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Guess who’s not coming to dinner

To break bread or to boycott: that’s Muslim Australia’s choice

Refusing to eat with someone is a gesture indicating they’ve dishonoured you. That’s why Muslim leaders are boycotting high profile events in an attempt to be heard

The Guardian.com, Tuesday 12 August 2014

In recent weeks, three high-profile boycotts have been launched by Australia’s Muslim leaders against the backdrop of the current conflict in Gaza. As a form of political activism, the boycotts are novel, but perhaps the response to them isn’t: they have been described as “divisive and unproductive” and a barrier to constructive dialogue.

Those remarks came from Vic Alhadeff, who was the subject of the first boycott. In his capacity as CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, Alhadeff issued a community update on 9 July which justified Israel’s Operation Protective Edge by republishing a statement from Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs. By doing so, I and others argued, he abrogated his responsibility to remain neutral as chairman of the NSW community relations commission (CRC).

We argued his position had become untenable, and that he had to resign. Local Arab leaders issued an open letter to Victor Dominello, the NSW citizenship minister, and met with him in person, but the minister concluded that Alhadeff “is doing an outstanding job” as CRC chair and would remain in the post.

Similarly, Mike Baird, the NSW premier, affirmed that Alhadeff had “his full confidence” – although he conceded that it was inappropriate in his role for him to have made those comments. This was seen as a slap on the hand for Alhadeff, and a slap in the face for NSW’s Muslim leaders.

After being ignored, a boycott or withdrawal becomes a worthwhile option. Community leaders announced that they would “suspend involvement with the CRC so long as [Alhadeff] is at the helm … [because] the minister has walked away from what is morally right”.

Many who had accepted the invitation to attend the premier’s annual Iftar (breaking of fast) dinner, scheduled for that week, announced that they would “respectfully withdraw … on moral grounds”. They could not break bread with those who shrugged off what they saw as propaganda. Images of injured or dead Palestinian children had spoiled their appetite for a celebration.

The result was many empty tables at the parliament house dinner. Photos of Baird addressing the half-full room made a powerful statement: the premier and minister did not treat Australian Arabs and Muslims with respect, so they acted with respect for their culture, faith and tradition.

The “Iftar boycott” is such a strong image because dining is much more than physical act of eating, it’s a spiritual communion of people. There is an Arabic expression said after a meal is shared, along the lines of “there is now bread and salt between us”. Even the poorest people share what little food they have as a gesture of hospitality, which is often bread and salt.

Salt is a bonding and flavouring agent when baking bread, and a bonding agent that preserves friendships. It’s also a common motif in the Abrahamic faiths. In Christianity, breaking bread holds profound significance after the last supper, as does salt; Christians are described as the “salt of the earth” in Matthew’s gospel. In the Jewish Shabbat, there is silence during the hand-washing ritual before the bread is blessed.

Refusing to break bread together is neither about dishonouring the host, nor is it a threat or a provocation. It is, rather, a gesture to indicate that he has dishonoured you. The Sydney Morning Herald apprehended this in their editorial on 26 July, when they lamented that “some ill-chosen and insensitive words at an inopportune time have tarnished [Alhadeff’s] otherwise fine work”.

Alhadeff resigned the next day and Baird finally conceded that his comments had made his position untenable. “I will always listen to the Muslim community, just as he has in that resignation,” Baird said, proving the boycott was a landmark lesson in how to be heard without yelling; on 28 July he addressed thousands of Muslims at Lakemba mosque.

The precedent was repeated last week when the Australian National Imams Council announced its withdrawal from the annual Eid dinner hosted by the Australian Federal Police on 7 August. Again, it was a moral stand led by professor Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, the Grand Mufti, who said they “regrettably, must in all good conscience decline the invitation to attend the dinner in protest of the new proposed anti-terrorism laws … the amendments are a direct attack on the … presumption of innocence”.

Like the Alhadeff boycott, which was launched to preserve the CRC’s neutrality, the AFP boycott sought to preserve a fundamental maxim of Australia’s system of justice, the presumption of innocence. Neither promoted, imported or apologised for an ideology that is dangerous or divisive, such as fighting foreign wars.

Yet both boycotts were met by last-minute offers that miscalculated the seriousness of the Muslim community’s concerns: Alhadeff issued a statement, rather than an apology, and the AFP invited the Grand Mufti to speak about his concerns.

Many Muslim Australians watched with horror as their American counterparts were humiliated at Barack Obama’s annual Iftar dinner at the White House on 14 July, when he appeared with Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer. With Dermer’s tweeted support, Obama said during the dinner that “Israel has the right to defend itself against … inexcusable attacks from Hamas.” He was talking at them, not to them. Any hope that the dinner was a dialogue were smashed when the president left soon after his speech.

Given the US weapons supplied to kill civilians in Gaza, many argued that the dinner should have been boycotted in the first place. The American-Arab anti-discrimination committee made the case: “political engagement is important and having a seat at the table is crucial — but only when that seat is intended to amplify our voice as a community, not tokenise or subdue it.”

