Mouthy Mufti At It Again
The title is not mine, let me explain at the start, but is the by-line to an article in the current issue of the Weekend Herald (January 13 2007) about our old friend Sheik al-Hilali of Sydney. I already blogged the Sheik's "Cat's meat" remarks here, and updated him here. (The links here will all open in new pages)
The Herald article can be seen here, but interestingly the online version is shorter than that published in print.
(Since publishing the initial blog I have found the Sydney Morning Herald has yet more on the Sheik, for example here, and a search for *Sheik* will produce even more comment.)
In my previous blogs regarding al-Hilali we saw how he first made some outrageous remarks about women, and about a notorious rape case, and then, in a Channel 9 interview, was all sweetness and light as he explained that it was all a misunderstanding, and that Australia was a fine place to live (*Love it or leave it*). Also that the press had it in for him.
Well now he's in Egypt, and on an Egyptian TV programme he's been saying some outrageous things as described in the Herald article.
While discussing the outrage concerning the *Cat's meat* sermon, he is reported to have suggested that since white Australians came to the country as shackled convicts, and Muslim immigrants paid their way there, then they - the Muslim immigrants - had more right to be there. There's a comment designed to lose friends straight away.
He also described white Australians as ".. the biggest liars", which is rather counter to his Channel 9 remarks, and suggests that the outrage over the *Cat's meat* remarks (which included Muslim outrage, remember) was *...a calculated conspiracy in order to bring the Islamic community to its knees*.
He went on to talk of anti-muslim courts, and criticised again the harsh sentence handed to a Muslim convicted of a series of rapes, including gang-rape. Again I ask what the Sharia punishment for rape is???
Now why should this matter?? What if he doesn't know when to stop, and if he talks nonsense because he doesn't know better??
Well first, I'm sure he DOES know better, since he's changed his words to suit his audience a number of times now. But more seriously, he's saying these things abroad, to an audience that will perhaps take him seriously, and which will not be so keen to check the veracity of his statements. In other words, they will take his remarks about Australia (and by extension other western nations) at face value, and draw the wrong conclusions.
What he has said (or, since some challenge the accuracy of the translation, what he is reported to have said) is simply deceitful - non-islamic - untrue.
And yet does that matter? So what if he talks nonsense?
Well yes it matters. Take another case, unrelated to al-Hilali - the Danish cartoons:
We should know the story by now - Jyllands Posten published a dozen cartoons with *Mohammed* as the theme, and the world seemed to explode.
Well actually it's a little different than that. The cartoons were indeed published, but caused little initial trouble. According to reports they got as far as Egypt without trouble. This was not good enough for a group of Danish imams, who launched a crusade (and I use that term without irony) to bring the pictures to the attention of the Muslim world. The imams went on tour, taking the cartoons with them, and whipped up anti-Danish sentiment along the way.
To make things worse, they included three extra pictures, which were not (and never were) connected in any way with the original cartoons. I have seen two of them, both faxed pictures, and I agree one is exceedingly offensive, whilst the other shows a Reuters photograph of a competitor in a French pig-squealing competition, and never pretended to be about Mohammed or Islam at all.
In other words the imams were deceitful. And they were trouble-makers.
As a result of the imams' endeavours, Danish interests were harmed, Danes were attacked, and flags were burnt. That's reprehensible in itself, but nationals of other European states were also attacked, and property damaged. Then churches were burnt, and people began dying.
A Catholic priest in Turkey was shot and killed by a boy of 15, evidently in reprisal for the cartoons, 9 died in Libya when the Italian (Italian!!!) consulate was attacked, and in Nigeria black African Christians were murdered, some being burnt alive.
Mob mentality was evident when Lebanese protestors tore up the Swiss (Swiss!!) flag outside the Danish embassy (well it IS red and white with a cross on it), and in Karachi the screaming mob burnt not only the Danish flag, but also the Israeli flag. I suppose it's a case of never letting a good irrational flag-burning go to waste, especially when it involves a *traditional enemy* that most of the mob probably couldn't locate on a map.
There is more - much more - about all this, and one of the best sites for info is Michelle Malkin's blog, although anyone likely to be offended by cartoons should NOT go there. Scroll rapidly past the pictures, if you must go there, however, and you'll find numerous links which shed much more light on the background nonsense, including the kind of crap *the West* puts up with from the Arab/Muslim media.
Now, having got the cartoons out of the way, what does this have to do with al-Hilali?? So far he has not whipped up anything like the same uproar, but the point is that anything is possible. It takes only a receptive audience and a good speaker, and we could be off again.
