Reading, Writing & bugger-all Arithmetic ...

SUPER-SHORT STORY: Little Red Westfield Corvette

2011-08-20T14:06:00.000+10:00

She notices the red sports car in which she sits is gradually coming to a stop. It is the end of the journey. All around her is in motion. Only she is still.

Now the man next to her puts his arms out to grab her. She weeps, her cheeks now virtually pasted with tears.

“It’s all over,” her beloved says.

She clutches onto the steering wheel, wondering how she can restart the motor. She touches the dashboard. She manhandles the gearbox. It’s all in vain.

“Come on, honey, I don’t have any more money,” her beloved man says as she pushes away his outstretched arms.

So that was it. Such a short journey. They end up where they started. It seemed like a few fleeting moments. What an act of futility. What a waste.

Now her head shakes violently. People walk past, trying to ignore the commotion of her tantrum. Her short brown curls are now gleaming with sweat. She is now bashing the steering wheel.

His patience is now in short supply. He wonders what he can do to make her stop. Why can’t she just face reality? It’s over.

In desperation, he places his hand in his pocket. It turns out reality wasn’t as he imagined. He feels the familiar shape of a small gold coin.

“Don’t cry, my dear, I have another $2. But you can only have a ride if you promise not to cry.”

Dad inserts the $2 coin. Jessica gets to have a few more moments of gentle rocking in the red sports car. Then they head home quickly so Dad and the grocery bags can head straight for the freezer before tonight’s iftar goes off.

(Completed 1:42pm at what passes for a foodcourt at Calamvale Central Shopping Centre.)

Words © 2011 Irfan Yusuf

Sheik Yahiya Howard?

2011-01-11T11:18:00.000+11:00

So that Indonesian Sheik who shares his surname with the New South Wales Governor has invited John Howard to become a Muslim. Sounds pretty halal to me. But there might be a few hitches.

For a start, Mr Howard might be expected to change his name. Some Muslims seem to think that converting to Islam means having to de-Anglicise your name.

My old mate Gazza, a member of the Socialist Left of the ALP, tells me that he had to de-Anglicise his name. So he changed from Gary to Adam.

Huh? Why Adam? Gazza relates that he first converted to please his somewhat feisty Fiji-Indian wife. He would have remained a lapsed Anglo-Catholic (i.e. a left-wing atheist) except that she had led him astray. Hence he named himself after the first man to be led astray by a woman.

Gazza now finds himself pissing off even more Muslims (and no doubt a fair few Christians also) with his public claims that Creationism and Intelligent Design is a load of bollocks.

Speaking of which, many Muslims expect male converts to undergo some Sharia-compliant surgery.

In this respect, Gazza is quite lucky. His Catholic dad and Anglican mum decided to have him circumcised back in the early 1950’s when he was a wee-toddler. Though I doubt they did so with a view to his conversion to the ways of those heathen “Moslems”.

Another convert mate of mine, Mahmud, also married a Fiji-Indian woman. He converted from Soccerism (he is Italian) to Islam. His parents didn’t have as much foresight and allowed his foreskin to remain. His wife wasn’t as tolerant.

Conveniently, Mahmud had to get his haemorrhoids operated on. His Jewish surgeon offered a complementary cut of the excess foreskin. Mahmud happily went under the knife.

Now Mahmud had given his wife strict instructions not to tell anyone about the surgeon’s offer. My folks tell me about visiting poor Mahmud in hospital. He was clearly in excruciating pain. His wife just couldn’t keep a secret. The conversation went something like this …

DAD: So how is Mahmud feeling?

MAHMUD: Can’t talk now. Too much pain.

MRS MAHMUD: What can I say? Mahmud can’t lay on his back or his stomach!

So if John Howard decides to take up Sheik Bashir’s offer, he can look forward to a possible change in name. “John” is easy. We just call him “Yahiya” (the Koranic name for John the Baptist). But what about “Winston” and “Howard”? Perhaps we might just name him “Yahiya bin Bush”.

A bigger (and indeed more painful) obstacle will be the Sharia-compliant surgery referred to earlier. Now we all know that Peter Costello wants to see Sharia banned in Australia. Perhaps the Treasurer could allow an exemption to be granted to the new Muslim convert Yahiya bin Bush, especially if it means Sheik Yahiya vacating Kirribilli House.

Who knows? Maybe Sheik Yahiya might decide to give up Kirribilli for the less salubrious surrounds of the Imam Ali Mosque in Lakemba. (Then again, given Mr Howard’s love for being seen with the diggers, he’ll probably prefer staying at the Gallipoli Mosque.)

But was Sheik Bashir merely seeking to have Mr Howard’s frontal bits compromised? My mate Gazza reckons a more thorough circumcision was what Bashir had in mind.

“Maybe he wanted Howard to be circumcised from the neck up. Politically speaking, of curse”, Gazza remarked as he stroked his ALP membership card.

I wonder how Mr Howard’s ministers and Parliamentary colleagues would react to his conversion. Mrs Howard would need to put up with competition from three more child-bearing wives needed for our good Sheik Yahiya to lead by example and ensure Australia reaches Danna Vale’s target of becoming an Islamic State within 50 years.

Bronwyn Bishop once complained that Muslim men refuse to shake her hands. She also described the writer once in Federal Parliament as a “Muslim activist known for his abusive attitudes to women”. Perhaps with Mr Howard’s conversion, she would now have her own Prime Minister refusing to shake her hand. Then again, Howard and Bishop were never known to be good buddies.

Perhaps the most interesting reaction (or lack thereof) would come from Attorney General Phillip Ruddock. It wouldn’t surprise me if early one morning ASIO raided Kirribilli House to pounce on the latest terror suspect as he was getting ready for his early morning walk around Sydney Harbour dressed in long white robes.

I can just see Mr Ruddock at the press conference announcing the arrest of Sheik Yahiya Howard: “The suspect is believed to have made numerous trips to training camps in Iraq”.

No doubt, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson would be asking Mr Howard to subscribe to the values of the English illegal immigrant Simpson (of donkey fame) or to just “clear off”.

The local Islamic community will, no doubt, welcome having an Islamic Prime Minister. Mufti Taj Hilaly would no doubt give a statement that none of us would understand. The Presidents of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils would probably criticise him for not wearing a burqa.

And what would my old mate Gazza do? “Me? Sharing a religion with John Howard? Forget it! I might just have to see if Cardinal Pell and Dr Jensen will take me back!”

(First published Friday, June 16, 2006

Discovering Pizza in Manila ...

2011-01-11T11:15:00.001+11:00

In 1976, my family set off for a year long holiday. Our first stop out of Sydney was in Manilla. We spent 1 or 2 nights there. It was to be my first taste of a 3rd world country. It was also our family’s first taste of eating out. Apart from sharing meals with of our South Asian family friends at each other’s homes, we’d rarely eaten out in Australia.

My mother insisted she wanted to eat Indian food in Manilla. Dad sat us all in a taxi, and the driver took us around the entire city. After 2 hours, we couldn’t find a single Indian restaurant. My father therefore convinced mum to try this new Italian dish called pizza.

Mum was averse to Italian food. After I was born, my parents and family moved to Australia by ship. It was an Italian ship, and my mother couldn’t stand the food which she felt was too bland. She couldn’t live without her spices and chilli. Now, here in the heart of the 3rd world, my father was asking mum to eat Italian food!

Still, we were all extremely hungry. Dad asked the pizzeria to use chilli sauce on the pizza. The pizza arrived piping hot, and my mother took a taste test. She liked what she was munching on, and my dad spoiled us all that night with plenty of this strange new delicacy.

We enjoyed our pizza feast two nights in a row. No doubt the pizzeria owner also enjoyed our presence.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

(first published Tuesday, August 12, 2008)

Notes from the Sleepy Islands

2011-01-11T11:09:00.001+11:00

[01] The sleepy town (by New Zealand standards, it would be called a “city”) of Christchurch is 2 hours ahead of Sydney. But if you think of time in another way, it’s 2 decades behind. It depends on your perspective.

[02] I flew into Christchurch on 4 February 2009. My flight touched down at 10:30pm. The 3 hour flight took off from Sydney at 5:30pm. Down under, discounted airlines don’t feed you unless you pay them. I’m not sure what they do in Europe. I was a little famished and expected the airport to have some eateries open for the famished traveller. No such luck. All they had available was a water fountain (we used to call them “bubblers” at school) and the odd vending machine. But all the Bank of New Zealand foreign exchange booths were open. All that money and nowhere to spend it!

[03] I caught the shuttle bus from the airport to my motel. Most motels provide their own shuttle bus service. It was 11pm by the time I got to the motel which was around 5 minutes from the airport. Not much by way of takeaway nearby other than what one could salvage from the 24 hour petrol station nearby. Even Pizza Hut delivery was shut.

[04] At the servo, I picked up a copy of the local broadsheet newspaper, called The Press. I occasionally write op-eds for this paper, usually fairly flippant light-hearted pieces about cricket or tourism advertisements or the various scandals Kiwis and Aussies share. The readers seem to enjoy reading an Aussie poking fun at his own, while I enjoy the hard cash The Press throw my way in return for each column.

[05] The day I left for Christchurch, the front page story of the Sydney Morning Herald was about the Australian government’s latest salvage or bailout package to protect us Aussies from what seems like an almost certain recession. There was detailed analysis of the facts and figures of the bailout, along with discussion of the economic impact and the political fallout. The Press (owned by the same company as the Herald) also had facts and figures on its front page, though judging by the paper here, people here don’t seem to perturbed about a possible recession. Instead, we had facts of figures of a sporting diva from Auckland named Vili who won the trophy of New Zealand Sportswoman of the Year for the second year running. Another front page story concerned a domestic cricketer who wouldn’t be playing in a Twenty-20 match that day. Us Aussies are far more money-hungry, and our Kiwi cousins just can’t get enough of their sport.

