For those that think Muslims hate "infidels" (non-believers) your ignorance is as enormous as your prejudice (they usually coincide).

The Koran is explicit on the topic, people of the book (Christians and Jews) cannot be forced to convert and must be respected in their beliefs and customs. It is even deemed wrong to proselytize for conversion. Islam has a long and proud tradition of religious tolerance, only marred by communal conflicts from time to time, but otherwise very good.

Christians have a terrible record, one of the worst of any religion the world over.

People really need to know what radical Muslims are in fact saying. In this you have to recognise how they express themselves in a very different tradition than the European, but aside from the mode of expression what they have to say does make sense, they have a case worth responding to.

In the example of the banned books that refer to suicide-bombing as an effective weapon. Well the sad truth is that it is effective, whatever you may think of the moral aspects of it. We have banned books based on the fact that in this small way a fact has been stated. Whether or not it is being promoted depends on reading the entire text (something we are all now denied).

Wake up you dunderheads – you are the ones feeding terrorism by denying a voice to what may be legitimate issues. You don't have to be too bright to realize that if someone believes passionately in something the best method to avoid them doing something terrible to get their point across is simply to listen to what they have to say and argue about it openly.

This is what we are not doing, on the grounds that discussing anything fairly in effect supports terrorism when the opposite is true – the real supporters of terrorism are those who are boxing a small minority into a corner. Again you don't have to be terribly bright to concede that point.

Strayan and Greg, great posts there!

I might just add that many who have condemned Muslims here appear to define their citizenship as all encompassing and judge and jury of how is Australian and who is becoming Australian.

My family has been here in this nation much longer than the 200 + years but I continue to experience judgments and assessments about whether or not -what I do -and say, or look like’ is 'Australian'. Interestingly policies of Indigenous assimilation were imposed by invaders, not the original citizens of this country.

These same commentators find it difficult to explain to me what this mysterious monolithic Aussue culture is but nonetheless claim the high moral ground to judge who is or is not conforming.

When Howard proclaimed “We will decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances under which they come" I know he was not including me and my family in terms of who he was projecting the 'we'.

Those of us who have read more broadly know this new racism attempts to cleverly disguise their underlying biological and ethnocentric sentiments are not fooled.

The most infuriating thing for me is that good people, intelligent people, are being duped left, right and centre with this Right wing propaganda.

Rainier, mate. Do you really think that we would like done to "us" (evil white people?) what happened to the aboriginals? Do you want to see history repeat itself. In wars throughout history in all corners of the world, people act out of instinctive self interest.

WE act out of SELF INTEREST, which is exactly why multiculturalism is so dangerous. Muslims are'nt exactly weak and powerless...hmmm...I see a power struggle coming on. Power struggles are seen on this very thread, in parliament between political parties even between the labor party (left vs right). So it is always US and THEM.

By importing more different groups of people from different parts of the world, jealousy and resentment will reign and destroy social stability. Perhaps we should focus on resolving our ongoing issues with the aboriginals before jumping the gun with cockiness and overconfidence.

Ranier
Yeah mate look I'm not having a go at left or right or wateva groups contributing to the discussion. In fact I left my arguement with the point of "lets cheerfully debate alternate points of view". In fact to date my favourite post has been Duecs, which to me has torn shreds through John Stone's data.

My problem was with the militant abuse in the early posts which had absolutely nothing constructive to add to the arguement. It doesn't just come from left commentators either, we all know the people who'll write "your all a bunch of tree-hugging hippies" or words to that effect. The thing is no points are being made, the person is just being disrespectful and hoping that the character assassination can make up for their lack of thought on the issue.

I don't think anything can justify that behaviour, even if the writer believes hes inciting racial hatred.

Muslims make up about 1.5% of the Australian population. That means 98.5% are not Muslim. To suggest that such a small group is going to take over Australia and ruin our culture (whatever that is) is just absolute nonsense.
Even if 10% of Muslims living here were to set out to cause problems they would only represent 0.15 % of the total population. We should be glad we have such a harmonious society.
The Lebanese rapists? c'mon, that is history now, one small group which is now locked up. What about the rape of Aboriginal girls by white boys in so many of our regional locations which has gone on for years. Oh yes, they were probably Christian boys who went to church on Sunday and the girls were probably "trash" so that makes it OK.

Davo
Great post mate. I think thats the issue, that (rather unfortunately) people generally act on rational self interest. If we lived in a society where people truly respected and cared for each other as they do for themselves, there would be no rape, murder, jealously, theivery, and all those negative parts of human nature.

Now for some reason, in Western societies we tend to have this huge superiority complex; we think that somehow we are these great, wonderful, tolerant people who have everything worked out and we can save the world. It's almost like we think we're the Messiah! For example look at America, who came to the rescue in South Africa and was heriocally fought the apertaid. Yet a few years before at home, if you were "coloured" you couldn't even sit on the front seat of a bus!

I don't know where it comes from. Maybe because at present we're so much more wealthy than other nations, we think that we must be better people. I don't know. But I do know that when it comes to relationships, we're not doing too well ourselves already. Within our society, we can't keep our marriages together, we have huge problems with the Aborigines who's land our ancestors conquered, and with the multiculturism we've brought in to date, there has just been esculating racial tension and hatred.

Now suddenly, we've decided we have the ability to absorb large amounts of people who have a completely different value system to our own. It's all going to be swell. Everyone will live together in harmony, we will all tolerate each others beliefs and it will turn out to be a wonderful cosmopolitan experience. It really a case of rose coloured glasses. The truth is we will experience the same racial problems that other countries have sustained.