Previous month:
April 2017
Next month:
June 2017

May 2017

Fifield speaks “As Minister Responsible for the ABC” in condemning Quadrant online article

On Tuesday Quadrant online published this story - as of 9AM this morning it's still online.

Screen Shot 2017-05-25 at 3.32.17 am

It's an opinion piece about the ABC's QandA written by Quadrant's online editor, Roger Franklin and it contains this paragraph:

Life isn’t fair and death less so. What if that blast had detonated in an Ultimo TV studio? Unlike those young girls in Manchester, their lives snuffed out before they could begin, none of the QandA panel’s likely casualties would have represented the slightest reduction in humanity’s intelligence, decency, empathy or honesty.

The original version contained the sentence "Had there been a shred of justice, that blast would have detonated in an Ultimo TV studio".

I think the line was stupid, offensive and will diminish the standing of the 61 year old Quadrant magazine.  But it's clearly tagged as what it is - the opinion of one man.

Quadrant editor Keith Windschuttle and Board member Nick Cater have apologised for the publication and stated that Mr Franklin (Quadrant's online editor) will be counselled and internal processes changed so Mr Franklin can't self-publish his own material.

For me that would be the end of it.  But not for their ABC by a long, long way.

Here's the ABC and friends with their almost unbelievable overkill - not bad coming from the masters of offence giving.

The ABC has reported the article to the Australian Federal Police for assessment. 

The normally taciturn Senator Mitch Fifield made a statement on indulgence during a parliamentary committee's hearings to condemn Quadrant, stating its story was "sick and unhinged" and sets  a "new low" in Australian public debate.

 

It's fascinating that in condemning the article and coming so publicly to the ABC's defence, Fifield sees himself as "The Minister responsible for the ABC".  File that one away.

ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie wrote to Keith Windschuttle demanding the "vicious and offensive" article be removed immediately and further demanding an apology from Quadrant.

"Quadrant promotes itself as 'the leading general intellectual journal of ideas'".

"Those words ring hollow in the wake of last night's vicious and offensive attack on the ABC, its staff and its program guests," she said.

For Ms Guthrie simply changing the article is not enough.  It has to be removed, full stop.  The editorial changes made before her letter "had done little to undo the damage".

"I am appalled at your willingness to turn an act of terrorism in the United Kingdom into a means of making a political point against those you disagree with," Ms Guthrie wrote.

She said the ABC was forced to reassure worried staff, "working long hours to provide extensive coverage of this unfolding [Manchester] tragedy".

Ms Guthrie said the ABC had been put to the expense of being forced to call in security experts to assess any possible impact flowing from the "inflammatory words".

Yesterday a note was sent out to ABC staff saying comments had been made that constituted "veiled threats" against the ABC's Ultimo premises and had caused concern to some staff.

"ABC takes all threats against staff seriously and pro-active steps have been taken to ensure the safety and welfare of all staff and users of ABC Ultimo.

"While consideration is given to minimise inconvenience please appreciate that intermittent increased security presence and more rigorous security screening is to ensure staff safety and well-being," the note said.

So precious are the ABC staff that ABC mandarins have taken the additional precaution of blocking internal ABC access to Quadrant online.

Screen Shot 2017-05-25 at 3.54.35 am

Seriously guys - it's one man's opinion.

It was offensive, unnecessary and intemperate.

It's been apologised for - and employers and readers can make their own minds up about whether Mr Franklin's writing is their cup of tea or not.  No one forces anyone to go and seek out Quadrant's online presence.

Isn't the ABC reaction overkill?

The ABC has serious form for offence and outright life-threatening conduct.

Remember the ABC's crew dressed as Osama bin Laden etc breaching the APEC security cordon in a dodgy limousine with dodgy secret service types running alongside?

Screen Shot 2017-05-25 at 7.46.08 am

Remember the Chris Kenny copulating with dog scandal and the Chaser "sketch" satirising the Make-A-Wish-Foundation, "It's pointless making extravagant and selfish wishes come true because the children would only die anyway".   As a recently bereaved father of a 5 month old baby girl I can tell you how it felt to watch that - it was "vicious and offensive".  I got Mark Scott on the radio on 4BC and he apologised for it - and that was the end of the matter.

