Just for reference, here is the Koran on-line:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/koran/koran-idx?type=DIV0&byte=1320

I urge any reader to dip into it at random.

Many Islamic scholars have denied the possibility of 'abrogation', of later verses over-riding earlier ones, since, they suggest, Allah doesn't change his mind. As an atheist, I don't find it hard to believe that Muhammad changed his mind though, to suit specific circumstances. His seduction of his son's wife, Zaynab, and his suddenly revealed sanction for this, were wryly observed by one of his wives, Aisha, to the effect that Allah was sometimes very quick to answer his prayers, in this case to be allowed by Allah to commit incest. God may move in mysterious ways, but men often move in ways that are all too predictable.

On Islam as a religion of peace - before Muhammad devised Islam [surrender], the lands between the rivers, Mesopotamia, were populated by Kurds and Persians; North Africa was populated by Copts and Berbers. DNA studies in Iraq show that the mitochondrial DNA of Iraqi women is still strongly influenced by Kurdish and various Persian varieties of DNA, but that the male Y chromosome is overwhelmingly Arab. I wouldn't be surprised if North African DNA shows a similar invasion'-oriented pattern, with women's DNA still strongly Berber, but men's DNA strongly Arab.

IF the Koran has been written with this closed-loop principle, that it can't be ever changed BUT must be obeyed to the letter, and by a billion and a half Muslims, then we are in for a long century. It's not the end of history yet.

On the other hand, IF there is a diffuse revolt against its reactionary principles in coming years, something which coalesces into reform movements (and assuming that perceptions of 'reform' take similar progressive paths within and across Islam - not a given) then we will need to certainly be agile in responding to opportunities for solidarity with reforming groups - IF 'reform' involves critical analysis, support for freedom of expression, equality and the rule of law, and the 'abrogation' of violence and terror.

Joe

An excellent article that should be given wide circulation.

Waleed Aly? He is just another morally superior, moralising BS artist, toeing the PC line and lecturing from his elevated pulpit, de rigeur for the superficial commentariat in the media.

At least he doesn't wear a red nappy on his head as another PC BS artist does and along with his feminist bandwagon-riding, mighty-mouthed missus makes a thumping good income out of the said PC.

The unethical TV producers never make it known to the trusting public that those talking heads, the moralising BS artists, are for dumbed-down entertainment, NOT news.

The question is, when the thousands of young adults who received the intensive and unrelenting PC brainwashing through the public education system and from an early age from that bastion of political correctness, the ABC, learn to question and think for themselves? There is hope because many are travellers, as opposed to the tourists their parents are, and eschew the tourist traps overseas to experience cultures for themselves. That is always a sobering experience.

John (Perkins)

Your article is both cogent and engaging.

Joe

On the issue of "reform" within Islam, perhaps the West should stop entertaining such fantasies. The religion has been around for 1,400 years. What makes anyone think "reform" is around the corner or that "reform" from within will come about by prodding from us Infidels?

Onthebeach

Waleed’s appearance on Channel 10, writing for Fairfax as well as his taxpayer funded gig at Monash U makes sense when one considers your comments on “the thousands of young adults who received the intensive and unrelenting PC brainwashing through the public education system and from an early age from that bastion of political correctness”.

But you’re way too soft on the diseases infecting our young.

I can assure you that the public education system is not alone in peddling dangerous nonsense to our young, in both cultural and political spheres.

There are private schools that regularly inject the kids in their care with the virus of what is called “cultural relativism”. If I am not mistaken, this is the view that no culture is superior to any other culture when comparing systems of morality, law, politics, etc. Everyone’s cultural beliefs are equally valid and that truth itself is not absolute, instead it is relative.

Hi Jonathan,

Perhaps you're right, if this is anything to go by - a 400-page exposition on 'Why I'm Not a Muslim':

http://www.conflicts.rem33.com/images/books/Ibn%20Warraq%20-%20Why%20I%20Am%20Not%20a%20Muslim.pdf

Amazingly erudite and detailed, if a bit pessimistic.

But as an optimist, I have trust in ordinary people, that 'ordinary' Muslims, going about their daily business in Australia's decidedly-not-Shari'a society, mixing comfortably with other Australians, might have developed a sort of live-and-let-live attitude as they adjust to a world in which Islamist dogma is patently impossible - that they are quite comfortable, even relieved, that Shari'a law will never, never be implemented in any way in Australia.

Most of us have some sort of faith, but in the day-to-day world, we all have a pragmatic side - we have to work or study, we have to do our shopping, we watch TV etc., and have to interact with the real world. The idiocies of Sharia' and Islamic dogma have to compete with that.

So I have confidence that, if it's necessary, people will privately, within their own heads, 'reform' Islam or even quietly abandon it altogether, apart from the symbolic occasions, much as many of us put on a Xmas hat or buy chocolates over Easter. They don't have to be bound by some half-witted dicta from some central Arabian charlatan of fourteen hundred years ago.

If I'm wrong, then we all are really in trouble.

Cheers,

Jo

Good article, John Perkins. I hope it gets good coverage in the media.

Most humanitarian leftists claim that Islam has been hijacked by a minority of nutcases who are giving Islam a bad name. But many of these people are now starting to become aware of the Islamic scriptures which authorise violence and terrorism in order to spread Islam.

These educated people naturally look to people like the famously "moderate" Waleed Aly for an explanation. That know Islam must undergo a Reformation and Enlightenment, to divest itself of those scriptures which are plainly dangerous. But "moderate" Waleed Ali, says there is no problem at all with the Koranic texts. Islam has no need to reform itself.

What was worse, was that Ali started screaming that Abbot was "racist" when Abbott simply verbalised what the smarter end of the trendy lefty class have already figured out. The trick has always been for Ali to reinforce the idea that most Muslims are "moderate" in the minds of the useful idiots who want to believe it is so. But that little deception has taken a major hit. Ali is caught between a rock and a hard place. He can't advocate the reform of Islam, because he does not believe in it himself. But he can't pretend that he is a "moderate", unless he does demand it reform.

The idea of most Muslims being "moderate" is taking a real battering. First we had the "moderate" Sheik al Hilali, who, given his public statements, could hardly be considerate "moderate." Now comes the news that the present Mufti is a pal of a known terrorist Imam. Then Ali goes and displays to everybody, that far from disagreeing with the Muslim scriptures about how to spread Islam, he is all in favour of it.

Ali stands revealed as wolf in sheep's clothing. A PR man for Islam who agrees with the aims of ISIS, Boko Haram, Jemaah Islamiah, and the Muslim Brotherhood, to create a worldwide Islamic caliphate, using the violence and terrorism sanctioned in the Koran. Sucked in again, ABC

The only thing clear about Waleed Aly, is that he confuses his personal political beliefs with reality, and has been so wrong so often that he is a standing joke.

Agreed, very informative article, John Perkins. Unfortunately not many people will read Aliy's article in the Age, or Paul Monk's refutation.

Aly's article was a revelation. Perhaps out of frustration, he resorted to the standard Muslim whine and Kuffar blaming, the appalling state of majority Muslim societies never seems to be the a product of the toxic ideology of Islam itself. Given the average person's monumental ignorance of Islamic history, the Muslim-as-eternal-victim ploy will probably be effective.

As usual Monk fishes about for the usual stuff that divides Muslims and christians.

If waleed comes across sounding like an Islamist? It's because he is one! We can all have four bob's worth when it comes to mostly ignorant opinion.

Look, we have had muslims of the Sofie tradition (the least altered or revised of all the muslim traditions) in the country since before the Ghan!

And today you'd be very had pressed to distinguish them from any other typical footy and cricket loving, beer drinking and barbeque munching Aussie.

If Abbott knew anything about Islam he would know it has its share of progressives and a cadre who recognize that Mohammad was apparently an illiterate, who relied on others to put his words down on paper, and not always, it would seem, verbatim?

I've had my fill of a pulpit pounding Abbott telling others how to be moral, when he seemed to have had difficulty with the truth and keeping his promises?

