hicks - a sikh joke

A couple of diametrically opposed developments occurred in the continuing saga of alleged terrorist David Hicks at the weekend.

In Melbourne Anglican Archbishop Philip Freier led about 500 members of his congregation prayers in support of the long-time prisoner of the Americans at Guantanamo Bay.

The Archbishop eloquently talked about a society which enshrines the rights of citizens .. but has stripped rights away from others including  a citizen of this country, David Hicks’. No mention of the rights of other people in other countries whom Hicks was either shooting at or plotting to kill in the name of another God, Allah.

And while the prayers were being said for Hick far cry from those TV commercial photos of a freckle-faced innocent nine-year-old boy.

In India that country is now investigating claims that Hicks took up arms and fired on India troops defending the disputed  Indian territory of Kashmir.

And some of those claims came directly from the mouth of David Hicks in boastful letters to his family. He admits to firing hundred of bullets in Kashmir at the ‘enemies of Islam’.

Hicks says he was a guest of the Pakistani Army after spending a month training with LET a group of Islamic fundamentalists.

He wrote: ‘I got to fire hundreds of bullets. Most Muslim countries impose hanging for civilians arming themselves for conflict. There are not many countries in the world where a tourist, according to his visa, can go and stay with the Army and  shoot across the border at its enemy, legally’. 

LET has fought a brutal insurgency in Kashmir massacring Hindus and Sikhs. They aim is to destroy India, turn it into an Islamic state  and ‘annihilate’ Hindus and Jews. Their crime? They are enemies of Islam.

No mention of any of that in the tearjerker TV message. Nor at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

To Hicks, in his own words, it was all like ‘ a great, biog adventure’.  Now he has had plenty of time to reflect that it was not a game.

Monday, February 12, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007