[06] The Press also carried such important international news as the White House’s attempt to crackdown on the misuse of the Obama brand – “Yes Pecan” ice cream, Obama chocolate lollipops, Obama lipstick and cigars (a bit too early to be plugging those, you’d think. At least wait for the first female intern to arrive) and even a product called “The Audacity of Soap”. So I had to fly all the way to Christchurch to learn this shit?

(first published Fri Feb 13 2009)

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

Not Dining With Terrorists ...

2011-01-11T11:07:00.001+11:00

Study is everything for Indian parents. Academic excellence means much more than sport or other extra-curricular activities. If you were an Indian or Pakistani kid and you lived in a world where you only possible employers could be your parents, you needn’t hand in a resume or CV detailing your achievements in rugby or debating, your community and charity involvements or your election to the student union. All that would matter is your academic transcript.

After I finished my double-degree in economics and law, my mother was convinced I would never get a job. Why? Because I didn’t have a first class honours and wasn’t the recipient of the university medal. When I proved her wrong and landed a job in a large suburban firm, her response was: “Yes, but it is not a big city law firm”. As far as mum was concerned, the fact that my friends who landed jobs in one of the big five firms wouldn’t step outside the photocopy room for their first 12 months whilst I was running 5 matters each morning down at the local court didn’t seem to matter.

When Indian kids achieve some kind of academic excellence, their parents love to hold a huge party. I have a relative who held a lavish party when one of her sons got into medicine. It was a huge affair, and she invited just about all her Indo-Pakistani friends, including the ones whose kids didn’t quite get as high grades. Some of these poor kids were forced to give speeches congratulating the future doctor.

A family friend of ours had a son who got into medicine. After 12 months of gruelling study, the young man decided to switch to a fine arts degree. By the time news reached me, it was a case of: “That is-stoopid boy, he so ungir-rateful to Allah! He get given pil-lace in medicine, and he dir-rop out to become painter!”

But not all Indo-Paks are so obsessed. An old uncle of mine, Uncle Zack, was very pleased that his daughter managed to complete her Year 12 Higher School Certificate (HSC). I have no idea what mark she achieved in her HSC. There was no indication of whether she managed to make it into university or what she would be studying. The invitation we received just asked us to show up at a Uniting Church hall in Lakemba, known to some as Sydney’s Muslim “ghetto”.

Unlike other Indo-Pak uncles, Zack also rocks up on time when invited anywhere. I’ve never known Zack to turn up even 5 minutes late to our house without ringing. But Zack doesn’t have any control over the timeliness of his friends. Knowing this, although the invitation insisted dinner would be at “8:30 pm sharp”, I knew that IST would apply.

(IST is Indian Standard Time)

Hence, I suggested to my mother (who insisted I drive her to the function) that we leave her house at 8pm, the hall being around 20 minutes from our house. I predicted the function would start at around 8:20pm and we might be 5 minutes late. Mum refused, and asked one of her friends to show up and pick her up. She told me that her friend understood the importance of punctuality more than I ever could.

Her friend showed up at around 8:30pm. I left at 8:35pm and arrived at 8:50pm, just as the show was about to start. Dinner was served at 9:30pm. Sharp.

The function was a simple affair. One bloke stood up the front and delivered a very short speech. It seemed short to me because the dude could actually speak English. Uncle Zack stood out the front behind the speaker, looking frustrated at all the people deciding to show up in accordance with the requirements of IST. Seriously, you’d think poor Zack would be used to this by now.

After the English speech which could no doubt be understood by both parents and kids alike, the speaker invited a Pakistani imam to say a short “dua” (supplication or prayer) while the food was being laid out. The short prayer was recited in Arabic and Urdu, with perhaps around half the audience understanding the Urdu bits. It lasted around 10 minutes. A very short dua by Pakistani standards.

The dinner was, to put it mildly, absolutely fabulous. I’m not sure who cooked it, but whoever it was has certainly earned the right to tell Gordon Ramsay to fuck off back to the UK. Had it not been for the chilli, I’d have had seconds and thirds. Instead, I had to settle for a 2 litre bottle of spring water to keep by head from exploding.

As always, men were seated on one side of the hall, while women were on the other side. There was one food table for the blokes and another for the sheilas.

Speaking of sheilas, there was one sheila who recognised me and waved in a jovial manner as I sat down after first walking into the hall. I was seated between two rather austere looking bearded dudes, so on this occasion it was obvious she wasn’t waving at the wrong person. I nodded and then sent her a text message warning her smiling and waving might land either (if not both) of us in trouble with the mullah brigade, if not with some aunties who might assume we were involved in some kind of illicit affair.

(To be continued ...)

(First published SUNDAY, February 15, 2009

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

Another part-read book ...

2010-12-16T11:41:00.002+11:00

Leo the African is an historical novel by the acclaimed Lebanese author Amin Maalouf, who also authored the classic Crusades Through Arab Eyes, a book I can honestly say has been an enormous influence on the way I look at the world.

Maalouf is an extraordinary writer who bridges cultural divides with great deftness. Leo the African is the story of a Moroccan diplomat of Spanish heritage who is kidnapped by pirates and brought to the Vatican. He apparently converted to Catholicism and translated the Qur’an into Latin. Later he fled and returned to Tunisia.

I reviewed another excellent book some years ago about Leo authored by an American historian. I'm only upto page 21 of Maalouf's book. Pathetic, really.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

REVIEWS: A place to find some stuff I've reviews ...

2010-12-10T14:41:00.003+11:00

I've reviewed books in all kinds of places - the Canberra Times, New Matilda, AltMuslim.com, The Australian etc.

In case anyone is reading this who actually gives a stuff, you can read some more reviews of various books here.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

So many books, so little time!

2010-12-10T14:31:00.003+11:00

I have a terrible habit of part-reading books. What I mean by that is that I start lots of books but finish very few of them. I'll start reading a book and then put it down, pick up another one and start reading it and then put it down and then pick up a third. And on and on it goes.

And by the time I get to the first book, I've forgotten what it was all about!

(Thankfully when I have a deadline to review a book, I am much more disciplined. Money talks.)

Maybe if I blog about these semi-completed books, it might give me the impetus to get on with finishing the buggers!

Here's one. It's called A Life Revoved: Hunting For Refuge In The Modern World. It's authored by Rose George. For anyone interested in the experiences of refugees from west Africa, this is an essential read.

I'm upto page 70. I've learned stuff about the civil war in Liberia and the Ivory Coast (which is still in political turmoil). I've learned stuff about child soldiers and how they are recruited and what happens to them after the war is over. I've even learned some Liberian war jokes.

The book is only 114 pages long. I'm just under half way. I'be already got a Liberian friend I've promise to lend it to. It's one of my top reads.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

More notes on ISA Deliberative Poll - Muslims & non-Muslims in Australia

2009-01-14T00:01:00.001+11:00

This is a continuation of notes on this event which took place in Canberra in March 2007. You can read a previous set of notes here. These notes are based on my hand-written notes taken during the conference. The comments here are largely those of Mohammed Omran, a salafi/wahhabi imam from Melbourne. They are in response to a comment that some people argue that Muslims have a problem with secularism i.e. neutrality of government in its treatment of religion.

[01] Omran says his presence in Australia was as a practising Muslim, not just a normal Muslim. He is here as a Sheik who came to Australia to teach Muslims here their religion. Omran has lived most of his life in Australia.

[02] Omran wonders why the so-called “Muslim issue” is such a crucial issue given that Muslims make up only 1.5% of Australia’s total population.

[03] Omran believes that so much of national discussion on security-related issues involves decision makers living in a state of denial about important issues rather than coming together to talk about real issues that actually affect national security.

[04] Omran mentioned how 16 years ago, during the 1st Gulf War, Bob Hawke stood up and declared he was PM for all Australians, Muslim and non-Muslim. Hawke did this after learning of many acts of discrimination against Australian Muslim citizens.

[05] Muslims have their responsibility to keep Australia safe. However, they are only small in number. This means that any steps they take are often hard to notice.

[06] We need to stop putting in the minds of our youth that Muslims are different and represent a threat.

[07] Clergy, including imams, have a responsibility to Australia and to ensure we have social cohesion.

[08] Omran: “I want to feel part of you. Only you can make me feel that. I paid my own ticket and came here on my own accord to build a better future in a country that believes in freedom”.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf

Maximum City - more excerpts ...

2008-12-21T16:25:00.003+11:00

Here are some more quotes from Suketu Mehta's honest and refreshing look at life in Bombay. It really is a quality read.

The Bombay police see Muslims as criminals, much as some American police view African-Americans. (p46)

Bombay has one and a half times the proportion of Muslim residents as the country has overall; Muslims in Bombay comprise more than seventeen per cent of the city’s population. In India as a whole, Muslims number 120 million, twelve per cent of the general population. That makes India home to the second largest Muslim population in the world. Half a century after Partition, there are still more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. (p48)

The Muslims of Bombay are the most diverse group of the followers of Mohammad in the country. It’s not just the division between Shia and Sunni; there are Dawoodi Bohras, Ismailis, Deobandis, Barelvis, Memons, Mopalis, Ahmadiyyas, and so on. The Hindutva parties spread fear of the Muslim horde as if it were a monolith. The truth is that many of the groups, such as Deobandis and Barelvis, or the traditional and the reformist Bohras, often hate each other more passionately than they do the Hindus. But the riots united them. The Dawoodi Bohras of Malabar Hill discovered what they had in common with the Bihari Sunnis in the Madanpura slums: a very public questioning of their claim to be citizens of India. They discovered their biggest crime was that they were Muslims. (p49)

In the Bombay I grew up in, being Muslim or Hindu or Catholic was merely a personal eccentricity, like a hairstyle. (p54)

Excerpts - Maximum City

2008-12-19T11:48:00.002+11:00

The following are excerpts from Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost And Found (2004) Review. Mehta is a New York based writer and journalist of Gujrati Indian origin.

