The questions we need to be asking about Islamic State

December 6, 2015

The Sunday Telegraph

AS ISIS peddles conspiracy marketing that they are the masterminds behind the recent spate of all terrorist attacks, another conspiracy of silence abounds in our western alliance.

In western conversations, we shine a light on the heated issue of where will the ISIS “menace” strike next.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reminded “Australians to be aware that a terrorist incident on our soil remains likely”, despite his calm and calculated reassurances.

But we don’t shine a light on the taboo questions that explain how ISIS does not thrive in a vacuum, but is dependent on a supply chain.

We need to reject the simplistic narrative about ISIS as a malevolent cancer that can be surgically amputated.

A bolder set of questions will enlighten us that many of our allies have blood on their hands and are hypocritical for condemning ISIS publicly but aiding them privately.

Let’s shed light on who is funnelling ISIS with funds and weapons. The oil-rich Gulf states of Saudi Arabia and Qatar have supplied ammunition and salaries to the Free Syrian Army in 2012.

They should have known the ancient Arab axiom, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that ISIS would ultimately confiscate these weapons. Ironically, ISIS propaganda videos have flaunted American weapons which they now point at the manufacturing country.

Let’s shed light on which border is allowing ISIS into Syria. The infiltrations are mostly via Turkey which has allowed ‘jihadists’ and weapons across its border.

We need to shed light on who is funding the Jihadis fighting for Islamic State, Joseph Wakim says.

It has also hosted the launch of ISIS missiles into Kobane in Syria.

Therefore, we need to be asking why Turkey has aided and abetted ISIS supply chain.

Let’s shed light on who is buying the $50 million per month of Syrian crude oil that ISIS have seized. It appears that middlemen smuggle the oil to Turkey, Iran and even the Syrian government.

Let’s shed light on why the US President vows to ‘degrade’ before he destroys ISIS. It suggests that ISIS is serving some purpose in weakening the Syrian army and destabilising the Syrian government.

If they are as evil and threatening as the US rhetoric purports, then surely they need to be urgently obliterated, not gradually disarmed.

This may explain why the Russian jets apparently achieved in one week what the USA failed to achieve in a year of anti-ISIS bombings in Syria.

Let’s shed light on why ISIS have not vowed to rescue their Sunni brothers in Gaza against Israel.

Instead, we see ISIS propaganda threaten the ‘tyrants of Hamas’ with ‘the rule of sharia’. If ISIS genuinely cared about protecting its Muslim brothers from non-believers, Palestinians should be high on the list to be rescued rather than to be threatened.

If they are as evil and threatening as the US rhetoric purports, then surely they need to be urgently obliterated, not gradually disarmed.

Let’s shed light on why the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not actively accommodated the Syrian refugees.

Surely, it would make more sense that the predominantly Sunni Syrians seek citizenship in Saudi Arabia which already shares the Arab proximity, Arabic language, Sunni faith, and recognisable qualifications.

Saudi Arabia is not a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees and claims to oppose refugee status to these Syrians ‘to ensure their safety and dignity’.

It appears that the Syrian exodus prefers the prospect of distant European citizenship than nearby Saudi foreign labour.

When we shine a light on these darker tunnels that feed ISIS, we replace fear with facts.

09/10/2015

Peers vital to turning troubled teens from jihad

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/peers-vital-to-turning-troubled-teens-from-jihad/story-fni0ffsx-1227558178885

http://m.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-path-of-least-resistance-produces-least-results-in-fighting-radicalisation/story-fnihsr9v-1227557973356?from=google_rss#load-story-comments

http://bit.ly/1jLv2Kf

Herald Sun and Courier Mail, 6 October 2015

Path of least resistance produces least results in fighting radicalisation

THE gnashing of teeth over another radicalised teenager and another innocent fatality has triggered questions on how this could have been averted. While Strike Force Fellow rewinds the video footage in this critical incident investigation, authority figures rewind the recent years to see how this angry kid escaped their radars.

These authorities include police, politicians, imams and professionals who work with youth. Too often, the incubation takes place out of their gaze in the darkness of a bedroom and the glow of a laptop, where one beckoning voice to take up arms is amplified, while voices of reason are drowned out.

The counter-radicalisation authorities have knocked on many doors but they are the doors of least resistance and have produced the least results.

Ministers visiting respected imams have produced many meetings, consultations and photographs. But breaking bread together has not broken the radicalisation pathway.

These imams are often locked up in offices, late at night, holding committee meetings, planning religious events and fielding media questions. Like clergy in other faiths, they are more likely to be sitting at a boardroom table than sitting opposite an angry teenager who refuses to pray at the mosque.

