Why is it some of the great institutions encourage people who seem, on the face of it, to enrage others? Barry Everingham looks at who is on the front pages these days.
There’s an idiot on the corner in Gainesville, Florida – his name is Terry Jones and he’s a fundamentalist Christian, which is an oxymoron if ever I saw one. He’s also anti Islam, so anti in fact he burned a copy of the Koran which resulted in the deaths innocent UN workers in Afghanistan. Radical Muslims don’t take kindly to that kind of idiocy and the result was sudden.
All religions deserve respect and Islam is one of the world’s oldest, although its militarism is questionable and is nothing new.
Which is why one of Tony Abbott’s closest political allies should have been sacked from the Opposition Leader’s front beach for denigrating Islam recently. Abbott, who professes to be a Christian, slapped Cory Bernardi with a feather, left him on the front bench with the remark: it’s not something I would have said.
C’mon Tony.
Rupert Murdoch doesn’t get off lightly either.
He allows racist commentators like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity spew their hatred of what they label as liberalism on his Fox news Channel. God only knows what harm that duo do, but they keep eulogising the likes of the very intellectually challenged Sarah Palin and her dangerous Tea Party as they spew out their hateful and dangerous policies—remember the recent wounding of a Congress woman and the deaths of innocent bystanders?
Tea Party inspired? You bet.
Closer to home we have seen one of his best known local columnists get the rounds of the legal kitchen in the Federal Court his week
Now, like thousands of others I detest Andrew Bolt for his arrogance and single mindedness — he will never brook interruption and dissent from his blinkered views.
But he has every right to say what he likes.
Australia is not America and Bolt hasn’t yet stooped to the depths his Fox colleagues wallow in.
But I often wonder why Bolt goes to the lengths he does to defend Israel and the Jews, no matter what.
Now I have to declare an interest here — one of my eight great-great-grandmothers, Maryanne Napthali, was an Ashkenarzy Jewess whose forbears – mine too – were kicked out of Holland in the 1600’s, settled in London’s Spitalfields (some of whom remain there today, along with Nigella Lawson’s ancestors) and then turned up in Sydney in the early 1800s, making them one of the first Australian Jewish families.
My depth of sadness for what happened to Europe’s Jews in World War II runs deep, but not so deep that I always agree 100% with what happens in Israel these days.
So I have no idea what Bolt’s agenda is — and how the Jews react.
So back to where I came in.
Church leaders, politician and opinion makers need to very careful how they present their views.
It’s a scatter gun world out there — and we are constantly reminded of the death traps through which we have to tip-toe.