A third Australian boycott has been announced, over the controversial resignation of Fairfax columnist Mike Carlton. Peak Muslim organisations have written to Fairfax, calling for Carlton to be reinstated or they may stop cooperating with journalists and start targeting advertisers. Given that the Australian Jewish News had called for readers to “cancel your Fairfax subscriptions” a week earlier, this counter-boycott risks being trivialised; there was less at stake. It may have been wiser for community leaders to invite the editors to their table, break bread together, and explain why Carlton was a vital voice for the voiceless.

The political Iftar has arisen during a period of conflict and tragedy, but it may well become a new phenomenon in Australia. If Australians are serious about multiculturalism, the broader community should realise that the boycotts are a pouring forth of Ramadan themes of human rights, justice, integrity, poverty and morality, which return each year. The 2015 Iftar agenda could be political again; consulting with and respecting Australian Muslims may ensure next year’s hosts won’t need to guess who’s not coming to dinner.

http://bit.ly/1sKx6kc

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The most fearful weapon in Israel’s assault: dehumanisation

http://bit.ly/1oqLJe2

The most fearful weapon in Israel’s assault: dehumanisation

Canberra Times
August 7, 2014

A Palestinian man at a funeral carries the body of a girl whom medics said was killed by an Israeli air strike. Photo: Reuters

If we were witnessing a kangaroo cull through aerial bombardment, there would be moral outrage. If we were witnessing a whale cull through ships, there would be moral outrage.

But we are witnessing a Palestinian cull by air, land and sea, and we are told to blame the victims for hiding among terrorists.

One euphemism used for this mass murder of civilians in Gaza is ”mow the lawn”, reducing Palestinians not to animals but to blades of grass. It is sold to us as a two-sided war between the Israeli Defence Forces and Hamas terrorists – not Palestinian people. The Palestinians all belong somewhere on the terrorism continuum as potential terrorists, breeding terrorists, born terrorists, supporting terrorists, hiding terrorists or armed terrorists. The loaded label is intended to throw a blanket over our eyes to blind us from any questions of legitimacy or humanity.

This is the well-worn, war-time propaganda of dehumanisation, aimed to absolve us from any guilt that the humans are like us – with a name, a face, a family, a home, a dream.
But it is time that this dehumanisation was worn out and discarded. It is the ”de” that needs to be mowed away to so we can see humanisation.

Propaganda relies on controlling the cameras. But social media has become a powerful weapon. As pilots ”send” air missiles down to Gaza, Palestinians ”send” videos up for the world to see – graphic and uncensored. Unlike the pilots who see inhuman dots on a screen, the videos enable us to see terrified humans with nowhere to hide. In real time, we become witnesses to the destruction of indigenous Palestinians and the reduction of their homeland to an abattoir.

When the terror-tinted glasses are discarded, this is not hyperbole. This is the making of history. This is the map of Palestine being shrunk and flattened, year after year, war after war, talk after talk, settlement after settlement.

If we could see Palestine from high above the unmanned drones, the picture makes more sense. Gaza is only 360 square kilometres, home to 1.8 million Palestinians, less the current cull. It is wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, so unless they can swim, fly or dig, the people are besieged. Even the birds and fish avoid the area as a no-go zone.

This is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, with more than 5000 people a square kilometre. This equates to Drummoyne in Sydney, St Kilda in Melbourne or Fortitude Valley in Brisbane.

Imagine a leaflet telling you to leave these crowded areas. How is it possible for Israel’s pinpoint technologies to avoid the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians? Where exactly are the humans supposed to swim, fly or dig? How can combatants hide behind human shields in a totally civilian area? How can there be any shields when no school, hospital or UN shelter is spared?

While the charter of Hamas may claim to eradicate Israel ”in words”, it is Palestine that is being eradicated ‘’in deeds’’ through regular culls named Cast Lead, Pillar of Defence and Protective Edge. The proof of the real eradication is in the grotesquely disproportionate fatalities.

The dehumanisation is central to Israel’s arsenal, but is also central to Palestinian reality. Since electing the wrong government in 2006, when Hamas took control of Gaza, these Palestinians endured a siege that has rationed their water, food, medicines, electricity and sanitation.

For the Palestinians in Gaza, the difference between a ceasefire and a war was the difference between continuing to die slowly, or die quickly.

This noose must be loosened if the Palestinian voices are to be heard. The deprivation of these basic human rights of a besieged people is a protracted war crime. The dehumanisation blindfolds us to two facts: all human life is absolutely equal, and these two ”sides” are absolutely unequal.

Any state claiming that their land ”belongs” to their religion, whether Israeli Jews or Hamas Sunnis, leans towards theocracy, not democracy. With or without Israel’s Iron Dome defence missiles, the rockets from Gaza have murderous intentions and must be condemned.

I dread the day that our children’s future children go on a school excursion to the Holocaust Museum and then to a Palestine Museum. They will see the shrinking map of Palestine, before it completely disappeared off the face of the earth. They will see photos, artefacts, testimonials, videos and timelines. They will see how the indigenous people were labelled as Arabs, Muslims, Gazans, Hamas, terrorists and refugees, but rarely as Palestinians. They will see how one proud people (the Palestinians) paid the price for the crimes committed against another proud people (the Jews). They will see how both people were dehumanised.

And our grandchildren will say: but they should have been best friends. And they will ask us how we let this happen to humans.

