Citizenship test: an opportunity for good lies!

My father thinks that he is, at the age of 70, past the time for tests. He thinks he does not need any more to remember and be reminded of things, accept rubbish as facts, fed up with reading unnecessary items and trying to digest their contents.

He thought that he would have peace of mind at this age, but he was wrong.

Howard will test him now about Australian values.

Howard will ask him the dumb questions like: what are the NRL rules? Do you play cricket? Which beach you are going to usually? And what is the slip-slop-slap? What is the official language of Australia? Where can you find wombats?...

But how will Howard ask him about the Australian civilization?

Would he ask him: who conducted the first genocide of the Aboriginal people? Or would the question be more tricky as: who did bring civilization to Aboriginals? Would he dare to ask him about his feeling about the meaning of Australia Day?

How would the questions be formulated about the Australian participation in Imperialists' wars in Vietnam, Korea ... and before that in the First and Second World Wars?

Would my father be asked about his opinion on the dumbness of Sir Menzies and how did he succeed in fooling Australians for around 2 decades? Or he would be required to mention the achievements of the “Greatest Australian PM”?

Would my father be enforced to lie about his opinion on the war on Iraq and its legitimacy? Would his criticism of the lies of this government about “illegal migrants”, “queue jumpers”, “kids overboard”... be tolerated?

My father asked me a tricky question. He asked what is the relation between the timing of this discussion paper and the fact that English migrants are refusing to take up citizenship. He let me know that there are more than 800,000 (mostly Britsh citizens) who are refusing to give up European citizenship for an Australian one.

Now, and knowing my father's progressive views, I am wondering how many decades under a Liberal government it will take him to pass this simple test?

I until now cannot see how the people can be tested for their feelings?

Does anybody think that citizenship is an issue that can be tested in the same manner as Chemistry and Physics? Can any clever creature compare feeling of belonging with the understanding of the English grammar?
Although I know that my father is speaking English very well, I also know how stubborn he is.

He would not accept the logic of “terra nullius” to justify genocides and colonisation.

He would prefer to stay stateless rather than to accept the lies of why we invaded Iraq.

My father lived all his life in a country where football (or what Aussies call soccer) is a religion, but failed to learn its rules. He also considers it as a “waste of time, energy and a stupid thing to run for hours to catch “a piece of rubber”.

I can imagine that we would need a miracle to convince him to watch a cricket match, let alone to learn its rules.

He lived all his life in a tribal country where everything could be done easily by “connections” and bribes, but refused to participate in this and lived his life the “hard way”.

I am sure that none can convince him to lie just on the day of this citizenship test to say things like:

- Australian government was right to lock up innocent kids, women and men in detention for years.

- Australian government is the most pro-multiculturalism government this land had in the last century.

- Robert Menzies was not a lying fool, and James Cook was not a criminal butcher

- Australian government is not committing war crimes by invading Iraq and Afghanistan

Frankly, it would need a “divine intervention” to convince him to start lying at this age, start eating sausages, walk nude at Bondi, accept the lies of Menzies and Howard and support the war on Iraq.

Would he ever pass this test and get Australian citizenship!!!

But if this is what is required: do you think he cares!!!

The Liberal Party's media release on Hungarian unrest

Media release The Liberal Party of Australia

The Hungarian hooligans should go home

The Liberal Party of Australia is expressing its deep disappointment at the unnecessary unrest in Hungary against the PM Ferenc Gyurcsany, and demanding an immediate end to the street protests. The Liberal Party leader and Australian Prime Minister John Howard expressed his deep concern over the Hungarian people intolerance of “political lying”.

“It is very clear that the Hungarian people are suffering from naive insensitivity to political pragmatism” said Mr John Howard. “The Hungarian people need to open their minds and look to other people’s bright experience in this field”

The Liberal Party leader is urging his Hungarian counterpart not to give in to the hooligans’ demands and hold onto the top position. Mr Howard is urging the Hungarian government to urgently introduce to Parliament tough “Anti-Terrorism Laws” and link the hooligans to the Al Qaeda group.

