Cochlear orders staff to speak English

October 31, 2007, Sydney Morning Herald
Cochlear orders multicultural staff to speak only English at work

THE Australian company famous for supplying hearing implants to the world has ordered its multicultural workforce to speak only English or sacrifice a pay rise.

More than half the manufacturing workers at Cochlear's Lane Cove plant came from non-English speaking countries but are under instructions to speak only English at work.

A complaint to be lodged today with the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board says Cochlear management had threatened to deny pay rises to staff who spoke foreign languages in the workplace.

One worker from Cambodia, Huy Kha, alleges that in June his manager ordered him to "speak English at all times".

At another meeting earlier this month, Mr Huy said, the manager told him it was company policy to speak English, even though none of his colleagues have any interaction with the public.

"The team leader said that if we are found speaking a foreign language we will fail our assessment to get a higher classification," he wrote in his complaint to the board. "We [were] told that if you don't speak English you'll get a warning."

Cochlear's chief executive, Chris Roberts, said he was unaware of Mr Huy's complaint but the company had "a policy of mutual respect in the workplace". Dr Roberts said: "So if there is a bunch of people in a group, they should not speak a language that cuts others out." ...

ABC News

CHRIS ROBERTS: The workers at Cochlear have requested now for several years that English be the language of choice in the workplace. We have over 30 nationalities in the production force and indeed many more dialects spoken.

In terms of promoting team work, they themselves have requested that English be used at all times on the production work floor. This does not prevent people speaking in their native language in the lunch room or toilets or wherever but when they are on the production floor, working in production because safety is an issue, the products that they are making are going to be implanted in people's heads for the rest of their lives, it is very, very important that we can maximise teamwork and indeed communication.

Russia shouldn't import African sportsmen - Putin

Oct 2, 2007, Guardian

Russian President Vladimir Putin criticised sports officials on Tuesday for attracting sportsmen from abroad instead of grooming homegrown champions.

"Looking at our teams, one cannot immediately understand whether those are ours, or a team from Africa," he said.

"The result is well known. There is no one to play in our national teams," he told a meeting of Russia's Sports Council.

Putin wants to revive the past glory of Soviet teams, who dominated in many disciplines, and blamed club managers for the decline in sports.

"Instead of preparing young people, breeding our own national cadres they spend millions of dollars hiring foreign players," Putin told the Council meeting, tasked with planning for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi ...

"This is all about spiritual and physical health of the nation, of its young generation," said Putin.

Achievements in national sport are seen by the Kremlin as a way to consolidate the nation.

Via NPI

The day one man infected a community with hatred

November 12, 2005, Jihad Watch

Contrary to the impression one may get from this article, hatred is not an STD. Nor can it be transmitted through sneezing or coughing, or by handshakes or other casual contact. The gorilla in the living room of this article is why so many of his hearers believed the teachings of Abdul Nacer Benbrika. If they didn't catch them as one might catch a cold, what did happen? Could it be that what he said resonated with what they knew of the teachings of the Qur'an, Hadith and Sira? Of course, no one wants to admit that, because no one wants to deal with its implications.

But what if the media (liberal and conservative) and policymakers did admit that Islam contains incitements to violence within its traditions, theology and law? What would these dreaded implications be? Genocide? Of course not ...

But no one can even ask those questions today because we are all not supposed to notice that Islam contains any elements that might be incompatible with Western pluralism in the first place.

From The Australian ... :

IT was the day that changed the life of accused terrorist ringleader Abdul Nacer Benbrika. Other Muslims see it even more darkly - as the day when al-Qa'ida first infected Australia's Islamic community with its toxic distortion of Islam.

Now for the first time The Weekend Australian can reveal what unfolded on a country property in Victoria in the sunset of 1994. There, in front of the nation's leading Islamic fundamentalists, including Benbrika, a bearded cleric in flowing robes was giving a sermon which many now believe gave birth to radical Islam in Australia.

The speaker was Abu Qatada, now the spiritual leader of al-Qa'ida in Europe. Qatada had been invited to Australia by his childhood friend and fellow hardliner, Melbourne cleric Sheik Mohammed Omran. His message mesmerised the group - and Benbrika.

"He spoke out against Arab governments for not being Islamic enough, for not adhering to pure sharia law," recalls one senior Muslim who asked not to be named.

"He was radical and politicised - we had never heard this stuff before. His impact was enormous and that is where it all began. This is how the ideology of Abu Bakr (Benbrika) entered Australia. Prior to Abu Qatada's visit, most radicals were just normal guys."

And so it goes. Normal guys became jihadists. They were "infected." And this preposterous non-analysis is printed in a major newspaper.

Peter Faris QC: deport Muslims

October 28th, 2006, Peter Faris QC Blog

Disregard all the moderate Muslims in the press – they are just the acceptable face of Australian Islam. The real business is in the mosques, with the Arabic speaking preachers spreading hatred of our lifestyle.

Australians must protect their women from these people.

The solutions are hard but fair:

1. All Muslim immigration should stop immediately.
2. All Muslims who are not Australian citizens should be deported.
3. Naturalized Muslims should have their citizenship revoked and then be deported unless they can demonstrate that they have assimilated into Australian society and that they fully accept Australian values.
4. Muslims born here and who are not assimilated should be encouraged to return to their family’s home country. The Government should pay a generous sum of money to make this repatriation more attractive.

Via Winds of Jihad

Radical Islamic literature across Melbourne

March 11, 2007, Herald Sun

RADICAL Islamic literature, DVDs and websites are proliferating across Melbourne while authorities are seemingly helpless to stop the underground trade in hate talk.

In tucked away Melbourne bookshops and prayer rooms, as well as online, text and recordings commonly slur Jews and urge followers to Islamise the world.