Everything is recycled in this filthy country, which poisons its children, raising them on a diet of its own shit ... Breathing the air in Bombay now is the equivalent of smoking two and a half packets of cigarettes a day. The sun used to set into the sea; now it sets into smog. (p27)

A sign I see on the back of a truck says it all:

Sau me ek sau ed beimaan.
Phir bhi mera Bharat Mahaan.

101 out of 100 are dishonest.
Still my India is the best ...

This fucking city. The sea should rush in over these islands in one great tidal wave and obliterate it, cover it with water. It should be bombed from the air. Every morning I get angry. It is the only way to get anything done; people here respond to anger, are afraid of it. In the absence of money or connections, anger will do. I begin to understand the uses of anger as theatre – with taxi drivers, doormen, plumbers, government bureaucrats. Even my CD player in india responds to anger, physical violence; when a gentle press of the PLAY button fails to arouse it from its slumber, a hard smack across the side propels it into sound. (p28)

A city like Bombay, like New York, that is a recent creation on the planet and does not have a substantial indigenous population, is full of restless people. Those who have nt been at ease somewhere else. And unlike others who may have been equally uncomfortable wherever they come from, these people got up and moved. And as I have discovered, having once moved, it is difficult to stop moving. So it is that the Bombayites might dream of the West, not just for the riches that lie there but also for the excitement of moving somewhere again. (p29)

There is no land on which to build schools: no new ones have appeared in my area since I was a child. But the population of children has exploded. There is no place for all these new learners. They have to be registered at birth. ‘Is it difficult, getting a place for a child in school in Bombay?’ I ask the principal.

‘It’s like climbing Mount Everest.’ (pp30-31)

I see something new this time in India – single people in their thirties, even forties, unmarried by choice. One of the rakes uses the old line to explain why he won’t get married: ‘If you can get milk everyday, why buy the cow?’ The cow is a Bombabe in her thirties, a year or three away from her sell-by date. Successful in her career because she is single, desperately lonely only because of it, she is fair game for the married, the lesbians, the fat – anyone will hold her through the endless night. (p32)

NOTES: Between clerics and terrorists ...

2008-12-09T18:38:00.001+11:00

Australian Islam is largely an ethno-religious phenomenon. Theological practice is tied to various cultures. Mosque liturgy is run on a combination of classical Arabic orthodoxy and ethnic and linguistic influences [e.g. Indonesian man who left tarawih at Redfern mosque after missing entire first rakaat before even placing his hands on his stomach and left in disgust].

In the post-7/7 environment, Muslim religious institutions and their leaders have been the subject of greater scrutiny by governments and media. This has led to the development of a mythology built around the generation of a uniform Muslim “community”. This mythology serves the interests of both governments and certain Muslim religious leaders.

Both governments and religious organisations have developed strategies to develop and reinforce Muslim monolith mythology. Certain media organisations whose editors (if not their owners) benefit from stoking the fires of cultural warfare, have also sought to intervene in this process.

Central argument: Projection of Muslim monolith is unhealthy for both Muslims themselves and for the broader Australian community. Why?

• It is dishonest and doesn’t reflect reality.
• It makes demonization easier.
• It tends to reinforce more conservative elements within religious circles and ignores those who regard themselves as Muslims for more cultural or ancestral reasons.
• It stifles debate and much-needed reform in Muslim societies.

Islam can be defined as a combination of four things:

* Religion/theology;
* Values;
* Cultures;
* Institutions.

We need a broader and more encompassing definition of Islam. I prefer to define Islam as the motivation that leads around 300,000 Australians to feel inclined to tick the “Muslim” box on their census forms. Many of these people, including the most observant, have little or no association with a mosque. This is especially the case with women.

My mother prays 5 times a day, yet the only affiliation she has is with membership of the Australian chapter of the Aligarh Muslim University alumni.

When Islam is defined broadly as what Muslims actually are (as opposed to what they perhaps should be), the immediate effect is to create an image of diversity. We are no longer “the Muslim community” but rather a number or cluster of groups who tick the same box.

If this really is Islam, we simply cannot speculate about its future unless we understand its present. But what research has been conducted by those claiming to speak for Muslims?

Given that our mosques are divided largely along ethnic and linguistic lines, what sense does it make in Australia to speak of Islam’s presence in Australia as a set of values or as some uniform theology?

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

Classic Peter Reuhl on the US Presidential primaries ...

2008-12-02T18:48:00.004+11:00

Peter Reuhl is one of my favourite humorists. Some years back I walked past him at some conservative thinktank function whilst talking to my then-newly-"acquried" left-of-centre fiance. I'm still kicking myself for not introducing myself and shaking his hand. Reuhl has to be one of the funniest writers published in any Australian newspaper. "Jack The Insider" in The Australian doesn't even come close.

Here's some excerpts from Reuhl's column in The Australian Financial Review on Thursday 7 February 2008. The headline is It's wild, open and voters want blood. The subject is the US presidential election.

... American voters this year are one big raucous family that doesn't want to see the fight stop anytime soon. The Dubya years seem like a bad dream, but I just checked and the guy is actually still in office.

Here's how Reuhl describes Bush II:

... Dubya ... his ability to make people disagree with each other more than a bunch of cats stuffed in a trash bin.

And what happens when the electorate is angry?

When voters want blood, they come off in droves and they're making sure this year is turning beautifully ... ugly.

Here's how Reuhl rates Mike Huckabee's chances ...

Huckabee ... doesn't have a prayer (a little evangelical humour there) of getting the nomination but he's a Sir Joh-class troublemaker.

This election campaign thus far has furnished some important lessons.

And if we've learned anything from this campaign so far, it's that we haven't learned anything from this campaign.

Reuhl believes that the Rupublican rightwing might spoil it for McCain. And who are these people? What are they like?

... the screwballs in the Republican rightwing ... the religious freaks and the trailer-park trash segment ...

At the time, Hillary and Obama were still fighting for the support of registered Democrat voters. It was beginning to look ugly.

Class wars in the Democratic Party are always a hoot, a bit like watching Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton arguing over cup sizes.

Super Tuesday at the time looked like it was going to be good clean (or rather, dirty) fun ...

... looking like a Weight Watchers meeting by the time it's over. Watch and enjoy. We may never have this kind of fun again unless you believe in professional wrestling.

Priceless!

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

Fish short story writing competition ...

2008-11-27T16:48:00.002+11:00

The closing date of the 15th Fish International Short Story Prize is 14 December 2008. You can apply online, and each entry will set you back £20 (which, in Australian dollars, means OUCH!). The benefits of entry including a cool first prize of £3,000. In the unlikely event that you win, you have to travel to the UK and collect the cheque.

The maximum word length is 5,000 words. You can find out more by clicking here. I'm still tossing up whether to enter.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

NDT Profile - New State MP for Ryde

2008-11-27T13:03:00.003+11:00

The front page of the Northern District Times for Wednesday October 22 2008 screams out: "Dominator". Below is a photo of Victor Dominello, new state MP for Ryde, sitting on some steps holding a bottle of still water. He is suited for work, his bright red socks almost matching the red-tiled stairs and taking focus away from the pink tie.

"Labor annihilated as Ryde swings 23.4% to Liberals" is the NDT headline. Charis Chang opens with this paragraph:

Victor Dominello went back to West Ryde station this week to thank voters for his stunning victory in Saturday's Ryde by-election.

Some brief facts from the article:

[01] Dominello is 41 years old.

[02] He turned a 10.9% deficit to ALP into a 12.6 % margin for the Libs. The swing was 23.4%.

[03] The ALP failed to win a single booth.

[04] Nicole Campbell, the ALP candidate, is a sitting Ryde councillor.

[05] By the following Tuesday, Dominello had won 53.8% of the vote. Compare this with March 2007 state election when Vic Tagg won just under 12,000 votes compared to John Watkins' ~18.700 votes.

[06] Greens didn't preference anyone, increased their vote more than four-fold.

[07] Dominello's links to area go back to 1930's when his grandfather set up market gardens in the region. His father owned a fruit and vegetable shop in Eastwood.

[08] Dominello couldn't vote in by-election as he wasn't enrolled in seat.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

Notes on The Howard Years - Episode I

2008-11-25T02:06:00.002+11:00

The following are some notes based on the extended interviews with various people relating to Pauline Hanson and John Howard's approach to dealing with her. Excerpts from these extended interviews appeared in the actual episode that went to air. The extended interviews can be viewed on the program website.

Head of DFAT on Hanson

[01] Both Mr Howard and his senior staffer Grahame Morris were shown “the thrust of the advice that was coming into the Foreign Ministry”. This advice included cables about the damage Pauline Hanson was doing to Australia’s reputation in Asia. What surprised and perturbed editorial writers and influential commentators across Asia was that Howard was not immediately condemning Hanson’s remarks on Asian immigration.