“We are ready, if asked by Mr Gyurcsamy, to send our experts to show him how to deal with this crisis” Mr Howard announced today. “Mr Ruddock had demonstrated his fine capability to cook up conspiracies here in Australia and can easily do the same and save Mr Gyurcsamy's political future”.

Mr Howard indicated his readiness to send the Hungarian PM a ready-to-use kit on how to avoid any accountability. This could include expressions like “I was not told”, “I did not know”, “I was misinterpreted”, “the tape was manufactured in Tora-Bora mountains” and “I cannot give you details for security reasons”. Any of these would see end of the crisis immediately.

But for longer term, Mr Howard advised his Hungarian counterpart not to be bothered to rule such people that cannot tolerate “simple lies”. He advised Mr Gyurcsamy to seek a new political career somewhere else, where these kinds of lies could be accepted as “necessary steps” to “finish the job”.

“But I will not accept his application to join the Liberal Party of Australia” stressed Mr Howard. “To be a good Liberal politician he should be able to lie for a long time without being caught by media or other politicians”

Mr Howard said that there is still a lot for Mr Gyurcsamy to learn about how to be a good Liberal politician. He reminded the disgraced Hungarian PM that he had been successfully lying in Australia for 10 years, no tapes were leaked to the media or to the opposition politicians. His hero and founder of the Liberal party, Sir Robert Menzies, was successful in lying for more than 18 years.

For further information on how to keep lying without being caught, you can ring the Liberal Party headquarter or ring Kiribilli House directly.

Open letter to His Grace Cardinal George Pell

Dear Cardinal Pell

First of all, I should stress that I am not theologian, but your remarks about violence and Islam prompted me to write you this letter.

I heard you on the ABC radio this morning and heard your questions to your Muslim cleric counterparts.

I would remind you that if you do not know things about Islam, there should be other venues and ways to ask clarifications. Your questions in this way (by creating a media circus), is not constructive and does not help anyone but the extremists on all sides. You should be able to ask for a religious conference with Muslim clerics and direct your questions to them.

After hearing your questions, I have few questions for you:
1- What is the official position of the Catholic church about the successive Popes using Christian faith to invade other people to achieve politico-economic goals? Should I remind you of the blood in the Holy Land by crusade wars for hundreds of years called by the Pope of the day? What about the war between the Catholics and Protestants? Then the colonial movement and re-occupation of the Holy Land by the French and British, in the beginning of the 20th century, with the blessing of the church leaders of the day? And the brutal murder and torture of thousands of Muslims and Jews in Spain when they refused to convert to Catholicism ?

2- What is the benefit of having a very peaceful and fantastic holy book (the Bible), if the followers do not follow its commandments?

3- What is the relationship between the fact that your church is losing followers to the evangelical churches and your (and your Pope's) comments on Islam? Does this have anything to do with competing to attract (or to keep, in your case) church attendees?

4- What is your church definition of “terrorism” and “violence”? Does your church recognise that the invasion (by Chrisitian evangelicals supported by their Governments) of Iraq and Afghanistan is in fact state-terrorism, and subsequently the people of Iraq and Afghanistan have the right to defend themselves?

5- With a long history of your church's complacency in raging violence in many parts of the world at different stages of history, who gave you (and your church) the moral ground to question other people beliefs and commitments to peace and social-justice?

I would appreciate your reply and further discussion on this issue.

Jamal Daoud

John Howard: go to hell with your values!

Did you all not notice the change in John Howard's rhetoric lately?

From purely xenophobic “we will decide who will come to this country” into Nazi rhetoric of “Australian vs unAustralian” and the need for migrants to embrace “Australian values”.

So what is wrong with Indian values? Why is Howard upset from Germans? Are the Nigerian values inferior to Australians?

Does John Howard mean that Australia is the only country that has “codes of ethics”?

Do I hear here Hitler's arguments of German superiority?

To the best of my knowledge, every culture on the earth is advocating for good behaviors against the evil of lying, stealing, deceiving, killing...etc. No difference between the Indian, Chinese, German, Arabic, Nigerian etc unless there are hobbit politicians who use lies and deceptions to achieve some political scoring.

Let me ask now what is the “Australian values”?

If playing cricket is Australian, should the government ban soccer?