Al Hilali seems to have caused no trouble in Egypt, but we can only speculate what might happen if, for example, he did the same thing again in Turkey.
The Herald article can be seen here, but interestingly the online version is shorter than that published in print.
(Since publishing the initial blog I have found the Sydney Morning Herald has yet more on the Sheik, for example here, and a search for *Sheik* will produce even more comment.)
In my previous blogs regarding al-Hilali we saw how he first made some outrageous remarks about women, and about a notorious rape case, and then, in a Channel 9 interview, was all sweetness and light as he explained that it was all a misunderstanding, and that Australia was a fine place to live (*Love it or leave it*). Also that the press had it in for him.
Well now he's in Egypt, and on an Egyptian TV programme he's been saying some outrageous things as described in the Herald article.
While discussing the outrage concerning the *Cat's meat* sermon, he is reported to have suggested that since white Australians came to the country as shackled convicts, and Muslim immigrants paid their way there, then they - the Muslim immigrants - had more right to be there. There's a comment designed to lose friends straight away.
He also described white Australians as ".. the biggest liars", which is rather counter to his Channel 9 remarks, and suggests that the outrage over the *Cat's meat* remarks (which included Muslim outrage, remember) was *...a calculated conspiracy in order to bring the Islamic community to its knees*.
He went on to talk of anti-muslim courts, and criticised again the harsh sentence handed to a Muslim convicted of a series of rapes, including gang-rape. Again I ask what the Sharia punishment for rape is???
Now why should this matter?? What if he doesn't know when to stop, and if he talks nonsense because he doesn't know better??
Well first, I'm sure he DOES know better, since he's changed his words to suit his audience a number of times now. But more seriously, he's saying these things abroad, to an audience that will perhaps take him seriously, and which will not be so keen to check the veracity of his statements. In other words, they will take his remarks about Australia (and by extension other western nations) at face value, and draw the wrong conclusions.
What he has said (or, since some challenge the accuracy of the translation, what he is reported to have said) is simply deceitful - non-islamic - untrue.
And yet does that matter? So what if he talks nonsense?
Well yes it matters. Take another case, unrelated to al-Hilali - the Danish cartoons:
We should know the story by now - Jyllands Posten published a dozen cartoons with *Mohammed* as the theme, and the world seemed to explode.
Well actually it's a little different than that. The cartoons were indeed published, but caused little initial trouble. According to reports they got as far as Egypt without trouble. This was not good enough for a group of Danish imams, who launched a crusade (and I use that term without irony) to bring the pictures to the attention of the Muslim world. The imams went on tour, taking the cartoons with them, and whipped up anti-Danish sentiment along the way.
To make things worse, they included three extra pictures, which were not (and never were) connected in any way with the original cartoons. I have seen two of them, both faxed pictures, and I agree one is exceedingly offensive, whilst the other shows a Reuters photograph of a competitor in a French pig-squealing competition, and never pretended to be about Mohammed or Islam at all.
In other words the imams were deceitful. And they were trouble-makers.
As a result of the imams' endeavours, Danish interests were harmed, Danes were attacked, and flags were burnt. That's reprehensible in itself, but nationals of other European states were also attacked, and property damaged. Then churches were burnt, and people began dying.
A Catholic priest in Turkey was shot and killed by a boy of 15, evidently in reprisal for the cartoons, 9 died in Libya when the Italian (Italian!!!) consulate was attacked, and in Nigeria black African Christians were murdered, some being burnt alive.
Mob mentality was evident when Lebanese protestors tore up the Swiss (Swiss!!) flag outside the Danish embassy (well it IS red and white with a cross on it), and in Karachi the screaming mob burnt not only the Danish flag, but also the Israeli flag. I suppose it's a case of never letting a good irrational flag-burning go to waste, especially when it involves a *traditional enemy* that most of the mob probably couldn't locate on a map.
There is more - much more - about all this, and one of the best sites for info is Michelle Malkin's blog, although anyone likely to be offended by cartoons should NOT go there. Scroll rapidly past the pictures, if you must go there, however, and you'll find numerous links which shed much more light on the background nonsense, including the kind of crap *the West* puts up with from the Arab/Muslim media.
Now, having got the cartoons out of the way, what does this have to do with al-Hilali?? So far he has not whipped up anything like the same uproar, but the point is that anything is possible. It takes only a receptive audience and a good speaker, and we could be off again.
Al Hilali seems to have caused no trouble in Egypt, but we can only speculate what might happen if, for example, he did the same thing again in Turkey.
posted by Kiwi_John at
Sunday, January 14, 2007
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