Jamal Rifi …
In the news yesterday was an article written by Dr Jamal Rifi, who is known as a campaigner against Islamic extremism and the radicalisation of young Australians. I have included the full text of the article at the end of my submission and recommend it to you.
I particularly hope that Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie and her supporters take the time to read what Dr Rifi has to say.
Like Senator Lambie, Rifi has been the subject of death threats from Islamic extremists.
He writes: “I was even more shocked when I became aware of the death threat to myself and my family. The hardest thing to stomach was that it was from Mohamed Elomar, who is also fighting with IS, and I have known the Elomar family all my life — his father, Mamdouh Elomar, is one of my oldest friends.”
Rifi’s response to this most intimate threat? “Defending and celebrating the successes of the multiculturalism, tolerance, acceptance and pluralism that we enjoy in Australia is not just the other side to Islamic extremism, it is the solution to it.”
Contrast this with Senator Lambie, whose shrill, flag-wrapped, anti-Sharia response was, I expect, exactly what the perpetrators of the threat ( TT here ) against her designed to achieve.
The objective of fundamentalists of any type is to undermine the foundations of liberal societies. They work to sow insecurity, knowing this leads to mistrust. Then, fault lines in a society can be exploited. ISIS has shown a remarkable skill in this regard.
Senator Lambie has been played like a fool, in my view.
Were it only Senator Lambie, then I would be less nervous of the direction Australia is taking. But coupled with a legislature that offers us responses including the Brandis metadata laws ( TT here ) and the incarceration of non-European innocents that Cripps ( TT here ) and Flanagan ( TT here ) decry in these pages, I am led to question whether we have already been defeated by the fundamentalists.
Better as a nation that we resist the descent into fear and loathing prescribed by the likes of Senator Lambie and Senator Brandis and instead consider the implications of Rifi’s concluding statement: “We may not always be able to protect our young from the influence of evil but we can empower them to reject it.”
He calls for “a comprehensive counter-radicalisation strategy in which the focus is on young Muslim minds who will shape the future of the Muslim community not just in Australia but around the world.”
This will be a long and uncomfortable ride. But consider how civic heroes have helped us to first understand and then change our attitudes to other dark questions such as abuse of children, mental illness and Australia’s own approach to ethnic cleansing – the forcible removal of aboriginal children.
We have confronted these challenges as a community and remained cohesively Australian: not perfect, but stronger.
From news.com.au:
Dr Jamal Rifi: The Aussie doctor taking on IS
I WAS dismayed to hear this morning’s report about a Melbourne schoolboy being identified as the ‘white jihadi’.
Likewise, the story on the weekend that two teenagers had been arrested at Sydney Airport on their way to support IS. Congratulations to the Immigration and Border Protection for preventing those boys from making a deadly mistake, but it just shows what a big task it is to fight against radicalisation when it is happening to our children in our homes, via social media, without parents even knowing. It’s a scary prospect, but one that we have to face
I am not an expert on terrorism, nor do I claim to be. Likewise I am not a religious scholar or leader.
I am merely a suburban general practitioner who is lucky enough to speak to dozens of my community members each day and where I can offer them help or advice.
When I saw the picture of Khaled Sharouf’s son holding the severed head I was deeply shocked, perhaps more than most, because I had known his family both in Lebanon during the civil war and in here in Australia.
I knew that he was diagnosed with a mental illness during his trial following Operation Pendennis, which led to his imprisonment. I knew that he fled Australia fearful for his life after two of his associates were shot dead.
Yet above all this — and indeed because of it — I knew then I had to speak out against his actions and those of the so-called Islamic State.
For it was clear to me that Sharouf, like his IS brethren, was a rogue and violent aberration. I didn’t want his actions to be seen as condoned by Australian Muslims just as I didn’t want the general public to think that any true Australian Muslims are supporters of the barbaric IS.
Moreover, I didn’t want my community to be seen as a risk to the safety and security of Australia and its citizens, as I know the majority are grateful, responsible and law abiding citizens of this great country.
