's argument, so at once my apology and praise to Haslam there.

But I am less laudatory or even conciliatory where Haslam marks his guild-like boundaries on “phobia”, and more generally on “fear”. Readers should pursue his line about "prejudice" having "socialized", "organized phenomena", and being "collectively shared"; Haslam's very limited definitions of “phobia” and “fear” are themselves "socialized", "organized" and, we can be sure, "collectively shared" among his own professional clique. Such narrow psychological perspective only suffices in a culture that promotes individualism, selfishness and alienation, with psychologists treating separate clients or consumers. In this sense, Haslam's industry is politically compliant and perfectly Thatcherite: “society does not exist”.

Probably caught in his own collective and organized class presumptions and conceits, Haslam consigns “prejudice” to the “less educated”, thereby stigmatizing those lower-placed in his social hierarchy. From that revealing insight into Haslam's thought structure, we should not be surprised if he also assigns – however discreetly - certain hierarchies to particular disciplines within the academy and the wider education sector: psychology, psychiatry, and probably health disciplines generally around the top, with certification from Melb Uni, etc., higher still. Therefore, if people want to discuss such matters as Islamophobia with Haslam and his colleagues, it is likely they would need particular approval from bureaucratic hierarchy; otherwise, their views will be ignored or misrepresented into stigmatization.

Whether via general supremacism, or more specific supervising offices of liberalist “free-trade” imperialism, evangelical missionary infiltration and crusades, and Zionism,

[cont.]

Islamophobia also draws its energy from other socialized and irrational fears. I refer here to those fears felt among people conditioned into unhealthy, inhibiting and alienating high self-regard. Islam's doctrinal universality and emphatic flattening of class divisions would obviously seem a real potential challenge by Muslim and non-Muslim elites alike.

Then there is the Islamic doctrine's opposition to usury and promotion of Syariah economics, as uncompromising as Old Testament judgement. The entire western-based neoliberalist economy, counting quadrillions of fictitious dollars in the catastrophic, oppressive bubble of derivatives trade, is probably a definitive economic “satan” by such ancient religious edict, as continued and articulated further in Islamic doctrine.

But on a more profound cultural level are such purist Islamic challenges as Aramaic identification of the Prophet Isa (as distinct from more Romanized Christian traditions naming “Jesus Christ”), and Islam's perpetuation of prophets' legacy otherwise known in the west as exclusively “Jewish” religious and cultural property, rather like “Israel” itself. It would be ridiculous if modern New Yorkers claimed ancestral “people's” ownership of vast tracts in England and the Netherlands; why must we accept yet more absurd and vague claims on Palestine from links over 1,000 years earlier? Al'Aqsa Mosque and the Wailing Wall relic symbolize Zionist aggression's misdirected revanchism: by sensible analyses of original historical causality and definitions of “People/Volk”, the Israeli Air Force may more logically deploy bombers onto Rome, Munich or Warsaw than Bekaa or Gaza.

Haslam's article and thread serve unintentionally as tribute to early psychologist Wilhelm Reich, who dared to pursue his studies as a truly “social science”. Of course, Reich was himself vilified and marginalized to the point of pursuing sexual mysticism far outside his earlier brave efforts into “the mass psychology of fascism”, but his daring offered a glimpse into psychology's potentially greater value. And that is not to digress into “sociology” either, but rather to urge Haslam to make a more useful contribution by either admitting his own limitations (thus saving us time) or studying beyond individual pathology and into such collective pathologies as “Islamophobia”, etc.

Yibbedayibbeda...dat's all Volk!

Assalamu'alaikum / Shalom Aleichem

Phillip,

That is terrible, but we see it all the time, i remember a lot of it to poor Denmark during the Islamic cartoon psychosis.

In a word - waffle.

About the only time you came to close to writing anything concrete was when you stated;

'Islam's doctrinal universality and emphatic flattening of class divisions would obviously seem a real potential challenge by Muslim and non-Muslim elites alike.'

And even that is wrong. The ONLY people challenged by Islamo-sceptics like me (although I dislike all things monotheistic) are the ruling clerics. And not just the 'elite' clerics, but all of them. If the average Muslim were to wake up and discover that Islam is all lies from beginning to end then the ruling clerics would lose political power over-night. No wonder they are in a flat panic on a global scale, and no wonder they hate people like Hitchens who prefer to tell the real truth.

TR

I agree.

Thanks Bassam.

But I forgot to mention what the truth is - 'God is not Great. How Religion Poisons Everything'.

I would also like to plug another truthful book - 'Atheism Explained' by David Ramsay Steele. It is a concise and beautifully written argument against monotheism. By the closing chapter the mere idea of Allah/Yaweh becomes infantile and ludicrous.

Both texts should be compulsory reading for the non-clerical classes living in Gaza/Palestine/Israel.

(There is no point giving them to the ruling clerics. They are way too delusional for any logic to penetrate their thick skulls.)

Contrary to TR's advertisement about Islamophobic truth-telling via ideological mentors (like Hitchens, Rushdie, etc.), we can identify not only several clear lies from that camp's recent posts, but we see the flippant disregard for another worldview as Islamophobic hysterics here not only fail to tolerate/put up with such another view; they cannot even summon the cognitive machinery to process simple new information about it, sometimes even that from their own cited news sources. The following dissects some of their latest provocational corruptions and efforts to mislead people:

1) Allegation that Islam's Prophet violated an underage girl [TR] (unexplained and gratuitous).

2) The Cronulla riot/pogrom as a multicultural, ecumenical 'hate-in' [spider]. Clear direct footage of cowardly mob attacks in Cronulla proved the assailants' primordial racist motivation, including non-Muslim south Asian and even black American targets, among others.

3) “Indonesian Malay Muslim call for jihad” [Tang], assuming particular ethnicity for Indonesian Muslim protest. In fact, news photos of Indonesian protests against Israeli violence in Gaza revealed distinctly ethnic Chinese Muslims among the protestors; ethnic Chinese make a significant minority of Indonesian Muslims, especially in metropolitan southern Sumatera.

4) “Indonesian Muslims not sending medical aid to Palestinians” [Tang]. The poster's linked article itself specified the Muslim protestors' demand that medical aid already underway was not enough – they demanded also military protection (to prevent the desperate need for medical aid, burials, etc.).

5) “...countries with a Muslim majority population have collapsed economically, politically and socially...growing Islamisation...in Islamic countries...causing democracy and freedom to be threatened by religious irrationalism...caused those countries to collapse” [Tang]. Islamization in Indonesia (the largest Muslim-majority country and a democratic giant) causes Tang's claims to collapse fast. In recent years, syariah banking and legal reforms consolidated throughout Aceh, parts of western Java, and Makassar. While many overtly “Islamist” parties generally under-performed, other parties routinely exhibit “Muslim credentials”, including Megawati Soekarnoputri, recently taken to wearing a Muslim headscarf regularly.
- Even western sources note Indonesia's promised 4.5% growth amid the world's ongoing crash and financial system's disintegration; still a massive, stable polity despite repeated, elaborate external destabilization efforts.

[cont.]

6) Islamophobe's claimed “Islamo-scepticism” [TR]. Islamophobe expresses absolute certainty i.e., no doubt/scepticism, about even the most outlandish vilification of Islam's final prophet, and flippant claims that Muslim believers are “insane”, “brainwashed”, etc.

7) “The ruling clerics...would lose political power” [TR]. The overwhelming majority of Islamic clerics in the overwhelming majority of nations does not exercise political power in any official or practical sense beyond their own religious organizations. Iran is a conspicuous exception, where Shiy'ah clerics compete by entering wider democratic elections.

I introduce above a re-diagnosis for the sickness here, more precisely termed “Islamophobic HYSTERIA”. [Merriam-Webster: 1: a psychoneurosis marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions 2: behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess <political hysteria>] It is understated, and thereby inaccurate, to attribute mere “obsessiveness” to such extreme levels of hostility, vilification and persecution. Expression of this ailment offers no moderation as therapy, but would rather encourage intensification of the original hostility.

So where are you Haslam and Co? Do you claim to be not responsible for diagnosing such collective disorder, and advising on strategies for cure? Are you afraid of potentially negative political response to yourselves, as western oligarchs generally endorse this epidemic of aggression and its associated warfare?

For those who hide behind the “free speech” banner, think of similar claims about the euphemistically termed “Kristallnacht”, where fascism's diplomatic spin doctors expressed their regret for “excesses”, but emphasized the “popular groundswell” of the public anti-Jewish hate campaign. This parallel should not surprise, because history's genesis for this Islamophobia is indeed “anti-semitism” stretching back to periods of the Crusades and the early Roman Empire.

