NSW’s Camden Council have decided to reject the application to build an Islamic school in the area on “planning grounds“. The locals have been going to some lengths to make sure nobody gets the wrong idea and thinks that all this was motivated by racism or anti-Muslim bigotry. AFP reports:
Resident Kate McCulloch, who attended Tuesday night’s meeting in a wide-brimmed bush hat wrapped with an Australian flag, said Muslims were not welcome in the semi-rural area.
“We just don’t want Muslim people in Camden,” she told reporters after the meeting.
“We don’t want them not only here, we don’t want them in Australia. They’re an oppressive society, they’re a dictatorship.”
Apparently, Ms McCulloch believes that wearing a ridiculous hat with an Australian flag stapled to it makes her qualified to discuss who Australians do and do not want in this country.
One male resident expressed concerns Muslims would take over the area if the school was approved.
“My kids can’t read Islamic, how are they going to go to that school, it’s all crap,” the man told ABC radio.
“The next thing there’ll be a mosque, then there’ll be the little town that comes with it. It’s not appropriate for the area at all and common sense has prevailed.”
His kids can’t read Islamic? If he thinks that Muslims write in “Islamic” and goes on national television to complain about it, then perhaps this is the least of the social challenges to be faced by his children.
He is however, quite rightly, concerned that if a Muslim school opens in Camden, their idyllic, rural lifestyle might be threatened and the town may end up resembling, let’s say, the City of Canterbury (home to Lakemba); a community with a large Muslim population, proliferation of mosques and halal food outlets and also a disturbingly lower rate of domestic violence, sexual assault, indecent assault, and pornography production/consumption than lovely Camden. As Ms McCulloch told The Age:
“The ones that come here oppress our society, they take our welfare and they don’t want to accept our way of life…”
43 comments ↓
There are so many things to love about these videos… But I have to say, the funniest was hearing the woman wearing the Australia hat saying ‘Australia’. She sounds like she’s choking on something — Austraya.
This is Austraya!
Vote Geof Leonard for Mayor of Camden.
Ms McCulloch claims Muslims are a dictatorship. Perhaps she has attended AFIC meetings. Or maybe she has friends in one or more of the three NSW Islamic councils.
http://muslimvillage.com/forum.....opic=42710
No offense but a church was not built in Peshawar on the same grounds too. And a Ahmadi mosque was burnt by mobs in Indonesia last month. So by what logic can Camden’s residents be demonized when we have people like that within our own midst?
It takes two to tango, does it not?
In short, Miss McCulloch is saying that if a Camdenese woman is going to be raped, then she must be raped by a white man.
The vast majority of the original submissions sent to Camden Council objected to the school on religious grounds. Here are excerpts from some of them.
Danial,
No one’s arguing that it’s okay when it happens elsewhere.
If any of the arsonists “in our midst” visit Austrolabe, please speak up and explain yourselves.
I agree with the bald man with the facial hair. I, nor any member of my family, knows how to read Islamic either. The school is clearly useless and inappropriate.
This is all jolly good fun, but let’s keep in mind that the opinions of amusing rednecks and the decision to not allow the school are two entirely different things.
Correction: ‘Neither I, nor any member …’
I’m a Muslim and I cannot read Islamic. What is it?
*yawn* Substitute ‘Arabic’ for ‘Islamic’ and there’s no problem. Given that Muslims are supposed to be able to (at least) understand Arabic, no matter what their mother tongue, it’s not too bad a mistake to call Arabic ‘Islamic’.
[…] for the nice lady Kate McCulloch: “We just don’t want Muslim people in Camden,” she told reporters after the […]
Ratbags on all sides (it’s distressing that there are even ’sides’, really) - ask Muslims to describe their ideal society. Most of the “traditional” Muslims would say that it’s one with as few kaffirs as possible.
antish, you’re full of crap. I know quite a few traditional Muslims and not one describes their view of ideal society as one with few non-Muslims.
Lay off the hyperbole there.
Clearly Antish, you’ve never actually posed that question to anyone with even a modicum of ‘traditional’ Islamic belief, as you’d have come away with a very different conclusion to the one you’ve stated. One only has to give the example of the sizeable Christian and Jewish communities in Theocratic Iran to illustrate the erroneous nature of your belief.