[02] Howard waited for 7 months before condemning and refuting Hanson’s views on a range of issues including immigration and foreign investment. This condemnation and rebuttal took place during a speech to the Asia Society in 1997. Both Trade Minister Tim Fischer (who had built up substantial contacts in Asia) and Alexander Downer were becoming increasingly disturbed at Howard’s refusal to condemn Hanson. They saw it as a mistake that Howard waited 7 months before dealing with the matter decisively.

[03] Hanson’s remarks and Howard’s refusal to condemn them were “causing Australia real harm in Asia”. There was a steady flow of cables and reports coming in from Australian embassies and high commissions about the Howard government’s refusal to distance itself from (if not condemn) Hanson.

[04] When Howard finally made “a very vigorous and strong statement” against Hanson in Mar 1997, Morris came upto head of DFAT and asked: “Are you happy now”. DFAT responds: “It was an excellent statement but it was 7 months too late!”

[05] It was over his solid refutation of Hanson that Downer was reprimanded for the first and only time by Howard. Downer opposed to Hanson right from the state. Not prepared to compromise. Neither was Fischer.

[06] PM had his own views about how to combat Hanson, which were not shared by his Trade and Foreign Affairs Ministers as well as other senior Ministers.

Peter Costello on Hanson

[07] Hanson’s constituency had a high rate of gun ownership. Hence her popularity as she was able to galvanise her core constituency with her other pet issues on immigration and indigenous issues. This gave her a head of steam and improved her popularity. This gave voice to what Costello describes as Hanson’s “anti-Canberra, anti-elite, anti-special welfare campaign”.

[08] Costello wasn’t in Parliament for Hanson’s maiden speech but he was told about it immediately. Costello says some of her comments (e.g. about fat-cat bureaucrats) were well within the bounds of mainstream politics and debate. But her attacks on Aborigines and Aboriginal welfare were way outside bounds.

[09] It’s important to remember that the Liberal Party had disendorsed Hanson for making these kinds of remarks. It was the right decision for the Party to make.

[10] Costello was surprised with just how popular Hanson was becoming. He soon concluded that it “became clear that we had to take her on.”

[11] “Footage on TV of Rastafarian demonstrators jostling this immaculately coiffered lady helped her enormously. She looked moderate compared to these people who looked like extremists.”

[12] “If not giving someone oxygen puts ‘em out, it’s right. But after a while if you don’t give them oxygen and the start flaming brightly, that’s the point at which you call for the fire extinguisher ... to meet her claims head on and disprove them.”

[13] “She had the most bizarre economic policies that would have destroyed our economy”. Costello believed Howard should have taken Hanson on earlier, especially when it came to preferences and putting Hanson last on the ballot paper.

[14] Howard was ambivalent about Hanson. Howard wanted to open the door to freedom of speech, but wasn’t prepared for the Hansonite variety of extremism. Howard’s rhetoric of “lifting the pall of censorship” effectively gave a green light to extremists, and was the wrong approach. This was the wrong rhetoric given in a speech in Qld at a time when Hanson was all fired up.

[15] Howard’s ambivalence toward Hanson was perhaps due to his feeling he’d been wrongly treated when he made his comments in Asian immigration in 1988. When she got onto comments on Aboriginal welfare, Aboriginal special programs and race, she wasn’t exercising freedom of speech but rather being divisive “likely to inspire division in the community.”

[16] Costello announced on the Sunday before the budget that he would be putting Hanson last in his own seat of Higgins. Howard telephoned him, was very upset. Accused Costello of trying to pre-empt the decision on preferencing One Nation. Howard wanted to keep the option open, but Costello thought any such preferencing would be morally and politically wrong.

Alexander Downer on Hanson

[17] Hanson was beaten up by media, ALP and political left as a means of punishing John Howard which was disgraceful given that the Libs had made the decision to dis-endorse her.

[18] As foreign minister, Downer thought Howard’s position eventually and inevitably became unsustainable.

[19] Hanson painted as some kind of SS guard when all she really was was “a simple woman articulating a prejudiced point of view”. It’s the kind of view you hear in all different parts of Australia, If you’ve never heard that view, you must be a hermit.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

Notes on The Howard Years - Episode II

2008-11-25T01:48:00.003+11:00

[01] “That night was certainly a roller coaster ride”. Howard had 2 drinks after they won the 1998 Federal Election.

[02] Episode 2 entitled “Whatever It Takes”, which also happens to be the title of Graham Richardson’s autobiography.

[03] Howard felt the election had given him a mandate for tax reform despite the government gaining less than 50% of the popular vote.

[04] In his victory speech, Howard committed himself to Aboriginal reconciliation. Costello was surprised by this.

[05] Howard also mentioned Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett, a Costello opponent, in his victory speech for Kennett’s alleged contribution to helping the government win on tax reform. Costello was clearly insulted by this.

[06] Tasmanian Senator Brian Harridine rejected GST. Costello had approached him and tried desperately to convince him, and couldn’t notice that Harridine’s objections were fundamental. Costello was also sent into convince Democrats leader Meg Lees.

[07] GST was “hard to sell in a policy sense but easy to sell in a practical sense.” (Costello)

[08] Whilst negotiating GST, Howard allowed Democrats leadership into the Melbourne cabinet room. Dems wanted food exempted, but Costello said that practically implementing this would have been impossible. Peter Reith disagreed, urging Costello to agree to exemption.

[09] At one stage, a Democrat staffer wanted a cup of herbal tea. Government staffers, including Max Moore-Wilton, went running around searching for the tea!

[10] Costello wasn’t happy with the watered-down negotiated GST. Peter Reith said Howard effectively ran the negotiations.

[11] Alexander Downer said Howard felt more at home with domestic issues than with foreign affairs.

[12] Interviewees included former Indonesian President Habibie and his adviser Dewi Fortuna Anwar. Habibie said he wanted to resolve the East Timor issue finally instead of leaving it for one of his successors to sort out. He suggested some kind of special autonomy for the province.

[13] Howard wanted to change Australia’s East Timor policy. He and Downer drafted a letter to Habibie which supported Habibie’s autonomy push but also insisted Habibie allow East Timorese the option of holding a referendum on independence after a decade or so. Tim Fischer said that the “most important letter ever written by the Howard government never went to cabinet.”

[14] Habibie read letter signed by Howard very differently to how Howard envisaged it would be read. Habibie was very upset. Habibie felt Howard was trying to force him to make quick decisions. Habibie decided to make an even quicker decision, holding a referendum within 6 months on the issue of independence.

[15] There was a violent reaction from pro-Jakarta militias, who went on the rampage under the eyes of the TNI who allegedly did nothing to stop them.

[16] Howard met with Habibie in Bali, and suggested the referendum go ahead under the direction and supervision of UN peacekeepers. Habibie said this would have proved an insult to the TNI and have been domestically untenable. The militias were still rampaging through Dili with the TNI even accused of participating. Australian public opinion was hardening, with Joe Hockey admitting there was even pressure on the government to invade Indonesia if that was the only way to stop the violence.

[17] Howard contacted Clinton who said he wasn’t prepared to support a UN peacekeeping force in East Timor with US ground troops. However, the US would lend diplomatic muscle, and Clinton declared that Indonesia’s access to international assistance would be conditional upon how it responded to the violence in East Timor.

[18] Habibie soon announced that Indonesia would agree to an international peacekeeping force in East Timor. Australia would lead that force under the command of Howard’s handpicked Major General Cosgrove. The first contingent arrived on 20 September 1999. As they approached, they noticed an Indonesian submarine entering Dili harbour with a capacity to destroy the Australian ships. War could have eventuated with Indonesia.

[19] Liberal pollster Mark Textor said that East Timor showed Howard as a national security leader.

[20] Reconciliation continued to be “an issue that dogged us throughout the whole government” (Costello). Joe Hockey said: “I don’t know why we didn’t apologise. It was an instinctive thing to do”. Yet Howard insisted that “I don’t think the current generation can take responsibility for the deeds of a previous generation”. [As if saying sorry was the same as claiming responsibility.]

[21] There was to be a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in favour of reconciliation. Howard insisted he didn’t want to walk. Costello suggested that all Cabinet join in the walk, saying that 17 front benchers walking with the crowd would send a powerful symbol. [Howard never liked walking unless pushed. Which is exactly what happened in the end.]

To be continued ...

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

More notes on Martha Nussbaum ...

2008-07-30T04:32:00.002+10:00

[01] Her work on India provides an intereating analusis on the history of the present. She looks at how the past influences the way people view the present as well as how politicians manipulate and simplify the past to present a simplistic set of solutions to complex contemporary problems.

[02] Page 6 speaks of ...

... romantic/fascist European ideas of bloof and purity ...

as well as ...

... the failure of liberal/pluralist leaders ... to mount an effective program of grassroots mobilisation that would link the intense emotions of religion and patriotism to a program of cooperation and mutual respect.

The notion of a clash of civilisations "is not helpful" when "dealing with a complex and variegated world."

[03] Page 7 ...

It is important ... not to employ a simple model of a singe 'civilization' ignoring both internal diversity and cultural borrowing.

[04] Page 8 - Indian English is a distinct dialect that has the largest number of speakers of any dialect ...

... a supple and expressive literary, legal, and political language.

[05] Nussbaum's work focusses on the heterogeneity of India and other modern nations. Extremists are challenged by this heterogeneity. Extremism thrives on the intellectual laziness of simplicity. The biggest threat to extremism is an understanding and recognition of complexity. Life is complex, and complex social realities mean social policy makers and politicians must tread carefully.

[06] Complexity is perhaps the best argument for political conservatism. But while the far-Right claims to be conservative, their simplistic formulations and reliance on impatient misguided populism lends itseld to deeply anti/pseudo-conservative hasty revolutionary solutions.

[07] Page 8 ...

