‘Hate’, vile and otherwise

The spirit or righteousness, albeit its fashionable and secular variant, is currently animating Labor MP Terri Butler to heap praise upon Malcolm Turnbull, her kind of PM, whose government is holding a US anti-abortion campaigner under lock and key for advocating the wrong sort of opinions. “There is no place for this kind of hate speech in Australia,” says Butler, “and I’m pleased to (sic) Government has listened to our concerns.”

A thoroughly modern woman, Ms Butler’s opinions on what constitutes “hate speech” are strikingly nuanced. A US Christian activist who wants abortion declared a form of murder and its practitioners treated accordingly under the law must not be heard because simple-minded Australians — that would be the little people who voted for Ms Butler — might come to inappropriate conclusions. Much better that they hear not a word of opinions which Ms Butler finds objectionable.

But a Muslim group in her Brisbane electorate that twice hands its pulpit to Islamist firebrand and jihadi barracker Musa Cerantonio (above)? Well that is perfectly OK, according to Butler’s remarks in this TV chat session.

“In my electorate the Holland Park Islamic Society do a lot of work to try to stop young boys getting alienated, and to connect with them, and that’s what I think is really important.”

The Holland Park faithful do indeed pursue a vigorous outreach agenda with Muslim youths through Ummah United, whose web page lists the mosque as its spiritual HQ.  In February, 2013, Ummah United invited Cerantonio to lecture on what he evidently regards as the looming end of days. His lesson, which can be viewed in full via this link, rambles through 90-plus minutes of wild-eyed palaver about this portent or that, including a prediction of global drought that puts Tim Flannery maddest utterances to shame, before climaxing with the gushing assurance that many present will live to see mankind’s reckoning with Allah. This will come to pass, he notes, when “Zionists and Crusaders” have been destroyed, the Shia heretics of Iran defeated and jihadis march beneath the black flag of their faith from all quarters of the world to give unbelievers, especially those pesky Jews, a thorough dose of what is good for them.

But that isn’t hate speech — at least not, by Ms Butler’s yardstick, the sort that needs to be silenced with a denied visa and/or a spell behind bars.

For more on Ummah United and some of its acolytes, follow the link below.

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