Irfan you say of the Government:

"Sadly, more focus has been placed on challenging intolerance and extremism from within Muslim groups than from within sections of the government and the media."

Surely this is because more intolerance and extremism exists within the Muslim community than in the wider non Muslim community.

For example an intolerance of intermarriage between Muslims and non Muslims, of divorce, and of muslims changing faith, or leaving the religion.

And with regard to extremism, it is only young Muslims who, so far, seem to be disposed towards planning urban terrorism.

Surely it makes sense for a Government to apply resources where they may produce the greatest benefit.

However the benefits of this will be very modest for as long as government supports and subsidises faith based schools, which simply encourage the sort of marginalisation and "cultural cocoons" that you wish to change.

When I hear you, and peak Muslim bodies, demanding secular education for Muslims, and an end to faith based school subsidies, then I will believe you are serious.

last word - good point about the faith based schools but please remember that muslims are bit players in that field in this country. We have a very long way to go before there is general community acceptance for the stopping of funding of faith based schools.

A starting point would be the establishment of non-faith based private schools, it seems to me that many of the faith based schools are thriving because they are generally the only alternative to the state school system.

People wanting to do a bit more for their kids see it as a means to give them an edge (and the classrooms and grounds are often much nicer even if the education is not).

As for most of the intollerance coming from muslims - have a read through some of the posts on these forums from non muslims. The level of intollerance and hostility shown by some is horrifying. They are determined never to give a mossie a chance, every good step by a mossie is regarded as part of a giant conspiracy for global domination etc. They are determined to leave no space for mossies to fit into the community and then of course when a small number behave badly they will be busy shouting "See I told you so".

Irf's points are well made.

R0bert

Another succinct and emminently pragmatic article from Irfan. His points are indeed well made, as are R0bert's.

Point about faith based schools made by Last Word applies to ALL faiths not just Muslims. Last Word's post merely indicates that Muslims are judged harshly no matter what they do or say.

Predict descent into Muslim bashing by the usual suspects. Therefore can only commend Irfan for his eloquent perseverence under conditions of unremitting bigotry.

Irfan’s reference to the government’s “relative ignorance” of Islam is just another reason why they should not have allowed the religion to become established here – i.e allowed immigrants they knew nothing about to enter Australia.

The common future built by Muslims over 150 years in European Australia, mentioned by Irfan, does not have much meaning, seeing that for most of that 150 years, there were very few Muslims in Australia in much happier and simpler times when it was easy to accept a few ‘different’ people who had actually shared the same experiences and conditions as the Europeans.

Thanks to ignorant governments, we have had, in a relatively short time, an influx of Muslims, generally clustered in ghettos to make their presence felt more strongly than if they did assimilate with the rest of us.

Governments are certainly ignorant in all matters of immigration. Both political parties are growth mad, and the fact that Europeans no longer want to come to Australia has ‘forced’ (according to their madness) them to turn to un-traditional sources to sate their hunger for more growth and money for the big end of town.

I shudder to think what Australian officials overseas and the immigration agents have told and are still telling these people to lure them here: multicultural country, tolerance, opportunities for all etc., and probably nothing about the realities of life in Australia and what is expected of the immigrants themselves.

Irfan’s last paragraph makes good sense; but as long as we have belligerent and dictatorial official structures, and total lack of commonsense from politicians who don’t give a toss about their wealth-producing new recruits, anymore than they do the host population’s opinions, it is not going to happen.

We were not ready for the demographic upheaval caused by Coalition and Labor politicians – without consultation. Too much damage has been done to make a quick fix possible.

Robert and Scout,

My comments on secular education also apply to non Muslim education, but since Irfan's article concerned marginalisation of Muslims,I did not see the need to generalise.

Scout, I was trying to be objective, not judgemental.

It seems clear to me that Muslims tend to exlude themselves from the wider community more so than other religious and secular groupings, with the exception of small religious sects.

The intolerances I mentioned form part of this self exclusion.

As I understand it, many muslims also believe that Sharia law should be superior to, or take the place of, current legal systems; this would seem to be further cause of a gulf betwen Muslim and non muslim society and a justification for the examples of intolerance which I detailed, and a factor in muslim self exclusion.

As regards my remarks on terrorism, this was a direct response to Irfan's comment on Government initiatives, which I quoted.

Clearly if government is going to spend resources on a problem, then it must put them where it is anticipated it will be most beneficial.

If it was Catholic youth plotting urban terrorism, or being subjected to hate indoctrination sessions by their priests, then my remarks would have referred to Government initiatives directed at Catholic Youth.

LEIGH: Irfan’s reference to the government’s “relative ignorance” of Islam is just another reason why they should not have allowed the religion to become established here ...

=> In what sense was Islam "allowed ... to become established here"? We are a secular society, and governments aren't in the business of stopping any religion from being established.

LEIGH: Thanks to ignorant governments, we have had, in a relatively short time, an influx of Muslims, generally clustered in ghettos to make their presence felt more strongly than if they did assimilate with the rest of us.

=> Which Muslims are you talking about? Aussie Muslims come from over 60 different countries and speak over 200 languages and dialects.

=> What example of assimilation did the English and Irish set when they arrived here? Did they follow indigenous cultures? If European Australians refused to assimilate with a culture established here for over 20,000 years, with what moral authority can they expect others to assimilate into their 200-year culture?