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Warning: your phone can lead to serial text offences

http://bit.ly/1odOwBU
Imagine a place where you can go to socialise without the fear of interruption from mobile devices
The Sunday Telegraph
July 06, 2014

Picture this sign outside a restaurant: Wi-Fi Free zone.

Yes, you read it correctly, it is the reverse of ‘Free Wi-Fi’, a zone that is free from all Wi-Fi reception.

A zone where you can be fully present with your friends or family.
Where you are free from the anti-social interruptions and ring tones of text messages and phone calls.

You know the routine at the restaurant table. One person casually decides to takes one call, often without an ‘excuse me’. This sends a green signal for the others to zone in to their own phones. Many minutes pass, and the social group are still ‘socialising’ with virtually everyone, except those at their table.

It is like a smoko that has gone out of hand. One cigarette becomes two as the next smoker arrives, so as not to be anti-social.

I recently took a photo of a table at a restaurant where all those sitting and ‘socialising’ were texting. No eye contact. No conversation. No guilt.

So how were they catching up with their head down?

Unfortunately, these iPhones and Smart phones are not sold with a social etiquette license.

Perhaps, like a box of cigarettes, they need a plain packaging warning: Overuse can lead to serial text offences.

If a person turned their back on you during a conversation, it would be deemed rude.

But if a person chooses to interrupt your conversation by communicating with someone else by phone, this is just as rude.

What compounds the rudeness is when the texter glances up and declares: “I’m still listening to you, I can multi-task.”

The response ought to be: “But I don’t want to be reduced to one of your many multi-tasks. I want our conversation to be the only task that we are doing.”

Listening is much more than the physical act of hearing the spoken words, like the words on the screen.

Listening requires zoning in to the rich tapestry of non-verbal expressions such as frowns, smiles and hand gestures.

If you are going to dismiss all these cues and treat your companion’s conversation as just another string of words, forget the coffee and just text each other.

We already have candy-free check-out counters at supermarkets. These were ostensibly designed to enable parents to exit without the tantrum of a child craving the candy that was placed at arm’s reach and at eye level.

Now is the time for the Wi-Fi Free zone, the antithesis of an Internet Café.

Just as people choose places that are smoke free, gluten free, or alcohol free, there should also be places that are Wi-Fi Free, where people can enjoy a digital detox.

Someone will look down and cry out ‘Damn! I have no phone reception! No signal bars!’

To which you can respond, ‘Oh yes you do! Look up. You have all the most beautiful signals smiling right at you.’

Our technology must never replace our humanity.

Joseph Wakim is the author of Sorry We Have No Space

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Big reality gap in phony rhetoric on Ukraine from militaristic US

http://bit.ly/1jSUeJX
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-big-reality-gap-in-phony-rhetoric-on-ukraine-from-militaristic-us/story-fnihsr9v-1226846366717

Published in The Courier-Mail
6 March 2014

It is profoundly phony for the US Secretary of State to lecture Russia during press conferences about invading another country on phony pretexts.

What John Kerry was preaching deserves to be juxtaposed against what the US is practising.

“This … act of aggression … is really 19th-century behaviour in the 21st century,” Kerry said.

Well, we do not need to wind the clock back too far to see similar behaviour by the US. Rather than de-escalating and demilitarising the multiplying wars within Syria, the US decided to aid and abet the Free Syrian Army with $250 million worth of “nonlethal” aid. There was no guarantee this aid would not fall into the hands of foreign invaders, mercenaries and jihadists. And, indeed, in December the US was forced to temporarily suspend the shipments after the Islamic Front seized a range of US-supplied equipment, along with weapons, from warehouses.

“You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests,” Kerry intoned. Yet in 2003, the US led the invasion of Iraq on the phony, as it rapidly turned out, pretext of weapons of mass destruction, without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council. That was not in the 19th century, but the 21st century. The promises of democracy and liberation have been replaced by the reality of war and instability with no end in sight. US oil companies have bled Iraq of its oil reserves by setting up shop in Basra, while Iraq has bled over half a million citizens from war-relation deaths. So who was asserting their own interests?

“The people of Ukraine are fighting for democracy, they’re fighting for freedom,” Kerry went on.

So were the people of Syria in their unarmed uprising in Dar’aa three years ago. But when many countries began to “assert their interests” by funnelling weapons to both the army and the rebels, the aspirations of the Syrian citizens were hijacked by foreign agendas. Hence words like democracy and freedom ring hollow given the recent US intrusions There are now sarcastic bumper stickers in the Middle East that threaten: “Be nice to Americans. Or we’ll bring democracy to your country.”

Kerry again: “If (the Russians) have legitimate concerns … there are plenty of ways to deal with that without invading the country … We call on Russia to engage with the government of Ukraine this is a time for diplomacy … not to see this escalate into a military confrontation.”

Why is this universal principle selectively applied? The Syrian National Council and their foreign sponsors were never encouraged to “engage” with the Syrian Government, or hand in their weapons during the November 2011 amnesty, or trust the “general conference for national reconciliation”. Rather than pursuing “plenty of ways” towards dialogue about legitimate concerns, the rebels proliferated and became default allies with invaders such as al-Qa’ida. The “time for diplomacy” was repeatedly squandered by all parties which inevitably saw the crisis “escalate into a military confrontation”.

