It is alarming to see the views some Australians have. On 23 May, Roger Franklin published an article in the online edition of Quadrant, in which he said it would have been better if the bomb which killed so many in Manchester had instead been detonated in the ABC studios during last Monday night’s Q & A. Specifically, he wrote:
“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 panel’s likely casualties would have represented the slightest reduction in humanity’s intelligence, decency, empathy or honesty.”
Beyond that bit of foolish poison from Roger Franklin, there is a person who emails me regularly, advocating various anti-Muslim responses. For example, he advocates:
- banning all Muslims from Australia
- supporting Pauline Hanson and Donald Trump
- putting all Muslims in Concentration Camps
- strafing Muslim boat people (for the millennials, strafing means machine gunning)
More recently, he wrote this:
- (in relation to Angela Merkel): “Poor Herr Hitler must be rolling in his grave to see that Germany is being led by: (i) a women, (ii) a former Communist, (iii) who is inviting in the enemies of the Aryan race to destroy the Fatherland. This is not going to end well”
- (in relation to the Manchester bombing): “After the attack in the UK do [you] now agree Concentration Camps are the answer to protect our children from Muslims?”
- (in relation to 2 Sudanese refugees, accused of involvement in a home invasion): “How about electrocuting these bastards as well or at least putting them in concentration camps as did our former Prime Minister – Billy Hughes?”
- “the famous “Rivers of Blood” speech of Enoch Powell … must be one of the greatest speeches of our time.”
- “Human Rights are bullshit”
And he fired up about Yassmin Abdel-Magied:
“Do you recall the fate of the American William Joyce who was better known as Lord Haw Haw? Joyce promoted an evil ideology of world domination through violence using the media. Yassmin Abdel -Mageed (sic) is also promoting an evil ideology of world domination through violence using the media.
The British hung Joyce. What punishment should be given to Yassmin the Traitor?”
The trouble with stuff like this is that it gives vent to some weird inner frustration with no regard to the facts. Lord Haw Haw campaigned against Britain during the second World War and was hanged as a traitor. Yassmin Abdel-Magied quietly invited us, when we are not at war, not to forget refugees held on Manus and Nauru, and not to forget Syria and Palestine. They are things we should not forget. Maybe my frequent emailer is the real traitor, for betraying the values Australia defended during two world wars.
What people like Roger Franklin (and my frequent emailer) do not seem to understand is that their rabid views are just as dangerous as the views of Islamic extremists and other madmen. Dangerous because, by inciting hatred against all Muslims, they run a very clear risk of radicalising some Muslims who (understandably) feel that they are not welcome in our community, even if they have never said or done anything which could be a threat to any of us. Radicalising young people is a foolish and dangerous thing to do: it creates the very risk Roger Franklin (and my frequent emailer) are so upset about.
Incidentally, Roger Franklin was very rude about Lawrence Krauss, who was on the Q & A panel which Franklin would have liked to see bombed. What Franklin wrote was this:
“A smug stick insect and tireless self-promoter, fellow guest Lawrence Krauss, the warmist shill who has the gall to present himself as a man of science, couldn’t resist the temptation to demonstrate a nuanced acuity. Below are his actual words, reproduced verbatim. Try not to throw up.
You’re more likely to be killed by a refrigerator, in the United States, falling on you.
If you need to read this loathsome creature’s glib sophistry once more, just to grasp the full breadth of its breathtaking brazenness, brace yourself and do so.
Tumbling refrigerators are a bigger hazard than Islamic terrorism? God Almighty but that Krauss is a filthy liar.”
Let’s put to one side that Franklin did not understand Krauss’ point. The simple fact is that dying in a terrorist event is a very unlikely way of dying. I am not trivialising it: it is a terrible thing. But here are the statistics: 
thank you Julian – It continually surprises me that in a supposedly educated community there is so much virulent hatred. It seems that there is little actual discussion. Our system has fallen into one of a debate where one side is decreed right and the other wrong. We need to (re)learn how to communicate.
Julian, you remain a lighthouse of sanity in a sea of madness. Keep it up, thanks for what you do.
Julian, it is a sad state of affairs when these people are blind to their inhumanity, and somehow aware that what they promote is a vile and dangerous form of hatred.
