Posted on 02/25/2006 5:45:50 AM PST by xzins
February 24, 2006 19:30 PM
Australian treasurer calls for Muslim hardliners to lose citizenship
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian Treasurer Peter Costello, favourite to become the country's next leader, has called for Muslim extremists to be stripped of their citizenship while denouncing multiculturalism as "mushy and misguided".
The comments from Prime Minister John Howard's anointed successor have outraged Australia's Islamic minority, with leaders saying it is the latest in a stream of unfair criticism from a conservative government out to marginalise their community.
Costello demanded new citizens accept Australian laws rather than attempt to live by alternative codes such as sharia (Islamic) law, saying it was a sign of respect in the same way that taking off one's shoes before entering a mosque showed deference towards Islam.
"If you have strong objections to walking in your socks, don't enter the mosque," Costello told a function in Sydney late Thursday. "If you have strong objections to (Australian) values, don't come to Australia."
Prominent figures in the Muslim community, which numbers about 300,000 or 1.5 percent of Australia's 20 million population, said they could not understand why they were being targeted by Costello and the Howard government.
Shaken by racial rioting between white youths and Arab-Australians on Sydney's beaches last December, many Muslims have been frustrated by strong government support of the US "war on terror" and draconian counter-terrorism measures introduced after the 9/11 attacks.
Muslim leaders said their community was being further isolated by a string of criticism from government members, including Howard. In remarks published this week ahead of his 10th anniversary in power, the prime minister criticised a minority of Muslims who "rave on about jihad" and hold extreme views "utterly antagonistic" to Australian values.
Government backbencher Danna Vale also said last week that Australians were aborting themselves "almost out of existence" and the country could become a Muslim nation within 50 years as a result.
She later apologised. Islamic Council of Victoria representative Waleed Aly said he believed there was a deliberate government attempt to scapegoat Muslims.
"It seems quite clearly calculated at marginalising a part of mainstream Australia that's been part of mainstream Australia for 50 years, but suddenly it's some sort of hideous problem," he said.
Australia has for decades had a policy of multiculturalism, offically defined as "supporting the right of each Australian to maintain and celebrate, within the law, their culture, language or religion". But critics such as Howard believe it should place more emphasis on specific Australian cultural values.
Costello said he was surprised when attending a recent citizenship ceremony to hear a politician extoll multiculturalism's virtues by saying new citizens need not give up their culture, language, religion or love of their birth country.
"I realized that this confused, mushy, misguided multiculturalism completely underestimated the audience," he said. "Becoming a citizen of another country changes their identity."
Costello stood by his comments Friday, reiterating his view that migrants with dual citizenship who scorned Australian values should have their citizenship revoked and go to a country where they would feel more comfortable.
Howard backed him, saying Costello's comments were "fundamentally accurate" and accusing Muslim leaders of being too sensitive to criticism.
"He's not trying to stir up hostilities with Islamic people," Howard told commercial radio. "For some to throw up their arms in horror and say that there's something wrong in even talking about this issue is ridiculous," he said.
The oppositon Labor Party said Costello's remarks were an attempt to shed his reputation as a liberal and endear himself to Howard's conservative supporters. He succeeded in winning over Pauline Hanson, the right-wing populist who stood on a platform of anti-Asian immigration in the 1990s.
She urged Costello to back up his rhetoric and expel people who refused to embrace Australia.
"If Peter Costello is wanting to be a future prime minister of this country he needs to take a tough stand on this, he needs to deal with it harshly," she told public radio.
© AFP 2006
Costello said he was surprised when attending a recent citizenship ceremony to hear a politician extoll multiculturalism's virtues by saying new citizens need not give up their culture, language, religion or love of their birth country.
"I realized that this confused, mushy, misguided multiculturalism completely underestimated the audience," he said. "Becoming a citizen of another country changes their identity."
Costello stood by his comments Friday, reiterating his view that migrants with dual citizenship who scorned Australian values should have their citizenship revoked and go to a country where they would feel more comfortable.
Be he doesn't care if they manage their ports.
Damn. Aren't we looking for a Republican Presidential candidate for 2008? He's got my vote.
Now if other nations would just follow suit, we could eliminate this one-sided tolerance for once and for all.
That's some quote from Danna Vale...do you have any more info about her?
The "oath of citizenship" in the U.S. precludes any kind of evasion or mental reservation.
If a naturalized Islamic citizen in the US were to be advocating the overthrow of the US gov't and its replacement with sharia law, then I'd consider he had falsely sworn his oath of citizenship, and I would ANNUL it....as if it had never been accurately sworn.
The Mussies arrogantly want to set their own rules.
How To Lose Friends & Alienate People 101.
See #7.
Where is a candidate with this kind of backbone in America?
McCain?....nah....
This is a direct attack on liberalism, which has been long overdue.
Liberalism, in its push for multiculturalism and diversity, is directly responsible for the immigration problems of the Western countries.
My liberal brother see's my new camo baseball cap given to me by a chemical company vendor...the companys name,
DIVERSY
He said how nice, that you celebrate Diversity!
Screw Diversity I grumbled back, thats Diversy, a company I do business with. You listen to too much of that NPR bullsh*t, thats your problem.
Tom Tancredo!
Prominent figures in the Muslim community, which numbers about 300,000 or 1.5 percent of Australia's 20 million population, said they could not understand why they were being targeted by Costello and the Howard government.
If the Muslim community is currently only 1.5 % of the Aussie population I don’t see how it could be part of the “mainstream” for 50 years.
As for why they are being targeted by the government, maybe it is because your particular group has obstinately refused to assimilate. Your people continue to keep some of your peculiar customs which the Aussie culture has deemed anti-social such as killing your wives or daughters and expecting to get away with it, beating wives or daughters and expecting to get away with it, raping women caught in public without a burka and expecting to get away with it. These thing and more are unacceptable in the West.
He's one guy who gets it and admits to getting it.
Exactly.
If I couldn't be American, I'd want to be Australian.
Tom Tancredo!
Yes!!!!!
"...deliberate government attempt to scapegoat Muslims..."
The government is NOT attempting to make scapegoats of Muslims...they (Muslims) did it to themselves. These people are intelligent but insane...the "Silence of the Lamb" mentality.
It is the howls of muslims that indirectly proves that they plan to refuse to assimilate into Australian culture. If assimilation and the forcing of sharia weren't an issue, their collective response to comments by Howard and Costello would be a polite "okey dokie."
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