There is an important moral dimension to consider here. Diagnoses identify the problem, but they do not address how Islamophobes often clearly transgress civilized norms. The more vilifying and provocational hysteria are deliberate incitement for others to apply discrimination and other persecution, including violence, whether through communal mob rioting or state militarist aggression. It profoundly corrupts Australian society, but is typically met by political leaders' meek silence or even indirect approval.

'For those who hide behind the “free speech” banner, think of similar claims about the euphemistically termed “Kristallnacht”, where fascism's diplomatic spin doctors expressed their regret for “excesses”, but emphasized the “popular groundswell” of the public anti-Jewish hate campaign. This parallel should not surprise, because history's genesis for this Islamophobia is indeed “anti-semitism” stretching back to periods of the Crusades and the early Roman Empire.'

Mil-observer, criticising a religio-political figure is not hate. All politicians are fair game - even those who use and abuse God. Critising Mohammed is no different to critising Bush, Howard, Rudd, or even Hitchens. Same dog different leg.

If you use so-called 'hate speech' against Chrisopher Hitchens and call him a 'coke fiend' then I too can point out the fact that Mohammed boned a 9 year old (see Bukhari, Book 5, Volume 58). But at least I'm sympathetic to the poor girl and her tiny pelvis. Forty year old men do tend to be heavy. And have I mentioned Rayhana yet? God, I hope her decapitated husband was at least cold before the 'good' Prophet dragged her into his tent (see 'Sirat Rasul Allah' by Ibn Ishaq, p466).

I'm sorry, but the only Fascism being peddled globally at the minute stems from the Koran, the Hadith, and the interpretations there of. For in these writings we find a monolithic ideology drenched in totalitarianism - "There IS no god but God, and Mohammed IS his Prophet."

People like me oppose Islam (and the other monotheisms), not because we are bad people, but because we consider it is the right thing to do. I hope you understand that.

mil-observer, I have not excused any wrong behaviour by a minority of those there on the day. You though, appear to ignore the fact that people of non-white skin were also protesting alongside the whities.

You also appear to ignore that the white Australians were they serious, would have mowed down the police instead of stopping when an isolated police officer instructed them not to pass. This demonstrates just much they are lawful citiznes, unlike the muslim filled cars carrying guns, knives, bats, machettes, etc who, by the way, spent the next 2 to 3 days bashing up white men for being white. You know, like that man who got beaten up in front of his 10yo son for putting out his bin or, the white man who cowardly attacked by a mob of Muslims who stomped on his jaw and skull.

No, Islam must be eradicated from civilised society.

Spider, The revenge attacks were stone cold sober and went for a few days, with masses of very expensive vandalism and violence... and pride in it... What absolutely disgusting people.

Frankly, anyone who participated in the Cronulla riots, whether they were within the events which precipitated it, within the climax, or within the conclusion, should all be damned. Sensible, decent people locked their doors and waited for the police to sort out the situation.

I get that the situation was about bottled anger boiling over. However, I thought that one of the Christian precepts was all about 'turning the other cheek'.
This is one of the stereotypical Christian traits I respect and admire, which doesn't tend to be reflected by many of the more aggressive practitioners in these threads (with notable exceptions, though I admit it's harder to notice an absence of vitriol than an excess).
Of course, Cronulla wasn't an issue of Christianity - however, given certain Christian posters use it as a sledgehammer against Islam (most of you know who I'm talking about), then they need to accept that it will therefore become reflected back against them. In claiming this as a religious fight, they sign Jesus's initials right next to this debate.
Something which many find abhorrent.
Those who have a problem with this, should take it up with those who are politicising Christianity as a tool to attack other religions.

Mil-observer, although I suspect we come from the same general neighbourhood of political attitudes (I think of myself as hovering near the centre, albeit a little to the left, though I suppose considering oneself centrist is a common conceit) I tend to think the posters who accuse you of waffling do have a point.
Being eloquent goes hand in hand with being concise.
Some people like to use complex sentences to express basic concepts, which usually is an attempt at one of the following:
a) Ensuring they can reposition themselves without looking like they're backtracking.
b) Shutting people they deem unworthy out of the debate.
c) Appear more knowledgable about the topic, when in fact they are simply proving that they have a wide vocabulary.

There's nothing wrong with exercising a vast vocabulary. But please - use the words that are gems and prune the rest.

TRTL,

I think there is a huge difference between a drunken explosion and sincere apology for the violence...and stone cold sober prolonged, as in day after day, calculated attacks of much greater damage and harm...with no apology... surely you can see the difference?

TurningRightThenLeft: “The other key point is that when moderates attempt to defend their religion, you and others attack them. Witness every attack you yourself have made on people such as Irfan Yusuf.”

TRTL’s best example of a “moderate” Islamist was Irfan who has a history of writing not only tendentiously but inaccurate reporting and twisting of facts to defend the violent nature of Islam.

Twice he apologised to Daniel Pipes ,

‘Irfan Yusuf Apologizes to Daniel Pipes’ http://www.meforum.org/press/1983
‘Irfan Yusuf Apologizes Again to Daniel Pipes’ http://europenews.dk/en/node/14653

One wonders why TRTL turned from Cronulla to Christianity and taking a swipe at Christians. Perhaps s/he has been told to repent of his sins.

TR: you seem to have investigated the subject as far as some recent, sensationalist Culture-War translations will allow, but I insist that you're wrong, and vulnerable to selective and blinkered perspectives more applicable to our own modern western culture. Within that culture too is a presumption that it is itself superior - a progressive result of all higher civilized, charitable and compassionate impulses, generally an almost polar opposite to past barbarism and moral depravity.

Such a “crossed wire” view is not unusual when trying to comprehend a separate time, place and culture. The vast writings in hadits involve recorded statements from thousands of sources, all attributed in a reference system which – with the Talmud – led that now-routine process of scholastic citation. In the many hadits referring to the youngest-betrothed Aisha there are two potential problems today, especially for translators. First is the overwhelming linguistic emphasis on “nikah” as the surest direct notion of “betrothal”. Next is the modern Arabic's shifted meaning applied to just two other references beside the many references to “nikah” (Imagine just a very recent shift in the English “gay”, for comparison).

The case concerns an engagement by official pledge, or betrothal, followed by marriage into the prophet's group, perhaps clan-style. The overriding social-political context was anarchic warfare, and the Prophet's followers and allies established secure networks of kinship, including flexible arrangements for controlled divorce, eventually spreading law, order, learning, and strict, detailed morality from the Indus Valley to the Pyrenees.

But absence of pregnancies is the clearest confirmation of the protective, chaste and even political nature of these exceptional polygamous marriages. Histories record only one offspring from the many unions after Muhammad's first wife Khadijah bore six children (the later, post-Khadijah birth died in infancy). Where practised, ancient and medieval contraception was very unreliable, especially if the practitioner had the unrestrained voracious appetite claimed by Islamophobic enemies in this case.

[TRTL, you typed 146 words for “mil-observer: your post is verbose; that seems a tactic meant to overwhelm and silence opponents”. I should be flattered that you chose against such contrasting succinctness and punctuation.]

I am very concerned about reports from Melbourne with Muslims secretly complain about domestic abuse against them and the wives of their husband. As well as the complaint that Muslim men in Australia are holding secret Islamic marriages to girls as young as ten years old. Once again, marshmellow politicians turn their backs like the pathetic traitors they are.

Ah spider, from National Party to National Action! Who'd have thought? Now I can see why Nats bosses like Boswell and Barnaby often look so exhausted... ;-)

TR: very interesting that you bristled most about Hitchens. One of the most serious allegations possible is that concerning Hitchens' vocal and written endorsements for a massve war crime/crime against humanity which caused 1.2 million civilian deaths and counting. I mean, with that kind of knotch on his club, perhaps Hitchens could make Colombia's Pablo Escobar seem unfairly demonized. And unlike your own seething and tunnel-visioned Islamophobic vilifications, simple judgement of Hitchens implies none of the strong challenge from historical contexts, associated facts and linguistic ambiguity.

