In a bizarre act of protest:
The heads of two pigs have been found on stakes at the site of a proposed Islamic school in Sydney’s south-west….The pig heads had been “elevated off the ground” using stakes, he said. An Australian flag was also strung up between the stakes, according to AAP.
It is, of course, quite an achievement that they were able to muster the motor skills to put two stakes in the ground and place two pig heads on them. Not quite Stonehenge or the Avebury Stone Circles, but still quite an amazing achievement nonetheless. And they do deserve some additional credit for being able to wrestle with two pigs and sever their heads.
Good work, guys! At this rate of human development, you’ll be breathing through your nose and walking upright on two legs in no time. Paleolithic Age, here you come!
The Sydney Morning Herald goes on to report the community reaction to this. i.e. not much. Emil Sremchevich, the broadband-challenged leader of the campaign to protect Camden from the culture-threatening horror of Muslim education has naturally condemned what has happened. However not, it seems, because it involved trespass or was offensive to the Muslim owners of the land. Rather, judging from reports, Sremchevich has condemned the act because the attack has distracted people from the “real issues” (i.e. Sremchevich’s issues).
“It’s a sad fact that whoever’s done it has really distracted from the real issues,” he said.
“It’s embarrassing. It just shows a lack of sensitivity to the issue.”
And, contrary to what has been reported in recent days, Sremchevich’s “issue” with the school seems more about religion than town planning concerns. Indeed, as the Macarthur Chronicle reported on 27th November:
On November 15, Mr Bleasdale visited the home of Camden’s Emil Sremchevich, the organiser of a protest against the school that attracted more than 1200 people. Mr Sremchevich said he made it clear to Mr Bleasdale that opposition to the school was more about religion than planning.
Even our shiny new Prime Minister seems opposed to the school. An article in the local newspaper entitled “Rudd opposed to Islamic school” reads:
Opposition to a proposed Islamic school in Camden has reached the highest office in the country with Labor leader Kevin Rudd becoming Prime Minister.
Mr Rudd used a visit to Campbelltown last week to support Labor’s candidate for Macarthur, Nick Bleasdale’s, opposition to the proposal.
“We are concerned about the adequacy of local infrastructure to support such a large school,” Mr Rudd said.
Mr Rudd said he opposed the application on “planning grounds.”
When told by a reporter Mr Bleasdale opposed the application on planning grounds before seeing the plans Mr Rudd stood firm in his support for his candidate.
“I support what Nick has said about the school,” Mr Rudd replied.
Ah yes, planning grounds. Based on plans he hasn’t even seen.
There is, however, a simple solution to this problem. If the people of Camden (or anyone else for that matter) don’t want Muslims to sully their rural paradise, they should just offer to buy back all the land, houses, and businesses that have been bought by Muslims. If they don’t want to sell, keep offering them money until they do. Naturally, they may end up having to pay much more than what the owners themselves paid or what the properties might ordinarily be worth, but at least it doesn’t require any pigs to be killed.
14 comments ↓
This is a hate crime. It’s like the Klan burning a cross on a black guy’s lawn.
The very notion of ‘Hate Crime’ is a perversion of justice. Next, we’ll be legislating against certain thoughts that are contrary to he pervailing orthodoxy.
Clearly, the people who placed the pigs’ heads there were engaging in self-portraiture. That’s assuming they removed the pigs’ brains and replaced them with steaming manure.
It’s certainly hateful and probably a crime but whether a crime motivated by hate is worse than a crime motivated by greed, envy, lust or slothfulness is, I suppose, another question.
The whole question of hate crime is a vexed issue.
Clearly this is a race/religion hate based action.
For example if they put up two sheep heads or two cow heads, then the action would lose its symbolic offense to Muslims. The action of trespass is minor, it is the symbolism of pig that has correctly been sen as most offensive.
I do believe that there should be a class of race based crime in the criminal code. Otherwise it will be easy to intimidate racial groups in the community without doing anything criminal.
An example was the klan tactic of burning crosses on black private property. As an act it was barely criminal, but it was race based intimidation.
I think that such behaviour should be criminalized.
The next issue is if religious based hate should also be criminalized, whilst it is equally intimidatory I believe that it should not.
The final point is, where does race based vilification stop and it becomes religious based vilification? That is much more difficult than it appears.
Imagine if this happened on a private residence of the only lebanese family in the district. Were the perps doing it because the family was Muslim, or was it because they were lebanese? and are lebanese racially distinct enough to be a suspect class racially, or is the hate of lebanese, hate of their culture or is it hate of their distinctive racial characteristics?
This is not a straightforward situation, but it is the role of government to stop the intimidation of groups in our community.
The US supreme court classification of “suspect class” is an effort to distinguish those groups of people to be treated equally by the law, perhaps its a variation of that we need to fight this type of intimidation.
If someone enters your property and burns a cross, it is already criminal. The motivations for the crime might be useful in sentencing the person but I’m not sure there needs to be a separate class of “race-based crime” or “hate crime”.
Anyway, the defence to every “race-based crime” will simply be that it was motivated out of cultural or religious hatred or bigotry rather than because the victim had the wrong shaped eyes or the wrong skin colour. If you then argue that this special classification should extend also to religion and culture, then that opens up another can of worms.
That is correct, where does one stop?
but rather than have a separate raft of race crimes on the books, why not have provision for a “suspect class”?
so that it compels the trial judge or jury to take into account if the crime has elements that are intimatadory to a subset of the population who are being victimized, if that group has
1. immutable traits
2. grossly unfair (or in this case intimidatory)
3. history of predudice & discrimination
4 political powerlessness
when you mention intent being difficult to prove, you are correct, but this is not just for race based crime, but for all crime in general, there is a thousand years of jurisprudence that deals with intent.
Okay, so let’s say we have this provision. Firstly, it would not provide additional ‘protection’ to Muslims because religion, unlike gender or race, is not an immutable trait. Secondly, there would still be a requirement to prove that there was a relationship between the crime and a person’s membership in that “suspect class”. In the case of a burning cross or a pig’s head, couldn’t the person still argue that it was not because of the victim’s race (an immutable trait) but because of their religion or their culture?
“For example if they put up two sheep heads or two cow heads, then the action would lose its symbolic offense to Muslims.”
But sheeps and cow heads have economic value! Sheeps Brains and Cow Tongues are edible, whereas pig heads are not!
That’s why they used pig heads. I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with religion.
Signed, Chief Officer Of Dubious Justifications.
I agree, I don’t think that you could justify Muslims as a suspect class, however the same family if they were lebanese, migrants, poor and non-english speaking and have a valid claim to be a suspect class.
The perp could argue any defense he liked, but it would be the judge or jury who would ultimately ascribe motivation. If for example he had a house full of white pride lit, was a neo nazi, hurled racist or xenophobic abuse during the crime, a jury could weigh this in determining motivation.
Example: a skinhead beating a jew could argue that he was just beating him as another person and his judaism was irrelevant to the assault. Any competent prosecutor would easily be able to demonstrate that for a skinhead to attack a jew, there must be at least some racial /religious motivation, and would therefore demand an additional punishment.
Is this unfair on skinheads? yes he would have got less for beating a Caucasian. But it disproportionately punishes something in society that we want to be disproportionately punished.
In a half-decent society, the owner of the property would have the right to defend it. Therefore if some Nazi sets foot on your land with a pig’s head under his arm, you would be perfectly entitled to blow his head off with your firearm.
that would discourage bringing home the bacon
‘Blowing the head off’ sounds much more practical and utilitarian than the proposed alternative. It probably also saves tax payer’s money.
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