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CHAPTER 2
Australia and Islam
Facts, Fads and Fancies
News 438
The Advertiser, Feb. 18, 2011
The Australian, January 20, 2011
In a virulent letter to the Editor in The Advertiser, February 18,2011, one writer attacks the view that there should be reciprocity with Muslim countries, so that as Norway has reportedly indicated, they might expect to open their religious shrines in our country when they permit the same in theirs. We are free, and they, for their part, do what they want. If we want it that way, it is up to us. If they want it that way, so be it; but we cannot leave our liberty to deny it to them when they come. They may exclude with theirs, but we must include them and their mosquish wishes anyway, with ours. This seems largely the scope of the attack, one accusing the other approach of hypocrisy.
It is however difficult to find hypocrisy in the view
v
that
Islam has in history supported violence
to the point of threatening liberty in Europe altogether,
v
that
this approach was applied in Mecca no less by violence,
v
that
this approach to life has many indications of the apt use of violence
to gain religious results from assailing peoples in terms of their targets,
and is not only composed of those who do and do not like this concept,
but of those who give formal adherence to the book which says so*1.
Hence it is not a question of denying liberty to some because we do not agree with them, as is done in schools with organic evolution, in fact contradicting the empirical evidence and reason alike, a forlorn and unscientific, not to say dictatorial practice in this land, against which few protest*2, or seem to be concerned at hypocrisy. Here it is rather one of seeking to prevent the take-over of a regime which does not permit liberty of speech any more, than in practice, some of our own universities do. That is, you can SAY it, but the cost can be total. This can involve loss of academic recognition, of Ph.D. opportunities, of research funds, as Professor Løvtrup, indeed, pointed out*3. It can leave a career in ruins and truth submerged as in a mist, or a submarine, with acid fumes afflicting the crew. Hence one must seek to deliver those so appallingly treated, and most of all, show the truth which has thus been so distortingly disfigured. There are many aspects in such matters. Let us take but one, as we revert to the case in hand in the newspaper letter.
It IS a question of preserving our DEMOCRACY. If the writer of a letter, or for that matter, a militant Muslim cleric (cf. *6 below), does not like democracy, or the preservation of its principles or its defence, then he or she is free to say so; but not to incite by violence or the use of practical means for it, its demise, nor wise to ignore its requirements of vigilance and the quality of its ground. Freedom is not formlessness, and the past is not a spittoon or a beggar for a pittance.
Take the cleric case and his attack on democratic goverment and call for it to resign. That is to remove or inhibit a means of freedom, and the removal of the means to remove it is, like using police to keep our roads usable, not really hypocritical but prudent. They can say what they will, but as involved in a religion of violence - and though in Islam many deplore aspects found in the Koran, or do not recognise them, nevertheless, even in matters of faith, these aspects appear there - they may not seek to turn cricket into tennis, or democracy into a limbo. If they did, they would merely USE freedom to lose it; and that is not at all a matter of freedom of speech, but freedom of subversion. It is freedom for subversion and means to it which are in question.
This is anti-libertarian, and hence not desired in a democracy which seeks to preserve expression in liberty. Either the presumption of ignoring the sources of liberty, its courses, or advocating a shapelessness which is not the basis of what we have, as if we had voted to overthrow that, still in our Constitution Preamble, still in our history, or for that matter espousing a non-vigilance, making this country a supine threshold to anybody and everybody whether disfiguring truth, liberty, or ignoring its needs: it is to undervalue what so many immigrants value, and to lose the bases of what they so often seek, relish and delight in. Liberty is not just a godlike feature; it is both less and more. It does not come merely from being free to be foolish (though this is present), but from what has shown it has grounds for the establishment and maintenance of liberty; for man without reason becomes unstable, seeking more and more witlessly for something, and becoming terrorist or confused and ready for take-over quite easily.
Man without his actual base becomes readily worse than brute, as current and for that matter, longstanding Middle East events so well attest, Libya a mere exemplar. For that matter, if people wish to throw off the foundation of the God of the Bible, and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, let them not be moved to do so by mere confusion, inertia or the wild propaganda meshes of misled minds.
At the very least, since we are involved in war with militant Islam in many forms, and losing soldiers to it, there should be extreme caution in allowing people either to be in or to come to this nation, if they are Islamic. Courtesy is important, but it should not be distorted into blindness.