The faithful are told to obey only Sharia law.

A Sunday Herald Sun audit of Islamic bookshops found dozens of books, pamphlets, DVDs and CDs with radical and sometimes violent messages ...

UK: hate literature in one quarter of mosques

31/10/2007, UK Telegraph

Extremist literature that encourages hatred of gays, Christians and Jews can be easily found at many of Britain's mosques, according to a new survey.

Researchers for the centre-Right think tank Policy Exchange claims it found the literature in a quarter of the 100 mosques and Islamic institutions they visited.

Many of the publications allegedly called on British Muslims to segregate themselves from non-Muslims and for unbelievers to be treated as second-class citizens wherever possible.

The literature also allegedly contained repeated calls for gays to be thrown from mountains and tall buildings and for women to be subjugated ...

Policy Exchange visited more than 100 mosques and other Islamic institutions and said it found the literature was accessible both openly and "under the counter". Altogether some 80 books and pamphlets were collected over the course of a year.

Many of the institutions were among the best funded and most active of Britain's 1,500 or so Islamic establishments. In several cases they had received official visits from politicians and even members of the royal family ...

Iqbal Sacranie, a former secretary general of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, criticised the report. He said:

... it is irresponsible to target religious texts and take them out of context. These texts can be found not just in mosques but in ordinary bookshops - the report overlooks that.

Via Crusader Rabbit

Edinburgh mosque: kill lapsed Muslims

30 October 2007, BBC News
Shock over mosque booklet claim

Worshippers at an Edinburgh mosque have refuted suggestions it is promoting extremism after a study claimed to have found "hate literature" there.

Researchers claimed to have found a booklet which indicated it was permissible to kill lapsed Muslims.

The material was said to be found at the Islamic Centre of Edinburgh, which is attached to the King Fahd Mosque.

A mosque source told the BBC the booklet had been sent to the mosque 10 years ago but had not been used since.

The details emerged in a UK survey by the think tank Policy Exchange.

The findings form part of a report entitled The Hijacking of British Islam. The mosque has not yet issued an official comment ...

The material found states:

"The scholars have mentioned that a person may become apostate for many reasons which can nullify his faith.

These reasons would make someone's blood permissible to spill [to be killed for apostasy] and his wealth permissible to be usurped, because he is no longer a Muslim."

Via Winds of Jihad

Sir Harry Gibbs: discriminate on immigration

Former Chief Justice Sir Harry Gibbs,
Australia Day Message, 26 January, 2002:

While it would be grossly offensive to modern standards for a state to discriminate against any of its own citizens on the ground of race, a state is entitled to prevent the immigration of persons whose culture is such that they are unlikely readily to integrate into society, or at least to ensure that persons of that kind do not enter the country in such numbers that they will be likely to form a distinct and alien section of society with the resulting problems that we have seen in the United Kingdom.

John Stone added in his Tribute to the late Sir Harry Gibbs, 2005:

At a time when, in particular, legitimate questions are being increasingly raised about the capacity of Muslim immigrants either to whole-heartedly embrace their fellow Australians, or to give their loyalty first and foremost to Australia rather than to their religious culture, these words continue to put to our government questions of a kind which it appears fearfully reluctant to answer.

More: Sir Harry Gibbs

Via Winds of Jihad and Andrew Bolt

Sultan: I don't believe there is moderate Muslim

October 02, 2006, You Tube

Nine minutes of Wafa Sultan on Danish television, in English, on Islam and the cartoon jihad. Is it really "the crack in the wall"?

Interviewer: ... in the wake of the cartoon crisis, how strong do you think moderate Muslims are in the Arab world?

Wafa: I believe, wrongfully, they were called moderate. I don't believe there is moderate Muslim. I believe they are ... Muslim in term of culture ... not in term of religion. Because, in Islam, you have to believe in every teaching as a Holy teaching you cannot change. You have to accept it the way it is, otherwise simply you are not a Muslim.

Interviewer: Does Islam have a role to play in the modern world, do you think?

Wafa: Of course it does, but not in the way it looks now. I have very different point of view regarding this matter, and I was advised by so many friends to polish my message and to soften my way of saying it. I tried, but I failed. I see the truth as naked and I feel it more powerful to stay naked. I cannot, just in order to make it look better, put a nice dress on it. So I'm gonna say directly the way I used to do it ... I don't believe Islam can be reformed. I really don't. I believe Islam shall be transformed, and it will take fearless religious leaders and very well educated people to cause the transformation. If Islam was transformed, absolutely it will have a role to play in our world.

Fadi Rahman: we risk 'London-type bombing'

October 29, 2007, the Australian

AUSTRALIA faces a "London-type bombing" if relations between Muslims and the intelligence and police authorities do not improve, an influential Islamic youth leader has warned.

Fadi Rahman, who runs one of Sydney's biggest youth centres at Lidcombe in the city's west, said overseas Islamic elements were attempting to radicalise Muslim youth with their hardline ideologies.

But in a warning that will resonate with Australian authorities, Mr Rahman said Muslims did not trust ASIO or the Australian Federal Police and that the bungled terror case against Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef had worsened the situation. "The biggest problem ASIO and the federal police have is that no one in the Islamic community trusts them enough to give them a heads-up about anything," Mr Rahman told The Australian.

"Look at the Haneef thing - why would we trust these guys when all you see is one fumble after another? People are afraid." ...

The "something" includes programs to give opportunities to Muslim youth and a "less hostile" attitude by the federal Government ...

Mr Rahman said he and Toufic Mallah, the man he brought into the youth centre to stress moderation, preached non-violence.

About 50 of the youths at the centre, which has about 460 members aged 10 to 35, are former criminals who have done time in jail. Mr Rahman said they could go "either way".

