Yesterday I entered into a conversation with someone asking, Why don’t the moderate Muslims speak out against terror? I provided link after link as her evasions & demands grew more particular. Those were Americans, how about an Australian. Oh but that’s an Australian woman, why aren’t the Muslim men speaking out? Oh, that was a young man, why don’t we hear from the Muslim elders?
She discredited the testimony of one peace-loving Muslim because he was ‘wearing a Benneton t-shirt.’ I gave her a string of direct links to the Islamic Council of Victoria, the Council of Imams Queensland, and finally His Eminence, Professor Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, Grand Mufti of Australia, who said: ‘It is utterly deplorable for extremists to use Islam as a cover for their crimes and atrocities.’ At last she wrote to me privately. ‘I feel my heart filling with hate. Am I missing something? Why can’t the moderate Muslims speak out?’
This plea from a stony-minded racist unable to hear direct replies which undid all her questions moved me. We must respect one another as human beings, no matter what. I left her with yet another google search turfing up dozens of investigative essays on the media’s stolid determination to ignore repeated denouncing of violence by peaceful Muslims, and turned away. Now: watch here as our Minister for Education deflects accusations with one ruse after another & the Opposition calmly, continually answer and defeat him. At the end of this mash-up his voice is heard, trebly and childishly gloating: ‘My comments get on the telly, yours don’t! You can’t be heard!’
This government, this media are arrogant and they lie. Their arrogance and lies are damaging our climate, our community, our minds. The real jihad is the assault on our planet’s liveability, sidelined by these posturings of hatred. Read widely. Think deeply. Speak out.
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