MUCH MORE was done in this country, to some in World War II, perhaps much too much; but prudence is not crime or hypocrisy. If you want to preserve liberty, you CANNOT do it by scrapping free speech, as the Internet Filter concept threatens to do in this country, or Victoria did for a time. How did that State manage it ? Why, it was in terms of not upsetting people*4,a ludicrous exchange of feelings for fact and inhibitions for truth; but you MUST filter out violence and its deliberate or implicit imprecation.
This does not include earnest, rational, pointed, analytical warnings without which a foolish nation swiftly goes to its well-deserved grave, or exhibitions by reason and evidence of dangers to be guarded against, whether Chinese submarines or sleepers in spy terms. It is useless to shut the eyes and attack as evil what exposes it or ignore its needs, just as much as to make generalisations of this and that kind, on inadequate premises, as in the newspaper letter in view, and so attack crassly.
To the point, it would not be inappropriate if ALL people of the force-using religion known as Islam (however much many may disavow it, but this in view of its history and book), one where force has been much used in the very arena of faith, since we are at war, for certain watchful steps to be taken. Lassitude and confusion here may lead to radical results, as they have often done in the history of nations in such arenas.
Thus it might well be argued that those in Islam, resident in this country, should make a statement, adopted or accepted on their behalf, that their religion is not one in which violence in matters of faith or subversion of a nation in which they reside, is in view. Such a disclaimer does not of course remove the violence, but it does make it then a matter of lie, if violence is nonetheless sought or activated, which is less glamorous, and less readily conceived as glorious. This is a spiritual war that is involved, between liberty of speech, capacity to show truth under challenge, and a protected status in which ferments of force can aggregate and suddenly issue in untold violence, as now in the Middle East.
This statement, this disclaimer, which is now in view, is not for Islamic people only, of course. All entrants might well face the same. When you are at war, you do not blindly act as if at peace.
Such a condition could be applied of course to all religions where their current form and book makes such claims or requirements in affairs of force where faith is concerned. It should be one part of being an Australian, that if your religion or final values involve physical violence of man against man (which would remove the very power of speech!), then you freely leave the country. Since Christianity in its New Testament tells us to love our enemies, though some parts have done very differently in effect, uproariously rebelling against their own book, either changing or adding to the Bible to do it, this gives no ground for such action in this case. The principle however remains.
Furthermore, we are not at war with a militant section of some Christian body, nor does the New Testament as much as suffer violence in matters of faith. Let us consider one of the concepts betraying this nation into something worse than apathy. The point is this, that we do not wish to be changed into an entirely relativistic society, just because we are tolerant and wish to be good-natured. Abandonment equally of all we have been as a nation is NOT the same as being free. Freedom WITHIN what one is, is to the point; and if someone does not LIKE what one is, is there some necessity to come here ? Is a country to abandon its past, its values and its structures, changing endlessly, on a relativistic basis as if this were freedom and not choking ? Is a relativistic religion to be forced on this country in the name of free speech ? That is assuredly what is happening. Such is ludicrous, for if all were relative no one could absolutely know this to be the case. It is mere self-contradiction; and is this to rule ?
This appalling error and surreptitious subversion, this new religion which the Commonwealth is already in danger, contrary to Constitution, of espousing, it is the death-wish of the underlying and historical character of a nation which has been so blessed, that even to begin on such a downgrade is equivalent to a veritable prodigy of thanklessness; and ingratitude betokens heart and heart betokens life and life is not impervious to the imperious, to the taut self-sufficiencies which come so readily either to an individual or to a nation, when a measure of success appears to have been achieved! Already we have gone from significant CREDIT as a nation, to a DANGEROUS DEBT, while economic theories of limited application have been regaled, loans from an atheist and expansive nation have been gorged on, and what amounts to selective Islamic immigration, via boat people, has been given much support. This is not to treat that issue as such, but to note its results, in a time of war.
This creeping paralysis of all conviction removed like good health, as arthritis sets in, confusing multi-cultural grace with characterless face for the nation, is nothing less than an insipid and insidious take-over of what the nation IS, as if every guest who visited your home had to be received with all acceptance, even if a murderer, a subverter or seeking the overthrow of your home. It is not for merely one ingredient of change, but for all that the issue applies. Supine submission to the decharacterisation of this nation, whether through appallingly slanted history books, omitting much reference to religion, or slanted scientistic courses noted already, or other means, is merely a suicidal national binge.