Or allowing others to do as their own conscience dictates, or being bound by the expressed will of the electorate?

I believe there is movement inside Islam toward reform; and it is not helped by know eerything, activists and the usual critics of everything Islam.

And just when there seemed we were getting a significant portion of muslims inside and seeing themselves as Aussies even more threatened by the ideology of ISIS than almost anyone else?

We get nowhere fast by simply and simplistically focusing on those very few areas that apparently still divide us!

There is just one creator and we all of us who believe, pay homage according to our lights!

There is not a christian or muslim way, just a right way, and that way is guided in each individual by their own conscience!

There are many paths ; even so , they all lead invariably to the same destination!

All learning is accomplished during the journey and not by fortuitously arriving at the destination.
Rhrosty.

The Koran is a bad dialogue for video-game gun-fights and demonstrates its weakness by ordering the killing of humans who defect from Islam. Suitable for mature adults , contains extreme violence.
However,,
2 people died from Islamic terror ( or 1 died from a police bullet):
1 death.
How many dead from Christian massacres of the first Australians, anti-Chinese murders , bikie bashings , crim gang wars, home murders and so on forever and ever.

'There is not a christian or muslim way, just a right way, and that way is guided in each individual by their own conscience!'

you really don't know how dumb that statement is Rhrosty.

Let's see Runner, according to your faith there is a:

God whom sent down ten things we must all follow, on some stone tablets no less,

These being, thou shalt not kill....blah blah blah.

Then God says "if you do not follow these instructions i (God) will send you to hell, where you will be damned forever, roasting in the fire for all eternity...blah, blah blah".

Then he has the audacity to say, "But I love you" come on, give us a break.

I'll take Rhrostys way over yours Runner, everyday.

What a joke!

actually Geoff as usual you twist things to suite your own dogma. The commandments were given in order to show how utterly corrupt mankind is. He is incapable of keeping them. You are a good example of this. People won;t go to hell for not keeping the commandments. They choose to reject the mercy shown to them through Jesus Christ. People choose to be separate from the author of love, peace, kindness and patience and rather than receive forgiveness and then rant on as if they don't need to be forgiven. Its called self righteousness Geoff and thats exactly the doctrine that Rhrosty is espousing. Some peoples concsciences allow them to fiddle with kids, behead people, kill the unborn etc.The way of Christ is infinetly superior but then again you need to lay aside your self righteousness to accept that.

Runner "kill the unborn"

Everything that has lived is dead! Everything that is alive will die! Do you eat meat? Then you support the killing of animals, of which we are one, Do you kill flies, spiders etc, same thing. Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.

What makes an unborn child suddenly sacred, certainly not you or your god that's for sure.

There is no creator, never has been, never will be. Your faith in some 'sky pilot' plants you firmly in the realm of the pixies.

If God made Sunday the sabbath, following in his ways, why do you all go to church and pray to him, making him work extra hard on his day off, so funny it just makes me laugh.

Geoff your ignorance knows no bounds. To put animals on the same level as humans shows you have little to no idea of much. Your denial of a Creator and the uniqueness of humans shows why your reasoning skills is similar to that of a frog.

Lol Runner! So your answer to someone that says they don't believe in imaginary people in the sky, is to call them a frog?
Oooohhhh.....nasty.

I think that some people commenting on this thread may have a little envy in their eyes when discussing a fine journalist like Waleed Aly.

He is a fine looking, well spoken, intelligent man who tells it like it is, no matter what other lesser mortals might say about him.
His wife is an equally lovely intelligent woman in her own right.

They are both modern young Australians who also happen to be Muslim, so I think some delicate flowers may find them a threat to their preconceived ideas about the dreaded Muslims...

Terrorists have killed 113 Australians, or people on Australian soil, since 1978 nicknamenit, so stop talking baseless nonsense and asking stupid irrelevant questions.
Waleed Ali is a deceptive subversive, whose unbalanced presentations are outside of his employer’s legal obligations.
Waleed and the ABC should be brought to account for his actions.
As an apologist for extreme Islam, there is no place for him on the public broadcaster.
Suseoffline, it is a bit early to call this terrorist apologist an Australian, he is a long way from over being an Egyptian yet.

Leo Pane, where exactly is it written anywhere that Waleed is a 'terrorist apologist' ?
Aren't you being a little dramatic there?
You really do have the envy thing bad don't you?

Geoff,

"If God made Sunday the sabbath, following in his ways, why do you all go to church and pray to him, making him work extra hard on his day off, so funny it just makes me laugh"

Saturday is the sabbath; you make us laugh.

//Suseoffline, it is a bit early to call this terrorist apologist an Australian, he is a long way from over being an Egyptian yet.//

He was born in Melbourne. That's Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - you seem to be under the misapprehension that Melbourne is in Egypt. As far as I know, there is no place called 'Melbourne' in Egypt. Maybe you're thinking of Memphis?

He attended Wesley College, a Uniting Church school in Melbourne (Australia) and the University of Melbourne (Australia).

You must have driven you geography teachers to despair, Leo.

Susie's belief system as a feminist is as repulsive as the death cult hence her inability to reason. The only thing she has learn't well as a feminist to do is to misrepresent. Islam and feminism have much in common. They don't mind lying for their cause.

To get back to topic [Christ, I'd hate to go fishing with some of you fellas, we'd end up way to buggery out to sea], after working through bin Warraq's brilliant expose of Islam, on

http://www.conflicts.rem33.com/images/books/Ibn%20Warraq%20-%20Why%20I%20Am%20Not%20a%20Muslim.pdf

I agree with John's sympathetic conclusion that any Muslim in the modern world, and particularly in such rampantly non-Muslim societies as ours, is placed in

"a difficult position the would-be reformers of Islam are in. They need to be able to reject parts of the doctrine as ancient and not applicable. But as soon as they say what they reject, they are labelled as traitors and infidels.

"However this is what they must do. They need to specify that verses like (8:12) are "contextual" and don't apply today; otherwise there will never be any "reform" of Islam. The next step, of course, is to realise that the whole concept of divine revelation is flawed, and abandon it altogether.

"What has given rise to the great global upsurge in Islamism is a much greater awareness, due to increased literacy, education and technology, of what the doctrines of Islam actually say. So they can't be ignored. We can't just pretend that the war verses don't exist, and engage in an endless game of selective quotation."

As an atheist, I'm forever thankful that Christianity had such a tendency to split, from the Nestorians, Arians, Manichaeans, not to mention the Catholic-Orthodox split a thousand years ago, the fracturing of Catholicism - even before the invention of the printing press, local-language literacies and the Reformation - into rival orders and sects, etc., laying the ground for its partial dissolution.

Perhaps Europe's very diverse history and broken geography helped, its myriad of different languages and local histories, whatever it was that forced many people across fractured Europe to think for themselves and learn, painfully, through trial and error.

[TBC]

[continued]

Perhaps the European foundation on Roman law, with its focus on the rights of the person; perhaps the agreement between Pope Gregory and the Emperor Frederick to at last split the Caesar-Pope roles and 'render unto Caesar etc.' and to recognise, each reluctantly, the initial separation of Church and State.

Perhaps the Magna Carta helped; perhaps they all indirectly contributed to the Renaissance and Reformation, with their bloody internecine wars; perhaps, finally, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 resolved many issues of Church and State, the rights of individuals - but out of all these forces, different aspects of what was to become the Enlightenment struggled into life.

All Utopias, religious and otherwise, lay their own traps: the more explanatory an ideology which justifies total power in the hands of a few, whether it is communism, Catholicism or Islam, the more painful and difficult it is - and will be - for adherents to question, criticise, 'reform' and to move forward. In Islam's case, from the deserts of 7th-century Arabia to the modern world in 2015-2016 and beyond.

