Q&A Muslims

[Rorschach]

Last night it seems Q&A invited a majority Muslim audience and a so-called moderate Muslims on the panel. Randa Abdel Fattah and Anne-Azza Aly. Oh and that Green idiot Scot Ludlum. Even the despicable Maqrk Dreyfus was making more sense than these 3.


What did Mrs Fattah have to say?

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: Well, I think this is one of the problems in the way that we frame this whole conversation about radicalisation. We make it a Muslim problem. Look, everything that you said, Anne, I completely agree with, but the one thing that we never raise is that this is a problem of the whole community, of our whole society, and the one thing that we never address is the role of Western foreign policy and the grievances - the legitimate grievances - that causes people. That doesn't mean that everybody who is aggrieved by the way that the West intervenes in the Middle East is going to become radicalised. But why is it that we choose to ignore that elephant in the room? The role of Western foreign policy and its role in creating such an unjust world and particularly its role in creating the mess in the Middle East that we see. You know, the fact that we had the decimation of Gaza by Israel two months ago and the conspiracy of silence - in fact, I’ll go even further, the legitimating and justification giving Israel a licence to kill, does that not fuel anger? Does that not plant the seeds? We go around in the West trying to cut down the trees of terrorism even as we plant seeds of terrorism and we do that - we we do that when we allow Israel to get away with its war crimes. We do that when we support the US blindly. We say - the US says, jump, we say how high? Even though the US takes the moral high ground, even as it rains down drones and cruise missiles on civilian populations, engages in torture, extraordinary rendition, it takes the moral high ground. We plant the seeds of terrorism when we turn our backs on 200,000 Syrians dead, Iraqis killed and suddenly we are moved to humanitarian action because of some YouTube videos because Westerners are threatened and killed? These are legitimate concerns. These are not excuses for the barbarity that we’re seeing but it is completely insane for us to ignore that these are really serious issues and that there are some people who are going to take these legitimate concerns and go down a radical path. But until we address those root causes, and I don't just say that just as a Muslim, there are many non-Muslim analysts who would say the same thing - until we address those root causes and stop thinking this is a Muslim pathology, we are never going to be able to address radicalisation.

What else would you expect from a biased Muslim Palestinian... it's all the West's fault and Israels... I'm not making excuses except I just did....
And this is supposed to be a moderate good thinking Muslim.

Abdel-Fattah was born in Sydney, Australia on 6 June 1979 as a Muslim of Palestinian and Egyptian heritage. She grew up in Melbourne and attended a Catholic primary school and Islamic secondary college, obtaining an International Baccalaureate. She studied a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law at the University of Melbourne. During this time, she was the Media Liaison Officer at the Islamic Council of Victoria, a role that afforded her the opportunity to write for newspapers and engage with media institutions about their representation of Muslims and Islam. She was a passionate human rights advocate and stood in the 1998 federal election as a member of the Unity Party (slogan: Say No to Pauline Hanson). She has also been deeply interested in inter-faith dialogue and has been a member of various inter-faith networks. She has also volunteered time with numerous human rights and migrant resource organisations, including: the Australian Arabic council, the Victorian Migrant Resource Centre, the Islamic Women’s Welfare Council, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, and the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

Abdel-Fattah is frequently sought for comment by the media on issues pertaining to Palestine, Islam or Australian Muslims.

Nice CV for the enemy within.

The following falls into the victimhood chip or what category...

