PLAY THAT UKELELE

As I mentioned on 3AW yesterday Sheik al-Hilali is up to his antics again. Or Sheik Ukelele as I call him because he plays a different tune in different countries and different languages. Whatever suits him.

Actually the word “antics’ is wrong. Too soft a word for the bile and hatred and bigotry that spills from a radical Islamic mouth that houses two tongues.

This so-called religious leader who stayed in Australia illegally and should have been deported twenty years ago has not changed. Despite his claims that his words have been mistranslated and taken out of context and despite his acolytes and spin doctors repeated attempts to find excuses  for his venom.

In his latest diatribe he says that ‘’the law of Australia allows freedoms that at times are close to madness” and that there is no freedom and no democracy here for Muslims.  Maybe our laws are mad when they let such a madman stay here because a few Labor politicians like Keating and Hawke could overlook his fanaticism because they wanted Muslim votes in and around Lakemba.

And there are far more freedoms and far more democracy for all religions than are granted to people ( especially downtrodden women) in the Islamic countries he holds up as paradise.

Those systematic gang rapes in Sydney by Lebanese youths ?  The mufti says ‘ a young man can meet a woman, smile, arrange a meeting and then end up in jail for 65 years’ because his is a Muslim.

That’s how Sheik Ukelele sees that brutality and degradation?  That’s as bad as his ‘uncovered meat’ statement last year that blamed victims and not the rapists.

In his latest outburst on Egyptian TV he calls western people – especially the English – dishonest and unjust. They came to Australia in chains. Muslims paid their way and came in freedom. And while he is rewriting history Ukelele says Islam has ‘deep roots in Australian soil that were there before the English arrived’. Could have fooled me. I thought even the camel drivers came here after Cook and the First Fleet.

The man is not a joke. He is dangerous. He is inflammatory. And once again where are all the moderates? Where are all the hard-working Muslims standing up and mocking him, and disputing him, and boycotting him? Disowning him.  Little  wonder that recent polls show that a majority of people believe ( wrongly)  that  Australian Muslims support  him.

Friday, January 12, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007