Turkey goes over to the dark side

August 19, 2008, LA Times:

Praying in Istanbul's Blue Mosque on Friday, I witnessed firsthand Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's international publicity coup...

I've long been fond of the Blue Mosque because it is where, many years ago, I attended my first Friday prayers. Last Friday, though, I felt uncomfortable in the prayer hall, where I found myself in front of God but next to Ahmadinejad, who turned the ritual into a political show.

Departing from established practice of having visiting Muslim heads of state pray in a smaller mosque in Istanbul, the government allowed Ahmadinejad to pray in the Blue Mosque, Turkey's symbol of tolerant Ottoman Islam. With permission from Turkish authorities, he also allowed Iranian television to videotape him during the entire prayer, in violation of Islamic tradition, which requires quiet and intimate communion between God and the faithful. There was so much commotion around Ahmadinejad that the imam had to chide the congregants. Then, as he left the mosque, Ahmadinejad got out of his car to encourage a crowd of about 300 to chant, "Death to Israel! Death to America!"

Even without this behavior, any visit from a leader representing an authoritarian, anti-Western autocracy would have created controversy in Turkey just a few years ago. Not today. The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government not only opened the Blue Mosque to Ahmadinejad but accommodated his refusal to pay respects at the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey -- a major violation of protocol for an official visit...

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan asked the Turkish public to ignore the snub and instead "focus on the big picture." It is the "big picture," though, that is most disconcerting. By extending an invitation to Ahmadinejad, the first such move by any NATO or European Union member country, Turkey has broken ranks with the West. The West can no longer take Turkey for granted as a staunch ally against Tehran.

Via JihadWatch

Preachers of separatism at work inside Britain's mosques

31 Aug 2008, Telegraph:

In a large balcony above the beautiful main hall at Regent's Park Mosque in London - widely considered the most important mosque in Britain - I am filming undercover as the woman preacher gives her talk.

What should be done to a Muslim who converts to another faith? "We kill him," she says, "kill him, kill, kill…You have to kill him, you understand?"

Adulterers, she says, are to be stoned to death - and as for homosexuals, and women who "make themselves like a man, a woman like a man ... the punishment is kill, kill them, throw them from the highest place".

These punishments, the preacher says, are to be implemented in a future Islamic state. "This is not to tell you to start killing people," she continues. "There must be a Muslim leader, when the Muslim army becomes stronger, when Islam has grown enough."

A young female student from the group interrupts her: the punishment should also be to stone the homosexuals to death, once they have been thrown from a high place.

These are teachings I never expected to hear inside Regent's Park Mosque, which is supposedly committed to interfaith dialogue and moderation, and was set up more than 60 years ago, to represent British Muslims to the Government. And many of those listening were teenage British girls or, even more disturbingly, young children.

My investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches came after last year's Undercover Mosque, which investigated claims that teachings of intolerance and fundamentalism were spreading through Britain's mosques from the Saudi Arabian religious establishment - which is closely linked to the Saudi Arabian government. In response, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia denied it was spreading intolerance, while Regent's Park Mosque, which featured in the film, urged all mosques to be "vigilant" and monitor what was taught on their premises.

So earlier this year, dressed in a full Islamic jilbaab, I went back to Regent's Park Mosque to see what was being taught there. As a woman, I had to go to the main female section, where I found this circle preaching every Saturday and Sunday, eight hours at a time, to any woman who has come to pray.

The mosque is meant to promote moderation and integration. But although the circle does preach against terrorism and does not incite Muslims to break British laws, it teaches Muslims to "keep away" and segregate themselves from disbelievers: "Islam is keeping away from disbelief and from the disbelievers, the people who disbelieve." ...

The reporter's name has been changed. 'Dispatches: Undercover Mosque - The Return' will be broadcast on Channel 4 at 8pm on Monday

Via JihadWatch

Hurstville to be Chinese-speaking by mid 2020s

Ethnic hotspots
August 21, 2008, the Australian:

... Sydney's Hurstville ... where 43 per cent of the locals speak Chinese... At this rate, Hurstville will be entirely Chinese-speaking by the middle of the 2020s...

... Arabic is spoken at home by 40 per cent of the population in Chullora ... in the city's southwest.

... Chinese speakers have invaded Hurstville about twice as fast as Arabic speakers have moved into Chullora.

... Cabramatta ... where 35 per cent of the locals speak Vietnamese at home...

... Melbourne CBD ... now has 29 per cent of people who speak Chinese at home.

The truly extraordinary feature of Melbourne's new Chinese residents is the speed with which they have arrived...

... this group, as early as next decade, will have the wherewithal to display their success in new housing designed to reflect not Australian aspirationalism, but middle-class Chinese and Arab ideals.

March 2008, Welcome to Australia Street:

When we surveyed an average street in Hurstville, NSW, we gained a unique insight into the cultural mix that is Australia today ...

It's 7pm on Australia Street in Hurstville, a fast-growing suburb in the south-west of Sydney. At Number 11, Chinese-born Solan Tan and his Japanese-born wife Emi are steaming prawn dumplings for their young son Toshi, who is playing on his bike in the road. The family can smell the smoky aroma of marinated lamb and sweet potatoes wallowing over the fences from the Maori family at Number five who are cooking a Hangi - a traditional meal cooked in their garden over hot stones. Meanwhile, it's impossible for Toshi not to hear the gentle din of different languages and accents drifting out of the open windows and terraces - from South Africa and America to Italy and Sri Lanka, almost every continent is represented.

When we set out to discover exactly where all the residents in the road were from we expected to find a degree of mixed heritages, but were to be surprised by actually how extremely varied Australia's cultural melting pot has recently become. Except for just four people out of 150 adults living on the street they were all first generation immigrants from 16 different nations around the world.

Yet this is far from an extraordinary street or an unusual demographic but serves as a multi-cultural snapshot of modern Australia today. Since 1945, over six million people from 200 countries have come to live in this country. And what Australia Street represents, according to immigration expert Dr Alison Bashford, from the University of Sydney, is the "realistic picture" of the country's increasingly culturally diverse population. "Migrants have made a major contribution to shaping modern Australia," she says, "But this diversity isn't always correctly represented in things such as adverts and films and certainly does not match the way Australia's image is presented to the rest of the world." ...

H/T: NewSouthWails

Don't forget that Rudd has just put his foot on the immigration accelerator, so expect the Chinese satellite city of Hurstville to be here sooner.