David Singer On The Folly Of "De-Islamizing" The Sydney Siege: "The Bogeyman in the Lindt Chocolat café won’t go away"

In his latest article, appropriately entitled "Islamic State – The Bogeyman Haunting The Lindt Chocolat Café" Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer justifiably points to the folly, which has affected even the Australian prime minister, of trying to divorce Islam from the Sydney siege.

Incidentally, although this video (hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog) is not part of David Singer's article, it is nevertheless instructive as to what some uninhibited people are saying, and what certain other people are saying back to them, at the normally dignified site of the floral tributes to the murdered victims of Man Haron Monis:  Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson.


Writes David Singer:


The joint press conference given by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on 16 December after the siege at the Lindt Chocolate café in Martin Place had finally ended - was particularly noteworthy for certain viewpoints expressed by Mr Abbott during that conference.

 The Prime Minister  – flanked by NSW Premier Mike Baird, Commissioner Colvin of the Federal Australian Police and Deputy Commissioner Burn of the New South Wales Police – made the following statement:

“It is pretty obvious that the perpetrator was a deeply disturbed individual, a long history of crime, a long history of mental instability and infatuation with extremism. It’s interesting that the ISIL death cult seems to attract people like that. I refuse to use the term Islamic State and I would strongly caution anyone, anywhere, from using that term, because that exults a movement which has nothing to do with any real religion and is a travesty of a true and just state. It is very wrong to identify the death cult that the individual concerned tried to associate himself with; it is very wrong to identify that death cult with any community or with any faith. The phrase that I like to refer to, uttered by my friend, Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia, of the ISIL death cult: it's against God, it's against religion, it's against humanity.”

The Prime Minister’s description of the perpetrator  – self-styled Islamic cleric Man Haron Monis – failed to mention his involvement - with his partner Amirah Droudis – in a long running legal battle defending charges arising from letters sent in 2007 to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Their cases and appeals have so far progressed through eight separate court hearings and appeals in which Monis and Droudis were separately represented by two different legal teams.

Funded at enormous public expense by Australian taxpayers – the matter first reached the High Court in 2012 leaving the High Court’s six judges who heard their case split neatly down the middle 3-3.
At this High Court hearing three QC’s, Five Senior Counsel, and 10 Junior Counsel appeared for Monis and Droudis the Queen and the State of New South Wales – with the Commonwealth, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland intervening .

The latest hearing – a second Application for removal of all the proceedings to the High Court – was heard on 12 December 2014 by the High Court - comprising his Honour Chief Justice French and his Honour Justice Gageler – who refused the applications.

The matters are listed for mention in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal again on 12 February 2015.
The opinions of these legal teams regarding Monis’s alleged mental instability and ability to give instructions and comprehend what he was being told could prove most enlightening.
The Prime Minister’s comments exhorting people not to mention the term “Islamic State” fly in the face of the unpleasant reality that has developed since Islamic State and the restoration of the Caliphate were formally declared in June and has since reportedly attracted 80 recruits to its ranks from Australia.

Prime Minister Abbott’s attempt to downplay the threat to world peace and security constituted by the actions of Islamic State – as endorsed by the UN Security Council in Resolutions 2170 and 2178 – constitute a serious error of judgement. Mr Abbott’s ”death cult” views were first expressed in September this year. At pains to “de-islamize” the Martin Place siege – the Prime Minister stated at his joint press conference:

“We are a very united society. Yes, we have amongst us a few deranged individuals who may choose to try to wrap their psychoses in a political ideology. But the point I keep making is that the ISIL death cult has nothing to do with any religion, any real religion. It has nothing to do with any particular community. It is something to which sick individuals succumb and sick individuals exist in all communities and in all societies. This idea that ISIL is somehow spawned by any particular religion, frankly it's probably even less true than saying that Catholicism spawned the IRA. They're just completely separate things.”

Islam was clearly visible at the Lindt Chocolat café when Monis forced hostages to hold up a black flag that declared in Arabic script:

“There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”

“Islamic State” was also certainly at the forefront of his thinking.

In a video  – shot while the siege was ongoing and posted to Facebook  – Westpac executive and fitness business owner Marcia Mikhael relayed three requests by Monis including:

"One is for him to get an IS flag and he will release one hostage.”

New York Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counter Terrorism – John Miller – had no reticence in stating that the Martin Place siege had the hallmarks of Islamic State orders – telling the Daily Telegraph on December 16:

“You have to go back to September when ISIS put out the call through its official spokesman for people to attack in their own countries with what they have at hand.”

Viewing Islamic State as purely a death cult and not a well-armed and run State already occupying an area larger than England denies the reality of what this group poses.

The bogeyman in the Lindt Chocolat café won’t go away because Australia’s Prime Minister wants to put the term “Islamic State” out of sight and out of mind. 

Monis & The Media: "The Denial, The Racism Of The Anti-racists, It All Must End"

This is a sequel to my last two posts.

