I have said before, and I repeat it here, that I regard as hypocrites any Federal politicians who claim to be Christian, and yet go along with the deliberate mistreatment of people seeking asylum. The key offenders are Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott Peter Dutton and Malcolm Turnbull.
Abbott, Morrison, Turnbull and Dutton claim to be Christians, along with most other members of the Australian Parliament. For fear of being misunderstood, I should declare that I was brought up in the Christian tradition, but I no longer adhere to any religion. But I do remember some of the fundamental tenets of Christian teaching: compassion for those in need; treat others as you would want to be treated…
These men lie to us, and they are hypocrites. They lie when they call boat people “illegal”, when it is not an offence to arrive in Australia, without a visa, seeking to be protected from persecution. And by their wilful mistreatment of people seeking asylum they betray the Christian values they pretend to hold.
Christ told the parable of the Good Samaritan. A Jewish traveller on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, has been stripped and beaten and left, helpless, beside the road. A priest and a Levite both pass him by and avoid engaging with him. A Samaritan sees him and helps him, even though Jews and Samaritans were traditional enemies.
Tony Abbott, who claims to be a devout Roman Catholic, once suggested that the parable of the Good Samaritan might have been different if a number of travellers had been found beside the road. It takes someone like Abbott to claim that he can reconstruct Christs’s teaching.
Abbott, Morrison, Dutton and Turnbull are dishonest hypocrites. Their conduct is impossible to reconcile with their asserted Christian beliefs.
Today I got a very snippy email from a person who did not like my views on this subject. He wrote:
Dear Mr Burnside,
You have on several occasions publicly berated and condemned Australian leaders for failing to live up to your understanding of the teachings and example of Jesus Christ(15).
Yet you deliberately and wilfully ignore the terrifying(3) implications of Muslims living in accordance with the teachings and example of Mohammed(11), as Islam commands them to.
You appear to be ideologically incapable of progressing beyond your own facile, self-serving understanding of what Islam actually teaches:
– Islam incites hatred against Jews, Christians and all non-Muslims(1)
– Islam incites violence against all non-Muslims(2)
– Islam incites terror against all non-Muslims(3)
– Islam’s prophet Mohammed was a self-professed terrorist(4)
– Prophet Mohammed tortured people to death(5)
– Mohammed beheaded men, women and children(6)
– Mohammed advocated killing non-Muslim children(7)
– Mohammed advocated global Islamic supremacy through violence(8)
– A Muslims highest goal is martyrdom, Islam’s only sure path to paradise(9)
– Islam’s prophet Mohammed sexually enslaved women after killing their menfolk(10)
– Prophet Mohammed is Islam’s perfect example for all Muslims(11)
– Islamic State “follow the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail”(12)
– Mohammed slaughtered anyone who insulted him(13)
– Islam demands the death penalty for anyone who questions or criticises Islam(14)
Pots in glass houses should be careful when throwing black stones at kettles.
(There followed an impressive number of footnotes quoting passages from the Quran)
I replied:
Thank you for advancing my education on religious matters.
Quoting extracts from the Quran is probably no more helpful than quoting selected extracts from the Bible: some well-known passages from Leviticus, for example.
In any event, your fundamental point (as exemplified by the subject line of your email) was the difference between the conspicuous Christianity of some of our political “leaders” and their conduct. As best I recall, Christ never taught people to despise or mistreat people of other religions, so politicians who make a public virtue of their Christianity (Abbott, Morrison, Turnbull…) can hardly justify their mistreatment of refugees because many refugees are Muslims. That would be difficult to square with, for example, the parable of the good Samaritan. The point of that parable, of course, was that the Samaritan helped someone who adhered to a different faith and was part of a despised group. But the hypocritical Christian politicians, who are our political “leaders” apparently think it’s OK to mistreat members of a despised minority, buoyed by the fact they are (or might be) Muslims. If you can tell me how that is acceptable as a matter of Christian teaching, I would be fascinated.
And then there is the small matter of comparing mainstream Australian values (mateship, “fair go” etc) with what the politicians do. And it seems pointless to notice that they lie to us: calling boat people “illegal”, even though they commit no offence by coming here the way they do, and calling the exercise “border protection”, although speaking for myself I feel less need to be protected from people fleeing persecution than I need to be protected from our dishonest, hypocritical politicians.
I have met people from many faiths. I have never feared any of them on account of their religious beliefs. But it is a major concern to see dislike of Islam becoming so vocal: it’s the new anti-Semitism.