In the recent Israel defence against Palestinian Arab-Muslims rocket attack, many non-Arab Muslims volunteered to fight alongside their Arab-Muslim masters. This is a typical mentality of stooges. It is for this reason why non-Islamic countries should be very careful in having Muslims in their security forces. Should a conflict arise between Australia and Indonesia, is the Australian government going to trust the lives of her soldiers and security of her country in the hand of a Muslim commander?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/cleric-who-called-for-muslim-soldiers-to-be-killed-is-arrested-435651.html

In “moderate” Islamic Malaysia, the Muslims destroyed many Hindu temples, restricted the building of churches and forced many Catholic schools and churches to remove icons and statues held sacred by them. Recently they banned non-Muslims from using the word “Allah” for “God”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/24/malaysia-islam-muslims-yoga-ban
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/01/05/malaysia-forbids-newspaper-from-using-the-word-allah/

mil-observer is typical of the Islamists whose head is stuck deep in the sands of Arabia and ears plugged full of camel dung, unaware of what Islam has done to Islamic countries and keeping many Muslims backward and mentally retarded.

http://www.islam-watch.org/Omar.Zia/Pakistan-A-Blinkered-Nation.htm

If some regional war did flare as sought fervently by wish-fulfilling paranoids, then fair and peace-loving Australians need not fight it. A good change in political practice would see such a war fought only by its advocates and provocateurs. On counting them together thus, the deployment force would fill very few boats.

The majority of reasonable and just Australians could sit back, watch, and wince, as Tang and his like-minded grab-bag of regime-changing fundy christian marketeers and liberal "humanists" try to find and demonstrate their moral backbone beaching themselves, navigating in some jungle and operating various weapons. More interesting still, we might even get to see how they apply their research skills when trying to take on their actually multi-religious demon-enemies.

mil-observer, Saturday, 10 January 2009 6:09:55 AM;

You pompous hatred of the white Australian is clearly evident whereby you insult a person who raising an important issue such pedophilia and violent domestic abuse amongst the Muslim society. It is a serious issue initially raised by Muslim women. Or, are you one of these males in the sect who support such depravity?

Of course - sorry spider! How could I forget the prominence of the "white minutemen" of Aryan Nation in such a project? Indeed you could be leading the push, at least notionally when the dirtier and more legally delicate jobs get dished out.

And in such esteemed company, meredith must surely now feel like the toughest Kapo on the block. Lovely.

'TR: very interesting that you bristled most about Hitchens. One of the most serious allegations possible is that concerning Hitchens' vocal and written endorsements for a massve war crime/crime against humanity which caused 1.2 million civilian deaths and counting.'

Since you are still banging on about Hitchens for some reason (I've already pointed out my preference for AC Grayling) I should point out that the vast majority of deaths in Iraq are not caused by the US forces. All the Americans have done is take the lid of a boiling pot that was, and is, a civil war. A civil war based on religious and ethnic faultlines. Even after 14 hundred years the Shia are still pissed off about the murders of Ali and Hussein. Only the likes of Islam can perpetuate such irrational hatred through the centuries. And that is its greatest weakness.

Yeah, "the natives are killing each other" stuff. Try rather the latter-day Phoenix operation in "surge".

Who attributed the count to "US forces"? The divisive policy is not much different from what arose after Balfour, or Mountbatten-supervised manipulation of low-level elites in Partition.

More anti-Islam hate-spam rubbish. Don't give up your day job; or is it your "day job"? Shouldn't surprise me, given the deliberately chaotic lies fed as news on Iraq.

I never fail to tire of the Islamic delusion. It's so entertaining.

Even when a Shia Muslim blows the brains out of a Sunni Muslim at point blank range in some Baghdad market its still the kafirs fault.

Yes, we already know what kind of thing entertains your mind, especially its imagination.

mil-observer, how's that Marxist ideology going mate?

You know, it is only right to investigate when Muslim women make such claims from amongst their own Islamic community. It doesn't make one a racist or bigot. You raising Nazism and other things just demonstrates just how much hatred you hold but I forgive you. It's a direct result from all that leftist pinko crap they hounded into children by the wall to wall socialist Labor government.

By the way, I'll be thinking of you when the Muslims blow up a school bus full of children out of their love for Allah.

The supposed sectarian conflict between Shia's and Sunni's in Iraq is largely an illusion created by 'false flag' terrorist attacks which are either carried directly by the US and British occupation forces or sponsored by them. In September 2005, 2 British SAS men were caught red-handed at a roadblock in Basra dressed as Arabs in a car containing explosives, detonators and other weapons. They killed an Iraqi policeman and wounded another ans also wounded civilians. They were pursued and captured. However the local British forces attacked the police station and freed the men before the questioning could be completed.

Of this Dr. Elias Akleh writes in "British Terrorism in Iraq"

"It had been long known to the Iraqis, to the Arabs, and to all Moslems in countries bordering Iraq that the majority of the terrorist attacks in Iraq, especially car bombing, are perpetrated by covert British, American, and Israeli operatives. It is also well known to them that the terrorist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and his 'Al-Qaeda in Iraq' are just inventions of the coalition forces to justify their existence. More and more evidences are coming out of Iraq to support this fact. The arrest of two undercover British SAS operatives last week, disguised as Arabs trying to plant a car bomb in the middle of Basra during the Karbala Festival, which draws as many as 3 million pilgrims to the city, is just the latest of such revelations. ..." (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1024)

An ongoing discussion is to be found in the forum "Bush's democracy of hypocrisy" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8288#131101

See also:

"Basra Bizarre: SAS Commandos Arrested and Sprung" at http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3331&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

"Iraq probe into soldier incident" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4264614.stm

"State-Sponsored Terror: British and American Black Ops in Iraq" at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9447

mil-observer wrote: "This planet has massive untapped resources and, most important, infinite human potential to improvise new, more efficient use of currently exploited resources."

This is truly confirmation that amongst some members of our species, human intelligence has not progressed at all in 10,000 years, least of all, amongst many supposedly enlightened progressive members of our species.

I don't have time to point to all the examples of resource shortages caused by human overpopulation: fish, agricultural land, petroleum and above all water.

As it happens, agricultural production in the Deccan in India is dependant upon water being pumped 24x7 from non-renewable underground water aquifers.

Similar circumstances exist many parts of the world including the West of the US and Mexico.

What does mil-observer think will be used instead when that supply eventually inevitably runs out?

When past civilisations such as the Mayans (http://candobetter.org/about#maya), the Greeks (http://candobetter.org/about#greece), the Romans, the Angkor Wat, the Chaco Anasazi (http://candobetter.org/about#chaco) exceeded the carrying capacity of their natural environment through a combination of excessive numbers and poor environmental practices, no amount of intelligence saved their civilisations from collapse.

How can mil-observer know for a fact that it won't be different for our globalised industrialised society?

If we don't start making better use of our intelligence, resource shortages and over-population will soon make the illusion of sectarian conflict created by the British and Americans in Iraq may a terrible every day reality in most parts of the world as we saw, for example in Rwanda in the early 1990's.

Thanks daggett. Yes, the Brits' jail-busting case seemed to reveal the most "in-your-face" example of the neolib coalition's terrorism sponsorship in Iraq. I also alluded to a latter-day "Phoenix Program" in this context, because it's not new. Your links' references to Northern Ireland are also apt with their explanation of covert terror in false flag assassination and simple bomb-planting mayhem. Indeed, the MO in remote-control "suicide bombing" is one of the sickest jokes in the "war on terror" farce: I've checked several such cases with clear evidence of remote detonation and none of suicidal attack. But the media have almost entirely gone along with the script, while pushing the sleaze that "such extremism and savagery" actually justify continued commitment to these sick and variously racist and Islamophobic wars.

You made a big call next with: "confirmation that amongst some members of our species, human intelligence has not progressed at all..." I assert merely that technology used fairly can and will stabilize populations as it has done in other countries. See for example some leading nuclear-powered countries like France and Sweden - still net population importers.

Why is such technological comfort denied "in principle" to countries where the need is greater, especially where challenged by so basic a need as clean drinking water? Countries like India and Indonesia are progressing well almost independently in these areas, but the same people who destabilized Iraq want to see the same chaos and barbarity afflict those countries too. Latest-generation uranium-fission and thorium reactors promise the most immediate benefits, but some older technology has worked wonders (as in recent German nuclear aid to Indonesia).

So I hold comfortably to my assertion: "This planet has massive untapped resources and, most important, infinite human potential to improvise new, more efficient use of currently exploited resources." As I also qualified earlier though less directly, population volatility is reduced when people have greater certainty in their productive and reproductive lives.

To instead ignore such factors of progress and hope could give great comfort and even perceived justification to murderous covert terrorists in their nasty imperialist and misanthropic projects.

The blind (daggett) leads the blind (mil-observer) and they fall into the sewerage pit.

Blame the Sunni/Shia conflict on the British and Americans, unbelievable. The Sunni/Shia conflict is centuries old and is not found in many islamic countries.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/suicide-bombing-and-riots-kill-27-as-pakistan-celebrates-muslim-festival-466123.html

daggett, speaking about over population, the Muslims are breeding faster than the guinea pigs.

