Great article.

I urge anyone who hasn't yet read Tanveer's article in the Australian recently to do so as well, as it is likely the only open and honest account of the true nature of Islamic terrorism by a Muslim.

He talks of Islam needing to reform, for it's violent nature is the 'root cause'. I doubt Tanveer will be called an Islamophobe though for such comments, funny that.

I guess it's the same with the Aboriginal issue.

Noel Pearson can say children need to be protected by drunk, violent, rapist Aboriginies, but when a certain red-headed non-Aboriginal said so over ten years ago now (think about how many Aboriginal lives have been lost since) it would be, and was, racism.

Can't the left can see how ridiculous and cruel their outlook is?

Tanveer Ahmed has remarkable insight, and yes, nobody should be surprised about doctors being drawn to Islamist terror.

While I agree with everything he says I would add a few things, one being that I think it has a lot more to do with racism than we presently accept, and cultural values.

I think people have to start accepting that racism is an ugly part of most, if not all, non-western cultures. These doctors look around after they're living here a while, see that all they've been told about 'evil westerners' is rubbish - that the west is the best place to live, has the best morals, and so on, and out of racism can't accept it.

Resent it.

I've read many an article about the 'real reasons' Islamists want to blow us up and hack off our heads.....wait for it....poverty!

I can see such dumb journalists trying to write their articles now...these upper-class rich doctors who used Mercedes as their suicide car of choice, and a Jeep Cherokee!

Most can't see past their own constructions that 'the other' is a weak, down-trodden, coloured, savage.

Leftists have to understand that the non-west isn't just a mass of brown people, they are humans - who have real feelings, prejudices, and hate more than any of us ever could.

They don't want to acknowledge this because that means all cultures/religions don't share our values.

When Muslims say they are against oppression in Afghanistan and Iraq, they mean how the west is fighting Islamists. We saw how vile the Taliban's values were, well they're Islamic values in purest form, and many Muslims want to live under Sharia.

It's the equivalent of Nazi Germany demanding their values be taken seriously, rationality dictates that it can never be allowed.

Any Muslim that sees the Prophet Mohammed as the purest example of what a man should be will always end up being full of hatred and sexual perversion (Mohammed had 19 wives and countless slaves - captured after raids on non-Muslim towns).

It isn't surprising that given those values, Islamic societies always have crooks, thugs, and vile bigots as their leaders.

Just this week Malaysia criticised the U.S for alienating Muslims after the State Dept. handed down a report detailing slavery in Muslim countries (although ended by the west over 200yrs ago, it has always existed, and still exists, in Muslim lands. Many are surprised to hear that the west's involvement in it was less than 2% of the market share - with Arab Muslims making up the remainder).

Apparently, to tell them to get rid of slavery is anti-Islamic. I wonder how many here actually know how true that is?

Tanveer makes this clear, racism, a hatred of the other - the westerner, as well as a hatred of women coupled with sexual repression - all lead to Islamist terror.

Islam draws bigots, as it sanctions murdering ones enemies, i.e infidels, subjugates women to live under tablecloths - i.e, follows jealousy to it's conclusion if unchecked, and much more.

Edward Said doesn't know how right he was about looking for the worst in cultures, only it was totally inverted.

He should have called his book 'Occadentalism'. How many times has one heard Muslims denounce the west's values?

Think about how angry that makes them, they live here because it's better than Muslim countries, yet they see Islam as superior.

great article

this is not just an Islamic problem of course - middle-class intelligensia supplied most of the leading terrorists andpolitical radicals in wester culture, too.

As Sartre said, beware the good little boys, they make the best revolutionaries!

How is it these doctors have enough intelligence to study medicine and gain qualifications yet they cannot see that mass murder of innocent bystanders is so dreadfully wrong?
The two doctors at the centre of the Glascow outrage were trying to set fire to an airport full of children and holidaying families.
This is Islam, religion of peace?

Mickijo asks the real question.
How can intelligent and caring people commit or conspire to commit horrendous acts?
I don't know the answer. It is the age-old ethical question of "do the ends justify the means"
Those who support utilitarian ethics (the greatest good for the greatest number) might be persuaded to do horrible things in order to achieve great outcomes. Those who subscribe to some kind of absolutist ethic - eg life is sacred - would eschew symbolic (and horrible) bombings and hope that eventually the doing of the right thing would result in justice and peace.
I am still trying to figure out where I stand.

"... illustrates the kind of groups that may be vulnerable to the lure of terrorism. In this case, sadly, those who were dedicated to preserving human life were transformed into the exact opposite".

Who transformed them into the exact opposite? Was it the wicked west?

I agree that to become a doctor in a poor country is an achievement difficult for people in the west to fathom.

The countries that these doctors are from would benefit from their skills after they return home. I imagine this was the original plan in most cases before they were so easily lured to the west.

Their hearts are home but they refuse to follow their duty to their patriotism: home. Albeit people have fewer rights there, especially in Islamic countries. Now that is ironic. Smart people build and change, not destroy and whine.

The cycle of a doctor shortage here could change as well. We apparently have "scab labor" perpetuating a downward spiral. The Federal Goverment must spend more to allow more access for Australians to be trained as doctors here.

In terms of anger and crying "prejudice", that simply does not wash with me at all. I have NO sympathy for psychological blackmail. I am entitled to spit that victim politics back at you.

In the last 25 years I've been bestowed to support not only people living with AIDS in Sydney, but also their doctors. Doctors in Sydney in this epidemic have been overworked, unappreciated, outcast from other medical practitioners for the "connotations" yet they slave on because they are passionately care about their patients. I can't count the death toll.

The doctors I know have been through trauma you can't imagine, many suicides, especially in the mid 1990s from other doctors as well as patients. Usually they have no time for a social life.

Don't go on about the poor Islamic doctors who are misunderstood. Society didn't do it to them. The west didn't make them do it. They chose this situation themselves and only have themselves to blame.

"For those with a sense of victimhood and alienation, Islamism offers a potent identity to express alienation"

Not Islamism, Islam! If you are a Muslim, you should be happy. If you are not happy it is because somebody, somewhere is being unjust to you. It may be the Jews, or Christians, or secularists, or Hollywood, or Bugs Bunny, but somebody is persecuting you and holding you down. If you fight and kill them, then Islam will rule and all your troubles will end.

There is no clear path from carer to killer. There is, however, a wide, clear road from Muslim to killer. For a Muslim, killing and persecuting is easy. It is commanded in the Quran. Their dear prophet did it, and he is their great moral example. The Quran makes it clear that non-Muslims are inferior to Muslims. This is the way it is in all places where Islam dominates. The concepts of human rights, freedom and equality are alien to Islam.

You will notice time and time again how these terrorists are described as 'sweet' 'loving' 'kind' 'moderate' 'good fathers' 'caring sons' - until the day they go out to slaughter infidels for the glory of Allah. This has nothing to do with being rich or poor, stupid or smart, educated or ignorant, or nacionality, age or gender, or being a doctor, lawyer, cook, teacher or cab driver. It has everything to do with attitudes and values - with ideology and basic beliefs - that is, religion.

Muslims values are not Western liberal values. Muslim countries have not experienced the Renaissance, the reformation, the counter-reformation, the age of reason, the American and French revolutions, the Magna Carta and the rise of democracy.

Am I distorting things? Ask any Muslims about the character of their dear prophet - then ask them about the many vile things he did as recorded in their own histories - including murder, plunder, torture, rape, enslavement of men, women and children, lies, deceipt, and beating his own wife. Those are the values of Mohammad and they cannot be reconciled with liberal values.

Kactuz