Open letter to Mr Rudd: Please act now on racism before it’s too late

Dear Hon Kevin Rudd, PM of Australia
I am writing this letter to sincerely asking you to act immediately to kerb the waves of racism, Islamophobia and discrimination against marginalised people. What prompted me to write this sincere pledge is the mixture of repeated news items about Arabs and Muslims mistreated and my personal experience as one of these.

If you have watched 7 news last night at 6 pm, you would have noticed the documented report about racist cops who treated driver very badly. They did this only because he was driving in “Lebanese” suburb of Punchbowl and he looked like “wog”. The police department did not even show some remorse when asked about the news item by journalist.

I remember that I wrote a letter to the NSW police minister late 2003 about similar story in Bankstown. The then minister denied any racism within the rank of the police force.

I wish to let you know that racism and Islamophobia at the moment has become an epidemic, worse than swine flu one.

You remember that every proposal to build Muslim school was faced with waves of high profile racist opposition. You had not showed any leadership in this area by standing up and defend the Muslims’ rights to build schools they want their kids to go to. Your silence was clear interpretation of supporting these racist attacks. This had led to encourage racists to continue their racist attacks, unabated.

You also had failed Multiculturalism on “Anti-Terrorism” front. We have expected that after your party’s win in 2007 election, that you will work very hard to expose the lies and deception spread by John Howard in this area. But you chose to disappoint all of us and insisted to continue the mockery trials of “terrorist suspects”. Not only this. You clearly have chosen to resort to the same Howard’s tricks by organising media circuses to arrest “suspected terrorists”, who done nothing but telling their wives that they wish to die as martyr. Today we have heard some of your government’s allegations of charges and evidences. It did not make me feel but to laugh, and very loudly. It was deep black laugh. Your department have dared to charge someone for wishing “to die defending his homeland”. Before that, your department have charged someone because he named his son “Jihad” – a very wide spread name in the Middle East. I am considering naming my son Jihad. I wonder if I will be arrested then!!! Not only this. Your government is proposing introducing new wave of “Anti-Terrorism” laws that will make Zimbabwe more democratic than Australia.

In this letter let me express to you my deep disappointment and concern about the high level of racism and Islamophobia we are experiencing under your government. Maybe you have inherited this from your racist predecessor, but your government’s impotence had made thing worse.

Your government’s lack of action on all these issues is sending clear message to the racists and “anti-multicultural” extremists that “our government is on your side”.

I, for example, have written recently to two of your ministers about serious allegations of racism and Islamophobia at workplace, in Bankstown. These practices had affected also multicultural clients with disabilities. To date, I did not receive even an acknowledgment of receiving my letter/complaint. The practices of racism and Islamophobia continue unabated in our Multicultural suburb of Bankstown, under your government’s eyes and nose.

In this letter I would go even further. Because I do care about our beautiful nation, I warn you and your government that matters are going out of hands. “We” cannot continue to live in fear and under heavy discrimination as second or maybe third class citizens. The majority of good law-abiding citizens are losing their faith in the system (I mean democracy and its sisters). If they lose faith in the system completely, you can imagine what would be the consequences. You should remember what happened in Cronulla. This time could be even worse. You also can contact your French counterpart, Mr Sarkouzi, to let you know what had happened in France four years ago when Muslims and Arabs there lost their faith in system and decided to take law in their hands.

At the moment and because of your government decision to ignore all pleads for urgent intervention to kerb racism and Islamophobia, the reasonable voices in the community are losing listening ears.

Mr Rudd
We need strong leader to regain some lost humanity in this great nation, before it is too late. You need to come out from your comfortable white suburb where you live to touch our suffering and feelings. At the end of the day, you are prime mister for all of us, not only for white, blue-eyed Anglo - Saxons.

When racism and Islamophobia come to our ghettoes: My story with DSA management!

We all know that the first step for recovery from any medical, social or economical problem is the recognition of the existence of such problem. Any denial of existence would mean a lack of proper diagnosis, which in turn implies a lack of strategies to solve it.

This is exactly why we are witnessing increasing racism and Islamophobia in the society. The worrying trend is that the racism and Islamophobia is coming to “our” ghettoes. We are hearing now not only racist opposition to build Islamic schools in white dominant suburbs of Campbelltown or Liverpool, but also in the heart of Bankstown. We are not only witnessing attacks on veiled women in the north shore or Liverpool, but in the heart of Merrylands and Bankstown.

My story with DSA is very clear example of racists and Islamophobic people invading “our” suburbs. This invasion is currently going unrecognised and unresisted, mainly because of lack of multicultural representation in decision making bodies at all levels.

The story began when I was offered job with non-for-profit organisation called Disability Services Australia to work with people with disabilities. The job involves trying to find them suitable job, or at least prepare them to enter employment market by identifying their barriers and put strategies to address these barriers until they become job ready.

I was offered the job on mid April 08. After offering the job, the assistant manager told me that the manager had asked him to clarify 2 things before commencing of work at 21 April:
1- What are my views on homosexuality: as many of the managers and colleagues are “lesbians and gays”.
2- Would I have trouble visiting client at their workplace if they are working in pubs and clubs?

Both comments were related to my religion of Islam. I was deeply shocked. I thought it was either mistake or joke, but made me more curious to explore the kind of organisation in the heart of predominantly Muslim and highly multicultural suburb of Bankstown.

While the questions in themselves are non-discriminatory (clearly we cannot discriminate against lesbians and gays) – the fact that I in particular was asked them was indicative of potential issues in the future. Nevertheless, despite these early comments, I had no trouble with this organisation. The organisation is truly full of lesbians and gays, as I was told initially by assistant manager – but that is something does not bother me generally, anyway. The problems with the organisation arose from other sources.

The first serious trouble happened when I was quoted by Sydney Morning Herald in the case of Aminov family demanding their grant of permanent residence immediately. I thought that the management and colleagues would be very proud of me. At the end of the day, I was helping family which included people suffering from multiple disabilities. It was within the declared objectives of the organisation. What happened is the opposite.

I was interrogated and questioned and asked to explain why on my day-off I would help marginalised people with disabilities.

Then at the end of the December 08 I was asked by assistant manager (on behalf of the manager) about why I am talking Arabic in the office. This was the peak of any discriminatory act any citizen can be subjected to:
1- We are operating in area where more than 20% of the residents do not speak English – a large proportion of these are Arabic speaking.
2- The area also has large proportion of Muslim faith – the majority of whom speak Arabic.
3- I have a few clients who do not speak English at all, and so I communicate with them only in other languages (Arabic or Russian)
4- Even if there is suspicion that that some of my time on the phone speaking in Arabic is not with clients, the fact is that other co-workers are talking the whole day about non-work related issues, and in English. No one had targeted them to tell them to speak only about work-related issues in the office. We need to be judged on our outputs – not on assumptions about how much time we spend working directly with clients

These acts of racism, Islamophobia, bullying and intimidation went on and on until I could not take it anymore.

I asked myself why these acts were committed from first place. Why has it dragged on and on unabated?

The answer is more simple than you and I can imagine.

The reason is that the officials in all decision making bodies inside this organisation are “imported” white Anglo-Saxon privileged people who never lived in these ghettoes. They only have more prejudice about “us” and “our” “funny for them” way of life. And maybe they think that they are on “holy” mission to “teach” us how to be “civilized”.

The moral crisis inside the DSA is a true copy of the moral crisis in Australia and other western countries. This is why our parliament and parliamentarian are in one valley, and the rest of us are in other valley. They are more concerned about homosexuals’ marriage or increasing the politicians’ allowances, while we are terrorised in our ghettoes, suffering from unemployment or discrimination, and lacking the access to Australian society that will in fact make our country truly multicultural.

Unless there will be enough of us in all decision making bodies, including the management positions, the situation will go from bad to worse, maybe to the extent of social explosion and serious unrest.

But we cannot remain silent. I will not be intimidated by Anglo-Saxon managerial team who was born with spoon in their mouth. And I am considering all my options in this regard, including making this issue an issue of public interest.

We need to unite our efforts to get rid of these racist and Islamophobic elements from our beautiful multicultural suburbs.

Kevin Howard: Why resorting to old tactics of raising Islamophobia!

Mr Kevin Howard
We have got your message today. You are in hurry to go to early election before any total economic collapse.

We understand that you need to go to early election before the blood will be spelt heavily in the streets of Kabul, Tehran, Lebanon, Tel Aviv… including the blood of Australian soldiers sent to serve the American imperialist colonial adventures (the same as the old days during all imperialist wars of I & II World Wars, Korean war, Vietnam war, …).

We understand that with your government’s lack of any major success on any level, you need to open new front fighting against ghosts not seen to any (except to ASIO agents) in a bid to score some imagined victories.

Mr Kevin Howard
Our hopes on you to restore humanity to our nation had faded earlier than expected.

We hoped that you can:
1- Restore humanity to poor people on low income or on welfare system. The opposite had happened: we discovered that under your government Centrelink offices became hubs to torture poor people, mainly with multiple marginalizations.
2- Restore humanity to people with disabilities: nothing major had happened to restore humanity for one of the most vulnerable people in the society.
3- Abolish inhumane treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and newly migrated people: we witnessed the worst attacks on students, tightening the immigration laws from non-English speaking countries and no major change on asylum seekers’ treatment.
4- Stop electoral rigging by distributing billions of dollars on voters and incumbent party’s campaigning using public money: to discover that you were more generous in buying votes where you spent $16 billions in the last 10 months only, in addition to spending millions to highlight your party’s “achievements” on tax-payers money.
5- Restore spending on public services: to discover that you are engaged in blame game with previous government on who destroyed public housing and health, with no credible money spent in these areas.

