Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Here's a hard-hitting address by former Australian Senator and head of the Treasury, John Stone (quite similar in candor to this prior piece in the same publication: Tim Priest: The Rise of Middle Eastern Crime in Australia). Stone sets all PC aside to call for massive immigration reform and an end to multicultural madness: Quadrant: The Muslim Problem and What to Do about It
Regarding Indonesia, Stone says:
• If “moderate” is to describe a country in which Christians are openly discriminated against, persecuted, threatened and even killed, how much further do these “moderates” have to go before their apologists in Australia will cease describing them as such?
• As a recent Jakarta Post editorial has noted, sharia law is steadily gaining a wider foothold in Indonesia notwithstanding that country’s formally secular and pluralist Constitution. The province of Aceh is now “under a sharia regime, and today more than 20 regencies and municipalities across Indonesia proclaim themselves to be ruled by sharia or have introduced sharia-inspired legislation”.
• Have we forgotten that, in the wake of the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002, when eighty-eight Australians were killed and many others injured (not to mention all those of other nationalities, including the Balinese, who suffered similar fates), a reputable opinion poll in Indonesia recorded that some 16 per cent of Indonesian Muslims (almost 30 million people) supported those bombings, while a further 25 per cent declined to proffer an opinion? More recently, the highly regarded Pew Research Group, in its Pew Global Attitudes Project, showed a reduction in that 16 per cent figure to “only” 10 per cent (18 million people).
• The same survey showed, however, that 65 per cent of Indonesia’s Muslims today do not believe that the September 11 attacks on the United States were carried out by Arabs!
• Did nobody else notice the rapturous reception given recently to the Mad Iranian Bomber, President Ahmedinajad, when he visited Indonesia to attend a conference of non-Arab Muslim leaders? At a joint press conference with President Yudhoyono, this major threat to world peace and stability raved on for thirty minutes, denouncing the West’s well-justified distrust of his nuclear program and predicting that Israel will “be destroyed”. Politeness to one’s guest is of course important, but I cannot help feeling that at some point President Yudhoyono might have intervened to divert this rabid flow. What does the fact that he didn’t, tell us about the nature of Islam in Indonesia’s “democracy” today?
That's a taste. Does Stone go too far? You decide.
Back up a hundred or so years. Didn't some people want to ban all Jewish immigration because some of us got involved in violent anarchist groups?
I see no need to repeat that history.
It's a tricky situation with Indonesia on Aceh. They've a bunch of muslim leaders who have imposed sharia law and are terrorising and killing lots of people. Additionally that part of indonesia is off limits to any journalists (you simply cannot get a visa/travel permit to visit).
There have been some aussie journalists trying to get there to report on what's going on and the Indonesian govt's not letting them anywhere near..
I personally am not going anywhere near Indonesia for holidays etc because they're a rather corrupt and dodgy place to go and trot out the death penalty any chance they can to keep moral standards. The chances of you getting "found" with drugs then dragged through the courts to get a life sentence or death is something I'd rather steer clear of.
There have been reports of attempts to introduce modesty laws preventing exposing skin: quite how that will work with tourists seems to be something these fundamentalists haven't really figured out.
Just like how the community of Indonesia suffered hugely due to the bombings when everyone stayed away.
Oh, that and the mastermind of the bali bombing only got a year or two for his role in the bombing, yet they lock up some dumb foreign girl for life for the dubious charge of smuggling pot INTO indonesia (never mind that makes no sense)..
Unfortunately it's difficult for Australia to urge indonesia away from this radical stuff cos any little chance they get the fundamentalist leaders stir up their followers to put pressure on the govt to do what they say..
A recent example was the west papuan refugees who jumped on a boat to Oz seeking asylum. Even before immigration had had a chance to think about things the papers in Indonesia were implying Australia was somehow trying to claim ownership over the west papuan region of Indonesia. Quite how granting some refugees visas does that I'm not sure, but when the PAPERS are reporting this shite, is it any wonder the locals are jumping up and down.
I dunno where I'm going with this rant, just to say it's a tad scary when sharia law gets adopted by a province or state of a country cos it's a slippery slope. I can only hope as living conditions improve that things tone down a bit and religion becomes a private rather than public policy matter.
Separation of church and state I say.. Has to be enforced!
I'll never forgive Yudhoyono for breaking up the Beatles.
;-(