So, I’ve blogged about this before, as has Scott. The proposed Islamic school in Camden, the resulting outpouring of xenophobia and hypocrisy, and the publicity given to this stupid bint. Oh yeah, and bleatings about some fucking cemetary.

Yesterday in the SMH, there was a report about the appeal against council’s decision, with some familiar names, as well as new ones, making some bloody awful bigoted statements. Again. In fact, I was struck by how paranoid these freaks sound. There seems to be a new level of hysteria in their ridiculous statements.

Check them out. From the aforementioned stupid bint, Kate McCulloch:

…said she was “no redneck xenophobic racist like the media have put to me”.

“Let’s start making people understand that the Western way of life is the best way of life,” she said.

Yeah, well, she’s not exactly reaching out to them to make them “understand”. There are so many other things wrong with that statement as well: the “Western way of life” is undefinable, for one. Second, it’s subjectively not the “best way of life” – maybe for her it is but it’s not for everyone. Third, many Muslims live in the West. So what? I really don’t get her at all.

Moving on.

Judith Bond said the school would teach war and how to kill.

“Values of violence will be emphasised. It will be a breeding ground for terrorists … There will be a surge of gang rapes, looting and attacking infidels,” Ms Bond said.

I don’t even need to comment on this. Its utter stupidity and offensiveness speaks for itself.

Next.

The area’s Christian values were threatened by the proposal, said another resident, John Waterhouse, who warned Christmas decorations and nativity scenes would be “pulled down or withdrawn on some sort of process of religious nit-picking”.

Describing Camden as “the mouse that dared to roar”, he said he did not want prayer mats unrolled in shops or “[our] teenage daughters subjected to demeaning taunts wearing jeans, shorts or T-shirts”.

I really don’t know where to start with this one… Or maybe I’m just feeling sicker and sicker with the blatant bigotry and ignorance.

But on the opening day of the appeal to the Land and Environment Court on Tuesday, council’s barrister, Craig Leggat, SC, opened his evidence with a letter signed by a group of the region’s Christian leaders, who said Islam was an ideology with a plan for world domination.

Hang on, I thought traditionally it was the Jews who were planning world domination? Has anyone notified ZOG about this?

Come on, Camden. You can be better than this.

Here we go again. Camden makes the news for all the wrong reasons. This time it’s not about the Islamic school proposal that got knocked back, but about a cemetery. Yeah, a cemetery.

AN ISLAMIC cemetery will be built in the grounds of a historic Anglican graveyard near Camden where plans for an Islamic school were rejected this year following fierce community opposition.

The Lebanese Muslim Association paid $1.5 million for the St Thomas Anglican Cemetery at Narellan in July. The site has space for almost 4000 bodies and will help overcome an acute shortage of gravesites in Sydney.
(source)

Fair enough. I can’t see why anyone would object to Muslims paying a substantial amount of money for a bit of land in which to bury their dead, just like the Anglicans do. Shows that even Muslims honour their dearly parted ones. *gasp!*

Except for this moron, going by the name of Len English, who claims to have 33 relatives buried at the cemetery. He gives a history of who the relatives are and how they came to be buried in Camden but I’m not going to repeat that here, because frankly, I don’t give a rat’s arse about his dead rellos.

He does say this dopey statement: “The Friends of St Thomas did all they could to save the cemetery and even approached council to see if they could help in the purchase of the site from the Anglican church. The church had no right to sell the cemetery land in the first place.”

They had no right? Says who, Len? The Anglican Church owned that land, they can sell it if they want. End of story. Stop quibbling over something that doesn’t belong to you and your “Friends of St Thomas” mates.

Then he goes on to say this, pretending to be OK with “migrants” but effectively exposing himself for the racist bigot at the same time: “I’ve got nothing against migrants but when they want to take over your cemetery…”

Boo fucking hoo!

Oooh yeah, the migrants, the big, bad scary migrants who are taking over a bit of land! Besides, they haven’t taken over the cemetery, you fucking tool; they’ve BOUGHT a VACANT tract of land, LEGALLY! But wait! What if they were, say, Pommy or Kiwi migrants? Or is it because these “migrants” that Len refers to are Muslim? And besides, how does he know they’re “migrants”? Could there be a possibility that many Muslims are actually Australian born and bred, Lenny? I am in awe of his ability to know these things by drawing upon his own intolerant assumptions.

