My God! A Bible

Comment by Australian columnist, Andrew Bolt

The Howard Government says it wants another 600 spies, but it sure won't be hiring people as dumb as you. Reckon I've sold your brains short? Then sit this quick test, Sherlock, which I've drawn up using real cases from the past month. Which two of the following three things are so obviously dangerous that they've just been banned? And which one was this week declared safe for distribution?

Exhibit A: Free Bibles placed by Gideons International in the bedside cupboards of public hospitals.

Exhibit B: A jokey TV commercial in which Wogs Out of Work's George Kapiniaris complains about an Indian call centre.

Exhibit C: A book sold last year by Sydney's Islamic Bookshop that praises suicide bombing as "legitimate and praiseworthy" and says it's best to "wire up one's body, or a vehicle or a suitcase with explosives, and then to enter among a conglomeration of the enemy and to detonate".

Bang! You lose. And pick up some sensitivity training on your way out, you racist. Yes, it's the Bibles and the Indian joke that have been banned for the immense harm they might do. And it's the jihad book, Defence of the Muslim Lands, that the Australian Federal Police and Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions this week said could be sold without fear of prosecution for inciting violence. They've ruled that no action will be taken against anyone who buys or sells copies of this work by al-Qaida's co-founder Sheik Abdullah Azzam, who helpfully suggests that "women and children of the unbelievers . . . could be fired upon for an expediency of war even if it is not dire necessity", as long as the aim isn't to kill them "specifically".

Cleared with it is another Islamic Bookshop offering -- The Criminal West by Egyptian migrant Omar Hassan, who claims that to be Australian is shameful, and to be of the West is to be at war with Islam. He adds that our police are rapists, our politicians try to turn Muslim boys into drug addicts, and AIDS is a virus invented by American soldiers and spread by the World Health Organisation to kill millions of Africans.

Of course, the first thing to conclude is that the sedition laws that our artists and journalists screech will have us all locked up under this fascist Howard Government are harmless if they can't be used even against a jihadist manual. Settle down, guys.

By now you'll also think this country's watchdogs are so cross-eyed they're biting exactly the wrong legs, which is just why you'd be no good at defending us in these trickily sensitive times. I mean, forget suicide bombers. Have you any idea how much havoc you'd cause if you threw a loaded joke into a crowded living room Just ask the Royal Automobile Association. It wanted to promote its local call centre for members asking about their car insurance, and filmed an ad in which Kapiniaris joked of ringing instead one of those Indian centres that now plague us. The punchline was that when he reported a car accident near his new deli, the centre operator said he was in New Delhi, too, and how about joining him for a "curry and a pappadum"? That nasty Kapiniaris then sums up: "Whatever happened to talking to a local?"

A trained sensitivity expert would instantly see how explosive this was. In fact, it was so bad that just nine months after the ad first went to air a viewer complained that it insulted India. Horrified by the suffering of this lone Indian, the Advertising Standards Board has yanked the wretched thing off the air, claiming it had "racist undertones".

But even the danger of that joke was nothing compared to the horrific damage a Gideons Bible could do if smuggled to the bedside of unsuspecting patients in hospital, just when they are at their weakest. Imagine the trauma one of our ethnic friends might feel if he or she opened the drawer and found . . . OH MY DIFFERENT GOD, a Bible. Professional pain-avoiders have averted this catastrophe by removing every single Bible from the bedsides of leading public hospitals in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, in what a Royal Melbourne spokesman, for one, claimed was in part "an infection control measure". That would be right, but the infection the hospitals had in mind seems to be not golden staph, but the new leprosy of Christianity.

As Royal Melbourne's spokesman conceded: "Because we have so many people from different religious backgrounds (the Bible) is considered inappropriate." Or as a spokesman for Brisbane's Princess Alexandra sniffed: "They may not be in keeping with the multicultural society we are in now."

Gideons International's Australian head, Trevor Monson, sadly confirms the truth: "They tell me they don't want to offend non-Christians." He'd even offered to supply hardcover Bibles, which could be easily disinfected, but was told Bibles were just too dangerous to hand out. I admit I'm so dumb that if newcomers in this largely Christian country go crazy at the mere sight of a Bible, then I figure the problem isn't the Bible but the newcomer. Has he perhaps come to the wrong country?

Call me even sillier, but when I lived and travelled in Thailand, I felt not a flicker of anger at seeing a copy of The Teaching of Buddha by my hotel bed, and I foolishly suspect that strangers who come to live here are just as tolerant. Or should be.

