Recklessly supplying a SIM card

Curmudgeon of the Day goes to the caller I heard on ABC702 talkback radio this morning (paraphrased from memory):

What a ridiculous charge?…How do you even do that? Tie it to a brick and chuck it at someone?

He’s talking of course of Dr Mohammed Haneef, who was yesterday granted conditional bail by a Queensland magistrate on charges laid against him of recklessly supplying resources (said SIM card) to a terrorist organisation (what other people would describe as passing on a UK SIM card he could not use in Australia to his cousin when he left the UK).

The call was in response to news of the decision by Federal Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews last night to preempt judicial due process and the presumption of innocence. Andrews used his ministerial oversight powers to revoke Haneef’s visa and consign him to the Villawood Detention Centre pending further investigations and the resolution of his court case.

Shaun at LP has a great post and links round-up on opinon about Andrews v. Haneef, and quotes Peter Wilkinson most aptly:

Indiscriminate repression is totally incompatible with the liberal values of humanity, liberty and justice. It is a dangerous illusion to believe one can ‘protect’ liberal democracy by suspending liberal rights and forms of government.

Filed under: authoritarianism, ethics, islamophobia, law

A timeline to think upon

If Iran Were America (And We Were Iran): A Timeline

This is a very well done example of reversing protagonists and putting shoes on other feet. It’s also a useful pointer for people who have been previously unaware of just how much throttling of autonomous political movements in ex-colonial resource-rich states has been done by the industrial powers of the West over generations.

Via Pandagon.

Filed under: economics, history, islamophobia, middle east

What happened to women’s rights in Iraq?

There were some long involved threads on ozblogs last week about Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Kim at LP, and those of us who agreed with her, got piled upon (twice) for disagreeing with some of Hirsi Ali’s suggestions about how to best end the oppression of women in Islamic cultures. The offended were a whole bunch of WOT-hawks who seem to think that Hirsi Ali’s many undeniable strengths and talents mean that somehow her opinions, agenda and tactics are above criticism. Their argument seemed to be that because Hirsi Ali has suffered sexist oppression justified by reference to Islam and she speaks of how such oppression needs to end through curtailing the power of Islam, that therefore her calls to eradicate Islam are the only plans for ending sexist oppression that should be listened to.

I’m not going to flinch away from mentioning female genital mutilation (FGM) here, because that seemed to be a core of the outrage: how could we criticise a women who wanted to end the genital cutting and mutilation of little girls? Of course, we never criticised Hirsi Ali wanting to end FGM: who doesn’t want to see the end of harmful physical mutilations?

We merely argued that her particular emphases and tactics seemed counterproductive rather than genuinely helpful to the goal of eradicating such harmful practices as infibulation (and never even got a chance to mention that by far the bulk of genital cutting is simple ritual labial marking which leaves minimal scarring on a par with piercing an ear, or that excision of the top part of the clitoral hood actually enhances sexual pleasure rather than diminishing it).

So, not waving away FGM, but now it’s back to the larger picture of women’s oppression by traditionalist male hierarchies. We can all agree that sexist oppression justified by religious teachings needs to end. Where many people have a problem with Hirsi Ali’s speeches on this is that she singles Islam out as somehow uniquely prone to being distorted by male hierarchies seeking to rationalise and justify the systemic oppression of women.

Filed under: authoritarianism, blogging, interblog, islamophobia, middle east, religion, war

Oh c’mon, get angry at Hicks, c’mon!

The Daily Terror is desperately trying to get us all upset that Hicks is getting “perks” that the rest of us should view “with a mixture of anger, suspicion and displeasure” apparently.

(Never mind that these “perks” are not anything Hicks has specially asked for as a unique concession just for himself, these “perks” are just the institutional consequences of his detention and sentencing.)

First “perk”: a charter flight home on a private Lear jet
Second “perk”: studying during his term in prison with an eye to becoming a zoologist

For hard-working, law-abiding Australians, the treatment afforded to Hicks in recent days has been nothing short of a slap in the face.

Most will never have the opportunity to travel on a private Lear jet; many will struggle to access the same educational opportunities as he will be afforded. As the Hicks case proves, crime might not pay, but it can often provide its own range of privileges.

Honestly, do they really think “the battlers” who read the Terror are stupid enough to not know that the only reason Hicks flew home on a chartered private jet is that the US wouldn’t let him fly home normally?