As it should be for Quadrant.

The ABC has more recently brought you

an article comparing President Trump with Hitler, stating Trump is equivalently irresponsible and narcissistic.

an opinion that drone strikes are "radical Christian terrorism".

a call for a national monument to shirkers alongside the Australian War Memorial

promotion of  a tax on men masturbating to fund women's access to health care

 

And just a fortnight ago ABC News featured this:

ABC News 'If Sydney had a superhero...it was Trough Man", lying in various men's urinals for the purpose of being piddled on 

Screen Shot 2017-05-25 at 7.51.07 am

Twitter has been ablaze, Fairfax foaming and the ABC won't forgive and forget.  

Why maintain the rage ABC - do you want to set a precedent?

 

PS - for what it's worth, taken from http://quadrant.org.au/about-us/

Legal Notice

All views expressed in Quadrant and Quadrant Online are those of the individual authors and do not reflect the thoughts, opinions or beliefs of the editors or of Quadrant Magazine Ltd.

PPS - for our readers - you'll have noted my published thoughts on the Quadrant publication - it was "stupid, offensive unnecessary and intemperate and will diminish the standing of the 61 year old Quadrant magazine".

I'll predict that by the end of the day the Left will be climbing into me for supporting Quadrant.

Anyone care to take a wager?


Letter to Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop regarding new information on the ABDEL-MAGEID ANZAC Day social media scandal

Dear Minister,

 

ABDEL-MAGEID, Yassmin - offensive ANZAC Day social media post and fitness to remain on Government Boards

 

On 8 May 2017 you wrote to Senator Eric Abetz to advise him that “In view of Ms Abdel-Mageid’s apology” (amongst other things) you would not remove her from membership of the board of the Council for Australian Arab Relations.

You set out the background to your decision - as it relates to Ms Abdel-Mageid’s highly offensive ANZAC Day social media post:

Screen Shot 2017-05-24 at 6.16.04 am
 

 

NEW INFORMATION NOT PUT BEFORE YOU

On 8 September 2016 the US/British author Lionel Shriver gave the opening address to the Brisbane Writers Festival.

She said fiction writers should be limited only by their imaginations to create whatever stories they want, without restriction on their “cultural appropriation” of the “identity” of persons from different racial, religious, gender or cultural backgrounds from the author.  - speech here 

Ms Abdel Mageid was present and was incensed at Ms Shriver's speech.  Abdel Mageid walked out during the talk, wrote an essay attacking Ms Shriver and demanded a Right of Reply from the organisers of the Festival - essay here.

On 10 September 2016, Ms Abdel Mageid was given the opportunity to address the Festival with her  Right of Reply. Ms Abdel Mageid spoke passionately about minority groups and their right to “own" their culture - and that even by writing about it, a white person has improperly appropriated a part of that culture in a manner tantamount to theft - and certain to cause great distress.

The Right of Reply was video recorded and is posted online here.

After a discourse on “who owns” a particular “identity” and “who gets to decide on what is cultural appropriation”, Ms Abdel Mageid said, 

 

"... I don’t know, like I feel like sometimes people get annoyed if you

want to claim anything for yourself or want to say well actually something

is sacred umm... and then, and, but I’m not able to take it the other way

around. So if I went around saying well, the ANZACS were kinda rubbish,

you know like Gallipoli, what is that, I would get crucified. I mean look

at me, I’m a brown Muslim woman. Like imagine if I went around hating on

Gallipoli? People would die. I would, like, but... anything that is

deem... that I deem as sacred, is fair game.."

 

In those prepared remarks delivered 7 months before Anzac Day 2017 Ms Abdel Mageid predicts precisely the impact her ANZAC day Facebook post would create.  It shows considerable insight into both the significance of ANZAC Day and the reaction from the Australian public should she proceed to appropriate and misuse that identity.

“I would get crucified…..people would die” (metaphorically presumably, given it was we and not the Ottoman Caliphate that prevailed after the ANZAC’s first outing).

In September 2016 these were well developed ideas as delivered by Ms Abdel Magied, “If I went around saying the ANZACS were kinda rubbish, you know, Gallipoli, what is that, if I went around hating on Gallipoli etc etc” then she adds “but anything that I deem as sacred is fair game”.