Indeed, the Islamic Council of Queensland's president, Abdul Jalal, protested: "It is ridiculous to think that we might be offended by seeing a Bible in a drawer. It is an example of multiculturalism gone mad." He's right, of course. It seems the real racists -- the real troublemakers -- are the multiculturalists who assume Muslims are so intolerant they can't safely be shown a Bible, or denied their own books that preach such violence. And once more we should heed the warning -- especially in Victoria, where we prosecute two Christian pastors who warn against jihad but tolerate the most radical imams who preach it. What threatens us most aren't terrorists who talk of blowing us up. It's the paid guardians of our own culture who don't think it's much worth defending -- and who insist we must be made to shut up and leave the speaking to the merchants of hate.



FOOD FASCISTS LOSE ONE

Few people will buy so-called "healthy" food

The salad days are over at McDonald's. The fast-food chain's British outlets are to undergo a "back to burgers" relaunch after years of trying to promote sales of pasta, fresh fruit and salads, under pressure to encourage healthy eating. McDonald's is introducing a giant burger - 40% bigger than a Big Mac - to be launched in time for purchase by television viewers during next month's World Cup. The "Bigger Big Mac" will be followed by more new products over the summer, which the company says will give "a twist on existing burgers".

McDonald's unveiled the healthier options three years ago in response to accusations that its high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar products were fuelling children's junk-food consumption and leading to obesity. Now, however, Steve Easterbrook, the new president of McDonald's UK, has admitted that only a small minority of customers have chosen the healthier items. The initiative attracted unwelcome publicity when it emerged that dressings and croutons on a chicken salad gave it a higher concentration of fat than a Big Mac.

Easterbrook, 38, defended the original decision to bring in healthier menus but admitted that they accounted for less than 10% of the company's sales, which have been flat in Britain since 2002. "We are a burger business," said Easterbrook. "Our traditional menu - hamburger, cheeseburger, Big Mac, quarterpounder, chicken sandwich - is front and centre of our plans. The emphasis has changed." Easterbrook is following the lead set by McDonald's in America, where fast food chains have prospered by concentrating on traditional fare. McDonald's new promotions of cheap burgers there have contributed to a 30% growth in revenue in the past two years. Also in America, Burger King, McDonald's smaller rival, has introduced products such as the 730-calorie "omelet sandwich", with 47g of fat.

Easterbrook's move will undermine attempts by the government to improve children's diets. Last Friday, Alan Johnson, the education secretary, announced that from September, school meals will be required to meet minimum nutritional standards for fat, salt and sugar content, and will no longer be able to use "re-formed" meat products.

The return by McDonald's to the "bad old ways" suggests that the self-congratulation of some campaigners may be premature. This weekend, Eric Schlosser, whose book Fast Food Nation marked the start of a backlash against burger chains when it was published five years ago, was celebrating the premiere at the Cannes film festival of a movie on his campaign to expose unethical practices in the burger industry. A spokesman for Schlosser maintained that the healthy eating message was still making headway. "We are so glad people are beginning to understand their health is at stake if they eat these things," he said.

More here



A politically incorrect Australian whistleblower

Must not defame "noble savages" as they rape their way through life



A former flying doctor [a Christian] who has treated Aboriginal victims of sex abuse as young as five says officials have been cowed into silence, fearing accusations of racism. Lara Wieland, who worked in far north Queensland for three years, said public servants who reported abuse were themselves abused and threatened by men in positions of power. "Some of these [black] men were considered by many in the community to be perpetrators of child abuse themselves," Dr Wieland told The Weekend Australian. "Yet time and again we saw them wield the power and control in the communities and saw government departments and officials cower in fear, turning a blind eye rather than (be) accused of being a racist by these men, which was their common ploy."

Dr Wieland said she found it incongruous that those accused of sexual abuse received state-funded legal representation and were the first to be informed of the charges being dropped, before the victim and police. "I saw many dedicated police officers who wanted to fight this scourge but were frustrated at every turn (by) refusals from magistrates for DNA testing, prosecutors dropping charges with no explanation (and) cases being dropped because child witnesses wouldn't testify in court after the perpetrators threatened their families," she said. "In one child-rape case it didn't even get to court, even though I had physical evidence and the girl's words had been recorded, as had her statement to police. "The frightened little girl was unwilling to repeat it all in court after being threatened."

Dr Wieland met Prime Minister John Howard in Weipa on western Cape York in August 2003 and handed him a 10-page letter detailing cases of violence against women and children on Cape communities. "Police brought children as young as five to me for rape examination," she said. "Little happened. I felt helpless to do anything in a system that did not respond and in fact seemed to enforce a culture of secrecy. "Speaking out when I did came at a personal cost. My career options and opportunities have been curtailed. I was harassed and blacklisted by some. I lost the job I loved. "I am filled with admiration for Aboriginal women who find the courage to speak out ... (It) means risking being cut off from their families and friends, being denied opportunities within the community, risking physical retribution and death threats and, in many cases, risking their lives."

