95 thoughts on “Monday message board”

  1. Are we only justifiably concerned with the evil acts (killings, intimidation) that terrorists commit or should we also be concerned with the crazy ideas that underlie the actions of these fanatics? Convention says the former but I think it is also the latter – the ideology is part of the problem. After all if it is true that ‘Jews are putting poison in the bananas’ distributed to Muslim kids at the Werribee Islamic College in Melbourne, as claimed by a visiting Iman, then we should indeed agree withy this visitor and support drastic actions against Jews.

    And is it harmless that, as one of their former teachers claim, the ‘favorite hero’ of most of the kids at the school is Osama bin Laden? Should we ignor this and only be concerned if terrorist acts are being committed?

    The WIC cited receives $3 million annually in public funding part of the $32 million the Federal Government allocates to such schools in Victoria each year according to Saturday’s Age newspaper. Already cries have gone up to preserve this funding less all control be lost over the conduct of such education. It’s a hostage situation and Australia’s public purse is being blackmailed.

    Australians supposedly live in a multi-cultural society where no ideology/religion can be criticized — unless perhaps it is Anglo-Saxon in origin (e.g. evangelicalism) when it is fair game. Indeed the attitude seems to be: Let’s not get ‘paranoid’ and extreme by acting now on the basis of professed beliefs – instead let’s wait until violent actions have occurred and then attack those actions. There is then no case for ceasing to provide state sponsorship to promote an ideology that despises our way of life, our political and religious values.

    We have been forced into a corner by a foolish policy of blind tolerance of ideological intolerance – arguing against this craziness is portrayed as being shrill and illiberal. And it is — if you believe that it is only actions not words that are doing the damage.

  2. I oppose all state sponsorship of religious institutions. All Australian political parties are guilty of using the taxes that I pay to bribe adherents of various religions. And, from my reading of it, things are going to get worse as the evangelicals and assorted snake-handlers learn how to clamp their milk teeth firmly on to the public teat.

    As I say, I condemn this subsidisation, but I can understand its motivation as a product of a quest for electoral support.

    Having made the decision, it is difficult for state authorities now to limit support to one or another faith on the basis of their beliefs. It may be possible to limit it on the basis of behaviour or curriculum. But I doubt the efficacy of such a policy anyway. As it is wisely observed: “the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians”. This observation is no less true for Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists or any others.

    For those who may enjoy an historical perspective on these debates, let me recommend Margaret Pawsey, “The Popish plot : culture clashes in Victoria 1860-1863”. The Melbourne “Age” ran a campaign of vilification of Irish Catholics and their supposed inadequacy as citizens of a democracy in terms almost identical to those enunciated today about Muslims.

    Eventually, most people got over it. Now we have the term “Anglo-Celtic”. In 1863, this term would have been guffawed at as a contradiction in terms.

    The last thing a polity that has claims to civility needs is anything like the panic-stricken and stupid laws passed in Italy over the weekend banning the burka.

    The effect of that law will be either an indeterminate number of Muslim girls locked up in gaol (the blood of martyrs) or a law that makes an ass of itself by its non-application.

  3. “he last thing a polity that has claims to civility needs is anything like the panic-stricken and stupid laws passed in Italy over the weekend banning the burka.”

    As I understand it Katz the law was to forbid going about in public with your face covered. It would apply equally to burkhas and balaklavas and was designed for public safety purposes, albeit that it would discriminate against burkha wearers. Tough tits when I am forced to wear a motorcycle helmet when riding my motorcycle, but you are not when driving your car, even though that would reduce your risk of brain injury. Society does not want me to wear my full-face helmet inside banks and other places for obvious safety reasons. Should Sikhs have a helmet exemption because of their faith? At what stage does social good overrule private belief? That’s the $64000 question being asked in the West now, with this and Harry’s question about education. The quest for true absolute values that override all other relative ones. That’s why multiculturalism is dead now. Unfortunately for those who clung to a dying philosophy, they have to look to which culture is best nowadays. Their Dreamtime separatism just aint cutting it anymore. Yes we’ll all argue about the margins of what makes the ultimate good society, but in the meantime we have to agree on what’s best practice. Unfortunately for some, that means acknowledging that some values/cultures are better than others and if you can’t assimilate or integrate into those values, you should congregate with your own kind elsewhere. The best values are easiest to determine of course- You look for the direction of free feet.

  5. I have no argument with Observa over destination, i.e., to undermine cultural separatism. As John Lennon said: “Imagine no religion”. I have a personal ambition of ridiculing all religion to death. I suspect that I won’t achieve my ambition, but I enjoy the work.

    I grit my teeth and comply with the bike helmet law. I regard wearing my bike helmet as a small intrusion into my freedom of action and measure its consequences as positive, both for myself and for the public purse if the helmet keeps me out of a paraplegic ward for the rest of my life.

    On the supposed public safety aspect of face covering, I’ll be convinced about that rationale when the Italian police patrol the ski slopes with the same dedication as the streets of Milan.

    In the meantime, sneaking discriminatory policies designed to persecute individuals whose “cultural worth” is found wanting is just plain stupid. The law of the land is the ultimate authority. The law of the land owes a duty of care to its own majesty.

    And majesty and hidden agendas are contradictory.

  7. Observa’s link relates to Mugabe’s tyranny in Zimbabwe.

    It’s connection with the present discussion is quite unclear.