Or look at the Fatimids in Egypt or al-Andalus where Jews and Christians enjoyed a multitude of rights and tolerance.
Not to mention the Jews in Saudi Arabia! Oh, hold on…
Amir
The vast majority of the original submissions sent to Camden Council objected to the school on religious grounds.
1. Firstly, in Xian/Western understanding of the term, Islam is at the very least equally a “politically ideology” as a “religion.” In fact, I would argue Islam is first and foremost a political and IMPERIAL ideology and project. Which leads to the next point.
2. To “speak Islamic” is to speak Arabic. There is no denying this. Muslims claim The Koran is the unexpurgated word of Allah. All the theological concepts are Arabic, and those kids sitting in madrasas around the globe banging their little heads up and down for hours every day are not memorising Baa Baa Black Sheep in Norwegian or Zulu.
Antish, how many “traditional” Muslims do you know?
As to the Jewish population in Saudi, what has that sect got to do with traditional Islam? Stop repeating their bogus propaganda about following the salaf saliheen {that’s a bit of Islamic guess} as if it has any bearing on reality. Imam Abu Hanifa was a tabi tabieen and they reject so many of his rulings as baseless opinion.
John, Catholicism is also a political ideology. If it weren’t, why is there such a thing as the Vatican state? And in Orthodox Christianity, there is no separation of church and state and historically never has been. Indeed, it was an Ottoman Prime Minister Sokolov Pasha who established the rules that to this day govern the Serbian Orthodox Church (admittedly to entrench the power of his brother who happened to be the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch).
In the 20th century, the most influential texts of modern (or should that read post-modern?) political Islamism were written in Farsi, Urdu and other non-Arabic languages. Further, some 85% of Muslims don’t speak Arabic as their first language.
In Australia, the vast majority of Muslims (well over 50%) were born in Australia and speak English as their first language.
It might be an idea, John, if you didn’t take the stuff you read in Quadrant magazine too seriously. I still subscribe, but reading it destroys brain cells.
I know all the stuff about the tolerance of kaffirs (to a very limited exent) in a Caliphate, but nevertheless, is your ideal society one in which Muslims are a minority? No. How much of a majority would you prefer? A bloody big one.
Pity about her choice of attire .. the woman looks like a redneck and it did nothing to help her cause because she has a valid point. I was never a fan of Pauline Hanson either .. but now in hindsight, she was ahead of her time. Pity they are the only brave ones to speak up for what a lot of us think!
I’ve lived in London for the past couple of years, and feel i’m living amongst where Australia is heading if they keep Mulsims away from assimiliating to mainstream Australia. I have no problem of them being in Aus but as long as they’re not segregated like they wish to be. It’s not mentioned in the UK press but it’s a serious problem here. However I really do feel for those genuine Muslims who are true to their beliefs and are dominated by an overwhelming percentage of extreme fundamentalists who destroy any chance of world peace.
Way above Kate McCulloch’s head but someone needs to address this without using some rubbish “planning process problem” excuse for denying the development application.
The world is a mess. I have no solution, just an opinion.
Also out of interest .. why are the ones who speak out always women?? Men dominate politics no question about it, where is your courage? Pathetic really.
Steph .. true blue Aussie unfortunate to be living in London.
I think the question of majority or minority is rather irrelevant. For the greater part of the Caliphate’s history, large chunks of territory were majority ‘Kafir’. Ummayad Spain, a its height, only had one third of the population professing Islam. 800 years of rule, mind you. For the majority of Ummayad and Abbasid rule in Syria and Palestine, these areas were majority Christian, only converting in sizeable amounts after their Christian brethren butchered them during the Crusades.
The more important thing is the freedom of Muslims to practice ALL aspects of their faith without censure, interference and hostile opposition. In the medieval world, this required political control of the territory in question, the loss of political control meant losing the ability to practice freely. In the modern world, this is not an issue. Allowing communities to interact based on their merits is all that is needed.
Irfan
I am afraid your responses rise to liitle more than tendentious and tu quoque ‘bait and switching.’ Your misunderstood history of Xianity and sprinkle of demographic trends are irrelevant.