I wish those questioners well, with all my heart. They are the great hope of a post-Muslim world. Waleed Aly's notion of an 18th-century 'Reformation', by the Wahhabis, is confusing Reformation, major transformation, with a reactive and an extremely reactionary Counter-Reformation, major retreat backwards to Islam's most repressive times. I hope that he will re-consider, thoroughly re-think that position, although I sympathise that it will be incredibly difficult for him to do. He would need to take teqqiya to new heights and in different directions.

Joe

Yes, Toni, three of the bombers in the terrorist attacks on London (7/7), were British born and educated, but never got over being Pakistani.
Information for Suseoffline, about the terrorist apologist. Waleed was asked on the Project, about Boko Haram, the terrorist muslim group which kidnapped 200 schoolgirls.
““So who is this group exactly?” he was asked.
Not once in his answer did “Muslim” or “Islamic” pass Aly’s lips.
“They are a really, really hard group to define because they are so splintered and so diverse,” he said.
“What we do know though is that the broader movement is a terrorist movement and they’ve been wanting to overthrow the Nigerian government and establish a government of their own.
“But beyond that, this particular group, who have done this particular thing, it’s hard to identify who they are and they might just be vigilantes.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/waleed-aly-avoiding-the-obvious-truth/story-fni0ffxg-1226909383829
Besides lying about the terrorists, Aly is a climate liar, asserting that global warming has not stopped.
Despite where he was born, it is difficult to identify anything Australian about his behaviour.

Perhaps, after an ordinary common-or-garden atrocity, purportedly in the name of Allah, we need to ask any 'spokesperson', in what way such an atrocity is NOT in accordance with Islam ?

Since Muslims must obey the Koran to the letter, since it is supposed to be the very words uttered, or written, by Allah himself/herself, and since it can never be altered in any way (except when scholars wish to abrogate inconvenient verses), then the terrible choices for any Muslim are to either accept and obey [Islam=surrender, submission, total obedience], or to cease being a Muslim. There are currently no other courses possible, not that ceasing to be a Muslim would be an easy course, since one could be murdered as an apostate, in accordance with the Koran.

So maybe courageous journalists could try that: ask any 'spokesperson', after the next atrocity in the name of Allah, today or tomorrow, whether or not that atrocity should be totally condemned as not being in accord with the Koran and hadiths.

Joe

//Yes, Toni, three of the bombers in the terrorist attacks on London (7/7), were British born and educated, but never got over being Pakistani.//

So if you're born in a country but your ancestors are from a different country, you're a terrorist? Watch out, Australia...

//Despite where he was born, it is difficult to identify anything Australian about his behaviour.//

Because no true scotsman believes in global warming.

Loudmouth, "bin Warraq's brilliant expose of Islam" [on http://tinyurl.com/hbztwec ]

Regrettably, Islamists and their apologists are not likely to read anything that might challenge their beliefs. There are some automatons on OLO for instance who actually boast that their opinions are set in stone, 'So there!'.

Apologists for Islam make a grave error believing and spruiking (entirely without evidence) that the children of migrants, or their children, will automatically adopt Australian values or respect Australian law.

We know many who arrived with tertiary educations and have been very well treated as academics usually are. They would avow their 'moderate' beliefs if asked. However in the home their children are being taught Muslim 'victimhood' - that the west is somehow always warring and discriminating against Islam. Similarly, Islamic fundamentalism is not being criticised by Muslim parents - despite public claims that they are opposed to it.

It is only by education and public information that such views and the inevitable sense of victimhood and wish to strike back can be challenged.

What to do though where the privileged national public broadcaster devotes a large lump of that $1.3billion of taxpayers' dollars to spruiking for that deeply flawed ideology and political system, and actively encouraging and confirming that sense of victimhood?

Gee Onthebeach, you seem to know a lot about what is going on in Muslim households in Australia? Is there something you haven't told us?

For someone so Islamaphobic like you, you seem to have intimate knowledge of every Muslim family's thoughts and actions. ESP maybe?

LOL, Suseonline, the punisher of all 'White' men, is along to get her adrenaline rush from being angry and rude.

Here you go dear, just sing along with Jack and take a walk in the park,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LZ35Ar3r2k

I think that it ought be plain enough that you have been classified as "enemies."

So, it begs the question does it not, what do they say that you have done to justify them classifying you as "enemies?"

What do the Fatwahs say and by whom were they issued?

..

" ... who relied on others to put his words down on paper, and not always, it would seem, verbatim? ... "

Not paper if what I was taught at a class entitled "Islam at a glance" was correct, but rather bone and skin. This was the immediate aftermath of his self proclaimed encounter with the Angel in the desert wherein everything that he could recall was put straight down and subsequently became the Al-Quoran.

Prior to that time the tribes were not monotheistic, and when they could not resolve their differences to the extent that all they could do was think about killing each other, they did instead turn to Mohammed, who had a great reputation as an honest broker.

This went on to the extent that the people really at least in part thrust power and responsibility upon him. His response was to go to the desert, fast and pray and the Al-Quoran was what he came back and offered to them.

And, a lot of people thought that was grand and willingly and of their own accord signed up.

Of course, a lot of significant others amongst the tribes did not and they made war upon the Prophet (may Peace be upon him) and would have butchered him and all his mates were it not for his uncle, another significant member of the tribes, who came round to Mohammed's way of thinking thus saving both him and the Birth of Islam.

Thus, they have a tradition of having to fight to survive and they have a tradition of fighting the enemy, but there is far more depth to their traditions than just that

Toni Lavis” o if you're born in a country but your ancestors are from a different country, you're a terrorist”. That is what you said, not what I said, but no doubt the family of Curtis Cheng would agree with you.
The issue about global warming was not his belief in it, it was his lying about it. Try reading a post, before you comment on it and make such a fool of yourself..
Aly asserted that there had been no pause in global warming, , which stopped 19 years ago.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/waleed_aly_should_apologise_for_misleading_viewers_with_his_warming_rant/..

"Saturday is the sabbath; you make us laugh." So states Is Mise.

Well I don't recall the old sky pilot defining what day the sabbath was to be observed on, just some mention of a seventh day, but then again when reading a fairy tale some broad interpretation is permitted I guess.

The Saturday you refer to was set down by man, Vis it has nothing to do with that ascribed to by the sky pilot.

If Mr Aly is scary for you, I would suggest you deluded Christian fundamentalists scare the hell out of most rational people.

Monty Python have nothing on your lot, except I don't laugh at you, I just sit and consider your completely irrational belief in a mythical entity long ago dismissed by most as just that, mythical. Go figure.

Hi Geoff,

Probably most of us on this thread are atheists, who would partly agree with your assessment of religions, including Islam, as involving "completely irrational belief in a mythical entity long ago dismissed by most as just that, mythical."

The problem with Islam is that it isn't an innocent, harmless set of beliefs, but a set of instructions, to spread the religion - that "completely irrational belief in a mythical entity long ago dismissed by most" - across the entire world, by force if necessary.

Mind your head.

Joe

//The problem with Islam is that it isn't an innocent, harmless set of beliefs, but a set of instructions, to spread the religion - that "completely irrational belief in a mythical entity long ago dismissed by most" - across the entire world//

All major religions proselytise. I would argue that they probably wouldn't be major religions if they didn't.

Mormons tend to give the most grief with Jehovah's Witnesses a close runner-up. Sadly, I have never been offered a personality test by the Church of Scientology. Maybe I'm just not pretty enough. I used to be troubled by Catholics, but I lapsed many moons ago. And when I was at high school I was troubled by Pentecostalists, but your teenage years are when you discover music and there was no way I was going to sign up to any religion involving Christian rock. I would rather gouge out my own eardrums with a fork than listen to that crap.

Hindus, Sikhs, Baha'i, Jains, Protestant denominations not already named, Muslims, Jews, Taoists and Confucianists haven't tried it on at all; the Buddhists made a half-arsed attempt which doesn't really count.

//by force if necessary//

Well if you're worried about religions that want to proselytise by force, you should be worried about Jedis. No, sorry, my bad: that's a religion who want to proselytise by The Force.

