A Rude Awakening

The dreadful protests by Islamic fundamentalists in Sydney on the weekend were the portend of what I have been consistently warning my colleagues and the Australian population about for a number of years. These warnings have earned me a great deal of criticism from fellow politicians and some members of the media. However, they have been well received by a grateful public who have been struggling with the cultural relativism being practised by too many of our opinion makers.

I have desperately hoped that my fears about the impact of Islamists in our country would never be realised. For the rest of my life, I would gladly have worn the slurs of ‘racist’ and ‘bigot’ received in response to my concerns about Islam if it allowed Australia to avoid the problems that extremists have caused overseas.

What occurred in Western Europe a decade ago is now happening here. Even the signs held aloft during the Sydney riots carried the same suggestion as those from protests in the UK – “behead those who insult Islam”. It should serve as a wake-up call to the naïve and just plain foolish who are in denial that a significant problem is emerging in Australia.

The naïve cling to the romantic idealisation of the generations of migrants who have successfully settled in Australia, thinking things will continue just as they have in the past. They proclaim multiculturalism as a triumph of tolerance when in fact it undermines the cultural values and cohesiveness that brings a nation together. Our culture is built upon the two great pillars of Western civilisation – the rule of law and Judeo-Christian values. To allow these great strengths to be undermined by supporting calls for any form of legal plurality or the indulgence of cultural practices that go against our social norms is to abandon reason.

Unfortunately, both have taken place in recent times. In a week when four people were arrested for allowing or performing female genital mutilation on two young girls, it is worth being reminded that some suggest we should allow and facilitate a ritual pinprick of girls’ genitals to appease this abhorrent cultural practice.

To appease a tiny minority, many Australians now unknowingly consume Halal slaughtered livestock. The government have considered changing laws to accommodate sharia compliant finance and others have joined calls for sharia to be applied for matrimonial disputes. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

It is easy to dismiss the practices of the last week as the result of some crazy extremists. That is the convenient route for those who know very little about the fundamentalist Islamic agenda and understand little of their mission worldwide.

This has been evident in places like the United Kingdom, France and other European nations. Fundamentalists have taken advantage of the welfare state, weak lawmakers and fear to implement their agenda at a significant cost to Western culture.

It is now a punishable crime to criticise Islam in some Western nations. Dutch politician Geert Wilders was once prevented from entering the UK because the government was scared of public unrest by Islamic militants. He was painted as an extremist while those that sought to kill him were deemed culturally misunderstood.

The fear that the West has of offending Islam is further evidenced by the apology tweeted by one US Embassy about the supposed cause of the riots that left an ambassador and others killed in Libya. Notwithstanding their subsequent retraction of this position, it is concerning that their first instinct was to blame themselves for the work of one individual and the response of thousands of fanatics.

The mainstream media go to great lengths to put the case of how these fundamentalists are not the true face of Islam but don’t question the ‘religion of peace’ defence coming from someone wearing a Hamas headband or carrying the black flag of Jihad.

It is heartening that some Islamic leaders have condemned the weekend’s riots but doubts are cast because these are some of the same people and organisations that have called for legal plurality, polygamy and have previously defended hate speech.

When are our political and community leaders going to wake up to the fact that what is going on here is exactly the same process that has caused such chaos in some comparable nations?

There can be no tolerance of the fundamentalists’ objectives in this country. Whether it be segregated swimming hours, dehumanising facial coverings or demands for sharia law, every indulgence further emboldens those who seek to radically change our way of life.