Author: Andrew Bolt
Publication: Herald Sun
Date: July 18, 2004
URL: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,9875242%5E25717,00.html
A report into discrimination against
Muslims points plenty of fingers, but fails to find the real problem: Muslims
who defame their religion
We pay Bill Jonas at least $200,000
a year to be our conscience, and we sure get enough tears for that money.
This Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commissioner released his report this week into racism against Muslims
and broke down when he told the ABC of one of the worst cases.
Jonas: "I actually find it very
difficult to say 'cause I get too upset about it, but that seventh generation
(Muslim Australian) being told to go back to the country . . .(stifled
sob)"
Reporter: "I'll give you a moment."
Jonas (brokenly): "Every time, it
just really upsets me when I read it."
If I may interrupt Jonas's tears,
I'd say if a dill telling a Muslim to "go home" is the worst racism he
found after grilling 1400 Muslims for horror stories, then we must be angels.
And since a guest at his launch was Australia's Mufti, Sheik Taj el-Din
el-Hilali, Jonas and his Race Police might now think of far more potent
threats to our harmony to probe.
It's Hilali, after all, who said
Jews were the "underlying cause of all wars", using "sex and abominable
acts of buggery" to "control the world", and that suicide bombers were
"heroes".
But, surprise, Jonas ignores the
hate speech of Hilali and even more extreme imams. It seems he'd rather
repeat wild claims that the real racists are mainstream Australians.
For instance, he's insisted 100,000
Aboriginal children were stolen by whites, a figure even "stolen generations"
propagandist Robert Manne admits is "greatly exaggerated".
In this new report, he relies on
HREOC's usual technique to disparage Australia, using anonymous, untested
accusations of racism coaxed from people prodded to complain.
No claim is too flimsy to be "proof"
we hate Muslims.
Even a bag-snatching is proof. So
is someone's failure to get the first job she went for. So is an attack
by three unleashed dogs in a park. So is a bus that didn't stop. So is
road rage. So is the checking of bags at a shop. So is a police description
of a wanted "Middle-Eastern man". So is a policeman writing a defect notice
on a hotted-up car. So is the mugging of a woman who wasn't even Muslim.
HREOC grabs it all, as Jonas sobs.
Only grudgingly does his report admit that despite the wails, police reports
of attacks on Muslims have not risen since the September 11 attacks.
Jews wish the same could be said
of them. Instead, bomb plots by Muslim extremists against Jewish targets
here have been uncovered, and attacks on Jews are at record levels. On
Sunday I had to squeeze past guards in bullet- proof vests to speak at
a Jewish meeting at Monash University.
True, other cases cited in HREOC's
report are nasty. A few Muslims have suffered awful name-calling and threats,
thanks to cretins who think every Muslim is a terrorist. But who gives
just that wicked impression?
This week newspapers published a
petition attacking the Howard Government's new laws against terrorists
as "fascist". And who
were the main signatories? Muslim
leaders, including Hilali, a fan of the Hezbollah terrorist outfit. So
who here equates the war on terror with a war on Islam?
Meanwhile, leaders of 25 Muslim
groups signed a letter claiming "anti-terrorism legislation enacted in
this country has unfairly targeted Muslims: only Muslims have been arrested".
There's a reason for that, dear
imams -- no Christian or Jewish groups have been found here plotting to
kill civilians or help terrorists.
N OR are their leaders as troubling
as your radical Sheik Muhammed Omran, who signed your letter against our
terrorism laws -- maybe because he's a friend and acquaintance of men jailed
or charged over links to al-Qaida.
So once again it's Muslim leaders
who equate terrorism with Islam. Such stupid leadership -- seeming to side
with the worst Muslims against good Australians - - is tragic. No wonder
both Muslims and non-Muslims fret. It's enough to make me cry with Jonas,
except my tears you can have free.
bolta@heraldsun.com.au