When discussing force, it is always worth referring back to the great scientific genius who first put the concept on a sound scientific footing, Sir Isaac Newton. The second law of motion is not really relevant here, but I'll remind you of the first and third: 1) Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. 3) For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Of course, that is only force in the mechanical sense. When discussing international politics, one should look to examples from history. In the before time, in the long-long ago there were Spanish Inquisitors and their ilk who tried to spread religion by force. They had instructions to do so in their holy book, and believed they were doing the right thing. They lost.

In the not so long-long ago, a bunch of Krazy Krauts tried to spread their ideology by force. They lost.

Lessons we learn from history: Newton's Third Law of Motion does not necessarily apply outside of physics. Sometimes an action is met with a much larger and overwhelming reaction which crushes it into submission. Sometimes they happen really quickly (e.g nukes in Japan) and sometimes they happen quite slowly (the Spanish Inquistion turning from vile fascists into the butt of a Monty Python joke).

Speaking of the Pythons, they also took a fair amount of piss out of the Nazis. Where are our modern day Pythons? I reckon a few good jokes would go a long way to defusing vagISIL propaganda and reducing unwarranted paranoia. And if we come up with a funny enough joke, we might not have to fight them at all:

http://tinyurl.com/q7944em

Geoff,

You laughing,
"If God made Sunday the sabbath, following in his ways, why do you all go to church and pray to him, making him work extra hard on his day off, so funny it just makes me laugh"

You not laughing,
"Monty Python have nothing on your lot, except I don't laugh at you, I just sit and consider your completely irrational belief in a mythical entity long ago dismissed by most as just that, mythical. Go figure."

Do you know whether you are coming or going, laughing or not laughing?

"Long ago dismissed by most"

Most what? People?

I have never been a fan of Waleed Aly.
Having avoided watching any of his shows.
Call me a bigot, but as soon as I see him on the screen or on the radio I turn him off.
I now see he has joined the Islamic Choir joining Dr Imran Syed and other "Islamic Scholars" in Australia.
Every Muslim on TV seems to be an Islamic scholar.
Can you buy a certificate with your name on it saying in Arabic that you are a Scholar.

//I have never been a fan of Waleed Aly.
Having avoided watching any of his shows.//

How do you know whether or not you're a fan if you've never seen any of his work? That would me a bit like me deciding that I don't like "Yes Minister" without ever having seen an episode of the show. It might be rubbish and it might be the best show ever, but it's awfully hard to tell without having watched it.

Have you just decided that you're not a fan because he has brown skin and funny surname? Because that would be like me disliking 'Yes, Minister' just because it is full of English people. 'Blackadder' was full of English people and hilarious; 'The Good Life' was full of English people and was the polar opposite of hilarious.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Seems we've got a ways to go yet. Seems to me that most of the hill-folk hereabouts would prefer to judge Mr. Aly on the color of his skin, whilst strenuously avoiding the content of his character lest it conflict with their good ol' Southern values.

To address Islam without appeasement, one needs to discard some false assumptions.

1. The assumption that the Koran is about imaginary spooks in the sky. FALSE. It is written as a set of worldly instructions for the faithful because it IS a set of worldly instructions for the faithful.[1]

2. The assumption that the “peaceful” verses in the Koran speak for Islam. FALSE. Later jihadi verses abrogate earlier sugar-coating verses. Read about “abrogation”.[2]

3. The assumption that the context of Islam is wars between different lots of desert bandits. FALSE. Since the struggles between Mohammed’s desert bandits and their enemies there were centuries of aggression to force submission of unbelievers (Kafirs), spanning the Middle East, India, Indonesia, and much of Africa and Europe. Murders of unbelievers ran into millions and are still taking place today.

4. The assumption that the jihadists aren’t real Moslems*. FALSE. See chapter and verse of their own holy books where they set it all out and condemn backsliders who shirk jihad. [1]

5. The assumption that jihad is a consequence of Western military action. FALSE. It’s been going on for hundreds of years. What Western interference has done is impose regime change by force on regime after regime, removing regimes that have suppressed Islamic jihadists and leaving the scum free to do what they do naturally – kidnapping, rape, murder, robbery, vandalism on a huge scale.

* Muslim vs Moslem. In Arabic Muslim means “one who submits to God” whereas “Moslem” translates essentially as “dog’s vomit”. Read how PC dhimmitude persuaded Western news media to switch from the more accurate term to “Muslim”. [3]

[1] http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm
[2] http://www.islamreview.com/articles/quransdoctrine.shtml
[3] http://hnn.us/article/524

//In Arabic Muslim means “one who submits to God”//

In Arabic, Muslim isn't a word. It's a meaningless collection of squiggles. I can't read Arabic; their writing looks like meaningless squiggles to me. It's hard enough trying to read French and their language is nearly the same as ours.

I can't read Chinese either; more meaningless squiggles. Even when the squiggles are translated into English characters, confusion often arises. Ever met somebody with the last name Ng? How the hell are you supposed to pronounce Ng? Short answer: you're not. Your language utilises different phonemes; if your're not used to dealing with those phonemes you'll struggle.

If you're trying to translate from Arabic characters and phonemes to English characters and phonemes and the English-speaking people of the world settle for a homophone with merely two different spellings, I'd say you're doing quite well. Generally, if you give English speakers two different spellings and one pronunciation to choose from, they'll invent three new ways to spell the word and another dozen to pronounce it. I love our language.

I can't read Arabic either. I have no reason to reject the ability of Yii-Ann Christine Chen (op. cit) and whatever sources she uses to do so. Her article has been up on the Web for 13 years to date. Guff about colour of Waleed Aly's skin etc. etc. and what Arabic writing looks like is just an alibi to avoid confronting what the guy and others peddling the same line say and write.

Emperor Julian,

Agreed, the problem is the nature of the Islamic ideology itself and the threat it presents to liberal democracy. Islamic apologists try to convert the issue into one of 'race', it isn't, or present Muslims as the eternal victims, as Aly did in his Age article, all these are diversions from the real issue--Islam's toxic ideology.

It seems that many posters here prefer to get their opinions from learned, moderate and totally unbiased commentators like Allan Jones, Andrew Bolt or Ray Hadley and whatever they read in the "totally honest" print media.

Actually they like to hear their own prejudices spoken back at them by an authorative sounding voice.

I sometimes wonder who they would hate if there were no Muslims - and also who is next on their list.

Wobbles

U obviously don't watch the national broadcasters. The left have a mortgage over hatred. They are Christophobic, hate middle age straight white men and despise having their failed dogmas exposed. I noticed the absence of reporting the Slovenia vote on 'gay' marriage. Ireland was front of stage for days. Such balance!

Sneers about the Murdoch Press and shock jocks and the historical and current depredations of other religions are attempts by appeasers to divert attention from the one religion that is being frantically appeased in the Western world including Australia and which is on the march right now with a worldwide rash of the vilest atrocities.

This one religion has proclaimed itself in its own holy books as well as its physical threats as a deadly enemy of human rights and the values of the Enlightenment on which our freedom rests.

It's not that we haven't seen any of this before. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in the 1920s, seized power in the 1930s, and had the world by the throat in the 1940s. Throughout that time the sneering voice of appeasement was rising to a clamour and governing the official policies of the free world just like the voices and policies of appeasement of Islam today.

And in case anyone grasps for Godwin’s Law to distract from recollection of this 50-plus-megadeath lesson on the fruits of appeasement, see what Mike Godwin himself warns about use and misuse of his “law” [1] We should never forget Harry Truman’s law: “When a finger appears under the door jump on it or it will be followed by a hand and go for your throat”.

[1] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law

Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 22 December 2015 12:26:52 AM

" ... To address Islam without appeasement, one needs to discard some false assumptions.

1. The assumption that the Koran is about imaginary spooks in the sky. FALSE. It is written as a set of worldly instructions for the faithful because it IS a set of worldly instructions for the faithful.[1] ... "

Well, the Al-Quoran details Mohammed's self proclaimed experience with an entity he believed to be the "Arch Angel Gabrielle," if I do not misrecall. So, depending on how you define "imaginary spooks in the sky" I would say that it is very much about that.