Even in Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott toed the same line that “Russia should back off … people of the Ukraine ought to be able to determine their future themselves.” But where was this posturing and principle when Australia recently chaired the UNSC, when the people of Syria sought a civil and political solution, rather than a summit of sponsors?

Before Kerry and his 21st-century allies next meet the press, perhaps they ought to meet the mirror and take an honest look at how dishonest they sound.

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Rabbi or imam, a threat is still a threat

http://bit.ly/1gk86tz

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/joseph-wakim-rabbi-or-imam-a-threat-is-still-a-threat/story-fni6unxq-1226833133261

The Advertiser
20 February 2014

“BY the power of our Holy Torah, we admonish you to cease immediately all efforts to achieve these disastrous agreements, in order to avoid severe heavenly punishment for everyone involved.”

In an open letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, this wrath formed part of a recent statement by Rabbis from the Committee to Save the Land and People of Israel and “hundreds of other Rabbis in Israel and around the world”.

The rabbis were incensed by Kerry’s mediation between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

Their statement did not register on our media radar, as such ultra-orthodox voices are treated as atypical of mainstream Israeli society. If the word Torah is replaced by Koran in this statement, the words severe, punishment and everyone suddenly read as a global fatwa.

These rabbis attribute terrorism exclusively to their enemy as they proclaim that Kerry’s “incessant efforts to expropriate integral parts of our Holy Land and hand them over to Abbas’s terrorist gang amount to a declaration of war against the Creator and Ruler of the universe”.

This war-speak reaches the same pitch as their Muslim counterparts who purport to speak for the same deity.
But it is a fallacy to assume that only Muslims execute such threats and take the divine law into their own hands.

In 1994, Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers at a Hebron mosque. He belonged to the Jewish Defence League, which the FBI later classified as a “far right terrorist group”.

He was publicly denounced by mainstream Jewish bodies as a lone madman and an extremist, yet over 10,000 sympathisers visited and venerated his “holy” shrine until it was forcibly removed by the government in 1999.

The growing influence of the 10 per cent of ultra-Orthodox citizens within Israel’s population of eight million continues to create a sectarian-secular divide.

While they may not resort to street violence like Palestinian stone-throwers, they flex their political muscle with violent decisions that suffocate Gazans, expand settlements and segregate the West Bank.

In Australia, the growth of the Muslim presence has seen a growth in Islamophobia. Too often, the extreme actions of an extreme minority are treated as typical and therefore stereotypical.

When the abhorrent placard at a 2012 Sydney rally screamed ‘‘Behead all those who insult the prophet’’, Australians screamed even louder with outrage.

Those responsible for this message were swiftly condemned and written off as unrepresentative by Muslim elders. But the mud stuck on the Muslim name.

When the abhorrent YouTube video by Sheikh Sharif Hussein was falsely attributed to the Islamic Da’wah Centre of South Australia in August 2013, again the elders tried to extinguish the local backlash and gross generalisations.

His “sermon” labelled Australian soldiers in Iraq as ‘‘crusader pigs’’ and beseeched Allah to kill Buddhists and Hindus who have harmed Muslims.

More than anyone, Israelis should understand that hate speech is the ominous precursor to violence, especially when coupled with real power and weapons.

The violent voices of these rabbis deserve the same amplification and accountability as their Muslim counterparts. We cannot keep marginalising them as extremists who don’t count.
They do count, and so will their victims.

Joseph Wakim is the founder of the Australian Arabic Council and author of Sorry we have no space

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Community on a winner with new language for fighting crime

http://bit.ly/1aiTzho

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/policespeak-drops-racial-labels-community-the-winner-20131117-2xp28.html

Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Nov 2013

Community on a winner with new language for fighting crime

The alarm clock was programmed for the 6.30am news bulletin. The first three stories centred on names that I recognised as Middle Eastern: Obeid, Gittany, Hamzy. The blanket of shame was poised to cover my head when the news reader mentioned their ethnicity. But he never did. This was a new alarm clock but we seem to have snoozed right through a milestone moment.

Eddie Obeid was at the centre of the ICAC inquiries. Simon Gittany was accused of throwing his fiancee from a 15th-floor balcony. Mohammed Hamzy was recently arrested as the de facto gang leader of Brothers 4 Life.

A decade ago, such names would have been magnets for the ”other” label, treated as non-Australians, baiting the shock jocks to call for immediate deportation. Police, media and government statements would have been littered with references to ”Middle Eastern” as if this explained everything, even though it explained nothing.

But this racialisation of the crimes was a cultural cop-out, as if the Middle Eastern DNA predisposed “these people” to crime, even though they were home-grown.

Fast forward 10 years, and NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell congratulates the police for their efforts “to tackle gun crime across this city”. No reference to race. Simple as that. After ”breaking the back” of the gang on November 7, Deputy Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas also made no reference to race: “We arrested 10 members of the Brothers 4 Life gang, all of whom were hit with very serious charges.”

As well as commending Operation Talon, which has halved gun crimes since its start on August 17, Kaldas also noted the “members of the community who have already come forward … in helping us seize guns and arrest the criminals.”

Rather than resorting to racial labels and alienating the community, the new police culture builds on relationships and co-operation to deliver results.

The police statements to the media never once used crude descriptors such as ”Middle Eastern appearance” and demonstrated that this is irrelevant and unnecessary.

