Entries from November 2007 ↓

There have been many so-called Muslim/Arab-related memoirs and non-fiction narratives over the years and rarely do they seem authentic. Conversely, in Girls of Riyadh we have a fiction book that appears really to be a collection of the author Rajaa Alsanea’s personal experiences and anecdotes, so thoroughly crammed is it with just about every event that could happen to a Saudi girl of privilege. For a book that wishes to illuminate a hidden world, it’s not highly unique nor greatly important; but we do gain some insight into just how similar women are regardless of culture and circumstances, and we also get an overall idea of how Alsanea perceives Saudi Arabia’s class system and demography.

Perhaps Alsanea’s story is loaded with truth, or maybe I’m just reading too much into it. I suppose I should have prefaced all of this with an admission that I am fairly unfamiliar with how Saudi men and women live and conduct themselves. My knowledge and understanding of the area is limited to what I read in various media as well as stories of foreign compounds told to me by friends who lived in Saudi for several years (and, I should add, completely loved it). But then of course, being of Arab heritage myself, I can certainly recognise similarities across the Middle East in ideas, traditions, culture, and of course, religion.

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Last week, our favourite senate hopeful Pauline “Dancin‘” Hanson said:

“Every school in Australia is Christian apart from the Islamic schools….”

…and apart from the Jewish schools, and, of course, public schools.

And in other Hanson news, Australian rock star Jimmy Barnes talks about a potent concoction of vinegar and lemon he drinks before each performance. Unfortunately, it’s not without its terrible side-effects:

“I go home, kiss my wife Jane and she thinks I’ve been tongue-kissing Pauline Hanson all night. I smell like a ******* fish and chip shop.” He laughs.

Ewwww.

As the people of Camden rally to defend their rural paradise from the armies of Muslim school teachers and students amassing at their gates, they will undoubtedly be reassured that the cavalry has arrived. Darrin Hodges, head of the so-called Anglo-Australian National Community Council, has selflessly taken time out from his apparent involvement with the sex industry [warning: contains some profanity] and posting on the neo-Nazi Stormfront website, to man the barricades of Western civilisation. Darrin, you see, is “dedicated to fighting the spread of Islam in Australia”.

And fight he will. Hodges is taking the battle to Youtube.

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On the fifth of November, the American libertarian candidate for the Republican nomination, Dr Ron Paul, made history by raising an amazing $4.3 million dollars in a single day of online fundraising.

The fifth of November is, of course, the day on which an attempt was made to blow up the parliament and features prolifically in the movie V for Vendetta. The next online Ron Paul fundraiser promises to be even bigger; to be held on December 16th, the day of the Boston Tea Party.

Unlike some of his opponents, Ron Paul’s message of small government, humble foreign policy, personal freedom and low taxes is simple and coherent. It is interesting that the message — or elements of the message — evidently resonate with many people, including people who might not have identified themselves as Republicans or libertarians in the past. A Ron Paul victory would be good for the United States and good for the rest of the world. Let’s hope this is the start of something.

(And, of course, if you are Australian and you too are sick of the depredations of government, then you know who to vote for in the coming election.)

The Australian is reporting today on a disturbing revelation:

A SENIOR counter-terrorism officer with the Australian Federal Police has testified that police were directed to charge “as many suspects as possible” with terrorism offences in order to test the new anti-terrorism laws introduced in 2003.

The admission was made by federal agent Kemuel Lam Paktsun, the senior case officer on the Operation Newport investigation that led to the arrest of Sydney medical student Izhar Ul-Haque, whose trial was sensationally dismissed in the NSW Supreme Court yesterday.

…

“At the time we were directed, we were informed, to lay as many charges under the new terrorist legislation against as many suspects as possible because we wanted to use the new legislation,” Mr Lam Paktsun testified.

“So regardless of the assistance that Mr Ul-Haque could give, he was going to be prosecuted, charged, because we wanted to test the legislation and lay new charges, in our eagerness to use the legislation.”

Many residents in the town of Camden, in Sydney’s south west, are enraged that Muslims are supposedly “invading” their rural community, bringing with them all sorts of criminal behaviours and social pathologies.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

The proposed Islamic school for Camden has outraged thousands of residents, some of whom say it would bring violence to the suburb and turn it into a “dirty looking town like Lakemba”.

And they are going to extraordinary lengths to prevent their little town turning into Lakemba. The Sun Herald reports today that:

Property industry sources and concerned residents said agents at Wednesday night’s meeting debated the issue of selling homes to Muslim families wanting to relocate to the area.

Some residents are even attempting to enlist the help of God:

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We recently wrote about the bizarre attempt by German authorities to combat ‘Islamism’ through cartoons. As we wrote at the time, one of the cartoon’s positive role models is a Muslim girl called Ayshe who is described as a “modern, head-scarf-wearing, Muslim girl who staunchly believes in liberal democracy”. In other words, she’s a “good Muslim” according to the view of North-Rhine Westphalia, the German state that designed and published the story.

However, for all Ayshe’s apparent virtues, she still would not be allowed to be a school teacher in a state school in North-Rhine Westphalia (the state that published the cartoon) because she wears hijab:

The law banning Muslim teachers from wearing headscarves was adopted on Wednesday by the regional parliament of the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia, where the conservative Christian Democrats hold a majority. The Social Democrats and the Greens voted against it.

CQ Politics reports:

Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie T. Hulon, according to well-informed sources, the project didn’t last long. It was torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that residents of Camden (an area in Sydney’s south-west) are fiercely opposing a proposed Islamic school in the area. Apparently, census figures have the local population at 69% Christian and another 13% as “no religion”, so there would certainly be a question as to whether those wishing to build the school can justify the need for it.
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The Australian reports today:

ONE of Australia’s leading researchers in artificial intelligence, who developed a computer system that can read sign language, is set to join internet giant Google in the US.

Such news wouldn’t normally warrant a mention here on Austrolabe except the researcher is Dr Waleed Kadous, occasional contributor to this site and co-convener of the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network (AMCRAN).

In this case, Google’s gain is our loss: they are gaining an outstanding researcher, and the Australian Muslim community is losing one of its most tireless and selfless campaigners and activists.