It would be a serious misreading of this book to see it as an assault on Hindu religion or Hindu traditions ... [which] have been strongly conducive to pluralism, toleration, and peace.

Martha Nussbaum on religious extremism and the clash within civilisations ...

2008-05-28T00:19:00.001+10:00

… a complex and chilling case of religious violence that does not fit some common stereotypes about the sources of religious violence in today’s world … the popular “clash of civilizations” thesis, notably articulated by Samuel P. Huntington, according to which the world is currently polarized between a Muslim monolith, bent on violence, and the democratic cultures of Europe and North America. India, the third largest Muslim nation in the world (after Indonesia and Pakistan), is far from fitting this pattern. Instead, in the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, we find the use of European fascist ideologies by Hindu extremists to justify the murder of innocent Muslim civilians … the real clash is not a civilizational one between “Islam” and “the West”, but instead a clash within virtually all modern nations – between people who are prepared to live with others who are different, on terms of equal respect, and those who seek the protection of homogeneity, achieved through the domination of a single religious and ethnic tradition … the Gandhian claim that the real struggle that democracy must wage is a struggle within the individual self, between the urge to fdominate and defile the other and a willingness to live respectfully on terms of compassion and equality, with all the vulnerability that such a life entails.

… Facing outward, it is imperative to see the complexities and internal divisions that are there, rather than to divide the world into “good” cultures and “evil” cultures.

… religion can in principle offer a great deal to the public culture of a pluralistic democracy.

Martha C. Nussbaum, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence And India’s Future (2007) Harvard University Press, pp ix-xi, Preface. Martha Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, Department of Philosophy, Law School, and Divinity School at the University of Chicago.

Adrian d'Hage on how the Iraq invasion has made us all safer (not) ...

2008-05-27T23:57:00.001+10:00

All the information that a terrorist might require to launch such attacks is available on the public record … it underlines the difficulty of preventing this information falling into the hands of terrorists.

… during my discussions with some of the world’s leading virologists, it became clear that the possibility of genetically engineering a super virus is now a chilling reality, well known to both sides. The genie is out of the bottle.

Cities can never be completely protected, which underlines the need for intelligence. That intelligence will not be forthcoming if foreign and domestic policies alienate and isolate different ethnic and cultural groups.

Those Muslims who misinterpret the Qur’an and Jihad and use violence in their efforts to create a pan-Islamic world are to be condemned; but so, too, are the Christian fundamentalists who would have us believe that the Messiah cannot return until all of Palestinian land is returned to Israel, that Islam is an evil religion, and that God is somehow directing Christian nations and foreign policy against the rest. It would be a very strange God who would create a world as diverse as ours, only to turn around and say, ‘You Christians are okay, but the rest of you – sorry, unless you convert, I’m finished with you.’ The same can be said for Allah, and Yahweh; yet we are increasingly ready to wage war on behalf of various versions of a god who share the same lineage of revelation traced back to Abraham … The world is going barking bloody mad.

As a former soldier … I am of the view that many far more distinguished soldiers than I share this view, that the invasion of Iraq by the United States, Britain and Australia has been an unmitigated disaster. Iraq spans an area of 432,000 sq km, four-fifths the size of France, yet, arrogantly confident of post-war success, we invaded with just 140,000 troops. When the much-respected Chief of the US Army, General Eric Shinseki had the temerity to disagree over the numbers of troops it would require to stabilise Iraq, he was sacked. To go in with so few troops was not, as the American Secretary of State would have us believe, a minor ‘tactical mistake’ but a strategic mistake of the first magnitude. In terms of winning the hearts and minds of the population subjected to our invasion, we have learned little from the war I and my brothers-in-arms fought in Vietnam. As I write, every month more civilians die in Iraq than were killed in the attack on September 11. Iraq is now a haven for terrorists and an inspiration for suicide bombers all over the world; and having destroyed the country and its infrastructure, the West is telling Iraqis that if they don’t do more to sort it out, we’re out of there. As a result of one of the most poorly planned operations in modern military history, and our refusal to even talk with countries like Iran and Syria, the peoples of the West are now at much greater risk of attack, especially in our big cities.

Adrian d’Hage, The Beijing Conspiracy (2007) Viking, Melbourne, pp 527-8.d’Hage graduated into the Intelligence Corps in 1967, and was later transferred into Infantry, serving as a platoon commander in Vietnam where he was awarded the Military Cross. In 1990, he was promoted to Brigadier as Head of Defence Public Relations. In 1994, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to communications. In his last appointment as Head of Defence Planning for security of the Sydney Olympics, including chemical, biological and nuclear threats, he worked closely with the NSW Police.

ISA Deliberative Poll - Muslims & non-Muslims in Australia

2008-05-21T17:19:00.002+10:00

I've managed to locate a heap of notes I took when I attended the Issues Deliberation Australia deliberative poll held in Canberra in March 2007. I'll try to decipher and upload them at various times.

One session I have involves the following pannellists: Cardinal George Pell, Sheik Mohammed Omran, Professor Abdullah Saeed, Dr Nahid Kabir and Dr Katharine Betts. Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke chaired this session.

Here are some of Dr Pell's reflections:

[01] When it comes to relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Australia, religion is not a sub-topic but rather it is the topic. This is because Muslim leaders keep couching things in religious terms.

[02] All immigrants should have ultimate political loyalty to Australia.

[03] The rights of Muslim minorities in Australia should be replicated in Muslim countries for non-Muslim citizens. But this rarely happens.

[04] There is a limit in compromising for minority demands. Anything beyond this limit will compromise national consensus.

[05] Group 22 asked a question: Has the settlement patters of Muslim populations in Australia been different to other groups? Pell responded by saying that there is a small group of Muslims committed to the destruction of Australia through violent means. No other migrant group has contained such elements. He also acknowledged that there are many Muslim leaders committed to Australia.

[06] There is no problem with religious voices being publicly expressed. This includes pro-life, pro-family etc. However, church and state must be kept separated.

[07] "We from the Western side of things must play our part to avoid a clash of civilisations caused by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists".

From my notes, Dr Katharine Betts made these observations:

[01] In response to the question from Group 22, she said that Lebanese migrants had a higher rate of unemployment as there weren't as many unskilled jobs available to them as when Greek and Italian migrants migrated. Hence they found it more difficult to establish an economic base.

[02] Betts made a distinction between hard and soft multiculturalism.

[03] Betts observed that British Muslims made up 3% of the entire Muslim population. British experience with Muslims hasn't been a happy one. She mentioned studies showing the relatively high proportion of Muslims who sympathised with the 7/7 bombers and were committed to the implementation of sharia law in the UK.

In the next instalment, I'll upload responses from Professor Saeed, Dr Kabir and Sheik Omran.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

What the f*** is a "salafabist"??

2008-05-06T17:30:00.002+10:00

Riaz Hassan's recently published Inside Muslim Minds frequently refers to a kind of Muslim described by North American jurist Kaled Abou El-Fadl as a "salafabist". Hassan claims that El-Fadl argues modern Muslim religious thought is drenched in "salafabism", a strand of contemporary Muslim religiosity combining elements of wahhabism and salafism.

Salafabists apparently argue that Muslims who try to integrate or co-opt Western ideas (such as democracy, feminism and human rights) have deviated. On the other hand, apologists try to prove Islam to be consistent with (what are allegedly uniquely) Western values.

Salafabists apparently define Islam as fundamentally antithetical to everything they perceive isn't Islam. That means virtually all Western ideas, institutions, systems etc. Salafabists only accept the existence of 2 clear social paths - dar al-harb (the realm of war) and dar al-Islam (the realm of peace). The West is dar al-harb. Further, the West is apparently at war with all things allegedly Islamic. So for salafabists, it's a case of: You're either with us or you're with the dar al-harb.

Hassan cites the following characteristics of salafabism as defined by El-Fadl:

1. profound alienation from both the institutions of power in the modern world and from Islamic heritage and tradition.

2. a supremacist puritanism compensating for feelings of defeatism, disempowerment and alienation.

3. belief in self-sufficiency of Islamic doctrines and a sense of self-righteous arrogance vis-a-vis the 'other'.

4. prevalance of patriarchal, misogynist and exclusionary orientations.

5. an abnormal obsession with the seductive powers of women.

6. rejection of critical appraisals of Islamic tradition and Muslim discourses.

7. denial of universal moral values and rejection of the modern world's indeterminancy.

8. use of Islamic texts as supreme regulators of social life and society.

9. literalist, anti-rational and anti-interpretive approaches to religious texts.

But just how useful are these forms of categorisation and characterisation?

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

Excerpts - Inside Muslim Minds

2008-04-29T00:39:00.001+10:00

This book is part of a comparative study of Muslim religiosity that began in 1996. Professor Hassan and his collaborators (an international team of social scientists) surveyed around 6,300 respondents in seven countries, and were limited by the resources of two ARC research grants (Source: page xv, Acknowledgements). Effectively this meant they surveyed less than 1,000 persons per country.

“In the contemporary Muslim world, the Islamic spirit finds expression … through movements of resistance against Western hegemony or of Islamic reassertion.”

“Using evidence gathered from 6,390 Muslim respondents from seven countries in South-East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East …”

“… the dominant mindset of respondents in several countries … characterised as self-righteous, arrogant, misogynist and puritanical mindsets that help compensate for the feelings of alienation and powerlessness engendered by the general economic, social and technological backwardness of their respective countries. A key emotion in these mindsets is to repair and assert Muslim identity … the relative strength of such mindsets among respondents from Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Egypt and the relative weakness of them among respondents from Kazakhstan, Iran and Turkey.”

