Every time a controversy plays out, more conditions are added to our being ‘tolerable’. We deserve our rights – including to places to practice our faith without political interference
Everyone knows the game. It’s called “asking the Muslim question”. We’ve been playing it a lot this year. Can Muslims be trusted with a mosque in Bendigo? Are Muslims who travel overseas going to fight as terrorists? Are they Australian if they are prepared to speak about “honour” killings? Do Muslims turn the suburbs in which they live into “monocultures”?
Yassir Morsi describes this questioning as a ritualised act, eerily religious in form. The answers which are churned out time and again are a ritual too: “yes, no, not all of us.”
[TOP RATED COMMENT 321 votes] Very anti-white. Which majority black or Muslim countries would you like to put forth as an example of tolerance and inclusion of minorities or women? Pakistan? Saudi? Nigeria? The very notion of tolerance and multiculturalism is a white, Western one.
[SECOND 289v] "We shouldn’t need to defend what is our basic right – to have a place to practice our religion. Nobody should, this is the whole point of having rights."
Switzerland (one of the few remaining bastions of common sense and democracy) has already shown that the right to practise one's religion does not mean the right to erect constructions that are culturally alien to a given environment. Mosque design should reflect Australian tastes.
[THIRD 275v] "The left graciously tolerates, even celebrates, our otherness, our exoticism"
Speaking as someone whose politics are left of centre, I certainly don't celebrate the fact that we have increasing numbers of people in this country who are deeply hostile to Western culture, and who want that posture accepted as "all part of the rich tapestry of multiculturalism."
"Al-Qaeda and bin Laden, suppression of women, irrational beliefs and various other imaginations of barbarity and backwardness."
I see, so the clear evidence of barbarity and backwardness we see in the news every single day is actually all "imagined". That's very reassuring.
[FOURTH 220v] "Islam is the religion of peace, equality, brotherhood and respect. Those who don't believe this are Islamophobes."
Yes, I've noticed this peace and brotherhood spreading itself around the middle east lately, and closer to home with street marches calling for the execution of cartoonists and film makers. It's people like you, who utterly fail to see the impression you make on the rest of the world, who are to blame for the suspicion with which Islam is treated in any modern society.
[ANOTHER 82v] I hear a great deal from various self-appointed representatives of Muslims about how the rest of us need to understand why they are angry. Have they ever considered sitting down and trying to understand why *we* might be angry? [Guardian Cif] Read more