  9. Harry, the only true test of whether you favour freedom of speech is whether you support freedom of speech that you find abhorrent.

    That doesn’t mean that you have to sit back and wait for violent actions to occur. The authorities should be monitoring individuals and organisations who pose serious risks, but shutting them up and shutting them down is wrong in in principle and counterproductive.

  10. Katz Says: August 1st, 2005 at 10:21 am

    The last thing a polity that has claims to civility needs is anything like the panic-stricken and stupid laws passed in Italy over the weekend banning the burka.

    In the name of some delusive Left “equity-and-diversity” dream we have an outspoken Wet arguing for official tolerance of the sectarian practice of male patriarchs bagging and dragging their spouses around in public. This is a diagnostic of the Wet’s dis-eased political ideology.

    In fact the first thing that spokesmen for Western political cultures need to do is to re-establish some common standards of value in civil practice, based on the West’s civilizational tradition. This means restoring, not revoking, our civil traditions esp the minimum respect for women. Before we have liberty and equality we must have a civilised community.

    The practice of wearing burkas in public is a symptom of sectarian barbarism – patriarchal sexism in the extreme. Banning their public usage is being civilized.

    Hooray for Italy, foundational culture of Western civilization, which knows a reactionary and divisive social practice when it sees it and has always revered women. Likewise hooray for France, foundational culture for the Enlightenment, which has also taken official steps to constrain sectarianism in the public square.

    Idiotic multiculturalists have, over the past generation, been hell-bent on destroying the West’s communal tradition – based on some shared lingua, law and lore. In doing so they have undermined the social bonds that undergird modern libertarian and egalitarian institutions. Now we are reaping the terrorist harvest of this awful seed. This is the “liberal death wish” that some Italians want to renounce.

    For those who may enjoy an historical perspective on these debates, let me recommend Margaret Pawsey, “The Popish plot : culture clashes in Victoria 1860-1863�. The Melbourne “Age� ran a campaign of vilification of Irish Catholics and their supposed inadequacy as citizens of a democracy in terms almost identical to those enunciated today about Muslims.

    Raking over the dying embers of the “Irish question” is tossing a green herring into the debate. The Irish were, after all, Christian and Caucasian so were always going to have an easier path to integration in a Christian and Caucasian society than non-Christians and non-Caucasians.

    Even so, Irish sectarianism was not something to brag about, as the extended duration of the troubles attests. Irish convicts did, after all, stage a rebellion in this colony.

    But at least the Irish had a good excuse for being discontented, being citizens of a colonized nation who were compelled to come here. Whereas modern ethnic immigrants leave their sovereign nations of their own free will.

    I oppose all state sponsorship of religious institutions. All Australian political parties are guilty of using the taxes that I pay to bribe adherents of various religions.

    Katz is clueless about the best mode for integrating disparate identities into a national community. Nationalism dilutes sectarianism. Whitlam finally sank Irish sectarianism in this nation by effectively nationalising the Irish Catholic school system. The micks have never looked back, as those familiar with the author of this blog must be aware.

    If prospective settlers do not like modern Western civilised values they are free to not come here. Those immigrants who have difficulty with integrating into our civil tradition should be encouraged to do so, not confused by multi-culti idiocy. Those who point blank flout integration should be shown the door.

    Multiculturalism, in its hard-core sectarian form, is dead as a philosophy of immigrant settlement. Time to bury it before the rot sets in.

  12. “Observa’s link relates to Mugabe’s tyranny in Zimbabwe.
    It’s connection with the present discussion is quite unclear.”

    Well Katz, any discussion of the ‘best’ practising values of the good society is by its nature very broad. The West has adopted private property rights(our Torrens Title land system), with due compensation for confiscation by the state. Inherent in that notion is that any adult individual has that right, rather than simply the church, or a particular racial or inherited royal blood line. Ownership by meritocracy if you like. Mugabe and Co are hardly upholding that tradition here, although there can be some historical injustices-Palestine, Terra Nullius here or Colonialism in the third world. At some stage you have to accept one law for all, which is as problematic for traditional tribal law enclaves in Aust, as it is for Sharia Law in Aceh for Indonesia. Dreamtime separatist rights, can disappear up its fundamental orifice, if its ultimate logical conclusion, becomes support for the Prince Leonards and their Hutt River Provinces. Welcome to the ultimate logical end game of multiculturalism. Libertarians would applaud copiously.

  13. A groundbreaking statement by Islamic scholars from all eight schools of Islamic jurisprudence (including Shi’ites) was published on 6 July at the close of a conference convened by King Abdullah II of Jordan. The statement makes it clear that acts of violence are contrary to Islam, and that fatwas can only be issued by representatives of recognised Islamic schools, not by the Osama Bin Ladens and their like.

    This is a very important event, yet has received next to no coverage in the Western media.

  14. Gotta say that Jack never lets consistency get in the way of an opportunity to heap a bit of abuse.

    1. “The practice of wearing burkas in public is a symptom of sectarian barbarism – patriarchal sexism in the extreme. Banning their public usage is being civilized.”

    Some women like wearing burkas. No accounting for taste, I know. But are they going to get a special dispensation from Italian authorities?

    2. “Raking over the dying embers of the “Irish questionâ€? is tossing a green herring into the debate. The Irish were, after all, Christian and Caucasian so were always going to have an easier path to integration in a Christian and Caucasian society than non-Christians and non-Caucasians.

