"....it is difficult to say exactly what is being articulated." Really?

We could also believe what the protesters say, i.e. they're outraged by insults to their religion and really don't understand that they live in a liberal democracy. Sounds like a political demand to me.

"The Muslims who took to the streets over the weekend, however, acted in ways which suggest they believe they are in a sense excluded from the political process. The important question becomes, why do they feel that way?"

It could also mean that they don't accept the Kuffar liberal democratic political process, it's just possible that frictions with the islamic community are not all the fault of the oppressive non-Moslem majority.

Dear Chloe, I very much doubt the rioting men of the Muslim faith were demonstrating over their perceived lack of political representation but
using the supposed irreverent video to hide behind and use as an excuse to physically attack the authority of this majority christian nation whom they despise as being not of the true faith.
Its all very well to analyse their actions with academic benign interest from the secure surrounds of La Trobe University but one cannot forget the similar individuals of the Muslim faith who blew up the train in Spain, set off bombs in the crowded tube in London, crashed aeroplanes into office buildings in New York, blew up the aeroplane over Lockerbee, Scotland, all incidents resulting in the loss of innocent lives. I could cite many more such incidents probaly too numerous to mention here.
These fundamentalist Muslims who physically violently protest at the most thinnest of provocation must be nipped in the bud and must be immediately dealt with by the authorities with a heavy hand.

Their demands are not political, they're religious, clearly spelled out in their placards, their chants, and the way they run countries in which they have coercive power. They want their authoritarian cult given respect it can earn only by committing itself unequivocally to the right of dissent from its doctrines and its edicts (not merely urging the hotheads to cool it for now). Naturally they will feel frustrated at persistent displays of disobedience and defiance. It they are determined to distance themselves from our religiously free society, they need help: one way plane tickets out or the encouragement of a growing backlash against them.

These guys are acting like spoilt children. They are indoctrinated to hate non Muslims, even if they tell you otherwise. If you look into the Quran it has may hate filled comments about killing non believers. When it comes to that though so does the Bible which the Quran was based on some 600 years later. There teachings are from a time when they were having a holy war with Christians and they have simply adapted them to follow through the ages. In the end, they are doing themselves no favours because even people like myself who were willing to tolerate this sort of thing in their own countries have had enough when it comes to ours.

A typical “see no evil, hear no evil and most of all, ignore all evil” piece of rubbish from academia. For someone at an institution dedicated to understanding Muslims, she doesn’t understand them very much, if at all.

The issue of rights and citizenship was absent in the Sydney protests. It was about Muslims wanting respect for their dear prophet and about sending a message to the infidels. Ms. Patton sees a tree and says its a fish, because she wants it to be a fish, because fish, too, have a diminished experience of citizenship.

Since many of the Muslims in the protest, of all ages, were carrying “behead” sign, sign and shouting anti-democracy slogans, I would say that was political, even if Ms. Patton thinks that a manifestation of a desire to inflict barbaric murder and torture on other Australians has no political context.

Not only is this so-called expert oblivious to the hate and violence in the Quran; blind to the evil deeds in the hadith and willingly ignorant of the discrimination and oppression practiced by Muslims everywhere they dominate, she can’t even bring herself to condemn those holding the “behead” signs.

This woman has no notion of decency and no sense of morality.

Emperor Julian

"Their demands are not political, they're religious, clearly spelled out in their placards, their chants, and the way they run countries in which they have coercive power."

Exactly, that's why their agenda is in fact, clearly political.