Contrary to all the scaremongering about removing these distracting descriptors, the recent arrests suggest that they may hinder rather than help in effective policing, as they risk putting offside those the police most need to be onside. Removal of racial references ensures lines of inquiry are not railroaded by ethnic detours.

By removing the race-tinted glasses and race labels from their apparatus, police may have inadvertently cracked the code of silence that often frustrates their efforts. By deeming race as irrelevant, the police leadership has steered public discourse towards a criminal gun culture, not a criminal ethnic culture, and talkback radio has finally followed suit. The strategy has succeeded in smoking out the criminals rather than driving them underground.

In my outreach work in building trust within the street sub-culture, it was clear that if there was no relationship, there was no responsibility. The rapport that the police have built with communities has replaced cold-calling with hot leads.

Kaldas aptly articulates this partnership: “Please remember, the information you provide could save the life of someone you love.”

When police behave badly, there are passionate demands for a public inquiry as to what went wrong. But when police swiftly snuff out a crime wave, there needs to be equally passionate demands for an inquiry as to what went right.

The lessons learned could be shared and applied not only in other Australian jurisdictions tackling gang and bikie crimes, but internationally.

If the police culture focuses on the criminal culture, not the ethnic culture, then it is a win-win-win for all concerned.

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Carr Calls For Syria Assassination

http://bit.ly/QfnBXg
Published on newmatilda.com (http://newmatilda.com)
________________________________________
10 Oct 2012

Carr Calls For Syria Assassination

By calling for the murder of Bashar al-Assad, Foreign Minister Bob Carr has shown both his hypocrisy and his lack of understanding about our “allies” in the Syrian uprising, writes Joseph Wakim

Public figures must think twice before commenting about someone’s death.

Veteran broadcaster Alan Jones has learned this lesson after “cyber democracy” took Australian decency into its own hands. They have inscribed an epitaph for his career: you reap what you sow.

But it appears that Foreign Minister Bob Carr has learnt nothing about the volatility of the “death sentence”. His “brutal and callous” call for the assassination of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on ABC Four Corners on Monday was utterly un-Australian, and warrants immediate sanction by Julia Gillard.

Our foreign minister represents a liberal democracy where murder is a crime and the death sentence has long been outlawed. Assassination should not be part of Australia’s strategy to end the proxy war between Iran and Israel that is fought on Syrian soil.

Carr’s comments are yet another example of the foreign minister is trying to force-fit the Libyan template over Syrian territory.

Carr’s rationale that “an assassination combined with a major defection … is what is required to get, one, a ceasefire, and, two, political negotiations” smacks of dangerous naivety. It ignores the fact that to the president and his supporters, Syria is fighting its own “war on terror” and defending its sovereign territory. This religious war has been proudly sponsored by the US and its Gulf allies — the undemocratic kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Rather than creating a cease fire, an assassination would escalate the war beyond the five volatile Syrian borders. Does Carr seriously think that Iran, Russia and China would sit idly by as yet another regime is militarily toppled?

Carr concludes that “we’ve got nothing to do but trust the spirit of the Arab Spring”. The embers of the Arab Spring were actually extinguished long ago by what he himself calls “religious fanatics … who want another form of dictatorship”. The “jihadists,” who answer to fatwas from Saudi sheiks for a holy war to ethnically cleanse Syria from non-Sunnis, want a Salafist theocracy, not a secular democracy. Ironically, Carr’s call for an assassination aligns him with Sheikh Muhammad al Zughbey — “your jihad against this infidel criminal and his people is a religious duty”.

When asked about the presence of Islamic extremists or al Qaeda in the uprising, Carr insists that “the truth is … nobody knows … outside Damascus, observation doesn’t exist”. His sources are all sworn enemies of the Syrian regime — The Friends of Syria, Gulf leaders and Western leaders — and of course they will not concede that extremists have hijacked the uprising.

Inside Syria, observation and monitoring does exist and the al-Qaeda presence has been repeatedly revealed. Journalist Robert Fisk interviewed so-called Syrian rebels inside a Syrian military prison in August, only to find that most were “recycled” foreign mercenaries. Inconvenient facts and counter-narratives such as this cannot be dismissed as pro-Assad propaganda, although Fisk’s piece in particular has drawn some criticism, including from Syrian political dissident Yassin Al-Haj Saleh.

Moreover, Carr has an immediate opportunity to be enlightened by a visiting Syrian nun who has been at the centre of the violence, tending to the war wounded. Despite repeated requests to meet with him, Mother Agnes-Mariam from St James Catholic monastery in Homs has been shunned. She has been forced to flee to Lebanon after being warned that the rebel forces, our allies and future assassins, plotted to abduct her.

Why? Because she was outspoken about the “aggressive armed gangs … abducting people, beheading, bringing terror even to schools”. Like Fisk, she confirms that only about one in 20 rebels are Syrian. She has witnessed how the uprising “steadily became a violent Islamist expression against a liberal secular society” and testifies to a “hidden will to empty the Middle East of its Christian presence”. This darker truth belies the “spirit of the Arab Spring” in Carr’s fantasy.

Unlike Carr, Mother Agnes has a peaceful solution that is gaining momentum — Mussalaha (reconciliation) — a grass roots movement for dialogue and negotiation among Syrian citizens of all ethnic and religious backgrounds who “reject sectarian violence and are tired of war”.