Phillip Tang wrote, "Blame the Sunni/Shia conflict on the British and Americans, unbelievable."

So, which parts of the evidence I have presented do you dispute?

Phillip Tang continued, "The Sunni/Shia conflict is centuries old and is not found in many islamic countries."

Did you mean 'is' or 'is not'?

Conflicts may or may not have existed prior to the meddling of colonial powers in the region.

Nevertheless, it has been a strategy of colonial powers going back for centuries to inflame conflicts amongst those over which they rule.

The British notoriously did this on the Indian subcontinent which led to the ethnic cleansing and bloody partition of 1947. They did so in Palestine, Kenya, Ireland and, of course in Iraq by staging terrorist attacks so that they appeared to have been caused by local sectarians.

On a related matter, if you visit
http://911blogger.com/node/19199 you can read "Norwegian Daily: Terrorists Working for Western Countries" a translation of http://aftenbladet.no/krigenmotterror/951035/-Terrorister_jobber_for_vestlige_land.html in a Norwegian Daily newspaper.

---

Phillip Tang wrote, "speaking about over population, the Muslims are breeding faster than the guinea pigs."

So, why pick on the Muslims? Isn't it true that many other people around the world are also "breeding faster than the guinea pigs" - Indians, Africans, Phillipinos, Latin Americans, etc?

Although it may be true that the Chinese are no longer "breeding faster than the guinea pigs", perhaps, as they have reached 1.4 billion in the People's Republic of China alone, it could be fairly argued that Muslims and others are only trying to catch up?

So what do you think should be done about it?

Are you saying that you support the "War on Terror" as one means to reduce the population of Muslims?

Do you think President W's cutback of family planning aid to the Third world helped matters?

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

As I made clear above I believe that tribes in the west have every democratic right to stop themselves from being demographically overwhelmed by foreign tribes including Islamic tribes.

I think we should also do what we can to encourage them to limit their own populations in their own countries ASAP both for their own sake and for ours.

However, singling out one group as inherently incapable of stabilising its own population is hardly likely to help matters.

---

Glad to see that there is agreement between us in one regard, mil-observer, however, I consider your faith in the capacity of human intelligence to overcome the problems posed by the huge and growing population to be dangerous.

---

Mil-observer wrote "Countries like India and Indonesia are progressing well almost independently in (the provision clean drinking water)."

So what reason do you have to believe that Indian agriculture can soon end its unsustainable dependence upon finite aquifers beneath the Deccan?

Yes, there's much agreement daggett: I find refreshing your strategic perspective on hard facts around political and military realities. That is crucial to understand the nasty imperialist beast continuing to threaten and oppress the vast global majority of which we two dissident observers obviously form a tiny part.

I urge you to be careful identifying the "muslim tribes" you describe vaguely as some threat. Actual threats from that corner have deep ties to the same aggressors who manipulated Iraq with such cynical cruelty.

On prospects for Indian agricultural developments: I've read some detailed, relatively recent reports about Indian nuclear technology programs. I must hunt the sources down again, because it's not my professional or study background, but I recall the following categories of optimism there:

1) Indian advances in application of safer and much more efficient reactor technology using Thorium, of which India (and even more so Australia) has an abundant supply;

2) Fruitful cooperation with Russian counterparts in planning for an expanded nuclear program, and;

3) Consideration of very stable, latest-generation South African pebble-bed reactor technology.

Obviously such prospects offer enormous realization of potential to a population for so long unstable from poverty, debt and other frustrated ambition. As clear from western and Japanese precedents, prosperity is the great population stabilizer: established urbanization, life expectancy, and enhanced education and work prospects for women, in particular, all reduce people's natural urges to play a "reproductive lottery" of sorts, or try overcoming their wretched condition by a game of percentages via increased offspring.

Another less obvious benefit from such advances is the prospect of desalinated and purified river water incorporated into irrigation networks, relieving subterranean aquifers.

There's nothing dangerous in my optimism. The only dangers come from imperialist sponsorship of such blatant proxy terror as the Mumbai raid, various destabilization ops in Pakistan, and old empah's gaping Kashmir wound. These aspects of global manipulation and extortion are well known among most of the subcontinent's leaders - and so many of their constituents too.

But the feudal, eugenicist scum can be beaten - they have been beaten before, and will be again.

<<"The Sunni/Shia conflict is centuries old and is not found in many islamic countries." Did you mean 'is' or 'is not'?>>

It's a typo, thanks daggett.

daggett: <<The British notoriously did this [inflame conflicts amongst those over which they rule]on the Indian subcontinent which led to the ethnic cleansing and bloody partition of 1947. They did so in Palestine, Kenya, Ireland and, of course in Iraq by staging terrorist attacks so that they appeared to have been caused by local sectarians.>>

Generally speaking it’s not true that colonial powers were responsible for conflicts that arose between the local population after they have left the country. Very often old rivalries and conflicts erupted soon after independence.

In Palestine, the Jews fought the British because they refused them emigration to Palestine, a practice that was contrary to the spirit and aims of the Balfour declaration

“His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object,..”
The Anglo-Jewish War (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYHoK54w2kg).

Soon after the British Mandate over Palestine expired, the Arab-Muslims declared war on the newly formed state of Israel. This is typical and symptomatic of Islamists who are now fighting the Buddhists in Thailand, Catholics in Philippines, Hindus in Kashmir and Christians in Serbia and Kosovo.

Its good that the Islamists (HAMAS) were soundly defeated in Gaza but unfortunately not annihilated as many of the leaders ran away like dogs to hide in Lebanon and Syria.

and "fighting...Christians in Serbia and Kosovo".

That's no typo - that's an old-fashioned "ignoramo" from a dullard Islamophobe.

And sucking up to white imperialist bullies (with a brief exception for the Zionist version instead)? Who'd have thought?

Got up late, after watchin Nadal down Vergasco,made a cup, and hit the net…

The IE wormholed me this line: “the nasty imperialist beast continuing to threaten and oppress the vast global majority of which we two dissident observers obviously form a tiny part”

Wow! it sounded like a scene from KINGKONG.
Had some nasty virus hijacked my IE and diverted me to rogue website?

And there was more: “The only dangers come from imperialist sponsorship of such blatant proxy terror as the Mumbai raid, various destabilization ops in Pakistan”

Holy cow!

It can’t be the King Kong website,Kong was a goody- underneath it all he was a real softy…
Whoever this was about was a real baddy.

I drilled down further…
Philip Tangs post came into view .
Now...it was beginning to make sense –here was something I could relate to.Thank God for Phillip Tang!

I had another swig of coffee and went back to the tennis

A shrewd perception at work in this "Horus"? Less a false god, more a victim of falsehoods.

Hardly surprising, because drill into Horus' perceptions and one finds gullibility in the face of proven falsehoods. The most conspicuous is where Horus plays into the fake OLO commentator and amateurish, pampered crypto-racist and degenerate liberalist "Proud to be Indonesian" (PTBI). Check out the very simple lie that is PTBI and the deliberate "culture war" covertness it represents, however slapstick and undisciplined its execution. At once a condemnation of this country's class and education systems.

Fot that interesting and amusing case of "culture warrior" trolling, see: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5978&page=0#84132 , http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5900&page=0#82122 and http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5162#63159.

First Tony Kevin, then myself (in more explained detail, then - finally and perhaps more exasperated - Bruce Haigh.

People like Horus believe such caricatures because they want to believe them, against the evidence.

So what are you trying to tell us Mil-house, you’re really PTBI?
Naaah! I don’t believe that, PTBI has too much class for you.

I suggest you start reading a little more widely than the Protocols of Zion (Manga edition!) and you’re ‘evidence’ may become a bit more believable.

Go slap the same filth onto Kevin and Haigh then, if you can resist the reflex to doff your hat and bow - or would that be just a short nod instead?

Another fake "leftist" is it?

Mil-observe wrote, "I urge you to be careful identifying the 'muslim tribes' you describe vaguely as some threat."

If the people of a number of European countries face the prospect of becoming a minority in their own countries as many demographers are predicting (and some are welcoming) then why shouldn't they feel threatened?

Why is that any less a threat to the people of Europe than, say, Indonesian transmigration is to the West Papuans, Han Chinese settlement to the Tibetans, or Jewish settlement in Palestine in the 1930's and 1940's to the Palestinians, European settlement in the Americas to native Americans, European settlement in Australia to the Australian Aborigines, etc.?

I don't see why we need to be any more 'careful' about raising the issue of settlement by large numbers of Africans and Middle Eastern people in Europe than any of the above.