Dr Wieland, who works for indigenous health services on the Atherton Tableland in north Queensland, said alcohol was at the root of most physical and sexual abuse in the communities. She encouraged people to stop being afraid of talking about the violence "for fear it will offend someone". "Nothing is more offensive than a raped or abused child," she said.

Source



THE SUING OF AHMED MANSOUR

By Jeff Jacoby

When Ahmed Mansour learned that a lawsuit had been filed against him by the Islamic Society of Boston, he had one urgent question: "Will they put me in jail?"

The answer was no -- in America, people don't go to prison for publicly expressing their views, or for encouraging the government to review questionable public transactions. But Mansour had good reason to worry. He had learned the hard way that Muslim reformers who speak out against Islamist fanaticism and religious dictatorship can indeed end up in prison -- or worse. It had happened to him in his native Egypt, which he fled in 2001 after receiving death threats. He was grateful that the United States had granted him asylum, enabling him to go on promoting his vision of a progressive Islam in which human rights and democratic values would be protected. But would he now have to fight in America the same kind of persecution he experienced in Egypt?

Mansour is just one of many people and organizations being sued for defamation by the Islamic Society of Boston, which accuses them all of conspiring to deny freedom of worship to Boston-area Muslims. In fact, the defendants -- who include journalists, a terrorism expert, and the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group, plus the Episcopalian lay minister and the Jewish attorney who together with Mansour formed the interfaith Citizens for Peace and Tolerance in 2004 -- appear to be guilty of nothing more than voicing concerns about the ISB's construction of a large mosque in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury. More than a few unsettling questions have been raised about the ISB and its mosque project. For example:

(*) Why did city officials provide the land for the mosque for just $175,000, when the parcel was publicly valued at $400,000? And where did that $400,000 figure come from, when the land's market value had earlier been assessed at $2 million?

(*) What is the Islamic Society's relationship to Yusef al-Qaradawi, a radical Islamist who praises suicide terrorism and endorses the killing of Americans in Iraq? For several years the ISB listed him as a trustee, though now it says that was an "administrative oversight." Was it also an oversight when a videotaped message of support from Qaradawi, who is banned from the United States, was played at an ISB fund-raiser in 2002?

(*) After it was reported that another trustee, Walid Fitaihi, had written that Jews are "murderers of the prophets" who will be punished for "oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah," why did the ISB drag its heels for seven months before unequivocally repudiating his words?

But if anything should raise eyebrows, it is the decision of the Islamic Society to pursue Mansour for his comments about the ISB at a press conference in 2004. He had gone to pray at the ISB's current mosque in Cambridge, and described at the press conference what he had observed: "I am here to testify that this radical culture is here, inside this society," he said. He had seen "Arabic-language newsletters filled with hatred against the United States." Books and videos in the mosque's library promoted "fanatical beliefs that insult other people's religions." A religious man who prays five times daily, he stressed that he was "not against the mosque. . . . I'm against extremists."

If Mansour doesn't have the credentials to form such opinions, it would be hard to say who does. He holds three degrees from Cairo's Al-Azhar, the foremost religious university in the Islamic world, where he was appointed a professor of Muslim history in 1980. He would probably be there still if his scholarship hadn't gotten in the way. The deeper Mansour delved into the history of Islam, the clearer it became to him that the faith had been perverted into a "false doctrine of hate" -- a doctrine that has been spread across much of the Muslim world and that has fueled great cruelty and bloodshed.

His mounting opposition to Wahhabist radicalism drew the wrath of the powerful Al-Azhar sheiks, who removed him from his classroom and put him on trial in a religious court. For two years, he says, he was pressured to recant. In 1987 he was fired. Then the Egyptian government imprisoned him for two months.

Undeterred, Mansour continued to write and speak out against radical Islam. He has authored 24 books and more than 500 articles, many of them denouncing as heretical any Muslim creeds that "persecute and kill peaceful humans and violate their human rights." The real infidels, he has argued, are those who share "the traits of Osama bin Laden and his followers." Before fleeing for his life, he worked with Egypt's leading human-rights activists, promoting democratic values, funneling assistance to persecuted Christians, and advocating for the reform of religious education. And *this* is the Islamic Society of Boston's idea of an anti-Muslim conspirator? Then what, one wonders, is its idea of Islam?