That was precisely the construct of her ANZAC day social media post - the Syria, Manus Island, Palestine issues (deemed close to her heart) presented in the context of simultaneously “hating on” or disrespecting the ANZAC identity.

 

Ms Abdel Mageid misleading you and the public

At 9.42AM on Anzac Day, about 50 minutes after posting the offensive post, Ms Abdel Mageid published this apology (my emphasis):

"It was brought to my attention that my last post was disrespectful, and for that, I apologise unreservedly".

In the context of her exquisitely detailed thesis on the cultural appropriation of ANZAC Day and the consequences there of, it’s difficult to see how that apology could be sincere or truthful.

You report that Ms Abdel Magied “profusely” apologised to you and the Australian Government on being told of the Government’s “deep concerns” and of your dismay at her “highly inappropriate” post.

You report that Ms Abdel-Mageid was “mortified” that her post was seen as a reflection on and rejection of the sanctity of ANZAC Day and the sacrifice of our veterans and their families.

Ms Abdel-Mageid claims to have only intended for the post to be a reference to current global conflicts and crises.

You accepted Ms Abdel-Mageid’s apologies and explanation about her intended meaning and mortification as to being misinterpreted as truthful.

I think her September 2016 recorded, considered and public-record statement casts great doubt on the sincerity of Ms Abdel-Mageid's apology - and on the veracity of her claimed innocence and “mortification” that her post had been construed as reflecting on the sanctity of ANZAC Day.

The public and you as Minister must have confidence that appointees to Boards advising Government tell the truth and have Australia’s best interests genuinely at heart.

Perhaps you might reconsider whether Ms Abdel Mageid retains your confidence and let us know of your decision.

I propose to treat this as an open and public communication with you.

Yours sincerely

 

Michael P. Smith

ENDS

Here is the Minister's letter to Senator Abetz detailing her reasons for not acceding to the Senator's request Ms Abdel Mageid be removed from Government Boards.


Screen Shot 2017-05-24 at 6.28.26 amScreen Shot 2017-05-24 at 6.28.26 am

 
 

Insights into Islam and terror - Part Two - What can the world learn from Waleed Aly's PhD?

812ddebb626412264fcce36c8458f77b

Dr Aly has the ear of government.

He has a starring role in a nightly TV show.

The ABC furnishes him with regular radio slots and the Fairfax press seems ever ready to run his pronouncements.

So it's useful to look at what the world has learned in practical terms from Dr Aly's time at university producing his doctoral thesis.

His topic is global terrorism - quite timely.

And here's the synopsis.

Towards a Structuration Theory of Global Terrorism

byWaleed Aly
A vast body of academic literature over half a century has attempted to explain the causes of terrorism. This literature has generally not drawn on the insights of grand social theory, reflecting that terrorism studies is largely a theoretically barren field. It has instead tended to offer explanations that either focus on a singular structural phenomenon (like, say occupation) or the features of the individual terrorist (such as that person’s psychology). This study contributes a new theoretical understanding of the area by using structuration theory to analyse one particular subtype of terrorism: global terrorism. It identifies that this type of terrorism is distinguished by its post-Westphalian characteristics: its ideological content, its conception of its enemies, its sphere of political action, and its diffuse, increasingly leaderless structure all simply bypass the Westphalian frame that captured previous expressions of terrorism. This reveals that globalised (or glocalised) structures of late-modernity, what Bauman calls “liquid modernity”, are importantly implicit in global terrorism.
   
   This study develops an account of the causes and nature of global terrorism anchored in a version of structuration theory synthesised from the seminal works of Giddens and Bourdieu. In this, it relies on the more recent literature on the concept of “radicalisation”. That literature is not theoretically embellished, but offers the potential of an account of terrorism incorporating both structure and agency. Here, Moghaddam’s “staircase to terrorism” is most promising, and this study applies structuration theory to the social and psychological processes of radicalisation Moghaddam describes.
   
