Waleed explains it all….

The calendar can be so cruel. It was just weeks ago that the brightest names and eager faces of what passes for the cream of Australian journalism gathered to hand out their annual Walkleys and assure one another that the Fourth Estate’s passion for truth, impartial analysis and courageous service to the greater good shines brighter than ever. Alas, what would surely have been judged a stellar contribution to the sum of orthodox knowledge went to press only yesterday, meaning former winner Waleed Aly will have to wait another twelve months for his next accolade. He need not worry, as this latest exercise in smoothly crafted incoherence will surely stand the test of time. Being rock-bottom rubbish to begin with, its Walkley-winning appeal is guaranteed not to deteriorate any further over the course of a year’s extended shelf life.

The essay can be found here and, if you have the stomach for what is being taught in our universities, where Aly, a Monash academic, shapes young minds in between the more serious business of playing bookend with boofheads to a giddy blonde on The Project, the Channel 10 “news” show that features his expert views on climate change, the evil that is Tony Abbott and, of course, the much-maligned faith of Islam. Having been put in his place by Andrew Bolt for curious assertions about the 18-year pause in what we have been assured is the inexorable rise of global temperatures, he wisely neglects this time to make mention of CO2.

That other shaytan, the infernal imp Abbott, does not get off so easy. Consider how Aly begins his latest Fairfax opus. Pay particular attention to the second paragraph, which seems to suggest that Aly regards group identity as far more important than that of the individual’s opinion: Tony Abbott is a Catholic, therefore his citing of the Reformation is an own goal!

Anyway, here’s how the once and future Walkley winner begins:

Sorry, but I just can’t quite get over the irony. Unless I have this completely mistaken, Tony Abbott just called for both a Reformation and a revolution “within Islam”. This is, of course, perhaps the most well-worn and ill-informed cliche of Western discourse on Islam – the kind of thing people like to say when they want to sound serious but know almost exactly nothing about Islam, Muslim societies, or indeed the Reformation.

But it takes on a special instructive quality coming from Abbott: a self-described conservative Catholic. If that description has an antonym, it’s something like a revolutionary Protestant: pro-Reformation, pro-revolution. And yet here is our former prime minister, arguing against his very self.

You can almost hear the future, “….and the 2016 Walkley winner is….. Waleed Aly.” Thunderous applause will follow, and why not, as the essay has everything to make dues-paying unionists weak at the knees — MEAA members being the only ones who can enter their yarns without forking out onerous entry fees for the certainty of rejection and dismissal. Tony Abbott, ignorant bigot! Islam, nice and lovely! Arrogant Westerner, multiculturalism slandered! The Walkleys judges, a body which over the years has included Philip Adams, that light-fingered borrower of others’ words, and the ever-loopy Margo Kingston, will quite simply adore it!

But others, those not sufficiently dim enough to be ostentatiously celebrating the health and vibrancy of an industry on its last legs, they may well have some negative reactions. Being better read than the typical Australian journalist of the award-gathering variety, they will note first of all that it is not only imperialist Westerners, such as the appalling Abbott,  who are calling for that Islamic reformation. Egypt’s General Sisi, brown enough to win the immediate sympathy (and, were he to beat his wife to death with a bicycle, a payout ) from Gillian Triggs, also wants one, as he forthrightly lectured an assembly of imams.

Then there is the Muslim Reform Movement, whose recent, brave declaration is reproduced in full below.

DECLARATION

A. Peace: National Security, Counterterrorism and Foreign Policy

1. We stand for universal peace, love and compassion. We reject violent jihad. We believe we must target the ideology of violent Islamist extremism in order to liberate individuals from the scourge of oppression and terrorism both in Muslim-majority societies and the West.

2. We stand for the protection of all people of all faiths and non-faith who seek freedom from dictatorships, theocracies and Islamist extremists.

3. We reject bigotry, oppression and violence against all people based on any prejudice, including ethnicity, gender, language, belief, religion, sexual orientation and gender expression.

B. Human Rights: Women’s Rights and Minority Rights

1. We stand for human rights and justice. We support equal rights and dignity for all people, including minorities. We support the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

2. We reject tribalism, castes, monarchies and patriarchies and consider all people equal with no birth rights other than human rights. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Muslims don’t have an exclusive right to “heaven.”

3. We support equal rights for women, including equal rights to inheritance, witness, work, mobility, personal law, education, and employment. Men and women have equal rights in mosques, boards, leadership and all spheres of society. We reject sexism and misogyny.

C. Secular Governance: Freedom of Speech and Religion

1. We are for secular governance, democracy and liberty. We are against political movements in the name of religion. We separate mosque and state. We are loyal to the nations in which we live. We reject the idea of the Islamic state. There is no need for an Islamic caliphate. We oppose institutionalized sharia. Sharia is manmade.

2. We believe in life, joy, free speech and the beauty all around us. Every individual has the right to publicly express criticism of Islam. Ideas do not have rights. Human beings have rights. We reject blasphemy laws, which are a cover for the restriction of freedom of speech and religion. We affirm every individual’s right to ijtihad, or critical thinking, and seek a revival of ijtihad.

As far as is known, Tony Abbott had nothing to do with the above declaration.

Next year, when the Walkley congregation gathers to admire each other’s prose and evening gowns and Aly rises to accept his next gong, don’t expect to hear any mention of General Sisi or the Declaration.

This is journalism, folks. Why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

Aly’s latest sophistry can be read in full via the link below.

— roger franklin

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