I had a phone call from one of my sons on Wednesday night. He was upset that some of the people he considered his friends had been posting disparaging remarks about Muslims on Facebook. They were the usual stereotypes – Muslims were violent, Muslims wanted to bring in sharia, Muslims didn’t integrate, didn’t share Aussie values and so on.
The majority of Muslims in Australia are, like my son, born here or came as young children, are educated, hold responsible jobs, look after their families and steer clear of any involvement in extremism or crime. Mostly they obey the sharia as well as Australian law. For most there is no conflict between the two systems. The ordinary citizen reading the tabloid press might think differently.
Last week, four men, said to be followers of the strict Wahhabi sect of Islam, allegedly inflicted 40 lashings on a convert for drinking alcohol, a crime under Islamic law. Apparently the police were told the offenders were inflicting a “sharia” punishment.
Hardly anyone checked the facts. The men’s actions were wrong, not only under Australian law but also under Islamic law. Even in the few Muslim countries that apply sharia, the offender should be considered innocent until proven guilty and entitled to a fair trial before being punished. A Muslim caught drinking in Malaysia, for instance, would expect to be brought before the sharia court and, after due process, punished. He would not expect to be set upon in his home by vigilantes.
The second point is that Islamic law requires Muslims who live in non-Muslim countries to obey the law of the land. Muslims may strongly disapprove of acquaintances drinking alcohol but the vast majority wouldn’t take the law into their own hands.
The same rules apply to new Muslim individuals who go around loudly demanding that sharia replace the Australian legal system. Many modern Muslim scholars believe that the objectives of sharia – fairness and social justice – are already being met in the legal systems of most Western countries. We have a globalized multicultural and multi-religious society. It is generally remarkably harmonious. We should not cause division by blaming all the members of one community for the faults of a few individuals.
Jamila Hussain is a senior lecturer in law at the University of Technology, Sydney. She has been actively involved in the Muslim community for many years and has given papers at a number of national and international conferences on the subject of Islam and Muslims in Australian society.
Have you ever been the victim of a generalisation based on your looks? your religion? your race?
Top Comments
So what the many are not actually pulling the trigger, so what they are not all the 'few' the fact is the categorization engine which enables Other to be subject to Islamic/Muslim cultural terror is contained in the core cultural codex which ALL Muslims determine is the source of their ethics and morals - there should be no 'few' systemically being created from any culture to inform terror against Other. The Islamic/Muslim culture produces these terrorists directly from so called moderate ranks it is therefore impossible for them to not be culpable for what occurs.
"Without the ceaseless pulsating heartbeat of our "categorization engine, we would understand nothing around us, could not reason in any form whatever, could not communicate to anyone else, and would have no basis on which to take any action.
....
"every culture constantly, although tacitly, reinforces the impression that words are simply automatic labels that come naturally to mind and that belong intrinsically to things and entities"
SURFACES AND ESSENCES, ANALOGY AS THE FUEL AND FIRE OF THINKING, Douglass Hofstadter, Emmanuel Sander, 2013
"Experience has taught me that all argument is useless with fanatical young Nazi of this kind, and so I say nothing." Norman Hillson “I speak of Germany”, London 1937
Despite the clear evidence in his own writings of the evidence of Other missing from the German streets Norman Hillson continues “the Germans (inclusive of the Nazi) that great unified people are looking for peace and see friendship with Britain as a basis for peace not only for themselves but for everyone else”. Norman Hillson “I speak of Germany”, London 1937
We assure ourselves 'moderates' are in charge for did they not tell us they were such, things could be worse?
“In fact, if the extremist’s elements had prevailed. I have not the least doubt that disruption would have been more drastic and that we should have real reason by now to fear German aggression from both a military as well as political point of view.” Norman Hillson “I speak of Germany”, London 1937
“No culture has a right to ask such a systemic tragic price of Other cultures in the same space. When will this stop when we have run out of resources or run out of Other who can be murdered in their homes, in their streets, in their cafes, in their .....?
It is not a matter of 'educating' citizens as to their responsibilities and behaviours regards each other as individuals in Democracies which necessarily contain many cultures due to our globalized world, it is a matter of reviewing what a cultures responsibilities and behaviours regards each other culture in their same space have to be and abide by for any culture to be accepted to and remain in a Democratic multicultural space.”
Gunman who shot dead NSW police employee was radicalised (Muslim) youth, ABC 3-10-2015
http://www.abc.net.au/news/...