And lastly we hope that you can take decisive steps to counteract racists and Islamophobic elements in the society. But we discovered that these elements had grown extensively and started to migrate from white dominant suburbs of Cornulla and Sutherland to invade highly multicultural suburbs of Lakemba, Bankstown, Merrylands and Auburn.

Today we understood why these elements are feeling very powerful. They are encouraged by you, your government and your security agencies who will get more powers soon added to the extra powers given tot them by previous government.

Mr Kevin Howard
Can you tell me the necessity of resorting to old tactics of spreading fears and division in the society by spreading Islamophobia? Are we intelligent enough by linking your today’s poor performance of staging media circus against nameless persons who have committed unknown (and will remain unknown forever under the Anti-Terrorism legislations) sins to achieve following agendas:
- To push for Labor government’s proposal for new draconian “Anti-Terrorism” legislations.
- To increase your popularity among the racists and conservative voters in case you lose the crucial vote on climate change legislation which could lead to double dissolution election.
- To prepare us for possible Australian participation in many wide regional wars against mainly Muslim countries of Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia and Sudan.

Mr Kevin Howard
Again, we should admit that we have made big mistake when we thought that you are different and hence we voted for you.

Mr Kevin Howard
If we need to continue suffering by voting for a devil, we would prefer to do it the old way: vote for the devil we know.

At least your godfather, John Howard, was openly racist. He was proud to be racist. We know that he is racist. So we could deal with him accordingly, without being fooled.

Mr Kevin Howard
If you think that we have no other choice but to choose either openly racist politicians or undercover one, you are making big mistake.

Mr Kevin Howard
In the next election, you will not get my vote or my group’s preference. You are so indifferent from your predecessor, expect in constant smiling. But smiles cannot build nation or rebuild social tolerance and cohesion.

Climate change legislation: political opportunism or matter of principled stance!

We can assume that our prime minister is hoping that the opposition would make their biggest mistake and block the climate change legislation. Such move that could pave his way to call for double dissolution and have very early election. There is no doubt that he is watching very carefully the progress of the global and local recession. There is no doubt that the deterioration of the economic situation further (and there are many indications that the economy will deteriorate soon very drastically) would mix all cards and give the opposition more games to play on the claim of historic Labor incompetence in managing economy.

Would the opposition makes this biggest mistake, many political parties would dance from joy. This dance is not because they stick to their policies or that they have achieved major victory. On the contrary. Many political players would have shame in their history forever would they block this legislation. On the top of these would be the Greens party and Nick Xenophon team.

The Greens party in particular would be left with no excuse to be trusted or to be voted for, ever. Imagine that a party that was established to protect environment, would block a legislation that would reduce carbon emissions by 10 – 15 %, pave a way to other major polluters nations to convince their citizens and voters of the need to take big steps in this direction and lastly would see Australia play major role in Copenhagen conference. (I talked about this issue in more details in previous article http://jamaldaoud.blogspot.com/2008/12/greens-blocking-of-action-on-climate.html)

So why the Greens is so keen to block this legislation?

First I want to stress again here that the Greens party is merely an opportunistic party that has no ideology or principles to stick to. The Greens is just a party of populist stances to get more votes, hence get more power and makes more millionaires. I will give some examples later in this article to support this assumption.

If we go back to the issue of climate change, the Greens is so keen to block this legislation just to pave a way for double dissolution with more chances to increase their representation in the senate (and not for any principled reasons whatsoever). As the Greens is standing at the moment nationally on around 7% of the vote, there would be no guarantee that they could increase their representation in the senate. There is no guarantee even to maintain the numbers they are having now. To win a seat in the senate in normal election needs 14.5% of the vote in each state and 33.5% in the territories. The Greens would have big gamble to win any seat in normal election. They never won a senate seat on their own votes, except when Bob Brown won his seat in Tasmania on 2007.

But in a double dissolution scenario, The Greens needs only 7.5% to win a seat on their own. This means that in any double dissolution, the Greens would have big chance to win senate seat in each state and maybe 2 seats in Tasmania. This is why the Greens is so keen to block this legislation in a bid to achieve this outcome: double dissolution.

So the Greens’ blocking of the climate change legislation definitely would not be on principled grounds. Let us compare the Greens stances on other issues to realize this fact.

The Greens had the chance to block the legislation to approve 2 stimulus packages, and then they can enforce the PM to call for early election and double dissolution. I, personally, could not believe that any progressive politician could approve the largest economical vandalism in the history of this nation. The wasting of national common wealth to support mainly addictions (on gambling, drugs, alcohol or shopping), which did not create single job, would not have support of any clever semi-progressive politician. The Greens supported this major economical vandalism and major national wealth waste because it was very popular amongst the voters. The Greens could not afford to gamble by taking principled stance on issue that could cost them many votes.

The other political players who would benefit from the double dissolution scenario are the Nick Xenopohn team and Family first party.

Especially the family first senator is in very vulnerable position. His party got less than 2% in the last election. In normal election he needs a miracle to be re-elected. But in double dissolution, he needs a mini miracle to win a seat.

So what is about the Liberals? And why Tony Abbot raised alarm recently about this legislation and the possibility of double dissolution?
There is no doubt that the coalition will be the biggest losers would double dissolution be called. The Liberals were put in very difficult situation here. If they would agree to pass the legislation, the party would be seen to betraying the business sector, which are historically the loyalist voters for Coalition. So they would lose many voters in the long term. And if they block the legislation, they will pave a way for early election and so to a big defeat and possibility of losing seats in both houses.

The problem of Australian politics is that it is very static, not dynamic. Different parties are using the same rhetoric, tactics and tricks for decades. It is very difficult to introduce new concepts easily.

So what other options Malcolm Turnbul has to avoid such fate of total disastrous early election and internal fighting among different factions?

Malcolm, if he thinks deeply, can use the new – old tactics of gentle retreating with minimum casualty. With current situation in the parliament, the Liberals can vote against the legislation in the house. The Labor government has numbers there to pass it. Then Malcolm can declare that the party would block the legislation in the senate. But at the same time, he would arrange for few senators to cross the floor and vote for the legislation. By doing this, he can avoid double dissolution trigger and major loss in both houses.

The most important lesson we learned from this issue (after adding to the other issues in the past few months) is that there is total lack of principled political parties in our parliament.

Should we allow this to continue? Or may be the more important question should be: can we afford to allow this to continue?

The deterioration of the situation of marginalized groups (at all levels) is sending strong message that we should take steps to address this leadership vacuum.

The club of white, middle class and privileged politicians had proved to be incompetent to tackle any issue that matters to ordinary and marginalised citizens. The issue of climate change is a good example of the need for strong leadership to lead Australia into better future. What we have at the moment is a sold-off leadership running after their personal interests.

Sectarian hate in Sydney: Why I will not fly with Etihad Airways, ever!!

The “political” money of Lebanese and Arabic regimes and political parties did not only destroy the sectarian tolerance in Lebanon, but has reached Australia and is affecting the lives of tens of thousands of Muslims living here. It is normal now to hear that there was fight here or there because of sectarian hate comments against the Shia or retaliatory attacks on Sunni.

We forget all our problems of deep racism, low representation in decision making bodies and high representation in the tabloid media. We forget all about crusade war on our homelands of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, ….etc. But we all discovered that we are either from this sect or from the other one.

The latest disgusting sectarian and racist attack I witnessed was on 16 June 09 at the Sydney International Terminal at Sydney Airport. My friend (Palestinian who was born in Syria) was traveling to Syria after 8 years without a visit. He was both very exited but deeply scared.

At the Etihad counter a lady called him and his family to check in. I was there to support him and give him hand if he needed it; especially as he has many health problems. The following 30 minutes was horrific and brought to my mind memories of third world countries and practices of secret agencies of dictatorships and totalitarian regimes.

It helps a lot to put the horrific treatment into dot points, to simplify things:

1- After she checked the Australian passports of my friend and his family, she realised that most of them were born in Damascus, Syria. At that point she lost her mind. She opened the passports and shouted: you were born in Damascus? Is that in Syria? Do you admit? I remembered the Bush administration with its “Axis of Evil” slogans. As if she wants to tell him: are you part of this evil regime? She then asked them to make their Syrian ID documents available. When they said that they do not have any Syrian documents, as they are traveling on Australian passports, she told them that without showing her their original Syrian ID documents she will not process their checkout, and they would not be allowed to fly. After terrorising the whole family regarding the possibility of them missing the flight and losing thousands of dollars, she pretended that she talked to her manager who allowed the checkout. It was very clear that she was taking some revenge actions for treatment she (or one of her family members) received at Syrian checkout points in Lebanon during the presence of Syrian army there.
2- After she commenced the checkout process, she started to be very strict with the allowed weight for the family. At one stage, she told them that there was half kilo needed to be removed from one of the hand bags. After they removed a pair of shoes from this hand bag, she went on and on, with threats that she will either not allow them to fly or charge them $400 (for half kilo????)
3- At some stage she became very aggressive, stood on her feet, removed the luggage sticker and said that they will not fly today. I then asked her to give me her name to complain later against her. She refused and asked to remove all of us from the front of the counter.

