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Donald Trump had the temerity to call the pressure cooker device, similar to those used in the Boston bombing, which exploded in New York injuring people with flying shrapnel, a bomb. The man is unhinged.
I switched to CNN to find out the ‘true facts’ in the aftermath of what New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, had perceptively described as “an intentional act.” First, I was reassured by a ‘terrorism expert’ that the incident was most unlikely to have been a terrorist act, otherwise de Blasio would not have said at his news conference that there was no evidence of it. Seems logical, I thought dimwittedly. But, at the same time as being reassured on the one hand, I was alarmed by the suggestion, repeated on my count on six or seven occasions, that a toolbox near the scene could have been responsible; presumably by spontaneously exploding.
I have two toolboxes. You can image my feelings of trepidation at ever again visiting my storeroom, where they are kept. However, I took my courage in my hands and posted a notice on the door. “Beware!”, it says, “Approach with caution, potentially-explosive toolboxes inside.”
You think I am making this up. I am not imaginative enough to make it up. I kid you not — CNN did indeed proffer the suggestion, again and again, that a toolbox was the potential culprit. Most of the media, in the greatest nation the world has ever seen, is now so hopelessly biased in favour of the Religion of Peace™ that reporters act like blithering idiots without a hint of intelligent self-reflection or embarrassment. Donald Trump stands alone, a giant, against the crumbling of our civilisation for which the US media is a standardbearer.
The media here in Australia tries to match its US counterpart in the race to the bottom but still has a way to go. Don’t worry, they will get there. In the meantime, the lack of objectivity when it comes to anything Islamic is evident enough. This brings me to Pauline Hanson’s maiden Senate speech. After reading about this so-called ‘bigoted’ speech in the media I thought I would read it myself.
A first thing to say, with due respect to Ms Hanson, is that she is undoubtedly employing a good speech writer. It is a very well put together speech. “Of course, I don’t agree with all of it.” This isn’t me folks. It is the obligatory weasel line of those conservatives who ‘defend to the death’ her right to speak her mind; and to hell with 18C. For example, Tim Wilson was at it in The Australian (22 September). “There are certainly sections of her speech that legitimately raised eyebrows.” Which sections, Tim?
There are two media camps: Those who damn her unreservedly — whatever she says — and those faint-hearted conservatives who give themselves a blank get-out-of-jail card. Some of what she says is okay, they say, and some is not. Some they agree with, some they don’t. The key here is not specifying which parts they agree with and which they don’t.
Hanson’s speech covers four broad areas of concern: the extent of foreign investment, the growth in the costs of welfare and healthcare, injustices within the family law system, and immigration. It would be nice, would it not, if those conservatives who disagreed with some of what she says identified precisely which parts.
Seldom does anybody agree with everything someone else says. To say that you don’t agree with everything someone says, without specifying what you disagree with, is trivial beyond words. Let’s be clear, if her partial critics disagreed only with her stance on foreign investment, and/or on welfare and/or on family law, they would say so. No, it is immigration, and those dreadful charges which might be laid of bigotry and Islamophobia, which lie behind their constructive ambiguity.
Hanson is clear. She calls for stopping further Muslim immigration, for banning the burqa, for no further building of mosques or Islamic schools, for monitoring those already existing, and for disallowing sharia law. I agree with all of this unambiguously. Like Pauline Hanson, I do not believe that adherence to the tenets of Islam is compatible with our Western secular values of religious tolerance, lifestyle tolerance, gender equality, and the primacy and universal application of parliamentary law.
There it is! And I am not the least bigoted. I’ll prove it. I don’t mind atheism, paganism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Taoism and many other isms. As a Christian and beneficiary of The Enlightenment I draw the line at Islam out of self-preservation.
I know that most of the Australian media already exist in a latent state of dhimmitude, as in the US. And will, sooner or later, be describing Islamic terrorist bombs as exploding toolboxes. What I want to know before it is too late and the game is totally lost is where the few conservative commentators that we still have precisely stand.
I saw Andrew Bolt the other night remaining largely silent as one of his guests was given a ranting platform to claim that 99.9% (or was it 99.999 per cent?) of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are peaceful and moderate (or words to that effect). He knew that because the Indonesia students he taught were admirable people. “Sad” was the way he described a recent Essential Report poll which shows that 49% of Australians would like to stop Muslim immigration. Give us a break; those of us with at least half a brain.
