Where are all the Muslims protesting the evil deeds “fraudulently” done in the name of Islam? When are Muslims going to be as serious about peace as they keep claiming they are? Australians have welcomed hard working, integrating immigrants for decades, and centuries. There are no Europeans or Asians etc, Buddhists or Hindus etc complaining and protesting about laws and raids designed to keep patriotic Aussies safe.
Career Politicians
The cold hard truth pollies will never admit to is that because of the handful of Muslim enclaves around various Australian cities, Muslim voters can actually have a big impact not only on the success of one candidate or another, but the success of which major party gets to form government.
Follow this example. If Labor and Liberal divide 80% of any given seat’s votes, and Muslims could offer either party a 15% boost, that would be enough for a comfortable win in nearly every case. While Muslims only account for 2.2% of our total population (as at 2011), the seat of Blaxland was more than 17% Muslim in 2010, and won by a comfortable 12% last year. Therefore alienating that constituency by connecting the very few dots between Islam & terrorism is not good political strategy at first glance. By denying the glaringly obvious, the politicians are clearly less worried about protests than they are about protest votes. One must immediately suspect they are less worried about citizens than they are about careers – theirs.
Actions Speak Louder than Words
We all know that most politicians will tell us whatever is good for them, but what about the self-titled “religion of peace”? Does the balance of available evidence support its claims to sharing Australian values, cherishing multiculturalism, championing tolerance, and promoting peace?
I struggle to recall any protests by even mildly disconcerted Muslims at the conflicting claims by their brethren of the world’s various terrorist organisations. We see photos of Australian Muslim children holding severed heads, but where are the Muslims flocking to the street to decry this “fraudulent” blasphemy of their “peaceful” prophet? We see the occasional representative giving a token speech about not all Muslims are terrorists, that these men were “extremists”. But where is the groundswell of public emotion and anger that a cartoonist can generate? Where is the evidence to stop us concluding Muslims don’t disapprove of terrorists but passionately hate critical cartoonists?
Seriously guys, we do value racial diversity. (Let’s do away with this nonsense about multiculturalism being some kind of infinite good – polygamy, paedophilia, barbaric violence, and misogyny like forced marriages and female genital mutilation are clear proof that not all cultures are all good.) So wherever you’re from, whatever colour your skin – you’re welcome! But not “whatever your creed”. The fact is we like our culture. We think it’s made a great society to live in after a few hundred years building with it, and want more of the same. And so do you.
If you don’t agree our culture and society and values have created a nation and community that’s appealing as your new home – why did you come? We don’t claim to be perfect, but if it’s not at least comparatively better, why else would you leave your home behind? Let’s put the shoe on the other foot. When we’re in a Muslim majority country, can our women wear anything they would in our shopping malls in yours? Can they wear what they would on our beaches on yours? Can they drive? We go out of our way to be sensitive and accommodating of your cultural sensitivities so as to not cause offense when we’re welcomed in your country, and don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask you to share our values as we welcome you here.
The Tolerance Police
Have you ever noticed how hatefully intolerant some people are when they sense you’re disagreeing with an idea they consider precious to themselves or somebody else? They literally choose to take offense, as if you were invalidating their whole reason for personal existence. While we reserve the right to think for ourselves and not be called intolerant, we agree treating individuals equally respectfully is a noble value, and an infinite good.
I disagree that all ideas and cultures and equal. One in particular has a consistent pathology since#632AD of bloody, imperialistic violence and barbarism, extreme hate and intolerance, misogyny and pedophilia clothed in thinnest of religious veneers. This is established beyond reasonable doubt in history and headlines of the last 1400 years.
Such ideas and cultural norms can be objectively, critically analysed and rejected without intentional offense and insult to the identity and value of individuals adhering to or promoting such ideas.
Just because not all or even a majority of individuals in a people group participate in the “extremes” of their identifying ideology, does not mean the entire group may not be included in the opposition to the immorality of their collective ideas and cultures.
