RUTHFULLY YOURS

The face of Islam is two Muslim women in Australia openly excusing wife beating. It is Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar openly proclaiming at an Orlando mosque, not long before the slaughter at a gay night club in the same city, that “death is the sentence” for homosexuals.
What’s all this rubbish about Muslim men not being allowed to beat their wives? All that brouhaha about those two pleasant-looking Muslim ladies explaining sweetly that husbands indeed had a right to deal out a bit of marital biff when warranted. Hear! Hear! Or, if you like, Allahu Akbar!

I note that Muslim Labor federal member Ed Husic unaccountably eschews the beating option “It’s not acceptable in any form to strike anyone, either between husband and wife or anywhere,” he reportedly said. Bad syntax apart, the sentiment is both clear and terribly heretical in my view. Isn’t he the same chap who used the Koran when sworn in as a minister in 2013? What is he thinking about? That’s the question that springs to my mind.

Allah is clear in verse 4:34, unless Mr Husic thinks that Mohammed got that bit wrong from the Archangel Gabriel, or perhaps Gabriel misunderstood Allah, or maybe the mistake is as prosaic as the equivalent of a typing error back in the 600s. Who knows, but I can only assume that Husic takes a selective view of the Koran. Or maybe he is a ninny with no stomach for smiting necks and finger tips as Allah instructed in 8:12.

Allah forbid, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Husic also takes friends from among unbelievers, a direct violation of 4:89.

Mark Durie (The Third Choice) lists sixteen verses of the Koran which set Mohammed on a pedestal as a model to follow. Very convenient, you might think cynically, if you are a mere amanuensis to have the guy in the sky repeatedly anoint you as a positive pillar of virtue. And virtue it seems is in the eye of the holy beholder.

Among other things, the very model of a man to emulate led raids, killed, enslaved, married a six-year old, acquiesced to the killing of those who didn’t like him, and rejoiced in Allah condemning his poor old Uncle Lahab (and his wife) to grisly everlasting fates (111:1-5) for rejecting his message in Mecca. Mahatma Ghandi-like he wasn’t.

Alarmingly, Turkey’s proposed system lacks the safety mechanisms of checks and balances that exist in other countries such as the United States.

It would transfer powers traditionally held by parliament to the presidency, thereby rendering the parliament merely a ceremonial, advisory body.

“The conditions for a free and fair plebiscite on proposed constitutional reforms simply do not hold,” said a report released by the EU Turkey Civic Commission.

In a bitter irony, nearly 55 million Turks went to the ballot box on April 16 to exercise their basic democratic right to vote. But they voted in favor of giving away their democracy. The system for which they voted looks more like a Middle Eastern sultanate than democracy in the West.

According to unofficial results of the referendum, 51.4% of the Turks voted in favor of constitutional amendments that will give their authoritarian Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, excessive powers to augment his one-man rule in comfort.

The changes make Erdogan head of government, head of state and head of the ruling party — all at the same time. He now has the power to appoint cabinet ministers without requiring a confidence vote from parliament, propose budgets and appoint more than half the members of the nation’s highest judicial body. In addition, he has the power to dissolve parliament, impose states of emergency and issue decrees. Alarmingly, the proposed system lacks the safety mechanisms of checks and balances that exist in other countries such as the United States. It would transfer powers traditionally held by parliament to the presidency, thereby rendering the parliament merely a ceremonial, advisory body.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims victory in the April 16 referendum, at a rally the night of the vote. (Image source: VOA video screenshot)

Why did the Turks choose democratic suicide?

1. Erdogan’s confrontational Islamist-nationalist rhetoric keeps appealing to masses who adore him for his claims of being in the process of restoring the country’s historical Ottoman influence as a leader of the Islamic world. His rhetoric — and practices — would often echo an authoritarian rule in the form of a sultan. It was not a coincidence that the thousands of Erdogan fans who gathered to salute their leader after his referendum victory were passionately waving Turkish and Ottoman flags and chanting “Allah-u aqbar” [“Allah is the greatest”, in Arabic]. For most of Erdogan’s conservative fans, “God comes first… then comes Erdogan”. That sentiment explains why the vote on April 16 was not just a boring constitutional matter for many Turks: It was about endorsing an ambitious man who promises to revive a glorious past.

