Craig Blanche, tell me how one can derive a concept of individual rights from the traditional Aboriginal worldview. Let me use the US Declaration of Independence as an example to illustrate how Aboriginals could not formulate a concept of individual rights based on their traditional pantheistic and animistic worldview:

"WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness..."

Now, how could Aboriginals conclude that "all Men are created equal" without first believing in the Christian account of man's origin? How could they believe that men are "endowed by their Creator" with anything when they do not believe in such a Creator and instead worship the created order itself -- rivers, rocks, sand and trees? And so how could they conclude that men are endowed with "certain unalienable Rights" without first borrowing extensively from the Judeo-Christian tradition from which such concepts derive.

Besides, your general view and attitude regarding Aboriginals seems to be based on the fabrication of Aboriginal history that has been foisted on us by ideologically driven historians who are less interested in the truth than in "imagining" it. Keith Windschuttle has done important work uncovering the mendacity that has been the fundament upon which mistaken views such as yours have been built.

See:

http://www.sydneyline.com/Fabrication.htm

Hamlet and BOAZ_David, good points re. Australian culture and assimilation.

Is this the same Danny Naliah who runs seminars that he says are above loving Muslims but then at the seminar they incite hatred against muslims, and state that "Muslims will take over Australia within 5 years, and then they will rape your wives and kill your children if you don't convert". No wonder multiculturalism is hard pressed to work when pastors who attend these seminars come out shaking fists and calling for "jihad against Muslims". That's what many witnesses saw happen, including well-known pastros and leader of bible Colleges. And what is the connection between this attack on multiculturalism and Danny's co-worker Daniel Scott who *publically* at bible College boasted of being paid by both ASIO and the CIA for his "insights" into Islam. What's danny's real agenda here?

Hamlet excellent article. Thank you. To Bronwyn[?] many of us do watch ABC and SBS as an escape from the brain dead commercial channels .But we do not accept that channels run on "our" money should be permitted to be so anti Australian, to the point that a good purge administered to some of the ideology would be extremely beneficial.
One would be truthful in claiming that both channels are racist in their constant grovelling to aliens at the expense of Australians.

"Nor have they threatened us with unspoken violence if their young men feel 'marginalised'."

Thank you! I have many close Muslim friends and I love them to death, so I'm not saying this about all Muslims, however...

I am so sick of hearing some Australian Muslims blaming Australian society, or Bush/Howard for going to war with Iraq, whenever they do something stupid (like burn a church down). Personal responsibility, mate!

RE: Ps. Danny- if you have a look at the "Creation, culture wars, and campus crusaders for Christ" forum you'll see plenty of "vilification" under Victorian legal standards against Christianity. (Its not vilification, its free speech, but it would be labelled as such in VIC).

Danny Naliah was not even at the conference he got in trouble for, his friend Daniel Scot was the guest speaker at the CTF conference. (Danny was in charge of CTF, so he got in trouble too.)

If you had read the ridiculously long transcript of the seminar (as I have) and attended the VCAT hearings after school (as I did- I was taking legal studies that year, and found this case a very interesting case study, from a legal and religious point of view), you would see that Ps. Scot's claims were far less volatile than a lot of OLO posts. He made two distinctions:

1) Not everyone who calls themself a Muslim is a Muslim, only those who devoutly follow the religion's teachings (the rest are 'fake Muslims' he said, which offended some Muslims present).
2) Those who devoutly follow the religion's teachings, under the guise of their holy book, are allowed to do a number of things.*

*These things offended the 3 recent converts to Islam (who admitted they knew little about the religion in court) even though Ps. Scot found these things in the Koran/Hadith.

Ps. Scot did tell the conference to "love Muslims and pray for them"- and he didn't say to do it "only if they convert". He has shown this personally through his many Muslim friends in his hometown (who have not converted).

He never called Muslims demons (though almost all media reported that).

What he said was volatile, surely, but it wasn't illegal (which is my personal opinion- we'll see what the Supreme Court has to say about that) and it certainly wasn't racist (as someone else mentioned, race does not equal religion, one is genetics, the other is a chosen set of beliefs).

As for asking people to pray to the Christian God that people who aren't Christians would become Christians- if the Christian God does not exist, and prayer to Him doesn't work, who cares? If He does exist, and prayer to Him does work, then its probably a good thing Christians are praying for more people to realise that!

I recall Mr. Nalliah’s persecution by the PC Victorian government, JPW 2040. So would most of the people who use this forum, so you have nothing to be astounded about. It just wasn’t part of the subject, that’s all.

The Wikpedia entry to which you refer says that he was a candidate for the Senate. He did not get into the Senate as you claim.

What I find astounding, if you really wish to talk about a completely different matter, is that Nalliah was found guilty of racial vilification because he merely advised a group of people of an actual entry in the Koran