What you are perhaps referring to are the separate writings which accompany the Al-Quoran. I don't recall what they are called but perhaps the "Hadeeth" and something else.

It is in these other texts that you find some of the day to day instructions as you put it.

..

However, one of the important things that you need to recognise is that there is a lot in the way of separate cultural issues interwoven into what some of you think of as "religion."

When considering the state of the Arabian world generally I would have to conclude that what is plainly missing is the Mohammed factor, as there is no one to which they all turn. No one that they all respect.

And they have taken to fighting amongst themselves much as they did in the times before the Prophet.

It's always both illuminating and depressing to read comments from people who genuinely believe that the chaos, carnage and destruction inflicted on Islamic nations over the last 20+ years is all because of 1500-year-old definitive texts in the Koran and/or because Islamic peoples are incapable of getting on with one another.

Reality check: The West has been occupying, destabilising, overthrowing, invading and bombing Islamic countries for the best part of 100 years. The justification almost always follows the same trope: Crazy madmen are ruling these countries, so we oh so benevolent and superior people of the West have a moral duty to help these inferior people of the Middle East to live the superior and intelligent lifestyles that we in the West are living. If we have to destroy their countries in the process ... well, one day they'll thank us for that.

Now, despite all our benevolent interference, they insist on killing people at Parisian rock concerts and in London subways to protest the fact that they are not happy about all this benevolent Western interference, well that just shows that they just don't appreciate all we've done for them and what inferior people they really are.

I guess we've just got to keep on occupying, destabilising, overthrowing, invading and bombing their countries until they get the message. We really love them and so want to help them. We are the good guys.

Hi Killarney,

I guess you now feel really truly superior for writing all that - that you are one of the Precious Few who really knows about the dreadful evils of your 'own' and the dumb innocence of the 'Other' ? That because of their dumb innocence, terrorists can butcher 130 innocent people at random ? We should forgive them because they are too undeveloped to really have any grasp on the sanctity of human life ?

Karl Popper suggests that, instead of seeing ourselves as incredibly clever but evil, what if we thought in terms of ourselves being not particularly evil but a bit stupid (his word) ? Try that.

As for the unimaginable brutalities of the West over the last twenty years, (what, only twenty ?! Ah, the young are so touchingly naive), remember that Islam has been built on brutal conquest ever since the 620s. Fourteen hundred years of brutal suppression, slavery and despotism, from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific and Indian oceans: expansion by the sword.

I don't know about 'crazy madmen' having absolute power, I think it's more likely that most Muslim despots have been perfectly sane and intelligent: they have had to rule over vast, disparate, Empires by force, although, granted, many of the Empires didn't last all that long, but were supplanted by yet another brutal Muslim Empire: live by the sword, die by the sword. Not too many Sultans and Emperors seem to have died of old age in their beds.

Perhaps you could try tackling the issues instead of trying to trivialise them. Leave that to Charlie Pickering. Stupid boy.

Joe

Killarney,

"The West has been occupying, destabilising, overthrowing, invading and bombing Islamic countries for the best part of 100 years."

Actually, closer to 200 years, however, any attempt to blame the wicked Western imperialists for the oppressive, chaotic and backward nature of majority Muslim societies is misguided to say the least, sectarian violence is nearly as old as Islam itself. Muslim societies were 500 years behind the West and their internal rivalries made the task of the European invaders so much easier.

"1500-year-old definitive texts in the Koran and/or because Islamic peoples are incapable of getting on with one another."

Some commenters take a theological approach, others don't. One practical test of the Islamic ideology is simply to consider the nature of majority Muslim nations, all fall far short of the usual standards of liberal democracies.

Of course Western intervention in the NE is indefensible, however anyone familiar with the history of Islam would consider the assumption that the jihad would vanish just because Western countries stopped their 'interventions' in the region, to be extremely naive, or perhaps just a conceit.

Some Muslim supremacists would continue to use terror or coercion to impose Islam, as they have for 1400 years.

Yes it's true that the Koran contains a lot of stuff about a spook in the sky, invented by the ambitious desert bandit Mohammed and presented as "revelation". But the guts of the Koran consists of instructions that the bandit-turned-warlord, and the even worse ones who followed, pretended were "revealed". These instructions call(ed) on followers to continue to murder and enslave their moral betters until all decency has been extinguished.

Just read it as extracted and set out clearly (with detailed and comprehensive reference to chapter and verse) at http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm. The truth leaves no wriggle room for appeasers.

The spook in the sky, Allah, is merely something the Moslems (the real ones) rattle to inspire and scare the faithful into the unbridled evil they call "jihad".

Dream On,

Interesting: you write that

"The assumption that the Koran is about imaginary spooks in the sky. FALSE. It is written as a set of worldly instructions for the faithful because it IS a set of worldly instructions for the faithful.[1] ... "

Well, the Al-Quoran details Mohammed's self proclaimed experience with an entity he believed to be the "Arch Angel Gabrielle," if I do not misrecall. So, depending on how you define "imaginary spooks in the sky" I would say that it is very much about that.

What you are perhaps referring to are the separate writings which accompany the Al-Quoran. I don't recall what they are called but perhaps the "Hadeeth" and something else.

It is in these other texts that you find some of the day to day instructions as you put it."

You protest that "I don't recall what they are called but perhaps the "Hadeeth" and something else." Yeah, hadiths. And then, even if you "don't recall what they are called but perhaps the "Hadeeth" and something else", you seem to know a lot about what is in them.

Dream On, your taqqiya is showing :)

Joe

Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 23 December 2015 12:05:04 PM
" ... Dream On, your taqqiya is showing :)Joe ... "

Well, as said, I did do a short course entitled "Islam at a Glance" (a U.W.A. extension course) prior to departing upon my adventure to the highly conservative and traditionally Islamic location of East Java but as of when I was writing yesterday I couldn't quite recall all of the details. It was 10+ years ago.

I took the course with me and used it as a talking point with the locals. And as any "Lonely Planet" backpacker will tell you the locals the world round don't tend to mind at all when foreigners/tourists take an interest in their culture, language etc etc. It certainly tends to go down better than nationalistic pride displays and the like ;-)

I also did a scan of a digital copy of the Al-Quoran for all those instances where JC appears and asked 'em what they reckoned about that too.

Loudmouth

‘I guess you now feel really truly superior for writing all that …’

Oh, c’mon. Do we really need the ad hominems … so close to Christmas?

Like many people these days, I don’t accept the standard indoctrination that the countries the West interferes with are savage, brutal societies that can’t cope unless we of the benevolent West intervene to show them what they really need, despite the fact that they are ancient societies that have endured all kinds of ups and downs and invasions and civil strife. They are the ones who are best equipped to deal with their own internal problems.

Radical, I know. But if the West were to butt out and let them get on with the business of living, we might just see that terrorism is of no practical benefit to them or to anyone else

mac

‘Actually, closer to 200 years, however, any attempt to blame the wicked Western imperialists for the oppressive, chaotic and backward nature of majority Muslim societies is misguided to say the least, sectarian violence is nearly as old as Islam itself. Muslim societies were 500 years behind the West and their internal rivalries made the task of the European invaders so much easier.’

Gulp!! Gasp!!

Would have ‘made the task of the European invaders so much easier’?

Sorry … but no one has a right to be an ‘invader’. As the Nuremberg trials established, any war of aggression is ‘not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole’.

Whether the ‘task’ is easy or difficult, the morality of invasion – or its partners in crime, destabilisation, sanctioning, regime overthrow, taking sides in a civil war or deliberately fomenting unrest – contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

We in the West are so propagandised to believe that we have a moral right to destroy countries in order to save them, we have been rendered incapable of seeing the horror of what our political, military and intelligence masters are doing to the populations of nations with whom we have no real quarrel.

Hi Killarney,

Why do you have to over-do it ? Anything the West has done in the general region of the Middle East can easily be matched with what the Ottomans etc. have done, and now of course, ISIS.