History is always relevant if we’re willing to learn from it. A good example is the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo Japan on April 18, 1942. By way of quick background, the United States was forced into World War II after the surprise Japanese attack on our naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan had been aggressively moving against other countries in the Pacific realm for several years, taking territory and raw materials to satisfy its expansionist aims. The Japanese correctly saw the U.S. Pacific Fleet, stationed at Pearl, as the biggest threat to their continued activities and so devised a plan to mount a surprise attack on Dec. 7, 1941 against our forces. The surprise worked. The attack sank or disabled eight of the nine battleships in the Fleet (only the USS Pennsylvania, in dry dock, escaped major damage), destroyed dozens of aircraft on the ground and killed over 2,300 U.S. military and civilian personnel, all for the loss of only 29 Japanese aircraft.

The following day, Dec. 8, 1941, the Japanese attacked our main air base in the western Pacific, Clark Field in the Philippines, destroying dozens of U.S. fighters and bombers on the ground, effectively neutralizing our military strength in that region. Therefore, in less than two days, the Japanese dealt the U.S. military two huge defeats, setting the stage for the fall of the Philippines and leaving the entire Pacific essentially unprotected from Japanese attack.

What is less known but unquestionably just as significant as the dual attacks on Pearl Harbor and Clark Field is the Japanese sinking of the British warships Repulse and Prince of Wales in the South China Sea, just three days after Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 10, 1941. The British had dispatched significant naval forces to protect their interests in the Pacific, especially then-colony Singapore, from Japanese aggression. Britain, although a relatively small country in terms of land mass and population, had long been among the world’s pre-eminent naval powers. From Admiral Nelson’s many decisive victories in the late 1700s-early 1800s (culminating with his defeat of Napoleon’s fleet off of Trafalgar in 1805) to Admiral Jellicoe’s leading the British Grand Fleet in all-out battleship warfare against the Germans’ High Seas Fleet at Jutland in 1916, to the powerful mastery of the seas enjoyed by the Royal Navy right through the beginning of World War II, British naval tradition was a source of national pride and identity, very much part of the fabric of their culture.

Only seven months prior (in May 1941), Prince of Wales had played a central role in one of the greatest wartime triumphs ever achieved by Britain: the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. The Bismarck—a fast, modern, heavily-armed ship—was intended to be a North Atlantic commerce and cargo ship raider. If it managed to break out into the vast undefended expanse of the North Atlantic, it would be free to extract potentially crippling losses from the nation-saving material assistance coming over to England by convoy from the U.S. “Sink the Bismarck!” became a national rallying cry in Britain in May 1941, as the deadly German ship attempted to make its way into the open waters of the Atlantic.

The Brits sank it, and the Prince of Wales played a major part, inflicting the initial damage on the Bismarck that led to its eventual demise. If ever an inanimate object—a warship—could become a national hero, the Prince of Wales did.

As stunned and shocked as America was after Pearl Harbor and Clark Field, Britain’s response was one of utter disbelief and horrified astonishment over the sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales. As 1941 turned into 1942, the Philippines were falling to the Japanese in yet another humiliating defeat for America, Britain was deadlocked in a bitter struggle of attrition against the Germans in North Africa and Germany was inflicting incredible casualties on the Russians on the Eastern front.

Sunday’s referendum to expand his presidential powers didn’t go as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan had planned. The Islamist strongman had hoped for a rousing endorsement, but he won narrowly amid voting irregularities that will taint his victory. The result leaves Turkish society even more polarized and may produce more instability.

The pro-Erdogan camp won a mere 51.2% of the vote, according to the state-run news agency. More telling is that the referendum lost in Turkey’s urban areas, including Ankara and even Istanbul, where Mr. Erdogan was mayor. The country’s election board made a last-minute decision to accept ballots that didn’t bear official stamps normally required to validate ballots. The secular Republican People’s Party said that move and other verification problems cast doubt on the validity of some 2.5 million ballots.

Observers with the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe criticized the election board’s decision. They also noted that civil-society groups had been barred from holding campaign events, and Mr. Erdogan’s camp dominated the media. All of this occurred amid Mr. Erdogan’s crackdown on political opponents, journalists and independent judges since last July’s failed coup against him.

The opposition says it will formally challenge the result, but overturning it is unlikely given Mr. Erdogan’s control over public institutions. Barring a Turkish Spring uprising, Mr. Erdogan will consolidate even more power in the office of the president. The referendum would allow the 63-year-old to remain as president through 2029, and perhaps 2034.

All of this will complicate Turkey’s relations with the West, as Mr. Erdogan advances his Vladimir Putin-like control. The U.S. will have to work with its NATO ally. But without more evidence the U.S. should resist demands to extradite Fethullah Gülen, the Pennsylvania-based imam Mr. Erdogan accuses of masterminding the summer putsch. Mr. Erdogan has staged his own internal coup by abusing the levers of democracy to create an Islamist authoritarian state.