    “Even so, Irish sectarianism was not something to brag about, as the extended duration of the troubles attests. Irish convicts did, after all, stage a rebellion in this colony.”

    Not hard to spot the problem with this piece of chopped logic. The fact that the Irish did mount, for Jack’s information, more than one rebellion in Australia, undermines his whole point about my mention ofthe Irish being a “green herring”. And, additionally, the majority of Irish in Australia by 1860 weren’t transportees or their offspring. They were free, often assisted, migrants. This is certainly the case in Victoria, which unlike NSW Tas and Qld, was blessedly free of convicts. Yet it was in Victoria that the most rampant case of ethnic vilification against the Irish took place. Go figure Jack.

    3. “Katz is clueless about the best mode for integrating disparate identities into a national community. Nationalism dilutes sectarianism. Whitlam finally sank Irish sectarianism in this nation by effectively nationalising the Irish Catholic school system. The micks have never looked back, as those familiar with the author of this blog must be aware.”

    JQ can best speak for himself here. But if this policy of cultural bribery softened the Irish problem, why wouldn’t it do the same with the Islamic problem? (I want to remind Jack that I oppose public funds being used for either project. It’s a bit to WET for my liking.)

    Remember the recent genesis of “Anglo-Celtic”? If we play our cards right, the Christian-Muslim community may one day identify themselves as the “Monotheists”.

  16. Mark,
    It’s a very good development and to be applauded. More generally mainstream Islam needs a peak body in order to show its moderate and coherent face to believers and non-believers alike. Without that, we’ll probably take our cue from the noisy minority. The question is- What fatwahs has this august body produced so far? Anything condemning Iran hanging teenagers for homosexual acts? Do the 8 schools of Islamic jurisprudence have a policy on this?

  18. Is it too fanciful to suppose that terrorism might be stopped in its tracks by dialogue?

    Dialogue is an essential and authentic ingredient of the democratic process, more so in a multi-cultural society. Democratic process presupposes the ability to recognize, appreciate and deal with differences. Tolerance presupposes understanding, or it might simply be ignorance and indifference, but tolerance and understanding are distinct, so understanding does not presuppose tolerance. Multi-culturalism, I take to embody the idea, we can live together as one society in positive, mutual respect.

    Public education is a key ingredient in building the foundation for a coherent and sustainable multi-cultural society. A society in which differences can be understood and political outcomes and social grievances can be negotiated. One of the strongest reasons for supporting public education is that it provides the opportunity to mix with people from different social classes, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. In my experience the social class aspects of the experience are more incomprehensible than the ethnic, cultural and religious variables. Low status and humiliation are far more intractable than mere skin color, or religious rituals and beliefs.

    We may choose no longer to listen to a narrative of differences and a shared experience other than through the mass media, governed by the exigencies of profit, more than social responsibility to convey a mass discussion, including social class and cultural difference. The Sun headline referring to “the Bastards� provides an example of one form of mass media whose message may resonate and be denoted differentially by distinct readerships, sometimes adding to an increasing sense of alienation. To reject the media, as we might as it rejects us, our narrative can be cut off from the isolated and differentiated, and by one definition we become extremists served by niche media that communication technology makes possible. The terrorist suspects associated with the attempted London bombing of the 21/7 watched a video of the Palestinians suffering as the result of Israeli actions. The Iraqi invasion is mere grist to the mill of Muslim persecution by the Crusaders and Zionists.

    As an atheist I do not readily and intuitively understand why people would revert to a primary identification with a religion, but no doubt that can be understood, even if it is outside of my experience. One reason perhaps is that atheists do not wear distinctive clothing or other social identifiers, and do not have recourse to distinguishing rituals. Furthermore as atheists, like the Quakers, who were the precursors, we are the descendants of the Enlightenment, even as we do not fully understand that historical influence on who we think we are.

    Atheists exist as outsiders in a Christian topography. Yet they are explicable, and differentiated as Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians. Some of us have not yet understood the difference be between Sunni and Shiite, other than they are somehow Muslims. So this dialogue abounds in difficulty, in which good will is assumed but not anchored in assurance, as it might otherwise be other than in the presence of a meta-language of “bastards� and “evil ideologies�. We hear different Islamic or Islamist voices, but we cannot easily locate them in a non-hierarchical monolith in which strangely to our historically conditioned assumptions there is a unity of the secular and the religious.

    The ingredients of dialogue may be more difficult than we suppose, going beyond drills and skills, and this recognition becomes important if dialogue is to be a method to stop terrorism. But it is hoped that dialogue can remove us from a vicious cycle of violence across different social levels. While I think there is much to be said for Jonathon Glover’s article in The Guardian, “Dialogue is the only way to end this cycle of violence�, the great and the good will always agree to disagree, if not to agree, but I wonder whether this process could have reached the foot soldiers of the 7/7 London bombings, much less those that unsuccessfully followed them two weeks later.

  19. [As far as sectarianism and schooling go in Australia, I’m probably wrong but it is my recollection that the Catholic Education Office still receives separate funding from the taxpayer which is historical protection not received by the protestant (& other) schools. I also thought that in arguments over state funding of schools, the CEO is rarely, unless directly specified, included in the “independent ” schools category, so the to or for arguments are financially skewed by not taking appropriate notice of public funding for catholic schools and denominationally skewed by concentrating only on anglican schools as recipients of govt largesse.]

