IF TONY JONES IS ISLAM’S ENEMY, THEN WHO ISN’T?
A Muslim on Q&A speaks of wanting people to be “afraid” of him. Yet when host Tony Jones anxiously gives him the chance to explain that he means he wants to be feared for his words rather than actions, it is Jones who is accused of damaging the image of Islam:
Speaking as a guest on the panel, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, author of The Lebs, was railing against racism and Islamophobia, saying bigots “should be afraid of him” and “the majority of people” who will “stop the bigotry and hatred that they’re spreading”.
Jones interjected and said: “In your case, you’re talking about with your pen or your typewriter, correct?”
Ahmad fired back: “What, because you’re worried that I’m implicating some kind of violent action?”
“I’m giving you the opportunity to say that you aren’t,” said Jones.
“Of course I’m not,” said Ahmad. And then, in a dig at Jones’ request for clarification, he added: “I just find it really cheap when there’s a concern that Muslims are inciting violence, because if you looked at the foreign policies of the West they are the most violent people on the planet.”
The tense exchange did not go unnoticed on social media, with many Twitter users deeming Jones’ remark “offensive” and “unbelievable”.
We are in dangerous times, where even Islam’s excusers are treated as the enemy. And, my the way, the media is in dangerous territory, too, when it takes its cues from social media.
Why does news.com.au think this person’s view is worth reporting above those of millions of other Australians?
Naturally, a professional victim much touted by the ABC leaps in:
Jones assumed nothing. He offered the opportunity for clarification to a man ranting about wanting people to be “afraid” of him in the context of more than a dozen Muslim Lebanese here having been jailed for terrorism.
Anyone who does not see this as Jones trying to help Islam’s image rather than besmirching it is part of a very big problem.
UPDATE
Naturally, a professor at Melbourne University applies a modern racist and reheated neo-Marxist analysis:
I daresay it is because of arseholes like Ghassan Hage that we have a Muslim problem in the first place.
A former Texas doctor convicted of raping a hospital patient who was heavily sedated will receive no jail time for his crime.