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: Well, you know, there’s been a huge backlash since the terror raids and we’re seeing, you know, the invective and obscenity online on social media. We’re seeing Muslim women at the frontline, because they’re obviously visibly identifiable in their hijabs as Muslims and people pin their anxieties and fears and hatreds onto those women and they have to suffer the most horrible verbal and physical abuse. We’re seeing a huge increase in Islamophobic incidents. But what I want to focus on is the fact that, like you said, it is the perception that the Muslim community is being targeted. The Muslim community is the only community that was consulted about the terror laws because it is - the image that is projected is that terrorism is a Muslim issue, that the Muslim - the Muslim population is a problem population and the language of Team Australia, I mean - Scott Pointing is a sociologist and he cites Canadian criminologist Barbara Perry and says states confer permission to hate on their citizens and the way they do they is that when the encounter a certain population, a certain community, as the enemy in the war on terror, they somehow give a moral licence or permission to members of the community to encounter that community as an enemy. It's almost as though they are emboldening Islamophobia and we’ve seen a direct correlation. The terror raids occurred and a huge increase in Islamophobic incidents and the Team Australia example, it’s the language of division. It’s the language of inclusion and exclusion. First you have the fact that 40% of Australians were born here - Australian Muslims were born here and yet the assumption is that we came here and then, again, it’s this idea of a benevolent Anglo majority schooling and managing a deviant Muslim minority. This is - this is the message that is being sent, whether unwittingly or not, by leadership and it emboldens Islamophobia - Islamophobes when that message of division and deviance is coming from the highest leaders of the country and that is why people feel empowered by those sorts of messages to attack Muslim women who wear the hijab as the incarnation of everything that we see as evil in Australia and it’s not fair for Muslim women to have to undergo that.

Now there's one acclaimed muslim with much claim to being deranged.

[Neferti]

That is exactly why I do NOT watch ABC (except for Silk, which I currently tape to watch at my leisure). The ABC should be wound down or disbanded. Do you remember when Whitlam (around the time colour TV came in)tried to impose a $20 tax on us? They still do that in the UK, I think. We Australians told him to get knotted!

Sorry I forgot to mention the word "Muslims".

[Rorschach]

Dr Anne (Azza) Aly is an ECR Fellow at Curtin University’s Faculty of Humanities. Her research focuses on radicalisation, violent extremism and counter terrorism. She is the author of Terrorism and Global Security: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (2011, Palgrave Macmillan). Anne has contributed over 40 publications in books, journals and conference proceedings on various themes including counter terrorism, radicalisation, Muslim identity and constructions of terrorism.
Anne is recognised as an expert in the field of countering violent extremism and currently leads several projects in this area. She has extensive experience in policy analysis, development and evaluation and project management.

Dr Anne (Azza) Aly was born in Egypt and migrated to Australia at the age of two. She is a graduate of the American University in Cairo.

Her research was funded by the Australian Research Council’s Safeguarding Australia Initiative and explored responses to the fear of terrorism among Muslim Australians and the broader community.

Anne has published widely in the area of counter terrorism, extremism, radicalisation and Islamist ideologies.

In 2009, Dr Aly was appointed to the Council for Australian Arab Relations at Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In March 2011, she was inducted into the inaugural Women’s Hall of Fame in recognition of her work in counter terrorism and her contributions to the field of security studies.

My opinion is that "Anne" is one of those people who live off a reputation that is not really deserved. She had this to say.

ANNE-AZZA ALY: I have some of the same view. I have a lot of confidence in our law enforcement and our police officers and I think that all Australians need to be at least partly confident that if our police officers and our law enforcement are investigating a criminal act that we, as Australians and as taxpayers, need to understand that they have knowledge that perhaps we don't know. I'm not privy to what ASIO knows and I don't want to be privy to what ASIO or the AFP or what the police know, whether that's cause for them to send 800 police officers into the raid or not, I think that's something that should come out and should come out through strategic communications of the AFP and the police force. In terms of whipping up fear, and I've read the comments that came out today from ISIS, this is not new. For many, many generations and for many, many years, terrorists have always been putting out threats verbally. This is as much a war of rhetoric as it is a war of ideas and a war of - for hearts and minds, and I think the words are very important and we do need to pay attention to how we frame what we're doing, as much as we pay attention to how they're framing the threats that they're giving and putting out on social media to Australians.

So, you know, threats to Australians and threats to anybody who challenged the the ISIS state, this is not the first time they've come out. They came out from the very beginning when the US hinted that there might be air strikes. There were calls for people to carry out acts of violence in their homelands, whether that be in Australia or America or any state that challenged ISIS. So these are threats that we have to take seriously. And I...

TONY JONES: Do you, just to go back to the point made by the questioner and by Randa, to some degree, do you think this was a kind of manufactured spectacle or a legitimate series of raids?