    … below, bits courtesy of the Jakarta Post yesterday…its just great that people spend so much time inventing things to make others feel bad or illegal.

    MUI issues 11 fatwa

    The state-sanctioned Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued a fatwa on Thursday outlawing liberal Islamic thoughts.

    Fatwa Commission chairman Ma’ruf Amin said it was issued apparently in reaction to the activities of two progressive groups — the Liberal Islam Network (JIL) and the Muhammadiyah Youth Intellectuals Network (JIMM).
    “All of their teachings are deviant … No one should adhere to their beliefs,” Ma’ruf told The Jakarta Post. “Their principles are dangerous and misleading, because they believe in only what they think is right and use pure rationale as justification.” Proponents of liberal Islam use rational interpretations of Islamic texts as opposed to literal meanings, view religious truth as a relative concept and believe in the separation of religion and state.

    “The views that are developing in Europe and America are heretical and not allowed here,” he said. “However, we must not counter them with violence, but with logical arguments.”

    The fatwa, which was read out on the third day of the congress without any resistance from over 300 participants, stated that Islamic interpretations based on liberalism, secularism and pluralism “contradict Islamic teachings”.

    The fatwa defines liberal Islam as interpreting Islamic texts using pure rationale to selectively accept only certain religious doctrines. “For example, they (liberals) say that a man cannot have more than one wife because it is gender bias, when in fact polygamy is allowed by Islam, as long as the husband can be fair,” said Ma’ruf.

    Secularism by definition, according to the edict, is the belief that the role of religion should be limited to an individual’s relationship with God and that society should be guided by social conventions. The fatwa outlaws pluralism that views all religions as being equally valid and having relative truths.

    “Pluralism in that sense is haram (forbidden under Islamic law), because it justifies other religions,” Maruf said, adding that people should be allowed to claim that their religion is the true one and that other faiths are wrong.
    However, he stressed that the council accepted the fact that Indonesia was home to different religions and that their followers could live side by side.
    “Plurality in the sense that people believe in different religions is allowed,” Ma’ruf explained. “As such, we have to respect each other and coexist peacefully.”

    The council also issued a fatwa, reaffirming its 1980 ban on marriages between people of different faiths.

    The MUI also banned interfaith prayers, unless they are led by a Muslim. Other edicts issued included those forbidding women from leading prayers when men are in attendance.

  21. The law of the land is the ultimate authority. The law of the land owes a duty of care to its own majesty.

    That’s a fairly orthodox fascist statement, Observa. The State (as revealed to the people through the law) is of supreme importance, and the people must prostrate themselves before it.

  22. “Pluralism in that sense is haram (forbidden under Islamic law), because it justifies other religions,� Maruf said, adding that people should be allowed to claim that their religion is the true one and that other faiths are wrong.
    However, he stressed that the council accepted the fact that Indonesia was home to different religions and that their followers could live side by side.
    “Plurality in the sense that people believe in different religions is allowed,� Ma’ruf explained. “As such, we have to respect each other and coexist peacefully.�

    The council also issued a fatwa, reaffirming its 1980 ban on marriages between people of different faiths.

    The MUI also banned interfaith prayers, unless they are led by a Muslim. Other edicts issued included those forbidding women from leading prayers when men are in attendance.

    Cardinal Ratzinger declared that only the Catholic faith is the true faith and all other religions are “deficient”.

    The Catholic Church has regularly sanctioned marriages between Catholics and those of other Christian denominations, only allows them under sufference, and obliges the children of the marriage to be brought up as Catholics.

    Cardinal Ratzinger has also written on pluralism as a danger to democracy and civilisation.

    Catholics are not permitted to take communion in other churches (aside from Orthodox ones), and nor are non-Catholics allowed to take communion at a Catholic Mass.

    The Catholic Church prohibits women from being priests, arguing that they are incapable of receiving the sacrament of ordination.

    Just saying…

  23. observa, that’s deplorable. As to whether it would be accepted by all Islamic schools, I doubt it. But you need to research these questions rather than jump to conclusions.

    I hope you would join me in equally condemning Christian churches which justify hate killings of young gay men in the US.

  24. Mark,
    I note that these two Iranian teenagers were sentenced to death by Court 19. I have jumped to conclusion that Iranian Courts 1-18 and 20-whatever are doing likewise, although granted this may be a leap of illogical faith on my part. Individual acts of atrocity aside, which neither God nor man seem able to prevent completely, can you identify any Western, liberal Judeo-Christian country that is emulating Iran’s jurisprudent example here?

  25. No, observa, but I can identify lots of prejudice and homophobia. And the failure of people like Governor Bush to support hate crime legislation in the wake of horrendous murders like Matthew Sheperd’s. (The church site I’ve linked to counts how many days he’s been in “hell” and picketed his funeral with signs saying “God hates fags”).

    My point on the Catholic Church is similar. Many religions claim to be the only true one, and accord fewer rights to unbelievers, and stigmatise women and gays. That’s why secularism is important.

    That’s also why quoting fatwas ought to make people reflect on why they’re not calling for the Catholic Church or the Southern Baptist Church to be labelled a threat to our values and way of life.