ISIS recruitment videos have been “successful” because they use Western youth as their beckoning mouthpieces, appealing in English to their peers that they understand their isolation: “For all my brothers living in the West, I know how you feel … you feel depressed … the cure for the depression is jihad.”

ISIS recruitment videos have been “successful” because they use western youth as their beckoning mouthpieces, appealing in English to their peers that they understand their isolation.

The young recruiters also tell their vulnerable targets not to listen to their imams or their parents. Hence, the youth are less likely to pray in the traditional mosques.

Community engagement with Muslim elders renders a similar result. Having been involved in these honorary roles for more than 25 years, we could point bureaucrats in the right direction and we could organise forums but we are unlikely to be personally acquainted with the youth in question.

Consulting with social workers and youth workers is a step closer to the grassroots but the teenagers in these environments have at least broken their social isolation and hear a diversity of voices. The youth on dangerous pathways are less likely to attend the PCYC or sports clubs but they may be in their social neighbourhood.

The suggestion by Attorney-General George Brandis that school teachers could be trained to “spot a jihadi” oversimplifies a complex pathway that is too often clandestine. Memos could be issued about this “de-radicalisation in schools strategy” but it risks creating false alarms and Islamophobia in school grounds, while missing other forms of radicalisation such as white supremacy. Engaging with all these adult groups who understand their responsibility to collaborate with police and politicians is the well-worn path but the path to radicalised youth may require detouring off these smooth surfaces.

When authorities intercept a teenager on this radicalisation path, there is often moral panic about homegrown jihadis and the threat that this dangerous disease may be contagious. But that situation presents a perfect opportunity to learn about the pathway from an “expert”. Which websites did they visit? What were they promised? Who are their recruiters? Such a person could be galvanised and later deployed as the frontline of defence in the grassroots and cyberspace resistance against radicalisation.

The defecting and disillusioned jihadis who have renounced ISIS are the true “experts” whose first-hand testimony from behind bars could be recorded as a counter-narrative. When isolated youth key in trigger words in the search engine of their computers, this pop-up video could automatically appear, from youth to youth, warning their peers about the three-dimensional reality, compared with the two-dimensional rhetoric.

These credible counter-narrative videos could refer to the imprisonment resulting from breaking the foreign fighters legislation.

They can inoculate other vulnerable youth against this dead-end street that was sold as a path to paradise. Youth peers are more likely to derail the radicalisation pathway by planting seeds of doubt and creating opportunities to offer non-violent alternatives to redressing isolation and anger.

This may include sports groups, political parties, prayer groups, social justice groups and even expert work in de-radicalisation.

In my first job as a street worker with runaway youth, my most effective outreach was done by former street kids whose understanding of the plight and emotions was lifesaving.

In my book What My Daughters Taught Me, I explain how teenagers have so much to teach – if we open our ears and listen. By helping me to become a better widowed parent with mutual honesty and respect, I did not need to discover any dark secrets second-hand.

Youth are a fountain of wisdom, waiting to be heard.

09/10/2015

If we treat people as outsiders, they become outsiders

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/if-we-treat-people-as-outsiders-they-become-outsiders-20151004-gk0sel.html

http://bit.ly/1L1yDL0

If we treat people as outsiders, they become outsiders

October 4, 2015

Anti-Muslim vitriol plays into the hands of radicalisation recruiters.

When an incident is imbued with a single drop of Islam, it apparently explains everything, and blinds us from asking the right questions.

We are so hasty to roll out the loaded labels, such as “terrorist” and “gunman”, even when referring to a 15-year-old boy. If Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar was a gun-wielding white teenager in school uniform, rather than a brown teenager in a black robe, would we have labelled him a mixed-up kid with mental problems or a radicalised, cold-blooded terrorist?

If a white teenager had opened fire inside a mosque, would we have labelled him an angry misguided youth?

If we are serious in wanting to break this cycle of violence and acts of terror, we need to stop using dehumanising labels and stop absolving ourselves by shifting blame to Islam.

The complex reality is that many factors line up to trigger such violent acts, including broken families, mental health, perceived lack of alternatives, current circumstances, loneliness, detachment, exposure to violent videos and a twisted moral compass that defines heroism as a violent means towards a rewarding end. These are the push factors that recruiters exploit, especially if the recruit is vulnerable and lacks a good parent.

The pull factors include the lure of adventure, power, belonging, respect, weapons and rewards in paradise. They glorify acts of “warriors” and encourage copycat behaviour.

Too often, the “go to” people for deradicalisation have been community elders, established imams and elected presidents. But the real “experts” on this issue are the youth and their peers, who are more likely to understand and circumvent the cycle.