Why is it any other culture involved in violence against Other has a descriptor of the culture they come from before the noun ‘youth’ yet for the Muslim culture this is being deleted as if the violence/terror appeared miraculously from no ideological cultural base?
This is dishonestly inferring a generic (nonspecific) act which if it were the case every culture would have been in front of the police headquarters in Sydney's west shooting down police as they came out – Christians, Armenians, Aborigines, Greeks, English, Croatian, Atheists, Communists, Liberals, Socialists,…..? They are not therefore the threat comes directly from the Muslim culture from whence it continues to originate from Muslim youth and as we know Muslim adults which it has to for such cultural derived terror to exist at all.
"A police source said there had been increased "chatter" detected in the past week relating to a possible attack on the Parramatta headquarters."
Parramatta shooting: increased 'chatter' before fatal attack, SMH, Nick Ralston, Kate Aubusson, Ava Benny-Morrison, October 2, 2015
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/p...
Then how come a worker has been put in harm’s way - where was the overt covert security - forewarned supposedly means forearmed?
Was the reason in anyway to do with the fact such a clear stance of readiness would offend political sensitivities? In this case explain this to the grieving relatives we allowed your son to be killed because we did not want to upset Muslim communities the source of the terror nor draw attention to our current flawed multicultural paradigm which clearly includes a culture which contains a genocide construct
When will it become clear you allow a culture with a genocide construct of Other in the same space as your own in time you will suffer the consequences the 'few' that will not may carry out the cultures designed anti-other behaviour. Remove the cultures codex genocide construct of Other or continue to have terror in your streets.
Not one victim is a price worth paying for any culture informing genocide against Other in our space. This culture removes any possibility of such behaviour being reflected by its Islamic/Muslim cultural codex construct of Other or they remove themselves to another space outside our own or be removed.
It is not worth the tragic loss of life let alone the 'trillion dollars or more which could have been spent upon enabling a flourishing life rather than building walls against such a culture which are wasted for they are already inside them thanks to our inept cultural gatekeepers. The results lie bleeding in our streets.
"We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil,"
Obama October 2015
And who will be discovered as supplying the genocide construct of Other which causes these unlawful flows of weapons, redirection of vast resources wasted simply to protect ourselves from another culture etc. in major part in the first place? Yes you guessed it the Islamic/Muslim construct of Other.
Please Explain: Nazi (Hitler-Mein Kampf) & Muslim (Mohammed-Quran) Cultural Codex Construct of Other. Why it is One Is and One Is-Not. Yet both = "I don't mean participated, I mean observed."
http://citizensfirstasnau.b...
No culture has a right to ask such a systemic tragic price of Other cultures in the same space. When will this stop when we have run out of resources or run out of Other who can be murdered in their homes, in their streets, in their cafes, in their .....?
It is not a matter of 'educating' citizens as to their responsibilities and behaviours regards each other as individuals in Democracies which necessarily contain many cultures due to our globalized world, it is a matter of reviewing what a cultures responsibilities and behaviours regards each other culture in their same space have to be and abide by for any culture to be accepted to or remain in a Democratic multicultural space.
No victim due to a cultures systemic behaviour derived from its construct of Other delivered by the inevitable 'few' can be allowed. Such a culture proven to inform such systemic violence as the Islamic/Muslim culture must be removed from the Public Square.
This argument is not about the impossibility of cultures living in the same space it never has been. Simply if the price of one Other victim is worth it. I do not believe it is-not one - but you believe it is worth in time vastly more.
http://citizensfirstasnau.b...
I do not have a problem with Muslims.
I have a problem with some Muslim ideas, just as I have a problem with Christian and Jewish ideas. However, I understand that not all people follow what their religion (and their loudest religious leaders) say with absolute conviction.
I have met plenty of Muslims who have no desire to introduce sharia law into Australia.
I have met Christians who are for gay marriage.
etc. etc.
I think it is silly to judge someone before you know what they stand for, or how they interpret their beliefs.
I have been under fire plenty of times for being atheist. I have been told I am heartless, that I have no morality, and that I don't have the emotional intelligence to imagine there is something else out there. Riiiight.
I would hate for someone to think that my being atheist reflects on my entirety as a person.
Of course, our beliefs influence who we are and how we live our lives, but there is so much more to everyone else than that alone.
I have met some of the kindest Muslims, and yet they are sometimes compared to terrorists.
And I have met some of the nastiest, hypocritical Christians who are believed to be a religion all about 'love'.
I believe individual experiences have infinite more sway over a person than religion does. And you can't determine that as quickly as noticing their headscarf, their kippah or the cross around their neck.