//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.