Myth we brought terrorism threat on ourselves
ANDREW BOLTTHE COURIER-MAILSEPTEMBER 22, 2014 12:00AM
A Muslim protester at Lakemba in Sydney.
WASSIM Doureihi said something very frightening to Muslims protesting in Lakemba against last Thursday’s anti-terrorist raids.
Even more frightening is that no one — no politician, commentator or academic — condemned him.
Doureihi, a veteran leader of the Hizb ut-Tahrir movement, brushed off police claims that the men they’d arrested had planned to behead Australians on the orders of the Islamic State.
“Let me say clearly, even if a single bomb went off, even if a thousand bombs went off in this country, all it will prove is that Muslims are angry,” Doureihi said, speaking calmly.
Put his comment in context. It was Doureihi who last November told 600 supporters at Hizb ut-Tahrir’s conference in Lidcombe they were victims of “a war on Islam — a war that is being waged in this country as it is in the rest of the world”.
And what does the Koran say to Muslims who believe themselves at war? Not to turn the other cheek but fight: “To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to defend themselves), because they are wronged.”
This is why Doureihi’s comments were so dangerous and — I suspect — why so many commentators ignored them.
Doureihi was already excusing even “a thousand bombs” here in response to what his organisation claims is a “war on Islam”.
It is that belief which has already landed 21 Muslims in jail for previous terrorist plots against Australians.
So why was this deadly warning ignored?
BLOG WITH ANDREW BOLT
I suspect it is because Hizb ut-Tahrir finally destroyed the myth that we’ve just brought the terrorism threat on ourselves by “alienating” Muslims, and if we were just nicer some wouldn’t be forced pick up a gun or a knife.
“Alienation” is the myth even moderate Muslim leaders push. Just last week, Brisbane Muslim leader Ali Kadri told the ABC “the root” of Muslim extremism was “a fear of alienation and feeling of marginalisation because of foreign policy, when it comes to Israel/Palestine conflict”.
I say “myth” because of one telling fact above all: this country actually has as many Buddhists as Muslims. Yet where are the Buddhist terrorist plots? Where are the angry complaints about “alienation”? Where the warnings to change our foreign policies ... or else?
No, there is something different with the Muslim community that we haven’t seen with the Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh or Confucian.
Doureihi’s rant nails it: one of the root causes of this extremism is Islam itself, preaching a hatred of non-believers and the legitimacy of killing to defend the faith.
And how frantically the Left feeds what they should fear. How recklessly our media class — the vanguard of Western self-hatred — goes along with this paranoia and monstrous self-pity that justifies so much violence.
Take Labor MPs Sue Lines, Kim Carr and Melissa Parke, who all recklessly accused the Government of scaremongering about terrorism threats just to avoid talking about its Budget or to sell its anti-terrorism plans. Journalists of the Left even hinted last week’s raids were part of this cynical political plot.
ABC presenter Rafael Epstein asked an astonished Attorney-General George Brandis: “Do you accept in any way the criticism that you’d rather be talking about this than a difficult Budget?”
The Canberra Times suggested the Australian Federal Police and two state police forces were in on this conspiracy: “More cynical minds ... will argue that vindication of the Federal Government decision last week to raise Australia’s terrorism alert from medium to high may well have been on the minds of those who planned the raids.”
Wendy Bacon, a professorial fellow with the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, agreed that scepticism over the raids was “justified”, and Crikey political editor Bernard Keane claimed the Government was also sending troops to war in Iraq “to distract from its domestic problems”.
That’s a conspiracy so barking mad that you’d have to think the US, Britain, France, Italy and Saudi Arabia were all donating their armed forces to this war, too, just to help Abbott stop talking about a $7 Medicare co-payment.
You’d laugh if the Left wasn’t, in fact, legitimising the same deadly paranoia of Muslim extremists like Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Just think: “thousands of bombs”.
So can they just cool it with their conspiracy theories before someone gets hurt? |
