Roger Franklin Rot at the Top, Mad Hatred Below

Posted By on December 7th, 2015

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2015/12/rot-top-mad-hatred/

The publisher of a website for Australian Muslims has made some encouraging noises about the need to see his creed’s local leadership reformed. Alas, many of his readers aren’t so sanguine about the possibility — or, indeed, the need –for change, as their now-deleted comments demonstrate.

 Did you happen to read reporter Paul Maley’s profile of Ahmed Kilani, “founder of Australia’s biggest Muslim media organisation” who, as the headline in The Australian put it, wants a “revolution” within the community of his Australian co-religionists. Good stuff, you may have thought: a genuine, flesh-and-blood incarnation of the “moderate” Muslims we hear so much about yet seldom see. Unlike the Mufti, he speaks English and, going by the quotes, who could quibble with his assertion that Muslim leaders are out of touch with the broader Australian society? When Koran-quoting butchers kill scores in Paris (and a few more for good measure in San Bernardino), spiritual leaders who attempt to place such slaughter in the context of grievances against Israel, ASIO and the cult of perpetual victimhood do not open the door to greater understanding.

Ah, but here’s the rub. While Kilani’s willingness to critique the Islamic leadership, or what passes for it, is undoubtedly a force for good, that same “Muslim media organisation” he founded can serve as a vehicle for airing that special brand of paranoid intolerance and aggression of which we have seen quite a bit.

Consider the history of an article posted on Kilani’s Muslim Village site even as he was being quoted about the need for reform, change and sweet reasonableness. Lifted from the UK’s Independent, the piece was headlined “White Supremacy Bigger Threat to US Than Radical Islam.” Spurious nonsense though the report may be, there is nothing unusual about it. Academic grant-snafflers, such as po-mo piffle-mongering “terrorism expert” Professor Anne Aly, preach that same line after every latest Islamist outrage. So does Barack Obama and, of course, our very own ABC.

Most unsettling about the article was the reader comments below it, which rather put pay to Kilani’s argument that the Islamic community’s problems reside with its leadership. If those comments reflect the broader perspective of the Muslim congregation, there is grave cause for concern.  Change the leadership, fine and dandy! But how does one change attitudes like those below?

That Australia is an illegitimate state:

village 1

Jew-hatred and paranoia:

village 2

Anti-Christian, too:

village 3

Islamist terrorism isn’t genuine terrorism:

village 4

And a bit more hatred for Jews, with several endorsements:

village 5

Boston Tea Party and 9/11, London 7/7, Parramatta, Paris, San Bernardino…. same thing really:

village 6

There were many other comments in a similar vein — and the key word here is “were”, as the thread was flushed down the memory hole after a three days of the faithful’s frothing and venting.

Difficult as it may be for Mr Kilani to see a change for the better in Australia’s Muslim leadership, the enormity of that task must be rated as no more than light lifting when judged against the onerous chore of persuading Muslims to abandon the poisoned mindset and twisted perspectives from which many draw so much comfort.

Roger Franklin is the editor of Quadrant Online. The comments at Muslim Village were copied and captured before being made to disappear and all further public input banned.

 

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