If Wikipedia is accurate, Ms Silma Ihram, from the Australian Muslim Women's Association,  has been round the block a bit as far as choosing a faith is concerned:

'Silma Ihram was born Anne Frances Beaumont, to a middle-class agnostic family,and grew up in the suburb of Balgowlah, on Sydney's Northern Beaches....

Despite the Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist influences from her up-bringing, Ihram ended up with the Baptists who she found to be "very inspirational." She then moved to an Islander church in North Queensland, and studied theology by correspondence from the Baptist sector. Ihram became a born-again Christian in 1968, and participated in missionary work with the Children's Special Service Mission (CSSM) in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1976, during an extended trip to Indonesia, Ihram had a "personal revelation that I had to become a Muslim" and converted to Islam, changing her name to Silma Ihram.  come a Muslim" and converted to Islam, changing her name to Silma Ihram. She was followed soon after by her Irish Catholic husband.... '

 "The long history of Islam is ... working with other faiths," she  told the ABC in a breakfast time interview live from Sydney's Martin Place, in front of the pile of floral tributes to the victims of this week's tragedy at the hands of Man Haron Monis (pictured).

To a highly receptive and sympathetic Michael Rowland, co-anchor of the ABC's Breakfast show, the articulate Ms Ihram declared that while Muslim community leaders laid wreathes the previous day, they do not acknowledge that the gunman's action's had anything to do with Islam, and that "the reluctance in sometimes doing this" is because it would be seen as a confirmation on their part that such terrible acts are connected with Islam.

See the video here

But the idea of Muslim victimhood, so keenly pushed by the ABC's Rowland, has been roundly condemned by the always worth reading Australian columnist Andrew Bolt.

That courageous realist of Aussie columnists, Bolt, has a typically astute column out today in the Murdoch papers for which he writes.  He observes, inter alia:

'....  Must we always feign this surprise when a terrorist is found to be – gasp – Muslim? Surely we can drop this absurd game given 21 of the 21 people jailed for terrorism offences here in the past couple of decades were all Muslim, as are 19 of the 20 proscribed terrorist groups in Australia. 

Surely we’re entitled to conclude something specific to Islam seems to license violence, given we have just as many Buddhists here as Muslims, yet not one Buddhist has killed here for his faith....

The ideology Monis followed was inspired in large part by Islamic scriptures that urge believers to “kill the polytheists wherever you find them” and exhorts “so when you meet those who disbelieve (in battle), strike (their) necks”.

We’re told, as always, that those who take seriously such passages in the Koran and Hadith are a tiny, unrepresentative minority.

But wait. The Sydney Morning Herald reports Monis had more than 14,000 “likes” on Facebook and a Muslim community leader asked by counterterrorism authorities to find the ISIS flag Monis demanded said: “I found plenty of people who had one, but they didn’t want to give them up.”

So why this denial about Islam – and specifically about its role in this attack?

For the authorities it is about public order. They fear reprisals against Muslims and also do not wish to alienate the overwhelming majority of peaceful Muslims here whose help they need against radicals.

For the Left more generally, to admit the latent threat in Islam would be to question disastrous Leftist programs that have left this country more exposed to political violence – particularly our too-lax immigration programs, multiculturalism and the much-rorted “refugee” programs that let in Monis in 1996. It is also to seem unkind.

But the denial, the racism of the anti-racists, it all must end.

The elements are shocking, true. But Islam contains a strong streak of violence and intolerance of other creeds. Mass immigration from the Middle East has left us in greater danger than before. Muslim leaders were recklessly slow to help fight extremism in their doctrine and their followers, including the mad.

And by screaming “racist” rather than allow debate, our academics, commentators and politicians deafened us to the warnings until it was too late.

 Be sure to read the entire article  here for he does address the issue of Monis's perceived madness.

Statement from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry:

ECAJ Statement on events at Martin Place, Sydney on 15 December 2014

The Australian Jewish community is shocked and appalled by the terrifying taking of hostages at Martin Place on December 15 and ensuing events, and is deeply saddened by the news that the incident has ended with the deaths of two innocent people, Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson.

We pray for their souls and share in the sorrow, grief and revulsion caused by the heinous crime which claimed their lives. May their families be granted strength at this time of great pain and may the survivors be healed fully, both physically and emotionally.

We pay tribute to the NSW police and supporting federal agencies for their dedication, professionalism and absolute commitment to the preservation of innocent life. Australians are fortunate to be served by people of their dedication and calibre.

The perpetrator of the crime was a lone disturbed individual with a criminal history who cloaked his personal grievances in Islam and Islamist ideology. His evil actions must not be allowed to sow discord in our tolerant, multicultural society, or to weaken the resolve of our government to fight those who seek to inflict terror on innocent people at home and abroad. On the contrary, we have every confidence that this terrible tragedy will unite Australians and harden our nation’s commitment to fighting violent extremism and incitement to ensure that this sort of tragedy is never visited upon our society again.