Our schools and universities appear to be turning out some very confused young people, judging by the outrage on Twitter and in parts of the progressive media about criticism of comments by 25-year-old Yassmin Abdel-Magied.
The Sudanese-born activist’s claim on Q&A a fortnight ago that sharia law was a friend of feminism was astounding in its naivety.
Here we have in its purest form, as practised in Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, a legal code based on the Koran that sanctions the execution of homosexuals and the stoning of women for infidelity.
Anyone who has not read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s books about Islam and life as the daughter of a Somali warlord and wants to understand this issue really should do so. The plight of her mother and siblings when her father took a younger bride and they lived in Kenya is outlined in Nomad, and bears no resemblance to feminism.
This paper commissioned a piece from Hirsi Ali last Saturday week that should be compulsory reading for all the Twitter twits who think the reaction to Abdel-Magied’s comments was unfair.
And why had Australian taxpayers footed the bill for the ABC’s favourite Muslim woman to travel to the most hardline states in the Middle East? Foreign Minister Julie Bishop should explain.
Then came last week’s story about French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen declining to meet Lebanon’s Grand Mufti, who had said she would need to wear a veil. That was followed by this newspaper’s stories about a Sydney state school — and by Thursday three universities — that were supporting young Muslim men refusing to shake women’s hands on religious grounds.
On Twitter and in much of the Left media this was either ignored or treated as a sign of growing intolerance in Australia. Not so.
Such coverage is in the interests of the wider society and is about not tolerating the intolerance of religious extremists.
Last Wednesday night Muslim spokesman Keysar Trad told Andrew Bolt on Sky News that husbands should only hit their wives as a last resort. This was in response to a passage from the Koran selected by Bolt. Cue instant outrage in mainstream media, and rightly so. But why was the story again ignored in so many progressive outlets that would have pounced had the words been spoken by an Anglo-Celtic Australian male?
Same with debates about wearing the veil. It’s an instrument of oppression designed to increase the power of men over women. The PR campaign being waged out of the Middle East in favour of the veil is insidious. And it is working.
Read the full article by Chris Mitchell at The Australian (subscriber only).