Youth peers are more likely to derail the radicalisation pathway by planting seeds of doubt and offering other pathways towards redressing injustices. These might include youth groups, political parties, fundraising for charities and letter writing.

Islamophobia might inadvertently feed into the recruitment propaganda, with predators reminding their targets: “We told you that they hate you, you are not welcome, you will never be one of them. Come home to us, come join your brothers and sisters where you will feel welcome, loved and honoured.”

Islamophobia and bombardment with hate messages communicating that Australia does not trust Muslims push “them” to the margins.

Our self-appointed vigilantes should stop giving oxygen to these lethal messages online and on talkback. Stop pushing people over the edge. Stop pushing people to denounce every crime committed by Muslims. Stop pushing people to feel that they are collectively guilty until proven innocent. Stop pushing people towards radicalisation and towards the Islamic State recruitment propaganda. If we treat people as outsiders, they become outsiders.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was keen to point out that venting at Muslims was not the solution to radicalised teenagers, as it could, ironically, be one of the causes.

“We must not vilify or blame the entire Muslim community … our absolutely necessary partners in combating this type of violent extremism.” Indeed, Muslim youth could be our frontline of defence.

This act of leadership was necessary, given the virulent online commentary about deporting Muslims, blocking the 12,000 Syrian refugees, and banning the religion. Any Muslim reading these rants may realise that they reinforce the message of the radicalisation recruiters.

NSW Premier Mike Baird is correct that radicalisation is a global issue and we need to remain open to ideas.

For a start, radicalisation and violent extremism have been treated as a national security issues by federal bureaucracies in Australia. In other countries, radicalisation is treated as a social issue, to be redressed from the ground up, in local neighbourhoods, using peer-to-peer influence as the frontline “weapon”.

At a community-initiated forum on radicalisation last Tuesday, youth, police and community leaders pooled their collective experiences to understand the cycle in order to break the cycle.

We recognise there is no one pathway to radicalisation, and Muslims have no monopoly, given the prevalence of white supremacists.

Hence, there is a need to build resistance and resilience among youth against the predators and recruiters.

The critical incident investigation by NSW Police, Strike Force Fellow, is yet to determine the motivation of the gun-wielding teenager. Just because a person chooses to pray at a mosque, or any place of worship, does not render that place a breeding ground of radicalisation. On the contrary, the Parramatta mosque willingly opened its doors, because it seeks the same solution as the rest of society.

But speculation based solely on religion offers no solutions. And it could perpetuate the problem.

09/09/2015

Syrian conflict proving to be an international, not civil, war

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-syrian-conflict-proving-to-be-an-international-not-civil-war/story-fnihsr9v-1227518301884

http://bit.ly/1LWw4Mz

Opinion: Syrian conflict proving to be an international, not civil, war

September 9, 2015

The Courier-Mail

FOR more than three years many voices, including my own, have warned about the Arab Spring turning sour, the morphing of the anti-Assad forces in Syria from pro-democracy to pro-theocracy, the leaking of Western weapons into the wrong hands and the leaking of foreign fighters from Australia.

The Australian Government was twice visited by peace activist Mother Agnes Miriam who advocated Mussalaha – a 10-point plan towards reconciliation within Syria. Voices such as hers and mine were criticised for daring to question the dominant and simplistic narrative of the Arab Spring, but still we cautioned this was not a Syrian civil war, but an international war involving mercenaries and jihadists, where some stakeholders were speaking peace above the table but funnelling weapons and funds under it.

The concerns behind the warnings have materialised. The proof is in the graphic images of human suffering and Europeans opening their borders to a refugee flood.

Here, Australia’s border protection regime has served to dehumanise those seeking refuge on our shores. We have been conditioned to not see past the boats. The faces, names and stories of those inside the boats are obscured. But when a photo from Europe of a dead Syrian child washed up on a Turkish beach makes all the front pages, the dehumanised are re-humanised and we are suddenly outraged.

Whether it is the emblematic pictures of the drowned toddler, Aylan Kurdi, or a father, Abdul Halim Attar, a Palestinian refugee from Yarmouk in Syria, selling pens on a Beirut street, why are we suddenly shocked by these images when we have been warned about this for years? Yet suddenly we have a humanitarian catastrophe in Syria. Suddenly, ISIS is too dangerous and we need to intervene more. Suddenly, the asylum seekers may be genuine and need to be accommodated.

Perhaps Germany’s open arms have shown up our clenched fists when it comes to the treatment of these asylum seekers? Perhaps Pope Francis’s call for each European parish to “take in one family” has revealed the moral dilemma now facing our Australian Catholic “Captain”?

By assisting the US in air strikes in Syria, we may be compounding the problem we are ostensibly now seeking to redress. Did our military intervention in neighbouring Iraq bring about democracy and peace, or sow seeds for more bloodshed? Can we guarantee that more innocent Syrian civilians will not be killed in the crossfire?

Rather than increasing the area of our bombing and stopping the boats, we should stop the causes of the wars that cause the boats. We should be asking whose borders are allowing ISIS fighters and their weapons to “leak” into Syria? We should be asking who in the West and elsewhere is buying the oil and looted antiquities sold by ISIS.

Instead of (or as well as) debating about our refugee intake, we should be pressing the wealthy Middle East Gulf states, which aided and abetted the armed opposition to the Syrian Government, to take in their fair share of Syrians as well.

Joseph Wakim, a founder of the Australian Arabic Council, is a freelance writer

15/07/2015

Mid-East policy ‘cooked up’ ISIS

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17505

Online Opinion, 14 July 2015

Once upon a time, there was the Arab Spring … and they lived unhappily ever after. On 18 March 2011, Syrian youth ignited a revolution with graffiti in Dar’aa – the regime must fall. The inferno has now killed over 200,000 people and displaced nearly four million.

It is easy to blame IS militants for the problem, but they are the symptom of foreign policies that resemble BBQ knobs. Power brokers are upgraded and degraded to achieve the desired temperature and power balance.

Three years ago, Mother Agnes Miriam visited Australia from Syria and warned about the emptying of Christians in the Middle East. She predicted that Christians would be the casualty of the Arab Spring. Enough beheading videos have been posted online to bring home this tragic truth.

She also warned that the “Arab Spring” had been “hijacked by foreign Islamist mercenaries, with strong support from Western countries.”

Indeed, the Syrian youth who started the revolution were hijacked by the Free Syrian Army who were in turn hijacked by the non-Syrian Salafists who were in turn hijacked by the foreign fighters of al Qaeda and their offshoot the ‘Islamic State.’ There is nothing civil about the war in Syria.

Arab strongmen and ‘flames’ are treated like burners of a BBQ, to be ignited then extinguished, armed then disarmed, elevated then bombed, allies then enemies.

The US backed coalition, including Australia, will keep adjusting the BBQ knobs to ensure their two main allies remain protected: Israel and Saudi Arabia. The same two countries that the US dares not criticise for their human rights violations.

So long as the Arabs are fighting each other, and their flames become weaker, they should not pose any threat to Israel’s military supremacy in the neighbourhood.

Why have al Qaeda and all its offshoots, jihadists and mercenaries flocked to fight alongside their Sunni brothers in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, and in the Levant, but they have never rushed to rescue their Sunni brothers in Palestine, especially in Gaza?

On the eve of Sept 11 last year, US President Barack Obama condemned ISIS and its “acts of barbarism”, referring to it as a “terrorist organisation, pure and simple.” So why vow to gradually degrade and ultimately destroy rather than immediately destroy?

The black box of the BBQ reveals the history of those playing with the temperature control knobs.

On 20 December 1983, when Iraq fought Iran after the Islamic revolution, US special envoy Donald Rumsfeld did a handshake deal with Saddam Hussein. Iraq was upgraded.

But on 2 August 1990 when Hussein flexed his muscles into Kuwait, he had to be degraded then ultimately extinguished.

Between 1986 and 1989, the CIA funneled $500 million in weapons into Afghanistan when Osama bin Laden fought with his Mujaheddin militants to expel the Communist Russian invasion during the Cold War. Let’s upgrade Afghanistan.

But on 11 September 2001 when Bin Laden’s militants morphed into al-Qaeda and flexed their muscles into the USA with terrorist attacks, they had to be degraded and this public enemy number was ultimately extinguished.

Since 2011, the US-Saudi-Qatar donors have aided and abetted the anti-Assad mercenaries. In 2014, the ISIS monster flaunted its US equipment that it has seized “in our pockets” and now needs to be degraded.

The control of the BBQ knobs was highlighted when Sunni Salafists took up arms in Iraq against the US-backed Malaki government and they were condemned as insurgents.

But if those same Salafists stepped across the border into Syria, they were suddenly praised as rebels fighting a dictator, fighting on the same side as the US.

Too often, the US and its allies speak of peace, diplomacy and democracy above the table, but they funnel aid and arms under the table. Then they wash their hands and call it civil war and sectarian war.

The US-Saudi-Qatar alliance intended their pipelines of weapons and funds to reach the Free Syrian Army in order to degrade Iran’s greatest ally in the region. But their ‘intelligence’ must have known what local Arabs already knew: these pipelines were leaking.

These dangerous toys would land in the hands of Al Nusra boys, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, and ultimately be confiscated by ISIS.