ANNE-AZZA ALY: All terrorism is theatre and all counter-terrorism is theatre. So, yes, it was a manufactured spectacle but that's what counter-terrorism is. That's what security is. You know, you go to an airport, and I used to say this to my students, you go to an airport and you go through all of these things. I could go down to Toys-R-Us and construct something like this and get one of those light sabre things that goes “zhoot zhoot” and every time you walk into my classroom I could go, "Wait a minute.” Zhoot zhoot and that would have an effect because that's what security is. That’s what counter-terrorism is. That’s what terrorism is. It’s all about theatre. So I think we have to accept there is an element of theatre, because this is essentially about perception and it is about convincing people and changing people's minds to a particular world view, whether that world view is that of ISIS and the Islamic State or whether that world view is that of the Australian Government and democratic values and so on and so forth.

TONY JONES: Let's ask Mark Dreyfus if he agrees with that idea that what we're seeing is a kind of theatre designed to deter people from becoming radical or being influenced to radicalism?

MARK DREYFUS: With all respect to Anne, I don't think of terrorism as theatre and I don’t think of counter-terrorism as theatre either. Terrorism involves the commission of real crimes, real murders, real injury to real people and counter-terrorism is the efforts of our agencies to deal with the threat of those crimes being committed. Anne’s right in one sense: terrorists want to send a message. They want to achieve an effect by the kinds of crimes that they commit and one of the things they want is to spread dissention and division in the Australian community so we have to be on guard against that. They want repression to follow from their acts of terror and, again, we have to be on guard against that, too. But, no, I don't think, as Anne has said, that counter-terrorism is theatre. We have a need to deal with a real risk. It is a risk that I think is a manageable one. That's why we have resourced our agencies over many years to deal with these real risks, and why our agencies have, in fact, been able to interrupt a number of serious terror plots that pose the risk of mass casualty events here in Australia over the last few years.

It is patently clear from this show that any Muslim is biased and cannot be trusted to have a balanced view on any of this.

[Aussie]

We saw the Programme live, Roach. No need to copy without acknowledging your source. It is telling you failed to mention Keenan. How odd! Biased much, Roach?

Now, which bits did you disagree with and why?

[Rorschach]

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: I think what people don't realise is you can exclude people in a racist way but you can also include them in a racist way and the way that you do that is through your language and so it’s by saying, you know, as long as you follow our Australian way, our Australian values, our core values, that is a way of including people but always qualifying their acceptance and their belonging and managing them and schooling them. The idea that Muslims are a policed community within the larger community.

When will these "representatives learn that Islam is not a race?

RESTRICT MUSLIM MIGRATION00:33:17

PETER SONNERS: Regarding the recent terrorism-related arrests, should we be discussing the issue of possibly restricting the flow of further Muslim migration to this country until we see evidence of better success in integration of the people who are already here?

TONY JONES: Scott Ludlam?

SCOTT LUDLAM: I think that's an excellent case study really of what we are trying to discuss here. What it reminded me of a little bit and what I was thinking of the conversation before is a really important piece of the puzzle is the very tight feedback loop between media and politicians around this stuff and seeing the way that the tabloid papers in this country at the moment are choosing to deal with the issue as well is hurling fear at people every morning and that's what the politicians are getting for breakfast. That's what their media advisers is putting them in front of them and I think it's creating an immensely tight feedback loop. No, I don't think we need to do some sort of national character assessment of Muslims while we restrict immigration. Australia is one of the most successful examples of multiculturalism anywhere in the world and the kind of divisiveness, I guess, and, you know, people in the community will be taking their lead in part by what they hear from political representatives and what they see in the press. I think, in fact, that kind of fear, that is what terrorism is. It's that corrosion and that undermining of the underpinnings of society. We've done bloody well here in Australia, I would say, and we need to protect that and that includes protecting everybody in this country.

TONY JONES: Anne?