  26. Mark, Observa,
    I disagree with the execution of prisoners and especially children, but the Iranian story you are both so repulsed by is incomplete.
    The two were also convicted of raping a 13 year old boy. When that fact is considered (and in most publications and opinions it is not), there is more room for argument. This case is not a clear cut case of Iranian (or Muslim) barbarism/cruelty against homosexuals as it has been portrayed.
    See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-1703858,00.html.

  27. Mark,
    We Neo-Conservative business types have a fairly simple approach to these things. First the alligators in the boat, then the ones trying to get into the boat……right down to applying perfume to the whole bloody swamp because of some unpleasant odours. That simple philosophy usually sees us running the show, at least in meritocracies. I’d thoroughly recommend the philosophy to those who dream of perfumed Gardens of Eden.

  29. Interesting quote from Matt’s link

    “Amnesty International said that Iran executed 159 people last year, a figure exceeded only by China. Under Iran’s religious law, the age of criminal culpability is defined as puberty, which most judges put at 15 for boys and nine for girls.”

    Allah be praised, I wonder why these Shariasts chose age nine for girls? What was that bit about the Jews poisoning their bananas again Harry?

  30. I think puberty is a silly way to decide criminal culpability, but it is a matter of fact that some girls actually go through puberty at that age. Take this case for example. Poor girl, was raped and pregnant at age 9, but the Catholic Church thought it would be a good idea to excommunicate her parents.

  31. observa, ever heard a certain saying about the mote in your eye?

    How many US jurisdictions have made juveniles criminally culpable? How many people did Texas execute last year?

    Anyway, I’m glad that you’ve become a campaigner for queer rights and women’s rights and against the death penalty. I expect you’ll do so without fear or favour.

  32. Wow,
    The neoconservative boys sure have it all sorted. Our way or the highway. My what strong resolute types. Now, just which bit of this don’t you understand.
    1. All religions that claim to be sole truth, have a problem with secular liberal societies.
    2. This includes the Catholic Church, which until fairly recently, declared democratic secular cultures anathema, and which still to this day believes it to be the duty of catholic politicians to strive to ensure that traditional catholic teaching guides their decision making
    3. The best guarantee of a democratic secular culture is to declare all religions a private matter, declare support for freedom of worship and belief, and to ensure that violence against any person on any grounds whatsoever is severly punished.
    4. There is no point railing against obscurantist teachings on the part of either mullahs or evangelicals – people should be free to believe what they like, no matter how absurd
    5. We are not Indonesians, we are Australians. We should all know enough about the bloody history of intra christian conflict, let alone the conflict between ‘christians’ and other religions, to know that the best defence against religious conflict and state/ religion conflict is to ensure that religious practice is purely a private matter, and should not ever be allowed to recieve any state suppport or sanction whatsoever
    6. This means that no religion should be permitted to be able to substitute religious laws for the laws of the state over any matter whatsoever, and this is why not just Muslims, but all religions need to be told that they have to argue for their policies out there in themarket place of ideas just like anyone else. Again, there should be no special privelege accorded to an idea or practice, simply because it claims to be religious.
    7. This means that if religious schools wish to recieve state funding (a practice which I oppose, but it’s too late for that now), they must be required to adhere to minimum standards in both curriculum, teaching standards and standards of gender equality which should be enforced by the state
    8. This does not mean that grown adult women should be barred from wearing the burka or any other ridiculous thing they believe is required by their religion. That is a private matter, and is no more my business than the requirement of ultra religious jews that women wear wigs or scarfs. I simply don’t care..
    9. It is a matter for the state if state funds are used to subsidize a school where young women who are at school are required to wear any clothes, or adhere to any specific requirements that prevent them undertaking appropriate and proper physical activities as required for their proper health and development. That is my business. First because my taxes subsidise it, and secondly because the state has a duty to ensure that all its children recieve the same chances for health and education no matter how unfortunately they may be situated vis a vis their parents.
    10 I am sick and tired of issues concerning Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and anywhere else being used to justify a restrictive and hysterical attitude to Muslims in Australia. It is no more our business what they do there, (apart from being glad that we don’t live there) than it is our business that the uS permits every man and his dog to tote deadly wheapons, execute people who are often innocent of the crime they are accused of, and salute their flag with an oath that the US was created ‘under God’. I disagree, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t live there.
    11. If the energy expended in attacking countries for practices that we find repellent were expended in ensuring that we maintian a lliberal democratic and secular culture here, we would all be a lot safer.
    12. In order to do that we should try to desist from demonising any particualr religion, and ensure that no religion whatsoever, ever gets a handle or acts as a brake, on the wishes and desires of the majority of people who live here.
    Finally, I don’t believe that there is any group that has come to this country that doesn’t finally make its way and is able to navigate thier way through Australian society. It often takes time. It took Irish Catholics some time before they were able to ensure that they had a right to apply for and obtain jobs everywhere. This is nothing to be proud of. Likewise, the attempt by some catholics to ensure that the ALP became a christian democratic party, rather than a social democratic party caused untold strife in the labour movement and beyond. We have all grown up. Let’s ensure that we haven’t forgotten our own history and ensure that we act as though we understand what it teaches us about how to ensure that our ‘values’ are maintained and celebrated.

  33. Mark.
    You raised a number of values over which members of our society might disagree at the margins, but that is a far cry from the lack of debate or indeed the level of values in other cultures.

    The age of adulthood is always going to be fuzzy at the margins, but I’d suggest that large differences between males and females, with females at 9 years of age is not exactly world’s best practice.

