Above : Some elderly people have their prejudices about Mooselems confirmed by a dashing Dutchman. Img stolen from Hamish Fitzsimmons (Lateline).
Update (8:00pm) : The picket has wound down. Maybe 150 attended. There were no arrests. Wilders is next scheduled to speak in Perth tomorrow — the Q Society appears to be having some problems finding a venue; Muslims in Melbourne may like like to avoid La Mirage in future…
Update : There’ve been some scuffles between police, picketers and those attending Wilders’ speech. Police have used horses to break the picket outside the venue. Wilders’ supporters include a few known racists and fascists from organisations such as the ADL. It’s unclear yet if anyone’s been arrested. There’s a very large police and media presence.
Geert Wilders will be speaking in Melbourne tonight at La Mirage Reception & Convention Centre, 210 Hume Highway, Somerton in Melbourne’s outer-northern suburbs.
Tour organisers the ‘Q Society’ has requested ticket-holders attend at 6pm.
A protest/picket will be at the reception centre from this time.
Some people will be assembling in the City Square at 5pm; many no doubt then travelling to Somerton. Others will be meeting from 5.00-5.30pm at Roxburgh Park train station (Upfield line) before heading to the venue.
La Mirage Receptions may be congratulated for facilitating Wilder’s anti-Muslim mania on (03) 9305 4855.
See also : Geert Wilders in Australia, February 2013 (February 2, 2013).
Compared to those nasty bigots who attended the Geert Wilders’ meeting last night, you clearly exude tolerance. As I read about your actions tonight, my spirits are lifted to the stratosphere. That would explain why you see fit to post the address and phone number of the venue, presumably to surreptitiously encourage people to make abusive phone calls. Do you think it’s reasonable to verbally abuse and assault people in a public place? How would you feel if the shoe was on the other foot, and some right wingers decided to assemble a mob to disrupt one of your meetings?
The icing on the cake is that La Mirage is owned by an Iraqi Christian, and they only serve halal (presumably because of their target market). The reception centre is in a heavily Muslim area, which leads me to wonder if Q society could only get a booking there, OR if they were secretly hoping Muslims would protest the talk if word got out of the venue – adding to their narrative of victimhood and being silenced.
Muslims won’t be boycotting the place eg http://muslimvillage.com/2013/02/14/35283/mar-28-2013-mel-islamic-relief-fundraising-dinner-melbourne/
They’d appreciate the irony, given halal is a key bugbear of the Q society folks.
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@Natalie: interesting stuff. Thanks.
@Ross: OK. Yr high. But still… the address and phone number of the venue are public knowledge. Also, when did you stop beating yr wife?
I don’t have a wife, and I don’t see what you’re trying to suggest.
It’s a common expression, prompted by your line of enquiry.
The meeting organisers went to great lengths to keep the meeting venue secret, not only to protect Wilders, but to protect the safety of attendees. Even those who booked tickets weren’t told until 24 hours beforehand. Somehow this information leaked, and activist groups were involved in this. Is it a case of the ends justifying the means?
Indeed. The meeting organisers (the Q Society) booked La Mirage without disclosing this to the public. They only informed ticket-holders of this fact on the day of Wilders’ speech. It would seem obvious that one of these ticket-holders then informed the groups and individuals who picketed the event.
And?
Can’t wait til he comes to Sydney. We are going to clean you white trash muzrat foot soldiers up.
Wilders held a press conference earlier in the day at the same location, the information was probably passed on to Trades Hall by a journalist.
I understand that the venue owner has also hosted events by Islamic groups at his function centre. Now, because he stepped in to offer to host the Wilders meeting, some elements of the Islamic community are subjecting him to intimidation, vilification, and foul abuse. I ask you, do you think this is acceptable?
Perhaps somebody disingenuously booked tickets just to find out where the meeting would be held and then told others about it.
@Allahs Pig: I think you’re missing an apostrophe but you definitely have an appreciation of melodrama.
@Doug: Huh.
@Ross: Yes, the venue has hosted a range of events in the past; I imagine the venue has received some angry phone calls; for those that care, I think it may be worth considering looking elsewhere for a venue.
Some expressions of Islam support jizya taxes on non-Muslims, honour killings, beheadings of so-called infidels (one of these just happened in New Jersey), marriage of minors, female genital mutilation, polygamy, say offensive things about Jews and their alleged control of the international banking system, and the halal certification system, under which food companies pay fees to an accreditation body, but they don’t get any say in how money raised from these fees is used.
We should be able to discuss these issues openly, just as most other religions can usually be critiqued rigorously without these critics needing around the clock protection.
And did you consider that some people might have gone to hear Gilders just because they were interested in hearing his views, and not necessarily because they agree with him?
I’ve been to hear Peter Singer, often watch Q&A, listen to Jon Faine, and recently watched Richard Dawkins’s documentary on SBS. I expose myself to a range of worldviews, and not just those that are similar to mine.
Are there articulations of Islam that might be considered objectionable? Yes, from both an Islamic (doctrinal) and non-Islamic perspective. This much is obvious. So too the fact that other religions, and non-religious belief systems, also produce horrors and absurdities. Further, Islam has been subjected to sustained critique by Western thinkers; the idea that it’s not possible for Australian citizens, for example, to discuss the virtues of Islam is absurd.