ANNE-AZZA ALY: Well, what I find quite distressing about that is back in - this is a legacy of post-9/11 discourse in Australia, where immigration, asylum seekers, Muslim women in particular, Muslims in general and terrorism were all lumped into one and constructed as this big problem that Australia has to deal with. The idea of Muslims not integrating into Australian society - you've got two Muslim women sitting here on this panel, and there are successful Muslims around Australia, numerous successful Muslims all around Australia. 99.99% of Muslims are good, law-abiding citizens and are taxpayers, I might add, so the idea that we must wait and see whether or not Muslims integrate into Australia - Muslims have been here for a very, very long time, and just, you know, 14 years on, and we're still talking the same talk. We need to move on.

Well there's a whole lot of denial in one short discourse.

TONY JONES: Okay. Let's go to Michael Keenan. I’ll bring you back to the first question asked by Mona and that is: is this a political wedge aimed at drumming up xenophobia? They were her words?

MICHAEL KEENAN: Well, I hope I've answered that from some of my earlier contributions, Mona. I mean, this is not. This is a sensible response from the Government to change the security circumstances in Australia. And the reason that the bill hasn't been put out for public consultation yet is because it’s only just been completed. When we’ve - you know, the situation - the security situation in Australia changed quite rapidly in response to events in the Middle East in particular and we needed to respond to that and we've been working diligently with our security agencies to get up a package that we believe will be the appropriate balance between protecting our liberties and making sure the Australian community is safe.

TONY JONES: So, Michael, what’s already been floated in the public, five year jail sentences aimed at hate preachers who incite others to acts of terrorism, tougher arrests and questioning of suspects on reasonable grounds, a new way of choosing who the suspects who can be questioned are, secret searches of homes, easier issuing of control orders and a ten year extension of the sunset clauses around the existing preventative detention rules. Can you confirm all of those?

MICHAEL KEENAN: Well, that is a reasonable summary about some of the things we will be doing. I wouldn’t quite characterise it in exactly the same way as you have done but what we want to do is we want to have a modern and flexible legislative arrangement that allows the Australian Federal Police and ASIO to deal with the changed circumstances on the ground. Now, we've had anti-terror laws in this country for over 10 years. We've learnt something about the utility of some provisions within that regime, and we want to make sure that we've got a regime that now deals with these changed circumstances and we do live in a heightened threatened environment. There is no question of that. We live in a heightened threat environment and, look, and the best way I can illustrate that is the first tranche of anti-terror laws, in - well, going back ten years ago under the Howard Government, was largely in response to the fact that we had 30 Australian citizens go and fight in Afghanistan. Twenty-five of those citizens returned to Australia and, subsequently, 19 of them were involved in terrorism-related activity. Now, we have up to 160 Australian citizens either fighting with or supporting ISIL and other related terrorist organisations.

MARK DREYFUS: Don't overstate, it Michael.

MICHAEL KEENAN: I’m not overstating it. That is actually the facts. Where have I overstated it, Mark?

MARK DREYFUS: Well, it's this compilation. We've seen this a lot from the Government. The fear that the Government has given is that about 60 Australians have gone to fight in Syria or Iraq and about...

MICHAEL KEENAN: And 100 are supporting.

MARK DREYFUS: ...100 are here in Australia supporting in various ways.

MICHAEL KEENAN: That’s exactly right.

MARK DREYFUS: So don't lump it together as 160.

MICHAEL KEENAN: Well, I’m sorry, Mark, that’s exactly what I said. I said there was 160...

MARK DREYFUS: Well...

MICHAEL KEENAN: ...people who were involved, either directly fighting with or supporting ISIL. That's what I said.