Seriously, what is it with Camden lately? I know not all Camden-ites are bigoted but this is just unbelievable. When will turds like Len English, Emil Sremchevich and Kate McCulloch realise that notions such as “heritage” is ever-changing, ever-evolving and always malleable? And what are the bets that Mr English and his mates would object to, say, a Catholic, Jewish or Wampanoag Indian burial plots next to the Anglican plots?

Back in May of this year, it was decided by Council that there was not to be any Islamic school built in Camden on “planning and development grounds”. Others said this was bullshit: the rejection of the proposal was to appease the racist and xenophobic sentiments that were running high and out of control at the time. Religious intolerance was blatantly feverish. Who can forget the gutless, lowly act of putting the heads of two pigs on stakes on the site of the proposed Islamic school in November last year? Who can forget the pin-up girl of racism and bigotry, Kate McCulloch and her horrid statements such as, “We don’t want [Muslims] not only here, we don’t want them in Australia. They’re an oppressive society, they’re a dictatorship… The ones that come here oppress our society, they take our welfare and they don’t want to accept our way of life.”

Religious intolerance is well and alive… well, unless there are plans for a Catholic school to be built in the same area.

The same dickhead who objected to the Islamic school, the president of the Camden/Macarthur Residents’ Group, Emil Sremchevich, has not seen the Development Application for the Catholic proposal yet. However, he reckons they’ve “ticked all the right boxes” and that “Catholics are part of our community so we should be supporting it on this basis alone. We have to welcome them. To become part of a community, you need to live in the community. You can’t just turn up.”

You can’t just turn up? Then, Mr Sremchevich, go back to wherever you came from! You weren’t invited either. No one ever gets an invite. We all just turn up, one time or another.

The Quranic Society correctly pointed out that Mr Sremchevich’s comments are racist. How did he respond to that? Very, very poorly. Who the fuck made him the president of the Camden/Macarthur Residents’ Group?! The guy is absolutely hopeless!

This is how he responded: “Why is that racist? Why is it discriminatory? It’s very simple: people like some things but don’t like other things. Some of us like blondes, some of us like brunettes. Some of us like Fords, some of us like Holdens. Why is it xenophobic just because I want to make a choice? If I want to like some people and not like other people, that’s the nature of the beast.”

My reaction, upon reading his feeble rationalisaton, was one of utter disbelief. People, it seems, are nothing more important than a mere car model or a hair colour.

And it’s not xenophobia but a choice for this wanker? Wrong. There are no choices in liking some people and not others. Singling out one group of people for condemnation based on religion is xenophobia, not a choice. Xenophobia being the fear of the “alien” or foreigner. Many Catholics in Australia are foreigners, come to think of it.

What a fucking idiot.

The Editor, John Surname, Ant Rogenous, Jeremy Sear and Billybob discuss:

* Religious intolerance in Camden
* Kevin Rudd’s “butler” and work ethic
* Amazonian lost tribes
* Campayn to modernis Inglish speling
* Andrew Landeryou

** Because Craig is on the internet at home even though he told us he was sick, use only the “Play in popup” link or the “Download” link. **

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The other day, The Editor lamented racism and bigotry implicitly and explicity rearing their ugly heads again after Camden Council voted unanimously to oppose a proposal to build an Islamic school on the outskirts of the town, south-west of Sydney, “on planning grounds alone”.

Local resident and bigot, Kate McCulloch, caught media attention with her garish green and yellow dress and an abominable Akubra adorned with Australian flags, as well as her openly prejudiced remarks, such as:

We don’t want [Muslims] not only here, we don’t want them in Australia. They’re an oppressive society, they’re a dictatorship… The ones that come here oppress our society, they take our welfare and they don’t want to accept our way of life.

Days later, she’s back in the news. The Sydney Morning Herald has interviewed her (why?), and her comments reveal a cretinous dimwit who is now talking about following the footsteps of Pauline Hanson and entering politics. Says she:

“Look, scores of people are coming up to me and saying, ‘Good on you, Kate … you’re saying what we’re too scared to ‘cos of racial vilification laws, but we all think it.’ I would like to keep our place like it is and I guess [joining the] Liberals would be natural,”

She conveniently forgets — or doesn’t know — that Pauline Hanson was kicked out of the Liberal Party for her extremist racist views.