We forget that barely a hundred years ago, the Ottoman Empire ruled over most of the Balkans, North Africa, the Middle East proper and into the Caucasus. An Empire, Killarney, not a regime of 'peace'. An Empire which butchered up to a million Armenians and others barely a hundred years ago.

As for your comment about ' nations with whom we have no real quarrel', apart from its ring of Chamberlain (you could have added 'and lands far, far away with which we have little to do'),

and since ISIS proclaims that it is indeed a nation, the beginnings of a world-wide 'nation' or caliphate, to which - it proclaims - we all will have to submit if it had its way, to either convert (I expect most of the 'left' will take that option), or be exterminated,

and since ISIS does indeed control a 'nation-sized' [400,000 sq. km, and ten million people] area and population, and has major influence over as much again in Libya, Somalia, Niger/Nigeria and now Afghanistan,

are you referring to ISIS ?

Merry Christmas, Killarney.

Joe

It was said of interim US President Gerald Ford that he would have problems walking and chewing gum at the same time.

The same problem seems to confound many others.

Yes the Western powers have no right to invade other countries unless they themselves were committing aggression and yes it's a despicable crime today as it was when the Germans invaded Belgium and France in 1914 and Poland and the USSR in 1939 and 1941. In the war crimes trials, the worst of the perps rightly met Mr Pierrepoint to stretch their necks.

And 14 centuries of the same aggression perpetrated by the Moslems was and is a despicable crime whjich must be comforted with a view to crushing their programme both ideologically and physically.

PNAC today for the West and jihad for the Moslems. And apologists for either bunch of criminals point to to the other one in order no deflect from appeasement. Motive: at best Gerald Ford syndrome (he wasn't all that bright) or at worse craven dhimmitude or at very worst collusion.

Neither of these two programmes of aggression was/is perpetrated in order to attack the other. Western imperialism is pursued for base geopolitical reasons and Moslem jihad is pursued with disgusting aims set out in the 7th century.

The practice of pointing to one evil to cover ideological service to the other is very common. Scroll back and have a look.

Thankfully John Perkins has stated the obvious.

"whjich must be comforted" should be "which must be confronted"

The article was interesting to read.

To those who have read this far, suggest re-read Dr John L Perkins' earlier article:

"Mass delusions and their consequences"
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8121

.

Emperor Julian

'The practice of pointing to one evil to cover ideological service to the other is very common.'

I assume this is being directed at my comment. If so, then it's a misinterpretation - albeit a very common one. This is a claim much favoured by the Western political/media establishment, i.e. that those who warn of imperial blowback are using it to excuse terrorism and to claim that terrorism victims deserve what they get.

In fact, this is a reverse projection of the very same imperial mindset that gives rise to blowback. That is ... to use terrorism to excuse imperialism and to claim that victims of imperialism deserve what they get. In other words - because terrorists are attacking one another and attacking us, they deserve to have their economies destabilised, their countries bombed, invaded and occupied, and their governments overthrown.

Imperialism has always used this formula to justify itself and, at the same time, invent all kinds of occult reasons for why terrorism exists - religious indoctrination, mass psychopathology, cultural inferiority, pure evil etc. Yet, it is imperialism itself that has always created terrorist blowback. Wherever imperialism operates, you get terrorism. Once imperial nations pull back or physically withdraw from the countries they occupy and interfere with, terrorism goes away. You can throw a dart at any historical example - from Ireland to Kenya to South Africa to Malaya to Latin America to Palestine and so on - and the scenario is so consistent as to be downright mathematical.

Killarney, the exact opposite happened in Sri Lanka.

Decolonisation works best if all the paramilitary organisations are crushed first.
Otherwise there's a very high risk of one section of the population opressing another.

Aidan

Absolutely not true! Sri Lanka is a textbook case of imperialism generating terrorism. Successive Western empires completely crushed Tamil sovereignty, transferred complete power to the Sinhalese who in turn refused any form of peaceful negotiation, thus leaving the Tamils with no choice but to turn to violence.

The supposed military defeat of Tamil 'terrorism' is rubbish - it was a genocide in the true sense of the word, one that was fully endorsed by the British-led international community, based almost entirely on disinformation. Over 150,000 Tamils were annihilated, including tens of thousands of intellectuals, politicians, writers and journalists.

Rather than Tamil terrorism being 'crushed', the Sinhalese regime spends a major part of its domestic and military budget (75%) on maintaining a military occupation of Tamil territory and ongoing repression of the Tamil people. If Tamil terrorism has been 'crushed' as you say, there would be no need for such expensive sledgehammer policies. The Sinhalese regime is behaving entirely according to imperialist criteria - and as such, is sowing the seeds for more Tamil civil unrest, out of which terrorism in one form or another will almost certainly reassert itself.

Hi KIllarney,

Fascinating ! Your comment that

" .... this is a reverse projection of the very same imperial mindset that gives rise to blowback. That is ... to use terrorism to excuse imperialism and to claim that victims of imperialism deserve what they get. In other words - because terrorists are attacking one another and attacking us, they deserve to have their economies destabilised, their countries bombed, invaded and occupied, and their governments overthrown."

could more easily be turned around: Islamist terrorism has a very long history, which has little to do with any imperialism, and certainly not - apart from Bush's dick-brained attack on Iraq - in a way which provoked Islamist terrorism.

Turned around, in the sense, that the pseudo-left can excuse the most vile terrorism by attributing its origins to some sort of imperialist puppet-masters, pulling the strings of ISIS and Boko Haram etc. No, K8llrney, they are their own masters, the products of Islam far more than of the West.

Apart from that, where does all that blaming get us ? ISIS is pulling together all the various Islamist terrorist groups around the world - well, at least from north-west Africa across to the Philippines, and they are doing it by citing the Koran, i.e. by using Islam. Whatever the Yanks have done is small beer by comparison, but very useful for finding someone or something to blame for unspeakable acts of brutality.

In an article today, a woman has been mutilated and killed in Raqqa for trying to breast-feed her baby on a street. No doubt, you could find some way to blame the West for that.

But why should we worry, ay, Killarney: it's a long way away, in a region that we don't have much to do with, and with funny names ?

Joe

Some blindingly obvious excuses debunked:

The Moslem jihad of which ISIS is a part is not against imperialism. It’s against unbelievers. Us.
How do we know? They say so themselves in their Koran [1] and on social media. They say so by executing unbelievers (not imperialists) en masse.

Imperialism is not against Islam. It is against regimes impeding colonial aims. How do we know? Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Palestine. And they say so themselves (Bush, Bliar, Obama).

Imperialism is not seeking to impose democracy anywhere. How do we know? It never has. The regimes it seeks to depose range from secular to theocratic.

Thus attempts to exculpate one evil by pointing at the other are LIES.

Re Tamils and Kurds and the populations of eastern Ukraine, Jaffna, Kurdish regions in Turkey, East Turkistan, West Papua, Palestine - their struggles are for self-determination, a right enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter [2]. This right has been opposed and those seeking it vilified by every Australian government and Opposition in our history, outlawing those pressing for it as “terrorists”.

[1] http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm

[2] http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/self_determination_international_la

Waleed Aly is not the only person giving a
different perspective to the usual hipe
being espoused by shock jocks, some of
the media, and some newspaper columnists
and politicians trying to garner votes
from a select few.

Here is an article that's worth a read:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-more-we-fear-islam-the-greater-the-danger-from-terrorists-20150515-gh2pvy.html

Fox,

That 'new perspective' you recommended must apply to others and not to your Teflon-coated self.

Instead of re-posting that tired link you might have tried to dispel the arguments put forward by the two posters before you.

Criticising Islam is not 'islamophobia' and protecting our way of life and life itself is not 'racism'.

What you and other apologists need to explain is why Islam gives rise to similar behaviour and atrocities regardless of how welcoming and understanding the host nation is and they commit the same and damned worse offences in their countries of origin.