ANNE-AZZA ALY: It is. It is comparatively high compared to the US, which has an estimated 100 foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. So Australia to have an estimated 60 is comparatively high. But I’d like to take some time to qualify the threat and the risk and let's really look at whether or not these laws are going to be effective, because I don't think anybody here would deny any kinds of laws that are there for everybody's public safety, as long as they are effective and as long as they are needed, which are two questions that are consistently being asked about the current proposals. So the first thing I want to say is in terms of risk and threat, what have we got? We've got an estimated 60 foreign fighters. We're assuming that they’re going to come here and want to carry out a terrorist attack here so we've said that that's a threat. We’ve got a further estimated 100 here who might support the Islamic State or show some kind of support for the Islamic State, although we don't exactly know what that support means and we are assuming that they’re going to carry out - perhaps carry out a terrorist attack here in Australia and we've qualified that as a threat. The other threat that we've got is the numerous numbers of people who may also become radicalised and largely because of hard counterterrorism measures that then feed into a division in the community and we've got nothing to address that threat. So I've got nothing against legal options but let's be smart about what we're doing here. All very well and good to have the legal options there, as long as they're needed and as long as they don't impinge on civil liberties and as long as they are even-handed so they are not just targeting Muslims but also that ADL who puts up on their Facebook page this is how you make a homemade weapon. Everybody go and make one and kill yourself a Muslim. As long as they - that is even-handed there, I have no problem with that. But where’s all the other stuff to address radicalisation at its roots? Where’s all the social programs? Where’s all the family counselling programs? Where are all the programs to address, at its very core, why young people are becoming radicalised in the first place.

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: That's the problem of the West’s failure to acknowledge the connection between their imperial interests in the Middle East and the threat that comes to our soil. There is a connection there and it’s about time the West acknowledges the mess that it creates and the fact is that we are - we are at risk now on our soil because of our involvement and we’re not going to be seduced by this circular logic that we have to go back into Iraq because the threat has increased when renewing our involvement increases the threat. We’re not fools. We know what’s been happening in the last 13 years.

MICHAEL KEENAN: But do you seriously believe that the emergence of a terrorist state over part of the Middle East is not a threat to the security of the world?

Oh yes she does Michael.... and she also thinks anything that happens particularly if it's bad, is our own fault.

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: One of the things that I find really problematic about this whole discussion, particularly in Australia, is that we don't even get a sense or an understanding of the intricacies of these conflicts. I’m not an expert on this issue because I’m too busy battling Islamophobia to actually - and we're too busy talking about the narrative of Muslims as potential threats in Australia to actually get to the intricacies. As if any of us here actually understand what is going on over there. As if we really understand the mess that we have created over there and what needs to be done. It's high time that we move to actual proper debates about this and not just jump and say how high when the US goes in there. As if the US is going in there because of humanitarian reasons.

Oh yeah, it's all our fault.

ANNE-AZZA ALY: Very briefly. Going back to the question by Marty, yes, our invasion of Iraq has played a huge role in what's - what’s happening at the moment. The fact is that ISIS is barbaric and I think that a large part of it is the Western intervention and what's happened. But I think that we also need to understand that there is a vacuum of power there and that ISIS has grown incrementally in Iraq and Syria because of that vacuum of power, because of the lack of governance of the Iraqi Government and I think Australia, in terms of whether or not we go in or not, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don't. If we stand by and do nothing, this could turn - this has already turned into a huge genocide. Make no mistake: ISIS is killing Muslims. Left, right and centre, ISIS is killing Muslims.

Gee why would there be a vacuum in a nation with a democratically elected government. perhaps the problem lies in the society and heaven help us lets not mention the way of life that is Islam.

More from the exemplar Muslim woman.

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: I don’t live in a country which feels that governments are entitled to tell women how to dress and, you know, to Jacqui Lambie and Cory Bernardi, if that’s the kind of government that they want to live under, they should go to Saudi Arabia or Iran, because it’s in those countries that women's dress is regulated by the state. I completely support the right of a women to choose to dress as she likes and with my interviews during my PhD research with people, it seems that the burqa, which, by the way, no one wears in Australia. The burqa is what you see in Afghanistan. The niqab is what you - the face veil. It seems that is the limit of multiculturalism. In fact, the niqab has made the hijab acceptable. Once upon a time the hijab was sort of the edge of multiculturalism and now it’s the niqab, which seems to be the tipping point for a lot of people when it comes to accepting difference in society and I would just say, as a feminist, that women should be able to dress as they choose and it's not our business to interrogate that decision.

How very naive and how very wrong.

As for the great Green Hope, his contributions can best be summed up as University standard crap and LW prog rubbish. A prime example of his stupidity and hypocrisy below.

TONY JONES: Scott Ludlam?

