Far Leftist "Crikey" is enjoying the Sonia Kruger controversy

See below. They perversely see it as a condemnation of Australia generally.  Taking only SOME refugees is "racist", you see. In case it's not clear, Australia's prioritizing of persecuted Christians for the refugee intake is what has got the writer all burned up and gripped with the fires of prophecy.  The writer is Shakira Hussein, if that tells you anything.  An obvious Presbyterian?


Much of the response to Andrew Bolt and Sonia Kruger’s call to halt Muslim immigration has rested on the assumption that such calls are just hate speech for the sake of hate speech rather than a realistic policy proposal. But Australia’s immigration policy has been discriminating against Muslims since the 2014 announcement of the special refugee intake in response to the crisis in Syria and Iraq during the last throes of the Abbott prime ministership.

And the grounds for the discriminatory framework for the special refugee intake were remarkably similar to those stated by Kruger for a blanket ban on Muslim migration: to accommodate the Australian public’s fear of Muslim men.

At the time, the announcement of the special refugee intake felt like a victory for people power, coming as it did in response to the candlelit vigils for drowned Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi. And after all, no one could argue that the “persecuted minorities” who are the favoured candidates under this policy are not in need of asylum.

It also helped that Tony Abbott — with his fear-mongering talk of death cults and demands for Muslims to “do more” to prove that Islam is a religion of peace — was replaced soon afterwards by the more “reasonable” Malcolm Turnbull, who was one of the Coalition MPs to have called for Christian refugees to be prioritised but who also set about repairing the government’s damaged relationship with Australia’s Muslim communities.

The process of damage repair, of course, culminated in the iftar at Kirribilli House to which Andrew Bolt took such entertainingly deranged exception as the election results came through. Turnbull’s “reasonable” approach to The Muslim Issue has put pressure on Muslims to be “reasonable” in return, so that Waleed Aly chose to “tease” Turnbull about the NBN rather than publicly raising more fraught issues like the internment of asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru and the introduction of ever-more stringent anti-terrorism legislation. A guest at a dinner party must keep their personal opinions within certain boundaries, after all.

TV host Sonia Kruger Kruger’s fear-driven, fear-mongering against Muslims has jeopardised her relationship with sponsors like Porsche and Swisse, who have no desire to lose their Muslim customers. She also triggered a debate about how best to respond to the rise in racist hate speech, with a plethora of tweets and op-eds dissenting from Waleed Aly’s call for her, and others like her, to be forgiven.

Kruger’s hate speech has expanded the boundaries of what can be said in what used to be called polite company (Andrew Bolt having long been unfit for such company). In resisting the dangers that this raises, we must not lose sight of the way in which the shift that she calls for is already underway. Kruger may well have to return her Porsche, but we cannot afford to regard this as anything more than a temporary respite.

The prioritising of persecuted minorities in the special refugee intake provides us a foretaste of how a Muslims Need Not Apply migration policy might come about — not overnight in the form of a blanket ban, but incrementally, step by step in order to allay the reasonable fears of reasonable Australians and under the watch of a reasonable Prime Minister like Malcolm Turnbull or whoever his (probably) reasonable successor might turn out to be. And at the end of this fearful week, it is difficult not to speculate on what other measures that now belong to fringe platforms like The Australian’s letters to the editor might come to seem reasonable.

Campaigns against the internment camps on Manus and Nauru have often rested on the assumptions that these represent an abhorrence for which history will judge those responsible in the not-too-distant future. We should perhaps begin to contemplate that they may, in fact, provide us with a glimpse of the future and that just as off-shore detention was introduced on reasonable humanitarian grounds in order to prevent drownings at sea and prevent the profiteering of people smugglers, a “reasonable” government might decide that internment of its own citizens is a necessary and reasonable security measure.

It is reasonable to be unforgiving when such spectres are so easily and reasonably conjured.
 
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Tolerance of extremism will provoke backlash

by Chris Kenny

The corrosive impact of Islamist extremism is evident to most of us but our political and community leaders are only making things worse by ignoring this insidious challenge.

Violence and intolerance preached and perpetrated by extremists creates fear, mistrust and division. That is its intention. We can’t pretend it away.

Speeches at Sydney’s Lakemba Mosque to celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan yesterday showed how we are fumbling the problem. The president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, Samier Dandan, spoke aggressively about Australian Muslims being victims of “Islamophobia” and unspecified government policies.

“The continued rise of Islamophobic discourse in the public, in addition to a number of divisive and toxic policy decisions have only exacerbated negative sentiment towards the Australian Muslim community,” he said. “We have been left in a vulnerable position.”

Dandan lashed at media for being more interested in “attendees to an iftar” rather than “hate preachers” in the political debate. He was clearly downplaying the homophobic views of Sheik Shady Al-Suleiman (who attended Malcolm Turnbull’s Kirribilli House fast-breaking dinner) compared to the rantings of the likes of Pauline Hanson.