As usual Julian you make many great points and state what many REAL Australians think. Hatred gets nobody anywhere.
Thank you, Julian Burnside, for being a voice of reason, intelligence and compassion. We need so much more of this in these troubled times. I do not understand where some people get their narrow, hate ridden views from – full of the violence they proclaim to be against!
If you consider Roger Franklin’s “rabid views” dangerous because they “incite hatred against all Muslims”, then you must also acknowledge that Islam is dangerous because it “incites hatred against all non-Muslims”(1).
Your claim that Roger Franklin risks “radicalising” young Muslims is risible, as the Islamic texts have been “radicalising” young Muslims for fourteen centuries.
Furthermore, “the values Australia defended during two world wars” are nowhere to be found in Islamic doctrine and I challenge you to prove otherwise.
Islamic values are antithetical to Australian values, as the Islamic texts make abundantly clear.
(1)
‘believers are allowed to show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly. For instance, Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Ad-Darda’ said, “We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.” Tafsir of Ibn Kathir
“Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoso doeth that hath no connection with Allah unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were) security.”
Quran 3:28
“O ye who believe! Take not into your intimacy those outside your ranks; they will not fail to corrupt you. They only desire your ruin: rank hatred has already appeared from their mouths; what their hearts conceal is far worse. We have made plain to you the Signs, if ye have wisdom.”
Quran 3:118
“They wish that you should disbelieve, as they have disbelieved, and thus you become all alike. So, do not take friends from among them unless they migrate in the way of Allah. Then, if they turn away, seize them, and kill them wherever you find them, and do not take from among them a friend or helper.”
Quran 4:89
“Those who chose disbelievers for their friends instead of believers! Do they look for power at their hands? Lo! all power appertaineth to Allah.”
Quran 4:139
“O ye who believe! Choose not disbelievers for (your) friends in place of believers.
Would ye give Allah a clear warrant against you?”
Quran 4:144
“O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.”
Quran 5:51 (refer also appendix T)
“Your friend can be only Allah; and His messenger and those who believe”
Quran 5:55
“You see many of them take the unbelievers for friends. Indeed, evil is what they have sent ahead for themselves, for Allah is angry with them, and they are to remain in torment for ever.”
Quran 5:80
“If they believed in Allah, in the prophet, and in what had been sent down to him, they would have not taken the unbelievers for friends, but many of them are sinners.”
Quran 5:81
“Verily! The worst of (moving) living creatures with Allah are the deaf and the dumb, who understand not (i.e. the disbelievers)”
Quran 8:22
“And those who disbelieve are friends to each other.”
Quran 8:73
“O you who believe, do not take your fathers and your brothers as your friends, if they prefer infidelity to Faith. Those of you who have friendship with them are the wrongdoers.”
Quran 9:23
“O you who believe! Take not My enemies and your enemies (i.e. disbelievers) as friends, showing affection towards them”
Quran 13:1
“You will not find those who believe in Allah and in the Hereafter having friendship with those who oppose Allah and His Messenger, even though they may be their fathers or their sons or their brothers or their clan”
Quran 58:22
“O ye who believe! Choose not My enemy and your enemy for friends. Do ye give them friendship when they disbelieve in that truth which hath come unto you, driving out the messenger and you because ye believe in Allah, your Lord? If ye have come forth to strive in My way and seeking My good pleasure, (show them not friendship). Do ye show friendship unto them in secret, when I am best aware of what ye hide and what ye proclaim? And whosoever doeth it among you, he verily hath strayed from the right way.” – Quran 60:1
‘There is for you an excellent example (to follow) in Ibrahim and those with him when they said to their people: “We are clear of you and of whatever ye worship besides Allah: We have rejected you, and there has arisen, between us and you, enmity and hatred― forever― unless ye believe in Allah and Him alone” ‘
Quran 60:4
“For the worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are those who reject Him: they will not believe.”
Quran 8:55
“Jews and Christians are the worst of creatures.”
Quran 98:6
“Allah does not love the unbelievers”
Quran 3:32
t3.8 “shun those Allah has condemned”
‘Umdat as-Salik wa ‘Uddat an-Nasik