At the Independent Centre of Research Australia, he runs anger-management programs and has opened a prayer room run by Sheik Mallah. Sheik Mallah said the second chapter of the Koran stressed that "we have made a moderate nation".

He says non-Muslim Australians should approach their local sheiks if there was anything they did not understand or like about their local Muslim communities. "Come and speak to us," he said ...

"The blame game" of all Muslims being blamed for terrorism "will only put people offside", he said.

Dear Mr Rahman,

Compliments for your efforts at the Lidcombe youth centre, and for availing us of your knowledge of extremists among us. But there endeth the compliments ...

You speak of lessons to be learned. The most important lesson comes from one of your Muslim brothers. Turkish prime minister Erdogan said the other day of PKK terrorists:

Those who are unable to distance themselves from terrorism cannot avoid being adversely affected by the struggle against terrorism.

Step 1 for distancing yourself: stop selectively quoting from the Koran, get a hold of Robert Spencer's book Religion of Peace: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't, and then understand that, as apostate Wafa Sultan says "There is no way we can keep the Koran". It's pretty simple Fadi, regarding the Koran, it is indisputable that the texts encourage terror and violence. Ergo, anyone who calls themselves a Muslim, and thereby carries around a manual for violence, is insufficiently distanced from terrorism. There is no way for us to tell who among you will go berserko on us. As Wafa says:

... I don't believe Islam can be reformed. I really don't. I believe Islam shall be transformed, and it will take fearless religious leaders and very well educated people to cause the transformation.

Fadi, you are a fearless leader on the street level. But, as you can see, Islam has to be fearlessly transformed at the religious level - are you up to that task? Hence your talk of moderation is offensive to those Westerners who have learned their lessons from terror. Clearly, you haven't. You have to sufficiently distance yourself so there is no chance they could go "either way".

Step 2 for distancing yourself: it's simple really - assimilate. Lose all your defining foreign qualities and fit in: ditch the nauseating language, the offensive haircuts, religious dress, Islamic beards, hijabs, veils, pull down the minarets. So, "come and speak to us" is offensive really.

But I do note that Step 2, in the cultural vacuum of Western Sydney, may be too difficult under the weight of existing numbers. Which could be grounds for acknowledging that assimilation is not going to happen, and therefore segregation is the better way forward.

Moroccan-Born Mayor Dispenses Tough Love

July 30, 2007, Spiegel Online

For one Amsterdam mayor, the Netherlands' famous tolerance has gone too far. Morrocan-born Ahmed Marcouch is taking the tough cop approach in a rough Amsterdam neighborhood, pushing his fellow immigrants to integrate. But some consider him a traitor ...

Normally life in Slotervaart isn't nearly as convivial as the speakers paint it. Crime and unemployment are significantly higher than the national average, and one in three of the neighborhood's young people are high-school dropouts.

Ahmed Marcouch grew up in this environment, but he has since made a better life for himself. He was illiterate when he came to the Netherlands from Morocco at the age of 10, but he was lucky enough to encounter a teacher at a progressive Montessori school who helped him get on track.

A Different World

There is little evidence of Amsterdam's typical charm in Slotervaart, a neighborhood where bleak concrete apartment blocks cluster around a futuristic-looking town hall. Almost half of Slotervaart's 45,000 residents are foreign immigrants, and it is not uncommon to see eight-member families living in cramped, 50-square-meter (540-square-foot) apartments. And it's perhaps no coincidence that the police station is across the street from the mosque.

Immigrants from Turkey or the former Dutch colony of Suriname are not the ones that keep the police on their toes. The "problem" immigrants in Slotervaart come from Morocco, not from major cities but from villages in the High Atlas and Rif Mountains. They live here in their own world, eating couscous with lamb's brain salad, watching Al-Jazeera and attending the mosque on Fridays. There is little pressure to conform to Dutch customs and lifestyles ...

Kok, a member of the left-learning Labor Party (PvdA), lives here because he wanted to set an example. But his political adversaries on the right call it a pointless experiment in multiculturalism. The neighborhood, they argue, is contaminated beyond repair.

Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of eccentric filmmaker and provocateur Theo van Gogh, lived in Overtoomse Veld, not far from Kok's house. Bouyeri was born in Amsterdam, a second-generation immigrant. Like many Dutchmen, he rode his bicycle and loved to eat traditional Dutch stews. He couldn't have been more Dutch, but he got caught up in the radical Islamist movement nonetheless.

Van Gogh's murder marked a turning point in Holland's warm and fuzzy take on democracy. Until then, the Dutch were accustomed to looking generously the other way when it came to a wide range of abuses. The approach even had a name: the gedogen principle. The untranslatable word gedogen refers to the Dutch practice of turning a blind eye to things which are officially illegal but tolerated, such as soft drugs and euthanasia. Under the gedogen principle, anything went. The fact that some Muslim men beat their wives was tolerated, as was the selling of polemic texts -- which encouraged believers to stone women who committed adultery and throw homosexuals from tall buildings -- at the Al Tawheed Mosque on Jan Hanzenstraat.

Taking a Hard Line

But since the Van Gogh murder, the gedogen principle no longer applies -- at least in Slotervaart, a change that is in no small part due to the mayor's efforts. Marcouch, a former police officer, experienced at first hand the unrest that followed the Van Gogh murder. He wasn't a softie like some of his colleagues, who routinely looked the other way when rowdy mobs swaggered through the streets. He took a hard line when he believed it was necessary, which was the case more often than not. And a tougher police approach is suddenly popular with the no-longer-quite-so-relaxed Dutch.