We shouldn’t need to pick and choose our intolerance — Hanson and Al-Suleiman can both be called out.

Worryingly, Dandan’s speech reeked of Muslim victimhood and neglected to criticise the Islamist extremism at the heart of any tensions. You can’t plausibly blame Hanson for domestic terror plots or more than 100 Australians joining the Islamic State slaughter while as many (according to ASIO) support them from home.

This is not to make excuses for an anti-Muslim backlash. To prevent such responses gaining momentum, people need to know Muslim community leaders and government authorities can discuss real problems frankly.

Dandan talked about the “spread of hatred” from mainstream society and that — presumably in relation to security agencies — “their surveillance will not add to our safety.”

This is irresponsible. Our police and security forces protect Australian lives, Muslim and non-Muslim.

NSW Premier Mike Baird didn’t raise challenges of extremism in his speech either. He spoke of a visit to “Palestine” and declared young people there wanted peace — thereby appealing to a crucial Islamist grievance and ignoring unpalatable facts.

This approach from politicians in this space is typical — tough issues are skirted around. Baird said: “Where we see intolerance we must respond with tolerance.” He could not be more wrong — our political leaders should be clear that the one thing we do not tolerate is intolerance.

This is why fractious voices such as Hanson’s are on the rise; mainstream political leaders are unwilling to even discuss the real issues surrounding Islamist ­extremism.

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A man accused of raping a Korean woman in broad daylight is granted bail at the Caboolture Magistrate's Court

A FATHER released on bail by a magistrate on Saturday despite being charged with a shocking random daytime rape is just the latest in a long string of accused sex offenders to be set loose.

Police will allege the 23-year-old man stalked a Korean woman, 20, from a Morayfield shopping centre on Friday ­before attacking her in broad daylight about 11.30am.

Witnesses heard her screams and rushed to her aid, pulling her alleged attacker away ­before chasing and detaining him until police arrived. Prosecutors yesterday opposed bail but a Caboolture magistrate ordered the man’s release after being told he was needed at home to look after his kids while his wife worked.

Sexual assault worker Amanda Dearden said she had “grave concerns” about the accused attacker’s release.

“It’s incredibly concerning that that risk to the community hasn’t been acknowledged by the court,” she told The Sunday Mail.

Ms Dearden, who until Friday worked with the Zig Zag Young Women’s Resource Centre, said strict bail conditions were not monitored enough to be effective.

“Without tracking devices it’s hard to keep track of where they’re actually following their bail conditions in the community,” she said.

Before the Caboolture Magistrates Court, defence lawyer Jason Todman argued the man’s family would be under considerable financial pressure if he was kept in custody. The man was temporarily unemployed and would need to stay at home with the kids while his wife worked.

Magistrate Louisa Pink noted he had no prior criminal convictions and scientific evidence was yet to be revealed.

“The strengths of the evidence in this case relates certainly to an assault. But at this time, the evidence of the allegation of rape — the scientific evidence is still pending,” she said. “Despite that, I don’t think it could be described as a weak Crown case.”

The man was ordered not to leave his home, except to report to Caboolture police station or attend court. He must also call police when he leaves and returns to his address.

Ms Pink banned him from contacting witnesses or the victim, who yesterday undertook a sexual assault investigation kit at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

The man is scheduled to reappear on September 19.

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People must be prevented from discussing homosexual marriage, apparently

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has urged the Federal Government to abandon plans for a public poll on same-sex marriage.

Mr Andrews has written to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urging him not to hold a plebiscite on legalising marriage for same-sex couples.

In the letter, Mr Andrews argued the plebiscite would legitimise hateful debate about LGBTIQ issues. He said there was no public poll before the Marriage Act was changed to specify that marriage was a union between a man and a woman. "In 2004 the law was changed to be fundamentally unequal, to be discriminatory, to be unfair, without a national plebiscite," Mr Andrews said.

He said the $160 million plebiscite would be wasteful. "But the cost is not best measured in numbers," Mr Andrews said. "The cost is best measured in the pain, the anguish, the sense of inequality, the sense of not being treated fairly.  "This will be a harmful, spiteful debate — it will give legitimacy to hurtful views, views that are essentially bigoted."

The Premier said he did not want to speculate about what would happen if the plebiscite occurred, and returned a vote against legalising same-sex marriage. But he would not say whether Victoria would go its own way in introducing marriage equality laws.

"I haven't ruled that out," Mr Andrews said. "We have a proud history in this state of changing the law and trying to be the progressive capital of our nation and that's not going to change."

Last month, Mr Turnbull said he was confident Australians had the maturity to have a respectful discussion about the issue.

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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here