- young Muslims fight IS on social media -, page-28

In the 1990s when the Pauline Hanson phenomena rose there was no talk of Islam at that time as 911 was still several years away. The Xenophobic discussion of that era centred around Asian immigrants who needed to assimilate and Aboriginals who should get no special consideration as compared to White Australia. Most Australians dismissed Pauline's view as overly simplistic but she did manage to capture about 10% of the vote. This is only a minority but it is a significant minority and it was enough to make her a political force to be reckoned with. I guess what it tells us is that there is about 10% of the population who sees the world in black and white, yes or no, good and evil with no room for shades of grey or maybes. At that time the media in Asia branded us as a nation of racists. I didn't like that label. I was never a Pauline Hanson supporter. I was all like "Whoa guys, don't pin this on me. I am the furthest thing from a racist".........

Just last week I watched an Australian academic discussing the 1967 referendum which gave Aboriginals the right to vote. This older gentleman almost teared up with national pride as he talked about the overwhelming majority who voted in favour. That majority was 90%. Looking at it that way it says something very favourable about Australians as a people.....but wait....90% whilst a fantastic result it is not 100%. What were the other 10% thinking?? There's that 10% again....just like the 10% that supported Pauline Hanson. Why did they see fit to withhold the right to vote from the original inhabitants of Australia??

So here we have looked at the same statistic and come to two entirely different conclusions. The Australian academic was born here. He is immersed in our heritage. He understands that Australians are fundamentally a good bunch of blokes and sheilas but that there are a few rogue elements....but hey, you're always going to get that. In contrast to this the Asian media are outside of our fishbowl. They are not part of us and therefore don't understand the nuances of our culture. Because there is a tendency for humans to fear what they do not understand the Asian nations, instead of looking at the 90% of Australians who did NOT support Pauline Hanson, chose to focus on the significant minority of 10% who did....... and from this perspective we were branded as a bunch of racists.

Of that 10% of Australians I would be very surprised if very many of them were actual card carrying members of the Klu Klux Klan or similar white hate groups...although I imagine some would be. Of those who were card carrying Klansmen I imagine that even fewer would have the nerve to break the law so as to intimidate non-whites with acts such as the old burning crucifix on the front lawn trick or with the derogatory slogan splashed in paint in the appropriate public space. I imagine that it would only be a very minute percentage that might be such hard hearted sickos as to partake in a lynching such as what happened in the deep south of the USA at the height of the 1960s civil rights movement.

I would be prepared to hazard a guess and say that the statistics for the Muslim community are no different to those of our own. We can talk about religion, culture and ethnicity all we like but at our most fundamental level, before we are white, black, Muslim, westerner or whatever we are all humans. As humans we have a capacity for empathy and we possess the power of imagination and with these qualities we have the ability to put ourselves in the other fellows shoes. I am guessing that it is about 10% of any given population that are somewhat deficient in these qualities compared to others.

Could it be that about 10% of the Muslim community also lack empathy and imagination and can only see things from their own Islamic perspective?? Have we become like the Asian media who judged us so harshly on the 10% during the Hanson era?? Could it also be that, like us, their 10% are mostly all show and no go and that only a very small percentage of their 10% take that next step to become card carrying ISIS members?? We might not like what some of their 10% are saying but that does not make them terrorists anymore than a Pauline Hanson supporter was a klansman.

I think we owe it to ourselves to get to the bottom of what is really true and what is not. I have read many many hysterical anti-Islamic posts on HC in my time and there is one premise that is common to them all. That premise is that Islam is fundamentally evil and that therefore, by default, all Muslims are our enemy and their sole intention is to destroy us. I challenge this premise. I do not believe it to be true. I do not believe that Islam or its people are flawless either but I would be prepared to believe that they are the same mix of virtue and folly as the rest of us and that any perception other than this is based in fear of the unknown.