The government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende insists that it will fight lawlessness in the suburbs and will no longer tolerate foreign-born hate preachers in the country's mosques. But it has done little so far to make good on its promises.

Marcouch, on the other hand, is doing something. He has instructed his officials to conduct one-on-one interviews with young unemployed residents to help them find ways to make a fresh start. Especially tough cases are referred directly to Marcouch ...

But not a few of Marcouch's fellow Moroccans in the area, which is known locally as Little Morocco, consider the mayor a turncoat. Two 11-year-old boys recently accosted him as he was walking through his community, calling him a "chaïn" -- Arabic for "traitor."

Marcouch was furious. When he managed to catch one of the boys, he took hold of his chin and pulled the boy towards him, glaring at him and barking in Dutch, "sukkel" -- "loser."

He refused to admonish the children for calling him a "traitor," considering it beneath him. But it didn't mean the insult didn't hurt.

Single mom with 10 kids terrorises neighbourhood
April 28, 2007

... in the neighbourhood of Slotervaart in the west of Amsterdam, one woman’s 10 kids have been wreaking havoc for 9 years and counting. The children enjoy breaking and entering, stealing, arson and defecating in entrance halls of other people’s flats. It’s so bad that three families have already moved away. About 10 different help organisations work with the family, but it’s not helping, even though the house was renovated, the mother was taught how to clean her house and make sandwiches for her children.

Marcouch sounds like a decent bloke. But, still, one man versus thousands of satellite dishes, and a violent Koran. Good luck with that ...

Slotervaart: a moderate Muslim's despair

October 8, 2006, Peak Talk

... the despair that even a committed, moderate and hardworking Muslim man experiences in his unrelenting attempts to make things work in his own community:

“I really want to impress upon you that it is five to twelve in this neighborhood. You have to realize that as an Amsterdam public official you can’t accept that we have a neighborhood in our city that is a homefront for radical youths and where there is no end to the number of broken families.

It is simply not true that hate ends where people know one another. These boys know their brothers and sisters, their neighbors and teachers. And they hate even them as unbelievers. You can’t approach them. I desperately need specific expertise to deal with this“

The Moroccan youths are well beyond reach of their families and the local imam, who apparently receives anonymous notes that he’s not sufficiently fundamental in his teachings. So religion it is, but there is an ethnic component to it too according to Marcouch:

Turkish, Surinam, Moluccan and Somali communities do not produce as many radical and hateful youngsters compared to the Morrocans. Why that is? I have noticed that in many Moroccan families boys are treated harshly, without any love. They are being raised to survive. They need to grow up quickly, if necessary harshly. They see how their mother is abused. If their father walks into the door, they walk out. That is a feeding ground for aggression ...

The deeper you delve into the interview, the more you begin to feel for the man who is regularly taunted as ‘a traitor’ by kids in the neighborhood that he seeks to stabilize. So, his projection for the future should not be that surprising:

He thinks it will last at least four generations before the sort of civil society that he envisions will have come to Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district.

It’s tempting to put an even more pessimistic view on the table. Marcouch’s scenario assumes that the civil society that still exists outside Slotervaart is able to contain the violence and radicalization brewing in his district. It may boil over well before civil society has come up with a workable solution.

Dutch: Slotervaart riot - photos

October 2007, Slotervaart, Netherlands

More photos at Klien Verzet.

Photos sourced from:
www.dag.nl
www.elsevier.nl
www.trouw.nl
www.planet.nl

Dutch: immigrant youth riot after fatal incident

October 23, 2007, Brussels Journal

Every night since the beginning of last week, immigrant youths have been torching cars and clashing with police in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district. The incidents started on Oct. 14 when a policewoman shot dead Bilal Bajaka, a 22-year old ethnic Moroccan, whilst he was stabbing her and a colleague with a knife. The officers were stabbed in the breast, face, neck and back. Surgeons could only narrowly save their lives.

Since the incident, Slotervaart has seen rioting almost every night. The Amsterdam Moroccans are “shocked” because one of them has been killed by an infidel woman. According to his family, Bilal Bajaka was mentally deranged and had a suicide obsession. Ahmed Marcouch, the Moroccan-born Socialist mayor of Slotervaart, criticized the Dutch authorities for failing to provide adequate health care for Bajaka’s mental problems.

Bilal Bajaka was, however, a personal friend of Mohammed Bouyeri, the Jihadist who ritually slaughtered the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh in 2004. Bilal’s attack on the two police officers came exactly two years after the arrest of his brother, Abdullah Bajaka, the leader of an alleged plot to blow up an El-Al Boeing at Amsterdam airport. Bilal’s family background is not at all deprived. One of his sisters is a medical doctor, another sister is a Dutch judge.

For ten days now, the situation in Amsterdam’s immigrant neighbourhoods has been tense. Senior police officers compare the current situation in Amsterdam to the 2005 Ramadan riots in Paris. Media outside the Netherlands, however, hardly mention the riots, which aim to drive the police from Slotervaart and turn the neighborhood into a new no-go area – yet another pocket of Eurabia on Europe’s soil.

Michael Van Der Galien, Pajamas Media

Unrest in the Moroccan neighborhoods of Amsterdam have many fearing that the chronic violence that rocked the Paris suburbs will spread to the Netherlands. If the Dutch police don’t get much tougher much faster, warns Michael Van Der Galien, that is exactly what is going to happen ...

Strangely, however, the police in Amsterdam refused, for a long time, to do so. They favored a ‘soft policy’ which meant that they hoped that Slotervaart’s ‘buurtvaders’ (the neighborhood fathers who serve as an ‘example’ to the children of immigrants because they’re integrated well and generally behaving in accordance to the laws of this country) would talk to the Moroccan-Dutch youth who were terrorizing the city. The police thought that the buurtvaders would be able to calm things down.

