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I can’t pinpoint the precise date I became a Muslim because it took me a few years of dabbling in what would become the world’s largest socially-devalued religion, to know whether I wanted to make the stigma my own. The best I can come up with is late-nineties, when it was Dolly the cloned sheep who was horrifying good conservative Christian Australians, rather than their Islamo-fascist sleeper-cell neighbours posing as Afghan refugees. Since then, the world has been rocked by religiously-motivated terrorists and the Islamification of our food supplies. I’ve also become a bit of an expert on things Muslimish, so here’s a handy guide to things you don’t need to worry about. More.

Why would anyone join an extremist Muslim fringe group that hates democracy and wants to impose a myopic interpretation of Islamic law on everyone? What could possibly attract an educated young man with future potential living in a free society, to join a movement valorising suicide bombers?

These are questions that worry all sorts, from German Chancellors to Camden locals, driving an Islamophobia industry that has sprung up to provide alarming answers. Whether it’s Daniel Pipes musing that President Barack Obama might be murdered by Islamists for being an apostate, Ayaan Hirsi Ali describing Muslim women’s clothing as gradations of “mental slavery”, or Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo questioning moderate Muslim leaders’ calls to peace and co-existence as Islamically-prescribed deception, these popular speakers foster the worry that where Muslims live, violence and even terrorism follows. Understandable, given that the Islamophobia industry—as much as the flip-side of the coin, the fundamentalist Islamist cultus—makes its coin generating fear of Islam and Muslims.

It is Sookhdeo’s Christian charity, the Barnabas Fund, that is spear-heading a new campaign to boycott halal meat in Australia. “Say No to the Islamification of Our Food” the website urges and a petition has found its way into various Australian churches warning that the availability of halal food in major supermarkets “may be interpreted as an assertion of Islamic supremacy.” (more…)

“F— Off We’re Full” is one of the more odious Facebook groups in which members regularly bemoan Muslim immigration to Australia. It is currently in its sixth incarnation, having been taken offline and then replaced by other similarly named groups. Still, the viral meme lives on. Jade encourages people to join a petition to ”send asylum boat people home”; Faye makes a joke offering ”Muslims, Lebs an Indians” free bungee jumps with ”no strings attached”; and Kris wonders why wherever Islam is, ”evil follows”.

The sentiment “don’t come here if you don’t like our way of life” means nothing when you consider that, at last count, 40 per cent of Muslims in Australia were not foreign immigrants but were born here. Lots of Mohammads and Aishas are true-blue, happy little Vegemites sitting next to our Jacks, Marias, Sanjeevs and Nguyens in school, and that percentage is sure to increase at the next census.
Advertisement: Story continues belowHowever, the thrust of their arguments, and the much milder variants that spring from the mouths of politicians and the pens of journalists, is that the demographic growth of Muslims in Australia and other Western nations is a worrying phenomenon that, if left unchecked, could destroy the very fabric of Western society.  (more…)

Originally posted at: On Line Opinion.

Pauline Hanson, the former One Nation leader who polarised Australians with her strident anti-immigration views, invoking echoes of the defunct White Australia policy, wants to become a migrant … to the United Kingdom.

Reported in the Woman’s Day, the woman who once wrapped herself in the Australian Flag to promote her parochial party says that Australia is no longer “the land of opportunity”. While there are lots of Aboriginals, Asians and other assorted non-white people who are willing to contribute their blood, sweat and tears to make Australia a place of welcome and prosperity, no longer Ms Hanson. So much for loyalty to nation and all that.

Australia has always been characterised as a harsh land by its European settlers. This is a country that punishes those who ignore its complex ecosystem at their own peril, both physically and socially it seems. Burke and Wills died in their heroic attempt to cross the Australian interior, fatally refusing help from the local Yantruwanta people.  (more…)

If ever a man flirts with the idea of marrying more than one wife, he should surely be dissuaded from the idea by watching a season of Big Love — a fictional television drama about the polygamous family of a fundamentalist Mormon man whose life is constantly troubled with jealous intrigue, betrayal and psychotic in-laws. I am writing tongue-in-cheek, but since embracing Islam I have become friends with about half-a-dozen different women who are co-wives (none of them with each other). Tellingly, all the relationships involved include at least one convert, which means that polygamy is not merely the preserve of refugees who can barely speak a lick of English and who know nothing of our culture or way of life.

Whether or not we like to admit it, polygamy is part of the diverse fabric of family life in 21st century Australia, although admittedly a minority practice. This is partly because although Australian multiculturalism requires assent to the law of the land, many groups (for example, Jews, Catholics, Baha’is and Aborigines) also operate under community-imposed religio-legal codes, particularly when it comes to family relationships.