From: Ture Sjolander

To: philadams@ozemail.com.au

Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 1:42 PM

Subject: God's gift to the establichment NO TALKS !!!

Hi Phillip,

 

Do you mind if I use your brilliant article- as below - on my own website:

www.artaustralia.homestead.com/AUS.html

 

Cheers

Ture Sjolander

www.artat.homestead.com/

 

 

 

Hate talk is God's gift to extremism by Phillip Adams 04 October 2005 AS soon as the news from Bali came through, John Howard and Kim Beazley were jostling for the camera. One half-expected the Bomber to prove his toughness on terror by calling for an immediate lock-down of Lakemba, but he was trumped by the PM, who seemed keen to talk about the clash of civilisations. Unusually emotional, Howard talked of "them" hating the West, who are we, what we represent, our beliefs, our values. Shades of George W. Bush and his calculated use of the word crusade. The chill of fear that passed through mainstream Australia at the PM's words would have been nothing to the dread felt within Muslim suburbs such as Sydney's Lakemba. Another nail in the coffin of co-operation. It's more encouragement for the sort of angry, alienated kids who turned themselves into bombs in London. And it's wrong. The problem isn't as simple and elemental as the Muslim them hating the Christian us. Most of the terrorist attacks around the world are internecine, involving Muslims killing Muslims. Shades of Northern Island, with Catholics killing Protestants, the perpetrators and the victims share the same faith, with minor variations. In Bali, Australians in particular and foreigners in general are certainly targeted, but they're tactical, tangential targets. The bombings are aimed at Jakarta, at Sukarno's achievement in creating a secular Indonesia. The second largest Islamic population does not live in a Muslim state. What the Indonesians achieved after their victory over the Dutch was as remarkable as Attaturk's triumph in Turkey, what Christians would call the separation of church and state. And that is what Indonesia's terrorists hate, not so much Australia and Australians or our values and way of life. It's their own nation's values and way of life they're out to destroy, so that an Islamic government can be established. In this clash of civilisations, Australians are pawns. Australian deaths are collateral damage. Destroy Bali's tourism and you drive Indonesia closer to the brink. The poor Balinese. Providing most of the terrorists' victims, they are neither Muslim nor Christian. The world flocks to Bali because the beauty of the landscape and the people is enhanced by paradox. As tens of thousands of temples attest, Bali is a Hindu enclave. Every day across Iraq, the horrors unleashed by the coalition of the willing's political, military and cultural ineptitudes kill scores, sometimes hundreds. The Independent's Middle East expert Robert Fisk has spent more time reporting the mess than most other foreign correspondents combined, and talks of between 5000 and 8000 a month, or at least 100,000 civilian casualties since the invasion. Perhaps 200,000. While some have been collateral damage, caught in the crossfire between Iraqi insurgents and the Western crusaders, most are Muslims killed by Muslims. Innocents targeted by locals or imports intent on creating another Iranian-style state, starring the mullahs' brand of Islam. Most of the Australian Muslims I've met are of Turkish, Attaturkish descent. I recently spent a day talking to members of the biggest community, to many of those not invited to Howard's recent summit. It was poignant that we met in the Gallipoli Mosque, so called in an attempt to emphasise their commitment to Australia. They are liberal, progressive and do not hate us at all. Which is why the clash of civilisation argument, along with calls to lock down Lakemba, is immensely unhelpful. What is needed in these difficult and dangerous days is the sort of leadership that London mayor Ken Livingstone showed after the subway bombings in July. While Tony Blair talked as divisively as Howard and Beazley, Livingstone spoke to both communities, to a tragedy uniting Muslims and Christians in that traumatised city. And that's the truth of it. Muslims are as much the victims of these terrible times as anyone else. Only more so. So it hardly helps to demonise Australian Muslims. That's as unreasonable and absurd as blaming every Catholic in Northern Island for IRA bombings. We should be uniting with every willing member of the Islamic communities, and most of them are desperate for our understanding and help. They don't want to lose their children to fanaticism, zealotry and death, and posturing by politicians such as Howard and Beazley is a gift from Allah to extremism. We must isolate the crazies, not mainstream Muslims.     Phillip Adams <philadams@ozemail.com.au> wrote: be my guest Ture....any time....

Thank you Phillip.   I will look after your artwork very well. You never understood my great respect for your profession. What I meant was simply what you easily can understand,  in my metaphors on my website; People stay to long at one single "place" and that is far from democracy, no matter how good they are. A stagnation will take place anywhere, if this is going on...but you can stay...  hee heeh Its exiting to be a bloody foreigner in this country. I have never been a foreigner before, although we are surounded by more than 6 billion others.   I hope you don't charge me if I use you article, nor that The Australian will do so. Please Let me know about that detail ASAP.   Another thing: Did you really see this story,  (below) at that time, as I was a "stirrer" - you said so to me when I rang you 1996. For me it was one of my most important artwork, and still is: www.youareinmy.homestead.com/now.html It was brutally cencured though.   My headlines on Google nowdays is my greatest fun since I understood how to beat up the serach engine robots.   Cheers Ture