freediver wrote on Sep 26^th, 2014 at 8:45am:


One school?  Like tarring all Muslims with the same brush because one stabs a policeman.   I suppose you're nothing if not consistent in your views Freediver.   

polite_gandalf wrote on Sep 26^th, 2014 at 12:08pm:


No doubt you also agree with them on eating pork and worshipping elephants. Are you deliberately missing the point? Or was all that crap about being outside the fold merely saying that supporting terrorism puts a Muslim at greater risk of becoming a terrorist?

You have portrayed yourself as a reformer who rejects the classical interpretations of Islam. You have demonstrated this with your elaborate reinterpretations. Does this put you outside the fold of the mainstream?

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No HB. There were several schools and several scandals. Islamic schools, despite being a tiny minority of Australian private schools, dominate the scandals when it comes to misappropriation of government funds.

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That is the reason you posted it Gandalf, but it is not a reason why you cannot answer simple questions about it. Are we only allowed to consider how it supports your argument while ignoring the holes in it?

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Sounds like a question of causation to me. If a Muslim is drawn by Islam towards terrorism and his Muslim community rejects him for being a head hacking lunatic, is that rejection the cause of or the response to his extremism? Should the Muslim community embrace head hacking lunatics so they don't feel left out and blow something up? Do mainstream institutions actually protect against extremism, or merely attract people who were not inclined towards head hacking lunacy to begin with?

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Being sent to an exclusive Islamic school is going to make a person feel more alienated from broader society.

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If a Muslim turns up to a Mosque and is told that his interpretation of Islam is wrong, he will be driven away. The Muslims at the mosque have a choice between trying to brush over and ignore his extremism, or confront it and risk driving him away.

Whatever they do, they keep it to themselves. Other than mothers dobbing in their sons so they can't go on a rape and pillage tour of the middle east, I see no evidence of it happening, and even that example is third hand. All the public debate appears to be between Muslims and non-Muslims.

I can't think of many examples from other religions, as the debate appears to be over now. The only one that comes to mind is GWB's talk of being on a mission from God (forget his exact words), which sparked a lot of vitriolic debate among Christians. There are plenty of equally stupid things being said by Muslim leaders on a daily basis, but the public debate is always centred on the victimhood of the Muslims who feel that non-Muslims are unfairly associating them with it.

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There is an awful lot they are not doing. I think it requires a more fundamental change than Muslims are prepared to accept. Quiet, backroom chats with angry young men is not going to make the problem go away. Muslims need to embrace freedom of speech and freedom of religion. They need to defend - to the death - the rights of non-Muslims to say horrible things about Islam and make really funny movies about Muhammed. They need to stop blaming the west at every opportunity. They need to stop whinging about the police trying to track down all the Muslim nutters in Australia and instead cheer them on. They need to mature, in a hurry. They need to have a public debate about Islam that first acknowledges, then confronts the violent inheritance of Islam, rather than merely saying it doesn't exist. They need to go through the same thing that Christianity went through over the last few centuries, and other religions more recently. Anything less reinforces the victimhood mentality of Muslim terrorists.

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That is my fall-back position. It is up to Muslims to demonstrate otherwise. If they cannot get it right, abandoning Islam is the only option.

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You will always find people who say the police over-reacted. Muslims are saying this. You, for example, are saying this.

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There are about 100 Australian Muslims raping and pillaging their way across the middle east. So yes, I do expect the Australian Muslim community to fall in line instead of whinging about the inconvenience to themselves. I expect them to take the magnitude of this problem seriously.

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You completely missed the point Gandalf. This is the opposite of what I am asking. I am demanding more than tokenism. If Muslims want to become part of the solution, they need to take active steps against the Australian Jihadis, and their supporters and funders. They need to genuinely embrace freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc.

freediver wrote on Sep 29^th, 2014 at 8:01am:


Non-muslims are saying it.

Can you think of a good justification for handing out open invitations to the media for these raid extravaganzas?

freediver wrote on Sep 29^th, 2014 at 8:01am:


60 FD - this has been pointed out to you before.

freediver wrote on Sep 29^th, 2014 at 8:01am:


I don't see anyone whinging about "inconvenience". I see people urging caution about the potential adverse effects the sort of stunts described above have, and to call for conciliation.

Do you recognise *ANY* potential for threats the other way when society is whipped up into a panic about burqas and mosques - especially when the panic has nothing at all to do with the actual terrorist issue? Do you spare any consideration to the threats to people's rights and freedoms when you suddenly and coincidentally start get people barging into islamic schools waving a knife, or members of our defence force inventing stories about being attacked by "men of middle eastern appearance" - or even an elected member making a completely irrelevant call for the burqa to be banned at parliament house?

freediver wrote on Sep 29^th, 2014 at 8:01am:


And you have absolutely no evidence that they are not taking these steps. For people like you, they are always guilty until proven innocent. Your idiotic argument about the siphoning of money at the Malik Fahd school being a proof of terrorist funding with no evidence is a highly pertinent example.

The people who you say have to be "reined in" by the islamic community are people who are known to be in cycles of poverty and crime - drug users, serial criminals etc. Frequently they suffer from mental illness. All the terrorists in Iraq/Syria that we have heard about fit the bill. Yes, they find in islam an outlet, but islam doesn't give them the reason for being criminals. Other people in similar downward socio-economic cycles turn to other crimes - "terrorizing" the Sydney streets with drugs, crime and robberies. These non-muslim "terrorists" are far more of a problem, and we don't try and pin a religion on them to try and explain their criminal ways. These are socio-economic issues, not religious ones. The islamic community is not equipped, nor designed to tackle these deep seated socio-economic issues. They offer a message and spiritual guidance - but as you yourself say, the guidance is only there for people who are willing to accept it. That rules out the hot-heads who insist on turning to these so called "backstreet imams" - frequently in our prisons, or other criminal circles. To keep these sorts of people on the straight path, a mosque offering religious guidance only to those willing to listen, is clearly not the solution. The solution is with policy, politics and above all, funding.

And if you seriously think that all that is needed to fix these deep seated socio-economic issues is for muslim leaders to embrace a bit of freedom of speech, then you are dreaming.