In defence of our collective values

The Australian ^ | November 06 2006

[knighthawk]

A collision with modernity is at the heart of the Hilali affair

SELF-APPOINTED keepers of the national conscience such as Peter Botsman, Mike Carlton and Malcolm Fraser have missed the point when it comes to the outrageous statements of Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali and this newspaper's coverage of the same. Although he may be the worst offender, Mr Botsman is hardly alone in claiming The Australian committed a "media lynching" of the Muslim cleric. In a 25,000-word paper posted on his website, Botsman, chief editor of the online journal Australian Prospect, argues that no matter how reprehensible the mufti's remarks, publishing them was wrong because it reinforced the world's current anxieties and fears. Rubbish. The only question to ask about this newspaper's decision to publish an English translation of Sheik Hilali's speech comparing immodestly dressed women to meat left out for cats, and blaming them for sexual assaults, is whether it was in the national interest. The answer is an unequivocal yes. The story gained an international audience not because of any desire to lynch the cleric, but because it goes to the heart of one of the world's most intractable problems: the collision of conservative Islam with Western modernity, and specifically the concept of women's liberation and free relations between the sexes.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[Fred Nerks]

This is not just a problem in west Sydney's Lakemba, the home territory of the inflammatory mufti. It is a problem across the world from Bali to Madrid, from New York to Amsterdam, from London to Paris. British author Martin Amis articulated this conflict in a 12,000 word essay titled The Age of Horrorism, published earlier this year in the London newspaper The Observer. Interviewed on the ABC's Lateline last week, Amis repeated his view that Western sexual morals are what offend Islamic extremists. According to Amis, hatred of women as the "troops of the devil" is one of the pillars of the Islamist project. When Sheik Hilali said women were the tools of Satan, he echoed this idea. The challenge that liberated women pose to the last bastion of Islam, patriarchal authority, is what horrifies radicals most about modernity.

Hilali and his folllowers are literally TERRIFIED OF WOMEN!

[TexasTransplant]

Do you folks have to press #1 for English?

[TexasTransplant]

No Replies... guess I nailed it.

[knighthawk]

What do you mean?

[TexasTransplant]

>>>>"What do you mean?"<<<<

The comment was directed to folks in Australia. It was just a note of encouragement, they haven't lost their culture yet.

The notion that people import themselves to a Country (Australia in this case) and then do not assimilate but require the host Nation to change to accommodate them is in my mind repulsive.
In the US it is happening and we are losing our culture, the best example or proof is Voting, ATM's and Answering machines require an action (press 1 etc) to proceed in English.

TT

[knighthawk]

Okay thanks