Ironically, the buurtvaders agreed with Marcouch and wanted the police to arrest the trouble makers and to use force if necessary. The buurtvaders understood that there is only one thing these thugs listen to: power. The police, sadly, did not. The result is that Moroccan-Dutch thugs terrorized Slotervaart three nights in a row, burning down cars in front of police officers and destroying whatever comes in their way ...

We Dutch have displayed enough patience with our badly integrated Moroccan-Dutch minority. We have displayed enough tolerance, we have given them everything they wanted except for a second Morocco. Zero tolerance should be our policy from now onwards; not just in Amsterdam, but in the entire country.

Germany: 184 new mosques planned

October 27, 2007, the Age

MODERN Germany's sometimes uneasy relationship with multiculturalism appears to be facing a new test after moves by the nation's large Muslim population to expand the number of mosques in the country.

Apart from plans to more than double the number of mosques in Germany, a push has been under way by Muslim leaders to buy some of the country's large stock of empty or barely used Christian churches and convert them into mosques.

Indeed, the sale of two churches in Berlin to Muslim associations, combined with the release of details of the program to build 184 new mosques (presently there are about 160 mosques) across Germany, has sparked angry responses from both Catholic and Protestant leaders, as well as triggering a new round of soul-searching about the nation's burgeoning migrant population ...

Somewhat unique in the world of religious affairs, the tax is levied on all people in Germany who declare themselves to be members of the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or several smaller faiths. But with about 3.5 million Muslims living in Germany, the nation's Islamic associations have been campaigning for years to receive some of the funds collected under the Church Tax ...

That said, however, the controversy of the expansion of the number of mosques represents the latest challenge to Germany's attempts to grapple with the emergence of a multicultural society.

The head of the German Protestant church, Bishop Wolfgang Huber, questions the motives behind the building of the mosques and linking the issue to what he claimed was Muslims' "claim to power".

But the president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Hans-Joachim Meyer, said Muslims had the right to "dignified houses of God" with the Germany's Muslim population having worshipped for years in makeshift surroundings.

90% of Muslims in Germany are of Turkish origin. This is the future that Muslim apologists like Dr Liza Hopkins can't wait to bring to Australia.

Cricket Australia can't wait to diversify

October 27, 2007, Sydney Morning Herald

Australian cricket faces decline unless it can bridge the cultural divide, writes Andrew Stevenson.

Cricket's moved on from the years of Don Bradman, when the reins of power were held proudly and defiantly by Protestants, and Catholics in the Australian team felt they were treated as second-class citizens.

Catholics are welcome, as is everyone, declares Cricket Australia. But a quick look through the season 2007-08 official guide suggests the game here still hasn't stretched far beyond its traditional Anglo base and, so far at least, appears to have failed to find much of a foothold in multicultural Australia ...

If cricket, as it does, wants to continue to "own" summer, it's obviously crucial it makes a connection with all Australians ...

CA anti-racism officer Peter Young describes growing beyond the Anglo base as "an absolutely critical issue for us; it's a scary issue. There was a time a generation ago when it was just taken for granted people would just play cricket."

Young estimates that a quarter of Australians were born outside cricket's embrace ...

Broadening the cultural mix makes sound business sense ...

Whereas rugby league, AFL and football teams sound like a roll call of modern Australia, cricket teams are a throwback ...

Lisa Sthalekar, vice captain of the Australian women's team, argues that the game is accepting of players from non-Anglo backgrounds. Yet she agrees more work needs to be done to grow the sport. "Cricket has probably realised it a little bit later than other sports but, hopefully, the amount of resources being put in will see us jump them," she says. "I think everyone's realising we've got to get as many people, no matter where they come from, to get involved in the game."

Damien Bown, CA's general manager of game development, is optimistic the next generation will reveal "a vast change in the sorts of names you see, not just in representative teams, but in teams right through the system".

Cricket clubs have a vital role to play, he says. Running programs isn't enough. "They have to be clubs where they're genuinely welcoming all Australians, and our experience, and the work that we're doing across Australia, confirms that they are. But we have to work hard in that area to make sure cricket is creating role models for new Australians, and that's going to be a critical issue in the next few years."

Only then will the longer-term future of the game be assured, Sutherland says.

Dear Cricket Australia,

Oh yeah, I can see it now .... our own version of Monty Panesar takes a catch off a future Merv Hughes, and 'Merv' sticks his tongue in his ear and pats him on the bum. Not. Take a look at the Australian Rugby League team: does it look and feel Australian anymore? It doesn't look much different from the Kiwi team these days.

Western Sydney has a growing community of Indians and Pakis. Build a bridge to diversity and watch the passion and identity be ripped out of the team. You will just have a team of individuals. Chances are, there are future Sudanese Curtly Ambrose proteges in the wings too. The Australian team will have no identity, no passion, no commitment, no sport.

Just like a multiracial city, a multiracial team is a spiritless ghost waiting for one race to take over - or for a different sport to replace it altogether. Separation is the only way to preserve our culture and race, including cricket. So let's crack off the Anglo parts of Australia and play cricket safe in the knowledge that the march of diversity will not threaten it.

Denmark: murder attempt on anti-Islamists

October 25th, 2007, Stop Islamisation of Europe

Sunday the 21th October was not only a severe attack on freedom of speech but an attempt to close the mouth forever on an organisation who stands up for freedom, freedom of speech and for democracy. Small details were the reason why it didn’t ended up with murder like in Holland, on one of the brave advocate’s for freedom of expression who dare to stand in the frontline.

On sunday the 21th October SIOE Denmark had announced a demonstration in Copenhagen ...

Anders was driving and followed the security car down in a parking cellar to park so the cars would be in a secure place before the demo.