Unlike Carr, her method not assassination and defection, but disarmament — “freeing them of this massive foreign interference and this media instigation for violence”. As part of her international peace mission to the Vatican and the EU, she will lead a delegation of Nobel Prize laureates to Syria next month.

It is abhorrent that Carr links assassination with “what Kofi Annan said was essential”. Like Mother Agnes, Annan promoted disarmament.
Above the negotiation table, the US-Saudi-Qatar axis talked about a political solution, but under the table they sabotaged his “peace plan” with a lucrative supply chain of arms, while criticising those who vetoed more military solutions.

Why is Carr afraid to meet with Mother Agnes? Because she will disarm him of his “just war” theory, and force him to face the facts that he has put us in bed with the terrorists. She may even enlighten him that it was not Libya that endured 17 years of civil war, as he stated, but Lebanon — for 15 years. Like Alan Jones, he should know better, but chooses not to.
________________________________________
Source URL: http://newmatilda.com/2012/10/10/carr-calls-syria-assassination
Links:
[1] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/radio-broadcaster-alan-jones-blames-cyber-bullying-for-commercials-being-pulled-from-show/story-e6frg996-1226490322476
[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-04/interview-with-bob-carr/4302980
[3] http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/120814/syria-us-proxy-war-iran-saudi-arabia-qatar-sunni-shiite
[4] http://mideastmedia.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/provocative-sheikhs-views-aired.html
[5] http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-syrias-road-from-jihad-to-prison-8100749.html
[6] http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/18/51930/Books/Syrian-writer-Robert-Fisk-is-indoctrinated-by-Syri.aspx
[7] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/christians-emptied-from-middle-east/story-e6frg6so-1226489418086
[8] http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/Syria/press.asp?NewsID=1236&sID=41

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Muslim majority rises to be heard

http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/muslim_majority_rises_to_be_heard_noo7xtNSXelD4Md2H2jo6N
Muslim majority rises to be heard

What do Muslim leaders condemning the Sydney violence have in common with Pope Benedict condemning the Syrian violence?

Both highlighted forgiveness as a shared monotheistic virtue.

Muslim lawyer Mariam Veiszadeh declared on ABC radio on Sunday morning that “our prophet was constantly ridiculed and repeatedly assaulted and abused, but every time he responded with dignity, restraint, kindness and showed patience”. A case in point from the Hadith is the story of the prophet’s pilgrimage to Ta’if to preach about God. When the locals abused and stoned him, he prayed for forgiveness of their sins because “they did not know what they were doing”.

During his inaugural three-day visit to Lebanon, Pope Benedict preached a change of heart for those who desire to live in peace, especially in Syria. He said that this involves “rejecting revenge, acknowledging one’s faults, accepting apologies without demanding them and, not least, forgiveness”.

It was a sobering reminder that none of the monotheistic faiths have a monopoly on forgiveness. This flies in the face of the popular perception that while Muslims only abide by “an eye for an eye”, only Christians abide by “turn the other cheek”.

Apart from reclaiming forgiveness as central to Islam, this was a milestone moment in the history of Muslim advocacy in Australia for other reasons that must go unnoticed.

As an advocate for over 25 years, I have watched Arab and Muslim reactions inflame and subjugate their respective communities. In the 1980s, leaders would anxiously apologise for the extreme behaviour of extreme minorities, as the culprits were dumped at their feet. In the 1990s, they would try to explain and justify the behaviour so as not to offend the culprits in this vulnerable minority group in Australia. After the September 2001 terrorist attacks, leaders began to disown the behaviour as un-Islamic, echoing John Howard’s coined phrase un-Australian.

But the weekend events drew a new line in the sand: Muslim leaders disowned both the criminal behaviour and the culprits as not true Muslims, but as Australians committing crimes in Australia: The individuals responsible for the violent outburst run completely contrary to Islamic tradition.

This was reiterated yesterday by the Muslim leaders’ press conference in Lakemba where the president of the Lebanese Muslims Association, Samier Dandan, condemned “the actions of a very small minority” and urged that we all “leave this matter in the hands of law enforcement agencies”.

He could have also commended the community for alerting the police about the text messages and the plans for a demonstration, thereby protecting innocents and indeed the US Consulate.

These “good relations” were conceded by Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione. This solidarity with police contrasts with the wall of silence that dogged the bike gang violence earlier this year.

Apart from condemning the criminals, Mr Dandan also condemned the vilification, both of the placard holders and the inflammatory film, and demonstrated that leaders have not been silent about the spark. However, his call for Muslims to “respond only to directives from reputable centres and mosques” may be preaching to the converted, as the bad apples prefer to take the law into their own hands and are unlikely to attend the mainstream mosques.

Leaders are fed up with these individuals dragging the community through the mud and essentially put on trial, and have shaken the tree so that these bad apples fall and roll into their own trials in courts. Leaders no longer talk about the Muslim community as singular but as plural. Unlike the Australian Catholic Church with Cardinal George Pell as its singular head, Muslims have no such hierarchy.