For example, it was necessary to emphatically stop and oppose Nazism, even though not all Germans killed Jews and sought to conquer the world to make it Aryan. Was every German a Nazi? Of course not. Were most Germans Nazis? Of course not. Therefore it is a facile point that not all Muslims are terrorists. It was incumbent upon all Germans to oppose the evil of their people group before it became ridiculous and impacted upon others, at which point it became everybody’s responsibility to defend the weak, protect the innocent, and rid the world of the evil ideology that had flourished for too long.
Likewise it is incumbent upon Muslims to not only refrain from donning suicide vests and beheading the infidel, but it is morally and socially imperative that they rise up with one voice and demonstrate at least as enthusiastically against the allegedly fraudulent misuse of Mohammed’s name and the Qur’an as they manage to vociferously and publicly demonstrate against cartoons of him, and anti-terrorism laws and activities. Failure to do so does makes each one as guilty as the innocent bystanders who comforted “extremist” Germans with their silent, tacit approval.
So where I take exception with tolerance police who naively insist “you’re okay, I’m okay, we’re okay” is they encourage a head-in-the-sand abdication of corporate responsibility the likes of which has allowed far too many wars to become necessary. What’s “okay” is having the courageous love to say, “You’re okay, but it’s about time you acknowledged the fatal flaws in your ideology and grew up culturally.” The Middle East is a cesspool of Islam gone to seed, comprehensive proof of its social bondage.
All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing. Consequently these innocent bystanders are complicit in the promotion of evil by their inaction.
What Is Worth Protesting, To Muslims?
Is Islam the Religion of Peace it claims to be?
So when we send in law enforcement officers to conduct a legal and properly warranted search to discover and prevent domestic terrorism, why do Muslims protest that, and not the plethora of terrorists shouting “Allahu Akbar”? When we propose, debate and consult on legislation to further discomfort terrorists, or revoke the welcome for known supporters of terrorists, why do Muslims claim racial profiling? It’s an irrefutable fact that the overwhelming majority (if not entirety) of terrorists are quoting Islam’s sacred texts and initiating the barbaric violence detailed in the biographies and traditions of Islam’s most revered prophet. If they’re no longer valid or relevant, please point out Islam’s Reformation or Renaissance? Please point to the grassroots, public rejection of Muhammad’s teachings and traditions by a majority of Muslims.
Demonstrations don’t seem to be difficult for Muslims to organise quickly. So where is the balance of available evidence? Peace? No.
Let’s compare. If terrorists were slaughtering and dispossessing tens of thousands of Iraqi Muslims, and claiming they were followers of Jesus Christ and members of any one of our traditional denominations, there would be such a public outcry from grassroots Christians in every Western nation that there would be no one left in any doubt what a true Christian valued. There would be massive donations organised to provide aid and relief, and pressure applied to every level of government for diplomatic and military assistance. We would not be silent.
And yet the protests Muslims do organise are saying volumes about the protests they don’t. The silence is deafening.
The fact is that we’ve been lied to. And why wouldn’t they? When our media and politicians have abandoned critical thinking and objective morality for the allegedly infinite goods of tolerance and multiculturalism, Islam just has to smile and say “Trust me, mate!” and we throw open the national borders and Centrelink queues.
The fact is Islam is not a religion of peace. It’s barely even a religion. Around two thirds of the Qur’an provides instruction of how to deal with the kaffir, the non-Muslims. It’s got everything to do with the rest of the world (including Austrlaia), and very little to do with spirituality. It’s a political handbook. It’s a constitution. I’d love to be wrong. We’d all love to have Muslims protesting outside Lakemba Station to condemn the heinous conduct of Islamic State, Jemaah Islamiyah, Boko Haram, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab, Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood, and Hezbollah – all in the name, teachings & traditions of Islam.
Because Islam is not a religion of peace, there will be no Muslims condemning terrorism in the streets tonight, or tomorrow.