“The war on terror and the global jihad by radical Islamic groups are … receiving huge media coverage … created an army of experts in what is becoming a thriving industry.”

“Jihad is one of the foundational concepts of Islamic religious and socio-political thought.”

“’[Holy war]’ is not a concept used by the Qur’an or Muslim theologians. In Islamic theology, war is never ‘holy’. It is either justified or not justified, and if it is justified, those killed in battle are considered ‘martyrs’.”

(pages 1-3)

Prejudice as an agent of terror recruitment

2008-04-28T19:38:00.001+10:00

Jamal Rabbani was waiting for him as he cleared the final baggage check and came into the arrivals hall. Rabbani was short and muscly, with a round face and short black hair; his eyes were dark and alert. He was in his early twenties, highly intelligent and impressionable, and he’d been one of al-Falid’s most important recruits. The two had met over five years before during one of al-Falid’s recruiting visits. Taunted and bullied at a seaside high school that was not known for its acceptance of difference, the young Rabbani had descended into a state of deep depression by the time al-Falid had been introduced to him. Jamal’s devotion to the Islamic faith and his insistence on performing the midday dhuhr and mid-afternoon asr, two of five prayers or Salat, had been his downfall. The bullies of the school had only been further encouraged when teachers refused to allow Rabbani time out of class for prayer.

al-Falid knew that Muslims were seen by many in this country as a threat to the country’s established values, and that schoolboys like Jamal were seen as foreigners, even though they had been born and raised here. al-Falid also knew that in this country, the presence of Muslims was often the subject of heated debate, especially on talk-back radio where many of the presenters reflected the prejudice and intolerance of the rest of the community. It was an intolerance that had made al-Falid’s job of recruiting very much easier …

Adrian d’Hage, The Beijing Conspiracy (2007) Penguin, pp294-5.

(Bolding of select text mine.)

Residential Tenancy Notes

2007-07-10T09:48:00.000+10:00

[01] A residential tenancy generally exists when the tenant pays the landlord for the right to occupy the landlord’s premises (or part thereof) for an agreed period.

[02] Rights and obligations of parties are covered by the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA).

[03] RTA applies to Housing Dept tenancies (unless tenancy contains term excluding RTA) and to community housing.

[04] RTA generally doesn’t apply to permanent residents of residential parks.

[05] RTA doesn’t apply to boarders or ledgers. Also doesn’t apply to persons paying ‘rent’ in nursing homes, hostels and holiday houses.

[06] RTA prescribes a tenancy form with standard terms that cannot be varied.

[07] RTA recognises 2 types of tenancies.

[08] A fixed term tenancy is for a fixed period stated in contract. During term, rent cannot be increased unless contract allows and 60 days written notice given. Usually, tenancy cannot be terminated. If tenant terminates, s/he must pay costs.

[09] A continuing tenancy allows rent to be increased or tenancy terminated provided landlord gives 60 days notice. Tenant can terminate on 21 days notice.

[10] Fixed term tenancy can become continuing when fixed period ends and tenancy continues.

[11] Before contract signed, agent/landlord must provide itemised statement of payments due. Only the following payments can be demanded: rent, bond money (4 weeks rent), contract preparation fee and any costs allowed by regulation.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

Algeria revisited …

2007-06-10T14:08:00.000+10:00

Rumour has it that George W Bush is seeking lessons from history on how to extricate himself from the Iraq quagmire that he and his Coalition-of-the-Killing colleagues (including John Howard) have caused.

Bush is reading a recently re-released edition of British historian Alistair Horne’s classic A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962.

I haven’t read the book. But I have read a review which appeared in the Weekend Australian Financial Review on April 14-15 2007. Here are some of the main points from that review.

The Algerian insurgency commenced in 1954 when the majority of Algerian natives fought to free themselves of both the French and the substantial minority of French Algerians who counted Algeria as home.

The European minority in Algeria, known as pied noirs (or black feet) would often react to the news of some bombing outrage by forming mobs that lynched any native Algerians they could lay their hands on. Invariably the victims had nothing to do with the bombs or the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) who were orchestrating the native attacks.

The extreme pied-noir faction, known as ultras, blocked all attempts at political reform. Toward the end of the war, the French looked like they might leave Algeria behind. The ultras formed a military wing, letting off bombs in Paris and shooting Algerians and moderate pieds-noirs on Algiers streets.

In Paris, there were various attempted revolts and coups and near civil war. The army was found to have made widespread use of torture in cracking down on the FLN rebellion.

The FLN, as it turned out, was just as faction-ridden as the French. They kept up a nuisance campaign of bombings and shootings, knowing they would be easily defeated by French forces in case of an all-out war.

Many people talk about Algerian communities in France as if they are ungrateful bloodsuckers. Yet few remember the bloody legacy of French colonialism in Algeria, a legacy which enriched France while sucking wealth and resources out of Algeria.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

Private Library

2007-06-03T15:03:00.000+10:00

I don't spend much money buying clothes or shoes. Most of my business shirts come from Target. I might buy a pair of shoes once every 2 years.

However, there are 3 things I spend lots of money on: that blasted professional indemnity insurance, phone bills and books.

Lots and lots of money on books. Thankfully, I've developed some cost-effective strategies to buying books. I look out for major bookfairs, such as the Lifeline fair in Canberra which happens twice a year. I also shop at places that sell publishers' remainders.

I've now got so many of the damned things that my office feels like a second hand bookshop. And only one third of the books are stored there!

I've started doing something I haven't ever done - make a list of all my books. I categorise them by subject, author, whether it was purcahsed brand new or second hand, etc. Eventually, I might put it in some kind of database.

Thus far, only 72 books have been listed. To give you an idea of the variety of topics, here is a sample: Fred Nile's autobiography, a biography of Santa Claus, an Azerbaijani novel written by a Jew who converted to Shia Islam, a biography of that same author, two yearbooks of The Guardian newspaper, a book on church history and on oral history of al-Qaeda!

One question which often weights heavily on my mind is this: when the-bloody-hell (to use a Tourism Australia phrase) am I going to find time to read all this?

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

Who says Aussies aren’t generous?

2006-07-31T18:04:00.000+10:00

Alexander Symonds of the Australian Financial Review reported (Record year for charities, 21/7 at p3) that Aussie charities have recorded their biggest increase in fundraising in 9 years. The major causes have been the Boxing Day tsunami appeals and increased donations from private funds.

“Givewell’s 2006 not-for-profit financing and investment study showed charities’ fundraising revenue, excluding bequests, increased by 44 per cent in 2005 to $1.22 billion.”

Fundraising revenue (excluding bequests) jumped by 88% for the tsunami appeals’ main recipients. Red Cross alone had a 323% growth in 2005.

According to Givewell’s exec director Michael Walsh, the causes of increased generosity include robust economic conditions, good wages and good investment returns.

Christian charity World Vision received the most revenue (a 60% growth) from 2005 fundraising.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Blog In The U.S.A.

2006-07-31T17:42:00.000+10:00

The Australian Financial Review (21/07) reported on a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project on the typical composition of American bloggers. The study sampled 4,573 bloggers across America.

The report found that bloggers are a mainly “young group of internet users who are novice storytellers, enjoy describing their own experiences and have a growing audience in the online world”.

Around 10% of all internet users are now bloggers. Over 50% of bloggers are aged under 30. Most prefer to write about themselves, and many are newcomers to writing.

The US has around 147 million internet users. In China, the internet population jumped to 123 million by the end of June 2006, making it the second largest internet market after the United States. This represented a jump of 19.4% over a 12 month period.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

AFR becomes cultured enough for Canberra academics

2006-06-18T02:31:00.000+10:00

Some weeks back I took an emotional punt and allowed myself to become enamoured by an academic. “Shireen” (as we shall call her) claims to be a cultured person, with a thick national capital accent and an air of pomposity that some of lesser Sydney-type intelligence might find intimidating.

Shireen is also a little … shall we say … to the left of political sanity. She resents my frequent references to a certain quality newspaper which is published on tabloid-sized paper but whose level of sophistication I doubt a Bolt or an Akerman would comprehend.

Of course, I speak of my favourite newspaper, the Australian Financial Review. Shireen, for some reason, regards the AFR as a newspaper for “materialistic uncultured fascists” (and not least because she knows I read it).

(Shireen also claims to have a strong academic interest in matters pertaining to the Indian sub-Continent. She tells me that she has Punjabi blood flowing through her veins (or at the very least a Punjabi-shaped nose). She also speaks fluent Urdu and Hindi, though with a rather Queenslander accent.)

However, in the Friday 18 June edition, Shireen will have found much to appreciate. Page 5 of the review section contains a review of John Updike’s recently released novel entitled “Terrorist: A Novel”.

And what does this have to do with Shireen? Is he a terrorist? She will admit to anyone who might listen that she has hijacked my cardiac muscle. But perhaps of greater interest is that the review of this novel was penned by someone named Amitav Ghosh.

I have no idea who Mr Ghosh is, but he shares his Christian (or should that be Hindu?) name with a famous Bollywood actor. But because he is perhaps of Indian background, it automatically qualifies him as someone Shireen would regard as having the requisite amount of culture for her taste.

The editor of the AFR’s review section will be pleased to learn that it gets better. The AFR will definitely be in Shireen’s good books as Page 12 of the Review includes an article by some (presumably Indian) dude called Pankaj Mishra. Admittedly, the subject of the article is the very un-Indian Nietzsche seeking refuge in the even more un-Indian town of Turin.

I haven’t read either article yet as I first have to check price movements in my fascistic instruments (otherwise known as Woolies shares). But once I have finished with the paper, I might send it to Shireen with a view to introducing her to the realities of capitalist culture.