   Global terrorism is anchored in the structural contradiction that exists between the globalisation of identity, and social and political causality on the one hand, and the availability of only Westphalian conventional politics on the other: between the liquid, and the solid. This contradiction brings multitudes to Moghaddam’s ground floor with a shared sense of fraternal relative deprivation. This generates perverse consequences for social agents and precipitates a sense of existential anxiety. Radicalisation only commences, however, when agents seek to restore their ontological security in unconventional ways. One example is via a securitising narrative that explains the nature of this structural contradiction to them, and constructs an abject, enemy other. Because this other is abject, constructing it is also a process of constructing and sacralising the self: out-group hatred becomes symbiotic with in-group solidarity, and becomes an act of identity creation. This facilitates the moral transformations necessary for terrorism to happen, which is also facilitated by the increasingly small isolated social groupings in which agents find themselves as they ascend Moghaddam’s staircase.
   
   This progression is the consequence of the decisions and actions of knowledgeable social agents. The process of ascending Moghaddam’s staircase reveals an ever-evolving interaction between each agent’s habitus, the social fields they inhabit and the capital they seek in those fields. An agent ascending Moghaddam’s staircase, increasingly inhabits unconventional social fields in which the capital of conventional fields becomes less sought-after, and a more radical symbolic hegemonic order takes over. This in turn alters the agent’s habitus, making increasingly radical action more imaginable.
 
ENDS    
 
You'll note that the former PR for the Islamic Council of Victoria, the Sunni Muslim Waleed doesn't mention Islam or the word Muslim.
 
Apparently Islam doesn't have a role.  A person's occupation does, his psychology does, gobbledygook gets a run "glocalisation" and "liquid modernity" - but no Islam.
 
This bloke is a danger to us because he's taken seriously.
 
He's setting us back in our ability to see and engage with the reality we face.
 
He should be called out for the charlatan he is.

Two approaches to Islam and terror - Part One - Greg Sheridan's just returned from the UK with important insights

Today two diametrically opposed views on Islam and terror.

Here's the first of them.

Greg Sheridan has just returned from a visit to the UK where he interviewed a fascinating range of people with insights into the jihadi reality.

The Australian's run his lengthy column today and be warned it's big!   To read it in full you'll need to subscribe or go to the newsagent - I'd highly recommend it.

Greg makes two important points - Islam is the core reason we have terrorism at all - and while we have Islamists amongst us we will have a cycle of terror attacks.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/manchester-terror-attack-endless-cycle-of-jihadism/news-story/55b6335f134b33e9df8c7be2d2037a09

Screen Shot 2017-05-24 at 3.24.38 am

A crowd of mostly teenage girls, as innocent as young people can be, at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. It’s everything jihadist terrorists — from Islamic State to al-Qa’ida to the Taliban — hate most about the West, and everything that declares the innocence of youth and the pleasure of music in public spaces.

The savage attack — believed to have been carried out by a lone male suicide bomber, leaving at least 22 dead, 60 injured and more fatalities likely — demonstrates the stark realities of the terrorism war. First, the terror threat in Western societies is not diminishing. Every so often the West gets weary of the terror story, develops terrorism fatigue and wants to declare the peak of the threat has passed. This is not true.

The sources of radicalisation and paranoia, especially among a minority of young Muslim men, are as strong as ever. Radical networks and communities are replenishing themselves. Jihadis returning from the Middle East are an added source of recruits, already trained and motivated, for the terror movement.

Operationally, the choice of target is becoming more sophisticated. Two months ago a lone-wolf terrorist killed six people on Westminster Bridge and in the environs of the British Houses of Parliament, a target of huge symbolic and political significance.

The choice of Grande’s Manchester concert is psychologically even more telling. Could anything strike greater terror into a Western population than carnage among innocent teenage girls?

Greg makes a very important point about the dangers of dealing with Islamists, a point yet to be grasped by Turnbull - who's unlikely to get it at all while he maintains his Pollyanna Islam the religion of peace and love stupidity.

Greg's recounting a chat with Hannah Stuart of Policy Exchange, the leading conservative think tank in Britain:

“For a time (about a decade ago) the government just had no idea and looked for help to groups that actually had links to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

During this period, so long as the specific groups did not advocate direct terrorist violence, the British state thought that such groups, which often espoused a deeply extremist ideology that stopped one step short of advocacy of terrorism, could be part of the solution.

