tao, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbfivelive/F2148564

Hey Bozo.

(If that is your real name).

Where was I when the Muslims protested against their entire religion and world community being portrayed as terrorists? I was out there protesting with them. Because I don't see it as being just a cartoon or an example of expressing freedom of speech. I see it as being a dangerous form of propaganda that will filtrate the minds of the ignorant much in the same way as it did in WW1 and WW2.

Was it right to react the way they did? No.
Does that make the cartoon right? Hardly.

Frankly as much as I advocate "freedom of speech" I'm pretty sure that the cartoon and it's anti Islamic sentiments further defy the conventions set out in the Declaration of Human Rights. So much in fact that it outweighs the "Freedom of speech" card. So pull another one.

Marilyn was clearly making a clever point that you have taken out of context and used against her in order to paint her as the enemy. It's not working. Pull another one.

Finally accusing Tao of advocating 7/7 does nothing to help your argument. Besides of course explaining how you arrived at your current nickname.

Oliver, you claim that Aborigines are not that special for being invade. You recite a whole list of invasions. The difference, and big one at that, is that Aborigines were invaded in modern history. That they are suffering the consequences of such invasion to this day.

These examples:

"Ancient Italy was invaded by the Terremare and Villanovans, Ancient Greece by the Achiaemans and Dorians, Ancient Antolia by the Hittes and Lydians & Phrygians, ..."

are absolutely irrelevant. We are talking about people who were colonised in recent history.

Mark Richardson - I think you make a valid point about the right to vote and the issues relating to that - given that women were also disenfranchised in 1901. However, I suspect that it is the categorisation of them as flora and fauna which is the issue. I am not sure what you mean by Marilyin overstating the treatment of Aboriginals - have you read the Bringing them Home report?

Many Australians criticised apartheid in South Africa but fail to acknowledge the apartheid practiced here.

"if you will read History you will find that Aboriginals are not that special in being invaded. If England didn't invade, Russia, Holland, Germany or Indonesia would have conquered the continent.
Moreover, aboriginals clans engaged in war, rape and murder too.
Moreover, the aboriginals clans did not arrive together. Generic footprints suggest five migrations in the Ice Age (lower water levels) and the modern invasion. Otherwise, the original aboriginals were invaded four times black skinned peoples, before the whites."

This is a very ncie example of right-wing moral relativism.

Another dismal article from Kevin Donnelly, and another thread derailed by the usual supects. Pathetic really.

The grinding noises you can now hear are Jules Francois Archibald and Joseph Furphy spinning in their respective graves. The Francophile anti-imperialist Archibald and the gentle pious bushman Furphy would no doubt be puzzled to find themselves harnessed to Dr Donnelly's bandwagon, especially as both would have vehemently rejected Kevin's views. Check their biographies here http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030046b.htm and here http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080618b.htm

Kevin Donnelly's simplistic understanding of Australian history is astonishing. The growth of Australian nationalism has a complex history and anti-Semitism, anti-imperialism, racism, protectionism, eugenics and isolationism have all been used (at one time or another) to bolster it. If you think these ideas are dead, have a look here http://home.alphalink.com.au/~eureka/index.html

Reading this article sent my cliche-meter went off the scale ("cultural relativism", "Anglo-Celtic heritage" "Judeo-Christian" "separatist enclaves" etc etc), but I nearly fell off my chair when I discovered that Kevin wanted children taught a "grand narrative associated with a celebratory, Anglo-Celtic, Christian view of Australian society". Its fortunate that J.F. Archibald is dead, because otherwise Kevin would be due for a good punch in the nose.

obozo,

So what if Marilyn feels safer among Afghani men than Australian men? It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the right to live here and say what she considers to be the truth. If you are an example of all the Australian men she’s met, I understand why she feels the way she does.

Saying that because she “loves” Afghanis she should go and live there is about as mature as children taunting each other in a playground. Can’t you just hear it now? - “Maaar-a-lyn loves Af-ghaaaa-nis …. Maaar-a-lyn loves Af-ghaaaa-nis”.

Surely you can come up with a more intelligent argument? Then again, maybe you can’t.

Or is it more malicious than that? In segregated America, and probably elsewhere, if white people dared to treat blacks like humans they were labeled nigger-lovers. The social, economic and even physical consequences for them were harsh.

Is this what you are getting at? Perhaps you consider Marilyn a Muslim-lover. Perhaps, rather than Marilyn leaving of her own accord, you would like to have her deported, locked up, lynched.

It obviously doesn’t sit comfortably with people like you to have “Australians” pointing out that Afghanis or Muslims are human – hence your infantile spiteful attempts to discredit them.

I guess also, a lot of redneck men also feel threatened that “their” women might find Afghani men better companions than Aussie men.

Seeing as we’re telling people where to go, perhaps you should go back into your cave and pick your teeth with a bone shard. Come out when you have evolved.

P.S. – no I’m not the person on BBC whatever.

P.P.S - By the way Marilyn, good letter in The Age today.