Indeed, there is life beyond the hallowed walls of academia. But it’s good to know that there is at least one tabloid that is good enough for Canberra academics to read.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Series on Religions in Australia

2006-05-24T18:02:00.000+10:00

I’ve been performing a spring clean of my office, chucking out heaps of older papers, correspondence and files. Thankfully there is one document that I managed to identify before it could have reached the recycling bin.

In 1995, the Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural & Population Research commissioned a series of religious community profiles. The first to be published was Professor WD Rubinstein’s account entitled “Judaism in Australia”. I managed to locate a photocopy of this entire publication.

I also located in its vicinity profiles of Buddhist and Muslim communities. The growth of Buddhism is especially interesting, and the Buddhist community is now Australia’s fastest growing faith-community.

The volume on Islam has been authored by Wafia Omar and Kirsty Allen. Ms Omar is described as a “consultant in cross-cultural education” who was born in Cairo and arrived in Australia in 1971. She worked as a researcher in Egyptian media before her migration. In Australia, she worked as a secondary Maths and Social Science teacher in both Catholic and state school systems.

At the time the study was published (1996), Ms Allen was completing an honours degree in Arabic. Her interest in Arabic language and Islamic culture was sparked during her travels in Morocco.

The volumes are at least 60 pages each. God only knows when I’ll get a chance to read through them all. Apparently there are also volumes on Hindu and Sikh communities in Australia. The profile of Sikhs would make fascinating reading given their being one of the lesser known monotheistic faiths.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Spending Mid-May in the Glory Garage

2006-05-12T19:18:00.000+10:00

Around 6 months ago, I started reading a book about Lebanese girls growing up in Sydney. The book, entitled The Glory Garage, is co-authored by journalists Taghred Chandab and Nadia Jamal.

Taghred used to work in radio, and in recent times has had stuff published in the Sun Herald. The last time I spoke with her, Nadia was night editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Both were born in Australia to Lebanese Muslim families. Both were educated in Australia and speak fluent English. Both choose not to cover their heads with the traditional hijab.

The book talks about their experiences growing up juggling cultural expectations, religion and the values of the mainstream community. They speak of the many conflicts they experience at home and in work life, conflicts often revolving around their attempts to juggle competing cultural values.

In reading the book, I got the feeling they were experiencing dual identities. It was like they were living in 2 different worlds. They complained of double standards in how Lebanese parents treat sons and daughters. Sons tend to have much more freedom than their female siblings. Boys can go out just about anywhere. Girls cannot.

Taghred’s parents chose to send her to a Catholic school. She says they found Catholic values familiar to their Lebanese traditions. Lebanon has a substantial Catholic community, with both Roman and Maronite branches active in Lebanese religious life.

It is unfortunate that the book emphasises the differences between Lebanese Muslim and mainstream experiences of growing up. Much of what I read was familiar, though much of it was also a little strange.

I couldn’t understand, for instance, why at least one of the writers found herself not participating in sporting events during the month of Ramadan. If this reflected a Lebanese understanding of Islam, it certainly isn’t one I am familiar with. It also isn’t one typical of Muslim Australian cultures.

My parents always insisted that I should participate in the same activities as everyone else during Ramadan. Many of my Turkish friends at university would attend the gym with as much gusto during Ramadan as during other times of year. Fasting shouldn’t be used as an excuse to sit on the sidelines of life.

One assumption of the book I found particularly disturbing was the suggestion that mainstream Australian social customs generally ran counter to Muslim faith. This really is quite misleading, and perhaps reflects a more Tripolian-Sunni Lebanese understanding of Islam than one more familiar to most mainstream Muslim Australians.

I have to keep reading. I’ll keep readers posted on my conclusions.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Reading & Listening Up2 4 May

2006-05-04T13:00:00.000+10:00

Rachel Kohn puts together an excellent show on Radio National called “The Spirit of Things”. Unfortunately, I haven’t been a regular listener. But thank goodness for podcasting. From now on, I’ll be a regular!

I’ve started reading her interview with Carla Van Raay, a former nun and sex worker based in Perth, WA. She was part of a Catholic order and served in Australia, the UK and elsewhere for a number of years before leaving. Her story makes difficult and compelling reading. The interview was broadcast in January 2006.

She wrote an autobiography, a copy of which I purchased in early 2004. It is a long and depressing read, and left me wondering whether certain forms of Christian sexual ethics were really all that healthy.

I especially found her approach to sexuality (or rather, the approach she inherited) difficult to understand. Mainstream Islam doesn’t regard sex as something inherently evil. Rather, sex is a natural and healthy urge which demands fulfilment within the confines of the institution of marriage. Even within marriage, the purpose of sex is not limited to procreation.

On the other hand, it seems that for many Catholics, sex is seen as something inherently evil and abhorrent. Or perhaps it is viewed so by a small number of Catholics from the pre-Vatican II era.

What really impressed me about Carla Van Raay was how she dealt with her sex work and emerged from it by her own energies. It didn’t surprise me that her childhood experiences with her father may have led her to feel uncertain about her own sexuality and her interactions with men.

Many women who seem to enter the world’s oldest profession have lacked any healthy relationship with their father. When I was in Melbourne, Mrs D and I sat down and watched a French movie about a Canadian socialist intellectual who was dying of cancer. His daughter send an mpeg of herself via e-mail and told him about how much she owed to him. She started her tribute with the following words:

“The first man in a woman’s life is her father.”

This almost seems like a truism. But imagine what it would be like to have never met your father. Or to have your father more defined by his absence than his presence. Or to have a father who sexually and physically abused you from a young age.

It is no wonder that many women deprived of a healthy relationship with their fathers frequently find themselves in difficult and abusive relationships with men. And some of these even spend part of their lives in the sex industry.

*****

I’ve finally located my folder of fairly urgent stuff to read and write about. I can add some articles I printed off from the website of Islamica. I can also add a book co-authored by Caroline Cox and John Marks and published by an allegedly conservative thinktank in the UK called Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society.

The book is entitled “The ‘West’, Islam and Islamism – Is ideological Islam compatible with liberal democracy?”

Of course, I need not read the entire paper to have the answer. All I need is to check the website of the Turkish Prime Minister and answer with a resounding “Yes!”.

But then, I guess it depends on what they mean by “ideological Islam”. After all, if they were anything like the Judaised neo-Nazi crew of Daniel Pipes and Mark Steyn, they would define ideological Islam as any form of belief that regards Islam as something worth believing in.

*****
Speaking of Mark Steyn, I read in today’s The Oz that the Centre for Independent Studies in inviting Mr Steyn to Australia. Which is a bit like the Islamic Council of Victoria inviting Abu Hamza on a speaking tour.

I’d like to believe that the CIS would have more sense than to invite a xenophobe like Steyn. However, sadly, we are living in times when some western non-lefties deem it appropriate to regard anything resembling Islam as worth hating. Hence, dimwits like Steyn become useful in pursuing an agenda as simplistic as “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”.

However, I have to be careful before attributing gross stupidity and racism to a body as august as the CIS. As if Professor Greg Lindsay would sign his name to anything involving the likes of bin-Ladin or Steyn.

Tonight I join the CIS at their 30th anniversary dinner. It should be an interesting night. Imagine being in a room of 300 allegedly conservative people. I’ll be taking plenty of notes.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Pre-Budget Readings

2006-05-02T22:15:00.000+10:00

Today I discovered a whole heap of podcasting opportunities on the ABC website. It’s extraordinary how much info there is on Radio National. And that doesn’t include all the regional and state-wide radio stations.

If I keep going at this rate, my ears and brain will explode. I might even have to invest in a new iPod!

I’ve also been reading the New York Times Sunday magazine almost religiously. The most recent issue includes a lengthy profile of Egyptian Muslim “televangelist” Amr Khaled. He is apparently broadcast on a Saudi-owned religious TV channel called Iqraa TV. He may not be as popular as Shaykh Qaradawi, but Amr Khaled certainly draws in the audience. Many of his biggest groupies are young females!

Part of my weekend in Melbourne was spent reading articles from the Washington Post. These included a lengthy and detailed expose on two former employees of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who are now on trial under some kind of Official Secrets Act. These guys spent much of their time lobbying relevant ministerial and congressional staffers and departmental heavies in favour of Israel.

One day I will get onto that joint-effort by those two senior American academics on how pro-Israeli activists have pressured the US government to support Israel even if they know full well it means acting against the US’s own best interests.

There is also a recently published report sponsored by SBS on the attitudes of 2nd and 3rd generation young kids of migrants toward multiculturalism. That is one of the more important documents for me to read, especially in light of the upcoming speech to be given at the Independent Scholars Association of Australia on Citizenship.

Speaking of which, Senator Robb’s recent speech at the Sydney Institute and the various media commentaries have to be absorbed. It will be interesting to see what the various commentators will be saying, although many of them will be so predictable.

I will also spend the next few days (if I get a chance) looking at the Exclusive Brethren and their links with conservative parties in Australia and New Zealand. Some dimwitted conservatives claim Muslim cultures are incapable of adapting to mainstream Australian life. Yet these same political leaders are happy to make special allowances for what by all accounts is an even more fringe group.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Reading & writing through Easter

2006-04-14T16:09:00.000+10:00

I hope to spend my Easter break tearing through a whole heap of administrative stuff related to that law practice I almost reluctantly maintain. I’m hoping to reduce the number of files and get rid of clients who refuse to pay their fees. Hopefully that will leave me time to focus on clients I really enjoy working with – the big ones that have interesting work and always pay on time.