“For a time the authorities virtually outsourced the problem to these groups,” Stuart says.

“The default position of people who don’t know much about it is to go to soft Islamists, to the people who shout the loudest.”

That has changed, she says — and entirely for the better.

“The British government now doesn’t work with the Muslim Council, who in 2009 went to Istanbul and signed a declaration saying that if the British navy is involved in stopping weapons going to Gaza, then attacks on the British navy are justified.

“One big theme of Policy Exchange is that officials need to exercise due diligence about who they are speaking to. (Former prime minister) David Cameron’s epiphany moment came as opposition leader at the Birmingham Central Mosque, where a leader told him that the 9/11 terror attacks and the 7/7 attacks in Britain had not been carried out by Muslims but by the security services.”

From then on Cameron made it a point to attack nonviolent extremism as well as explicit support for terrorism.

Turnbull is nowhere near learning those lessons.

His kowtowing to the Islamic Council of Victoria last year was revolting,

"In the Ottoman Empire, when the successful, the really successful, artistically brilliant, brilliant in every respect in terms of medicine, in terms of literature, I'm thinking of the Abbasid Caliphate, I’m thinking of the Umayyads in Spain. 

Everything you need to know about how far Turnbull has to go to connect with reality is displayed in this photo featuring his major sources of advice on Islamists and their religion of peace.

3bf54261eb40505b2f27d80ad2ba0bf3

Which brings us to our next post, compare and contrast the common sense you've read here and at The Australian from Greg Sheridan with the contents of Dr Waleed Aly's PhD Thesis.

 

 


Abdel-Mageid recorded 7 months before Anzac Day, "If I (rubbished) the Anzacs & Gallipoli I would get crucified"

UPDATE

Ben Fordham's 2GB Sydney Live radio show picked up on this story today - thank you Ben for the credit to our site.

 

 

Abdel-Magied's duplicitous apology after her offensive Anzac Day tweet.

“It was brought to my attention that my last post was disrespectful, and for that, I apologise unreservedly,” she said.

If you've been inclined to give Ms Abdel Mageid the benefit of any doubt about her intentions on Anzac Day, listen to the woman herself describing - or planning  - the sleight and anticipating its consequences.

She knew precisely what she was doing.

And played it for publicity.

Oooops?  I don't think so.

We've been taken for mugs by a publicity seeking no character blow-in, prepared to knowingly trash a commemoration of deep significance for a majority of Australians - to draw attention to herself.

Today she's reported as saying she feels unfairly treated over her Anzac Day post.

Really?  Listen on.

Screen Shot 2017-05-23 at 12.50.49 pm

On 10 September 2016 Yassmin Abdel Magied was speaking at the Brisbane Writers Festival after a presentation from the author Lionel Shriver.

Screen Shot 2017-05-23 at 12.50.49 pm

https://www.facebook.com/YassminAbdelMagied/videos/703057113181694/

This extract of the audio from that recording is unedited it commences about 18 minutes into the Facebook post above. 

 

 

"... I don’t know, like I feel like sometimes people get annoyed if you
want to claim anything for yourself or want to say well actually something
is sacred umm... and then, and, but I’m not able to take it the other way
around. So if I went around saying well, the ANZACS were kinda rubbish,
you know like Gallipoli, what is that, I would get crucified. I mean look
at me, I’m a brown Muslim woman. Like imagine if I went around hating on
Gallipoli? People would die. I would, like, but... anything that is
deem... that I deem as sacred, is fair game.."

And a tremendous debt of gratitude to Seeker of Truth for pointing out the location and contents of that recording.


CBS correspondent needs a smack in the mouth after unconscionable Twitter posts on Manchester horror

A nail bomb at a kids concert.

19 known killed.

More than 50 wounded.

Horrific penetrating injuries.

And this.

Screen Shot 2017-05-23 at 8.51.51 am

As people reacted, he offered this.

Screen Shot 2017-05-23 at 8.53.00 am

And this is the - ahem - man.

Screen Shot 2017-05-23 at 8.53.00 am



These are the people he's so callously writing about.