... there was a loud bang and the frontwindow was damaged. About two autonomous looking types were in the front and two on ecah sites smashing the site windows shouting Get him out get him out! and started hitting Anders and the SIAD passenger in the other site with ironbars. The SIAD member in the middle (foto) was hit of a thrown filled soda bottle in her backhead.

Anders succeded after a while to kick one of the autonomous hard in the face as he leaned in to unlock the door. Anders mananged to get out with a fire extinguisher from the van and hit another one hard on the shoulder. It remained later that they attemted to stab him down when there was found cut holes in the shirt, jacket and vest. Anders was wearing his securityvest which saved his life.

Suddenly they disappeared and Anders got around the van and saw a SIAD member (foto top) lying on the floor while he was beaten in the head of 4-5 persons with ironbars. Apperently they also tried to stab him down, but again he also wore his security vest which saved his life.

Suddenly someone screamed RUN RUN and they disappeared up the steep driveway. The elderly woman was lying on the floor completely still. She had been in the security car and got out immediately when the driver shouted OUT OUT. She didn’t know what to do and started running. She was hunted down by two persons and banged down with an ironbar. She lay completely still in the hope she wouldn’t get anymore. She felt they stood a moment watching her if she would move. Then they presumably ran to the other SIAD member on the floor and joined the attack on him ...

Via Jihad Watch

Religion of Peace: Christianity v. Islam - Pt 2

Robert Spencer with Michelle Malkin:

Religion of Peace: Christianity v. Islam - Pt 1

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch:

The Orwellian “Islam is Peace” campaign

October 3, 2007, Hot Air

Islamic groups in the UK have launched the slick “Islam is Peace” public relations campaign, which supporters say is aimed at showing that Muslims are ordinary British citizens. But as Robert Spencer reports, its actual aims and rhetoric line up well with many jihadist goals.

White Flight in Dublin

October 19 2007, the Irish Times

A Government-funded study on schooling in Dublin 15 identifies evidence of the phenomenon of "white flight" for the first time in the State.

The report found that in some places there is evidence of the emergence of "ghettos" inhabited only by ethnic minorities, and it calls for action from Government and local authorities to avert the problems found in other European cities ...

The Bournemouth Nationalist says:

Ironic isn't it, the IRA real, provisional or whatever fought for decades, killing innocent civilians, politicians, members of the RUC and British Army personnel for a small area in the north of their island only for the political establishment in Eire in conjunction with the EU to give that whole island to hordes of immigrants on a platter and not a peep of complaint from these republicans ...

Spencer: What qualifies you to speak about Islam?

October 24, 2007, Jihad Watch

Robert Spencer says:

Monday night at DePaul a questioner referred to my invoking Sahih Muslim 4294, the hadith in which Muhammad tells his followers to offer unbelievers conversion, subjugation, or war. Then he asked, "What qualifies you to speak about the contents of Islamic texts?" I answered, "I can read."

And so can a lot of other people ...

NSW: The Voices of Bennelong

24 October 2007, Life Matters, ABC Radio

Richard Aedy visits the marginal electorate of Bennelong to meet some of the old and new residents of this changing electorate.

The electorate has a high percentage of overseas born voters, particularly from China and Korea and it's commercial centre has underdone big changes over the last decades.

Real estate is booming with strong demand due to growth in the industrial centre of the electorate which houses major companies like Optus.

We also hear about the strong focus on academic achievement in the local schools.

Guests:

Justin Li - 25 year old lawyer from Eastwood

Kirsten and Jennifer - Grandmothers and long term residents

Oliver Yap - Real Estate Agent

Sue Leitch - Deputy Principal of Eastwood Public School

Jason Ko - Editor of Hoju Donga Ilbo, daily Korean Newspaper

Listen to future Australia ... The program concluded with an Asian saying that their community would remember John Howard's anti-Asian comments made back in the 90's (?) when it came time to vote. It's clear where their loyalties lie, and who can blame them in such an Asian dominated area - it's the Aussie kids who are now adapting to a dominant Asian culture. An old lady commented how she felt like she didn't belong there anymore.

Billionaire plea for cheap labour

October 21, 2007, news.com.au

BILLIONAIRE retailer Gerry Harvey says Australia needs a two-tier wage system to allow employers to pay foreign guest workers less than locals.

The Harvey Norman boss said Australia's prosperity was creating a labour shortage and endangering the nation's competitiveness.

He said a growing number of Australian manufacturers were moving overseas, where cheap labour was plentiful.

He called on the Federal Government to allow foreign workers on fixed visas to form a second tier to the labour market.

"Australia doesn't have cheap labour. Many overseas workers would be prepared to move here for a much better life and half the money Australians earn," he said.

"When you get unemployment down to four per cent, to three per cent, to two per cent, business can't get the labour ...

Mr Harvey said both major parties needed to open the gates to migrants.

"The US can draw on a lot of cheap labour from Mexico and South America," he said.

"People from those countries move to the US looking for a better life.

"European countries can draw on cheap labour from eastern Europe ...

"You won't get politicians saying what I'm saying, but privately they know this sort of thing is a reality in the future."

Via AANCC, DUNL

Govt rejects two-tier wage system, the Age

ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence attacked the plan and called on the federal government to state its position, after Labor employment spokeswoman Julia Gillard voiced her disagreement.

"I mean this is a proposal that's designed to create a two-tier wages structure in Australia, which of course can't happen other than by the extension of AWAs," Mr Lawrence said.

A spokeswoman for Immigration and Citizenship Minister Kevin Andrews said the coalition would not move in that direction.

"The coalition have repeatedly ruled out any such proposal as being inappropriate and frankly un-Australian," she said.