Secondly, it isn't just the men, women are implicated too as a poster has already mentioned.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3377183/Mother-mutilated-murdered-ISIS-breastfeeding-baby-public-woman-spotted-child-burkha-Syria.html

BTW, what does the moral BS artist Waleed Wally(Aly) say about that? Were those women who tortured and murdered that breastfeeding mother 'misunderstood' by the society around them?

Maybe they WERE misunderstood. If our society understood their ilk we would chuck them out.

otb,

All I am doing is trying to point out different
perspectives on the topic. It's an occupational
habit. As I've stated earlier - all of us have
our opinions, all of us have our prejudices.
There is so much on the web on this subject
from a variety of sources.

It is natural to develop prejudices.

It is noble to rise above them.

You keep harping on about the same thing and
going back to previous arguments. That is rarely
productive. You merely end up going around in
circles.

I have no further wish to argue with you.

EmperorJulian,

Those black clad women fiends who murdered that young mum would be welcomed here as 'refugees' and migrants by the leftist 'Progressives'. No court convictions recorded (they'd dump their papers anyway) and the diversity(sic) of the beliefs, values and traditions of a totalitarian, medieval, religio-political system, combined with decades of in-breeding.

otb,

Why do you persist in making such derogatory assumptions about
groups of certain Australians? You're inferring that
Progressives are somehow bad people and apologists for Islam?
How on earth would you know that? That would be akin to
saying that there's a fine line between Progressives and
people like some Conservatives who are just plain nuts.

You know that our governments have put in place certain criteria
that all refugees and immigrants
have to meet. All governments -
Progressive and Conservative have enabled and developed
our institutions and customs in response to the
Australian environment.

You might do better if you were to study the customs and
institutions that we recognise as Australian. The
institutional structure transplanted to Australia was often
modified, sometimes dramatically, to reflect our own
history and circumstances. The Westminster System of
parliamentary democracy was transformed by a written
constitution into a federal system of government.

Australia has become a vastly different place from the
British Isles in which our institutions originated.
Now you may not like this - but that is the reality.
Just as Britain is having to adapt to its changing
population, so our institutions are now required to
respond to the needs of a culturally and linguistically
diverse society.

What experts tell us is that we should make our institutional
heritage work better for us by enhancing their capacity to
respond flexibly to the need of an ethically mixed
population.

We need a position policy response. The Department of
Social Services makes this very clear. Inaction can only
exacerbate the problem. Governments of all persuasions
have always attempted to try to solve the problems.
That does not make any of them apologists or
supporters of terrorists. What they have strived to
achieve is social cohesion in this country. And they have
achieved this successfully. We are the envy of other
countries.

And, lets make this clear - We have laws in this country
that everyone is meant to abide by.

BTW: Why did you choose only a specific type of
criminal? There's criminals in this country
of various religious and ethnic persuasions
whose behaviour is also unjustifiable.

Which of our other criminals, Foxy, justify their actions by recourse to a religious book?
If one refused to stand up in Court for the Judge and cited the Vedas or the Bible or even the Book of Common Prayer one would find oneself in the cells for contempt rather quickly.

Oh come on Is Mise, even you should be aware of the many mentally unstable (or just mad religious) who use their own brand of God or religion to excuse any number of criminal activities, including murder?

What about the whack-jobs who claim their God told them to do it?
Certainly one doesn't need to be Muslim to do such a thing...

Dear Suse,

I guess it's time to pack it in.

It seems that all we're doing is building
a wall - the next logical step is not to
bang our heads against it.

I can see that it really is pointless
arguing any further.

2.193 Fight the unbelievers until no other religion except Islam is left.
4.76 Believers fight for the cause of Allah, but the infidels fight for the devil.

Verse after verse after verse in this book of bigotry on steroids, the Koran, spews hatred and calls for enslavement for you and me and everyone else who chooses not to believe its author’s lies.

It is not a mere collection of alleged happenings like the Bible, or harmless kookery like the religion of Sai Baba. It’s a set of instructions to all 1500 million to whom Islam preaches. It is as deadly as Mein Kampf. It’s not Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Bahai, or Christianity, or lunacy, or this or that ethnicity, that’s attracting increasing hostility around the world, it’s Islam. It is as Tony Abbott described its current murder, rape and enslavement wing ISIS, a death cult.

The greatest danger to human liberty is, as it was when Hitler launched Mein Kampf, APPEASEMENT. The likes of Waleed Aly call for appeasement. As in the days of Mein Kampf, there are always those foolish enough to heed them.

One tiny little thing all who value freedom can do its send a message by voting carefully below the line at the next Senate election and putting all anti-Islam candidates at the top and all appeasers at the bottom.

For help in working through the complexly of the ballot paper try http://senate.io

The following may clarify things for you:

http://mic.com/articles/39669/3-simple-charts-that-explain-what-muslims-believe*.OZFzG2GNW

Suse,

"Oh come on Is Mise, even you should be aware of the many mentally unstable (or just mad religious) who use their own brand of God or religion to excuse any number of criminal activities, including murder?

What about the whack-jobs who claim their God told them to do it?
Certainly one doesn't need to be Muslim to do such a thing..."

Only the Muslims have an instruction book that tells them to kill.
The murder of Curtis Cheng in Parramatta comes to mind.

Dear Is Mise,

Perhaps this may help: clarify what Muslims believe:

http://mic.com/articles/39669/3-simple-charts-that-explain-what-muslims-believe*.OZFzG2GNW

The article by Areej Elahi-Siddiqui cited by Foxy to “explain” Islam is published by Mic, an on line magazine compiled by and for yuppies. Its account of the Moslem response to Pew researchers on Moslem attitudes shows how their eyes slide out of the sides of heir heads when they are asked to state what Sharia Law (which they overwhelmingly support) actually is. An avalanche of denial and taqiyya. Their consensus seems to be that Sharia ensures a welfare state (for Moslems that is – and slavery and permanent humiliation for non-believers condemned to dhimmitude if they escape execution.)

So here is what Sharia Law actually is: http://www.billionbibles.org/sharia/sharia-law.html The cognitive dissonance in commenters who simultaneously speak up for battered victims of domestic violence (if my memory serves me rightly)and for the notion that Islam is “moderate” apart from a few terrorists who “aren’t really Moslem” must be very hard to reconcile.

One person who suffers no cognitive dissonance is Pat Condell. Have a listen to how he greets a standard Moslem rent-a-mob riot in the UK: https://dotsub.com/media/72457cbc-fe18-4053-ae3f-6c7639cf4e79/embed/ Voices like his are growing into roar as recent election results in France have been showing. Condell, a former stand-up comedian, makes videos advocating secularism, democracy, and free speech. He proudly declares that he is NOT on Facebook.

The Condell link is
https://dotsub.com/media/72457cbc-fe18-4053-ae3f-6c7639cf4e79/embed/

Is Mise, you mustn't have read the bible if you think the Koran is the only religious book which advocates violence for their radical followers.

The bible lovingly tells us to kill people left right and centre on every second page or so of the Old Testament doesn't it? Do you think there aren't some mad people out there who don't still believe that book's rubbish? Check these out :

"They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)"

"If a man still prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall say to him, “You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of the Lord.” When he prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall thrust him through. (Zechariah 13:3 NAB)"

What about all the passages that talk about killing the populations of whole towns because the God thought they were all sinners?
How is this rubbish any better than that in the Koran?

The Pentateuch described how the criminal horde behaved, it didn't tell believers to do the same. Those who are declaring themselves the rightful inheritors of the stolen land are lying.

The instructions in the Koran and the Hadiths are a global declaration of war against decency, spelled out in graphic detail. Jihad is not a response to the criminal settlers. If every interloper left Palestine the jihad against the world of unbelievers (Dar al Harb) would continue unabated.

Suse,

"How is this rubbish any better than that in the Koran?"

It isn't and I'm glad to see that you now consider the Qur'an to be also full of rubbish.
Rubbish like beating one's wife if she doesn't do as she is told, although the rubbish of making the wife walk around in a personal tent isn't in the Qur'an those that impose this indignity on women manage to find such justification in the sayings attributed to Muhammad.

