The Muslims I know are middle-class and educated. They want the same things for their children as others in society. They certainly don't want their children to be radicals, extremists or suicide-bombers.

Even those met, who haven't had middle-class advantages, have aspirations for their children, and don't want them to follow fundamentalism.

Unfortunately, extremists get all the attention; one could say they seek it. I suppose most extremists, whatever religion (or any other belief) are outside normal society, indeed often antagonistic to it.

I dislike the burkha - intensely so. It predates Islam, thus a fossil, and is not a religious garment, although people would argue otherwise. In a couple of Muslim states, the burkha is banned.

Extremist religious leaders have likened a woman's face to her vagina. Less extremists have intoned various reasons for the need for this garment, the most common one, for modesty. It appears that the male gaze is irresistible to the female, who has no willpower to resist it. Whatever the reason, the burkha is a tool of oppression, making a statement about females in a particularly unpleasant way. To me, the wearing of the burkha is akin to the yellow star on Jews.

>>Still if they find a way to make suicide bombing an effective weapon of war<<

There has already been a trial of this tactic - the 'divine wind'. I don't know how effective it was but I'd love to see some reliable statistics to satisfy my curiosity. I do know the Japs lost the war, but I'm pretty sure it had more to do with American tactics than a failure of Japanese tactics.

Kamikaze pilots are different to infantry wearing C-4 vests. I'm not sure the latter would be an effective tactic in war, but it is a great tactic of terror. They may be evil and crazy but terrorists aren't silly: why spend billions on a war when you can spend thousands on terrorists? Soldiers fight soldiers at enormous expense and nobody cares because that's what soldiers are there for. But one man with a crude explosive can kill and injure a lot of civilians and that grabs people by the heart and the balls because they are civilians too.

The threat for terrorism is not really from what it can do to infrastructure or an economy in terms of real damage; the threat is from what it does to the psyche. Psychological warfare is a powerful weapon for good or bad: my all-time favourite comic book hero, The Phantom, Ghost Who Walks, The Man that Cannot Die, Guardian of the Eastern Dark, in all his best adventures uses psychological warfare to great effect in his tireless battle against piracy, greed, cruelty and injustice. More often than not the ne'er-do-well's fear of the Phantom legend is their undoing, when their foe is no more than a fit, armed man in a pretty gay costume with a well trained wolf at his side.

Maybe fear itself is something we should be reasonably fearful of?

>>Careful there Tony Lavis, I think that horse might be too high for you. When you fall off, you will do yourself an injury.<<

Never mind the perils of gravitational attraction; obviously I should be wary of your scorching wit. A man could get himself burned.

>>What do you suggest we do ?<<

If they break the law, prosecute them. Religion is not a defense that is accepted in criminal law in any jurisdiction in Australia. If I were to take a spray can and write 'Moslemes eunt domus' (or even 'Moslemi ite domum') all over the town hall I would be prosecuted for vandalism and rightly so: if I then tried to subsequently tried to plea 'it's a fair cop guv, but the Bible made me done it' a judge would probably find me in contempt. Such a defense definitely wouldn't get past a jury.

If you don't think Australian criminal law is up to the task of tackling religious extremism then the first step is to start agitating for a referendum: the Constitution under Section 116 prohibits the Commonwealth from making "any law... for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion". Referendums are difficult to pass and have a sound track record of not passing. I would not give you good odds on the public passing one which interferes with something as fundamental as freedom of religion: everybody from the religious right to the hippy douches is going disagree with that idea. But any anti-Islamic law will be struck down as unconstitutional unless Section 116 can be changed. Good luck and may the force be with you; you'll need them both to change Section 116.

Cheers,

Tony

Tony,

Are not religious extremists prosecuted for breaking the law? I thought they were.

Surely Australian law precedes, indeed nullifies any Islamic law or practice, illegal in this country.

Damielle,

If you take (say) ritual killing as an example of a practice that was always abhorrent to Australians and illegal, you can see how imported rituals and traditions can over time gain a foothold behind the curtain of secrecy offered by the ethnic group responsible, even those who might not be totally enamoured with the practice, and finally gain some acceptance by authorities because it is so widespread and 'will happen anyhow', so we might as well bend our rules and laws to 'regulate' and 'contain' it.

Jews and Muslims practice ritual slaughter that was always outdated and cruel, and definitely so for the larger animals bred over decades for the market. As you might imagine, one long pull of a sharp knife across the throat of a large steer with its heavily muscled neck is just not going to work, is it? Backyards and boutique works provided the meat and still do in many cases.

Muslims have accepted a stun that must not kill the animal immediately, requiring the hacking of the knife to complete the result. Because animals and circumstances differ, that is not always successful in a 'tidy' death. Jews are not as flexible.

The end result is 'definite' regulation with indefinite outcomes and expected non-compliance in some cases.

The only hopes of not importing offensive rituals and traditions are not to bring in too many of the same ethnic group and particularly from the same locale; and try your damnest to avoid the concentration of the populations in 'burbs and towns. As well as the obvious downsides of concentrations of ethnic groups, it also results in pressure on local members and on political parties.

The extreme multiculturalism that is the vogue of the self-styled political 'Progressives' is more likely to produce than reduce problems.

It is worth adding that populations that are removed from their origin country may not gradually lose such traditions and rituals. Some practices such as kidnap brides continue in countries of migration long after the practice has been curtailed in the country of origin, and can grow more rigid.

"""
Even those met, who haven't had middle-class advantages, have aspirations for their children, and don't want them to follow fundamentalism.
"""

Well these are real run of the mill Muslims and they seem to disagree with your point of view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV710c1dgpU

Just Saying!