Panahi: ABC host demands I support the sharia I fled
Rita Panahi is rightly astonished by ABC host Rafael Epstein.
Mind you, Epstein has a history of defending Muslim apologists for militants.
I AM accustomed to being hectored by Islamists, frightbats, anti-vaccination fruitcakes and an assortment of social justice warriors — aka government-funded Twitter trolls.
But last week, I had the surreal experience of being scolded by an ABC host for not being sufficiently supportive of an Islamic activist advocating for sharia law.
ABC radio drive host Rafael Epstein had the gall to admonish me, a migrant who escaped a country under Islamic law, for not supporting an advocate of Islamic law.
It’s akin to a freed slave being criticised for a fear of slavery and reluctance to support slavery advocates.
Can you imagine the indignation from feminists if a privileged, white, private school-educated, heterosexual, conservative male was castigating an immigrant woman of colour about how their experience and opinions “distort the debate”?
Epstein is all of the above except he is a typical ABC Leftist and so his behaviour is excused and even applauded by those who most enthusiastically embrace identity politics. (TT)
Multicult madness: Muslim students can reject woman’s handshake
Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
Import a people and you import a culture. Then you have a choice: challenge it or submit.
A public school in Sydney’s west has adopted a policy permitting Muslim male students to decline to shake hands with females, despite the practice having been denounced by many senior Islamic figures.
The Hurstville Boys Campus of Georges River College in Sydney recently hosted an awards ceremony at which female presenters, including several accomplished and respected members of the local community, were told by one of the school’s two principals that some students would not shake their hands because of their Muslim faith.
The instruction is understood to derive from an Islamic hadith — a report describing the words, actions, or habits of the Islamic prophet Mohammed — stating that “it is better to be stabbed in the head with an iron needle than to touch the hand of a woman who is not permissible to you”.
The NSW Education Department has confirmed the school had an “agreed protocol” regarding handshaking and Muslim students.
We really should be told if Muslim immigration is meant to change our culture.
Multicult madness: blaming the reaction, not the threat
Victorians are questioning multiculturalism thanks to ethnic gangs, Islamist attacks and racial division.
Victoria’s Labor Government has now switched its policy to tell migrants to sign up to our core values, which for a Socialist Left crowd is a significant concession, even if damn obvious.
But it so buried this concession under the usual multicultural pieties that the ABC reports that the real problem is the reaction and not the threat:
Exactly the same in The Age:
So to be critical of multiculturalism is to be a fascist – or dangerously close to one?
In fact, the Government itself is pulling back from the multicultural fringes, but does not want to be too explicit about it. Mind you, that retreat is too little, too late.
The Herald Sun report is clearer on the real agenda here – and the real problem, which isn’t actually the “far Right”. The real concerns are the ones I have put in bold:
CONCERNS about the threat of Muslim and far-right extremism have prompted an unprecedented state government push to stop Victorians from turning on each other.
Amid fears of terrorists targeting disaffected youths and a wave of racist violence, the state government will today announce:
A NEW advertising campaign calling on all Victorians to celebrate multiculturalism, respect all races and abide by the laws of the state.
TOWN hall meetings and workshops to discuss rights and responsibilities, and concerns about ethnic divisions.
A SERIES of non-negotiable values, the freedom to be yourself, one law for all, that discrimination is never acceptable, a fair go for all, and for everyone to contribute to the community.
AN education campaign to help youths at risk of being recruited by extremists online.
It is patently clear the Government has moved because multicultural policies have helped to create almost cultural ghettos, in which a minority of members of some cultures feel no real allegiance to Australia or respect for its laws.
But the Government has so buried this concern in the usual multicultural blather that the change went right over the heads of the the media Left.
But there is a message trying to out here:
The government is also aiming to fight back against the “reprehensible, violent, evil” Islamic extremists who are targeting vulnerable youths to wreak terror on Victoria, according to Multicultural Affairs Minister Robin Scott.
He said it had been a mistake to shy away from talking about multiculturalism, and that the values statement was a “patriotic” expression of “the inclusive and diverse society, which generations of Victorians have built up”.
Asked if racism was a problem in Victoria, Mr Scott said: “There are people who experience discrimination in their lives and that happens and we shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t.”
But Mr Scott said he was confident that “the vast majority of Victorians were fundamentally decent people” and would respond positively to the government’s campaign.
Remember when journalists reported news? Accurately? I do. Now they can’t even spell and edit, let alone report facts. Mr Epstein is a “modern” journalist. His opinions are far more weighty than mere facts. Someone should point out the difference to him. No wonder most people have a low opinion of journalists. It seems that way too many feel that they are the story, not the issue and certainly not the facts. Oh, and I hope Mr Epstein comes to realise that the real far right in this country is Islam.