That 49% might know a few things. They might know of the imposition of strict sharia law in the Indonesian province of Aceh. Know of Pew poll after Pew poll demonstrating the medieval views of vast swathes of the Muslim world. Know about no-go Muslim ghettos in Europe. Know about Rotherham and its child-groomers and rapists. Know about bigamy, child brides and FGM. Know that thousands upon thousands of terrorist barbarities committed by Muslims over the past twenty years do not spring from nothing and suspect, rightly, because they are not useful idiots, that it must have something to do with Islam.
It is quite fashionable at any Inner West dinner party to laugh about Hanson without ever actually stating what is is you find amusing about her. The remarkable thing is those who frequent the chai tent at Marrickville Markets are the first to defend Islam against Hansonism despite the fact that Islam represents everything they hate
There’s ‘safety’ in numbers: I’m sticking with the 49%!! And the bien pensant are furiously scrambling to explain it all away. Game’s up!!
Of course Pauline Hanson is right to say we should stop Muslim migration to Australia (see I said it Peter!).
Daniel Greenfield sums it it up in his article titled “Muslim Refugee Terror is Changing America”:
“Islamic terrorism is caused by Muslim migration. As the Muslim population grows, so does its terror.”
“You can have religious freedom or Islam. You can have the Constitution or the Koran. But you can’t have both.”
Read it here for his exposition of this viewpoint:
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com.au/
Your sentiments are fine, but one slight qualification: Muslim immigration is not the cause of Islamic terrorism: a good many of the Qur’anic sura and so many of the hadith are. As Gert Wilders points out that it is rather ridiculous talking about moderate muslims when they believe that the Qur’an is the word of allah and immutable. How can you call yourself a moderate Musllim when you are told Jews are ‘apes’ and ‘pigs’. How can you belong to a ‘religion of peace’ when you are told that if you question any part of the Qur’an you are an apostate and the punishment for an apostate is death. Can you honestly expect the 49%, who don’t want any more muslims in the country, to change their minds if the muslims they are supposed to embrace are told to ‘fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness’. I think not.
The Muslims per se are not the problem, it is their ideology. But you probably, quite rightly, feel I’m being a bit pedantic here, because a muslim who does not believe in the Qur’an is an apostate and therefore a dead man or woman walking.
And being the walking dead, they are the handful that should be entitled to refugee status. We won’t be safe from Islam until we make it safe for people to leave the cult.
And if that safety doesn’t exist in a progressive, first class country like Australia, why bring in more?
There are many people who say they are Christians or Jews or Hindu, etc, though they personally do not believe many of the things expounded, exhorted and preached by their religious leaders and religious texts. Many Muslims would be the same.
I also am a ’49er, sorry, 49%er, and applaud Hanson’s perception in wanting an investigation as to how much Mohammedanism is a religion [not much], and how much it is an ideology [very much], and their belief that the two cannot be separated.
One Nation should be aware that any judicial assessment would most likely show that judges know little about religion and show that they do not move in circles that are acquainted with Muslim bookshops or the ideology retailed thereby. Take for example the apparent foolishness of the Australian judges who declared Scientology a religion and thereby declared its oft-thought rapacious finance system tax deductible.
Germany has for many years refused, despite much pressure from US interests, to approve Scientology as a religion.
If the Australian Government would draw the line against funding fascist schools, or communist schools, or warlord schools, why do we fund Mohammedan schools?
Peter – I was tinkering with a brief article on Hanson but you have done the job – good show – it was an excellent speech – only problem was, she told the truth on most issues. Unfortunately she does not understand the real issue with Islam – I feel her solutions are ham fisted and will escalate violence. The best solution is to give Muslims the opportunity to reject the Koran and remain in Australia or migrate to a country that accepts and practices its precepts. Little point in mucking around.
Just going down to check on my toolbox.
‘
Brian – not sure that I agree with your emphasis on Islam as an ideology. In today’s Oz Peter Leahy equated ISIS and ideology. I replied with a letter to the following effect – probably won’t get a guernsey.
‘Peter Leahy’s article (‘With ISIS, ideology more important than territory’, 23/9) misses the point entirely. But he is not alone: the West’s political leaders and media commentators are in the same boat. IS is not following an ideology: IS is part of Allah’s plan for the subjugation of the world to himself: if in doubt read the Koran and Islamic history. Treating Islam as an ideology is the greatest mistake the West can make: it gives the false impression that it can be countered by purely temporal means. Allah is a spiritual being and his instructions for achieving his objective are contained in the Koran. Islam’s spiritual leaders keep the show on track; IS, and Islamic terrorists generally, are the foot soldiers; the remaining Muslims follow along like sheep as a fifth column but suffering the indignities that come with living under the precepts of the Koran. Why they do so is a mystery to me. To expect the West to live a life where ‘we can stop most bad things happening to us and we are able to live our lives relatively securely’ for another thousand years is totally unacceptable. It may be time to consider if there is another spiritual being out there who could help.