We fan their flames if we give them oxygen, and our media is their oxygen, inadvertently paying for their global recruitment and fear campaign.

Within Arab conversations, cynicism prevails about the cyclical and sickening pretext to war: “We in the West will save you from the monster (that we created)”.

Enough of the BBQ of Arab lands, enough of the incineration of Arab people. It is time to learn the lessons from the BBQ’s black box. Otherwise innocent Arab people will be condemned to live and die unhappily ever after as BBQ knobs turn around them.

20/05/2015

Former jihadis are our best weapon again Islamic State grooming

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/former-jihadis-are-our-best-weapon-again-islamic-state-grooming-20150520-gh5ig4.html

http://bit.ly/1HtuFO9

Sydney Morning Herald, 20 May 2015

Former jihadis are our best weapon again Islamic State grooming

Shutting the door on former Islamic State recruits seeking repatriation may miss an opportunity to block the radicalisation path. After all, law enforcement strategies and name-calling by government voices have not curbed the magnetism of this “death cult”.

Yes, the chorus of cautious voices is justified. Yes, the disillusioned youth should have renounced IS on the same public platforms that drew them in: online for other youth to see and hear, loud and clear. Yes, the youth who have broken our counterterrorism “foreign fighters” legislation must be subjected to the full force of our criminal justice system, including imprisonment. Yes, we need to ensure that we do not inadvertently create an escape clause for “jihadis” who want to “get out of jail free”.

But if ever there was an opportunity to benefit from these de-radicalised voices, and benefit from the lessons learnt in other parts of the world, this is it. Surely, our intelligence authorities should be trusted to be intelligent enough to harness rather than squander this opportunity.

In Europe, former extremists have long been recruited by organisations such as Exit and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. These movements recognise that angry, rejected youth need a counter-narrative and “tangible alternatives to violence”. They recognise that “formers” have a credibility that governments lack.

Former extremists now understand the continuum from isolation to belonging to disengagement better than most. They now understand the consequences when one is seduced by the two-dimensional videos then lands in a three-dimensional reality, sometimes cleaning toilets and babysitting. They now understand how to resist these temptations and learn to act on their anger through legitimate channels such as social justice and politics. They now understand what many non-Muslim “experts” are grappling with: why people go and why they return. No amount of funding or education can substitute for the firsthand testimonies of “formers”.

In the United States, the diminution and implosion of the Ku Klux Klan was partly due to former members publicly denouncing its violence, such as the late Elwin Wilson in 2009. For more than a century, former members have proven to be a more formidable force than law enforcement authorities or external critics.

Even in Australia, a mercy campaign involved eminent Australians petitioning for clemency for the “extraordinary rehabilitation” of former drug smugglers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, before their tragic execution last month. There was growing recognition that their genuine and demonstrable reform could have aided the war against drug smuggling.

Clearly, cynicism prevails about the sincerity of reformed jihadis returning from the Middle East. The same logic does not apply, yet Australia has never tested this theory of deploying deradicalised and disillusioned youth to aid the war against violent extremism and home-grown terrorists.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott reflected the broad Australian sentiment when he declared that “there is no place in our society for people who have been radicalised”. Perhaps those deradicalised now passionately agree with him, but offer a more credible voice. Perhaps they are now the most potent strings on his bow. Perhaps their testimonials are our best weapon in this battle for young minds.

This logic has been echoed by counterterrorism experts including Professor Michele Grossman, who argue that the most authentic counter-narratives come from disillusioned foreign fighters who are in a unique position because of their firsthand experiences.

Rather than investing $21.7 million in an online social media campaign to counter pro-ISIS propaganda, our government could spend less money by amplifying the testimonials of deradicalised formers through all the clandestine channels. The money could be spent to build resilience and resistance against the groomers and traffickers.

Surely our authorities can discern who among the three young jihadis now seeking repatriation has already demonstrated to other disoriented youth: “wrong way – go back!”

If we are serious about fighting the recruitment of IS and its ilk, we need to learn from international experiences and recognise when opportunity knocks. Before us now, we have people who have been “educated” and exploited as frontline fodder. They can in turn educate us to inoculate other vulnerable youth against this dead-end street, sold as a path to paradise.

What needs rehabilitation now is our policy on these “formers”, when the policy of fear is lifted to give way to clarity.

Our own clemency policy and counter-narrative need not be as black and white as the ISIS propaganda. Conditions apply.

19/12/2014

Sydney siege: Black flag symbol of fear, but we already have the antidote

http://www.smh.com.au/national/sydney-siege-black-flag-symbol-of-fear-but-we-already-have-the-antidote-20141218-129vaa.html

http://bit.ly/13eEkWp

Sydney siege: Black flag symbol of fear, but we already have the antidote

December 19, 2014

The more the black flag is used by terrorists the more it comes to symbolise fear. The flower memorial that grew after the siege is a symbol of our shared love and our shared values.