Having said that, however, the Liberal Party is still nevertheless home to many other bigots. The most recent notable being fomer Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews. The Age today writes that a confidential Immigration Department report (obtained under Freedom of Information laws) found that racial harassment of Africans increased following Andrews’ claims in 2007 that they were engaged in crime and failing to integrate.

Desperate political point-scoring at its most detestable. And Kate McCulloch might find a home within the Liberal Party after all.

Anyway, back to Mad Kate. She makes another bizarre comment about the “victory vote” by Camden Council:

She said the victory vote was in keeping with the spirit of Camden’s status as the birthplace of the nation’s wool industry. “The Macarthurs will be proud of us,” she said.

Huh? What’s the wool industry got to do with any of this?

What else did she say?

“I want Muslims in Australia to attend our schools so their children can grow up with our values, and more importantly, so that their mothers can meet Australian mums and see how they don’t have to put up with the sort of treatment they sometimes endure.”

Meanwhile, across all geographic areas of Australia and in all socioeconomic and cultural groups, a conservatively estimated 36% of women experience domestic violence and a conservatively estimated 19% of women experience sexual assault (2005). And they’re just the women who report the assaults, with God knows how many more going unreported.

Oh, but Mad Kate conveniently ignores that. Only Moozlim women are under some kind of terrible “treatment”.

And what does Pauline Hanson think of this new myopic ignoramus upstart?

The Herald called Mrs Hanson about her would-be successor. She hung up without offering a word.

O come, all ye bigots, I shall be your racist mouthpiece.

Note: a bigger article about Mad Kate and the Camden outrage, plus the lead-up to the vote and the involvement of racist groups such as Australia First and the Anglo-Australian National Community Council and their cowardly midnight actions can be found here.

I was going to say that the uproar over a rejected Islamic school in Sydney was unAustralian, but I’m beginning to think that — sadly — it is Australian.

The Camden Council has voted unanimously to oppose a proposal to build an Islamic school on the outskirts of the town, south-west of Sydney.

[...]

In a unanimous decision the council voted in favour of a recommendation of council staff who overwhelmingly rejected the proposal on planning and development grounds.

I will make no comment about the council’s decision to overturn the application on planning grounds because I have no knowledge about the proposed development, the area in question, or any other contextual circumstances, but I think the residents’ campaign and reaction to the decision based on religious intolerance, fear, xenophobia and insularity is shameful.

Let me just say, however, that I understand and accept that some people are uncomfortable with Islam and feel threatened by its growing presence in areas that have long been very white and very Christian. And who can blame them with Islam’s name being sullied by a tiny majority of Muslims around the world plus an over-zealous media who treat the religion and its followers with suspicion? But there is still no excuse for the kind of shit we saw in Camden last night.

It’s religious intolerance, pure and simple. And it has no place in the Australia that those same people claim to represent and protect.

“Our grandfathers fought and died for this suburb“

In covering last night’s council meeting the media has focussed mainly on residents who didn’t even try to conceal their hatred and fear of Islam, like Kate McCulloch (above).

We don’t want them not only here, we don’t want them in Australia. They’re an oppressive society, they’re a dictatorship… The ones that come here oppress our society, they take our welfare and they don’t want to accept our way of life.

But other residents attempted to sound reasonable by making token referrals to planning concepts, only to fail a little more miserably at reasonable as each new clunking sentence came out of their mouths.

CAMDEN RESIDENT 4: We don’t need the traffic, environmental damage and everything else that goes with it.

REPORTER: To what extent was it because it was an Islamic school that was being….

CAMDEN RESIDENT 4: It’s got nothing to do with Islamic, if it was a Catholic school, Buddhist, whatever, it’s not an appropriate area for a 1200 student school.

There’s a school East, North, West all around here, don’t need anther 1200 kids school and the opinion that my kids can go there? My kids can’t read Islamic, how are they going to go to that school?

“My kids can’t read Islamic”? If this issue wasn’t so serious that would easily be GrodsCorp’s quote of the week. Oh, and by the way, Camden Resident 4, would you oppose a Jewish school if your kids couldn’t read Jewish?

At least we now have two place names to use when we want to discuss ugly Australian intolerance, and bigotry seems to be fond of alliteration: Cronulla and Camden. A shameful day for Australia.