Freedom is SAY should stay; freedom to STAY put should remain, before what Australia is becomes a mere memory, buried in ideological presumption which cannot stand anything at all being mandatory, except that nothing be mandatory, so that if anyone seeks to proclaim something as the truth*5, other of course than the religion of relativism, then that person becomes near to being an EXTREMIST, to being hassled and insulted.
FREEDOM of speech INCLUDES freedom to enunciate absolutes, and to deny them*5, but not to wipe out a nation on the basis of being able wildly to incite things to destabilise democracy at the heart of its freedom, despite the militant nature of the basis on which such things have been said*6; and especially is this so when that basis is, and has been, very susceptible to physical and even military violence and to a significant degree urges it, in matters of faith.
Let us turn once again from the religious to the secular, since here is a principle relevant to both, a double-edged sword for the extinguishing of liberty. Relativism in the last resort IS a religion, and there is no reason to be dragooned by cries of hypocrisy, into accepting it. Violence is continually predatory in this world, and vileness with it, subjugating and strangling. Being watchful about its ways, in an area where we are at war with the claimed basis of multiple terrorist organisations, and even have a Muslim cleric saying democracy should go in our land and the government step down, is not hypocrisy but alertness. Where it is also stated that force WILL in fact win the day for that religion, as was in effect the claim, because this is the way history goes (in some inscrutable sense), and this is added to the ethical statement that the government should step down, it is apparent that we are facing a particular situation.
This is an overall thrust to destabilise democracy, and to do so on the basis of making restrictive law, the totalitarian sharia law, the explicit target, with force the assumed method. Such targets and such incitations to the "jugular" of government, need no militant advocacy from a religion in our midst, which is costing men their lives in battle, and whose main book often advocates just that. What people opt for is one thing; what is issued as a threat and obligation, that is another; and where the application of human force is the method in view, whether primary or secondary in appeal, the case is not lightened. Force as a DESIRED or EXPECTED method from man to establish his personal convictions, without rational certainty indeed, or even verificatory establishment, is a choice that a nation could make; and when democracy dies, this could be a funeral song.
Short of this, it is not apparent that it fits in any democracy, for then the will of the people (however wrong it may become) yields to the force of will, when battle stations open. There is another remedy for foolishness, which in no small measure this country used at its first beginnings, however imperfectly, but formally, and departure from a national regard for that, now formally still the case, is an act of the utmost significance, both in its nature and in its results. It should not be undertaken by victims of mere propaganda, confusing tolerance with formlessness and faithlessness.
Such witless and confused shiftlessness, or use of force may come, but should not in a democracy, without self-contradiction, be suffered. If you want the will to be found, force merely is a mode likely to confound it. Why not TEST it, instead of buzzing about governments democratically elected stepping down, about moral obligations to do so, about sharia law as if some hidden necessity were operative, which would restrict liberty not only in principle, but in practice. Is the brilliance of Middle Eastern Muslim government to be sought dedicatedly ? If so, then let it be voted in, not incited to!
Let us find the force of such desires, if it be so desired, and make Australia a wholly different nation. Let reckless abandon, non-vigilance, profusion of propaganda, presumption rule if this be chosen, to the death of the nation; but let it not be done as if in a sleep, suffering anything and being nothing, as if sleep-walking.
What means could be found for such changes, if such a path were chosen ? To do so, a first step would be to change the Preamble to the Constitution, and this, it could be done either by secular experimentalists, Islamic ones or a variety of other newcomers to this post in the nation. If this should be done, the wise could see already the role that mounts, that of the new religion of relativism, or another, of force, or sundry other octopus arms that could reach with joy into so desirable a nation as this became, before secular or religious force were applied, and moreover, threatened.
Thus, this is not to single out one religion, but only its militant aspects: and this is shown beyond further casuistry and assault, by the fact that where there is evidence to the effect of dispersal of free speech and government, whether for emotional sop or militant push, whether for religious or secular purposes, then freedom is already beginning to bow to casuistry, corruption and the way of slithery cavorting. As to the violence aspect, then, a statement of NON intent is appropriate to those concerned, whether they be mosque or individual, or practise in this way or that. In the secular case, that of government itself and its misuse of education by dictatorial use of dogma in place of the norms of enquiry in scientific method, you simply do not implement your authoritarian push, that readily as to some extent already, becomes putsch.
