Islam in Australia: myths and common media positions: Part 3

Anthony Cox

The media and the police commonly describes Muslim perpetrators of violence as disturbed or otherwise mentally unsound. This is done to prevent a connection with Islam, to expedite the myth that Islam is a peaceful religion and, as I described in part 2, to prevent any backlash against Muslims.

But is Muslim violence/terrorism a product of insanity or a fundamental ideological difference between the West and Islam?

Islamic advocates claim to love death more than non-Muslims love life but eschatological ideologies have existed before. And many ideologies have sacrifice at their centre. These characteristics therefore do mean the Muslim killer is mad even if they kill themselves.

In Islam, it is not how one lives one’s life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies. It is

Islam in Australia: myths and common media positions part 2.

Anthony Cox

A recent attack has occurred in Townsville when a French national stabbed and killed one and seriously wounded 2 others while shouting Allahu Akbar.

Despite the regularity of this happening in attacks by Muslims the authorities and the media persist in shrouding this straightforward context with claims of possible mental illness, motive unknown or blatant declarations that the event has nothing to do with Islam.

This pattern of disavowal of what is overwhelmingly obvious follows a dreary and predictable pattern which is described here. Dominating the response to terrorist attacks by the media and the police is a concern for the Muslim community. When the Muslim Monis invaded the Lindt café and eventually killed Tori Johnson the police immediately set up a task-force called Operation Hammerhead. Operation Hammerhead was designed to prevent any backlash against the Muslim community. This was the paramount concern by the police hierarchy.

There was no backlash except a growing political disenchantment with the deceit and betrayal by the political and media class. The Lindt café terrorist event sums this up perfectly: as the lives of the