Wilders’ basic thesis is that Islam is evil and should be eradicated from within those political domains not already afflicted by it: Stop the Islamisation of Our Nations. Hence his appeal to Muslims to convert to Christianity, attempts to create legislative and political impediments to the construction of Muslim places of worship, Muslim immigration, and so on. He has, in fact, built a career upon the demonisation of Muslims.
Perhaps the most significant, recent attempt to argue that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with and antagonistic to Western civilisation is Samuel Huntington’s essay/book ‘Clash of Civilizations’. It’s not very convincing. Tariq Ali:
I know my history. Islam is not a monolith, just as communism wasn’t during the Cold War. I would differentiate between Islam and Islamism. They’re not the same thing. Islamists aspire to bring about a worldwide caliphate, which is in essence a Muslim theocracy. Not all Muslims are Islamists, just as not all Christians are theocrats. Some Muslims are trying to stifle any discussion or critique of their religion. I’m not making absurd statements at all.
If you know where to look, it’s not hard to find examples of non Muslims in some Muslim countries being denied the freedom to have their own places of worship. They get denied building permits, have their premises confiscated, get harassed when trying to attend their place of worship, or they get bombed or vandalised.
PS: Daniel Pipes is one scholar who differentiates between Islam and Islamism.
1. Daniel Pipes is not a scholar. He is merely a commentator.
2. Ross wrote:
And if you were familiar at all with scholarship you would know not to mention Dawkins and Singer in the same breath as you mention Wilders, Pipes and the whole nasty crew around “Robert Spencer” and the other Muslim haters.
Tsk.
The not so Secret Venue trick eh? Wilders and Nalliah need media coverage or the false messiah gig will be preaching to an empty house. Nalliah’s God given gift to “raise the dead” deserves applause, a cunning hook to fish for dying Christians to populate Nalliah’s “Rise Up” Australia party.
‘Ross’…mate, you are wasting your time trying to be ‘reasonable’ with @ndy and his acolytes. You might as well have started your appeals with ‘I’m not a Racist…’ @ndy & Co’s arrogant creed is ‘Never explain, never apologise’ so why should you or I?
Make no mistake ‘Ross’. This is WAR. These people hate our festering guts. They want us gone, preferably DEAD and gone. Any illusions you might harbour of ‘fair play’ should be abandoned forthwith.
This enemy is utterly without honour or pity and has no concern for the truth, only victory.
You disarm yourself and are at a severe disadvantage the moment you judge these people by their words and not their actions.
I know it’s good to ‘know thine enemy’ by studying the works of their gurus, I do this myself, but seriously mate, there can be no logical, ordered, reasoned debate with these people. Their hatred of White Western Civilisation in general and White European Christians in particular is so deeply entrenched along with their wilful ignorance of History and Scientific facts regarding Race and Culture your time would be more gainfully utilised in attempting to drive your head though a block of granite.
Their minds are impenetrable and they are case hardened against reason and logic. They certainly have no concept of their own cynicism and refuse to acknowledge their outrageous hypocrisies.
Remind yourself these are the very same caste of cretins who gave us stone cold psychopathic mass murderers like ‘Red Army’ Leon Trotsky (The Jew Lev Davidovitch Bronstein), the monstrous Jew propagandist Ilya Grigoryevich “Kill!” Ehrenburg, The Jew ‘Bloody’ Rosa Luxemburg, ‘The Gulag King’ The Jew Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel, ‘The Butcher of Ukraine’ The Jew Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich, ‘NKVD Boss’ Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Genrikh Yagoda (The Jew Enon Gershеvich Leguda), ‘The Red Tsar’ Joe Stalin, ‘Fifty Million’ Mao, ‘Back to the Stone-age’ Pol Pot and thousands more sadistic head-cases.
@ndy claims to be an Anarchist so he is no stranger to the overwhelmingly Jewish origins of his particular Communistic ideology which has among its ‘heroes’ such loathsome Yids as [List of Jewish anarchists copied from Wikipedia].
But of course it is the merest and most irrelevant of coincidences that the Chosen are so well represented among the nation wrecking, culture destroying, bomb throwers…
The sheer viciousness and vindictiveness of these hateful creatures has stunned me over the years and, although I have often been accused by them of being a thug myself, I swear many of the actions and activities of the Red Left in Australia are right off the scale when it comes to character assassination, intimidation, hacking, stalking, actual physical assault etc. They truly are in a class of their own.
Beware of anyone who bleats on about ‘Human Rights’ and ‘Social Justice’ or uses P.C. terms such as ‘Progressive’, ‘Equity’, ‘Egalitarianism’ etc. They are the FIRST to trample on the sovereign rights of free speech and freedom of association of others who do not share their fanatical Marxist ideology. In my experience the ‘Peace and Love’ brigade are the MOST violent.
[snip]
G’day Peter,
As Ross makes clear on his blog, he’s a Christian; he doesn’t share your neo-Nazism. So while he may agree with you that I am unreasonable, hateful, murderous, pitiless, cynical, hypocritical, cretinous, unduly-influenced in my political philosophy by its Jewish creators, vicious, vindictive and a fanatical and violent Marxist, I doubt it, and expect he may a) have slightly more regard for Jews like Jesus than you do, and b) is likely to be far more interested in interrogating my alleged naivete regarding the threat of Islamism than he is in allocating Jews responsibility for all the world’s evils.
I could be wrogn of course.
As for your diatribe, it’s tedious as it is predictable, and while I don’t know why your knickers are in a particular twist because of Geert, it’s always amusing to imagine you bashing away at your keyboard in frustration.
Tschuss,
Andy.
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