If he carries a gun, it is a siege. But if he also carries an Islamic flag, it is terrorism.

Perhaps that flag was more loaded than the gun. It tainted the tragic story as something borne of a “death cult” rather than a dangerous psychosis.

A black flag was also brandished from a passing vehicle in front of my children’s school in Parramatta on September 16. Verbal threats were made by a 14-year-old about slaughtering Christian children. Again it was the flag that catapulted the incident to banner headlines. As the school spokesman, I fielded media interviews from around the world to put this isolated incident into factual perspective.

And it is the black flag that may be used again to galvanise global media attention. In the wake of Martin Place tragedy, how do we stop “copy-cat” crimes by narcissists who seek to capitalise on the Islamophobia?

From within the community, this may be combated by clerics reiterating that such perpetrators end up going down as criminals, not rising up as martyrs.

From the wider community, we should stop pushing people over the edge. Stop pushing people to denounce every crime committed by Muslims, as if it does not go without saying. Stop pushing people to feel that they are on parole, as if they are collectively guilty until proven innocent. Stop pushing people towards the margins of society, towards radicalisation, towards the IS recruitment propaganda that Muslims are unwelcome and unloved in the West. Using a migration paradigm, the Islamophobes are creating the push factor which feeds into the ISIS pull factor.

The Australian, British and other Western recruits who speak on these slick videos with the black flag as their backdrop tell their Muslim targets that they understand their alienation. “For all my brothers living in the West, I know how you feel … you feel depressed … the cure for the depression is jihad.”

The black flag has morphed into a weapon that is more explosive than the bomb. Yet the shahada on the flag iterates the most basic tenets of Islam: There is no God but God; Mohammed is the messenger of God.”

Imagine waving a crucifix inscribed with a basic Christian creed: “Jesus is the son of God who rose from the dead.” The crucifix in a different context has been misappropriated as a symbol of fear, such as Crusades during the 12th century and by the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s when cross lighting had terrorised African Americans.

The repeated visual juxtaposition of the black flag in the IS beheading videos has been etched as a symbol to fear. The more we are conditioned to panic, like Pavlov’s dogs salivating when they hear a bell ring, the more the flag gains potency.

As with many fears and phobias, our reactions are not always based on fact. Anything resembling the enemy is treated accordingly. Hence, other black flags, Arabic writing, bearded Muslim men with no moustache, and even Arabic speaking people trigger a similar sense of anxiety.

It may take time to deconstruct this damage and reconstruct the reality. Just because an individual waves a black flag does not mean that he is an IS jihadist militant. Their political movement to forcibly recreate a Caliphate has been roundly condemned by Islamic clerics worldwide, including Australia where the Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed denounced ISIS as committing crimes against humanity and sins against God. The movement thrives on fear and attracts those who love to be feared.

What Sydney-siders have demonstrated this week is that what we love conquers what we fear. Indeed, love is the antithesis of fear. And the epitome of this was the I’ll ride with you social media movement where the Muslim fear of being targeted on public transport was conquered by offers of accompaniment. On Thursday night, Muslim leaders arranged a public vigil at Martin Place to “Stand Together” with all those affected by the tragedy “here and overseas”, They gathered around the symbol of the flower memorial, not flags.

Tragically, this community is no stranger to sieges and fear. I recall Martin Place being closed off on August 3 during the peace rallies over the “siege” in Gaza. Many flags were flown by those empathising with a population on the other side of the world. Operation Protective Edge saw over 2100 Palestinians and over 70 Israelis killed.

No matter how high flags are hoisted, our shared love of our shared values rises higher and looks down on the facts with a fresh perspective.

We see those who exploit flags to foster fear, whether it is those who claim to be Muslim martyrs or anti-Muslim martyrs. Ironically, both share the same philosophy and serve the same master: Muslims are misfits in Australia.

From high above the flapping flags, we see people of all colour congregate around the flower shrine and we know better.

30/09/2014

Bigots recruit for ISIS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UULCUbvRrQnApZldY6CTquTA&v=EoKPWUHtKQI&feature=player_embedded

Studio 10, Daily Dilemma, 30 Sept 2014

30/09/2014

Bigots recruit for ISIS

http://thehoopla.com.au/bigots-isis-recruiters-default/

BIGOTS RECRUIT FOR ISIS

By Joseph Wakim Daily Dilemma, Must see

September 30, 2014

While Australian defence forces are engaged in an international war against ISIS militants, some local vigilantes have become self-appointed defence forces.