Jim, there are two aspects, in your response to Peter Leahy’s article, which I read too, that I disagree with. Firstly, your refutation of Islam being an ideology and that because the West treat it as such they are making a significant mistake. The West tends to treat it as a religion (hence ‘religion of peace’ rubbish) and that really is a problem. Fascism was an ideology and it was confronted as such, even though a number of Nazis treated it as though it were a religion.
I believe it is more an ideology than a religion, partly because of the second point of disagreement (I have) with your statement: Allah is a spiritual being. I cannot, for the life of me, see how one could call some of the truly horrific words of Allah to be indicative of a ‘spiritual being’, and remember you ask people to read the Qur’an, and I have read much of it (somehow!). Now, you may accuse me of insulting the prophet and worse still his allah, but I tend to think the dreams this bloke had were closer to delusional nightmares (and don’t forget he tried to commit suicide a few times) and that the ‘being’ he called the archangel Gabriel was more demon than angel. But shucks, I was brought up a Christian and am therefore suspect.
Warty – good you were brought up a Christian – I assume you still are in which case you will know that there are other spiritual beings out there apart from the Christian God and not as nice either. The Qur’an is a very subtle book on several levels and was certainly not constructed from the dreams of a delusional bloke! That is the problem: the West think they are dealing with the dreams of a delusional bloke and temporal means alone will suffice. You would get my drift better if you had time to peruse my 5 Quadrant articles on Islam under Jim Campbell or even read my book ‘The Logic of the Qur’an’ that examines why on earth God would issue 2 revelations to mankind.
What idiot commissioned that poll? Didn’t they know what answer they would get and realise this was aquestion that should never be asked? How is the media supposed to get away with their disinformation now that the cat is out of the bag. In France they published a poll suggesting 30% of Muslims want Sharia Law. Anyone with even the slightest understanding of Sharia Law should have known that this was another question that should never have been asked. Heaven forbid anyone runs that poll here in Australia.
My impression is that most ‘isms’ don’t have presence until they have advocates. The notorious book Mein Kampf is readily available but it lost its advocate. The Koran some suggest is at least as nasty and the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia breath life into it and fund it so that its ideology spreads around the world like a plague.
I have gained the impression that the Koran and its ancient Arabian moon god would be dead symbols without advocates and funding. This impression was gained on recent trips to the pleasant resorts on Bintan, that part of Indonesia only a 1 hour ferry trip from Singapore. Quizzing locals revealed they were not much interested in beards or headscarves or attending the mosque because the Saudi Arabian funded mosque ceremonies were in Arabic and incomprensible to the locals. Local young women were happy to wait on table with skirts and groomed hairstyles because that was a non-optional work requirement.
The story of the Iranian born Daniel Shayesteh and his family leaving Mohammedamnism and embracing Jesus instead of Allah and then settling in Australia is heartwarming. My thinking is that this is the spiritual journey to which Jim alludes and which I endorse.
Another brilliant piece Peter!
The most frightening aspect of Islam, besides Islam itself, is the howling ignorance of the vast majority of non-muslims, and even of muslims, of the true nature of this evil creed. From people of little or no education to learned scholars, few ever take the trouble to research the subject and rely entirely on what they hear and read. While it is increasingly realised by more and more of the ignorant masses that there is much wrong with Islam, they are easily fooled into believing that the problem is only with some bad apples and the rest of Muslims are just like themselves. Politicians and other opinion makers are largely responsible for this potentially fatal ignorance. They, and particularly the former, happily foster promote such ignorance by appeasing their Muslim constituents to secure their votes. They are the most despicable of all.
Sharia Law is the heart of Islam; Allah’s law/word.
No Muslim is allowed to question or diverge from Allah’s law/word as laid out in The Quran.
If you do, you are an apostate.
And according to The Quran you should then be killed.
The first question to a “moderate” Muslim should be; “Do you like/favour/prefer Sharia Law over our civil/man made laws?”
There’s a spanner in the toolbox!
Answering anything but in the affirmative would be a betrayal of Islam and make him/her an apostate, would it not?
So…..being a “moderate” Muslim is that not a contradiction of terms?
President Erdogan of Turkey stated “There is only one Islam.”
And he seemingly has a good knowledge of Islam.