Surely, it is the democratic right of people in every country to decide who and how many of which type of people should be allowed to settle amongst them.

---

Obviously, many who oppose large scale Islamic migration to Europe are willing to believe anything said against Muslims, including the lie that they were the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, the London Tube bombings and the Madrid train bombings.

Similarly many who rightly reject these lies and oppose the fraudulent "war on terror" tend not to question high immigration of Islamic people into Europe.

For my part, I don't see why one conclusion necessarily follows from the other or vice versa.

"If the people of a number of European countries face the prospect of becoming a minority in their own countries as many demographers are predicting (and some are welcoming) then why shouldn't they feel threatened?"

A "minority" of what? "People"? I'm really sick of these racial and religious distinctions and their assumptions of some innate human tendency towards apartheid. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy. Speak for yourself about feeling "threatened" by such a prospect. But you should feel embarrassed, if not ashamed.

The main reason for higher immigration from such areas is because western countries are degenerate i.e., they have aged much faster than they are able or willing to reproduce. If the west follows Malthusian poison then they will degenerate much worse still. Migration simply meets the demand for labor (typically menial to feed both the aged and the parasites of finance and real estate speculation), though many of my migrant friends (including Muslims and others) are disillusioned if not shocked when they see just what they've landed themselves into here.

mil-observer I note that you have dodged much of my last post.

mil-observer wrote, "A 'minority' of what? 'People'? I'm really sick of these racial and religious distinctions and their assumptions of some innate human tendency towards apartheid. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy."

Cultural differences were or are important to Palestinians facing a Jewish in the 1930's and 1940's. They are important today to West Papuans, East Timorese, Tibetans etc, as I mentioned above.

Why any less so for Europeans?

I think for decades politically correct people in Australia, including myself, have been trying to pretend that cultural differences aren't important, buthave found them impossible to ignore. An obvious example is attitudes to women.

A once politically correct female acquaintance who lived in the same street as I lived in until 1992 in Auburn NSW - a suburb of Sydney that has in recent decades been demographically overwhelmed largely with people from the middle east - moved out in 1997 because she could not cope with the attitude of local middle eastern men. She told me, that, if one lived in Balmain and could frequent the local coffee shops without being accosted by sexist Arabic males, then one tended to have an entirely different attitude to becoming a member of a cultural minority.

mil-observer wrote, "Migration simply meets the demand for labor (typically menial to feed both the aged and the parasites of finance and real estate speculation), ..."

This statement is an example of how population growth pushers fail to follow their own arguments to their own logical conclusions.

Who is going to feed the current wave of immigrants when they grow old. Will yet more immigrants need to be brought in to feed them? And who will feed them?

But if you have the view that there are no limits to the human carrying capacity of Europe then I guess you won't see a problem, will you?

However, even the rabidly pro-population growth Courier Mail newspaper seems to have conceded that the carrying capacity of England has been exceeded even if you fail to:

(tobecontinued)

(continuefromabove)

ENGLISH EXPATS MAKE MORETON THE ONLY BAY IN THE VILLAGE

"ESCAPING the overpopulated boroughs of the UK, British immigrants are moving to Brisbane's bayside suburbs, creating their own Little Britain by the Bay." (http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24897167-5007190,00.html)

In the story one women stated, "I would never raise my kids back in England." Another stated " Back in the UK, five-year-olds ... don't know how to play any more."

At least you have identified one group who is driving and benefitting from population growth both in Europe and Australia. Perhaps you need to read my article "How the Growth Lobby threatens Australia's future" at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8485&page=0

Elsewhere, the Murdoch press has implicitly acknowledged that Sydney and Melbourne are now overcrowded as a result of population growth, when an editorial of 18 March 2008 "Queensland faces a tougher job on regional development" stated:

"much of (Queensland's) growth comprises city refugees making a sea change ..." (see "The Australian laments outcome of Queensland local government elections" at http://candobetter.org/node/388)

... but that won't stop Rupert Murdoch, even for one minute, telling Australians that we need ever more immigration and population growth.

---

mil-observer wrote, "you should feel embarrassed, if not ashamed".

This seems to be an attempt to close discussion using moral blackmail.

Perhaps you are the one who should feel ashamed for having promoted, whether wittingly or unwittingly, the agenda of "the parasites of finance and real estate speculation", as you described them.

Lots of premises there daggett, all big on generalization, assumption and, in key areas, exaggeration too.

For starters, I don't "dodge" anything - especially where your own Malthusian premises are concerned. So don't presume to task me with responding to all of your own particular preoccupations, which seem to include doctrinaire Malthusian excitement about imagined (but rarely defined) "limits" to humans and all their treatment of humans as some nuisance-like plague. I've already responded to such simplistic formulae on OLO before, repeatedly. I find it tiresome, as if trying to make religious conversion among people for their (less malevolent) articles of misguided faith.

You did not engage or acknowledge my above detailed reply to your questions about developments in the nuclear industry and their great promise for the people of India (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8326#133250). So be it: clearly you were either unable or just unwilling to contemplate any such peaceful and positive changes except as transgressions of a simplistic and degenerate Malthusian dogma. A pity, because such negativity severely limits your perspective, while the dogma itself promises decay at best and genocide at worst.

On the "cultural differences" that you claim are/were so "important today to West Papuans, East Timorese, Tibetans etc", and "Palestinians in the 1930s and 1940s": it seems to me that this all describes a "divide-and-rule" conditioning in media control (I've been there too, so I urge self-critical reflection).

What of many Palestinians and Jews who joined forces to fight the British Empire (and the non-Jabotinsky/anti-racist Jewish migrants)? And (various) West Papuan people employed and established within Indonesia's multi-ethnicity, including positions of authority to ministerial level and significant proportions among security forces? As for similar constructs around "Tibetan" identity, I suspect that you are one of the many westerners misled badly there, especially at the time of the olympics. What happened then was a coldly premeditated infiltration and mass-murderous assault - claiming over 80 mostly Han and Uighur lives - in a deliberate, sponsored effort at destabilizing China.

Given your admirably non-conformist treatment of "terrorism" propaganda, I suggest you look more carefully at these other issues too.

mil-observer,

In fact, I was aware of the technological edge advantage that India enjoys in nuclear power, having read the Chapter "Nuclear Fission Power Options" by Sheila Newman in "The Final Energy Crisis" (2nd edition), 2008 edited by Sheila Newman Pluto press RRP AU$44.95 (see also http://candobetter.org/TFEC)

Nevertheless, even the best nuclear power technology can only incrementally improve the situation. It cannot hope to improve our efficiency by the one or two orders of magnitudes necessary to cater for the needs of a world human population that is at least 12 times what it was before humankind began to exploit its finite non-renewable endowment of fossil fuel energy.

What you are implying is that nuclear powered desalination plants lining the shores of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal can hope to create enough fresh water to replace what is now being pumped up from beneath the Deccan 24x7 to sustain much of India's agriculture.

I will believe it when I see it.

If that happens, the environmental consequences for the Indian Ocean would have to be huge, and we would still face at least most of the usual dangers that nuclear power poses, but on a much greater scale.

And before we can hope that desalinated water can replace the bore water now being used, the nuclear power plants, together with pumping stations, pipes and all the infrastructure necessary to distribute the water to where it will be needed will have to be built. This would would consume vast quantities of the world's non-renewable natural resources and massively compound he global warming problem.

If this fails, then India's 1.2 billion+ people could be in very serious trouble when their wells inevitably run dry.

Frankly, I don't like to think about it, but I see no excuse for denying that a serious problem exists or for denying its scale.

Can I suggest that you carefully read the following articles and explain why you see no cause for alarm?

"Catastrophic Fall in 2009 Global Food Production" at http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=328&Itemid=1

"Food supply may fall 25% by 2050, says UN" at http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/02/18/2494642.htm?site=science&topic=enviro

daggett: thanks for the Newman blog reference. Refreshing to read a blogger dealing with the subject more or less on its own terms. I liked especially her concern for reprocessing via fast breeder reactors (an aspect I omitted).

The first serious error I note in your (Eric de Carbonnel) reference to world drought, food production and imminent inflation i.e., "The demand for agricultural commodities is relatively immune to developments in the business cycles (at least compared to that of energy or base metals". Now the insane price fluctuations last year already proved how intimately connected those vague "business cycles" are to food prices. Developing countries in particular suffered near-universal food price hikes due to rampant speculation on biofuels.

