Entries from March 2008 ↓

The professional public Muslim (PPM).

Over the last eight years a high glucose (public funding) environment has lead to the mutation of some less resilient specimens of the Muslim community in the western world. This mutational phenotype is most well developed in Australia, but it also exists elsewhere.

We believe that this is the first ever attempt to describe the species.

Taxonomy:

Domain: Eukarayota, Kingdom: Anamalia, Phylum: Crantia, Class: Reptilia.

Characteristics:

In a multicultural grant rich environment some less resilient Muslims turn to novel sources of sustenance. They apply for and depend on undefined government “celebrating diversity” handouts. They are solitary and fiercely territorial creatures; after staking a claim, the PPM marks out their territory with urine and pheromones located near the cloaca.

The PPM will often defend this revenue food source aggressively from other competitors. It will spend significant resources preening itself and cultivating its benefactor, frequently changing its plumage and skin colour to reflect the prevailing environment.The PPM will adapt its characteristic guttural bark to better reflect echoes of other noises in its vicinity. The PPM is unique in the animal kingdom as a species that will attempt to mate with its food source rather than one of its own kind.

At a recent public event the deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard was the victim of such an incident. She was given the Flehmen response and then swamped by a gaggle of the usually solitary creatures who attempted to leave their business cards droppings in her vicinity, she was fortunate to escape with a mild rash. Gold it seems remains the most favored anti-pruritic for the itchy palm.

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It’s interesting to contrast Dutch government reactions to two very different examples of personal choice.

On the one hand, we have Muslim women who decide to wear a veil. The Dutch authorities seem to disapprove of this, since they are looking at legislation to prevent women from covering their faces in public. Apparently, it’s very offensive to Dutch sensibilities for a woman to dress in this manner.

Then, on the other hand, we have homosexual men who, rather than wear a particular item of clothing, decide to have sex in public places instead. This is not so offensive to Dutch sensibilities and so the authorities have recently decided to legalise public sex in Amsterdam’s Vondelpark (whilst concurrently ruling that dogs must now be kept on a leash in the same park).

In Amsterdam’s Vondelpark, owners of dogs let off the leash can be fined, but sex will shortly be permitted. “Why should we try to maintain something that is actually impossible to maintain, which also causes little bother for others and for a certain group actually signifies much pleasure?” says Paul van Grieken, the responsible Alderman in the Oud-Zuid district of Amsterdam.

But couldn’t roughly the same thing be said about the veil? It’s hardly bothering anyone to ride on public transport or walk in the same street as a veiled (or unveiled) woman.

There’s nothing like the thought of a gym or swimming pool running women-only sessions (at the request of Muslim women) to get some men all worked up. Take the recent ‘controversy’ surrounding one of Harvard University’s gymnasiums. Andrew Sullivan rushes to denounce it as “shariah at Harvard’; Jihadwatch says they have submitted to Islam; and on and on it goes.

It’s hard to see what all the fuss is about.

Firstly, isn’t Harvard University a private university? The gymnasium is therefore its property. If one really believes in private property (and many people don’t) then one must also believe in the right of an owner to exercise absolute control over that property based on whatever criteria he or she may decide. If Harvard University, or the owner of any other gym or swimming pool, decides to ‘discriminate’ against men by disallowing them access during certain times of the day, then they should have every right to do so; and, likewise, if they wanted to ‘discriminate’ against people whose first names start the letter ‘P’, they should have every right to do that too. All property owners — whether home owners or the owners of businesses — should have absolute sovereignty over their property and how it is used. This is on the proviso, of course, that they must accept the social and economic consequences of their decision (and in the case of some of the examples that might be extreme embarrassment, public humiliation and/or boycotting).

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There is a scene in The West Wing (a show I have belatedly grown to absolutely love for its sharp, intelligent and witty dialogue) where Charlie, President Bartlet’s assistant, gives him a gift: it’s a map of the Holy Land, from 1709. Bartlet, admiring the artwork and history behind it, wishes to display the map outside his office. He is told, emphatically, not to do so by his staff.

“It doesn’t recognise Israel”, says Toby. A perplexed Bartlet points out that it was drawn in 1709. “Israel wouldn’t happen for another 250 years,” he adds.

Toby agrees, but still says no to the map. “Some people are going to find it offensive.”

Bartlet asks why. “It doesn’t recognise Israel,” Toby repeats.

It’s an interesting scene. The dialogue is brief, but it says so much.

And it’s sort of strange that I first saw this in the same week our new PM Kevin Rudd made the fortuitous decision to mark and honour Israel’s 60-year occupation of Palestine — sorry, “statehood”. But this weekend, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Alan Ramsey considered the other side of the story.

The legal team defending accused terrorist leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika is running a fascinating defence.

Mr Van de Wiel described the attacks [September 11] as “evil and shocking”.”But don’t forget, America has done many evil things too,” Mr van de Wiel told the court.

He also told the Victorian Supreme Court jury to be cautious about forming the opinion that Osama bin Laden, who it has heard was a hero to the leader of the Melbourne group, was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

“To say this was all orchestrated by Osama bin Laden is also very silly,” he said.

“He has never claimed responsibility.”

Well, that’s not entirely true but, in all likelihood, Mr Van de Wiel was simply acting under the instructions of his client when he brought this stuff up in court.

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Here’s something we missed. One of the members of the now defunct Muslim Community Reference Group (MCRG) argued in the Herald Sun recently that although shariah courts may not be a good idea, consideration should be given to establishing a special court to hear trials involving people from ethnic or religious backgrounds.

It would follow that it is worth looking into training legal practitioners to specialise in civil legal matters in diverse Australian communities, including Muslim ones.

It would be a specialised extension of the mainstream justice system.

The outcomes would have to meet all standards of law.

It would not be a Sharia court — it would be a court designed to deal with people from a range of religious and ethnic backgrounds.

The speech [pdf] given by Tariq Ramadan at the Brisbane conference and a transcript of the question and answer session is now online.

In The Australian today, Dr Ameer Ali says enough is enough and it’s time Australians got to see an alternative to the Muslim fanatics.

“Right now, the moment you say Muslims, people tend to think these guys are fanatics who are always praying and have beards. That’s wrong because the majority of Muslims are not like that. We have to demolish this image - the stereotyping of the Muslims who are currently all seen as religious people.”

To order to combat the destructive stereotypes identified by Dr Ali — beards, praying, etc. — young Muslims might consider attending an exciting new Muslim Leadership Training program in order to attain the necessary skills and experience to operate under the proposed model. Here is a short promotional video for the program:

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Each of it’s 420,000 citizens is worth USD$17 million each. It’s the richest city in the world and yet most people couldn’t find it on a map. Where is it?

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The ABC’s Four Corners screened a documentary called Dangerous Ground last night on young Muslims which, like pretty much every other documentary on young Muslims, focused on the range of social problems and issues that a particular demographic of Muslim “yoof” in Sydney face. As per usual, a warning was issued by one of the Muslim social workers that if “something” isn’t done, “you’re going to see a generation of young people who have so much hatred and so much anger and so much frustration within them - and when that happens you’re on basically dangerous grounds..”

It’s the old ticking time bomb thesis as discussed by Baybers in his seminal post on the subject.

The documentary can be viewed online at the ABC site.