    The death penalty for murder could be argued on rational grounds. Either a human life is absolutely precious or much less so. Whichever stance the murderer takes we could apply that logical stance to his/her life after their act. The equivalent negation of their negation of life. A logical positive. That assumes we have complete knowledge of their guilt, which we can’t always claim and hence we don’t implement the death penalty. The death penalty for other behaviour is clearly a slippery slope.

    If I don’t advocate state subsidy of abortion, IVF or the choice to have a number of children to a number of fathers as the ultimate in social wisdom, I hardly think that puts me in the same class as honour killers, adultery stoners, or not allowing women to drive cars or vote. Likewise with homosexuality, if I choose not to give adult homosexual unions the same positive social imprimatur of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. I choose not to do the same with polygamists too, but that doesn’t discriminate against them engaging in such unions, free of a lynching, stoning or the like.

    IMO, you need to pull your ideological blinkers off and get your priorities in order here. Who or what represents the greatest threat to your personal value set? I’d strongly suggest it’s the unhappy strappers, rather than the happy clappers.

  34. ” All religions that claim to be sole truth, have a problem with secular liberal societies.”

    Err and which religions that claimed to be the whole truth, metamorphosed into those secular, liberal societies? Perhaps that’s been the fundamental flaw in secular, liberal progressive thinking of late. You can just keep adding on any cultures/beliefs/religious dogmas you feel like and they’ll just keep on keeping on. The London bombers might just have exposed a bloody great myth here for all to see.

  35. observa, to be honest with you I think right-wing Christian anti-secularists present a more immediate danger to my values, because they have much more power in societies like this one and the US. The other threat of course is the dimunition of liberty in the name of fighting terror emanating from Western governments.

  36. Or to put it more bluntly- Is their liberal progressive multicultural dream blowing up in their faces and causing their hysteria?

  37. I accept that Mark but I can’t for the life of me suggest where you can migrate to.

  39. KatzSays: August 1st, 2005 at 1:52 pm

    Some women like wearing burkas. No accounting for taste, I know.

    This facile surmise shows just how clueless Katz is as a cultural analyst. He implies that burkas are akin to fashion statements, when in fact they are an ideological symbol of the disempowerment of women. They are a part of the practice of sharia law which is a cultural institution intended to keep females in a state of permanent subjection to patriarchs. The rejection of burkas will, in some states of the world, get a woman killed.

    The fact that some females may like wearing burkas is no argument for their legalization. No doubt some post-emancipation negroes pined for the life back on the slave plantation. Does that mean that Lincoln was wrong to declare free the slaves?

    Mill was well aware of this kind of “paradox of freedom”, which is why he wrote “On the Subjection of Women”. It is a mark of the ideological degeneration of post-modern liberalism that people like Katz have remembered the form, but completely forgotten the substance, of Mill’s argument.

    Not hard to spot the problem with this piece of chopped logic. The fact that the Irish did mount, for Jack’s information, more than one rebellion in Australia, undermines his whole point about my mention ofthe Irish being a “green herring�.

    Huh? I point out, as part of my argument for ethnic integration, that Irish sectarianism caused major violent conflict in Australian history. Katz conceded this and thinks that this “undermines [my] whole point” which is that sectarianism can be a serious political problem. Look whose logic has just chewed its gears off!

    In any case I repeat that bringing up the Irish question is a “green” herring in the debate over multiculturalism. The Irish were Caucasian Christians who had absorbed several hundred years of Anglomorph cultural integration. Rather than belabour the point I will let Dr Knopfelmacher explain it:

    The most notorious and culturally influential factor in Australian politics, historically linked to ethnicity, has been the presence of the Irish in this country. And yet in the light of present analysis the Australian Irish are “anglomorph”. Their politics, culture, religion, etc. are colonial co importations from the plural mother country to Australia.

    Without their contributions, “English” literature, religion, and, yes, warfare would shrink to little. And this applies, of course, very much to “trade unions” in the often proudly selfproclaimed “most unionized” country in the world.

    The AngloIrish conflicts, seminal to Australian politics, are, therefore, not locally generated provincial problems but coimported mothercountry issues, along with football, cricket, pudding and almost all varieties of grog. And, of course, religion yes, particularly Catholicism.

    The overall conclusion about the effect of Irishness on Australian ethnic diversity is only seemingly paradoxical: the presence of a powerful Irish element in Australia not only does not enfeeble this country’s homogeneity, but it decisively strengthens its cultural and political unity by bringing into Australian politics and culture the decisive formative influence of homecountry rooted organic Irishness, almost totally linked to this colony’s distant origins. Few things are more anglomorph than an AngloIrish conflict within an anglomorph Commonwealth. It is, therefore, essential to separate Irish politics from other ethnicities, such as they are.

    To put it another way, Australia just would not be Australia without the Micks whingeing about the Poms. (Which is why the Republic is a self-inflicted wound for professional Irishmen.)

    it was in Victoria that the most rampant case of ethnic vilification against the Irish took place. Go figure Jack.

    Katz belittles the problem of cultural integration by mocking the supposedly phoney bogey of Victorian colonial Irish sectarianism. Perhaps he is right about that. I dont know and I dont much care because his point is irrelevant to the debate. For the benefit of the logically challenged here is the syllogism laid out with its premises bare. Because I am in favour of cultural integration of immigrants towards the majority norm it does not imply that I favour vilification of racial or religious minorities.