Is Mise, I have never said I agree with or believe in, or in any way like the Koran, or the bible, or any other fictional religious God or book.

However, I am bright enough to understand that not all followers of religion, or indeed atheists, think or act the same, holy books or not.

Depends how you define 'bright'. Moral BS artists wear their hearts (they would have several mock hearts apiece) of their sleeve proving they are morally superior to others. Is that bright?

-Certainly they are less than bright if they imagine that the public will never wake to the negative consequences of their social experimentation, especially the endless diversity social experiment that is back-firing in Europe (and will fail in Australia too).

Is German Chancellor Angela Merkel 'bright', or has she allowed her own selfish emotion and self-promotion to wreak chaos for the real refugees and host nations alike? She basked in her 'compassion', but the outcomes have been anything but compassionate,

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260299/migration-europe-pollyanna-policies-action-tibor-krausz

How does Merkel sleep at night?

otb,

Judging people does not define who they
are. It defines who you are.

You continually carry on about Fabians,
Progressives, Socialists, and now Angela
Merkel. You even know what she's thinking?
The same as Fabians, Progressives,
and
Sociologists. Anyone who disagrees with you
is of course bad.

You of course on the other hand speak the
"truth." You know it all and you continue
to sing from the same song-book over and
over again all the while knowing full
well that in this country it is clear that
our immigration quotas are set by our governments
(yes, they didn't ask you about what immigrants
this county should take in). This was done
according to the circumstances of the time.
Just as our Institutions were adapted to our
environment from the structures we had inherited.

The difference between this country and others is
that our governments had the foresight to
put in place positive policy programs.

It's sadly abundantly clear that you are stuck in some
kind of rut - making you not only narrow-minded but dull
as well.

otb,

I've just re-read my previous post to you.
Please allow me to apologise.

I should not have said what I did.

It was simply a reaction on my part.
It was wrong of me to say what I did.

Mia Culpa.

You are entitled to express your opinion.

And just because I don't know any Fabians,
Progressives, or Socialists, does not
mean that you don't. Most of my colleagues
are like myself - our views change depending on
the issues and policies involved. We can be
very conservative
on some subjects.

I firmly believe that a citizen's loyalty should
lie with this country, that we should all
abide by the laws. My family's ethos has always been
to be responsible for ourselves and to co-exist
peacefully with others.

You have nothing to apologize for Foxy.
Some contributors to this forum can try the patience of a saint!
Ignore them...

Dear Suse,

I'm sure that I must frustrate many contributors
to this forum as well.

I'm coming to realise that discussions will be halted
unless we at least try to keep the lines of
communication open. I got of to a bad start with otb.
He surprises me at times with his rational posts.
I'm learning that this can happen. This being a New Year
I'd like to start afresh with him. At least I can
try.

Yes Foxy, I too thought about starting afresh with the more charming contributors to this forum this new year, but then I thought...no!
Good luck though Foxy, and I will try to be nicer :)

Dear Suse,

Of course it takes two to tango as they say.

It may end up being just a case of "One hand
clapping!"

Have a look at otb's recent comment where I
gave a link from Wikipedia on child marriages.
And I cited from Wikipedia that there are
many states in the USA that have child marriages
and elsewhere.
All otb got out of the link was that I did not cite
that child-marriages were
mainly practised by "migrants."
"What the ..." (all over the world)

He got a totally different take on the subject.

It's going to be hard dealing with him, that I can see.
But I'm determined to give it a go.

Dearest Foxy,

Child marriages should be illegal, no matter where: hick US, Muslim countries, Papua-New Guinea, or Oodnagalarby. On principle, it should be opposed, regardless of who is committing it. Don't you agree ?

Domestic violence should be opposed, whether it occurs in Mosman or Cottesloe, or in remote Aboriginal settlements, or in Oodnagalarby, or is perpetrated by Mormons or Muslims, or by left-handers more than right-handers (although as a left-hander, I can't imagine that happening). On principle, it should be opposed, regardless of who is committing it. Don't you agree ?

How come, so often, even when we are discussing religion or terrorism (or a ghastly amalgam of the two), it boils down that we are arguing about women's rights ? Surely women should have equal rights with men in a civilized, open society ? So we should be opposing any ideology which advocates uncivilized, closed-society, practices ? On principle - to hell with hurting anybody's feelings ?

And where are the women defending Muslim women in these discussions ? I await the strident voice of Eva Cox et al. on these issues.

Still waiting.

[No offence is intended against the people of Oodnagalarby in the remarks above.]

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

Of course I agree with you concerning the treatment of
women and women's rights today.

The article from
Wikipedia dealt with the historical aspect -
world wide Today. - Child marriages exist mainly in
the developing countries - which have cultural,
political, and financial reasons. In the US - once
again - the same applies. I hesitate about condemning
other cultures for their behaviour though and judging
others by our standards. I prefer explanations to
condemnations. We need to look critically at
motivation, circumstances, context, or any other
such considerations.

It's only natural that most people see things (when they mention
religion, or life-styles), with their own in mind
as being the most civilized and best.

Loudmouth, of course I would defend Muslim women's rights to equality, as I would every other woman. I can't do much about what happens in other countries, and I may not like some of the cultural or religious practices that affect Muslim women, but I have to respect the fact that some of those women state they are happy wearing Burquas etc.

I grew up being educated by nuns covered head to toe in black and white robes with not one hair showing, so I guess the Christian religion can't say much! I do hate seeing Muslim women get around in Australia with their full face veil though. I think that may change one day, and I hope it does.

For Muslim women living in Australia, as long as they are legally safe, happy and free to practice their lives and religion as they see fit, then I can't say much. As for the Muslim men, I would say the majority are the same as all men around the world...they like to run the show :)

Dearest Foxy,

I have to disagree with you:

"I hesitate about condemning other cultures for their behaviour ...."

I don't have the slightest trouble, although 'condemn' may be a little harsh - 'criticise' or 'deconstruct' perhaps. But certainly have a go at them, if they purport to operate in the modern world and yet implement backward practices which discriminate and harm women.

Nor do I have much trouble,

" .... judging others by our standards."

- with the proviso that I feel quite free to criticise 'our standards' when they seem to fall short.

But I do object to your statement:

"I prefer explanations to condemnations. We need to look critically at motivation, circumstances, context, or any other such considerations."

Sorry, that really does sound like you are making excuses for abominable practices - apart, again, from your choice of words: 'criticism' rather than 'condemnation' ? Or are you suggesting that to criticise in any way is to condemn out of hand ?

And this is certainly no excuse for anybody:

"It's only natural that most people see things (when they mention religion, or life-styles), with their own in mind as being the most civilized and best."

Yes, we should be able to criticise all practices freely, including our own: nobody and no practice should be above criticism, nor exempt from offence. Freedom of expression is nothing without the freedom to offend, and, if anything, such freedom in a civilized society may imply an obligation to offend precisely those who implement vile practices such as DV or FGM or child marriages or honor killings, etc., etc.

Love,

Joe

Dear Suse,

Excellent post!

Dear Joe,

Suse has explained my position on this topic as well.
I too was raised by the Sisters of Mercy. And I also
feel that as long as Muslim women are safe, happy - they
should be free to wear what they want and practice
their religion - within our laws.

Child marriages in this country are illegal - I don't think
we have much to concern ourselves about on that score.
What goes on elsewhere - we have no control over.
We do have a Minister of Foreign Affairs. Public pressure
can be applied.

Loudmouth,

Agreed, I don't have the slightest hesitation in judging others by our standards either, appeals to cultural relativism or attempts to play the race card are simply evasions. Our ancestors in the West lived under similar brutal theocratic regimes as to those that prevail in most majority Muslim countries these days, how many people are nostalgic for the oppressions of the 'old days'?

Our challenge to the theocrats and their Islamic apologists is clear and simple, give everyone in your societies a free choice as to how they want to live their lives.