I was even more shocked when I became aware of the death threat to myself and my family.The hardest thing to stomach was that it was from Mohamed Elomar, who is also fighting with IS, and I have known the Elomar family all my life — his father, Mamdouh Elomar, is one of my oldest friends.
After consulting with my family, we all decided that we should take precautions but that I needed to be even more vocal in exposing the true nature of IS and its Australian supporters.I have always believed that actions speak louder than words, yet in this case my words have become actions.
For someone who has always shielded my family from the rough and tumble of public life, I now have to rely on them to publicly support me. This meant I had to get them to participate in Australian Story, a long and intrusive process where minute details of our daily lives were being filmed for public display and scrutiny on ABC TV (the program aired last night, Monday night: Here).
I know I made the right decision and hope this conviction remains true after watching the episode.
The core of my belief is that our world must be expunged of the obscene actions and ideology of Islamic State and its ilk. I feel a personal responsibility in making this happen as this is done in the name of my religion.
This is a struggle for the soul of our Islamic faith, which has been hijacked by IS. I pray that one day their barbarity and belief systems will be something we recoil at in horror as we read it in the history books, just as we do at Nazi Germany or the Spanish Inquisition.
But to put them in the past, we have to continue to build a future for Muslims that places religious totalitarianism, political violence, and vulgar extremism as immiscible with the Islamic mindset worldwide.
Defending and celebrating the successes of the multiculturalism, tolerance, acceptance and pluralism that we enjoy in Australia is not just the other side to Islamic extremism, it is the solution to it.
I know I speak the truth and am supported by the overwhelming majority in the Australian Muslim community. We need to speak up about the beautiful principles by which we purport to live, and which demand that far from harming our fellow Australian citizens, we are bound to serve and protect them.
We have a beautiful faith tradition, that teaches us to be exemplary and compassionate human beings. Unfortunately our communities have been contaminated with misanthropic peoples with destructive views and behaviours.
I personally feel that the best way to decant Islam and Muslim communities of these contaminants is by passing it through the filter of Western pluralism and democratic values. Our traditions and beliefs are most compatible with freedom and liberty and opposed to intolerance and totalitarianism.
And so, to action. This means not just military operations abroad and police operations at home, but also tackling the problem at its very foundation. We need a comprehensive counter-radicalisation strategy in which the focus is on young Muslim minds who will shape the future of the Muslim community not just in Australia but around the world.
This has to come from a position of religious and moral strength, not weakness. Instead of just shielding vulnerable minds from radical preachers and slick recruitment propaganda — which may be all but impossible — we must enable them to see extremism for what it is by teaching them that it has no place in our peaceful religion or any civilised society. We may not always be able to protect our young from the influence of evil but we can empower them to reject it.
Talk isn’t always cheap, as I know from personal experience, but action is what builds change. We must not just speak noble words but live by them.
*Ben Quin is the Managing Director of an Australian company with operations in Australia and China. He is a resident of Triabunna. Ben has a longstanding interest in national and international politics and was a candidate for the seat of Lyons in the 2004 and 2007 federal elections.
• Bazzabee, in Comments HERE: I have taken the time and the trouble to read The Atlantic article in full twice and I feel that I have not yet fully absorbed the enormity of it. I would strongly urge anyone who has any interest in the future of political, social relations with the middle East and with the Islamic countries to our North to read this article in full. This article should be compulsory reading for each and every federal politician especially those in cabinet in particular the Prime Minister should read it before committing one more defence member to Iraq.
• Guardian: Labor extends lead in latest opinion poll as Abbott improves personal rating Opposition extends lead to 10 points while prime minister and Bill Shorten both improve their personal approval ratings
• ABC: United Nations special rapporteur Juan Mendez denies Australia being lectured on human rights
WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY … Tony does it again … And Joe takes his eyes off the Budget to sue Fairfax …
• Fairfax: Tony Abbott’s 10 biggest gaffes, clangers and cringeworthy moments
• The West Australian: Aboriginal leaders take aim at Abbott
FRIDAY … and First Dog has a lash …
• First Dog on The Moon, Guardian: Lifestyle Choices of the Rich and Racist