They may believe that they are defending Australia from the potential enemy within, to degrade and destroy ISIS.

But are they helping the Australian military campaign, or helping the ISIS recruitment campaign?

A look at the language used by the ISIS recruiters and the language used by Islamophobes bear chilling similarities. Both tell their young male Muslim targets: you are unloved and unwelcome in the West.

The official ISIS recruitment videos use cinematic quality and anthemic music. They show revelling recruits singing and applauding, akin to a campfire celebration. It tries to seduce young men who aspire to be warriors.

The Australian, British and other Western recruits who speak on these slick videos tell their Muslim targets that they understand their alienation. “For all my brothers living in the West, I know how you feel … you feel depressed … the cure for the depression is jihad.”

They appeal to a sense of belonging “from a Muslim brother’s heart to another brother’s heart.” They use expressions such as “finally among your people.”

The recruitment videos tap into victimhood and injustice, ironically referring to children who are beheaded for being Muslim and conjuring “Palestine pounded” after the “Jews have taken it.” It implores its profiled targets to “look and see and wake up and understand why this is happening.”

Australian Muslims should not be seduced by this allure and would not relate to the identity crisis of the recruits.

But there are Australian media outlets giving oxygen to the same lethal messages.

They are online and on toxic talkback, amplifying venom that was once deemed bigoted. The war against ISIS overseas has unleashed a war against Islam locally. It appears that the factual filters are off and so are the boxing gloves.

Just on one site, the comments called for rounding up, deporting and banning Muslims. They competed for the most despicable descriptors from Satanists to a-holes, to evil, to rotten, to barbaric to flea-ridden camel jockeys. They refer to the prophet as twisted and the Koran as a comic book.

Any Muslim reading these rants may realise that they reinforce the message of the ISIS recruiters.

When local Muslim speakers protest that “we have been victimised for years and years,” he is again echoing the propaganda of the ISIS recruiters.

These verbal messages are reinforced with actions, as captured on the Islamophobia Register Australia. Some of these hate-based crimes include attacks on the most visible Muslims, women in hijabs, as well as vandalism on mosques and a knife-threat at an Islamic school. There are also death threats to Muslim leaders including the Grand Mufti, which have been reported to police.

Even from the chambers of federal parliament, there are calls by Senator Jacqui Lambie and Senator Cory Bernardi to ban the burqa, despite no shred of evidence linking this face covering to security issues. They probably meant the niqab where the eyes are uncovered, as burqas are worn in Afghanistan, not Australia. Moreover, the proposed private member’s bill may breach section 116 of our constitution: “the Commonwealth shall not make any law … for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion.”

The (mis)appropriation of all Muslims into one dangerous basket puts all adherents of Islam on a scaled continuum as pre-disposed to violent extremism and ISIS sympathisers under cover.

But the cumulative effect of such vigilantes and hysteria can have the exact opposite result.

It can remind Muslims that they are unwelcome, unAustralian, never one of us.

Some who feel insulted and intimidated by the bombardment of bigotry may resort to the register, the police and the relevant authorities. Some will try to ignore it and take precautions to keep their families safe by minimising public appearances (shopping centres, crowds, parks), hence restricting their freedom of movement. The older generation would have experienced a similar ‘open season’ during the 1991 war on Iraq and the 2001 war on terror.

But the younger generation may be both alert and alarmed. Some young males may already feel angry, for various sociological reasons. They may be ignorant about their own religion and may be susceptible to the beck and call of ISIS who would be rubbing their hands: “See – we told you! The West hates you. You are a victim. You are depressed. Come to your brothers where you belong.”

Ironically, the Islamophobia may drive these Muslims towards the margins of society, towards radicalisation, towards the ISIS enemy. Using a migration paradigm, the Islamophobes are creating the push factor which feeds into the ISIS pull factor.

Perhaps we need to deploy an Operation Hammerhead to counter these vigilantes. They are not making Australia safer, but helping their enemy, by default.

The front line of defence has often been the very people that they are targeting: Muslims who have risked their own safety to tip-off police about suspects. Whoever endangers Australia obviously endangers these families and also endangers the long term reputation of their community.

While the vigilantes aid and abet ISIS, the Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed has denounced ISIS and their recent fatwa as committing crimes against humanity and sins against God.

So who is really degrading ISIS and who is feeding them with free recruits?

23/09/2014

Islamic State is a creation like Frankenstein’s monster

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/islamic-state-is-a-creation-like-frankensteins-monster-20140922-10k8f4.html

http://bit.ly/1x3nGFU

Islamic State is a creation like Frankenstein’s monster

Joseph Wakim

Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2014

“We’ve seen this before. Extremists, foreign fighters returning home, responsible for terrorist attacks in our region.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop issued this warning to the United Nations Security Council last Friday regarding the threat posed by Islamic State beyond its caliphate.