If eating sausages is “Australian”, why is “Tabbouleh” still in our markets?

If having sex once mature is “Australian”, why are the “virgins” not rounded up and sent to the “cultural correction camps”?

If English is the test for good citizenship and good manner, why are the “English illiterate” still wandering in the streets and not in Silverwater jail ?

If drinking beer is “Australian”, why did the government included it in the GST, instead of giving it away with each immunization injection?

If “Australian” includes to be racist, why is Paul Keating not in jail?


Well, John Howard, go to hell you and your values especially if they include detaining kids, women and innocent people without any charges.

Go to hell with your values if they include abandoning drowning people in the middle of the ocean, to succeeding electorally on their bodies.

Go to hell with your values if they justify sending troops to wipe out nations, destroy countries and kill innocents.

Go to hell with them if they include depriving the working class of their rights to a fair share of wealth.

Go to hell if they include spreading racial and religious hate, leading to face-spitting on followers of certain religion/culture.

Go to hell with them if they include the requirement to strip me from my cultural, linguistic and religious/irreligious beliefs.

Go to hell with your “values” if they include spreading lies and deception of “illegal immigrants”, “queue jumpers”, “kids overboard”, and “Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction”.

John Howard, if to be Australian, I should do all these evil things, take my citizenship and deport me to Mars.

If we come as a nation to define what is “Australian values”, which should include to be truthful, tolerant, compassionate and hard-working, I am sure who will be deported.

So John Howard, go to hell with your values.

Howard's Anti-Muslims remarks and IR “reforms”

What a great leadership we have in this country!!

A Prime Minister that is master only in fabricating lies and farces, inciting religious and ethnic hatred, sending our troops to invade other countries to destroy them and “wipe them off the map”, ...etc

Was I shocked to hear his latest messages of religious hatred, after all his lies of “queue jumpers”, “kids overboard”, “Saddam's weapons of mass destruction”......??

Frankly? Yes. I was shocked.

I was shocked because he could not stop after all his claims of “Muslim” extremists that want to carry out terrorist attacks on Australian land, which turned out to be not more than cheap farces and lies (after the re-aquittal of “Jihad Jack” and “Zack Mallah” and no charges to any of the rest.)

I was shocked at the low level of desperation that he is showing at the moment.

I was shocked at his assumption (but maybe his assumption is right) that the Australians are the dumbest people on the earth!!

I was shocked that his deeply discriminatory and offensive remarks did not spark immediate widespread condemnations, rallies and civil unrest.

I was shocked at what a beautiful community we have. A community that after 10 years of constant viscious attacks and disgraceful remarks, is still deep calm on the streets of Lakemba, Auburn and Bankstown.

I was shocked at the lack of any alternative leadership in Australia at the moment. All other political forces were very shy to take any practical steps in the last decade and resorted only to very shy media releases (mainly for political scoring).

I was shocked that a few so called “Muslim leaders” were quick to “self flogging”, by blaming the problems on the “extremist” elements in the community.

Let me go back to the remarks and try to understand why I am deeply shocked.

John Howard is urging the Muslims migrants to learn English language “as quickly as possible”.

Very nice words. But how?!!

Did not this Howard know that his government slashed all funding for English teaching since 1996?

Does he recall that his government is stopping (by the law) migrants from studying English language. Do I need to remind him that his government created so many “temporary” visas that are not allowed to study English. Let me remind him of some of these visas: “Temporary Protection Visa” (at least 3 years), “Temporary Spouse Visa” (at least 2 years), Temporary Bridging Visas (unlimited time)..... and all of them are not allowed to access Federally funded English classes.

Even holders of Permanent visas are allowed to access very limited numbers of hours (if any).

So how can this genius assume that these new migrants would learn English!!!

Do his remarks at this moment indicate that he and his government are in crisis!!

Do these remarks have any relation to the Industrial Relation Laws “reform” and their devastating effect on the society??

Have these remarks any relation to the deterioration of the situation in Iraq and the increasing revelation of how much the government knew about the “weapons of mass destruction lies”, the kick back to Saddam's regime and how much they knew about the abuse of Iraqi human rights at Abu Ghreeb?

Would I be shocked for longer than the next year???