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Anti-Muslim protest takes Cronulla to the Gold Coast
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If you needed any confirmation that Australia’s xenophobic and racist underbelly is unfortunately still alive and well, then look no further than Queensland’s Gold Coast. A proposal by the Muslim community to build a school there has enraged a group of protesters who yesterday met at the Gold Coast Council headquarters. According to a report in this morning’s Courier Mail, around 200 locals attended a demonstration, “draped in Australian flags and shouting pro-Aussie slogans while Australian rock classics such as Land Down Under and Great Southern Land boomed across the parkland.” No doubt the music and the flags were props borrowed from those who organised the infamous Cronulla race riots in 2005. As an aside, one would have thought both songs were grossly inappropriate choices for this gathering of the ignorant. Land Down Under is about an Australian backpacker reaching out to the world, and Great Southern Land has within it lyrics about the white invasion of Aboriginal land! Last week a larger group also staged a protest against the proposal to build the Australian International Islamic College at Carrarra. According to Tony Doherty, a spokesman for the outraged residents, a Muslim school would encourage segregation, not integration — whatever that means. Mr Doherty doesn’t mind Catholics building their own schools. And in justifying to the media why it was that Muslims should not be allowed to build their own schools, but Catholics can, Mr. Doherty reveals much about himself and his fellow protesters — Muslims are “different”, he says. “Catholics aren’t a different culture,” Mr Doherty told the Courier Mail. “They are the same as us.” Who is “us”? And what about Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, the list of permutations is endless. Perhaps Mr Doherty and his fellow anti-Muslim crowd could tick off on which religious and ethnic groups are ok and which are not, based of course on his own narrow criteria of what it means to be like “us”. Come to think of it, this sort of reasoning on Mr Doherty’s part could have come straight from apartheid South Africa or racially segregated America. This protest is ugly, and deeply harmful to the image of Australia as a tolerant liberal nation. And more relevantly, those who are behind this concerted campaign to demonise Muslims on the Gold Coast are guilty of racial vilification. So why aren’t our political leaders condemning this outburst of xenophobia and racism? Where is Queensland Premier Anna Bligh? What about the federal and State MPs who represent the Gold Coast region? Ms Bligh should, particularly in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, hit the airwaves and make it clear the government will take whatever steps it has to within the law to stamp out prejudice and vilification of the type that is occurring on the Gold Coast. Mr Doherty and his supporters will cry “freedom of speech” to justify their actions. But they need to remember freedom of speech is not an absolute and where others are directly harmed by inflammatory speech then the line has been well and truly crossed. |
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9 Comments
In my opinion ,Australia’s polli’s silence on this issue does make the situation worse.
It isn’t that important what a few people whose views of Australia are set in pre- World War 2 visions of bronzed aussies in the outback as the archetypical of this country. What is important is whether their views are allowed to hold sway.
I suggest Greg Barnes goes and lives in a Middle East country for a while. Every where throughout the world 80% of the conflicts involves Muslims.You will argue that the majority of Muslims abhors violence but I do not see them doing anything about it within their own ranks.
Having lived with Muslims for many years ,I can only agree with the actions taken by those citizens.
Well said Kim, I thought I was in the comments section of certain News publications for a minute there.
Thanks Greg,
i hope politicians do and say something to support a shift in perception.. too often fears are perpetuated by silence or affirmed by vocal racists like shock jocks etc
pray for some intelligent response to the subject of race - — - we are All equal
some are nOt more equal than others -
If the people on the Gold Coast don’t want a violent misogynist cult establishing a school in their area, they have every right to stop it.
Amazing the worthless scum that wander onto this site occasionally. And such great powers of reasoning. ‘80% of conflicts involve Muslims’ - really? leaving aside Burma, Ireland, Colombia, the Congo, Nepal, land wards in China, drug wars in Mexico, Russia vs Georgia, we can see that some world conflicts involve Muslims - often as not as victims - Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan - of non-Muslim aggression. Still, I mean 98% of rapes involve women. By the ‘80%’ analogy, they can’t be blameless.
‘Barns under-reported the story, which was about traffic issues etc’ - Sure, because that’s what you do when your neighbour’s trees overhang your fence - you get a bunch of mates to dress like dicks in the flag, and play (ineptly chosen) ‘patriotic’ anthems at a demonstration. Gutless prevarication
‘Graffiti daubed on walls, Korans left on doorsteps’. I don’t believe it for a second. Pure bullshit. Show us some proof. Until then we’ll regard it as a rabble-rousing lie.
‘violent misogynist cult’ - yeah, cos who would want to disturb the respectable calm of Surfer’s Paradise on a Saturday night?
You sad bunch of mouth-breathing morons. Most of you can’t string more than a sentence or two together. Pathetic losers looking for someone to step on to feel better about yourselves.
If you’re round the area, as your emials suggest, you’re probably retired and waiting to die. Don’t hang around on our account.
Don’t expect a Queensland politician to set standards on xenophobia or racism. It’s all foreign to them and they like it that way. And don’t expect the Queensland media to advocate a reasonable line on same either because its similarly hamstrung. It’s the deep north where…..well its just different. It’s where extreme authority and conservatism rule as in Palm Island. Not even a national media will ask Kevvie about his role as a key architect.
I must agree with Justy. I have lived in parts of the world where the neighbourhoods are now violent and scary places to be, especially for woman, due to the Islamic presence in the area. In their cases the situation arose from circumstances similar to that of the protesters at hand. I suppose the people of that neighbourhood are standing up as they dont want the same sort of thing happening to them. I am also aware that sinse the purchase of the land involved in this case, that several cases of graffiti have occured on neighbouring buldings with slogans such as “ala lives” and “death to all”, with copies ot the Qu’ran being placed on people’s doorsteps…now wouldnt that frighten you, espcially in the wake of whats just happened in India??????
The article written has taken only tiny parts of what Mr Doughtery stated at yesterdays rally and grossly twisted what he said in a pathetic attempt to make the article a stronger case for this notion of racism on the protesters part… how do i know this? because i was there, observing it all. So please at least get your facts right before you go taking such big swings. mr Dougherty made most of his points around the possibility increased traffic in the area as it is a very narrow, quiet suburben road and teh fact that the land is indeed a flood plane at present and the environmental impacts of developing it could be terrible for the local wildlife… all practical grounds for argument if you ask me.
Im pretty much appaled at the low level of journalism in this case to report the WHOLE truth and the biased nature of this peice of writing.
Katie