But if earlier warnings were heeded, the crisis of the Islamic State monster could have been averted. Three years ago, Arab voices warned “we’ve seen this before”.

From Syria, Mother Agnes-Mariam warned that the Arab Spring had been “hijacked by foreign Islamist mercenaries, with strong support from Western countries”. In newspaper columns at the time I warned these Salafists were exploiting the sectarian fault lines to impose a theocracy, not a democracy.

Such warnings were ignored and these militants morphed into the monster we now know as Islamic State, or sometimes as ISIL.

Although the US-Saudi-Qatar alliance intended their pipelines of weapons and funds to reach the Free Syrian Army, their “intelligence” must have shown what local Arabs already knew: the pipelines were leaking. These dangerous toys would land in the hands of Al Nusra Front, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, and ultimately Islamic State, which now reigns supreme.

For veteran Arab advocates, this pattern is a deja vu: the West aids and abets mercenaries to emasculate a monster, until the mercenaries become the next monster that the West needs to “degrade and ultimately destroy”. But we are rarely asked to diagnose the causes of wars in our ancestral birthplace because the bloodstains may lead to the US and its regional allies. Instead, we are asked about who is bleeding on the streets.

We need to feed the shock horror stories as if it was a scoreboard of “team Australia” versus “unwelcome visitors”. But it should be no shock at all. As in the 1991 war on Iraq and the 2001 war on terrorism, Muslims and Arabs are conflated into one malevolent monolith. They are wedged between two media imperatives: the toxic talkback that poisons our airwaves with stories on Muslim villains, which in turn fill pages with photos of Muslim victims.

We roll our eyes as we roll out the same ugly examples. Last Thursday, a senior Imam leading a group of Hajj pilgrims was detained by Customs at Sydney Airport for a “routine baggage check”, which caused him to miss his flight. The Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim has received a written death threat depicting bleeding swords. Again, graffiti on mosques, egging of homes, threats by mail, and drive-by bigotry have confirmed that some see this as open season to terrorise Muslims and give them a “taste of their own medicine”. Again, an Islamophobia register has been opened.

While one motorist flaunting a black flag threatened to slaughter Christians at my children’s Catholic school last Tuesday, another peace-loving Muslim offered a bouquet to express his disgust.

As Prime Minister, Tony Abbott needs to send a blunt message to the perpetrators: “Have a good, long, hard look at yourselves,” because team Australia is about kicking goals, not kicking Muslims who are your fellow team members. Unlike Bob Hawke in 1991 and John Howard in 2001, he needs to condemn bigotry immediately (previous prime ministers did condemn bigotry, but weeks after they were repeatedly requested to do so).

Within Arab conversations, cynicism prevails about the predictable pretext to war: “We will save you from the monster (that we created).” It is borne out of cyclical and sickening patterns.

Here’s a reminder: On December 20, 1983, US special envoy Donald Rumsfeld did a handshake deal with Saddam Hussein when Iraq fought against Iran after the Islamic revolution. On August 2, 1990, Hussein flexed his muscles into Kuwait and had to be, ultimately, destroyed.

Between 1986 and 1989, the CIA funnelled $500 million in weapons into Afghanistan when Osama bin Laden fought with his mujahideen militants to successfully expel the Communist Russian invasion during the Cold War. On September 11, 2001, bin Laden’s militants, having morphed into al-Qaeda, flexed their muscles into the United States with terrorist attacks. They then became public enemy No. 1. number one

Since 2011, the US-Saudi-Qatar donors have aided and abetted the anti-Assad mercenaries. In 2014, the Islamic State monster flaunted US equipment that it had seized and now needs to be degraded.

Unless we stop history repeating itself, we are doomed to witness yet another Arab leader crowned then crushed in 10 years. The familiar narrative evokes Mary Shelley’s haunting tragedy about Dr Frankenstein, who creates the monster for his own benefit. When the monster turns on him, Frankenstein hunts him down to exact revenge.

Although the story is nearly 200 years old, the current war testifies that the moral remains unheeded. The modern name for Frankenstein’s monster in US foreign policy is blowback. It is an ironic name because the Arab landscape is treated as a barbecue with many burners. As the flame knobs are continually upgraded and degraded, blowback is inevitable and thousands of innocent civilians will continue to be scorched in the process. While fictitious Frankenstein made one mistake with a tragic ending, the factual Frankenstein keeps cooking up monsters then counter-monsters, and needs to be told: khalas (enough).