There is a famous fable that if you threw a frog into a pot of hot water it would immediately perceive the hostile environment and jump out. However, if you place a second frog in a pot of cool water and gradually heat it, the frog will stay there until it dies.
Australia’s approach to the growth of radical Islam and the concomitant risks of Islamic terrorism has over recent years resembled the behaviour of the second frog. The terror event on November 9 in Bourke St by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, a Muslim from Somalia, with an attempted car bomb and stabbing attack, is regarded as a wake-up call. On November 14, three Muslim men, Abdullah Chaarani, Ahmed Mohamed and Hamza Abbas, were convicted of planning major terrorism in Melbourne for Christmas 2016. The intervention before the planned terrorism occurred only because a junior Asio officer fortuitously observed the group purchasing explosive precursors at a chemist shop. On November 20, three Muslims of Turkish background were arrested for an alleged terror plot to kill ‘as many as possible’.
Perhaps these developments will cause the government to respond to the rising temperature of the water in which our symbolic frog currently rests. To his credit, Scott Morrison did clearly call out ‘radical, violent, extremist Islam’ as the greatest security threat in Australia while also making clear there are many, indeed mostly, good peaceful Muslims.
Life has changed in Australia as a consequence of this threat. I can recall when taking a domestic flight felt not much different to catching a bus. In our cities, in particular Sydney and Melbourne, there are concrete blocks and structures, now widely known as diversity bollards, where there were none just a few years ago, to inhibit the potential use of motor vehicles as terror weapons. Our uniformed service personnel have been instructed they can no longer wear uniforms to and from their workplaces because of the increased risk of being targets of Islamic terror. Even schools which have cadet programmes have issued similar instructions to students. Australia is changing and our freedoms are being crimped while political correctness prevents proper debate and government action. This is ‘frog-like’ behaviour.
Read the article by David Adler (AJA) in The Spectator.
[Refer to an interview on The Alan Jones Breakfast Show about this issue.]