As with the rest of your cyber-jihad, your response confirms the popular meaning of taqiyya. You will need to lift your rhetorical game out of Abu Trad’s gutter. Perhaps some lessons from the Skippy chick in the I Dream of Jeannie costume on Salam Cafe might be able to give you some tips.
Playing with words - “The more important thing is the freedom of Muslims to practice ALL aspects of their faith without censure, interference and hostile opposition”. And one aspect of that faith is to make every country either pay the kaffir tax or live under Sharia. Is that not correct? Can someone say that they don’t want that yet still claim to be a Muslim?
John, taqqiya is a Shi’ite belief you numbskull.
antish, as Muslims we are required under Islamic law to obey the laws of the land, so as long as we are not having our rights taken away completely, we are fine just the way it is.
I’m an American Muslim and I feel that America is more Islamic than any Muslim nation on Earth. How about that?
Danial, good for you, and I agree that many US Muslims seem to take a much more politically realistic view of the world than others. However plenty of Muslims argue strenuously that Allah commands them to impliment Sharia everywhere, and it’s a dim (very dim, I agree) understanding of that which gives oxygen to xenophobes in Camden and elsewhere.
If Muslims want shariah law then provided they only try to promote it within the law and democratically then what is the problem? Do you think our system is so weak that it can’t deal with alternative points of view?
Being unable to read Antish - “In the medieval world, this required political control of the territory in question, the loss of political control meant losing the ability to practice freely. In the modern world, this is not an issue.”
Firstly, how does one levy a tax without political control Antish? Secondly, everything in Islam does not boil down to jizya and jihad. If you didn’t already know, the politics is ancillary to the religion.
Care to explain ” the politics is ancillary to the religion” in detail? Do you mean that you’re prepared to drop the political (ie, the implementation of Sharia everywhere in the world, as per the Handbook’s instructions)?
“how does one levy a tax without political control Antish? ”
You can’t, of course. Which is why Islam demands political control.
This decision weighs so heavy on my heart.
My daughter goes to a kindergarten attached to an Islamic school and I’m very happy with what she is taught (which is in English). Islamic schools in Australia essentially teach the same curriculae as every other school but offer Arabic and Islamic studies and provide a welcome learning environment for Muslims (such as the provision of halal food, celebration of Islamic holy days etc.). This is no different than religious schools for Jews, Catholics, Protestants or any other religious group that has a school.
Furthermore, the research that we are doing on Muslims in Australia demonstrates that where Muslims are able to build support infrastructure such as mosques and schools, this facilitates their sense of welcome and acceptance into the society and *they themselves* say it contributes to their ability to contribute back to Australian society.
Actually, apologies Eudamonion. I thnk I see what you’re getting at. You want no one set of laws to apply to (say) Australia, but for any group to have the right to self-govern? Very interesting but surely not practical.
Umm Yasmin, by all means complain about the bigots in Camden but don’t confuse that with the council’s decision. It was based on planning grounds.
If at first you don’t succeed… resort to blackmail:
http://www.newkerala.com/one.p.....p;id=66356
I think a simple test would be for someone to apply to open a gay and lesbian drop-in centre next to the Lakemba mosque. That should separate the men from the “racists”.
Very balanced piece of reporting, though.
I didn’t know homosexuals constituted a race, GMan.
Well that’s because they’re not, and neither is Islam. My point was that not wanting an Islamic school in your neighbourhood may well be a result of prejudice and ignorance, but all prejudice is not racism and the misuse of the term just devalues its meaning.
danial
John, taqqiya is a Shi’ite belief you numbskull
AS your comment has nothing to do with what I have posted, I do not know why you have addressed it to me. Do you?
John: He’s responding to your comment #26.
From youtube to tv: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/video.htm
[…] Camden Council rejects Islamic school […]
As an Aussie I wouldve loved to have been there to challenge the redneck crowds group thinking, slavish attitude. God theres nothing worse than hearing their brainless quasi anthem “aussie aussie aussie oink oink oink” Geeze I hate that slogan and wish whoever made it up to get on the next boat and sail to Israel where a qassam rocket may hit em. Down with redneck idiots.
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