At that point and when the whole family started to cry and become nervous, I intervened and asked to speak to her manager. She refused to call the manager. I then asked her to give me her name, but she also refused. I had no other option but to call the police. When her manager saw the police coming and other passengers in the Airport clustering around us, she asked her to finish the torture of the family and send the bags on.

I talked to my friend in Arabic, and she understood us. She was clearly Arabic speaking. And she clearly had problems either with my friend’s Syrian place of birth, or she had problem with my Palestinian traditional scarf. Or maybe she had problems with both. And I believe she had problems with both.

How would sectarian blind hate, based on no reason, allow someone to persecute her fellow Australians?

Did not this lady learn from history that this sectarian blind hate lead to massacres in her homeland? Would she want to see similar here in Australia, even only by starting to discriminate against each other and abuse power to humiliate the “other”?

We will not let this go on an on. This is why we wrote to the Etihad airways. The response so far was good, but with no action to address the discrimination or any action to prevent further oppression. This is why we are taking this matter further to the Human Rights Commission. And we may take it further. At the end of the day, my friend was not responsible for the mistakes of Syrian government, committed by deep encouragement and agreement with all Lebanese forces attacking Syria now.

We can understand and accept that this lady can form Anti-Syrian and Anti-Palestinian movement and campaign against “us”. But in business, we deserve fair trading, especially if operating in Democratic society. And we will get it.

And I will not fly with Etihad which allowed this discrimination to happen without any serious disciplinary action against this customer officer.

Auburn Councilors’ demands: laughable arguments to justify greed!

We do not believe that any reasonable stable person would make comments or conflicting decisions as the Auburn councilors made lately. The council affairs have started to be not just a matter to be laughed at - but to be disgusted by too.

The councilors, especially the alliance of the left and far right (this is by itself is matter for deep disgust), were demanding changing the classification of the job they are doing. In simple words, they demanded a pay increase of 100% (Councilors put out hand for rise http://www.torchpublishing.com.au/read/index_assets/review_24_2_09/page_5.html.)


But then, and after they discovered that we are having deep financial troubles and a practical recession and that the council budget is in red, the same alliance demanded an increase of the residential rates by 7.2% (Council applying for residential rate rise http://www.torchpublishing.com.au/read/index_assets/review_14_4_09/page_1.html)

Then and before the Minister for Local Governments decided on changing the classification of the job to grant them an increase of 100%, they met and granted themselves a pay increase of 2.5% (Pay rise for council http://www.torchpublishing.com.au/read/index_assets/review_09_06_09/page_3.html).

The joke did not stop here. One of the newly elected councilors who ran his election campaign last September on representing the “community’s needs” was quoted stating that an increase of his pay by 102.5% is good to stimulate local economy (Pay rise is good local investment http://www.torchpublishing.com.au/read/index_assets/review_16_06_09/page_4.html).

The biggest joke is that we are talking about Auburn council, and not Woollahra or Manly. We are talking about one of the poorest areas in Australia, with one of the highest unemployment rates in Australia.

The joke goes on and on unchallenged. The councilors think that residents either do not read English so they do not know what these councilors are doing. Or that the residents are too stupid to understand their (I mean the councilors’) greed.

The most shameful part of this saga is that it comes from councilors alleging themselves to be progressive who won their seats on promises to fight for a better life for area residents.

All that we are seeing from these councilors since the election is:
1- Bid to close community centres that provide food vouchers to the most needy.
2- Bid to increase rates on residents.
3- Bid to increase salaries to themselves to more than double.
4- Bid to introduce meters to parking in the streets (unlike all neighbouring councils)

Yes, the council is in red, because of mismanagement and many other reasons including the global recession. But addressing this cannot be achieved by squeezing the poor rate payers on one side to inflate the pockets of councilors with allowances they do not deserve.

At the end, they were elected to do this job for this designated allowance. Anyone who thinks that they cannot do this job for this low payment, they also most welcome to resign.

We are watching closely the situation which is no more than cheap jokes. But we will have another say at the next election.

The solution for Australian historical racism

The attacks on Indians in Australia were not the only racist discriminatory event that had happened in the last few weeks. Despite the persistent denial from the authorities and the counter insistence of community leaders and members, the facts are clear.

It was not only Indians who were discriminated against during the last few weeks.

Last month, it was the Hispanics in the form of “Adios” to Sol Trujillo. Also during the same week it was Muslims in Camden, where the whities claimed that “we are not racists” but “we do not want Muslims here in our area”.

The only strategy put by government to fight this escalating racism was the denial. Kevin Rudd claimed that he was not racist. But he was caught on all media outlets around the world laughing with his “adios” attitude.

And in Camden, the council was in full denial mood. The councillors had no Anti-Muslim discrimination, though the court had dismissed all council’s arguments as baseless. Then the judges were in full denial after they took decision outside their authority. It was not about discrimination, they just wanted to stop “them” coming to the area.

And now all officials are claiming that Indians are not targeted. And when they were enforced to admit that the Indians “maybe” were targeted for racial reasons, the police leaked unconfirmed information that it was not whites who attacked them, but the Lebos. So it was not white racism. This is what Paul Sheehan said.

What a shameful joke.

Can we ask few questions here?
1- Was this the first time some Australians showed racism, while other Australians suffered from racism?
2- Why are the government and its arms of bureaucrats and security agencies “impotent” to take any action but denial?
3- What to do to address this issue and convince Indigenous, Hispanics, Muslims, Indians, Africans, Arabs… that racism is not flourishing in Australia?

What amazes all of us that the organisations that were established to fight for human rights and for multiculturalism were also ‘impotent” in the new continuous wave of racism. Their full denial of existence of racism in Australia was sending wrong message to the racists. These organisations were indeed complacent in the new racist wave, by offering blanket cover for the racists. It was very clear that they became part of the problem, and not part of any solution.

Instead of playing the role of multiculturalism defender, the commissioner for Community Relations was in full denial of any racism in Australia. He insisted that we are the ideal society that knows no racism or discrimination. Many other officials who were assigned to watch the situation of human rights, racism level and multiculturalism were also in full denial, stressing that Australia is one of the best multicultural countries in the world.

And this is the irony and the cause of all historical racism this country suffered since the invasion more than 2.5 centuries ago.

In a country where 98% of its population are from migrant background and where there are more than 150 different ethnicities, only one colour is dominant in its decision making bodies. This is why this one ethnicity would do everything they can to maintain their grip on power - even if this would mean deeply dividing the society, by spreading racial hate and fear.

We believed that the new government of Mr Smiley would take actions to stop (or at least reduce) racism. Instead, he was embroiled in racial slurs.

And where are the “progressive” small parties? Maybe they are not in full denial state, but they are definitely in either a full sleeping, full cowardliness or full agreement (with racists) state.

With a quick look at the composition of our parliaments (Federal and ALL states), we can discover the reasons for our long racist history.

Yes, we are in deep troubles. The troubles could get uglier if there will be no serious steps to counter the close - mindedness of our oldest migrant ethnicity. They should understand that Australia in 21 century is fundamentally different from Australia in the 18 – 20 centuries. Demographically it is fundamentally different too.

Our political class is shamefully very white. This is the root of all our troubles. And the first step is to challenge the colour of our decision-making class.

Without this, these white politicians will invent new Cronulla every year to keep their seats and their absolute grip on power.

But can Australia afford this?

Why the Greens did not discipline “unGreen” councillor in Auburn!!!

First of all let us assume that the Greens has indeed any clear “green” ideological agenda, that they will stick to it to get directions in taking any decision or when conducting any campaign. This assumption is very important to compare it with the reality of this “opportunist” party.

If this assumption is true, even for less extent, we would have expected that the Greens party would have taken major disciplinary steps against Greens councillor in Auburn, Ms Malikeh Michaels. So far during this term of the council she committed the followings:
1- She supported proposal to approve high-rise building in Queen St, Auburn (against her election campaign promises, and the Greens clear policy in opposing such buildings).
2- She supported the demolition of heritage-listed building in Harrow Rd, Auburn (again against the Greens clear policy on this issue)
3- She did not initiate any initiative to promote environmentally sustainable proposals to be implemented in Auburn development proposals.
4- She campaigned against the Greens candidate in First Ward during Auburn council election, September 08.
5- She attacked the party and encouraged members to defect to rival parties (including myself since 2005), as she labelled the Greens as “White Anglo middle class people’s club with no place for multiculturalism).
6- She built very close relationship with the highly regressive Liberal party and voted in block with them on EVERY proposal since last September.

