Wow. Anyone who still harboured the idea that Australia was led by no-nonsense, common sense speaking politicians should look away now.
Here is Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia, talking about the motivations of the man who held a shop full of people hostage earlier this week and then murdered two of them:
‘The point I keep making is that the ISIL death cult has nothing to do with any religion, any real religion. It has nothing to do with any particular community. It is something to which sick individuals succumb.’
That is right, ladies and gentlemen. If you or I suffer from a seasonal cold this winter we must be careful it does not develop into full-blown ISIL. Otherwise before we know it we will find ourselves holding innocent people hostage and gunning them down in chocolate shops.
This theme emerged from Australia’s PM after his country went through the latest ‘fear of backlash’ diversion. This is the now traditional means by which public attention is not only shifted away from an actual attack but, coincidentally, away from the community which in Tony Abbott’s term ‘spawned’ the perpetrator. And so instead of knuckling down to stop any further such extremism from its midsts the Muslim communities and their leadership can paint themselves as the victims. And all non-Muslim Australians as knuckle-dragging savages limbering up for a pogrom.
Anyhow, Mr Abbott continued:
‘The idea that, you know, ISIL is somehow spawned by any particular religion, frankly, it’s probably even less true than saying that Catholicism spawned the IRA.’
Not just ‘nothing to do with Islam’ remember. Less to do with Islam than anything else. Now who else has rung that dud bell recently?
Later on Mr Abbott said of ISIL:
‘They claim to be acting in the name of God… But there is no serious religious leader who is defending this.’
The Prime Minister of Australia — consider this pass — goes on to discuss which Sunni and other religious leaders he believes to have come out against ISIL. Shame he hasn’t spent any time considering the really quite serious theological death cults which not only dominate but actually run Iran, Gaza and Saudi Arabia – to name just three – and which have major terrorist representation in every other country in the Middle East and beyond. Sure they differ in attitudes towards ISIL. But is Mr Abbott sure they’re on his side?
As I said, it would have been better to have looked away now. Were circumstances different I — along with many others worldwide — would be roaring with laughter at Mr Abbott. But his country is in mourning and decent people everywhere know how to behave, even if Mr Abbott does not.
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