To stumble over a precipice is one thing; to take a flying, blind leap at it is another.
Don't care was made to care; says the old adage, and if care is not taken, the penalty may be apt.
Talk of hypocrisy, then, in the newspaper letter in view, is merely a well-stirred sedative. It IS diplomatically sound to indicate to countries with which we have much to do, and where their citizens frequently like to live in our freedoms as a culture, through immigration, that they must not mistake any restrictions on mosques and the like, which from time to time we may consider to be in the national interest, as inhibitive to good relations, but rather as a matter that relates to our current war, and national character, in the preservation of freedom. Just as they do not permit churches, so we do not give them unqualified liberty whether to preach violence in matters of faith, or sedition, or to refuse to make a declaration on the topic of force, if one should for any reason, be required.
We value what we have, and in the name of liberty do not throw out everything that is not relativism, as if to go back to the nursery because so bidden. We can use insecticides, just as other nations can use prohibitions; and in THIS way, we preserve the freedom we have, and make no knee-jerk religious change because of some irrational relativism or militancy of force in the arena of faith, the one or the other. Already in the former, there is work to be done to restore national liberty.
PM of Britain, David Cameron was not wrong in saying that many young Britons might well be attracted to a seditious cause with a defined agenda, such as militant Moslem forces, and become subversive of the freedom used to gain such objectives. He indicated that Britain must show up clearly its thrust for freedom, and have more than a neutral nothingness for its signals! It should not through failing to have national character, become a mere pit for the viper production of militants. Such was his theme.
In fact, of course, as one British commentator pointed out some years ago, there is an increasing question of just where is to be found the GLUE that now binds the British together. The Church of England has become so inclusivistic that what may have started as tolerance has become all but addictive to the proclamation of base-level subversion of the faith. Indeed the preaching of the OPPOSITE to the Biblical basics is far from unknown, even at high levels of hierarchical authority*7, and this in the name of Christ. The European Union, the EU (not to be confused with the Evangelical Union!), has become so dominant that it can (and did - Wake Up World! ... Ch. 3) in effect tell the army OF ENGLAND that it must put no restriction on sexual deviance in its troops, so that as a result, specialised accommodation could be built for some!
The confusion of characterless, godless, total non-commitment to any religion but that of relativism, and increasingly materialistic relativism, is becoming more dangerous than Islam is ever likely to be, though it does pose a danger, and does require care as does so much else!*6 The feckless approach to Islam is merely an extension of the slide of a nation which will perhaps deny or remove the reference to Almighty God in its constitution, under whose care it sought to repose; and with its historical basis in Britain, this assuredly was no Allah, nor was it some mere figurehead! The trust was in what had as it has, power to act.
The decisive logical force which distinguishes Christianity and its demonstrability has been a major theme on this site*8; but while this quality in the faith of Christ makes the more disgraceful the now long-standing slide into confusion in this country, and the more horrendous (one does not use the word 'hypocritical' here, with some difficulty) its declension, yet the teaching of Jesus Christ being what it is as in John 18:36 and Matthew 26:52ff., this theme in no way points to the disallowance of free speech. Here is a basis for it, not a blast-off from it. This liberty should continue in this our world while it lasts before judgment, so enabling stays on madness and rebukes to self-assertive religions, whether secular or not. This is NOT to be confused in turn with assurance of defensible truth, but in terms of FORCIBLE INSISTENCE on conformity. We are no theocracy, nor democracy of relativistic religion either, despite the current efforts at subversion, some of which are now growing long in the tooth, if not short in appetite to go with it.
Democracy while it lasts, is for preservation of freedom of speech, not its demise in order to preserve some kind of emotional liberty or other feebleness of mind and distraction from reality; and thus it is also for means for the continuance of that liberty, till God Himself personally acts at Christ's return, when all go where their hearts lie, so removing the point at issue.
Violence in the realm of faith, already abundantly practised in some religious areas of academia in this land, with danger as in Victoria quite recently, of more, is to be cherished like a scorpion in an infant's cot. Prudence to retain this freedom grows less as means for even understanding it, recede in the unnatural and increasing oblivion of God. The use of will for thrill does not obviate the bill.
NOTES
On this aspect,
see Divine Agenda
Ch. 6, More Marvels ...
Ch. 4, Highway to
Hell, Overflight in Christ
Ch. 1. See also the scholarly work
of Robert Spencer:
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and
the Crusades.