Let me tell you the truth: I was not surprised on this as I did not expect the Greens to take any step against her for many reasons:
1- The Greens has no clear political agenda based on ideology. The Greens is punch of opportunist people who failed to secure any position in any different political parties. All what they are after is to increase votes and get themselves elected to parliament or any public office (or to secure staffer position) with some power and money, to secure comfortable retirement. Please read what another Greens councillor, Irene Doutney, on 31 Oct 07, had to say on this issue: “I think there are a couple of things about the greens that need to be explained. The Greens unlike other parties are more a group of individuals that work collectively. For better or worse there is no overarching ideology that informs policy decisions ….”
2- The Greens infact wants to get rid of the wrong label of being “Left” they were given because of the lack of real left.
3- The Greens are happy for Malikeh to break the ice with the far right Liberal party (enforced on them because of the label mentioned above). By doing this they can achieve many goals in one shot:
- They can wait until Malikeh establish good relationship with the Liberals to use the excuse of “not to be monarchist more than the king” to publicly announce deals with the Liberals. This would happen by saying: here is Muslim representative who have good relationship with Liberals, despite all Anti-Muslim sentiments mounted by that far right party. So why we should not enter any deal?
- The relationship will allow the secret negotiations between the Greens and the far-right Liberals to see the light just in time for the next Federal and State elections.

But how can any political party trust lady that attacks her own party, stab its candidate in the back and make secret deals with rivals?
But the more important question here would be: how would the community and progressive people of Australia support and trust such party that is waiting at the doors of the most regressive far right party to make “preferential deals” with?

The answer is not easy. And we would not know the answer right now. We should wait to see how the community (not only Muslims, but the progressive mainstream community too) will react to these dirty deals and assumptions. And clearly this is the main reason why the Greens hierarchy is very patient with Malikeh, if not supporting her. They clearly did not learn from the huge backlash when the community discovered similar deals during Victoria state election, 2006, and then NSW state election, 2007. Or maybe they are gambling that the community had forgotten all what the Liberals had done and stand for. Again they are clearly did not analyse closely the results of the recent Queensland state election (I will post our analysis very soon, as it gives good indication about what to expect in the next Federal and NSW state elections)

The Greens wants her to make all these mistakes, dirty deals and wrong assumptions, until the next election. Then if the community would show strong dissent and threaten to send strong protest message, the Greens would act at that time by putting all the blames on her (Malikeh). At that time and if the community’s reaction will be so loud, the Greens will easy say: we did not agree with her on this. Then they will blame her for all the dirty deals and tricks, and they may take strong disciplinary actions then.

But this step is very big gamble. Firstly, the community’s backlash could be so huge that it will not accept any justification. At the end of the day, Ms Malikeh is not new Greens councillor. She was on council for more than 5 years.

Secondly, the Greens hierarchy cannot guarantee Malikeh. She can cross the “floor” at anytime she will get “better deal” and better conditions of employment.

I think that the time ahead would be very interesting. But for now I should mention one thing at the end of this piece. When I urged Malikeh to run for council, I did not ask her to become “representative” of the community. I indeed urged her to run to become good example for Muslims’ participation in this society to demystify all ugly Liberals campaigns to stereotype our community. It is very clear that I made the wrong choice. And for this I do apologise deeply, to every Australian.

Sorry

Ms Michaels: this time it is very dangerous.

This time we should all stand together and say: enough is enough and not in our name. I am talking here about the decision taken by 6 councilors to investigate possibility of allowing demolition of heritage listed former fire station in Auburn.

We should send a clear message that the trio Michele Michaels – Izzet Anmack – Ronney Oueik does not represent us as a community.

Firstly we should mention things as they are. Both Ms Michaels and Mr Ronney ran in the last election not as Muslim candidates, but on behalf of their parties. And both their parties are very far from representing the interests of the Muslim community, if not representing the opposite. I will give details on this later in this opinion piece.

We noticed that after Ms Michele Michaels missed out on becoming Mayor of Auburn and missed out on the $50,000 allowance, her attitude changed significantly. The latest change is very dangerous to the harmony in the community and could badly backlash against us as a community of religious and cultural minorities.

This time this trio is sending a message to all Australians that the Muslims are banditos, arrogant and do not recognize or respect any law or rule. The trio is in fact finishing the job started by John Howard of stereotyping our community and branding us as “unAustralians”, supporting illegal activities.

The Auburn Council motion and subsequent media comments by Malikeh Michaels had the potential to achieve more than what John Howard tried to achieve in a decade of Anti-Muslim propaganda, if she is not stopped immediately. This dangerous trend here is the fact that this trio is claiming that they are representing Muslims in all their actions. Ms Michaels has even gone further when she was shedding tears at the Anti-Muslim behaviour of the councilors in opposing her motion. This resulted in threats of violence against those councilors by mislead community members after they heard the tears from this “representative of Muslims in Australia”.

Yes. As Muslims we are disadvantaged and treated as second class citizens. But we are fighting to be treated equally and only equally. We are not seeking to be treated as super citizens: citizens above laws. Citizens that can destroy, demolish and re-structure without following any rules or laws.

On the claims by this trio of “representing the Muslim community”, let us mention some facts.

Let us start with Mr Ronney Ouiek. He is member of the Liberal party. For the Australians who do not remember what the Liberal party has done, let me mention a few facts:
1- The Liberal party detained tens of thousands of asylum seekers (90% of them are Muslims) and then destroyed their lives by several inhumane pieces of legislation.
2- The Liberal party destroyed civil liberties and introduced Anti- Terrorism laws, which were introduced to mainly discriminate against and target Muslims.
3- The Liberal party refuted Multiculturalism and considered this word to be shameful.
4- The Liberal party sent our troops to participate in invading Afghanistan and Iraq and supported blindly Israeli massacres in Lebanon and Palestine.
5- The Liberal party promoted all lies about the Muslim community to label the community as terrorist and out of control.

Not only this. Ronney Ouiek was quoted at the pooling booths during the last council election supporting Israeli massacres against Palestinians and against his own Lebanese people.

Would such person represent Muslims?

And then let us ask where Ms Michaels was when the attack on Muslims was at its height? Where was she when the detentions were full of Muslims? Where was she when the Howard government legislated all these discriminatory laws against Muslims and labeled them as terrorist by birth? And where was she when Israel invaded Lebanon (2006), and then invaded Gaza (2008 -2009)? And where is she now where tens young Muslims are still behind bars for no reason, allegedly for “terrorism-related” activities?

For this lack of track history of any “commitment” to major issues of concern to Muslims, where did Ms Michaels get this claims that she represent Muslims? Has she not noticed that Zalmay Khalil Zadeh, the criminal member of George Bush administration, was in fact Muslim. Could he claim that he represented American Muslims?
If we add to this the fact that Ms Michaels claimed after the last council election that she got elected to the council on the votes from white middle class voters in the new suburbs of Auburn, then we should wonder how come she is claiming now that she is representing the Muslim community (who did not vote for her, as per her claim)?
The tight bond between Ms Michaels and the Liberal councilors is answering it all. It could be that she is still planning for her mayorship next term with the support of Liberals-Unity- Izzet councilors. And I do not think that it is anything to do with the Muslim rights.

And why did I say at the beginning that this time she is playing a very dangerous game?
1- She is playing dirty tactics to raise the feelings of Muslims against a few councilors, which could result in violence. This violence could result in media hysteria that would bring back the memories of the Howard dark ages of high racist attacks on Muslims. Then we, as a community, will start again from scratch to rebuild our shattered reputation.
2- Her hysterical campaign to apparently secure the mayorship position, even if will not resulted in physical violence, could be used to justify portraying our community with all ugly labels.
3- This hysterical campaign could also result in dividing the community itself and then could spark factional and sectarian violence or at least tension, between supporters of this development application and the ones who do not.
4- Her hysterical opportunist campaign (if not stopped) could clean the dark pages of Howard-Ruddock crimes and introduce the xenophobic Liberals as the Muslim friendly party.

What amazes me too is that she circulated an email earlier last week stating that she is a proud “Greens” party member. I checked the official policy of the Greens on the heritage issue. I will quote a few points:

Under Principles:
5- We should support appropriate development that is sympathetic to its environment, heritage considerations ….
Heritage is viewed by developers and, in some instances, by planners as an obstacle to the planning process, rather than an asset, as it should be.
Then under Goals:
30 - Establish a requirement that developers conserve and adaptively re-use heritage structures …
And there is special section for protecting heritage in the same policy (you can access the policy on http://nsw.greens.org.au/policies/building-and-development)
So in reading this policy and then reading the decision by this Greens councilor to support potential demolition of a heritage building, we should come to either one of the following 3 conclusions:
1- It is either the Greens policy is published on the web just to mislead public and get more votes only (which is true in most cases)
2- Or that the Greens councilor did throw the Greens official policy into rubbish bin, for own benefit and agenda.
3- Or maybe it’s a combination of both, for combined interests and agendas.
Now let us ask what are these agendas of both the Greens and Ms Michaels:
1- It is possible that Ms Michaels is just planning for the next Mayorship election, only.
2- Or maybe she is planning to move parties to the Liberals.
3- Or maybe it is a bigger agenda of the Greens to enter coalition with the extreme right Liberal Party in the next election.
4- Or it could be combination of all the above.
As this is a very dangerous move that could backlash against the whole community, we should not be silent. And we should not be intimidated by emotional abuse tactics of Ms Michaels by abusing us as Anti-Muslims.
We opposed and condemned the move not to approve Mosques in Camden, Baulkham Hills and before that in Sefton, Dee Why and Earlwood, where development applications were done according to laws and regulations. We also (not like the Greens MLC) opposed denying Muslims to build schools, if they would be built according to rules and regulations. But we cannot support breaking the law in such a way.
I will seek a meeting with Br Shafiq Khan to explore any solution without any violent backlash against our community. But at the same time I want everyone to know that not in my name. Definetley Ms Michaels does not represent me as Muslim Australian. And I know that hundreds (if not thousands) do agree with me.
Accordingly, the trio of Michaels-Anmak-Oueik should not pursue their own agenda regardless if it will be built on more suffering of hundreds of thousands of our community members.
We should do all in our hands to let everyone know about this. And definitely we will be present at the next council meeting to let them know that: Not in our name.
And I should mention here that I wrote this piece regardless of my views on heritage preservation. I could have a different opinion, that is irrelevant. The most important thing for us is the interests of the community and to maintain and strengthen the harmony in the society. It would be very shameful if we were to go a few steps backwards because of the personal interests of a few community members, who have no mandate to speak in our name.