The pedigreed writer's second error is his seeming eagerness to extrapolate production stats from drought-affected countries. The obvious omission there is the situation in NON-drought countries. What usually happens in such weather cycles is a tit-for-tat compensation between bumper crops in some regions against miserable harvests amid drought elsewhere. Australia is a good example, where Queensland and the top end yielded record harvests - and floods - against the southeast's drought.

Your take on all this seems woefully pessimistic and destructive. With such Malthusian constraints on our vision we would probably have never realized so much as an aquaduct. And yes, I see no problem with ocean desalination projects and their promise for both demographic and environmental stabilization. As for the infrastructure effort needed for nuclear-based desalination and power supply, it seems quite minor compared to what's been going on til now e.g., lavish waste via financier cartels like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Macquarie, etc., or the related grotesque opulence of silly artificial cities in the Persian Gulf.

Regardless, dodgy prophets like de Carbonnel will probably claim vindication when the disintegrating monetarist system yields its vast bitter harvest of hyperinflation from mass bail-outs, rendering famine a certainty - but from definitely anthropogenic/human causes.

Sadly, our discussion hinges on faith. As your passivity and pessimism would prefer: "I will believe it when I see it."

mil-observer wrote, "What usually happens in such weather cycles is a tit-for-tat compensation between bumper crops in some regions against miserable harvests amid drought elsewhere."

Don't you think that you need to substantiate such a sweeping claim? Perhaps you might produce data which incontrovertibly proves mil-observer's First Law of Global Agricultural Productivity, that is that every loss in agricultural productivity in some part of the world is automatically compensated by an equal gain in agricultural productivity elsewhere?

Certainly this 'tit-for-tat' law you appear to have conjured up didn't work for the ancient Romans, the Ancient Greeks, the Ancient Sumerians, the Mayans, the Chaco Anasazi and and many other failed agricultural societies. Why should it be substantially different today?

It's obvious that we have seriously degraded the Australian environment and hence our ability to produce as much food as we have been able to in the past and the same goes for most other countries in the planet. If you can't recognise that then your head must be stuck in the sand.

mil-observer wrote, "As for the infrastructure effort needed for nuclear-based desalination and power supply, it seems quite minor compared to what's been going on til now ..."

Is it really?

The projects you describe, as wasteful as they are, are not intended to alter natural flows on such a massive scale as would be necessary to replace the bore water upon which much of India's agriculture depends.

Are you aware of any other projects on such a scale that were not the cause of environmental disasters?

You're quite prematurely snide there, daggett. But that's all good fun when I get to see Malthus' sick head looming yet again.

My anecdote about Queensland's and NT's recent compensatory effects on Australian agriculture is well known; it had good publicity, including from ABC's Landline, for example.

In that same context, the de Carbonnel drought-population map still appears woefully deficient as any statistical guage: it offers no insight into any worldwide ratios of drought/higher precipitation for that period. You should critique that source first before snapping at my mere mention of your source's deficiency there. It's funny: you're telling me to fetch data for you, but your own trumpeted source wasn't even up to the task with its simplistic and selective depiction of drought!

Indeed, the map's isolated attention on drought, superimposed onto population shades, smacks of exactly the kind of pessimism I identified in your very own worldview. Furthermore, de Carbonnel's apparently aristocratic background (or at least aspirational pose thereof) would typify the misanthropic and degenerate worldview of many such people who regard themselves as somehow special and above, beyond and apart from we commoners. Population often terrifies such people, especially when so many more people get to prove the actual mediocrity of such "special breeds", and the disgusting injustice that still grants them undeserved privileges. Inbred parasites like princes Charles and Philip are perhaps more instructive examples: they're both on record as backing Malthusian vomit too.

But most importantly, I never asserted that some climatic equilibrium would inevitably suffice to counter any and all drought effects, so take your words back and stick them. I simply identified the deficiency and scare-mongering implicit in de Carbonnel's amateurish map projections. Therefore, when I state that "what usually happens in such weather cycles" I merely assert the truism that biblically catastrophic and unmitigated drought does not attend world civilization's current food production and distribution as some insurmountable norm. If we consider the effects of absent letters of credit on exports, or biofuel speculation, or GM cash crops as compulsory credit conditions, well, they can cause catastrophes without help from the weather.

mil-observer wrote, "But that's all good fun when I get to see Malthus' sick head looming yet again."

Malthusianism is simply another term for the recognition that the natural world imposes limits upon the populations of all species within it, including humans. That has certainly been true of all non-human natural history and has been true of human history up until the commencement of industrial society which began in the 18th century when the global human population was around the 700 million mark. Throughout most of human history, human population has been between 200 million to 500 million.

Since then human population has increased roughly tenfold to become 6.5 billion.

Ideological cornucopians, whether of the economic neo-liberal variety or of the left wing variety would have us believe that this unprecedented apparent overcoming of natural laws in the last three centuries has been entirely due to superior capabilities of the human species which can only have developed since then.

The other obvious possible explanation, that is the unprecedented increase in the consumption of non-renewable natural resources, particularly fossil fuels, is excluded by cornucopians.

However, any examination of a graph of human numbers superimposed onto graphs of the consumption of fossil fuel, for example, petroleum, will reveal a close correlation between the two and, hence a far more likely explanation. See, for example, the image http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p237/1ace11/WorldPopulation.gif which appears on http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3726 (roughly 4/5 of the way down).

Certainly, the increase in human population from less 4 billion in the 1960's to its current 6.5 billion was due to the vastly increased use of fertilisers and pesticides manufactured using our finite non-renewable endowment of fossil fuels. For world leaders to have allowed this to happen instead of heeding the well-founded warnings of Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome that we prudently restrain both our numbers and our per-capita consumption of natural resources, is absolute confirmation that human intelligence, or at least the intelligence of the elites (and many of their supposed left-wing detractors) who guide its destiny, has not improved at all in the last 10,000 years.

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

Another resource which has been consumed profligately since then is, of course, fertile soil, including that in the Murray Darling Basin, which has been largely ruined by industrial farming techniques.

If you want to gain an understanding of the problem, then I recommend you read "Dirt - the erosion of civilisations", written in 2007 by David R. Montgomery. In 245 pages you will find one of the best, most ludidly-written introductions to humankind's most precious resource. Reviews are at http://philobiblon.co.uk/?p=2210#comment-1177218 http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/08/19/085841.php http://www.celsias.com/article/dishing-dirt-with-david-montgomery/

Random changes to nature rarely are far more likely to be detrimental than beneficial, so any decrease in soil fertility in some areas due to, say, global warming cannot be expected to commensurably offset by increases elsewhere. Even if the could, we still face the logistical problem of delivering the resultant food surpluses to where there will be deficits.

Until firm and comprehensive data is produced, I think it would be safe to assume that the 'tit-for-tat' improvements that you write of are insignificant in the overall picture. It would therefore be reckless and irresponsible to allow ourselves to become complacent on that basis and delay, even for a minute the urgent task of stabilising global human population.

---

If my response to your last post appears snide, mil-observer, it may be due in part to the rage I feel at the role played by many Marxists since the 1960's in helping dig humankind into the hole that we now find ourselves in. (An honourable exception to this is Sandy Irvine who wrote the brilliant "Trotsky's Biggest Blindspot" at http://candobetter.org/node/673 ) Thus, the best opportunity we ever had to achieve an enduring and humane global civilisation was thrown away.

Practitioners of the supposedly most materially-based and advanced of all the political philosophies, have proven themselves barely more capable of grasping the physical world we live in than, for example, those who believe in the literal meaning of the Book of Genesis.

daggett: "If my response to your last post appears snide, mil-observer, it may be due in part to the rage I feel at the role played by many Marxists since the 1960's in helping dig humankind into the hole that we now find ourselves in."

So it's a case of OLO road rage then. Like the revheads who, pestered by their boss and/or spouse, scream at law-abiding strangers on the highway instead. I regard Marxism as simplistic and primitive - in some ways similar to neoliberalism and even Malthusian genocidalism itself. But here's an idea: if you've got a problem with Marxists, go take it out on (wait for it, notebook ready) ...some Marxists.

I suggest that it's just you here who got stuck in a hole - one dug long ago by Malthus. From inside that dark hole, what can be gleaned of the Club of Rome's genocidal target? If I'm not mistaken from my recall of some old Club-franked reference on their favorite subject ("human culls"), they're aiming at a world population of 2 billion. That's around 4.5 billion to somehow die and not reproduce.

daggett: "...any examination of a graph of human numbers superimposed onto graphs of the consumption of fossil fuel, for example, petroleum, will reveal a close correlation between the two..."