"There is no place for a guest worker scheme in Australia, now or into the future." ...

Are these our only two options? Send manufacturing offshore, or import low paid workers here? I'm no economist, but can't we do any better than this? I'd rather take my chances with an isolationist, protectionist approach than either of the other options.

Islamic studies 'will counter ignorance'

October 23, 2007, Sydney Morning Herald

Australia's first National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies will help counter ignorance of Muslim culture in a time of worldwide tension and unrest, Vocational and Further Education Minister Andrew Robb says.

Speaking at the opening at the University of Melbourne, Mr Robb said the centre was partially modelled on the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington DC, whose academics help the US government make decisions on Islamic affairs.

The centre will combine resources from the University of Melbourne, Griffith University in Queensland and the University of Western Sydney.

"This is one of the great strengths of this, that we will see a better informed community and we will make more balanced decisions," Mr Robb said.

"And at a time of a lot of tensions around the world, it's very important."

Mr Robb said the US government had benefited from Georgetown's centre, as they worked to further integrate Muslims in western society ...

Excellent. And the first question of excellence comes from Tina Magaard:

Islamic texts encourage terror and fighting to a far larger degree than the original texts of other religions, concludes Tina Magaard. She has a PhD in Textual Analysis and Intercultural Communication from the Sorbonne in Paris, and has spent three years on a research project comparing the original texts of ten religions.

“The texts in Islam distinguish themselves from the texts of other religions by encouraging violence and aggression against people with other religious beliefs to a larger degree. There are also straightforward calls for terror. This has long been a taboo in the research into Islam, but it is a fact that we need to deal with," says Tina Magaard.

Moreover, there are hundreds of calls in the Koran for fighting against people of other faiths.

“If it is correct that many Muslims view the Koran as the literal words of God, which cannot be interpreted or rephrased, then we have a problem. It is indisputable that the texts encourage terror and violence. Consequently, it must be reasonable to ask Muslims themselves how they relate to the text, if they read it as it is," says Tina Magaard.

Please explain, oh mighty Centre for Excellence.

Terrorists, not the media, make Muslims look bad

October 17, 2007, the Australian

Sally Neighbour, a journalist with the ABC and The Australian, at a Monash University conference on Monday.

I HAVE to say I tire of people complaining that the media makes Muslims look bad, makes all Muslims look like terrorists. It may sound trite to say this, but the media didn't crash those planes or bomb those nightclubs. Militant Islamists did it, and they did it invoking the name of Islam. The media doesn't make Muslims look bad. Terrorists who kill civilians while shouting "Allah Akhbar" make Muslims look bad.

I also tire of people complaining about the use of terms like "Islamist terrorist". "A terrorist is a terrorist," they say, regardless of religion. The fact is that about 90 per cent - that's my estimate - of the men arrested in Australia in the past five years on terrorism offences have been Muslims claiming to act in the name of Islam.

I think you would find a similar percentage applies globally. I agree we shouldn't call them "Muslim terrorists" or "Islamic terrorists". But "Islamist terrorists" is a perfectly appropriate term in my view, because that's what they are ... (Via A Tangled Web)

Fine words, Sally. But some would argue that "Islamic terrorists" is the correct use of terms. Lawrence Auster:

Religion is about following God, and Islam is a religion the core of which is God-commanded eternal war upon non-Muslims, a fact made numbingly clear on almost every page of the Koran, and confirmed by innumerable jihad warriors and Islamic thinkers over the centuries.

Europe: measuring national suicide

October 14, 2007, BBC News

The BBC has carried a report of research by something called Migration Integration Policy Index. MIPEX, as it is known, is:

… a handy quick-reference guide to migrant integration policies in Europe. Using over 100 policy indicators it scores countries on six key dimensions of integration policy.

Policies are given a 1-3 score. A score of 3 signifies that a policy sets the most favourable conditions for migrant integration. Here best practice is defined by European Directives, Council of Europe Conventions and NGO proposals.

This, then, is a measure of government-sanctioned national suicide.

The six "key dimensions" of integration policy are: long-term residence, nationality laws, discrimination laws, family reunion, labour market access, political rights. Taken together, they provide this snapshot of the "success" of the member countries of the European Union in changing their own people. Literally.


More: Majority Rights

UK: Labour veteran slates 'open door' immigration

Frank Field, 18 October 2007, New Statesman

The economic benefit of immigration is miniscule compared to the cost argues Frank Field as he lays into Labour's 'open door' policy.

The Government’s open door policy on immigration has led to an unprecedented level of new arrivals. Over the last three years alone, something like two million newcomers have moved to these shores. Two reports out yesterday showed that the economic benefits are small, compared with the extra costs imposed on social services.

While there is no doubt that most recent migrants have come here to work, the beneficial effects on the economy are less certain. A report by the Home Office claims that migrants add £6 billion a year to the nation’s income.

But, as MigrationWatch point out, the benefit is miniscule when you consider that this amounts to half a percent of total production and that new arrivals add at least half a percent to the population. So the effect on GDP per head is tiny ...

Everybody is now agreed, after years of mis-management, that the level and rate of immigration needs to be checked and brought in line, not only with the particular business needs, but also with the resources available to deliver high quality social services. The open door policy on immigration should be over.

But the Government will be unable to make this work under current EU agreements because new members of the EU have full rights to travel and reside in this country, and apart from temporary restrictions imposed on Bulgaria and Romania, to work here too.

Given that living standards in the old Eastern block are around one third of our own, it is no surprise they want to come here in large numbers. They will continue to do so until their economies catch up. But this will take decades. The Government must therefore begin talks on renegotiating the free movement of labour in the EU.