We should mention here that we expected something different from Independent Muslim councilor Izzet. But at the moment he proved to be naïve (at least) by following Ms Michaels’ misleading directions. He should remember that Ms Michaels has bigger agendas, he is definitely not part of them.

The day Marat Aminov tried to end his life: the whole story!

I am writing this piece because I am appalld at the Australian treatment of this poor family. The treatment of this family could not be accepted by any nation with minimum of human rights respect. It especially appalld all of us the lack of compassion on all levels in dealing with this family.

The lack of media interest:
I will come to some of the reasons why Marat tried to end his life. One of the major reasons was the complete silence of the media outlets about reporting on this issue. It shocked Marat and his family the low level of interest on reporting on their case, even after many attempts by us to attract the attention of the media outlets which are constantly present in the Parliament House. It shocked us how the media would talk for days about torturing a cat at train station by irresponsible teenager, but are negligent about reporting on torturing whole family for years by adult ministers and department’s bureaucrats.


The eviction from Parliament:
The story started when we traveled to Canberra determined to attract the attention of the PM and his minister for immigration by all means. I will not talk now in details about the plans that were put to do so. All what I need to say that we could attract the attention of media, MP, his ministers and MPs of all different parties. The attempt resulted in evicting me and Marat from the Parliament and banned us from there for 24 hours. When we were escorted by Federal police to the area designated for us to protest, we were still making media comments and demanding that the minister spare few minutes to meet us and discuss a way out. After the end of media interviews, I noticed that there is blood coming from Marat’s chin. He was also in deep pain. We discovered later that he was beaten by security officers by kicking his face with their shoes. I called 000 asking for medical check.

Early signs of politicizing health services:
Upon ambulance arrival, a federal police agent blocked its way and talked for about 5 – 7 minutes to the ambulance officer. When she approached us, she immediately asked Marat to jump into the ambulance. After few seconds, she emerged alone from inside of the ambulance and told us that they need to take him to hospital for checks. I asked her to open the door to pass mobile phone to him, but she refused. She jumped to the ambulance, told us that they are taking him to Canberra hospital. Then the ambulance took off.

All this happened on Monday, 1 December. The parliament sitting for the year would end on Thursday, 4 December 08. The government needed to keep us away for another 3 days, until the parliament will close for Christmas period.

We collected all our chairs and table and went to hospital. After arriving to hospital and asking for him at reception, reception asked me to go immediately inside to help in calming Marat down. He was refusing to allow doctors to do anything to him. They wanted him to lie down on the bed and allow them to put collar around his neck, as they suspected that he hurt his neck when he jumped to the Parliament floor.

After his family’s long-time ordeal with the governmental departments, he had developed Schizophrenic disorder with deep anti-authorities feelings. He had suspicions about the doctors’ motives, so he would not lower his head. He needed to see always what the doctors and nurses are doing. I calmed him down and told him that we are there now and the doctors and nursed would not be able to hurt him. He then agreed to cooperate.

The doctor told me that they will keep him at hospital for several hours only to do some analysis and scans for his neck and vertebral column. We trusted the health officials, as we should in normal situation.

His parents told me to go back to Sydney and they will stay at hospital until he will be released. I asked them to contact me if anything would happen. I warned them to be very cautious as the government could try to do anything to make them look like violent or uncivilized people to justify the deeply inhumane treatment.

Around midnight, I received phone call from Alija, Marat’s mother. She was very distressed and crying. She told me that the police had arrested Samil, her husband, as he tried to take Marat home from hospital. I asked her not to do anything and ask Samil to go with them to police station and not resisting arrest.

Then politicizing judicial system:
On the next day Aliija called me again. She told me that Samil was taken to court without any interpreter or legal representative. The Legal Aid representative intervened, but with no success, as there was no interpreter to get Samil’s instruction to apply for bail. We learned too that Canberra hospital officials executed order to keep Marat in psychiatric unit for 3 days to “prevent suicidal attempts”.

The game was very clear. The government had politicized all services: medical, police, judicial,… in a bid to keep the family away from the Federal Parliament until the session ends.

Samil attempted to commit suicide:
While I started to talk about all these to media outlets, the family started to get very angry and frustrated. Then we knew that the sort of things that we warned off had happened: Samil tried to commit suicide inside his cell by slashing his wrist with metal object. The whole situation was headed to be out of control. The authorities were enforced to release Marat immediately from psychiatric unit. Marat and Alija called me to discuss the next move. We decided that they should go back to Parliament and continue their protest.

The day Marat tried to commit suicide:
Next day (Wednesday 3 December 08) I traveled to Canberra to be with the family and see what we can do. I traveled with my wife there.

On arrival, I heard what had happened. We then had extensive discussion about what we should do. We decided that we should do all what we can today, as the Parliament will go into rest for at least 50 days. The main issue for the family was the release of Samil from jail.

We noticed that next to our protest table, there were people preparing to celebrate in a big tent. We approached them and asked. It is the official celebration of the Day of people with disabilities. A very big irony. The government wanted to celebrate the resilience of people with disabilities, but was insisting to punish others and causes them deep disabilities. Very strange logic.

The journalists and cameramen started to flood the place. I approached Marat and told him that it is good time to do something to embarrass the government and to attract media attention. Marat did not say anything. He shock his head. Suddenly he disappeared. His mother asked about his whereabouts. We did not know, he simply did not say anything.

And suddenly he re-appeared. And suddenly many officials form the department of immigration appeared. They approached Marat and his mum asking how they are doing. Marat avoided them and moved to other place. They asked about her health and the health of Marat. The ministers started to arrive and the celebration started. Suddenly Marat stood up, started to pour petrol on himself and automatic lighter in his left hand and started shouting “Hey, listen to me why I will kill myself”.

Suddenly a huge Federal policeman jumped to the area, started approaching Marat trying to strip him from the lighter. I jumped and shouted warning the policeman that there is big chance that he will set himself alight if the policeman did not stop approaching him. I told the policeman that this man had tired to commit suicide at least three times in the last year. The policeman stopped and started negotiating with him. I kept warning the Federal policemen from making any stupid moves, as the situation is very dangerous and we could lose this young life. “Shut up and let me finish and tell them why I want to kill myself” Marat started to shout on me.

The real reason why Marat tried to commit suicide:
“I want to kill myself as the government not only treated my parents very badly, but they put my father in jail for no reason”. The main issue for Marat was his father and his unlawful arrest and the subsequent mistreatment. “How can government not provide him with Russian interpreter, just to keep him behind bars? What kind of democracy?”

The feelings were very high. The mother collapsed in front of us. My wife was trying to calm her down, but she was shouting “my son, I am losing my son, please help me” then she crawled, as she could not stand on her feet anymore. By that time, the policeman convinced Marat to through away the lighter and stop his attempt.

What amazed me that one cameraman was persistently abusing Alija in very bad way. My wife told me that he even told her to “shut your mouth and go to help your son away from minister’s speech”. I confronted him and asked for his name to complain against him for both assault and unprofessionalism. He ran away while the area turned into media theatre.

The scene was if there was a major war battle. Many fire brigades, tens of federal police cars and officers and few ambulances. One ambulance took Alija, against her well, to hospital.

Unprofessional moves by politicized health services:
As we understood by then that the unprofessional politicized acts taken by Canberra hospital health workers was the main reasons behind the attempt by Marat to end his life, we expected that he and his mother would be taken to the other government hospital. But they were taken to the same Canberra hospital. Another unprofessional and unethical act by health authorities.

When I arrived to the hospital with my wife, there was security alert. My wife was shocked. I started to joke with my wife to calm her down. “They are thinking that Bin Laden had arrived to hospital. My beard would not help us in these moments”.

Many huge security officers were everywhere in hospital. Immediately after our arrival, 2 female journalist from The Australian (Nicole Berkovic) and The Daily Telegraph (Alison Rehn) followed us to follow up on the family’s situation. Suddenly, officials form hospital approached us and asked the journalists to leave immediately. “They are ordinary citizens. Would you prevent ordinary citizens from coming to visit patients?” I asked these hospital officials. “No, they are journalists. We know this and they had admitted” they replied to my comments. “But even journalists are ordinary citizens” I argued. “If you want to argue, they can lodge complaint to the hospital management”. We were enforced to go out to the street outside the hospital to talk about the family’s case.

