I dispute that Poirot. Most people are quite content to get on with their own business and expect reciprocation from other citizens. Some don't sure, but that's why we have criminal laws.

Islam is another kettle of fish; there is no power vacuum in the West and that is it's greatness; the Western model relies on its citizens electing proxies every few years or so. You cannot elect or have any say with religious authority. That's a fact; edicts are handed down usually by self-appointed authorities on God's word.

In principle that is how all religions work but not all religions are doing what Islam does which is actively, even ferociously and implacably work towards replacing people power with God's power.

You really are not thinking about this clearly Poirot unless you understand that basic point.

So Mubarak and his corrupt government and his corrupt cronies were the steadying force?

The general population became poorer, while the elite pocketed the gains from privatisation (Egypt was one of the World Bank's consistently top reformers last decade)

When the food riots started, the situation became untenable.

It's not just the religion, it's the systems employed to govern which lead to unrest.

You make it sound so simple.

We now have a power vacuum and it's not surprising that competing ideologies clash.

I'm not saying Muburak was perfect but I do not subscript to the blowback theory which Pilger promotes; namely the rise of communism and tyrants like Pol Pot were a direct consequence of the Yanks. And now the Yanks are responsible for the rise of Islam in Egypt and elsewhere.

Anyway you are being slippery because at the end of your logic lies the argument that the West has made Islam the way it is due to Western aggression. I'm not sure that's what you're leading to so perhaps you can confirm or deny that is your position.

The West has not made Islam what it is today; what the West has done is give Islam the wherewithal to implement its hegemonistic ambitions. It's probably more accurate that Western oil companies in collusion with some short thinking has given Islam that financial backing but the point is made; once Islam had the cash it was going to spread itself.

So really it is pointless going down the anti-USA path because we have to deal with Islam as it is today.

So how do we deal in Australia with the threat of sharia law?

Dear Cohenite,

Political experts have stated that the principal foreign
enemy of the fundamentalists is the "Great Satan,"
the United States. The fundamentalists
find it politically helpful to have an alien enemy.
The solidarity of any community is enhanced if it perceives
a common outside threat. The United States provides crucial
support for Israel, whose presence in an otherwise Islamic
area is seen as a continuing wound to all Muslims.
However despite these two reasons the main cause of the
fundamentalists' hostility to the United States, however,
is that they fear the impact of American culture and
political interference in their societies.

Muslims, we are told, look with horror at American's
sexual permissiveness, at the relative assertiveness and
immodesty of American women, at the high rates of illegitimacy,
abortion, and divorce, at the pre-occupation with pleasure,
drugs, alcohol, pornography, and material possessions,
and the search for individual self-fulfillment at the
expense of obligations to kin and community.

The fundamentalists according to Prof. A. Saeed regard
Americans essentially as barbarians whose economic,
technological, and military influence threatens the integrity
of Muslim societies and traditions.

Their own governments, they claim, are often used as mere
pawns in America's geo-political strategies, strategies in
which the interests of ordinary Muslims count for nothing.

Despite their antipathy to the US, the fundamentalists are
concerned mainly with conditions in their own countries.
Muslims are desperately poor, for their nations' oil
wealth as we know has been unequally shared, creating
a new elite whose extravagant lifestyles arouse deep
resentment in the populace.

Therefore Islamic fundamentalism arises out of specific
social and cultural conditions and influences
the subsequent course of social change in those countries.

lovely to see the troubles being brought to Australia as the muslim brotherhood infiltrate (I suspect largely through illegal migration).

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/muslim-brotherhood-active-in-sydney-20130816-2s29s.html

congratulations Labour and Greens and gutless Libs on pushing this rubbish on to Australia.

Dear runner,

What an odd thing to say in your last post -
"...pushing this rubbish through,"
onto our nation. Rubbish?

You as a self-proclaimed practising Christian
are supposed to love your neighbour as yourself and
love them for who they are, not for who you want them
to be.

Romans 12: "Bless those who persecute you; bless and
do not curse them."

Matthew 5:44: "Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you."

It sounds like you need some prayers yourself.
"Father forgive them for they know not what they do."