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Howard hits out at 'jihad' Muslims
The Australian ^ | February 20, 2006 | George Megalogenis

Posted on 02/19/2006 10:39:56 AM PST by Dundee

Howard hits out at 'jihad' Muslims

JOHN Howard has strongly criticised aspects of Muslim culture, warning they pose an unprecedented challenge for Australia's immigration program.

While he remained confident that the overwhelming majority of Muslims would be successfully integrated, the Prime Minister said there were two unique problems that previous intakes of migrants from Europe and Asia did not have.

"I do think there is this particular complication because there is a fragment which is utterly antagonistic to our kind of society, and that is a difficulty," Mr Howard told The Australian.

"You can't find any equivalent in Italian, or Greek, or Lebanese, or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad, but that is the major problem."

The Prime Minister also expressed concern about Muslim attitudes to women. "I think some of the associated attitudes towards women (are) a problem," he said.

"For all the conservatism towards women and so forth within some of the Mediterranean cultures, it's as nothing compared with some of the more extreme attitudes.

"The second one of those things is a broader problem, but to be fair to them, it's an attitude that is changing with the younger ones."

The comments are contained in a new book to mark the 10th anniversary of Mr Howard's rise to power. Written by The Australian's team of journalists and commentators, The Howard Factor -- a decade that changed the nation will be published on February 27 and launched by the Prime Minister on March 2.

Mr Howard gave a series of interviews for the book on December 9, the final sitting day of the parliamentary year for 2005. This happened to be just two days before the race riots in the Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla.

The Prime Minister did not specify which Muslim source nations he was concerned about.

By placing Lebanese immigrants in the same integrated category as the Italian, Greek, Chinese and Baltic, he appears to have been referring to the Christian rather than the Muslim intake from the Middle East.

The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ameer Ali, said the conservative Muslims about whom Mr Howard was talking represented only a "tiny fraction".

"There is (also) a tiny fraction of Australians who believe in white supremacy," said Dr Ali, who chairs Mr Howard's Muslim advisory group.

"I think he (Mr Howard) understands that the large majority of Muslims are like everyone else.

"In any society there are immigrants who try to hold on to their traditions, and it takes time to change. My faith is in the following generation -- the next generation will be more adaptive."

In the interview, Mr Howard was upbeat about the immigration program.

Australia crossed two immigrant thresholds in 2003-04, which is the latest year for which Bureau of Statistics tables are available. The overseas-born population rose to 24per cent -- its highest proportion since the 1890s. And the European share of the immigrant total fell below 50 per cent for the first time.

The previous Labor government of Paul Keating had the overseas-born at 23 per cent of the population, and the European component was 57 per cent.

Mr Howard seemed genuinely pleased when the numbers were read out to him.

"Really? I think what it demonstrates is that we have run a truly non-discriminatory immigration policy."

After slashing immigration in his first term between 1996 and 1998, Mr Howard has steadily ratcheted up the intake to levels that now exceed those under Labor's Bob Hawke in the 1980s.

As Opposition leader in 1988, Mr Howard attacked Asian immigration. He later apologised and conceded the move cost him his job at the time.

His comment in August that year was: "I wouldn't like to see it (the rate of Asian immigration) greater. I'm not in favour of going back to a White Australia policy. I do believe that if it is -- in the eyes of some in the community -- that it's too great, it would be in our immediate-term interest and supporting of social cohesion if it were slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb it was greater."

Mr Howard's latest observations on Muslim culture are not in the same category, because they do not suggest the rate of Muslim immigration should be slowed down in the interests of social cohesion. "The public sometimes mixes up attitudes to immigration with attitudes to our identity and our history," he told The Australian.

"I think one of the reasons why people have been accepting of all of this is that they feel they have a Government and a Prime Minister that is in favour of what I might call a slightly less zealous multiculturalism than was practised by my predecessor.

"Not a return to assimilation so much, but somewhere in between, which is what people want.

"What resonates most with people, I find, is they don't mind where new people come from, as long as they've got skills, and as long as they become Australians when they arrive.

"But that doesn't mean they should forget where they were born."


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: australia; cartoons; johnhoward
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To: Dundee

""The public sometimes mixes up attitudes to immigration with attitudes to our identity and our history," he told The Australian."

Huh?? Just last year he said:

A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.

Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament. "If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you," he said on national television.

http://headlines.sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13924046


21 posted on 02/19/2006 12:27:22 PM PST by Fruit of the Spirit
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To: Dundee

A "fragment" ? 99.9% does not a fragment make. They all hate us.


22 posted on 02/19/2006 12:29:44 PM PST by Porterville (Sure are a lot of these few Muslim Extremist Fanatics)
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To: monkeywrench
He's not quite there, yet. There's nothing wrong with a "return to assimilation".

You should understand that the term 'assimilation' has a very unfortunate history in Australia, so when the Prime Minister uses it, he's not talking about what would be referred to in the US. The term 'assimilation' was used here to refer to some rather genocidal anti-aboriginal policies.

23 posted on 02/19/2006 12:30:03 PM PST by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: Mulch

Why bring Mexicans into this conversation? As a Hispanic I think you are rude and I wish you to be deported.

Furthermore, It is the white liberal Godless elite that cause the most division in this nation; not Catholic Hispanics.

Look in the mirror if you wish to blame on anyone- it is is the discarded- marginalized-Anglo-liberal- perverts that destroy nations.


