Entries from August 2007 ↓

It seems almost cruel to laugh at Pauline Hanson, the fish and chip shop owner turned politician turned Donut King spruiker, but we are overjoyed by the news that she has decided to run — again — for federal parliament. With the ALP apparently having decided to campaign for office on the basis of bromidic poll-driven platitudes, the upcoming election looked rather boring so Pauline Hanson’s entry into the race is to be welcomed. Certainly, we are sure that she will provide plenty of comedic grist for the Austrolabe mill in coming months.

But what will the policies be of this new and revamped Pauline Hanson? Last time, she was talking about Australia being swamped with Asians, warning that we needed to stop them from coming here or else bad things would happen. For example, threatening our way of life by spreading the noxious evils of mathematics and science.

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In the last three days, I’ve counted three young men and two women — non-Arabs and presumably non-Muslim — wearing Yasser Arafat-style scarves wrapped around their necks. That might not be uncommon if one was talking about a university campus but this was just walking around the CBD, riding public transport and entering offices. Unlike the socialist types one sees around university wearing those things as a sort of political statement, these people seemed to be wearing them more as a fashion statement. Maybe you’ve noticed the same thing too.

So what does it all mean? Well, I don’t know but according to this article in Heeb Magazine, Arabs are now cool and the emergence of the keffiyeh as a hot fashion accessory is proof of that.

With keffiyehs wrapped around the necks of hipsters coast to coast, one of the hottest bands of the moment going by the name Beirut, and Comedy Central snapping up shows like the “Axis of Evil Comedy Tour” and The Watch List, it seems like America’s pop-cultural tastebuds are primed for Middle Eastern flavors—for better or worse, it’s becoming cool to be Arab-American.

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Jihadists are in for a rude shock when the see the poise, the steadfastness and determination on the faces and in the voices of the young lions of the west. Indeed, the WW2 generation is not dead.

I was reminded of the battle of Salamis, Alexander’s assault on Aoronos. How can anyone stand against such courage?

Aragorn: Hold your ground, hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you *stand, Men of the West!*

Thank God for blacks and Hispanics huh?

The federal government announced a few days ago that $189 million will be spent on internet filters for Australian homes and internet service providers to protect Australian families from pornography and, of course, “terror sites”.

A “black list” drawn up by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which covers Australia-based pornographic and terror sites, will be expanded internationally after consultation with the Attorney-General.

The AMCA will also receive 14 additional internet regulators.

A seven-day-a-week hotline will be established to help parents put filters on their home computers. All families will receive the filters and they will be sent to public libraries.

It’s a bad idea on so many different levels. But it has, at least, put Australia on the front page of Slashdot.

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In an earlier post, Baybers quipped about the inability of the Muslim world to produce a single scientific journal of any merit. Writing in Physics Today Pervez Hoodbhoy makes a similar point about the sorry state of secular (and particularly scientific) scholarship in the Muslim world.

A useful, if imperfect, indicator of scientific output is the number of published scientific research papers, together with the citations to them. Table 1 shows the output of the seven most scientifically productive Muslim countries for physics papers, over the period from 1 January 1997 to 28 February 2007, together with the total number of publications in all scientific fields. A comparison with Brazil, India, China, and the US reveals significantly smaller numbers. A study by academics at the International Islamic University Malaysia² showed that OIC countries have 8.5 scientists, engineers, and technicians per 1000 population, compared with a world average of 40.7, and 139.3 for countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (For more on the OECD, see http://www.oecd.org.) Forty-six Muslim countries contributed 1.17% of the world’s science literature, whereas 1.66% came from India alone and 1.48% from Spain. Twenty Arab countries contributed 0.55%, compared with 0.89% by Israel alone. The US NSF records that of the 28 lowest producers of scientific articles in 2003, half belong to the OIC.³

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The Economist has an interesting piece on the growing importance of the “Muslim market” in the United States and how companies are adapting to it.  They write:

But a new study by JWT, an advertising agency, points out that the 6m or so Muslims in America are, on average, richer and better educated than the general population. Two-thirds of Muslim households make more than $50,000 a year and a quarter earn over $100,000; the national average is $42,000. Two-thirds of American Muslims have a college degree, compared with less than half of the general population. Muslim families also tend to have more children. So the perception that marketing specifically to Muslims is not worthwhile would appear to be wrong.

This is itself an interesting observation.  In Australia and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom, the Muslim community is not necessarily known for its comparative wealth or relatively better education.  So what makes the American Muslim community so different?  Is it that American immigration policy has favoured the educated and affluent from the Muslim world or is there something intrinsic to the American system that has led to this?

ABC Radio National’s Australia Talks was focused on issues around Australian Muslims and the media (audio available for online listening and download) tonight.

In the last quarter century, the relationship between the Muslims and the western media has gone from being a non-issue to an everyday event. Tonight, on Australia Talks, we will look at the changing relationship between Muslims and the western Media …are Muslims being demonised in the media? How well does the western media understand Muslim issues and are some media outlets in danger of lumping all Muslims or Islamic groups with a single monolithic identity?

Miranda Devine in The Sydney Morning Herald:

YOU ONLY have to watch the tragic life trajectory of Britney Spears and her hollow-eyed Hollywood gal pals to understand the damage done by the premature sexualisation of girls and the extreme commodification of female bodies.

Spears is the ultimate incarnation of our girl-poisoning culture – as both victim and role model. From cute performing Mousketeer to a grim, self-loathing, substance-abusing, pole-dancing parody, her psychological unravelling has played out on the public stage. Bouncing between failed relationships, weight ballooning up and down, the mother of two exists to party joylessly with fellow tragics Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, casually flashing their shaven crotches for the paparazzi to immortalise.

Even our own Nikki Webster, who starred as a bubbly 13-year-old at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, before a TV audience of billions, has aspired to reinvent herself as pop trash ever since. She is often quoted as being unhappy at her inability to shrug off the sweet-girl-next-door image. Her latest attempt at street cred was to pose in a silk bodice and hot pants on the cover of men’s magazine FHM, a fast-track way to jettison any remaining shreds of dignity.

We thought it might be a good idea to note upcoming books/films/general media stuff that relates to Muslims on the site. Please note that by listing these items, we’re not necessarily endorsing them. This is simply an opportunity to have a central repository for “Muslims in the media” stuff.

I’ll try my best to scour the net/newsletters/etc for anything of interest. I’ve compiled a brief list of some books and movies (I know there’s probably a lot more).

We welcome reviews and recommendations from readers in the comments.

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Despite first appearances there is much to celebrate in the Muslim world. We may not have one scientific journal with an impact factor of greater than one, Al Aqsa may be occupied, but we have something that the hated western imperial jackboot could never imagine; Turkish male belly dancers.

I can smell the body odour from here.

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