Filed under: Politics, authoritarianism, islamophobia, moral panics

Another gnaw on the Bone

Pamela Bone’s piece, published on International Women’s Day, on the perceived kowtowing from Western feminists towards cultural relativism certainly stirred up a few reactions. I didn’t blog on it myself as my reaction was essentially the same as the one I’d had to a similiar piece from Janet Albrechtsen recently, but Shaun and Kim over at LP both took it on, and now Cast Iron Balcony’s Helen has also had a go, crossposting her analysis at Road to Surfdom.

As usual, Helen has taken the trouble to research other writings from Bone et al and to cast the piece inside the bigger picture of the culture wars. Go read it.

Filed under: Media, Politics, islamophobia

Interesting

From a comment at LP by cam of South Sea Republic:

The muslims are the current beating pad for conservatives, yet immigration statistics suggest that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than the Australian born (Victoria IIRC is the only state that records the country of birth). Interestingly the next generation, the children of immigrants, get integrated so well that they commit crimes at the same rate as Australians.

I can’t find a cite for this information on cam’s site, and would be interested indeed to find one. Not because I disbelieve or am even surprised by the data, simply that I would like to be able to point to a source before I use it in an argument anytime.

Filed under: Politics, conservatism, islamophobia

More on Maj. Mori and those threats of misconduct charges from the US military prosecutor

From H. Candace Gorman at the Huffington Post.

You see the Colonel’s timing couldn’t have been more suspicious. Moe made his stunning announcement that charges should be filed against Major Mori just a few days after it became clear that the only charge Hicks was actually going to be charged with was the one charge that wasn’t even a crime at the time Hicks was arrested. (Doesn’t it sound like the Colonel is having a temper tantrum over Hicks’s (and Mori’s) victory in getting all of the serious charges thrown out?) Anyway, the clock is now running for Hicks’s commission hearing and the colonel must know he is in for a long, hard slog with the military’s ever crumbling case against Hicks. This must be particularly embarrassing for Moe, because Hicks’s commission hearing was set to go first because it is their best case… Well, let us just say that things couldn’t get much worse for the Colonel, so it was time for him to go on the attack and do what those in the Bush camp do best… divert attention.

Gorman is the principal of an eponymous Illinois law firm specialising in Civil Rights cases.

NB: She refers to the Major as Dan Mori when most of the Australian press refer to him as Michael Mori. His full name is Michael Dante Mori.

via Quietstorm, in comments at LP

Filed under: ethics, islamophobia, law

Mori to do time? Unlikely.

So I turn on the tabloid TV this morning, and there’s much agitation about the possibility that Major Michael Mori, one of the military lawyers for David Hicks and a personal fave in the shyster ranks, may face charges that carry a prison sentence for using “contemptuous words” about high ranking US officials. The story arises from remarks made by the chief prosecutor for the American military commissions which will try the accused “unlawful combatants” held at Guantanamao Bay.

“Certainly in the U.S. it would not be tolerated having a U.S. marine in uniform actively inserting himself into the political process,” Davis said. “It is very disappointing to see that happening in Australia, and if that was any of my prosecutors, they would be held accountable.”

He added that it would be up to the Marine Corps to decide whether Mori had violated Article 88 of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, which makes it a crime for a military officer to use “contemptuous words” about the president, vice president, secretary of defense and other high-ranking officials.

Filed under: Politics, ethics, islamophobia, law

Just more politics, not a “clash of civilisations”

The Guardian: a global survey released on Monday showed that most people believe the current clash between Islamists and the West is primarily political rather than genuinely based on religious and cultural differences. (NB: update appended – debunking the talking-point that Iraqis are better off now than under Saddam, and “the left” are apologists for atrocities who want the Iraqia to suffer.)

Filed under: Politics, islamophobia, war

Ignoring Islamic feminism

Firstly, a well-researched piece from The Guardian, Islamic Feminism On The Move:

Muslim societies, from Afghanistan where female teachers are singled out for killing by a resurgent Taliban, to Saudi Arabia where women are not allowed to drive or travel alone, reinforce for the western media the stereotypes of Muslim women’s inferior place. All this comforts a certain western notion of superiority. Tell people you are going to a conference on Islamic feminism, and the response is mocking laughter.

However, Islamic feminism is alive and well, from Western Europe to Malaysia, and from North Africa to the US – far from the stereotypes of Islam and of feminism as a western movement.

But the powers of conventional Islam, and western media preconceptions, both have their own reasons for ignoring the phenomenon of strongly Muslim, very activist women who claim that complete equality for women both in private life and in public, and a host of other radical reforms, can be read in true Islamic scholarship.

In the Quran, they say, men and women are both equal, and complementary, with the same rights to education and self-fulfillment.

Filed under: Media, activism/charity, islamophobia, peeves