Entries from April 2007 ↓

Yesterday, federal opposition leader Kevin Rudd was demanding that the government revoke Muslim convert and journalist Yvonne Ridley’s visa. Today, he is demanding that Muslim leaders sack Sheikh Taj ad-Din al-Hilaly now rather than wait three months. He isn’t even in government and already he’s trying to tell Muslims what to do.

Meanwhile, federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd said today the muslim cleric must urgently be removed as Australia’s mufti.

Mr Rudd said most Australian muslims would like to see the controversial cleric sacked.

We have a situation where a council of imams, representing a large majority of the Muslim communities in this country, have convened and decided to wait three months before acting. However, Kevin Rudd, a politician whose connection with the Muslim community seems almost non-existent, arrogates to himself the right to tell the world what Muslims want even if it means contradicting the conclusion their own leaders have reached.

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As is now sadly typical, the chronically unimaginative Australian Labor Party (ALP) have attempted to go one step further than the Liberal Party by calling for British journalist Yvonne Ridley to be deported from Australia on the basis of comments she has allegedly made in the past.

For example, Labor’s Immigration spokesman Tony Burke was talking tough on the ABC.

TONY BURKE: This is right at the extreme end of the spectrum, and for her to be considered somebody who is welcome to Australia and having appropriate character to come and speak at conferences in Australia sends all the wrong messages.

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The following article was originally published in the Herald Sun today. It is written as a response to the recent intervention of the Australian government to prevent two Muslim scholars from attending an Islamic conference this weekend.

THE Federal Government has decided to ban Canadian Muslim cleric Sheik Bilal Philips from entering Australia to attend a conference.

Dr Philips has not been charged with any crime, but does, it seems, have ideas that the Government and probably many Australians consider objectionable.

Therefore he is deemed a security risk and has been denied a visa.

In the absence of any stated proof as to involvement in terrorism or criminality, the Government appears to be banning Dr Philips on the basis of ideas the Government thinks he holds, not his actions.

However, let us assume the man is an extremist of some description and his ideas are indeed offensive. Is that really an argument to ban him?

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Travellers are hesitant to visit Jerusalem, perhaps now better known for the conflict crippling the region. But those who venture there discover a magnificent world, writes Amal Awad

The first time I saw Jerusalem, I was too young to appreciate the amazing things it had to offer. I was about six years old, and admittedly I spent a good portion of the afternoon crying for my parents, who’d ventured into the old city to pray at the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque. Thankfully, the few times I have returned, I enjoyed a more enriching experience – and there were no tears.

As I stroll through the narrow lanes of the souk (markets) as an adult, there are so many things I find striking. Bustling with activity, it’s hard to believe that Jerusalem is in a place riven by devastating chaos. The hidden souks are reminiscent of ages past, the banter and haggling of shopkeepers and patrons filling the tiny walkways. It is positively buzzing with action: buying, selling, pointing, eating, worshipping. And I have barely scratched the city’s surface. Continue reading →

Regular readers of Austrolabe may remember a previous post in which I offered a review of Allegra Stratton’s abysmal take on the modern Middle East, Muhajababes.

But to refresh, I noted early on in the piece that nowadays, the Middle East is pop culture-saturated:

I could tell that in some ways, peculiarly enough, there were people in other parts of the world who took their situation more seriously than themselves.

My feelings were confirmed when the next day I sat in front of the TV, flicking channels and finally settling on one of the many music stations taking the Arab world by storm. This one was called “Superstar”, not to be confused with the pan-Arab Idol show of the same name, and it ran music videos and concert clips 24/7, SMS messages of love and flirtation scrolling constantly across the bottom of the screen in gaudy technicolour. A family friend later confirmed that they were watching Mazzika, another of these music channels, more than Al-Jazeera. It all seemed very bizarre to me, but I concluded that in such times of trouble, no matter how misguided it seemed, music videos, with their cheeky storylines and buffed, good-looking and impossibly happy actors, obviously served as an antidote. Forget occupation and war — Nancy Ajram had a new album out.

And so it is that Iraq, a country in absolute chaos, drowning in bloodshed, kidnappings, and war, is momentarily united because of an Idol-esque show called Star Academy.

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Terry Jones in The Guardian:

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this – allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world – have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her head?

British Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt is also outraged albeit for slightly different reasons:

It was deplorable that the woman hostage should be shown smoking. This sends completely the wrong message to our young people.

A couple of weeks ago, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a publicly-funded quasi-government ‘think tank ‘, released a report on the group, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT).

The Australian reports:

Research has found it takes advantage of Australian tolerance to launch propaganda attacks on the country and that its adherents are primed to take the next step up to jihad, if called upon to do so.

The article goes on to summarise ASPI’s findings and recommendations. The research paper can be found here.

Needless to say, we don’t necessarily agree with HT, their methodology or objectives. However, HT’s response was interesting. They issued an open letter to the report’s authors accusing them, among other things, of plagiarism (“Responding to cheap plagiarism – The case of ASPI in Australia”).

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The daughter of an imam writes in the comments:

We want people to go learn and become scholars but then we get no benefit from it as people have families to support. If they are working 5-6 days a week where is the time left for teaching or studying? Many graduates for that reason have ended up just working normal jobs because their knowledge is not valued and the community is not going to support them. So whilst we lament the lack of knowledge in our community we also are generally not prepared to use money to support those with knowledge.

I believe Muslims are very cheap when it comes to knowledge. People will complain about paying $100 for a course but will not blink an eye buying a $5000 plasma TV.

Being the daughter of an Imam I really saw how undervalued people of knowledge are. Don’t you think it is sad that when you have an Imam for one of the richest communities in the Muslims that his family used to get a lot of things from the salvation army and church groups? That he never bought new clothes or shoes for himself for over 10 years and used to get them second hand? My mum used to say to my dad to go become a taxi driver because at least it paid to support his family.

This is an excellent point and one of the more pressing issues that our community needs to tackle. If we accept that religious knowledge is important — and some of us would argue it is the highest form of human knowledge — then how do we ensure the best people acquire this knowledge and then ensure that they can benefit the community with it.

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