Via Immigration Watch International

Not your "ordinary Saturday night bashing"

Dan Oakes, October 19, 2007, the Age

IT TOOK a couple of minutes and two stops for the tram to become the scene of panic and savage violence. When the attack was over, two men had been severely beaten and other passengers were spattered with their blood.

The unprovoked assault — 10 late-teens turned on two men — took place on the No. 96 tram in St Kilda on a recent Saturday night and, experts say, was part of a worrying trend of violence emerging in the inner-city entertainment precincts.

Police, academics and doctors have told The Age of their concern at a new trend towards unprovoked bashings meted out by packs of young men.

While violence around late-night venues is traditionally seen to be alcohol-fuelled, this new type of assault is often committed by people who are not under the influence of drink or drugs.

Police and criminologists say these men travel to precincts such as Chapel Street, Fitzroy Street and the CBD with the sole intention of bashing "innocent bystanders". The attackers are usually of the same ethnicity, but the trend is not confined to any one ethnic group ...

"Passengers were covered in blood, it was really full-on. It wasn't like an ordinary Saturday night bashing, it was really very violent." (Via AANCC)

Dear Dan Oakes,

If ethnicity is not a factor in these assaults, why don't you tell us what the ethnicity was is each of the incidents you refer to? Why can't you let us judge whether ethnicity is a factor? If there are groups dishing out random savage beatings, isn't it in the public's interest to issue descriptive warnings of the perps? Instead you tell us NOTHING and perpetuate the myth that there is NO REASON for this violence.

The biggest causes are the cultural vacuum and baseline tensions caused by living with the constant ill-feeling of diversity. Throw in a violent media, Jackass movies, gangster chic, YouTube violence, offensive doof-doof culture, etc, and it's all downhill. So it's a 'free for all': the most brutal culture wins. Even the Aussie kids will become violent because they know parents, cops, and politicians have betrayed them and cannot protect them. Such is the end result of diversity.

Dan is taking the same line as Andrew Bolt in the wake of the Sudanese flare-up i.e. he's highlighting the complete breakdown of law and order in this country. By crying "it's everywhere, and everyone is doing it, all ethnicities, and there's no reason" you have succeeded in deflecting the focus off the Sudanese, for now.

But, like Bolt, you also shot yourself in the foot. Again, what right-thinking country would bring in incompatible black Africans into savage randomness?

Dan Oakes is another fatalistic PC parrot, masquerading as a journalist. They tell us nothing but mopey sad stories with no happy endings and no solutions but the dumbass ratcheting-up of reactive-policing numbers.

Aristotle:

"For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it."

Diversity as an idea is dead. It's time is done. Give it up. Time to start afresh. I vote to break up the country into separate states, to solidify and accept the country the way it is - zones for Anglo, mixed, Asian, Muslim, Black, etc. At least that will halt the march of diversity.

The lighter side of Robert Spencer

October 16, 2007, Interview with RightWingBob.com


RWB: Are there ways in which you think Dylan’s work meshes very well with your values and point-of-view, whether political or spiritual?

SPENCER: All kinds of ways. He is, I think, particularly adept at illustrating the vanity of human wishes, the insufficiency of human pleasures, and the brokenness of the world. These things are always useful to keep in mind. He assumes the transcendent and has no political illusions, although many if not most of those who follow him don’t seem to have noticed that. In my work I have found that both Democrats and Republicans are generally clueless about the actual nature and magnitude of the global jihad threat, and I don’t think that bipartisan cluelessness is anything Dylan would have trouble understanding. It is also worth noting, perhaps, that I was interrupted on September 11, 2001 by the news of the Twin Tower attacks just as I had started playing a Dylan album. The album? World Gone Wrong.

The image is from a separate article, June 2005:

Darth Spencer, Master of the Dark Side ...

This image comes to you from the passworded, Muslim-only forums of the Islamic Thinkers Society, the outfit that trampled on the flag on video and then wished painful torment from Allah on me when I posted the video -- which is tantamount to asking that someone fulfill Allah's will in this regard.

You can see that they have called this image "Darth Fagget." Don't these huckleberries know that I am neither "Darth Fagget" nor "Darth Spencer," but Freakin' Batman?

Aye, Freakin' Batman. Great man is Robert Spencer. Don't care much for Bob Dylan, myself, probably too young. Except Hurricane and Joey are cool, musically.

UK: Immigration placing huge strain on Britain

17th October 2007, Daily Mail

Immigrants are placing a huge strain on public services, Labour finally admitted.

Crime is up, schools are struggling to cope with Eastern European children, community tensions are rising, health services are coming under enormous pressure and house prices are being driven up, the Government said.

The findings, based on a survey of public sector workers, are the first published by ministers after ten years of an 'open door' immigration policy.


Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said it was clear communities were 'unsettled' - and a 'new balance' should be struck between the needs of the economy and society in general ...

HIV and TB were singled out as diseases specifically linked to immigration.

Workers in the North West, South West and Scotland all warned of increased 'community tensions' in areas unused to large- scale immigration.

Critics have accused the Government of giving no thought to the strain being placed on schools and hospitals, as ministers focussed solely on boosting the economy with cheap workers from overseas ...

The report, to be presented to the Government's new Migration Impacts Forum today, fails to put figure on the full cost to society of mass immigration - which is increasing the population by 200,000 every year.

A Home Office study found that migrants helped to grow the economy by £6billion last year. But experts said this did not mean they had boosted GDP per head, a crucial measure.

And our own economics expert own Ross Gittins has said:

"But get this: by then, real GDP per person would be only $335 a year (or 0.6 per cent) higher than otherwise.

In the report's words, such a result is "neutral to mildly positive". Translation: chicken feed.

... it's clear increased immigration is a long way from the main game."