SCOTT LUDLAM: Don’t ask me. I'm a white guy. Ask the Islamic women how they want to dress.

Really Scott talking in colours how racist of you

Seems to me Randa Fattah was given a great deal of time to espouse her distorted world view on the program.

[Rorschach]

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: I think what people don't realise is you can exclude people in a racist way but you can also include them in a racist way and the way that you do that is through your language and so it’s by saying, you know, as long as you follow our Australian way, our Australian values, our core values, that is a way of including people but always qualifying their acceptance and their belonging and managing them and schooling them. The idea that Muslims are a policed community within the larger community.

When will these "representatives learn that Islam is not a race?

RESTRICT MUSLIM MIGRATION00:33:17

PETER SONNERS: Regarding the recent terrorism-related arrests, should we be discussing the issue of possibly restricting the flow of further Muslim migration to this country until we see evidence of better success in integration of the people who are already here?

TONY JONES: Scott Ludlam?

SCOTT LUDLAM: I think that's an excellent case study really of what we are trying to discuss here. What it reminded me of a little bit and what I was thinking of the conversation before is a really important piece of the puzzle is the very tight feedback loop between media and politicians around this stuff and seeing the way that the tabloid papers in this country at the moment are choosing to deal with the issue as well is hurling fear at people every morning and that's what the politicians are getting for breakfast. That's what their media advisers is putting them in front of them and I think it's creating an immensely tight feedback loop. No, I don't think we need to do some sort of national character assessment of Muslims while we restrict immigration. Australia is one of the most successful examples of multiculturalism anywhere in the world and the kind of divisiveness, I guess, and, you know, people in the community will be taking their lead in part by what they hear from political representatives and what they see in the press. I think, in fact, that kind of fear, that is what terrorism is. It's that corrosion and that undermining of the underpinnings of society. We've done bloody well here in Australia, I would say, and we need to protect that and that includes protecting everybody in this country.

TONY JONES: Anne?

ANNE-AZZA ALY: Well, what I find quite distressing about that is back in - this is a legacy of post-9/11 discourse in Australia, where immigration, asylum seekers, Muslim women in particular, Muslims in general and terrorism were all lumped into one and constructed as this big problem that Australia has to deal with. The idea of Muslims not integrating into Australian society - you've got two Muslim women sitting here on this panel, and there are successful Muslims around Australia, numerous successful Muslims all around Australia. 99.99% of Muslims are good, law-abiding citizens and are taxpayers, I might add, so the idea that we must wait and see whether or not Muslims integrate into Australia - Muslims have been here for a very, very long time, and just, you know, 14 years on, and we're still talking the same talk. We need to move on.

Well there's a whole lot of denial in one short discourse.

TONY JONES: Okay. Let's go to Michael Keenan. I’ll bring you back to the first question asked by Mona and that is: is this a political wedge aimed at drumming up xenophobia? They were her words?

MICHAEL KEENAN: Well, I hope I've answered that from some of my earlier contributions, Mona. I mean, this is not. This is a sensible response from the Government to change the security circumstances in Australia. And the reason that the bill hasn't been put out for public consultation yet is because it’s only just been completed. When we’ve - you know, the situation - the security situation in Australia changed quite rapidly in response to events in the Middle East in particular and we needed to respond to that and we've been working diligently with our security agencies to get up a package that we believe will be the appropriate balance between protecting our liberties and making sure the Australian community is safe.

TONY JONES: So, Michael, what’s already been floated in the public, five year jail sentences aimed at hate preachers who incite others to acts of terrorism, tougher arrests and questioning of suspects on reasonable grounds, a new way of choosing who the suspects who can be questioned are, secret searches of homes, easier issuing of control orders and a ten year extension of the sunset clauses around the existing preventative detention rules. Can you confirm all of those?

