No stereotypes, please

Stereotype must be shunned, of course they should. See a fellow invading the dance floor with a gun in one hand, the Koran in the other and ‘Alahu Akbar’ on his lips and you can count on your low, bigoted and ill-educated bogan types to start whining that he must have something to do with Islam. Of course he does. It’s his religion, but no different to Catholicism (“remember the Inquisition”) or those sly Jews (“solidarity with Gaza”) and everyone knows, as we are so often told, that his creed is the Religion of Peace. Smarter people know that it is the gun he’s holding which represents the start and finish of intolerance, that it is the gun alone which hates gay American nightclub goers. All you have to do is read today’s Fairfax press to understand as much. Or listen to the ABC, where Emma Alberici is paid a lot of money to inform less acute people — as per below — that they should be looking to Donald Trump as the real cause and culprit of what is going wrong with America, perhaps even those loud bangs in the night.

So bear the folly of stereotypes in mind when you watch the video of Shia cleric Dr. Farrokh Sekaleshfar (below left), who just happens to be visiting Australia at the moment and addressing the faithful in a variety of taxpayer-funded venues. It is a full hour of the holy man’s take on all sorts of things that might surprise you — the little known fact, for example, that birth defects in children are the fault of their mothers’ immorality, or perhaps it is their grandmothers’ lack of Islamic moral fibre. The culpable generation can be hard to pinpoint, apparently, so it’s enough to grasp that somewhere in the ancestral chain there was a loose woman who visited the fruit of her scandalous deficiencies on the unborn. Seem a bit harsh, perhaps misogynist? Well set that thought aside. Dr Sekaleshfar is an ardent acolyte of the Prophet, so leaping to the conclusion that he doesn’t have a high regard for women and female emancipation would just be another of those worthless stereotypes. As he notes early in the clip, if you believe Islam sees women and homosexuals as lesser, troublesome specimens, you must be brainwashed, most likely by Shaytan’s auxilliary, the American media.

And please, as you watch the video, do not think about gay stereotypes either. Sure, Dr Sekaleshfar has a simpering, effeminate delivery and, yes, it is well know, or commonly believed at any rate, that the biggest poofter bashers are themselves the worst closet cases. But that would be wrong, so don’t for a moment subscribe to that stereotype either. Ignore the effete gestures, and the cutesy routine with the wide-open eyes, which might to some hint at the imminent appearance of a mascara wand and practiced hand to wield it. Concentrate instead, if you want to be hip and modern-as-tomorrow cool, on what he is saying about homosexuals and how it is the greatest kindness to execute them. That cleanses the sin of sodomy and opens to them the Gates of Paradise. As Dr Sekaleshfar puts it, it is nothing less than “compassionate” to hang gays from cranes in the public square, which is what they do in his native Iran. Yes, compassion, but not the stereotypical variety, of course.

Take in his message and do try to be as broad-minded and non-judgmental as the etiquette of modern multi-culturalism demands. Remember, it’s not Dr Sekaleshfar’s religion and disciples who hang gays. It’s only the rope that is to blame. Islam has nothing to do with it.

The video is available in full — until it is taken down, that is — via the link below. If you can’t spare the full hour-and-change to watch it all, skip to the 56-minute mark. That’s when your capacity to eschew stereotypes will be fully tested.

— roger franklin

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