In this context it is worth recalling that in July 1938 an international conference was held in Evian-Les-Bains, France. The purpose of the conference was to arrange help for the increasing number of Jewish refugees fleeing Germany. The Australian representative, T. W. White said: “as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one”. Most countries said they could not accommodate any more refugees.
History soon showed us how terrible this response was.
Why don’t you publish the “impressive number of footnotes quoting passages from the Quran” so that your readers can judge for themselves the compatibility or otherwise of Islam with “Australian Values” of compassion, tolerance and diversity?
Australia is a former colony of the brutal British empire whose values were genocide, land theft, enslavement, stealing children and locking them up as house slaves, importing children from the mother country to populate the country and lying that they were orphans.
Are those the values you think we should be proud of.
Marilyn,
Britain has historically been at the forefront of eliminating the slave trade, which had existed for thousands of years in virtually all societies, persisting in Islamic countries like Mauritania, to this day.
1706 – Lord Chief Justice of England – “as soon as a Negro comes into England, he becomes free”
1772 – 10,000 slaves emancipated under “Somersetts case”
1778 – Scots law deemed not to support slavery
1786 – NSW “no slave policy”, [Gov] Arthur Philip
1787 – “Society for the abolition of slavery” founded
1793 – Canada “Act Against Slavery” bans importation of slaves
1799 – “Colliers Act” bans slavery of coal miners
1807 – “Abolition of the Slave Trade Act” abolishes slave trade throughout the British Empire
1807-1865 – 165,000 African slaves freed by British Navy patrols
1811 – Slave trading made a felony punishable by transportation
1818 – signs bilateral treaty with Spain to abolish slave trade
1818 – Bilateral treaty with Portugal to abolish slave trade
1818 – Bilateral treaty with Netherlands to abolish slave trade
1819 – Canadian AG declares all slaves free
1823 – Anti Slavery Society founded
1827 – Bilateral treaty with Sweden to abolish slave trade
1827 – Bilateral treaty with Norway to abolish slave trade
1833 – “Slavery Abolition Act” frees 60,000 African slaves
1835 – Bilateral treaty with France to abolish slave trade
1835 – Bilateral treaty with Denmark to abolish slave trade
1840 – Bilateral treaty with Venezuala to abolish slave trade
1840 – First “World Anti-Slavery Convention” held in London
1843 – Bilateral treaty with Uruguay to abolish slave trade
1843 – Bilateral treaty with Mexico to abolish slave trade
1843 – Bilateral treaty with Chile to abolish slave trade
1843 – Bilateral treaty with Bolivia to abolish slave trade
1845 – 36 Royal Navy ships assigned to the Anti-Slavery Squadron
etc, etc, etc
“I have met people from many faiths. I have never feared any of them on account of their religious beliefs.”
Would you say that if you met the knife wielders in Paris and London Bridge; or 15 year old Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar? It’s no good closing your eyes to what’s in the Koran and Hadith if disengaged muslims in Australia find themselves inspired by it.
I recently worked in a muslim house where the women were sent to the garage while there was in infidel in the house (and no I don’t have Southern Cross face tattoos). Are you meeting new Australians like that Julian? Just maybe muslim disengagement isn’t all down to hostility from the descendants of genocidal invaders.
Dislike of Islam is disagreeing with a faith that people in Australia are free to leave if they choose. Anti-semitism is hatred of a racial group that people can’t leave. I would have thought apples and oranges; but whatever, you’re the top QC.
JB’s oft-used Samaritan straw man is no analogy at all:
– The traveller had not journeyed 10,000km through numerous safe countries.
– The traveller did not demand permanent residency at the inn.
– The Good Samaritan did not undertake to financially support the traveller and his family and his relatives and thousands of his countrymen for life.
– The traveller did not claim adherence to a holy book which called on the traveller to “smite the neck” of the Samaritan (Quran 47:4)
– The traveller’s God did not call on the traveller to strike terror into the heart of the Samaritan (Quran 8:12)
– The traveller’s holy book did not condemn the Samaritan as “the worst of living creatures” (Quran 8:22)
– The traveller had not been commanded by his prophet to “kill any Samaritan who falls in your power” (Ibn Ishaq – Sirat Rasul Allah, p369)
– The traveller’s prophet did not curse the Samaritan on his death bed
(Sahih Bukhari 1:8:427)
The Good Samaritan would have wisely given the traveller a wide berth had he known that the traveller adhered to an ideology which called for the Good Samaritan’s destruction(Quran 9:30)
Perhaps these teachings of Jesus are more relevant, Mr Burnside:
– “Judge not lest ye be judged”, or
– “Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye”