DANIEL SCOT, DANNY NALLIAH DECISION IN THE VICTORIAN CIVIL AND ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL.

Jim Ball Editorial

Saturday December 18th

 

The decision by Judge Michael Higgins in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal on December 17th is on the one hand ignorant and disgraceful and on the other hand probably a good thing.

Why?

Well, it further highlights, reinforces and underscores what many decent Australians think about how mainstream Australians and their institutions, traditions and mores are under attack.

 

Forget the Clover Moore sideshow over Christmas decorations and New Year celebrations, as important as they may be.

This is far more serious and far more dangerous and goes to the very heart of our freedoms of speech and expression, and our ability to comment, query, question and compare.

 

This was the first case to be brought under the draconian Victorian religious tolerance laws by the Equal Opportunity Commission in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, and goes back to the commentary by Pastor Daniel Scot at a Christian seminar held in March 2002, on Jihad, comparisons of the teaching of the Bible and the Qur’an, Islamic culture and how to share the love of Jesus for their salvation.

Keep in mind that these are the same laws that a Federal Labor Government wanted to introduce if they were elected back in October.

 

It is worth taking note of Daniel Scot’s biography:

“Daniel Scot is a Pakistani who came to Australia in the late 1980's.

He was forced to leave Pakistan after being charged under the blasphemy laws for which the penalty is death. He was one of only two Christian lecturers in Mathematics in Pakistan at university level. He was not only on top of the merit list when he competed for the position, but obtained 100 % in Islamic knowledge which were part of his examination for the position of lecturer in Mathematics.

He lectured at Queensland University in Mathematics. He reads and writes classical Arabic and speaks a total of 4 languages.

He is a Christian but is regarded as a world non-Islamic Authority on Islam and lectures in various parliament houses in Australia on Islamic matters and travels the world lecturing on Islam.”

 

Muslims seem to be laboring under the misguided idea that some how their belief system is immune from comment, criticism, query or question.

That maybe ok in an Islamic theocracy in the Middle East or Pakistan but this is Australia, and it’s not ok.

We comment and criticise on all manner of belief systems, political, religious, lifestyle choices, it doesn’t matter.

All our institutions, people and personalities are up for comment.

Prime Ministers, Premiers, and Popes…The Constitution, the Catholic Church…And yes, even the Judiciary and people like Judge Michael Higgins now and again deserve a spray.    

With Islam there is a great deal to question and to be concerned about. Forget the ignorance of Judge Michael Higgins, read the books and the commentary for yourself. Read the newspapers, log on, observe. Google away. It is all out there and it’s not hard to find. Just a few key strokes will do it.

Observe what’s happening in places like Holland, France, Germany, Denmark and Britain…and of course the Middle East.

 

Muslims living under this legislation in Victoria will bridle when they realise that this kind of legislative sledge hammer is in fact a sword that cuts both ways.

How long will it be before a Christian or Jewish group launch a case on the basis that they are offended by passages in the Koran and Haddith? Passages that speak of killing the infidel,  the Jews, the polytheists and sundry other unbelievers…

Then of course there are the Qur’anic references to Jews being converted to pigs and monkeys, Sura 2:65, 5:60 (different Korans may have slightly different verse numbers) and in Al-Bukhari Hadith Vol 4, 524 Muhammad taught that Jews were converted to rats.

Perhaps they had better purge their texts of such grotesque commentary, or they may very well find themselves before the VCAT and forced to apologise. Remember the sword cuts both ways.

 

This action in the VCAT simply demonstrates the intolerance of Islam and the intolerance of those that brought the case.

The Koran and the various Hadiths are the one and only original texts, supposedly the final and literal hand of God…as Muslims would have you believe.

What you see and read is what you get.

“Taken out of context, misinterpreted, and misunderstood.”

We’ve heard it all before and it simply doesn’t wash. In Australia, the lingua franca is English. That is the language that binds us.

If the Koran doesn’t translate from Arabic then Islam has a problem. Perhaps it belongs in Arabia?

The ancient holy texts from other religions seem to make the journey ok.

There is no “Koran upgrade 2004”, no King James version, no New Testament, no modification, no reformation, no renaissance   no enlightenment.

It’s straight out of the 7th century. No negotiation and no compromise.

 

Understand this:

If this vexatious type of litigation driven by Islamic intolerance and zealotry is not reigned in, there is trouble on the road up ahead…

 

The motives of the judge in the case have to be queried.

Why release such an explosive judgment on a Friday ahead of the weekend before Christmas, where it gets buried? Everyone’s on holidays or near enough to it: Caught up with the cricket, Down at the beach, concerned with Christmas, the HSC results were out on the same day…and oh yes…opinionated media (read, talk radio hosts are out of town)…

Then there are the motives of the 3 Islamic converts. They should also be placed under the microscope. What were they doing at a seminar for Infidels???

Then of course there were the motives of the EOC.

And this is where it gets interesting.

They were touting for business to test the new laws, plain and simple. They wanted to flex their muscle and actually asked two of the converts, Jan Jackson and Malcolm Thomas, to attend the seminar… In short the whole exercise was an ambush.

A set up, a fix, a stitch up.

Or if you like a conspiracy.

Diane Sisely, the head of the Equal Opportunity Commission hired May Helou head of the Islamic Council of Victoria’s support group for women and Muslim converts.

She was hired to drum up business for the EOC.

Helou in her capacity with the ICV advised the converts about the forthcoming seminar. The concern was that there would be a Christian seminar full of Christians (Wow! How about that? Who would ever have thought it?) without any Muslims present.

As Andrew Bolt from the Herald Sun observed in his piece ‘Let us Pray’ you could be forgiven for thinking that the EOC “…Doesn’t just resolve complaints but incites them”.

Remember May Helou was working both sides of the street. A foot in each camp as it were. For the ICV on the one hand and the EOC on the other. Is that not a conflict of interest? A conspiracy?

Does it not reinforce the perceptions of sly trickery, duplicity and deception? 

From the very beginning, before any of this got to court, Daniel Scot offered to apologise if the Islamic Council of Victoria could show him where he was wrong. He was never told nor was it ever indicated to him where he was wrong. Because he wasn’t. He couldn’t have been otherwise the ICV would have told him. Wouldn’t they? Or is that more deceit? More duplicity? More trickery?

 

It is pregnant with irony that one of the penalties that may be handed down in January could be for Scot and Nalliah to apologise. This is what Scot offered from day one.

If that turns out to be the case then we are entitled to ask exactly what the case was all about?

That answer is simple:

The ICV and the EOC simply wanted a court case…so as to shut Scot and others up. They just don’t want people talking about the nasty bits of the Koran that abrogate the nice bits.

Incidentally no one has ever been able to explain the logic as to how the perfect word of God, could possibly require abrogation, clarification or correction. If it is the perfect word of God, then God, surely would have got it right the first time.

 

Regardless of the tortured logic of the Judge’s findings and decisions, many, if not all, of the things that Daniel Scott spoke of are in fact in the Koran and Hadiths. The history of Islam since the beginning has been violent, barbaric, bloody, belligerent, arrogant uncompromising and intolerant. Read the books yourself. Ask a Christian Copt from Egypt. Ask a Christian Lebanese.  

Better still, listen to and ask Daniel Scot. He’s lived through it as a Christian in Pakistan and came close to death under the blasphemy laws of that country.

Unlike Judge Higgins, Daniel Scot does know what he’s talking about.

 

In a Paul Sheehan piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Danny Nalliah was happy to summarise the views that led to this imbroglio: "I have lived in Saudi Arabia and learned the real nature of Islam. It is to dominate other religions and other cultures. The Koran speaks of world domination. I have spoken to a lot of Muslim leaders who say it is easy to exploit the Western system. The say the key is to be patient, to learn the language, and to build up numbers. Then build up political power.”’

 

If Muslims have a problem with the reading and recitation of this stuff, purge it from your texts. Have a reformation, whatever it takes.  If it is not for reading, highlighting, comparison, comment or discussion than it shouldn’t be there in the first place. At least have the guts to defend and argue for your religion against people like Daniel Scot and Danny Nalliah and don’t just try and shut down debate and comment via the courts.

That will never substitute for argument and debate, will not win you any friends and will simply go to reinforce existing prejudices and perceptions with respect to conceit, arrogance and belligerence. 

In short the judge’s decision changes nothing.

Only the Muslims can do that.

The ball is in their court.

 

As Charles Moore wrote today in an opinion piece in the UK Telegraph “……They cannot find the courage and the words to get to grips with the huge problem that confronts Islam in the modern world.

This is: how does a belief system founded, in part, on conquest, and preaching a virtual identity between religious and political power, live at ease in plural, free, secular societies?

Instead of answering this question, they tend to attack the people who ask it, and ask for special laws to silence them.”

I think that just about says it all,

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