MICHAEL KEENAN: Well, that is a reasonable summary about some of the things we will be doing. I wouldn’t quite characterise it in exactly the same way as you have done but what we want to do is we want to have a modern and flexible legislative arrangement that allows the Australian Federal Police and ASIO to deal with the changed circumstances on the ground. Now, we've had anti-terror laws in this country for over 10 years. We've learnt something about the utility of some provisions within that regime, and we want to make sure that we've got a regime that now deals with these changed circumstances and we do live in a heightened threatened environment. There is no question of that. We live in a heightened threat environment and, look, and the best way I can illustrate that is the first tranche of anti-terror laws, in - well, going back ten years ago under the Howard Government, was largely in response to the fact that we had 30 Australian citizens go and fight in Afghanistan. Twenty-five of those citizens returned to Australia and, subsequently, 19 of them were involved in terrorism-related activity. Now, we have up to 160 Australian citizens either fighting with or supporting ISIL and other related terrorist organisations.

MARK DREYFUS: Don't overstate, it Michael.

MICHAEL KEENAN: I’m not overstating it. That is actually the facts. Where have I overstated it, Mark?

MARK DREYFUS: Well, it's this compilation. We've seen this a lot from the Government. The fear that the Government has given is that about 60 Australians have gone to fight in Syria or Iraq and about...

MICHAEL KEENAN: And 100 are supporting.

MARK DREYFUS: ...100 are here in Australia supporting in various ways.

MICHAEL KEENAN: That’s exactly right.

MARK DREYFUS: So don't lump it together as 160.

MICHAEL KEENAN: Well, I’m sorry, Mark, that’s exactly what I said. I said there was 160...

MARK DREYFUS: Well...

MICHAEL KEENAN: ...people who were involved, either directly fighting with or supporting ISIL. That's what I said.


ANNE-AZZA ALY: It is. It is comparatively high compared to the US, which has an estimated 100 foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. So Australia to have an estimated 60 is comparatively high. But I’d like to take some time to qualify the threat and the risk and let's really look at whether or not these laws are going to be effective, because I don't think anybody here would deny any kinds of laws that are there for everybody's public safety, as long as they are effective and as long as they are needed, which are two questions that are consistently being asked about the current proposals. So the first thing I want to say is in terms of risk and threat, what have we got? We've got an estimated 60 foreign fighters. We're assuming that they’re going to come here and want to carry out a terrorist attack here so we've said that that's a threat. We’ve got a further estimated 100 here who might support the Islamic State or show some kind of support for the Islamic State, although we don't exactly know what that support means and we are assuming that they’re going to carry out - perhaps carry out a terrorist attack here in Australia and we've qualified that as a threat. The other threat that we've got is the numerous numbers of people who may also become radicalised and largely because of hard counterterrorism measures that then feed into a division in the community and we've got nothing to address that threat. So I've got nothing against legal options but let's be smart about what we're doing here. All very well and good to have the legal options there, as long as they're needed and as long as they don't impinge on civil liberties and as long as they are even-handed so they are not just targeting Muslims but also that ADL who puts up on their Facebook page this is how you make a homemade weapon. Everybody go and make one and kill yourself a Muslim. As long as they - that is even-handed there, I have no problem with that. But where’s all the other stuff to address radicalisation at its roots? Where’s all the social programs? Where’s all the family counselling programs? Where are all the programs to address, at its very core, why young people are becoming radicalised in the first place.

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: That's the problem of the West’s failure to acknowledge the connection between their imperial interests in the Middle East and the threat that comes to our soil. There is a connection there and it’s about time the West acknowledges the mess that it creates and the fact is that we are - we are at risk now on our soil because of our involvement and we’re not going to be seduced by this circular logic that we have to go back into Iraq because the threat has increased when renewing our involvement increases the threat. We’re not fools. We know what’s been happening in the last 13 years.

MICHAEL KEENAN: But do you seriously believe that the emergence of a terrorist state over part of the Middle East is not a threat to the security of the world?

Oh yes she does Michael.... and she also thinks anything that happens particularly if it's bad, is our own fault.

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: One of the things that I find really problematic about this whole discussion, particularly in Australia, is that we don't even get a sense or an understanding of the intricacies of these conflicts. I’m not an expert on this issue because I’m too busy battling Islamophobia to actually - and we're too busy talking about the narrative of Muslims as potential threats in Australia to actually get to the intricacies. As if any of us here actually understand what is going on over there. As if we really understand the mess that we have created over there and what needs to be done. It's high time that we move to actual proper debates about this and not just jump and say how high when the US goes in there. As if the US is going in there because of humanitarian reasons.