Didn't anyone tell you about the birds and the bees? Or is that just your approach to "statistical analysis"? Seems terribly "de-Carbonnellian". I mean, you could superimpose a graph of say, some national cricket teams' batting averages, or the career paths of certain Bollywood starlets, and still conjure such "a close correlation"...

[cont.]

daggett: "...the intelligence of the elites (and many of their supposed left-wing detractors) who guide its destiny, has not improved at all in the last 10,000 years."

Yes, as evident in the fact that infamous war criminal Henry Kissinger is a member of the Club of Rome. Kissinger's "guidance of destiny" included (apart from ruthless bombing of many Southeast Asian civilians, for example) the NSSM 200 directive, which compelled many developing countries to depopulate by intrusive disturbance to birth rates and demographic balance, crippling such countries' efforts at maturing and being able to use their natural resources (instead of having to pawn much of them off to the west).

As I implied earlier: if France and Sweden can supply themselves with such vast nuclear power, then so can India and Indonesia, though with newer and better nuclear technology.

Of course, the Club of Rome would disagree, but the Club of Rome is run by a self-conscious elite of (largely European) nobility, who wish to see such countries in particular become mass terminal wards and/or human abattoirs.

That's why the looming efforts at monetarist austerity - and the febrile resistance to any legally and morally proper bankruptcy proceedings for the debt-mired finance sector - promise the system necessary for such Malthusian depopulation i.e., fascism.

OK, mil-observer,

So you are not a Marxist cornucopian, but some other indeterminate variety that I have not yet encountered. Of course my presumption was hasty, but I now stand corrected.

---

So, what if one genocidal maniac (i.e Henry Kissinger) was a member of the Club of Rome? I could easily name many other right-wing genocidal maniacs who are cornucopians like yourself, starting with former President George W Bush and senior members of his administration who prevented birth control aid from reaching the Third World, thereby making the global overpopulation problem even worse than it otherwise would have been.

---

mil-observer wrote, "I mean, you could superimpose a graph of say, some national cricket teams' batting averages, or the career paths of certain Bollywood starlets, and still conjure such 'a close correlation'.

That's an idiotic analogy and you must surely know that it is.

I would have thought that you would have at least understood that for a correlation to be meaningful that the two values being measured need a common X axis, for example, time.

The correlation between a massive increase in human numbers and a massive increase in consumption of petroleum and other non-renewable resources is there.

Given that neither have happened at any time before in either natural history or human history, it would seem that the latter most likely explains the former.

I note your silence in regard to how the so-called Green Revolution which allowed the growth of human population from around 4 billion to 6.5 billion was dependent upon the increased use of non-renewable fossil fuels and I note your avoidance of a good many other points I raised.

Yes, and you can "stand corrected" on all your flawed arguments and their weak-minded, inconsistent logic, and their hypocritical expression here.

daggett: "So, what if one genocidal maniac (i.e Henry Kissinger) was a member of the Club of Rome?"

Well, it says much about the other hundreds of genocidal maniacs who are members of the Club of Rome, their beliefs, values and aims. As for the GWB theatrics: you don't seem to realize that NSSM 200 determined strategic policy for that administration too (not just the Ford presidency). Whatever seemingly contrary stance applies to a single publicized decision - about an element of birth control distribution - is only relevant to isolated publicity for some of GWB's card-carrying religious constituents. Therefore, the Club of Rome are not only "reactionary elitists seeking to keep the workers from their just desserts": they're imperialists influencing policy in long-term, strategic senses.

Yet again here, don't presume here some schoolmarmish authority with me. As I mentioned before: you don't respond to so many of my points (try the genocidal Club of Rome's depopulation target of 2 billion, or my easy-peezy destruction of de Carbonnel's pseudo-science, or the entire genocidal faith system sponsored by feudal-minded snobs like himself and princes Charles and Philip). Your judgemental hypocrisy there simply conveys a repulsive odor surrounding your logic's handicaps, if not also some deep social inadequacy (perhaps common to Malthusian genocidalists).

daggett: "I...thought that you would have at least understood that for a correlation to be meaningful...the two values being measured need a common X axis, for example, time."

Yes, I do understand that, hence my examples of batting averages and Bollywood careers that can be superimposed along the common X axis for "Time", just as easily as your simplistic presumption about fossil fuel consumption causing or enabling population growth. Such phenomena as certain batting averages and certain Bollywood careers too have never "happened at any time before in either natural history or human history", so your superficial efforts at logic fail there too.

"Green Revolution" depended on seed technology and infrastructure; petrochemicals were a lesser, indirect contributor.

Dear admin,

It's time to close this thread. The current "debate" between mil-observer and daggett is bringing this e-forum onlineopinion.com.au into disrepute.

mil-observer,

I only 'stand corrected' for having hastily (but, I believe, understandably) assumed that you were a Marxist cornucopian.

Only when you show that my arguments are 'flawed', my logic 'weak-minded' and 'inconsistent' and my expression 'hypocritical' will I stand corrected for that.

---

The fact that you failed to list any of the "other hundreds of genocidal maniacs who are members of the Club of Rome" apart from Henry Kissinger causes me to be suspicious of your claim.

mil-observer wrote, "you don't seem to realize that NSSM 200 determined strategic policy for that administration too".

I think you need to provide some substantiation for how "NSSM 200" is driving the Bush administration's policy goals, presumably, of depopulating the third world. It seems to me that if that was the Bush administration's goal, it has been spectacularly unsuccessful.

---

mil-observer wrote, "you don't respond to so many of my points (try the genocidal Club of Rome's depopulation target of 2 billion, ..."

How about citing the Club of Rome's documents that you say call for the depopulation?

mil-observer wrote earlier, "That's around 4.5 billion to somehow die and not reproduce."

Of course, if you have your way, then in around 30 years time, when the global population will have reached around 9 billion, you will be able to, instead, write:

"That's around 7 billion to somehow die and not reproduce."

However, anyone who understands the physical limits of the planet will understand one way or another nature will cull our numbers if we fail to stabilise our population ourselves.

If Ehrlich and the Club of Rome had been listened to in the 1970's, the global population would today be 4 billion at most.

I certainly hope that the short term carrying capacity of the earth proves to be at least 6.5 billion so that a terrible and catastrophic natural culling can be avoided before human population is able to decline naturally.

However, holding the Club of Rome morally culpable for what must inevitably happen, one way or another, is shooting the messenger.

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

mil-observer continued, "... or my easy-peezy destruction of de Carbonnel's pseudo-science, ..."

If your choice of debating techniques is to proclaim that you have won the argument, then I can't stop you, however, I think that others will be able to see that you have not.

All you have done is made a vague assertion that increased agricultural productivity in parts of the globe would sufficiently offset huge reductions in agricultural productivity elsewhere, but failed to quantify that claim, when I challenged you to do so.

mil-observer continued, "... or the entire genocidal faith system sponsored by feudal-minded snobs like himself and princes Charles and Philip)."

This is no argument. It is just a personal attack (whether justified or not) upon two individuals who favour population stability.

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mil-observer wrote, "my examples of batting averages and Bollywood careers that can be superimposed along the common X axis for 'time', ..."

Well do it then, if it is so easy as you say. Produce such a graph which shows and let's see the correlation.

In any case, if there should prove to be a correlation, isn't it it more likely that a third factor, that is, India's growing economic prosperity (of course, only for some at the expense of its environment and the poor) may be a cause of an increase in both, rather than one being the cause of the other?

mil-observer wrote, "... just as easily as your simplistic presumption about fossil fuel consumption causing or enabling population growth."

You have implied that the cause of this is the superiority of the human species, presumably including intelligence, from that point in time onwards, in comparison to the human species in earlier times.

(tobecontinued)

No, I don't fail against any sophists, regardless of whether you contrive some half-baked imaginary "tests" in that dungeon reserved for depopulation strategy.

Yes, the messenger has a message of genocide. So folks: pass me the ammunition as I target such messengers.

"If Ehrlich and the Club of Rome had been listened to in the 1970's, the global population would today be 4 billion at most."

Yeah, rubbish again. They have already been listened too, including by and for Kissinger via NSSM 200 and - lo and behold - we got a completely opposite result! Clever...it's what happens when people are forced into wretched conditions with only hopes for a gamble through higher rates of childbirth.

And "no argument" if referring to feudal snobs princes Charles and Philip, who advocate "depopulation" (daggett's euphemism "population stability")? Well, the issue is about people, and the the toxic resentment - indeed spite - felt by the privileged mediocre and in-bred towards most of the planet's generally more capable and dynamic persons. Therefore, it's quite a "personal" issue too, unless we deny our very humanity.

