Australian media ignores Muslim homophobic lectures

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

originally posted by UDS:
**Can you find examples of other meetings held on the Bankstown campus of UWS which were reported?

**Nope.
Can’t.
Tried.

December, I would like to point out that the University of Western Sydney apparently only has 1,100 students, spread out over six campuses in the Sydney suburbs.

http://www.dest.gov.au/tenfields/education/under.html
http://www.uws.edu.au/students/international/campuses.html
http://www.uws.edu.au/students/international/sydmap.html

Looking at the pictures on their website, it’s clear to me that in terms of physical facilities, we’re talking about what you and I would call a series of very small “community colleges” or “junior colleges” (no offense, Oz. )

I mean, it’s not like what you visualize as a “university” as such, not like the “University of Western Ontario” (22,000 students enrolled), or even the “University of Western Australia” (15,000 students). It’s not even the “University of Sydney” (which has 42,000 students enrolled this year)–it’s the University of Western Sydney.

And as such it doesn’t seem to generate much news, period. Puttering around in the Sydney Morning Herald’s archives turned up only a couple of “soft” pieces about college courses.

It’s so obscure that Hawthorne, who is an Australian university academic, didn’t even know it was there. Okay?

So why on earth should the Sydney Morning Herald send a reporter to cover a speech at one of the six very obscure, very small junior colleges out in the suburbs, unless it was given by a Famous Person? Which it apparently wasn’t.

So, once again, no media conspiracy, no newspapers being run by cigar-chomping bigots. Just another December Tempest in the usual very small teapot.

P.S. I see that the FreeRepublic Forum has the OP’s news item, dated 12/2. Am I correct in assuming that’s where you heard about it? They’re simply running the Green Left article, word for word.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/799531/posts

Posted on 12/02/2002 8:35 PM PST by MikalM

Homophobia and Islamic fundamentalism
BY LEON HARRISON While I have always supported struggles for social justice in Palestine and I am opposed to the US war drive against Iraq, I find that, as a gay man, my own community is under attack from not only Christian fundamentalism but also Islamic fundamentalism.

[UDS]

According to this page http://www.uws.edu.au/students/international/about.html UWS is not a series of community colleges or junior colleges. It offers both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees(including PhDs) and is committed to research. It has an enrollment of 30,000, not 1,100.

Having said that, I can testify from personal experience that extremist nonsense is spoken at meetings in universities of all calibres, and this is rarely or ever covered in the mainstream media. No theories about conspiracy or bias are needed to account for this.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Oh, okay. I thought it seemed oddly small. I stand corrected.

[TwistofFate]

Fortune accurately criticize Muslim culture. In response he was accused of incitement of hatred and xenophobia. In short, he was verbally blasted because criticizing Muslim culture was not PC.

Is his xenophobia is more aceptable because he was gay?

december, he wasn’t worried about muslims coming into Holland, we was worried about foreigners coming into Holland. He didn’t restrict based on religion, he restricted based on Nationality and ethnicicity (sp?) and refugee status. His cause was latched onto by some very dangerous right wing groups that would previously have vilified him for his sexuality.

[Walloon]

His name was Pim Fortuyn, not Fortune.

From CNN:

[Fortuyn] was at pains to point out that he was not against immigrants, but he questioned their ability to assimilate into a liberal and racially tolerant culture and argued immigration had to be curbed in order for the Netherlands’ liberal social values to survive.

“My policies are multi-ethnic and certainly not racist,” he said. “I want to stop the influx of new immigrants. This way, we can give those who are already here the opportunity to fully integrate into our society.”

Indeed, Fortuyn’s #2 person in his party was an immigrant.

[Polycarp]

You’re missing my point. If the word “media” is used, then it takes the plural verb “sit”, not the singular verb “sits”.

That would depend on the context, Walloon. If one use the noun in its collective sense west of the Atlantic, it may be construed as “the monolithic grouping consisting of all the media taken together” and take the singular, as opposed to “the media run across the entire political spectrum” – and note that this sentence begins with “If” and a singular pronoun followed by a present subjective singular verb which does not end in -s.

[december]

*Originally posted by istara *As to point (1) - rubbish. Islam - like Christianity - is continually attacked for its anti-gay teachings. There have been countless threads in here referring to it.

True, and I think I’ve started most of those threads. I’ve been vilified in those threads – which tends to support the “not PC” idea.

TwistofFate, I had read that his concern was about Muslim immigrants only. (Particularly understandable for a gay person) You posted something different:* “[Fortuyn] wasn’t worried about muslims coming into Holland, he was worried about foreigners coming into Holland. He didn’t restrict based on religion, he restricted based on Nationality and ethnicity and refugee status.”* Can you demonstrate that his concern about immigrants extended far beyond just Muslims? Was he a racist? An antisemite?

This is an important point. If Fortuyn was broadly xenocentric, then my argument falls apart. OTOH if he was concerned about Muslims only, but was portrayed in the media as broadly xenophobic, then my argument is strengthened.

(On preview I see Walloon says that Fortuyn was NOT against all immigrants.)

** Duck Duck Goose** – I had found the item in Instapundit, who picked it up from Australian blogger Tim Blair. I agree that the example isn’t particularly strong evidence of my thesis. Here’s another:

The media has not given much sympathy to Bangladeshi reporter Taslima Nasrin. She’s under a serious threat of death because of a fatwa. The fatwa was reported in the news, but I’ve not seen an outpouring of sympathy and concern. Imagine the uproar if the Vatican propounded an edict seriously ordering every Catholic in the world to kill some author – particularly a woman from Bangladesh?