The abhorrent behaviour of the self-appointed defenders of the prophet, intoxicated with heroic hatred, drew swift, unanimous and un-orchestrated condemnation from all Muslim leaders. For a change, the first leadership faces we saw were Muslim women, not a sheikh. And for a change, it was their voices of reason, not voices of radicals, that were given centre stage. While the police resorted to capsicum spray to avert what could have been fatalities, these leaders sprayed their own Hazchem fire extinguishers to avert another wave of Islamophobia.

Ironically, those who responded to the Cronulla riot style SMS alert “We must defend his honour” have much in common with the instigators of the spark – the creators of the amateur film that mocks the prophet.

Both the movie makers and these trouble makers appear to be no strangers to crime and very unforgiving. They rely on social media, endanger innocents, disrespect the law and ignite violent confrontations.

The unreleased movie is ultra-insulting to any cinema audience, not only to Muslims, as it features “spaghetti western” scenes and a talking donkey. The YouTube trailer in English was brought home to the Arab and Muslim audiences on September 8 when it was dubbed in Arabic and featured on Egypt’s Al-Nas TV. This Islamic TV station strives for the normal upbringing of Muslim personal behaviour and ethics and its website includes a list of fatwas.

Equally provocative is Al Hayat TV or KMN whose vision is to “unveil the deceptions of Islam” and whose mission is to help “new (Muslim) converts develop a deeper understanding of Christianity”. This apocalyptic channel believes that “the kingdom must reach out to the Muslim world and the whole world and then shall the end come”. The movie makers such as Coptic convicted criminal Bassily Nakloula have grown out of this branch and have endangered the lives of an already endangered Coptic minority in the new Egypt.

Such cable TV stations preach inter-faith hatred, not dialogue or forgiveness, and they are beamed into Australian homes. They are the fuel that spread the flame.

These bad apples have much in common and grow on similar branches. Both Christian and Muslim leaders have a moral duty to shake them from their trees, or amputate the branch. The bad apples should fall at the feet of the law, not the faith. More importantly, the fact that these bad apple branches are grafted overseas poses a legal challenge for anyone serious about uprooting it from Australia. They heed a call to violence from global satellites, not a call to prayer from Australian minarets.

NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Nick Kaldis is in a unique position to stem the violence. He was born in Egypt and understands both the Coptic and the Muslim sensibilities. He can communicate in a language of peace, just as former prime minister Kevin Rudd spoke Mandarin to the Chinese government.

The mature Muslim response on the weekend has heralded a new era, where the voice of the majority, not the minority, has been given the prominence it deserves.
Australia can be a beacon to the world that our brand of multiculturalism has been moulded by those imported, and is good enough to be exported.

Joseph Wakim is the founder of Australian Arabic Council and former Multicultural Affairs Commissioner

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We must break the silence that surrounds bikie warfare

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/we-must-break-the-silence-that-surrounds-bikie-warfare-20120422-1xesk.html?skin=text-only

We must break the silence that surrounds bikie warfare
Published in Canberra Times, 23 April 2012

The antithesis of a cold call is a hot coffee. And this may be the best way to penetrate the wall of silence that has enabled the spate of drive-by shootings as Hells Angels and Nomads escalate their ”turf war”.

Frustration is mounting by police, politicians and the public as we wake up to news of more midnight shootings by cowardly criminals.

But a major change in the publicity for these shootings cannot go unnoticed, as it contrasts with the shootings peak a decade ago.

There has been a prevalence of Arabic names in the media reports about suspects and victims. There have also been anonymous claims by former bikies about ”older bikies leaving in droves” because of younger ”Middle Eastern criminals” infiltrating bikie gangs because of their connections with guns and money laundering, but no interest in motor bikes.

Despite all this, politicians and police have been wisely advised to focus on the criminal culture, not the ethnic culture this time around.

Rewind to October 2003, following drive-by murders in Greenacre in Sydney’s west, when the NSW premier at the time, Bob Carr, issued an ultimatum for deportation: ”Obey the law of Australia or ship out of Australia … that is what the average Australian thinks … we’re not going to see, step by step, our civilisation dragged back to medieval standards of revenge cycles. Simple as that.”

His police minister, John Watkins, amplified the dichotomy, saying ”these people are not part of our community. They’ve stepped outside civilised behaviour”. Their Hansonite leadership filtered down to the police culture, signalling a green light to perceive the crimes through race-tinted glasses, even though the perpetrators were Australian-born citizens.

With one fell swoop and broad brush, they alienated the local Middle Eastern communities who could have been part of the solution as partners, rather than the target of the crude cultural cop-out.
Fast forward to April 2012, and the current drive-by shootings have elicited more sober responses.
NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell announced a new strike force to deal with shootings between feuding gangs – no mention of race.

NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Nick Kaldas used the word culture appropriately to describe cowardly criminals: ”It’s really a criminal culture, it’s a culture where instead of having it out with someone, do this thing almost behind their back, because they can’t cope with doing it face to face.”
NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione maintained the correct context: ”These attacks are targeted.
This is criminal on criminal.”

This is definitely a step in the right direction where our leaders have stayed focused and endeavoured to keep the community on side, at least in words. As O’Farrell concluded: ”What we need to do is support and recognise the progress that police have made. Since the start of this year, 74 arrests state-wide in relation to firearm offences, 147 weapons seized and 21,500 rounds of ammunition.”

