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THE HERALD-SUN - MELBOURNE - 28 March 2002
Islam's Deadly Truth
By: Andrew Bolt
Human rights groups say the West mustn't be scared of Islam. But
how can we ignore the terrible bloodshed caused by Muslim fanatics?
HUMAN rights groups have been right to warn us not to overreact to the
horrors of September 11.
But their own over-reaction scares me much more.
Yes, they do well to remind us that most Muslims want only peace.
But they insult us and endanger us when they say our fear of militant Islam just
proves we are racists.
I'm sorry to speak so bluntly on this sensitive issue, but Mary Robinson, the
former Irish president and now the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights,
has just shown how perverted the ``debate'' about Islam has become.
The left-wing Robinson has long been accused of pandering to black racists and
anti-Semitic Muslim despots.
But this month she set new standards in the hate-the-West hypocrisy of human
rights groups by criticising us for the ``Islamaphobia'' she claims has gripped
the world since Islamic terrorists slaughtered 3000 civilians in the United
States on September 11.
What the globe's most powerful human rights activist apparently means by ``Islamaphobia''
is the suspicion many folk feel since hijacked passenger jets were flown into
the World Trade Centre -- a suspicion that Islam may not be so cuddly as human
rights activists like Robinson imply.
You might think 3000 bodies -- and the Muslims dancing with joy in Egypt and the
West Bank -- give reason to feel a tad concerned.
But to Robinson, this concern seems to be more proof of how racist and dumb rich
Westerners are, and how badly they need correcting, especially by Muslims.
AS she says in her statement: ``Prejudice and misperception feed on ignorance
and this needs to be confronted, especially through the mass media, with the
truth.''
And she calls on Islamic communities to ``become more active in countering
ignorance'' in the West ``through offering positive information on Islam and
Islamic beliefs''.
That should be interesting.
Will these communities urge us to follow the example of the Saudi Arabian
newspaper al-Riyadh, which this month tackled ``prejudice and misperception'' by
running a column by an academic claiming Israeli Jews were mixing the blood of
Muslim children in their
pastries?
Or should we learn from Egypt's state-controlled newspapers, whose own efforts
to combat prejudice include running articles saying Israeli spies actually
brought down the World Trade Centre, and that Jew-loving America deserved
it.
It's a mystery how such reports come to be published, because Mullah Robinson
declares after many nights of studying her Koran that ``no one can deny that at
its core Islam is entirely consonant with the principle of fundamental human
rights, including human dignity, tolerance, solidarity and equality''.
Well, no one except Sheik Osama bin Laden and his merry band of child-killers, I
guess. And the leaders of Islamic Jihad. And Hamas.
And terrorist-sponsoring Iran. And any other kill-them-all Islamic
fanatics, who will no doubt be chastened to hear Catholic Robinson believes
them to be unauthentically Muslim.
BUT Robinson goes still further: Islam has a human rights history that's
inspiring.``No one can deny, from a historical perspective, the revolutionary
force
that is Islam, which bestowed rights upon women and children long before
similar recognition was afforded in other civilisation,'' she says.
And see the ``acceptance of the universality of human rights by Islamic
states''.
Dear God, enough.
Robinson's weasel words are the most authoritative example of the intellectual
cowardice and dishonesty of so many human rights activists -- a cowardice
and dishonesty that makes them appear to take the side of Islamic terrorists
against Western secular democracies. Of fascism against freedom.
To activists who think in bumper-stickers, Robinson is, of course, right.
Yes, there is Islamaphobia. But follow the news for a few days, and even the
most tolerant reader might feel that's excusable.
Again, let me say most Muslims here, including the many I know personally, want
no strife and give none.
But let me give a run-down of some of the Muslim activities reported in this
city's daily newspapers just since last Saturday.
We learned, for instance, that Islamic terrorists linked to bin Laden are on a
killing spree in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Iraqi Government has doubled the reward to
the families of Palestinians who kill Jews in suicide missions (sanctioned by
religious authorities) to $47,000 each.
Yet another Islamic suicide bomber killed three shoppers in Jerusalem, and a
Palestinian in police uniform murdered two international observers.
An Indonesian religious leader implicated in terrorism is openly instructing his
200 students to admire Osama bin Laden, but the Government refuses to crack down
on Islamic extremist networks believed to have taken refuge on its islands.
Pakistan's dictator now wants another five years in power, in part to crush the
Islamic terrorist groups destabilising his country.
American diplomats in Pakistan were ordered to send home their families after
Islamic terrorists threw grenades into a Christian church there, killing a
diplomat's daughter and four other worshippers.
The United States is beefing up security for the trials of members of the
Islamic terrorist network behind the September 11 atrocities, amid fears of
reprisals.
And an Australian Muslim was jailed for 15 years for allegedly helping Islamic
terrorists in Kazakhstan.
Don't fret -- it could have been worse. There's been no news this week of the
bloody Islamic insurgencies in Algeria, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, the
Philippines, Sarawak and Ambon.
There's also a lull in the battles in Afghanistan, Libya's mad Gaddafi has gone
quiet, Sudan's genocidal Islamic leaders continue to get away with mass-murder
and Iran's Islamic regime has been muted since it was caught a few weeks ago
trying to smuggle a shipload of arms and explosives to Palestinian extremists.
And the papers didn't even report that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood last week
paraded its first Palestinian-style suicide bombers at Cairo's famed Islamic Al-Azhar
University.
So what do we conclude from this litany of death and hatred? That ``no one can
deny'' Islam is a religion of peace? Why won't Robinson tell the truth -- that
far too many Islamic leaders are among the greatest threats to human rights?
Even our own Mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj Eldine el-Hilaly, last year praised
suicide bombers to the men of his mosque.
IF Islamic groups take up Robinson's offer to help cure people like me of
Islamaphobia, let me suggest how they could best begin.
Forget giving me improving lectures about racism.
Let them instead show me Islam means peace by sacking every Muslim cleric who
praises killing of any sort.
Let Muslim Arab nations stop sponsoring or sheltering terrorists, not least
those who kill for Allah.
Let Muslim leaders stop hacking off the hands of petty criminals, or slicing or
stoning adulterers.
Let the Muslim world replace its countless dictatorships with democracies.
Let Muslim governments stop publishing newspapers or running TV stations
which preach hate and murder, or show Israeli leaders drinking Palestinian
blood.
And, here in Australia, let moderate Muslim leaders find the guts to do what
they promise me in whispers and depose Hilaly as Mufti.
Lying words will no longer do. Honest deeds are needed, or Islamaphobia will
grow, and, sadly, not without some reason.