    In any case the Victorian Irish can’t complain that much, although that never stopped my Feinian grandmother. Catholics were emancipated by the Crown in 1828. Peter Lalor was an Irish Catholic rebel rouser and you would think that with those three strikes against him he would be suffering under the most enormous indignities. Not a bit of it. He wound up being Speaker of the Victorian LC at the same time that Catholics were supposed to be an opressed minority. Such rotten oppression I have never seen!

    But if this policy of cultural bribery softened the Irish problem, why wouldn’t it do the same with the Islamic problem? … Remember the recent genesis of “Anglo-Celticâ€?? If we play our cards right, the Christian-Muslim community may one day identify themselves as the “Monotheistsâ€?.

    Cultural bribery, I have to remind Katz, is a two way street – quid pro quo. Such ethnic immigrants who come here and wish to practice their different faiths are welcome to do so privately, so long as they subordinate Church to State in the public square. And that means losing their political Papism and burkas when engaging in civil discourse. Render unto Ceasar.

    Gotta say that Jack never lets consistency get in the way of an opportunity to heap a bit of abuse.

    I was not abusing sectarians, they cant help the way they feel. My critique of ethnic politics is intended as a clinical contribution. I am abusing their Wet apologists who deserve the most withering scorn.

    Katz has, in any case, ignored the point of this debate, which is to identify the deformations of political culture that multiculturalism has brought us. What was sold as a wonderful means of enlarging human freedom is now advertised as a justification of human bondage. What was promised as a means of enlarging the human community has now helped to create sectarian ghettos in the next neighbourhood.

    Enough is enough. The multiculturalists have had their day in the sun. Their political theory is not much more than a bit of light-weight blather and boilerplate pandering to the moral vanity of intellectual airheads. Their political practice is the shoddy and shady world of nepotism and ethnic lobbying.

    Katz is a practioner of ritualistic, rather than realistic, liberalism. Freedom, for his type, is just a matter of going through the motions.

    I will let Dr Knopfelmacher put it to them with his usual rhetorical savagery:

    Occasionally…ethnic diversions can be exploited to subvert our general system. Such attempts ought to be opposed prudently and intelligently. The main supporters of “multiculturalism”, ie. the desire to disrupt the anglomorph structure of Australia, are our own, mostly ethnically anglomorph selfhaters (Blainey’s “Black armbanders”). They must be fought, politically, to the death.

    Dr K’s shade must be enjoying a malicious chuckle at the current discomfiture of the “ethnically anglomorph selfhaters”.

  40. “This facile surmise shows just how clueless Katz is as a cultural analyst. He implies that burkas are akin to fashion statements, when in fact they are an ideological symbol of the disempowerment of women”

    Ridiculous, Jack Stroppy, bloody ridiculous. You’ve really let this Islamo-hysteria poison your brain. So now you want the government to step in and regulate *fashions* because they represent an ideological symbol of the disempowerment of women”??? Get on the radical femo-Nazi bandwagon then Jack and ban bikinis, those tops that show the bellies, bicycle pants and skimpily dressed people in ads, while you’re at it. Really, the number of people who choose to go around in a burka is too few for any government to give a stuff about this. This is precisely the perfect demonstration of the slippery slope argument – one chip at a crucial liberal beacon and Stroppy Jack goes on a fashion-regulation-jihad to stop the suicide bombers.

  42. Jack and observa seem eager to jettison the very features of liberal western society that were supposed to make it worth defending – personal and religious freedoms, diversity, tolerance etc. There’s a good argument by Raymond Gaita in today’s Age here http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/dont-let-terrorism-win/2005/08/01/1122748574830.html A short quote…

    “Terrorists threaten our lives. They do not threaten the values that we hold dear. Only we do that. If now, to save our lives, we seriously degrade institutions that we cherish – the very institutions that an aggressor would destroy if he were to occupy us – then I do not believe that we can plead that we did so under the pressure of political necessity, or moral necessity, or any other necessity that could justify us.”

    Get a grip. The total number of people killed by terrorists in the last decade would not equal the number killed by accidental airline crashes, and yet we blithely climb aboard commercial aircraft with nary a thought to the risk. The mass of innocents dying violent deaths in road smashes caused by negligent, selfish and drunken drivers dwarfs almost any conceivable terrorist act. And yet we live with these real risks basically because we are prepared to trade convenience for safety.

    To talk of constructing a police state where, according to Jack, we need to tell people what clothes they can and cannot wear, and according to observa we need to oppress religious and presumably ethnic minorities because their difference makes us feel uncomfortable is preposterous and hysterical overreaction. Thinking much like Jack and observa’s led to the witch-burnings and pogroms of pre-modern Europe.

    What fragile petals it seems some of us are! Of course, bigotry and chauvinism wouldn’t be behind any of this fear of others, would it? Suddenly we have serious discussion of fascist ideas (eg the good Prof Fraser’s demonisation of the dark-skinned as criminal morons, and promotion of torture as a legitimate policing tool by Prof Dershowitz and his Aussie confreres). Now, I don’t recall any liberal democracy collapsing under the pinprick assaults of terrorists, but I do seem to remember quite a few of them succumbing to fascism. I know out of multiculturalism and fascism which is the more threatening.

  43. Thanks for the lengthy cribs from old Knoffles Jack. It was a real trip down Memory Lane.

    BTW did you his course in composition of English neologisims as well?

  44. Jason Soon,

    You identified the critical point about the self-appointed cultural commissars who prate their nonsense on this blog. (And to think that JQ intended his blog to be commentary from a “social democratic perspective”.)

    Jack S., Observa, Harry Clarke and the rest of the carpet-biting clutch of cross-kissers and gun-huggers seriously propose themselves and their ilk as the appropriate people to decide what we can and what we cannot wear, how we choose to honour our gods, what is verboten in a school curriculum, what we can and cannot watch and read and what should chucked on to the Bonfires of the Vanities. (Jack S bragged about Italy’s role in Western Civilisation. Italy also produced Savonarola and Mussolini.)

    Now Jason, I’m sure that you would agree with me that the prospect of these folks deciding all these matters on our behalf is decidedly scary. And think about this. These trolls, it appears, can write and presumably they can read too. (Although the latter skill is underdeveloped to the extent that they bash at straw men of their own construction rather than engage in an argument. Jack S., for example insists on calling me a Wet, despite constant reminders to the contrary.)

    And, of course, it won’t be the semi-literate commissars of the crypto-fascistic right who’ll administer their occidentalist crusade. No, should Australia be so absent-minded as to fall under their control, much of the work of compelling cultural compliance will be done be illiterate thugs, proud of their badges, their warrants, their uniforms and their little authority over others.

    Recently Gough Whitlam reminded Australia of how Australia used to be under the control of these folks. In a letter to the papers he reminded us that Immigration Officials in the late 1960s and early 1970s were determining right of entry into Australia by the size of the buttocks of the applicants. To folks like this, bums seem as good a measure as anything else.

    I’m sure you wouldn’t like Jack S and the rest measuring your legality by the size of your bum.

  45. They used to do an english test where the difficulty of the test was actually higher for dark-skinned foreigners so the bar would be set impossibly high.

  46. Katz,
    IMHO both yours and Jack’s posts at the very least bend the ‘civilised discussion’ request at the head. Although I sit on the right (whatever that word means) I have never bitten a carpet or hugged a gun (although I may have kissed a cross).
    It is always facinating to see a discussion between you and Jack – you know when Jack is getting annoyed because the amount of bold and

    blockquote

    tags increases. FWIW, on this at least I agree with you Katz.

    Helen,
    The test used to be even more difficult than that – they could be tested in any European language. There was one incident where an Indian gentleman, who could speak English, German, French and Italian was tested in Gaelic.

  47. I think what we are looking at here in reality is the next stage of the kultur kampf that the Australian right has been waging aginst the very values they purport to be defending. They hate multi culturalism for same reason they despise liberal values generally.

    They will never rest until there is an official and approved version of the culture that meets their needs for tough authoritarian social institutions, together with a reimposition of the rule of the wise ‘father’. To read their protestations against Isalm on the grounds of its effects on women makes me laugh. These palukas spent a lot of political and social energy arguing 20 years ago that the Sex Discrimination Act was a piece of vile social engineering, designed to smash the family- to listen to them, you could be forgiven for tjhinking the gulags were close behind. Now they are starting on muslims. They should tune in to their nearest shock jock, take a bex and have good lie down.

  48. Thanks for your comments AR.

    Please be assured that I don’t believe all right-wingers to be fascistic or even crypto-fascistic.

    Culturally, I suppose, I’m more alligned with the Left. But my economics tend to the Dry side. So we’re not as far apart as you may imagine.

  49. As with several commentators I too oppose parents who seek to impose every neurosis and irrational belief on their children and that’s specifically true in relation to religious views, such as Catholicism, as well as the views of terrorist fanatics. On the other hand the Catholic church is with us and is a component part of Australian society. Catholics enter into a dialogue with Australians on moral and other issues and don’t seek to wipe out non-Catholics. I can argue against the views of the Church without being subject to intimidation. It seems to me wrong to say we should oppose, for example, the public funding of schools that teach hatred of core Australian values on the grounds that we fund Catholic schools. There are differences in degree that cannot be ignored.

    I don’t unconditionally support free speech for well-known reasons. It can be abused — and I believe is being abused if visiting clerics teach school kids that Jews are poisoning their food or that TV sets are the work of the devil and should be burnt. Again it is a question of degree. We favour liberal laws on free speech that stretch the boundaries but not propagandist lies that foster hatred and which seek to undermine the good things we value in our society. And we should strenuously argue against illogic wherever it is. Aboriginees who believe that building a bridge will have adverse effects on fertility or fanatics who blame bombings on George Bush rather than bombers themselves hold views that lack logic and should be discredited.

    I am sympathetic to the views of wmmbb. Perhaps dialogue will work – there are some signs that a dialogue is developing. At core I am concerned that Australians undervalue their own culture and society and have an ‘anything goes’ attitude towards cultural imports no matter how repugnant or hostile to our way of life these imports might be. And I unfashionably believe in the concept of a nation. We have the right to be selective and do not need to apologise to anyone for exercising that right.

  50. “Catholics enter into a dialogue with Australians on moral and other issues”

    (Australian) Catholics aren’t Australians, Harry? I guess not, because they’re Catholics. Just like the way in pre-war Europe, you could be a Pole, a German, or a Jew.

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