However, to support the police, it needs more than words and avoiding provocative language. It needs action and engagement, relationships and trust with community ”elders” and those in the social network on the ground, not in cyberspace. Such fostered links could become the best informers who share the police mission to flush out the criminal elements.

Community engagement does not mean issuing one-way directives such as ”call Crime Stoppers”, ”dob in a terrorist”, ”be alert but not alarmed” or distributing multilingual brochures. It means regular two-way dialogue and confidence-building, even over a hot drink. It means that these social networks can be activated in a crisis. Policing becomes warm conversations rather than cold calls to suspicious strangers.

The current spate of shootings is also different to the 2002 peak in that media publicity had forced the culprits to go underground. This time, the media appears to be inadvertently aiding and abetting by amplifying their message of revenge and bravado. Ironically, the unabated shootings may have forced possible informants rather than criminals to go underground, in fear of being added to the hit list.

With the current shootings, there is diffusion of responsibility among local witnesses, fearful to risk reprisal to their family when so many other neighbours should have heard the same thing.

Informants may be aware of the bikie gangsters who evidently use tattoo shops as a front to launder money, which could lead to an urgent review of licensing of tattoo shops.

While the newly formed Strike Force Kinnarra will target the shootings linked to outlawed motorcycle gang conflict, NSW Police’s state crime commander, Acting Assistant Commissioner Mal Lanyon, said police were again facing a ”wall of silence” in their efforts to investigate the shootings: ”There are members of the community who have information about these shootings and the people involved …”

But police and politicians were repeatedly warned about this wall of silence 10 years ago when racist language and crude descriptors such as ”Middle Eastern appearance” were the bricks building this wall.

The circuit breaker to break the cycle of revenge shootings is surely building trust by engaging with these communities, and converting the new cooperative language into new cooperative action. It is never too late.

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Focus on talent, not torture

FOCUS ON TALENT, NOT TORTURE

‘Those who have stepped forward [pregnant pause] will move [another pregnant pause] to the next round [screams and tears], but for the rest of you, it is the end…[contestant collapses]…quick! call the medics!’

After the coroner’s report confirmed that the contestant tragically died of a heart attack, another report is inquiring into what they call ‘torture tactics’ used in TV talent shows.

Of course this has not happened. Yet.

But the recent Hollywood group rounds of American Idol saw contestants fainting and collapsing during rehearsals and performances and medics were called in [http://realityrewind.com/american-idol-2012-more-contestants-faint-during-dramatic-american-idol-episode-video-352189/]. And this is long before the final announcements. The drama was trivialised as ‘not for the faint of heart’.

Such dramas boost ratings and the TV programs would have contractual terms and conditions that would legally indemnify them from any personal stress or injury associated with the contestants’ experiences.

But such a scenario may be the wake up call needed to temper the drama when judges announce winners and losers.

The advent of this new genre of TV programs where contestants are progressively eliminated or voted off has been a magnet for ratings and advertising revenue. Programs such as American Idol, The X Factor, Australia’s Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, Australia’s next top model all capitalise on a cliff-hanger climax that maximises adrenalin among both contestants and viewers.

In a recent episode of American Idol, contestants actually passed out when the prolonged pauses and suspense was almost literally killing them.

Of course such commercially successful shows deliberately seek to milk the moment of judgement by enhancing the drama and emotion. They capitalise on the ‘edge of your seat’ pauses, zoom in on tears, add heart-thumping music, use a cryptic script to intensify the suspense, and separate contestants into ‘torture chambers’ where they try to comfort each other as they wait for the approaching footsteps of their judges. This is a painful price to pay for their desire to participate in what they thought was a TV talent quest.

These torture tactics have evolved into art forms within themselves (‘and the winner…will be announced after this break’). And the focus on the celebrity judges is detracting from the focus on the contestants’ talents. But how long must these drum rolls continue before we bang the gong?

For decades, hosts of similar contests such as beauty pageants have drawn out their announcements with a high degree of emotion. Some may argue that if the contestants cannot handle the heat (pun intended), they should get out of the kitchen. After all, it is intended as a game for entertainment, not a life or death sentence.

Elimination rounds, short lists, second interviews and rejection announcements are a fact of life in job applications, sporting tournaments and business tenders. The sleepless nights and stress levels are not peculiar to TV talent shows. However, the commercial and public exploitation of these humiliations and exaltations have become part of our entertainment. We hold our breath with our favourite contestants and share their emotional outburst as we exhale with them.

But if something tragic occurred, would the game accept any blame?

Has the elimination announcement morphed into commercial cliff-hanger that is exploited by sadistic judges and voyeuristic viewers?

It was not until Princess Diana Spencer and Dodi Fayed were tragically killed in a high speed car chase to escape the paparazzi in 1997 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/31/newsid_2510000/2510615.stm]”> that the tactics of intrusive tabloid photographers attracted public outcries and law reform in Europe and California [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/celebritology/2009/10/will_californias_new_anti-pap.html].

Such tactics had to be tamed in order to protect privacy and respect curfews. Similarly, the nail biting tactics in these TV talent shows may continue to chew all the way to the bone until or unless the public demand temperament.

There is nothing wrong with ‘Congratulations to all contestants, but there can only be one winner, who is …’, and focusing more on the talents than the torture.