Health services became as corrective services:
After talking to journalists in the street outside the hospital, I went and asked to see Marat and his mother. The reception denied that Marat is there. They also told me that Alija is in bad situation and she preferred not to see anyone. They asked me to wait for few minutes until she calms down. I was suspicious about this. I then tried to call her mobile. She answered and asked me where I am. I said that they told me that she does not want to see anyone. She then started to cry. Suddenly few nurses approached me and asked me to follow them. When Alija knew that I was outside, she stood up and asked them to release her. When they refused, she stood up and started to shout and cry in the middle of the emergency department. They were enforced to let me see her. It was very clear that the minister of immigration gave them orders not to let me see her or her son.

In front of me, they were treating her as if she is criminal. I started to talk to them in very sharp language. I also started to make phone calls to journalists. After that they changed their language with her. Then the responsible nurse came to see us and told us that they will keep her in hospital for few hours, as her sugar level was very high. I asked about Marat, she told me that she cannot tell us.

We started to feel that we are back to Soviet era, where everything is done behind “iron curtain”.

After talking to doctor, who assured me that she will be released after sugar checks finished and stabilized. Alija at that time asked me to go back to Sydney, and she will let me know what will happen.

After arriving to Sydney around 9 pm, I tried to contact her, but her phone was switched off. I thought that she was released and she went to sleep.

Early at morning, I tried to call her again, but no answer. I started to feel that something is wrong. I called Canberra hospital, where they told me that they executed order to keep her in psychiatric unit for 3 days. The same is with Marat. At this end, I became very angry and frustrated.

Ultimatum to the minister to release everyone, or face the consequences:
I immediately called few network’s members and we decided to go straight to Federal Parliament. We did not have any plans. I just sent media release giving ultimatum to the government that if they will not release all Aminov’s family, we will take steps that will make Australian government a symbol of international shame. We also talked to people in Canberra in case we will need some help.

Before arriving to Canberra, I received phone call that Marat and his mum were released from psychiatric unit, before the 3 days ended. Then I received call form Marat that his father was released on bail.

Long way before restoring humanity to this nation’s politics:
We thought that by getting rid of John Howard’s xenophobic government we would automatically get rid of all its inhumane undemocratic practices. But we discovered that the new Labor government is enjoying abusing the same methods and practices. So far in the case of this family, the Labor government had mobilized all departments and services to keep the inhumane status quo. The politicizing of especially the health services is very appalling.

Where are the so-called “progressive politicians”?
There are few other questions will come to our mind, but the most important is the role of “progressive” political parties and independents in exposing these shameful practices.

While the Parliament of Australia is empty from any real progressive forces, we will continue fighting until Aminovs get final solution for their ordeal. And we will do this before any human lives lost.

And please do not think that this is unique case. The government is sitting on piles of similar cases. The issue is not about asylum seekers’ treatment. It is about racism related to feeling of need to maintain the grip of power by one ethnicity who does not want to share this power with people from other cultures.

We will write in details about this, and we will take all steps to expose the real face and agenda of all these so-called “regressive” forces that want to convince us of their progressiveness.

Never ending greed in the name of “helping the community”!

Before we wake up from the news about the greedy Green hubby who eats all the food at council meeting, we discover more “Green” greed. This time it happens in Auburn council.

We noted earlier the sacred alliance formed behind closed doors between the highly regressive Liberal – Unity parties and the “progressive” Greens party. During the election campaign the main slogan of the Greens candidates was “community needs, not developers greed”. After the ballot papers count was over, the “community needs defender” put her hands with the “greedy developers”. The full details of the deal are still unknown to all of us.

The “community needs” defender is ignoring the fact that Auburn council is going through very difficult financial times with an expected $5 millions deficit. The Greens councilor in Auburn is also disregarding the “community needs” of spending on infrastructure to both create local jobs and raise the life-style of mainly marginalised new-migrants, refugees and poor people of Auburn.

The Greens councilor this time is demanding a pay-rise to herself and her Liberal-Unity alliance, to around double the allowance they are getting from the council at the moment.

We did not expect less from the Liberals-Unity mainly developers councilors. But when it comes to the Greens councilor, we should ask 5 million questions:
1- How many community projects would this rise in councilors allowance cancel?
2- How many local jobs will it cost the community?
3- How could this help with “defending the community needs”?
4- Who are the real “greedies” that we need a representative to protect the community from?
5- Why has the Greens councilor, who believes in public “accountability” and “transparency” not made this pay-rise an election promise or called for a referendum on it?
6- What is the difference between the Liberals and the Greens, after all these deals? Would they consider merging very soon?

It is very clear that the Greens councilor is planning well for her retirement. And she wants a very comfortable retirement.

But what happened to the “alternative voice” which the Greens were deafening our ears with in the last 2 decades? Maybe the right question would be: alternative of what and who?

It is very clear that it is an alternative in the kind of Greed, only. Or maybe it is an alternative in the rhetoric and the type of lies and deception.

What kind of Australia are we dreaming of, when the “alternative” is planning a comfortable retirement, while the debt on citizens is at its highest.

And what kind of “alternative” is demanding a pay-rise, while there is a freeze on any pay-rise for all workers and battlers?

The other question here is: if the Greens councilor thinks that running for council is not to help the community for better planning and governing and it should be just to secure people’s retirement, why did she run again last September. If she thinks that the pay is no good, why did she choose to run for “exploitation”?

All these questions are for the ordinary Australians to think about to enable them to make a very “informed” choice next time we go to polls. And at that time, the Greens should know that we had enough “greedy” people in the government and what is lacking in Australian politics is a real alternative: an alternative that feels with embattled marginalised people.

If the Greens want to help me by increasing my debt and reducing public services and projects, I would rather stick to the ordinary “greedies”. I prefer “Greedies that I know” over “greedies I need to know”.

What makes me feel bad this time is the fact that the same Greens councilor in Auburn was crying foul when she failed to be elected as Mayor earlier this year. She accused her opponents of being “racists” and “anti-Muslims” and distributed foul accusations to everyone who did not vote for her. She wanted to convince us that she is running to represent Muslim “needs” and “issues”. But this week we discovered that she was indeed after pay-rise from $20,000 (Councilor’s allowance) to $50,000 (Mayor’s allowance).

As Muslim Auburn citizen, I say that she does not represent me and my needs.
And for this and for everything else I say: we are sorry to Auburn residents.

Homeland at last!

At last, Nasser Mubarak got citizenship after 60 years of statelessness. He became Australian citizen this week. As if the good news comes together for purpose. This week also saw him retiring on disability pension. At last he can put all his sufferings behind his back and start sleeping with eyes closed fully.

Nasser, who is widely known by friends and relatives as Abu Khaled, is a clear example of the cruelty of the Australian immigration system. Abu Khaled did not get citizenship so easy. To get to this week’s celebration, he needed to go through the whole inhumane immigration system of this beautiful country.

He was detained immediately after his arrival to Sydney airport. He spent more than 3 years behind razor wires in Villawood detention centre. The same detention that gave him the access to early pension this week. I will explain this later on.

He arrived to this “Five Star Detention” (as he would humorously call Villawood, after a Daily Telegraph article on Feb 2003), with no illnesses. After few years there, he started to suffer from hypertension, diabetes and mental-related illnesses including deep depression and anxiety.

The notorious former immigration minister, Phillip Ruddock, insisted that he is not a refugee. But at the same time, the department could not find any country on this planet to deport him to. Regardless, he was required to wait in detention until solution could be found. It was not clear what the minister was waiting for: change of international order or simply death of this “unwanted queue jumper”.

I started to know him since 2001, when I started to regularly visit Villawood. It was not until Akram Almasry successfully challenged the legality of this indefinite detention system, before his release. But even his release was meant by the department to be very cruel and most inhumane.

He was released with no rights at all. No right to work, no right to study, no right for Medicare, and no right even for photo ID. All what he was given was a plain piece of paper stating that he is “unlawful citizen”, no picture attached. It was meant to keep him and his suffering anonymous. Ruddock was master in committing crimes, and master in hiding them.

He lived with this piece of picture-free letter of “status notification” on hope that the new minister/s will look at his long-suffering with more humane way. Until he received a letter from the new minister, Kevin Andrews, stating that “Australia has no obligation to find him a solution”. This meant for him that he will be imprisoned at-large in Australia, until he will die. This also meant that he will never see his wife and 10 sons and daughters living overseas.

I remembered when he came to see me to show me the minister’s letter and ask for our help. He was so depressed and devastated that he told me “I am finished now. Please help me to at least get out from this country”.

Indeed he was stuck in this country. As stateless, when he left Kuwait, he lost his right to go back to live in that country again. And without valid passport, no other country will grant him visa to travel to. He was really stuck in Australia, indefinitely.

It was just before the last election, 2007. The minister was just too arrogant, or maybe naïve. Or maybe it is mixture of both: naivety because of arrogance.

The Social Justice Network needed to campaign for less than a month, before the minister gave up and offered “olive branch”. The minister was so desperate to stop our campaign, that he did not know what kind of visa to grant Abu Khaled. After going to Centrelink, Abu Khaled was told that he was granted carer visa, and he needed to name the person in his care. And nobody knows how old person with so many disabilities, can care for any. He needed someone to care for him. The minister was in so much hurry, that he granted him the very wrong visa type.

The system was very cruel, that Abu Khaled was retired, at the same time he was accepted as Australians. We are very sure that without this cruel inhumane system, Abu Khaled could work for Australia, at least for a decade. The criminal immigration system did not only cost us (as tax-payers) hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep this poor man detained. But it also costs us now hundreds of thousands of dollars caring (and treating) this disabled (because-of-the-system).

