I agree with the line in this piece but I would have like to see the subject expanded a bit. Not all people who don't want a Islamic school or mosque build is a racist. As a beliver in secular world I would not any religious school built anywhere..

Have a look to Europe.

Migrants arrived in big numbers because of generous social security payments in those countries.

Today in big cities 65 % of all children are coming from muslim background.

Which I would not object to at all, but:

Children from the German minority get abused in the school yards an being called christian pigs.

Public pools where fathers cannot go to swim with their kids since muslim women have complained being seen by men, so the pools were turned to no-men zones at certain times.

The German laws prohibit cruelty against animals. Muslims got there way they can now slaughter animals so they suffer terrible pain.

That are first signs of changes to the society. Even political leaders admit now quietly that something is going wrong.

More than half of the children being muslim now, means in around 20 years a considerable part of the adult population will be muslim.

Those will elect muslim parties which eventually will be the majority in parliament, and sooner or later turn those countries into islamic countries.

That will have serious consequences for the remaining indigenous people, as one can see clearly nowadays in countries like Turkey oder Arabia, where the is just NOT the multiculturalism like some people might dream of but exactly the opposite.

Those countries in Europe are beyond the point of no return.

1.7 children per woman for the indiginous population as opposed to 5 children per woman for the muslim migrants means within a few decades Denmark or Germany will be islam republics.

Autralia should learn from that and stop that development at the earliest possible stage.

The migrants are unwilling to learn the language and to integrate. There is no need to learn the language since for example many suburbs of Cologne everybody speaks Turkish.

So if muslim migrants are ready to integrate, no problem. But if they are not, and instead build mosques and set up arabic towns on Australian soil, the government should say, thanks for your visit, here we have a free ticket to Beirut for you.

Nursel, you say "What lies at the heart of this fierce opposition to the construction of mosques and Islamic schools is some Australians’ inability and unwillingness to accept and acknowledge that Australia is a multicultural society, and to come to terms with this fact."

"Multiculturalism" is a discredited word today. Not because we (the host community) are any less prepared to welcome people of different background, but because SOME immigrants, in practice almost uniquely Muslim (and admittedly not all Muslims), take a hostile and non-integrating approach to the host country and culture.

Turks have not raised hackles here because, post-Attaturk, they've been secular. Unfortunately most of the Arab world and areas adjacent to it (like Somalia), and now Pakistan (which shot its brains out under Zia in the 1970s), have got enmired in religious and political attitudes which are incompatible with and hostile to our culture. Why should we, normally tolerant Australians, import any element of Islam that's open to fundamentalism - a mental, economic and cultural disease - and which pursues insulting and mindless jihadism?

In December 2006 students at the East Preston Islamic College tore out pages of a Bible and urinated on them. A petition from teachers at the school included the words “This whole incident implies a deep hatred inculcated in the students towards the Christians / non-Muslim teachers”. That hatred certainly reflected attitudes of at least some of the parents. [See page 1 of The Australian, 6 December 2006.]

The Islamic community needs to accept that this country’s fundamental values are secular and democratic. By contrast, Islamic theology is profoundly incompatible with western democracy. [I am not Catholic but commend Cardinal Pell's paper Islam and Western Democracies, on the web at from http://www.sydney.catholic.org.au/Archbishop/Addresses/200627_681.shtml .]

Australians believe in religious toleration. But the attitudes displayed in the behaviour of the East Preston Islamic College's students in desecrating the Bible not only enrage me, they make me withdraw my preparedness to tolerate Islam in Australia. Islamic schools are NOT WELCOME.

I believe the underlying question that for the sake of political correctness is not being asked is whether or not some religions and sects (be it Islamic, Jewish, Hindu or Christian sects) are inherently flawed in respect to recognising and preaching that each and every individual is as valuable and precious as the next.

It would do Australians a wealth of good to unbiasedly scrutinize the fundamental beliefs of such religions and simultaneously pay very careful attention to how those religions treat minorities in countries where they are the ruling majority.

This also means questioning the religiously justified exploitation of all people of the world from Asia to Africa to the Middle-East and Israel.

Where we see examples of religiously justified and fueled hate crime, we should collectively ask that the leaders of those religions denounce those actions and make an effort to educate their followers... if refused than those leaders should be held accountable.

Cardinal Pell's article on Islam and Western Democracies is now at
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3980

The web page I gave before no longer works, but this one does.

Gdann,
190% of you stats are wrong and 137.5% of your views are emotionally perceptional (yep I made the stats up too)

NB Muslims according to British govt stats make up 4-5% of the population in Britain
Australia is about 2%
Now those national stats I didn't make up.
As for the birth rate at current levels the Muslim rates, given future generational lapsing of their faith,integration with society as a whole and other factors it has been estimated that somewhere around 2780 Muslims MIGHT dominate. By then I don't think the population will care so why should we. (I didn't make that up either)

You're not xenophobic are you? it's just your views that are. :-)

PS perhaps you should consider Evolution it's an amazing concept.

No irony intended satire yes irony no.