Oh yeah, it's all our fault.

ANNE-AZZA ALY: Very briefly. Going back to the question by Marty, yes, our invasion of Iraq has played a huge role in what's - what’s happening at the moment. The fact is that ISIS is barbaric and I think that a large part of it is the Western intervention and what's happened. But I think that we also need to understand that there is a vacuum of power there and that ISIS has grown incrementally in Iraq and Syria because of that vacuum of power, because of the lack of governance of the Iraqi Government and I think Australia, in terms of whether or not we go in or not, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don't. If we stand by and do nothing, this could turn - this has already turned into a huge genocide. Make no mistake: ISIS is killing Muslims. Left, right and centre, ISIS is killing Muslims.

Gee why would there be a vacuum in a nation with a democratically elected government. perhaps the problem lies in the society and heaven help us lets not mention the way of life that is Islam.

More from the exemplar Muslim woman.

RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: I don’t live in a country which feels that governments are entitled to tell women how to dress and, you know, to Jacqui Lambie and Cory Bernardi, if that’s the kind of government that they want to live under, they should go to Saudi Arabia or Iran, because it’s in those countries that women's dress is regulated by the state. I completely support the right of a women to choose to dress as she likes and with my interviews during my PhD research with people, it seems that the burqa, which, by the way, no one wears in Australia. The burqa is what you see in Afghanistan. The niqab is what you - the face veil. It seems that is the limit of multiculturalism. In fact, the niqab has made the hijab acceptable. Once upon a time the hijab was sort of the edge of multiculturalism and now it’s the niqab, which seems to be the tipping point for a lot of people when it comes to accepting difference in society and I would just say, as a feminist, that women should be able to dress as they choose and it's not our business to interrogate that decision.

How very naive and how very wrong.

As for the great Green Hope, his contributions can best be summed up as University standard crap and LW prog rubbish. A prime example of his stupidity and hypocrisy below.

TONY JONES: Scott Ludlam?

SCOTT LUDLAM: Don’t ask me. I'm a white guy. Ask the Islamic women how they want to dress.

Really Scott talking in colours how racist of you

Seems to me Randa Fattah was given a great deal of time to espouse her distorted world view on the program.

[Rorschach]

We saw the Programme live, Roach. No need to copy without acknowledging your source. It is telling you failed to mention Keenan. How odd! Biased much, Roach?

Now, which bits did you disagree with and why?

We?
Really?
This from the clown that continually asks for links and quotes etc etc, etc...
If you actually read things Useless your questions would be answered.
How about you do a first, and actually tell us which bits you agree and disagree with for a change?

[boxy]

The ABC should be wound down or disbanded.

And then you'll never hear what you don't like, unless it's brought to you buy current affairs hacks, who will demonise anything that rednecks like you disapprove of.

What's wrong with allowing people to make their points, and leaving it to the viewer to decide as to the merit, or no, of an opinion?

[Neferti]

The ABC should be wound down or disbanded.

And then you'll never hear what you don't like, unless it's brought to you buy current affairs hacks, who will demonise anything that rednecks like you disapprove of.

What's wrong with allowing people to make their points, and leaving it to the viewer to decide as to the merit, or no, of an opinion?

I do NOT watch the ABC (or their 3 or so other TV channels and Radio stations) but the ABC is a Government Organisation and I know what you leftard lot say about Public Servants. Everyone who works for the ABC IS a PUBLIC SERVANT and most are way overpaid ... we should get rid of them!

Rednecks are leftards ... or those who work in the fields. Bogans. Low-class fools who will vote Labor no matter what.

I am NOT a conservative but I do vote for the Liberal Party. I do NOT get my political thoughts from Talking Heads on TV ... or listening to talk back radio. No wonder the leftards are so pathetic ... they get their ideas from the ABC and Radio jocks. Pathetic. No mind or your own, huh?

[Aussie]

Yeah......let's get rid of the public servants. You'd be with that, Roach?

*Left is bad ~ right is good.*