Abu Khaled is very happy now. He is citizen now. He has certificate to prove this now. And soon, he will have passport. He will travel to see his family members. We are happy too. We defeated the system, again. We defeated the minister and his department of mainly bureaucrats without heart or feelings. And we will celebrate this victory this coming Sunday. And we will keep our fight for better Australia. Also, we gained other member in our group. Abu Khaled whispered today in my ears: “I am with you in your fight against the system. You have my vote and support”

Abu Khaled: welcome to Australia.

Is it practical or relaistic to ask somebody to get rid of their skin?

Brother Asem Judeh had circulated about 2 weeks ago email urging the Greens senators to put a motion in the senate to remove Hamas from the list of terrorist organisations. In this instance I would like to explain why this invitation is both unpractical and unrealistic.
First of all, to ask someone to push for an issue, he/she should have believed in the justice of the issue. To ask the Greens to put such motion, it seems that there is pre-assumption that the Greens consider Hamas to be legitimate national resistance force.
I listened to all Greens MPs and other hierarchy’s speeches on rallies in different states. During these speeches, there is no one word mentioning Hamas. There is no one word to condemn occupation. All speeches were about:
- condemning “the use of disproportionate force” by Israel.
- Condemning bloody Hamas rockets.
So infact the Green is not condemning the occupation. It is very clear that the Greens is only against use of “disproportionate force”. This means that the Greens does not mind if Israel “gently” kill Palestinians. They are not against killing maybe 500, but not 1500. And they may accept Israel to destroy 1000 house, but not 10, 000.

I even went back to explore the Greens official stance on the legitimacy of Hamas.
The only stance was contained in Bob Brown’s (The Greens leader) parliamentary speech, on 7 November 03, when he said “The bill is to proscribe the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hamas organisations, respectively in Pakistan and in Palestine, which have terrorist components. The Greens will have no opposition to these or other terrorist organizations being proscribed …” as the Greens “have no truck with terrorism”.

So the only official stance on Hamas by the Greens is that it is a terrorist organization.

So before we ask the Greens to put a motion to remove Hamas from Federal list of terrorist organizations, the Greens should remove Hamas from the “Greens” list of terrorist organizations.
I have no problem to spend tons of hours and energy to lobby the Labor or Liberals to change their stance on Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but not the Greens.
Why?
The Labor and Liberals are big parties. They govern Australia alternately. They can direct our UN ambassador to vote in certain way or another. They can increase or decrease aid. They can lift or impose bans. But the Greens is too small to make any effect.
Instead of wasting our time and energy trying to lobby the Greens, we can do it in an easy way. Before the next election, we can conduct campaign to expose their opportunist stance. Making them lose few hundred votes could cost them dearly. They infact could disappear, except from Tasmania. After that, they will run after our votes in the following election, exactly as they did before 2001 Federal election.
The story with the Labor or Liberals is different. They are big. We need to make the issue big electoral issue to cost them government. Even if we could do this, we would not be able to make them disappear. We can cost them 1, 2, 3 seats out of hundreds of seats. On the other hand costing the Greens 1, 2 or 3 seats, this would mean to reduce their representation by 60%. And that is significant. And we can do it.
We can ask the Greens to proactively act on facilitating prostitution, encouraging drug abuse, approve homosexual marriage,… I would even assume that they will not wait for us to ask them to act on these issues. They are proactively acting on them, as they have deep commitments to them. They have detailed policy and stances.
But let me assure all of you that the Greens would not go further than “crying” on rallies of sadness of loss of lives “on both sides”. I am sure that they will not take different path. I hope that they can take different path (at least to make me look like liar), but they would not as I know the deep ideological commitments of the Greens.
Let us remember that the Greens hierarchy is made either of:
- Zionists
- “Ex-Stalinists” who still believe that “religion is the opium of the masses”.
- Opportunist white-racist who joined the Greens for better “job” and power grab

So, tell me who will push for these “revolutionary” changes!
I would prefer that we do it by intense lobbying the big parties. We can also take another approach by start building “real” alternative left force (which we started to do). But we cannot ask racists and Zionists to get rid of their real skin. And they would not do it, at the end of the day.

The Greens party supports environmental vandalism in Auburn!

I have written a lot recently about the Israeli barbaric attack on Gaza, but here I will try to highlight another issue. It is issue more related to Australian politics.
We can debate for days or even weeks about the Greens party commitment or lack of commitment towards social justice issues, including refugees’ rights, Palestinians’ rights, marginalised groups’ issues...., but I never thought that we should debate the Greens commitment to environmental issues.
Well, we discovered that we underestimated the Greens party’s opportunism.
In the attached article by the Auburn Review, you will discover something that will make you wonder what is the real “colour” of the Greens party.
During the last local government election, the unified message of ALL Greens candidates was “Oppose High Rise buildings”, in addition to the complementary statement “oppose the developers’ greed” and “Community needs, not developers’ greed”. This includes especially the electoral materials of the Greens candidate for Auburn Malikeh Michales, as more than half of Auburn councillors are developers or real estate agents. And Auburn council was in all media outlets for the last decade for “corruption” investigations related to dodge development approvals.
In the attached article, you will discover that the Greens councillor had aligned herself with Liberal – Unity councillors to discuss approval to increase the height and density of high rising buildings near St Johns Catholic Primary School. She did this, despite the Labor – RAGAA councillors’ fierce opposition to this proposal.
To tell the truth, I did not believe my eyes. I again underestimated the opportunism of the representatives of this party. Where are the Greens claims of “sticking to principles”?
I thought that the first and most important principle of the Greens party is to protect the environment. This issue indeed was the object of founding the Greens.
At this stage I recalled my conversations with many well-known environmentalists who quit the Greens for its failure to advocate for environmental sustainability, and instead engaging in power-thirst infightings.
The Greens councillor in Auburn should be proud that she already broke all her election promises and propaganda. Her election leaflet has only 2 main promises:
1- To increase services for refugees and marginalised groups.
2- To protect the environment, by opposing attacks on local (and global) environment by standing against developers’ and big corporations’ greed.
Earlier and before the end of the last year, the same Greens councillor was proud to propose amendments that could have seen the closure of one of the organisations serving mainly the refugees. Without intense lobbying from us, community members and local media, we could have seen the Greens councillor achieving the opposite of “increasing services for refugees”.
Now she wants to fulfil the second promise: to attack our fragile environment and help “greedy” developers to make more millions of $s by creating more noise and pollution in the heart of our suburb, in addition to all other implications.
This article is supporting what I have noticed in the last month, when the Greens (for political cheap score-pointing purposes) opposed any new Labor government action to tackle climate change. The Greens sent a clear message that if the government won’t approve its (The Greens’) sharp emission’s cut, the Greens would prefer to keep the lack of Howard’s government action on this issue.
But, let us discuss the issue more closely. What did the Greens achieve since they took the Democrats’ votes (in addition to large Muslim votes) and increased its political representation on all levels?
The simple answer is: NOTHING.
With intense attacks on our environment, one could start to seriously ask: what is the main platform of the Greens? Why it is still called the Greens?
My advice to the Greens hierarchy is to adopt new name: The Rainbow party. By doing this they can change the colour of the party’s skin as required. Sometimes they can be red, other times can be green. And if required they could be hidden anywhere silently with no colour at all.

Rallies business: enough trading with blood of innocent Palestinians!

I was always critical of people not participating in rallies on important issues. I even fought several times with friends as they refused to attend rallies “supporting” refugees’ rights, Palestinians’ rights … But last Saturday I was convinced that they have good point of view.

I traveled from Sydney to Canberra to protest against the Israeli barbaric invasion of Gaza. We traveled to Canberra, even though we did not know many details of the rally. We did not know who was the organizer, who were the speakers and the route of the rally. The most important issue for us was to send a message of unequivocal condemnation of Israel’s barbaric action and express our opposition to Australian official silence in condemning these actions.

Outside the lodge where our prime minister, Kevin Rudd, is living, we knew the hidden agenda of the organizers.

Suddenly a lady emerged from nowhere and gave all of us a good lecture. The lecture was not about the history of Israeli occupation of Palestine nor was about the history of Israeli barbaric actions. The lady who wore a t-shirt with “Vote 1 The Greens” gave us a good lecture about the climate change and environmental sustainability. She then went into lengths with what are the Greens 4 principles and why we should vote for the Greens in the next election.

Then she told us, with no explanation that she was crying the whole night before, when she saw the victims on the TV. She spoke with highly ambiguous language. She did not specify if she was crying for the loss of the lives of Israeli soldiers killed by Palestinian resistance. I should be fair here. I heard her counting the numbers of people who lost their lives, on both sides. She was equalizing between the victim and the oppressor. She was putting on the same hand the loss of lives among the occupiers and the ones under occupation. I did not hear her condemning unequivocally the barbaric actions.

Sorry for this mistake. I heard her totally and utterly condemning the government. But she condemned Australian government, and not the Israeli.

With her late appearance only at the time of her speech, her T-shirt designed for election and her score-pointing speech, the goal of this farce was very clear. It was indeed an election auction: votes for each dead.

Shamelessly she was happy. Shamelessly the organizers were happy. Shamelessly some of the Greens supporters in the crowd were happy. Shamelessly we were there listening to this contempt of the 400 martyrs - heroes killed in Gaza.

I would not feel so bad if the Greens was the “revolutionary” party that stood up for Palestinians in the past.

However when I went back little bit into my memory I recalled that the Greens:
1- Refused to send any solidarity delegation to Palestine.
2- Strongly supported the listing of ALL resistance groups (except Fateh) as terrorist organizations (November 2003).
3- Presented to Australian politics the largest proportion of Zionist politicians.
4- Was deadly silent about the latest barbaric actions from 27 December 08 – 5 January 09. And when they put out a media release it was total disgust and shame, where they were equalizing between the victims and the oppressors.

I was astonished by the courage of both the organizers and the Greens politician in their contempt of the feeling of the crowd. Many among the crowd were from Gaza and have relatives there.

How dare they do this?

On another occasion, I learnt that Labor MP attended a rally and spoke about the issue. Unfortunately he said nothing about needing to convince his leader to abandon his pro-Israeli stance.

I understood now why the majority of community members refuse to be stupid and naïve and participate in rallies which are in contempt of human lives lost in conflicts. I understood why community members would laugh at us saying: enough is enough.

After last Saturday I said to all around me: enough is enough. Enough trading lives of innocent people for cheap electoral gains. The last time the auction was a heavy price for us. The blood of innocent Palestinians and Iraqis put another Greens Zionist to NSW parliament. We lost on both sides: in Palestine and Iraq and also in NSW.

I told everyone this time: not anymore.

Shame on me if I will silently participate in these auctions of blood for votes.
And there are many ways to express our feelings about the barbaric actions and how to help the victims of them.

The Greens blocking of action on climate change: Striping own skin or displaying true colour!

I was laughing deeply when I saw Bob Brown, the Greens leader, threatening to block in the senate the proposal from the government to take action to reduce the emissions by 5 – 15 % by 2020. Such threat that was shared by Liberals and Nationals.

What does this actually mean?

It means that no action would be taken in regard to reduce the effect of climate change, let alone take action to reverse its effect. Then we will be lost watching all political parties engaging in blame game, for electoral reasons only.

Who can believe that the Greens, who was established to fight for this particular reason, would abandon this big goal? And for what in return?

The failure of the government to pass its bill will give all political parties the excuses not to do anything in this regard. The Labor government would say that “we” had failed to pass this bill, and will blame the alliance between the Liberals and The Greens for it. The Liberals would declare that John Howard was right not to take actions, and will declare that jobs are saved and we do not need to take any action in this regard.

But what the Greens would achieve from this lack of actions?

The Greens will maintain its viability by maintaining its loud voice on opposing any steps in this regards.

But would this be classified as childish move or opportunist one?

For the Greens supporters it’s called “sticking to principles”, even if this means that no real action to reduce the destructive effect of emissions on our environment will be ever taken. The Greens hierarchy would think that this means that the expiry date of this party would be prolonged, by prolonging the empty rhetoric on doing anything on environment and just resorting to political score-pointing.

For any political analysis this would be the biggest betrayal for the issue of protecting environment. The Greens infact stopped any actions taken to acknowledge the issue and take any step in this regard.

The Greens empty rhetoric and demands of “take full step or no step at all” are neither acceptable nor viable. If the Labor would adopt the agenda of the Greens in this regard, one of these political parties should disappear. In politics you negotiate, take what you can take. And then if it is not enough, you ask for more.

It is very clear that the Greens had many reasons to abort any action on climate change:
1- It wants to continue acting as “vocal syndrome” in Australian politics, where they complain about almost everything, but practically achieve none. By this way they think that they can just keep loud voice, before people start to forget about their presence.
2- It wants to establish good basis to justify its growing alliance with the racist far-right Liberals party. This relationship is not new, but it needs to be born in light, after years of secret dealings.

By doing this, the Greens would fail to fulfill its role and infact would reach its expiry date, exactly as happened to the Democrats. For the small “left” parties, who know that they will never govern a country, the philosophy behind its activities should be just to “keep bastards honest”, try to extract compromises and enforce them to make socio-economic changes. The philosophy is so easy. Small party should be active on few important issues, to get some votes from the current big governing parties. Then the government would act in a bid to stop the exhaustion of its votes. Also any presence in the decision making bodies (Parliaments and councils) is just to access a platform and resources to highlight the issues that matter. Through this process, the most important issue is that the power thirst should not divert the attention of such party to start making compromises, to achieve more power grabbing instead of more socio-economic changes. If this happens, the party would become part of the problem and not part of solution.

And this is exactly what happened to the Greens.
The power thirst of their hierarchy made them start to make compromises to “look attractive” for the “undecided” voters.

This is why the Greens had departed many platforms, departed its direct-action style and started to engage in behind-doors deals with “any” political force to attract “any” votes to keep its viability by “any” means.

Who remember when was the last time a Greens member had jumped on a tree and tied him/herself to it? When was the last time the Greens talked about the occupation of Afghanistan?

On the contrary. The Greens was talking recently about Afghanistan asking for more troops to be deployed to ensure that “the job had been done”.

Going back to climate change action.
If I was the Labor party hierarchy, I would invest millions of dollars to expose the Greens on these particular issues.

The Greens block of the bill in senate means that there will be no actions to reduce the emissions for long time to come. I will also remind people that the Greens is allying in their position with the Liberals, whose leaders were denying, and are still denying, the existence of climate change.

If I am in Labor party, I would be dancing for this opportunity to expose the true colour of the Greens: transparent colourless (to allow them change their colour when needed).

We are praying that the Greens opportunists will continue in their political naivety in displaying their pure opportunism.

When Australia’s humanity is worth less than $80,000.00!

The Aminovs case had exposed a very bitter reality: after 12 years of the neo-liberal agenda, the humanity of this great nation has been reduced to a worth of less than $80,000.00.
When Aminovs son called the Immigration Minister’s office yesterday, the Minister’s Adviser was talking only about the $80,000.00 (required for the visa to be granted within months, instead of decades). The Adviser did not care and did not want to discuss any humanitarian circumstances that could change the Minister’s opinion and heart. She also would not agree to arrange for meeting with the Minister to try to convince him of the logical reasons why this family should have been granted permanent visas a long time ago.
All the evidence of humanitarian circumstances we provided the Minister’s Office was either ignored and regarded as irrelevant or were never presented to the Minister. We believe that the latter is the case. This is why the Aminovs were left with no other option but to try to attract the attention of the media, in a bid to reach the Minister, instead of dealing all the time with his advisers and secretaries.
What had shocked us all is the lack of any interest by any media outlet to speak about this highly humanitarian issue that (until now) had devastated the life of a young Australian permanent resident, turning it into complete misery. This misery has the potential to progress to worse consequences if the issue continues to be totally ignored by the Minister and media outlets.
The latest report by the Aminov’s son’s mental therapist (which was definitely not read by the Minister or his advisers/secretaries) pointed out very clearly that the highly inhumane treatment of this family resulted in the suicidal thoughts and attempts by the son (who will become an Australian citizen early next year, if he will be still alive!!)
The heartlessness of all ministerial staff and other politicians in the Federal parliament casts a very dark shadow about the status of humanity in this great nation.
The Federal government is now talking about spending billions of $s of tax-payers money to correct the mistakes, the greed or the irresponsible actions of a few investors, money borrowers and lenders, or to compensate for the inaction of an irresponsible previous government. How is it that the same government can be so obsessed with the $80,000.00 it wants to collect eagerly from the Aminovs?
What kind of nation have we been reduced to by this current government and the previous government, where everything is calculated by “fiscal management” yardstick, by dollar measurement and by inhumane laws which were introduced by a government that was condemned by all national and international human rights organisations, by its own members and by historical figures of its party?
But even taking this “fiscal management stance” – why would the government not grant the Aminovs a permanent visa?
The decision to prolong the mental torture of Aminovs by prolonging the period until they will be granted PR (11 years so far, in addition to possibly 17 years of waiting) did cost me as a taxpayer the following:
1- The son, Marat, became very sick and so he was unfit for work for the last year and he is expected to retire soon on a disability pension. We lost an average of $8,000.00 taxes from his work.
2- His repeated admission to a mental health institution (north shore hospital – mental health unit) cost me as a tax-payer tens of thousands of dollars
3- The cost of looking after Marat after becoming mentally ill as a result of this ordeal could run to tens of thousands of dollars in rehabilitation programs, specialised employment programs, specialised home-care programs and other related programs.
4- The cost borne so far by community supporters trying to save Marat or any of his family members from physical collapse or attempted suicide to end their suffering has so far been huge.

5- The cost of measures taken by the family and its supporters to reach the Minister to try to change his heart and decision to end its ordeal is becoming more and more expensive. The current and latest effort required several people to travel to Canberra, leaving their families and jobs behind.

And after all these costs, we heard from the Minister’s office one demand to end this family’s deep humanitarian suffering: you should have paid $80,000.00!
How cheap has our great nation’s pride and humanity become?

And so we say: Dear Minister, Please act to end this family’s suffering, before it is too late. If anyone of this innocent family’s members would be lost through the process to reach you and your heart, our nation would suffer a lot. Our suffering will include moral suffering for generations to come. So please grant them permanent visas before it is too late.