Paul.
I think it's impossible for us to understand each other, I enjoy the exchange but you're not following the logic of my presentation.
Monis set out to hit Australia where it hurts, some have suggested that he went to Martin Place to assassinate David Koch and Samantha Armytage but balked at the security outside channel 7.
Nevertheless, what he meant to do is irrelevant and what he did was strike at the heart of tolerant, multicultural Australia, wouldn't you agree?
The flower memorial and the displays of solidarity between different groups in society really was an effort to patch up the rip in the social fabric caused by Monis.
The imagining of a "backlash" in the short term was over egging the pudding but to do nothing about that rip in the social fabric would have left open the door for people like Ralph Cerminara and the real wingnut Muslim elements.
Nobody wants mobs of Lebanese and Whites rioting and fighting each other in the streets, the Leftist narrative was (sensibly) suspended for a time and concerned Whites united to shake hands with concerned Muslims.The only way that kind of rapport or detente can be sustained is by parties expressing a White (albeit liberal) group identity meeting with other parties expressing their own Islamic group identity.
All the right can get out of this tragedy is some snotty point scoring over the fact that the narrative had to be suspended and that the hard Left became detached from the popular response.
For Racists and Nationalists there's no meat on this bone, we didn't subscribe to the ideals Monis attacked and affronted before last Monday and we don't subscribe to them now, we don't share your outrage or buy into the right winger's hysteria, all the issues brought to the surface in Martin Place are subjects we've gone over endlessly on blogs, forums and in our private correspondance.
Man Monis changed nothing, the social fabric has been repaired for now, the lefty women and the Islamic women have hugged and cried together in the square, it's over, let's move on.

Jay, what is central here is Monis himself and his personal issues of crime and the law. In a way Monis is like Ned Kelly, not that I am suggesting that Monis should be treated as a folk hero in the way Kelly has become. Kelly married his own personal issues with the law to the broader issues of Irish Catholic discontent with authority. Monis was a terror group of one, and only one... himself! The man had personal issues with the law, the murder of his wife, sexual assault of women, not minor charges, At the same time he was identifying with Muslim discontent and was marrying that to his personal grievances. If things had gone differently for him on the Friday in the High Court, where he had tried to have his conviction for offensive letter writing to the relatives of dead Australian solders overturned, then there would have been no events of the Monday.

This article covers what I am saying.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/this-pen-is-my-gun-man-haron-monis-failed-high-court-bid-20141216-1283ej.html

In no way was the mad man a part of a Muslim conspiracy, you are giving Monis far more credence than he deserves. In another time. and another place he could have been an Irish Catholic.

Paul,
Monis wasn't "mad", his writing was logical, consistent and mirrors popular anti establishment sentiments found on this very forum, he was a bandwagon jumper as far as ISIS is concerned but that just makes him look like a sad case terrorist as opposed to a hard case.
This is also a pretty good article, it's the reference point for my last post, most of what he says is accurate but I disagree with his further remarks in the comment section:
http://www.pipingshrike.com/2014/12/home-front-an-update.html

Any comparison between Monis and Ned Kelly shews a sad lack of knowledge of Ned Kelly and of Australian history..

Paul,

As an apologist, 10 out 10.
As an analyst, 0 out of 10.
And that's what makes you are first class Green!

Personages like Monis are common in Islam. In fact, i would say without lead-characters like Monis Islam would not be the world religion it is is today.

Is Mise, A Merry Xmas, to you and your family, without getting into a discussion of our favorite folk hero Ned Kelly, I was simply making the point that like Ned and lots of others in history Monis was using the broader Muslim Issues to justify his personal issues. Maybe I would have been better using the failed Austrian painter Adolf Hitler (sorry Jay but he is a classic) and the way he also used a broad world shattering event, Germany's defeat in WWI, as "evidence" for his own failings and his scapegoating of Jews.
It would seem now, Monis was actually a 'big man' back in Iran and subsequent events seen his star wane completely, in his mind that must have been hard to take. The evidence suggests he had no standing in the Muslim community in Sydney what so ever.There has been no outpouring of grief from fellow Muslims for the loss of a brother, just the opposite, they are glad he has gone, an embarrassment.
Jay, peace and joy to you and yours at this festive time. What constitutes madness? There is the classic crazy, the bloke in the padded cell, we can all identify him. Then there is the harder to identify mad people who appear "normal" as you described Monis and I could describe Hitler. Jay I agree with that article as well.
My friend you confuse me some what at times, sometimes you appear to be far right then you appear to be moderately left. What are you? Maybe it shows no one is completely one way or the other.