He's since apologised for the offence saying he "didn't realise the magnitude of the tragedy".

He's got form for being a dickhead.

 

And as of now he's still listed as a correspondence with CBS Boston.

Not for long I hope.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/tag/david-leavitt/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgleavitt

Screen Shot 2017-05-23 at 9.06.41 am


Abdel-Magied whinges she was "treated unfairly" over Anzac post. Let's take a look at that treatment.......

This young woman is a walking disaster area.

Hidden in the last paragraph of The Australian's story below is this new little gem.

Who is anyone to tell me what it means to be Australian?,” she said. “The only people that have the rights to this land are indigenous people. So if it’s an indigenous person saying to me ‘girl, take a step back’ then I will listen to that.

The only people that have the rights to this land are indigenous?

She'll only listen to indigenes giving her advice?

God help us that Julie Bishop continues to have confidence in this woman advising the government.

 

‘I was treated unfairly over Anzac post’

Yassmin Abdel-Magied speaks to schoolchildren at a Sydney Writers Festival workshop yesterday. Picture: Chris Pavlich
Muslim activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied has told 60 school students at a Sydney Writers Festival workshop she was treated unfairly over her controversial Anzac Day Facebook post.
 

“I posted an apology very quickly afterwards, but one of our senior cabinet members said ‘Well Yassmin is un-Australian for saying this’,” Abdel-Magied told the group of Year 9 students from Dapto High School.

“Then somebody asked well, another dude wrote a whole article about how Anzac Day is problematic, what do you think about that? And the same person who just criticised me as unAustralian said ‘Well he’s allowed to say what he thinks’. Why is he allowed to say what he thinks and I’m not — I don’t know.”

It was not clear to whom she was referring.

“Who is anyone to tell me what it means to be Australian?,” she said. “The only people that have the rights to this land are indigenous people. So if it’s an indigenous person saying to me ‘girl, take a step back’ then I will listen to that. But ... I’m an Australian citizen and, unless we get to the point where I get deported for mis­demeanours, then I’m going to say what I want and you just have to walk away.”

ENDS

Treated unfairly hey.

8 May 2017

Abdel-Magied stays on government boards - Bishop advises Abetz "concerns" removing her might inflame Muslim tensions

Officials were concerned that removing her from the board could ignite further social and ethnic divisions at a time when intelligence agencies were stressing the need to engage with the Muslim community.

Ms Bishops was convinced that no good would be served by Ms Abdel Magied's removal and that instead she would be “mentored”.

 
27 April 2017

Julie Bishop to carefully consider call to sack Abdel Magied

Screen Shot 2017-05-23 at 7.01.18 am
 
 
25 April 2017 

Anzac Insult Muslim Abdel-Magied WAS ON THE GOVT's ANZAC Centenary working group 

 
Screen Shot 2017-04-25 at 1.51.36 pm
6a0177444b0c2e970d01bb099453e2970d-800wi
 

February 16 2017

Bishop's DFAT paid for QandA celebrity Muslim Yasmin Magied's Islamic book promotion tour

Read the full story at The Australian - and please leave a comment for Caroline Overington to congratulate her on her great work in bringing you this story.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied visits a university in Sudan during her speaking tour in November last year.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied visits a university in Sudan during her speaking tour in November last year.
Waleed Aly and his wife Susan Carland, Malcolm Turnbull and Yassmin Abdel-Magied at an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan at Kirribilli House last year.
Waleed Aly and his wife Susan Carland, Malcolm Turnbull and Yassmin Abdel-Magied at an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan at Kirribilli House last year.
Countries visited during Ms Abdel-Magied’s trip.
Countries visited during Ms Abdel-Magied’s trip.

Yassmin Magied - "I have excitement at being the person who doesn't belong, I take the piss the most"

 
 

ENDS

How has she been treated unfairly?

She's kept her gigs with the ABC.

Julie Bishop has kept her on government boards.

She's been given the services of a mentor.

Treated unfairly?


Explosion at Manchester Arena concert - Police confirm 19 dead, 50 wounded in terrorist attack

UPDATE

Screen Shot 2017-05-23 at 9.51.13 am
 

UPDATE