The Independent Australian

(from Issue 16)

Journalists have rushed to adopt a new word ‘Islamophobia’ to describe those who oppose or criticise Islam in Australia. It had to happen; for years journalists have branded people who are less than enthusiastic about the activities and claims of homosexuals as ‘homophobic’.This exaggerated label is meant to delegitimise anything said that does not endorse the aims of the homosexual lobby while it escapes any criticism at all. The idea is to close down any open debate about the merits of a situation other than to acquiesce to what is proposed.

The media’s political correctness ensures biased and unbalanced reporting of issues of conflict between mainstream opinion and minority views.  In the media’s eyes the minority is always right.
 Even the Rudd Government, which has bought into the row over Camden Council’s rejection of a proposed Islamic college on planning grounds, can’t find appropriate language to express its concern. The Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs, Laurie Ferguson, was reported to have expressed alarm over ‘anti-Islamic xenophobia’ in the area, and accused the local community of displaying ‘concerning levels of racism’.
One of Ferguson’s minders should tell him that Islam is a religion not a race. Here and overseas the Islamic world is made up of peoples from many different nationalities in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.There is only one human race and we all belong to it.
Opposing a school or a mosque doesn’t make you a racist or even Islamophobic.  You may be a bigot, or you may have well founded fears of the impact an intolerant, exclusive and fundamentalist religion will have on the area in which you chose to live.
 Laurie Ferguson even accused people who opposed the school of being hypocritical because they complained about the treatment of Christian minorities in Muslim countries. Surely this is a reasonable argument to advance.  Australian Muslims are prepared to demand rights that their fellow Muslims in Islamic countries deny Christians. Who are the hypocrites?
There are no Christian churches allowed in Saudi Arabia (despite tens of thousands of Christian workers in the country)  and getting permission to open a school or build a church is routinely denied Christians in Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries where they form  a small minority of the population.
In rare cases where permission is granted the building must look like a factory shed and not a church with no external Christian symbols displayed.  Compare that to mosques in Australia.
The Qu’ranic Society has labelled Camden Council’s rejection of the 1,200 student school as ‘racially motivated’ and vowed to take the case to the NSW Land and Environment Court. Board member, Fouad Chami said the Council’s decision was made because of a ‘racist backlash’ from a small group of residents. Kuranda Seyit, executive director of the Forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations, said the rejection of the school was  ‘a victory for racism’.
 A Sydney Morning Herald journalist Annabel Stafford, having embraced the description ‘Islamophobia’ went on to declare she had found a ‘new face’ for it at Camden in the person of ‘middle-aged, earnest looking Kate McCulloch, wearing a large Akubra hat plastered with Australian flag stickers’.
 I don’t know whether Annabel Stafford is young and ugly, but to ridicule someone is a poor basis for any subsequent discussion about a point of view.
 
She quotes Ms McCulloch, a local business owner, as saying, ‘The school is just the thin edge of the wedge.You only have to look at those countries that have accepted Arabs and other Islamic people to see how they have come in and waged violent campaigns to try and displace locals’. However, Ms Stafford has no doubts. She claimed that despite the Council stating its rejection was purely about planning control, ‘protests before the decision … have left the impression that it has everything to do with religion’.
 Then, she added. ‘Whatever the truth, experts say the Camden affair  is the latest sign of worsening Islamophobia in Sydney and will only add to intolerance’. Now wait a minute. ‘Whatever the truth?’  Surely as a reporter it is Ms Stafford’s duty to seek it, rather than make a statement and then airily dismiss it as not confirmed. On the basis of the truth of the matter not being established but only an ‘impression’, she claims ‘experts’ have made a judgement it is a sign of worsening Islamophobia. Who are these experts?
 She quotes two.
 The first is University of  Western Sydney human geography Professor Kevin Dunn, who for his PhD studied applications to build mosques in Sydney in the 1980s and 1990s and claimed the steadily worsening intolerance to Muslims as ‘cumulative Islamophobia’.
 However, Prof. Dunn said Camden was no more Islamophobic than many other places in Sydney. Presumably this previously detected ‘cumulative Islamophobia’ has now reached stability at Camden, where 52.9 per cent of people as opposed to 52.8 per cent Sydney-wide, said they would be concerned if a close relative married a Muslim.
 A point one per cent doesn’t sound like an alarming increase.
 The second ‘expert’ to endorse Ms Stafford’s ‘whatever the truth’ version of events, is predictably NSW Anti-Discrimination Board President Stepan Kerkyashariam. He agreed (with whom? Stafford?) that ‘anti-Muslim feeling has been increasing in recent years and the situation in Camden will make it worse’.
 I can’t blame Ms Stafford for the headline to her article,  ‘Sydney Unveils a New Face of Islamophobia’, but I suggest a return to journalism school might sharpen her reporting ability.
  How Many Wives Are Enough?
Islamic Friendship Association President Keysar Trad has called for polygamy to be legalised in Australia. He said it would protect the rights of women. Mr Trad’s mother was a third wife in a polygamous relationship overseas.  He said women were choosing to enter such relationships and had admiration and respect for one another. Sheik  Khali Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre in Lakemba said polygamous marriages existed in Australia and should be recognised.
 However,  the National Imams Council responded by saying polygamy was banned in Australia and calls for its legalisation were unwarranted.
 Sydney Imam Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali disagreed.  He attacked the Imams Council for putting out a statement that ‘contradicts  wisdom and the teachings of God’.
 The Chairman of the Muslim Council of Theologians Abdul Quddoos, said the Imams Council was not telling the people the correct thing.
 Keysar Trad, who sparked the debate, said the Imams Council had ‘no right to conceal the solutions that our faith offers to social problems’.
The ‘solution’ would prove to be a bit of a problem itself, if it was followed by a demand that family social welfare payments should be available to the wives and children of these polygamous marriages.  The male of  a household of say, three wives, and eighteen children would never have to work again!
Strangely,  we did not hear the views of any Muslim women on polygamy.
As usual in Islam, it is the men who do the talking for them.