24 posted on 02/19/2006 12:33:17 PM PST by Porterville (Sure are a lot of these few Muslim Extremist Fanatics)
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To: AmericanMade1776

"yeah..the title confused me...I wondered if Howard Dean had a brain transplant"

To be honest in this part of the world, Howard Dean is relegated to the "Howard who?" status and when people talk about Howard they mean John Howard.


25 posted on 02/19/2006 1:32:46 PM PST by NZerFromHK (Leftism is like honey mixed with arsenic: initially it tastes good, but that will end up killing you)
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To: Andy from Beaverton

I thought it was Howie Dean also - sort of disappointed me that it isn't.

I love to hear howie sputtering - at any time of day.


26 posted on 02/19/2006 1:54:07 PM PST by SusaninOhio
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To: Izzy Dunne; Dundee

<< there is a fragment which is utterly antagonistic to our kind of society

Which begs the question: "Why did they come here?"

Answer that and you'll see what must be done. >>

Spot on.

"Radical" islam is The Beast.

"Moderate" islam is its Trojan Horse.

And Australia's Canberra-based Socialist Internationale-directed, self-annointed, self-appointed, self-cloning and self-perpetuating Permanent Public Service ruling elite [Which allows Australia's party pols to pretend to govern and to throw nanny-state mardi-gras baubles to the dickheads] is -- via the twin tyrannies of "multiculturalim" [Of which the hostilely-colonizing islamanazi "refugees" and other Trojan Horsed sleepers are the living, breathing example] and "political correctness" -- rapidly destroying Australia's control of its borders, language and culture and, including by way of the cynical and insidious misuse of the Australian Commonwealth's Treaty Powers, surrendering its sovereignty to such ghastly international gangsters as those that comprise the Socialist Internationale and its as execrable and as abjectly corrupt ally, the United Nations.

Aided and abetted, in its systemic seditions, subversions and other insidious practices, by decades -- from Whitlam through Hawke and Keating to the present pretty-much habitually-drunkard shower of self-serving Labour Party lumpen, by the execrably-alchoholic Malcolm Fraser -- and by their almost-univerally-as-evil mass media mates -- the Aussie feral gummint's essentially-fascistic permanent bureaucracy has meanwhile incrementally seen to the legislation of most of the hallmarks of the totalitarian state. Including: the back-door [Tax department] imposition of an already referendum-rejected national identity system; the not authorized by any legislation and absolutely-insidious creation of an every-Aussies-every-fart tracking feral-gummint data base; by the abject politicization of Australia's every police force and; by the effective disarming of Australia's every citizen.

Meanwhile Australia's public service elite sees to the coddling of such of its real and potential enemies as Peking's peerless predators and kow tows to the UN's ghastly gangsters.

And then, thank God, came [Failed suburban lawyer!] John.

The Right Honorable Prime Minister John Winston Howard.

AKA President Bush's little Aussie Battler Good Friend and South East Asian Deputy Sherrif/US Marshall.

Notwithstanding he is far from perfect [Gun-grabber, corporate-welfare-pushing energy-negative-ethanol promoter, eg] - or above demonstrating his Human falibilities - and handicapped by Australia's already insidiously incrementally-imposed fascissocialistic system. may he live long and continue to accomplish much!


27 posted on 02/19/2006 3:07:40 PM PST by Brian Allen (How arrogant are we to believe our career political-power-lusting lumpen somehow superior to theirs?)
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To: NZerFromHK; AmericanMade1776

<< .... in this part of the world, Howard Dean is relegated to the "Howard who?" status ... >>

You flatter him.


28 posted on 02/19/2006 3:11:44 PM PST by Brian Allen (How arrogant are we to believe our career political-power-lusting lumpen somehow superior to theirs?)
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To: monkeywrench; Dundee

<< He's not quite there, yet. There's nothing wrong with a "return to assimilation." >>

There is everything right with a return to assimilation.

And its restoration to God and Nature's Law: Assimilate or Die.


29 posted on 02/19/2006 3:15:27 PM PST by Brian Allen (How arrogant are we to believe our career political-power-lusting lumpen somehow superior to theirs?)
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To: Dundee
John Howard has a good understanding of Islam, and a lot of courage, but I think he gives them too much credit. I'm sure he wants to be PM for ALL Australians, but do many Muslims want to be Australians? Aussies have a reputation of being direct, formidable, tenacious, and courageous. I think that Howard should lead that Australia.

If the un-assimilateables get run over by the MEN from down under, so be it.

30 posted on 02/19/2006 3:37:16 PM PST by Navy Patriot
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To: FormerACLUmember

Love the `Dhimmicratic Party' button. One question: the Arabic script in the upper right corner, is it just decoration, or does it hold real meaning, as in `Islam kills', or some such?

Sure hope it's the latter.


31 posted on 02/19/2006 4:49:19 PM PST by elcid1970
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To: Dundee

You can show support for Howard's comments at this site:

http://www.skynews.com.au/index.asp


32 posted on 02/19/2006 5:35:38 PM PST by Fair Go
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To: elcid1970
Love the `Dhimmicratic Party' button. One question: the Arabic script in the upper right corner, is it just decoration, or does it hold real meaning, as in `Islam kills', or some such? Sure hope it's the latter.

I am not literate in the evil, murderous arabic Koranic script, but it looks authentic. Also Dyson is too much of a perfectionist for it not to mean something relevant and clever.

33 posted on 02/20/2006 7:11:14 AM PST by FormerACLUmember (No program, no ideas, no clue: The democrats!)
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To: Porterville
Yeah those catholic hispanics are doing just great with their own countries.
34 posted on 02/23/2006 1:50:12 PM PST by mthom
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