See Ch. 1 above, with TMR Ch. 8, and compare with Beauty for Ashes Ch. 3, for example.
See for example, SMR p. 203.
See
Freedom, the Nation and the Next Generation,
and in particular, Ch. 4,with Ch. 1,
*2.
See also
See in the field of education, on this issue, the Melbourne University thesis: Yield Not to Educational Temptation, and The Kingdoms of this World and the Kingdom of Christ Ch. 5.
AN example of the difference between free speech and free subversion is to be found in a recent report.
BOMBS AND BOMBAST
On this, see The Australian, January 20, 2011, in The Nation p. 7.
An Islamic preacher, we learn, points to heaven to indicate that Allah is the god for him, and to specify that it is this religious entity which should be obeyed, whose laws should be yielded to; and his message is to the government of Australia. He wants to teach Australians not only that his concept of what may be called god is correct, but that they must hate democracy, speak against it, "And, if that doesn't work, take action against it." Action ? against ? Take it ? What is the normal action taken by militants who would have existing governments go, resign, depart to allow for sharia law or some such totalitarian legal restraint visited en bloc in a land, to immense loss of liberty for many ? Is it verbal only ?
Now it is one thing to say we should all be dwarfs to cultural power, or to philosophic figments, or unverified religious wanderings, in a sort of Hyde Park fit; but it is quite another to point to the government of a country, which happens to be democratic, and to tell it that it should be obeying some law or other, perhaps sharia, which some zealot happens to prefer, and hence resign or have action taken against it.
WHY should it resign ? Is it to become a chameleon for every and any preacher ? Now one might even excuse this as a measure of religious conviction, however grossly astray in reason and truth (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4), however self-contradictory as is the case here (cf. SMR pp. 1080ff.); but when it is added that "I want to go straight for the jugular vein and advise the parliament that they have no right to legislate," it is apparent that such a missionary politician has no reasonable place in a country which works on the basis that it DOES have the right to govern, does have a constitution of a democratic type, and should not step down for a religion contrary to that of its foundation. This is to seek the overthrow of government, not for its work in this or that, but as a METHOD of rule altogether. That REPLACES liberty not in part, but in whole.
It should at once be made quite clear that if the zealot finds it desirable to have a government of an Islamic kind, with its vast restrictions and requisitions and compulsions, its approach to women and to liberty, it is an easy matter to find one, for there are many such entities. Despite such trifling matters as the STATE of the case in Libya, Iran and other turbulent nations, this may be a choice, and many in this life choose and may choose to inhabit even war zones. There are many Islamic lands available. This, however, is not such a one, and the desire of his heart is readily available elsewhere, to which he should early proceed, instead of advising the overthrow of our government in this irrational manner, as if, to use the word of another letter writer, he were colonist not immigrant.
When further this Islamic contender adds of the Australian Government that they "should immediately step down, and let the Muslims take over," short of insanity, this is incitation to a coup. It should be met by telling him to go speedily to a country where his desire is already met, and to cease subversive action in this one, where it is not. That he insists that though force is not currently in mind, yet historically it is always used, this becomes in effect, if not an advocacy of force, a submission to the concept; and hence it reaches the point of assault on our land.
Freedom of speech is one thing; insistence of the need of change to be in fact found in force, is quite another; and direction to the Government to step down is not only incendiary, impudent, aggressive and foolish in such a case, but a mere propaganda show, a one man take-over of the Constitution, and a repudiation of the place which so far has received him.
The fact that this nation is currently at war with militant forms of Islam should not be forgotten, so that propaganda of this type becomes both a militant incitation and an insurgency. The freedom to speak is one thing; that to incite in physical terms and tell the government it should make way AS A TYPE, for a tiny segment of the people, is more than mere effrontery: it is revolt. The tongue is one thing; but as soon as force is in view, as an historical tool, in the current international setting, and a thing advised, we have a weapon of war operative. Indeed, freedom to debate would soon be a memory, if this clerical autocracy were in place; and that does little for truth. Capitulation to tyranny over the tongue, in a world of this type, is close to subversion of truth, dictatorship of unreason.
See Tender Times for Tender Truth Ch. 7 and Light of Dawn Ch. 2.
See for example,
DEITY AND DESIGN, DESIGNATION AND DESTINY,
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST,