THE MEANING OF OZ - All you need to know!

I feel sorry for bodies.

I have tried to.
It's a can of worms!
I don't want to think about it anymore ... in fact haven't commented further here since Australia Day.
The Oz media, however, seems to have other ideas.

Stick at it Olga. Bodies don't give up.

OK.

speaking of headaches ....

A predicted top of 35 C degrees here today.
At midday it's 30C already.
It's more the humidity than the heat, though ...
Feels like a sauna here.
However, later in the day we're promised:


That will be good!
I hope the rest of you are feeling less soggy & wilted than I am.

Time to shut all the windows & doors, pull down all the blinds, & bury my nose in the book I've been reading for the past few days ... & hope the rain comes sooner rather than later ...

I agree with msolga in that it was idiotic to put those comments
on the Australian flag. It would have been better to post his
comments on twitter if he so desired.
But I object to anyone being called a RACIST for making adverse comments
about religion. Religion is not a RACE and msolga seems to confuse the two.

Example from msolga, August 2010

Quote " In the que along with me were people from every nationality
you could think of. People speaking all varieties of languages. Muslims,
Italians, Greeks, etc, etc, etc" End quote
(Referring to muslims as a nationality, )

When you start branding people as RACIST for commenting about religion,
adversely or otherwise, freedom of speech is in deep trouble.

PM Assault

Er.....no. Our ancestors put a stop to that.

Why would just saying it on Twitter be better? He tweeted what he had done (or hopefully not actually NOT actually done) which meant that a maximum number of people could see it.

So, if I get you right, you are happy with our censuring him as part of our free speech but want us to get it right? That is, you think it unfair to raise the race issue unless he has slurred a race, as it is such an emotive term?

I can see your point actually. I want to feel free to annoy Christians if I want to....though I think it foolish and rude to do so unless they are trying to impose their ideas on others.

I agree that he wasn't being racist, but Islamophobic.....but I think it a fairly fine point as the majority of our Islamic population is, indeed, of a different race....if you believe in different races....from Hogg.

In my experience sentiments such as he expressed frequently go hand in hand with racism.

But I think you are attempting to accuse Msolga of censoring free speech, whereas I think she was censuring what he said, not wanting to censor it.

There were women in traditional Muslim dress waiting in the que to vote at the 2010 election.
I have absolutely no idea if the women dressed in head scarves, hijabs, etc were Lebanese, Afghan, Syrian, Iranian or whatever other nationality ...
My community has many Muslims (many of them refuges) of many different nationalities living here. I've also worked for years in schools with high Muslim populations, of many different nationalities.
Without knowing each individual woman dressed in Muslim garb personally it is not possible to know the nationality of each woman.
I think you are grasping at straws.

AND I repeat, writing "Allah is a ****" on the Australian flag (on Australia Day) & tweeting that he hoped that this would offend Australian Muslims is NOT any considered comment on religion.

If you can take a break from searching my past posts for evidence of racist comments , I would like to hear your considered response to this question which was asked of you earlier in the thread:

My question to you msolga, is, if someone wrote "the pope is a ****"
or "the arch bishop of canterbury is a ****", would you consider that
a racist comment ? I bet not. And nor would it be. And nor would I like
to see it written on our flag. Call Hogg a secularist, atheist, infidel,
but not a racist.

As dlowan said,
"That is, you think it unfair to raise the race issue unless
he has slurred a race, as it is such an emotive term?

YES This has been my point all along.
(which you msolga, refuse to concede)

dlowan also said
I can see your point actually
(snip)
I agree that he wasn't being racist (snip)

msolga, I thought I answered dlowan's question.

Anyway, this has been done to death. I made my feelings known about
labeling people with incorrect terms namely abhorrent terms like racist.

ps, I didn't go searching your past posts for evidence of racist comments
or nor will I be, so you can rest easy.
As I said before, I appreciate your replies.
Thank you.

I didn't think so.
As I've said, ad infinitum, I don't believe that this constitutes a comment on religion:

You appear to be arguing that mentioning "Allah" & "Muslims" in the tweet makes the comment a religious one.
Should he have said "Lebanese" or "Iranian" or something national group instead?
Oh come on now! .... no one does that.

So OK, let me put the question you another way: do you think that was a fair & reasonable comment for him to make about other Australians?
Whether you insist on interpreting his comment to be of a religious or racial nature or not.
Personally, I don't think it's particularly important which you believe it was.
To me the intent to offend & polarize a particular group is what mattered.


If I was a devout Catholic I'd probably be offended on the Pope's behalf.
However that statement does not specifically target all Catholics (in whichever country) as Hogg's did Australian Muslims.
Nor are Catholics in this country in 2012 vilified anything like Muslims are. (I know they used to be. I used to be one.)
Frankly I doubt Hogg would even know enough about the many different groups which follow Islam in Australia. They've come from many different countries, including Australia.
Nor do other similar commentators (like Jones & co.) regularly identify Australian Muslims by their particular countries of origin .... for them "Muslim" has become a commonly-used all-purpose term of abuse & derision. Whether they know or even care whether the term is interpreted as religious or racist is highly doubtful. Nor do those offenders identify themselves as "Christians", they paint themselves as patriotic Australians, the real true blue ones ....


Oh I absolutely agree!
I'm absolutely sick of it.
If you hadn't waffled on about irrelevant freedom of speech "issues" & carried on with hair-splitting argument about racism & religion, it would have been considerably shorter.
Anything but actually declare what you actually think of what Hogg did. Whether you condone his actual words or not.
Anything but that.


No, of course you didn't!
You just somehow found yourself on an entirely different thread, reading a post I wrote about people queuing up to vote in an election 2010! (Which btw was a very nice moment.)
Then proceeded to imply that I was racist as a result of it.
Just curious: would you be able to identify, by sight, whether a woman in traditional Muslim clothing was Lebanese, Iranian, Afghan, or any other nationality?
I seriously doubt it.

Fair bit of cherry-picking going on in the quotes you used. Kind of changed the meaning somewhat.

I'd really be interested if you responded to the question I asked you and the other comments I made..

Oh, welcome aboard and all that.

I think the appropriate word for Hogg in this case is eejit.

You said it.
I was curious to read what I'd actually said on the Oz election thread after this quote from Bootlace, in which I had apparently been racist:

from msolga, August 2010:


I ended up reliving the 2010 election.
Got carried away for ages, it was so exciting! A cliff-hanger.
Anyway this is the bit which my racist comment was taken from.
He would have had to have spent quite a bit of time to find that!
"Referring to Muslims as a nationality"
Whatta nit picker.


-

Has Bootlace accused you of being racist?

I thought s/he was accusing you of attributing racism to Hogg's comments incorrectly, not accusing you of racism? It is clear you were not calling Muslims a race in the quote from the election thread....though I can see how a quick read of it might make it look as if you were. Even if you were, that's not racism.


Was it ever! And a cliffhanger for days. We were overseas, I think, when it was finally decided.

He used my (conveniently edited) quote twice, to argue his "point".
And, as I've said twice - at least - you can't identify the country of origin of any woman dressed in traditional Muslim garb, simply by observation. I can't. You couldn't. And most likely neither could he.
Especially in a community like mine with so many Muslim migrants from a variety of different middle eastern countries.
So why make a big deal about the technicality of my using the term "Muslim" in that post then?
As if that proves some important point?

As I see things, he has not addressed the content of Hogg's comment at all .... not from his own persecutive. Does he condone what Hogg said or not?
Does he acknowledge the harm & divisiveness such comment can cause?
He has conveniently steered clear of all that.
Instead he has attempted to deflect any criticism from that comment (apart from it having been written on the country's flag), making excuses for Hogg , by arguing that his comments were based on religious beliefs not race, or suggesting that criticism of Hogg might lead to tougher "rules" on freedom of speech.
At no point has he declared his own views on Muslims in this discussion & that's what I would really like to know about.
He knows my views, he knows yours, but is not declaring his own position.
I think it's fair enough for others to know what his position is, too, in a discussion like this.
Fair enough?

Tell me about that flag with the red and black stripe and the yellow dot. (I assume its the sun), is that an aboriginal solidarity symbol?

I feel tempted to respond, but won't . (that might be rather a nice relief. )
I'll leave it for Dutchy to answer that, seeing as you asked him.

I only asked Dutchy because that was where the flag WAS. PLEEEZE, its more urgent to have it answered , not by whom.