THE Muslim community must shake off the cosy cloak of victimhood and acknowledge that it has a significant problem. One that threatens to turn inclusive Australians into frightened xenophobes as talk of beheadings and homegrown terrorism causes reasonable people to ask why we’ve imported these seething hatreds into a peaceful, cohesive country. It’s time for Islamic leaders to confront the evil within the community and finally dissociate the majority of Muslims from the extremist scourge, the wannabe martyrs and jihadists who despise this country and what it stands for. It seems mad to think that Muslims in a prosperous land, one where they enjoy abundant freedoms and opportunities, would seek to change that country into the type of place they fled from. And yet that is what we are seeing from a minority that is not interested in integration; a minority of extremists who want to enjoy the lucky country but who do not respect our ways. There have been many opportunities in recent weeks for imams and community leaders to demonstrate their allegiance to this country and time and again they have let down their people by condemning not the extremist elements that threaten the safety of all Australians, but the Government and law enforcement authorities who they accuse of being divisive and heavy-handed. One would’ve thought the nation’s biggest-ever anti-terrorism raids involving more than 800 police and ASIO officers would provoke the type of response that many have been demanding from moderate Muslims; that they would finally denounce those who seek to commit horrifying acts of violence against Australians. There was a protest march but sadly it wasn’t against those who want to turn our country into a war zone. No, some in the Muslim community instead marched against the counter-terrorism raids. The rally in Lakemba was all the more galling because it was held on a war memorial. When Numan Haider stabbed two police officers before being fatally shot at Endeavour Hills police station, the reaction from community leaders, self-appointed or otherwise, was depressingly predictable. There should have been an unequivocal condemnation of the aggressor and sympathy expressed for the injured police officers, but instead we got weasel words seeking to blame everything from Tony Abbott’s language to police provocation to the media’s reporting of terror threats. The Muslim community must make a stand; either their loyalties lie with this country and the values we hold dear or their primary concern is to defend and excuse those troublesome elements from within whose behaviour disgraces their religion and people. They can’t have it both ways. Of course the Islamist apologists are not alone in their eagerness to shift responsibility from the radical extremists to Australian society; they are ably assisted in this endeavour by the fringe-dwelling self-loathers of the Left who are always eager for an opportunity to paint Australia as some hideously racist backwater that turns fine young men into potential murderers. If anything, the anti-Australian simpletons of the ABC-Guardian-Fairfax-Crikey echo chamber are even more delusional than Muslim leaders. Some who had steadfastly refused to accept that the threat of homegrown terrorism was real, and not just a Tony Abbott plot to bolster his poll numbers, were still disbelieving after the Endeavour Hills incident. The terrorism deniers argued that if the terror alert level wasn’t raised and police hadn’t investigated, then radicals wouldn’t be provoked into attacking us. In short, their genius theory is: if we stop foiling the jihadis’ attempts to kill us they’ll stop wanting to kill us. What the progressive luvvies consider kindness is considered weakness by criminal elements and it’s a weakness that they exploit. Nothing is gained by pandering to extremist elements in the vain hope that we’ll impress upon them that the path to assimilation is preferable to fundamentalism. Rotherham illustrated what happens when supposedly well-meaning Left-wing ideology is allowed to dominate policy making and policing. In Rotherham, institutionalised political correctness resulted in vulnerable girls being brutalised because authorities were afraid of being seen as Islamophobic or racist if they pursued the paedophile gangs who were mainly of Pakistani descent. The fear of Islamophobia and the imagined backlash against the Muslim community is used as a bat to beat down all valid criticism. But we cannot compromise the values that we cherish in the name of political correctness or even multiculturalism. The only answer is a consistent, principled and uncompromising response that shows that while this country won’t be cowed or have its principles of inclusiveness and equality compromised, its citizens won’t stand by and allow hostile groups to change our way of life. The Muslim community’s tendency to assume the victim position has been counterproductive and further undermined relations with mainstream Australia. Even moderate Muslims have a propensity to minimise the crimes of radicals. It’s a defensiveness that does not serve them well. It’s time to dispense with the niceties and tell it like it is; the Islamic community has a crisis on its hands and it’s one of its own making. Sure, it’s easier to blame society, the Government, Israel and the US, but the truth is that in 2014, Islam is at the centre of terrorism concerns and atrocities in Africa, The Middle East, Europe, North America, Asia and now Australia.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 21:46:02 +0000
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