BTW Nasrin’s has some strong views on the Islam religion:

TN: … And also it is written in the Koran that if you are not Muslim, or if you are you know disbeliever, then you should be killed. Islam divides the world in two parts: Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam. Dar al-Harb means land of infidels and Dar al-Islam means land of Islam. So it’s the Muslim’s duty to make, to kill all the infidels or make them convert and to make all the land Dar al-Islam, means land of Islam.

ES: What about the idea of tolerance?

TN: There is no tolerance. There is no tolerance in Islam because, you know if it is, if a law say, because a law says that disbelievers would go to hell if you are a Muslim but you reject Islam and if you deny Allah or Prophet Mohammad, then you should be killed. You know fundamentalists issued fatwa against me. Many people, the so-called liberal Muslims, say that: no, it’s not real Islam, Islam is for peace, Islam doesn’t allow any fatwa. Actually, it is not true. The fundamentalists are following, are practicing Islam correctly. They issued fatwa against me because it is written in the Koran that [sounds like] apposite must be killed.

[Walloon]

The fact that one predicate alone would be used with the word “media” should in itself convey that monolithic idea. E.g., “The media are attacking the P.M.” means that they are all doing one thing. The predicate does the trick.

[woolly]

I agree that the example isn’t particularly strong evidence of my thesis. Here’s another:

Hey, at what point did enlightenment occur? And why are we expected to read and rebutt yet another international “Odd Spot” snippet misinterpreted through your paradigms?

Stop it … oh, you’ve already gone blind.
Oh, and hawthorne, I can’t recall having heard my comment elsewhere. TLD, I’d back as assuredly an original.

[Polycarp]

Ah, but “the committee are unable to agree on the proper steps to take”?

[istara]

The image I now have of december is one feverishly trawling the internet and every online parish gazette and minutes of every community hall meeting just in case some offensive thing - however small - has occurred that The Media has failed to pick up on.

Maybe it just wasn’t a story. Maybe there has been so much issue in recent months with the (Lebanese) Muslim community in West Sydney that they were being given a break. Who knows?

All I know that this homophobic attitude isn’t a new or unusual facet of some Islamic teachings, it isn’t unique to Islam, and it’s not a particularly new or interesting story from my point of view as a journo or a punter.

[Princhester]

Pim Fortuyn and Falwell are both media figures in their own countries (and Falwell even beyond the US). If they sneezed, the media would report it.

I read an Australian newspaper every day. I have never heard of anybody referenced in the OP. They are media non-entities.

To suggest that every comment by every person is given equal weight by the media, dependant only upon the newsworthiness of the comment itself is naive in the extreme.

[TheLoadedDog]

Woddido? Woddido? Probably original, but I can’t remember what I’ve said five minutes later.

[TheLoadedDog]

Sorry, that last post is an orphan. It’s for Hawthorne - I shoulda quoted.

[Bryan_Ekers]

*Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose *
Oh, okay. I thought it seemed oddly small.

Boy, if I had a nickel…

[don_t_ask]

Without wishing to indicate that the June “meeting” had any news value at all, Google will inform you that:

Hanan Dover has 3 email addresses and a mobile phone number and possibly wrote this and the link in the OP indicated that UWS had suspended her for her comments.

Keysar Trad is a well known figure in Australia and is even quoted overseas as a spokesman for Australian muslims.

I guess it’s newsworthiness is indicated by the fact that Tim Blair, whose blogspot is the other link in the OP, is a columnist with The Australian. Here is a taste of his work and this is his opinion of Peter Garrett’s latest move.

[UDS]

*Originally posted by december *
. . . The media has not given much sympathy to Bangladeshi reporter Taslima Nasrin. She’s under a serious threat of death because of a fatwa. The fatwa was reported in the news, but I’ve not seen an outpouring of sympathy and concern. Imagine the uproar if the Vatican propounded an edict seriously ordering every Catholic in the world to kill some author – particularly a woman from Bangladesh?

This may not be a great example either. A couple of points occur to me.

First, your analogy is flawed. There is no central institution in Islam which corresponds to the Vatican. There aren’t even authority figures corresponding to, say, bishops. Someone has issued a fatwa, but without knowing who has issued it, and how it has been received by other Muslims, this affair may tell us more about the person issuing the fatwa than it does about Islam.

Secondly, another famous fatwa did, of course, make headline news for a long time in the Western media. The differences between that fatwa and this were

(a) that the person issuing it was already famous - or, rather, infamous - in the West, and

(b) that the person against whom it was issued was also already famous in the West.

What this tells us is that the Western media cares more about famous London-based novelists that it does about obscure (in the West) Bangladesh-based journalists. This may be a criticism of the values of the Western media (and of the market it serves) but it is hardly compelling evidence of a pro-Islamic bias.

[hawthorne]

Well done don’t ask! My googling was stymied by assuming that the Green Left Weekly’d got the person’s name right.

[sqweels]

I have indeed heard of the Taslima Nasrin case in the Western media, so it hasn’t been completely ignored. The fatwa was issued by Islamic courts with the aquiesence of the Bangladeshi government. The difference between her case and that of Salmon Rushdie is that it took place deep within the Islamic world whereas Khomenei was trying to interfere with free speech here in the West, along with points a and b by UDS.