Dear Steven,

Ten years after 9/11 has the world really changed?
I think that Ammonite has summed it up well.

As far as Australia is concerned, like America, we have new
anti-terrorism legislation, first passed in 2002, then
significantly strenghtened in 2003. It is legislation that
inevitably validates the broader community mistrust of
Arab and Muslim Australians.
Yet the governments have done nothing
substantive to allay these fears or to increase knowledge
and appreciation of Australians of Middle-Eastern background.

As a result -
In the last five years there has also been documented and
anecdotal evidence of a mass increase in harassment,
vilification and violence towards Australians of Arab appearance
both in the media and in popular imagination - often
generating a media storm and unchecked racial religious
vilification on talkback radio.

Prejudice creates what it fears. This increasing hostility of
the broader community reinforces this inter-community racism,
rather than challenging it. Things need to change - if we are
to live at ease with ourselves.

Dear Bazz,

You asked how many Christians, Buddhists or
Hindus belonged to Al Quaida? And stated
that no wonder Muslims can't be trusted.

To me those statements don't make sense.

Firstly not all Muslims belong to Al Quaida
or take part in terrorist actions.

The same as
not all Christians in the US belong to the
Ku Klux Klan, or bomb anti-abortion clinics
and murder doctors who work in those clinics.
Not all Christians belong to the New World Order -
convinced that Jews are taking over the world
and certainly not every single Christian in America
joins the many Christian "militia," groups that
exist in that country.

Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma City bomber had a
Christian identity and was trained by a Christian
"militia" group led by a Baptist Minister.

Inferring that "Christianity is the religion of love,"
is just as much a fallacy as suggesting that "Islam
is a religion of hate."

Extremists exist in all religions. Don't heap all
the blame on only one.

We had a showing if Richard Gages' new film about 911 at 280 Pitt St Sydney ie Mechanic School of Arts last Saturday 10/9/11.About 180 turned up.Not as good as his Blue Print for Truth but he had new scienticts and specialists giving irrefutable evidence that 911 had to be an inside job.
http://www.ae911truth.org/

Bazz needs to get the spelling right.Not Al Qaeda.It's CIAeda.

*Inferring that "Christianity is the religion of love,"
is just as much a fallacy as suggesting that "Islam
is a religion of hate."*

The devil there Lexi, is really in the details. Some years ago the
topic intrigued me, so I made it my business to educate myself
further on the topic.

Christianity went through its wars, as people fought for their
freedom from religion in most of the West. To a large extent that
was achieved. In the secular West, most people are pretty much free
to say what they like about Chistianity, question it as they please
etc.

That is not the case for Islam. Still today, in any Islamic State,
blasphemy is not tolerated and if people speak up against Islam,
it is soon used against them. So its very difficult to point out
the failures of a religion, if nobody can express their honest
opinion about it. That makes for a religion easily misused for
political purposes.

Read the Koran, there is no doubt it is a violent religion and a
divisive religion. I don't even blame Muslims, for if people grow
up indoctrinated with this stuff, they don't have much choice really.

But look around the world, where Islam goes, all sorts of problems
follow, unlike with say Buddhism and a number of other religions.

For those very reasons I would not choose to live in a Muslim
country, unlike living in a Buddhist country. The difference really
hit me when I travelled from a place like Malaysia to Thailand.
Quite amazing!

So personally I don't think it would be in Australia's interests,
to land up with a large Muslim population

Lexi, you say don't heap the blame on only one.

Which religious adherents are appearing in OUR courts charged with
terrorist related crimes ?

Islam is basically intolerant of others and is why they set themselves apart