Every excuse to try denying development to countries like India. It's actually sick, and apparently resentful at the rise and challenge posed by those long neglected and oppressed. The political system aimed at, and most compatible with, such misanthropic bile is fascism, and on a global scale. The Malthusians feel that their time has come now that the financial system's disintegrating into ongoing catastrophic effects, with no leading states courageous to declare its bankruptcy and build afresh.

Just reassure us daggett that you have no children now or, at least, plan none for the future. Youth suicide's already a sickeningly large enough problem without any more direct help from yourself and the whole crew of Malthusian imperial-degenerates.

Your great cause is an intrinsic failure, whatever its ultimate effect, and your life is wasted in a swamp of anti-human, elitist (whether aspirational or nostalgio-feudal) urges toward some desperate longing for significance, but only at great cost to a still vulnerable majority.

mil-observer

This looks like a case of "if you can't win the argument your opponent is making, put crazy words in his mouth and then argue against the crazy words."

What if population stabilisation for Australia only means net zero immigration and dumping the baby bonus? Reducing immigration might even decrease teenage suicide because economic conditions would be better for more teenagers.

Oh come now, Philip Tang. At least they're talking to each other.

And the entertainment value compensates for the inanity, for those of us who look in on these admittedly odd conversations from time to time.

Mil-observer continues to surprise and delight with his idiosyncratic takes on humanity, while dear old James is gearing up for an election campaign based on Malthus and 9/11 conspiracy theories.

As Spock said - fascinating.

(continuedfromabove)

I don't entirely exclude this possibility (and, indeed, would be overjoyed if it could be proven to be the case), but it is recklessly irresponsible to presume, as you are presuming, that this the only possible explanation of our ability to sustain vastly larger numbers, when the strong correlation between the increase in human numbers and the increase in consumption of finite non-renewable natural resources, including tens of millions of years worth of solar energy stored in fossil fuels, suggests a far more likely explanation.

If you are wrong, then we are in deep trouble when those non-renewable resources are exhausted. (Just maybe India's nuclear program will help, instead of making an already dire situation even worse, but nuclear fuel is also a finite resource and so nuclear fission can only be expected to buy a few more decades of time at best.)

Mil-observer wrote, "'Green Revolution' depended on seed technology and infrastructure; petrochemicals were a lesser, indirect contributor."

Are you claiming that the increased agricultural productivity brought about by the "Green Revolution" can be maintained without fossil-fuel based fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, or, indeed, soil and water?

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Thanks, ericc.

Clearly in mil-observer's view, questioning the capacity of planet earth to indefinitely sustain a population of 6.5 billion and climbing or advocating any restrictions upon movements of people across the globe are crimes every bit as monstrous as the worst of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, etc.

As such, anyone holding advocating population stability has no right to expect to have substantiated accusations made against them of advocating genocide or of being "anti-human" elitists.

Little old Christopher wrote, "And the entertainment value compensates for the inanity, for those of us who look in on these admittedly odd conversations from time to time."

It's good to know that Christopher still has sufficient time on his hands to follow conversations on such 'inane' topics as the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by the 'war on terror' and whether of not billions of the world's current population will starve to death in the coming decades as fresh water, soil and the stocks of petroleum necessary to sustain our current levels of food production are exhausted and it's good to know that he appreciates the "entertainment value" of such conversations.

No doubt, Christopher's local Green candidate is assured of winning his/her seat and will have no need of Christopher's help in the coming weeks.

Or has it has been decided that his/her electoral prospects would actually improve if Christopher were to spend his time thus on OLO instead of actively campaigning for the Greens?

What a snarky response from James to my defence of his right to babble on endlessly. Obviously, the entertainment value doesn't refer to the potential of the various doomsday scenarios to which the Indepependent candidate for Mt Coot-tha subscribes, but rather to his predilection for butting heads with others who are as obsessed as him, but in other directions. Keep it up, old boy - I'm sure your ravings here and elsewhere are of great assistance to your political aspirations.

Of course, that aspect of your quixotic activities would be much more entertaining if you were to run in Beaudesert instead of Mt Coot-tha - with Pauline Hanson and Warwick Capper standing for that seat, the addition of James Sinnamon on the 9/11 Truth ticket would have made it a 3-ring circus. Mind you. you seem to have some similar ideas to Ms Hanson concerning multiculturalism and refugees.

<< No doubt, Christopher's local Green candidate is assured of winning his/her seat and will have no need of Christopher's help in the coming weeks. >>

Given that I live in the Borg's electorate, where he is routinely returned with over 60% of the primary vote, I gather that the Greens will be fielding the same paper candidate as in the last Federal election. They aren't silly enough to waste their resources on hopeless election campaigns that benefit only the inflated egos of those who seek attention by pretending to be politically significant.

Actually, at the last election I handed out HTVs for the ALP candidate at my local booth, since he's a personal friend and my little town usually returns the best Labor vote in the electorate. I gave the Greens candidate my first preference, my second going to the ALP.

If it's not too late, I urge you to consider running in Beaudesert rather than Mt Coot-tha. And do continue to provide entertainment in this forum, won't you?

[Well, for real entertainment, you can't beat a Queenslanders' spat about electioneering, even with its "finite limits" etc., brought about by those parochial idiosyncrasies that all Australians so love ever since Kingaroy became the country's de facto entertainment capital. And the incumbent's inherited link to such fraught political precedent as the Rum Rebellion...]

daggett: "If you are wrong, then we are in deep trouble when those non-renewable resources are exhausted. (Just maybe India's nuclear program will help, instead of making an already dire situation even worse, but nuclear fuel is also a finite resource and so nuclear fission can only be expected to buy a few more decades of time at best.)"

Reconsider your sentence. You claim that if I'm wrong, then "we" (presumably all humanity) "are in deep trouble". FYI: I don't carry that kind of clout, and I have no significant say in India's nuclear program. Oligarch-sponsored lobbies like the Club of Rome however - especially as I referred in the Kissinger example - do wield such political influence and means of causing serious trouble for humanity.

daggett: "Are you claiming that the increased agricultural productivity brought about by the "Green Revolution" can be maintained without fossil-fuel based fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, or, indeed, soil and water?"

If we pursue the hypothetical point enough then yes, I can claim that, even to the extent that the petrochemical industry you mention can also manufacture synthetic i.e., non-fossil-fuel-based variants of what you cite (except soil and water!). However, I strongly object to most such manufacture where encouraging the inefficient "biofuel" industry that has threatened starvation, especially via its inflationary potential in speculation linked to petrodollar and "carbon credits", etc.

But your point is still very indirect and weak, even contrived; you could've easily asked: "Are you claiming that the increased agricultural productivity...can be maintained without [people/advertising media/private enterprise/state intervention]", and so on.

Also, "soil and water" are not "fossil-fuel-based", at least not in this part of the country. It seems your language is tying your thoughts in knots: try plain English wherever possible - the less syllables and clauses the better.

Of course, the last sentence of my second most recent post should have read, "As such, anyone advocating population stability has no right to expect to have substantiated accusations made against them of advocating genocide or of being 'anti-human' elitists."

I left the word 'holding' in by mistake.

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mil-observer wrote, "Every excuse to try denying development to countries like India. It's actually sick, and apparently resentful at the rise and challenge posed by those long neglected and oppressed. The political system aimed at, and most compatible with, such misanthropic bile is fascism, and on a global scale. The Malthusians feel that their time has come now that the financial system's disintegrating into ongoing catastrophic effects, with no leading states courageous to declare its bankruptcy and build afresh. ..."

"If we pursue the hypothetical point enough then yes, I can claim that, even to the extent that the petrochemical industry you mention can also manufacture synthetic i.e., non-fossil-fuel-based variants of what you cite (except soil and water!). ..."

Then mil-observer wrote, " It seems your language is tying your thoughts in knots: try plain English wherever possible ..."

I think mil-observer should take his own advice.

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Glad to see that Christopher has found an excuse to snipe at others who are prepared to stick their necks out in coming weeks instead of trying to make a worthwhile difference himself.

Anyone interested in candidates (including myself) who are trying to offer Queenslanders a real choice (and this doesn't necessarily exclude the Greens), please visit http://candobetter.org/QldElections http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha http://candobetter.org/QldElections/SouthBrisbane http://candobetter.org/QldElections/Burleigh etc.

Constructive comments, whether critical or supportive, are welcome.

No, I've written some pretty succinct complexities here.

You'd have a few rambling chapters if trying to cover the same, and there'd be plenty of confusing logic among them too.

Fine, mil-observer.

Your literary abilities vastly exceed my own.

But that says nothing about the quality of your underlying ideas.

Bye.