At the same time, I will try to maintain some vestige of reading and writing. Yesterday, I felt this huge inspiration to re-visit some old emotional sores after spending time washing feet at the offices of the Exodus Foundation. I’ve sent the piece to the mainstreamers across North, South and West Island. Who knows if any of them will run with it.

That led me into tidying up a small dramatic project which I will one day finish. And hopefully, that Melbourne singer I’ve adored since high school will agree to perform.

I have to spend a bit of time trying to understand the whole Gallipoli thing. I know Turks feature prominently in the campaign, and I’d like to be able to build some bridges using the themes of mateship and mutual respect established between the Ottoman troops and the Diggers.

As usual, I went out and bought the Fin Review. I was going through some of the old ones, ripping out the “Market Wrap" to be fed to the paper recyclers, when I came across an article by Indian novelist Pankaj Mishra, first published in the New York Review of Books (though I couldn’t find it on the website). In the article, Mr Mishra “explains why Muslims don’t necessarily opt for Western ways”. The article was reproduced in the Fin Review on 7 April 2006.

This year is also the 100th anniversary of the final exoneration of French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus, accused of passing military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. The Dreyfus trial took place in an atmosphere of growing anti-Semitism.

As if to underscore how extreme official action can breed extreme reaction, the Dreyfus trial was also where an agnostic journalist named Theodore Herzl first dreamt his dream of an exclusively Jewish state on a small part of Ottoman territory. Later, Herzl was to abandon his insistence on Palestine as the scene of his neo-Biblical fantasy.

Today, Herzl’s fantasy is the 4th largest nuclear power on the planet, with enough of a nuclear arsenal to destroy the planet many times over. It refuses to sign up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and its laws allow suspects to be tortured.

The predictions of our first Australian-born Governor-General are coming true. The establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine is leading to unnecessary friction between the West and the Islamic world. Die-hard supporters of Israel from both the neo-Conservative and Religious-Right sectors across the Western world are now clamouring for the West to attack Iran.

Israel is travelling along a path of self-destruction. Its so-called allies in the Diaspora are doing it no favours by seeking to silence even the most mild criticism of Israel by even those with strong religious and cultural ties to the state.

Muslims themselves aren’t behaving maturely toward the Jewish state. Iranian leadership need to learn to grow up and recognise that their non-recognition of Israel isn’t going to make the Jewish state go away.

Anyway, I’d better stop before this turns into something resembling an op-ed. Have a good Easter!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

This media junkie desperately needs a financial review!

2006-04-11T22:12:00.000+10:00

OK, that’s it. I’ve made a decision. I will break the habit even if it kills me.

I have decided I will no longer purchase the Australian Financial Review. I buy the damned thing everyday, and I try my best to read it. It’s almost as if I feel I have to read and master its contents just so that I can “sharpen my view”.

I still think AFR is by far the best newspaper in Australia for business, the economy, professional services and even politics. AFR is a paper for people who want to get beyond the stereotypical journalistic punter-shit and get to the crux of things.

The problem is that there is so much good stuff in AFR that it is hard to throw the damned thing in the recycling bin! And if I don’t start reading now, I will seriously lose track.

But then, exactly where do you start and stop with the news of the day? There is so much happening, and so many decent analyses around. And apart from AFR (and occasionally SMH and the Age), there is hardly any newspaper that meets the standard of, say, the Washington Post or the New York Times. Or even the New Zealand Herald.

Yes, the Kiwis have a national broadsheet that just pisses all over ours. But how much news can a person consume in one day?

I guess my problem is that I am a complete news and media junkie. I just cannot get enough of the stuff. And I cannot seem to stop myself from writing and commenting. Just today, I had this amazing brainwave about a possible piece on American plans to invade Iran. I then went into some ramble, and after 10 minutes I ended up not getting anywhere.

You don’t believe me? Read it for yourself:

The world will not be the same if the United States invades Iran.

The Bush Administration argues that it wishes to engage in dialogue and resolve its problem with Iran’s nuclear facilities using peaceful means. Yet Bush rhetoric toward Iran has been anything but peaceful.

Meanwhile Iran’s nasty rhetoric has been largely populist in nature and directed against Israel. The plight of the Palestinians remains one of the few issues that galvanises and unites Muslims across the world, even if it has yet to yield any real collective action.

Any US invasion will represent and be viewed by US critics in the Middle East and broader Muslim world as the ultimate double-standard.

The United States says that any military action against Iran will be carried out with a view to protecting Israel from Iranian hostility.

Hostility? What hostility? Yes, the current Iranian president has engaged in populist rhetoric which, at times, has even entered the realm of anti-semitism. Yes, an Iranian newspaper has commissioned a cartoon competition to lampoon the Holocaust. Yes, Iranian imports of Israeli flags have gone up since Iranians against started ritual flag burnings.

But exactly what is the real extent of the threat from Iran? And why invade now?

An attack on Iran will be the ultimate act of stupidity in US foreign policy. It will have consequences for any continued US presence in Iraq. The majority of Iraqis belong to the Shia school of Islam, as do the majority of people living in Iran, Azerbaijan and at least one Gulf state.

The United States has given differing …

Within the Sunni school, the cult of martyrdom represents a theological aberration. Sunni theology would tend to ascribe martyrdom more readily to those who die in natural disasters than paramilitary operations. However, the martyrdom cult is a defining factor of Shia theology which differentiates it from the interpretations of Sunnis.

Sunnis make up perhaps 85% of the world’s approximately 1.2 billion Muslims. Sunni theology is relatively apolitical. In liturgical matters, Sunni Muslims tend to rely on authoritative interpretations of one of four schools of religious law. Sunni Muslims also tend to be more accommodating of different forms of political order.

The main differentiating factor that divides Shia and Sunni Muslims is the status of the family and descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet is regarded by all Muslims as the final divinely-ordained Messenger of God. He left no male heir, his male children all dying in infancy.

The first of the Prophet’s descendants therefore followed an initially matrilineal line through his youngest daughter Fatima who was married to the Prophet’s younger cousin Ali. That couple is believed to have had at least two sons – Hasan and Hussein. They and their descendants are collectively known as the “Ahl al-Bayt” (literally “People of the House”).

Shia Muslims insist that political and religious leadership of the Muslim community must be united in the Ahl al-Bayt. The majority of Shia Muslims (belonging to a sect known as “Athna Ash’ariyya”) have defined this line of descendants in the 12 imams. The first Imam was Ali, the second Hasan, the third Husein etc. The final Imam is believed to have gone into occultation, to re-emerge toward the end of time and lead the believers into a final colossal battle with the forces of evil.

Sunni Muslims are required to have deep love and respect for the Ahl al-Bayt, and the majority of Sunni spiritual orders (also known as “Sufis”)

Iran’s allegedly hostile intentions toward Israel …

This is what happens when you become a media junkie. Instead of earning hard cash through billable hours, you end up wasting time chasing after op-eds or commentaries that may not eventuate.

So wish me luck tomorrow afternoon as I set foot into the post office and force my arm away from the Fin Review. What will I grab instead? The Indian Down Under? Bhagwan help me!

That’s life. And I’m not Derryn Hinch.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Readings of the past few days

2006-04-06T02:05:00.000+10:00

The closest thing I have to finishing a book these days is a wonderful novel authored by a Pakistani lady from the Parsi community of Lahore. Her name is Bapsi Sidhwa, and the novel’s title is The Crow Eaters.

The Parsi community are descendants of Zoroastrians who fled Iran and settled in various parts of India. Their’s is a monotheistic faith with a strict moral code and a strong emphasis on honesty and integrity. Parsis are respected across the sub-Continent and are known for their business acumen and their philanthropic works.

Ms Sidwa’s novel is a hilarious tale of a senior Parsi elder who participates in perhaps the first act of insurance fraud in India. His difficult (to say the least!) relationship with his mother-in-law features prominently in the story.

Basically, the novel lampoons many stereotypical Parsi characteristics, in particular a tendency toward snobbery that even enables Parsis to look down upon Anglo-Indians who are themselves known for their extreme snobbery.

Still in the sub-Continent, I finished reading an article from the Good Weekend magazine about the murder of Indian poachers by tribesmen on the Andaman Islands, located some 1,000 km off the coast of India in the Bay of Bengal. These tribesmen are known to be the most isolated human beings on earth, and are fiercely resistant to any incursion by outsiders.

Welcome!

2006-04-03T23:45:00.000+10:00

Welcome to my comments on the stuff I read. Most of which, thankfully, is more readable than the stuff I write.

This is my latest venture into the blogosphere, and I promise I will try and update it as frequently as possible.

The purpose of this blog is to share (with anyone who cares to read it) my thoughts on stuff I have read, am currently reading and hope to read in the future.

I have an awful habit of reading numerous books at a time. The result is that I rarely finish a book.

I do, however, read plenty of articles from newspapers and magazines, many of which can be found online. Where this is related to current affairs, I will tend to provide commentary on other blogs.

I welcome any readers out there to tell me if they have read something similar or indeed the same or completely opposite or even unrelated. If not, just comment anyway. Provided it isn’t as bloody rude as a bloody Australian tourism commercial, I’ll probably let it through.

So there you have it. Currently, I can tell you that just about all my spare time is spent reading anything and everything to do with the new Australian employment law package known as Work Choices. And quite frankly, it is not all that exciting, though it will hopefully make me lots of money.

I was hoping to comment on a really hilarious book I read some years back entitled “A Fez of the Heart” by British travel writer Jeremy Seal. It is an amusing journey through Turkish history, politics and culture as the author searches for the meaning in that famous late-Ottoman icon, the fez. Perhaps tomorrow.

Until then, ciao!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006