Islam, Immigration, Refugees and Terrorism By Bruce Bennett

     The ASIO director-general has said that there is “absolutely no evidence” of a link between Australia’s refugee intake and terrorism: The Weekend Australian, May 27-28, 2017, p.1. This was a bit hard to swallow, and even The Australian said that the remarks were made “despite multiple Islamic terrorist acts in the past three years involving individuals on humanitarian visas, or their children.”

     The debate exploded with the Attorney General defending the ASIO boss’s comments: The Australian, May 31, 2017, p. 1, saying that Middle East refugees are not the source of the terrorism problem. There is, he observed, many aspects to the Islamic terrorism problem, including the radicalisation of young people by terrorist organisations. True, but trivially true. This is really a superficial response to the issue, as other experts admitted that even if the actual refugees were not a terrorist risk, the sons and daughters of refugees were at danger of radicalisation: The Australian, June 1, 2017, p.1. Thus, it is true that merely being a refugee from the Middle East did not automatically make one a terrorist, but who has said that? No Australian  authority has said that the children of refugees have radicalised solely because their parents were refugees, for clearly other cultural factors must be at work.

     Nevertheless, there are an enormous number of article about Europe, which indicates that even this highly qualified statement may well be false.  ISIS has used the so-called refugee crisis to send operatives into Europe: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-europes-migrant-crisis-became-an-opportunity-for-isis/2016/04/21/ec8a7231-062d-4185-bb27-cc7295d35415_story.html?utm_term=.346099f47cb3; http://www.newsweek.com/how-isis-smuggles-terrorists-among-syrian-refugees-453039; http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/555434/Islamic-State-ISIS-Smuggler-THOUSANDS-Extremists-into-Europe-Refugees; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/king-of-jordan-abdullah-says-turkey-isis-terrorists-and-unleashing-them-europe-erdogan-a6954841.html. These are all mainstream news articles, and it is easy to produce many pages of links on just this topic. There is no reason to suppose that Australia has been exempt. Thus, there is a refugee/terrorism link, but it is not one of necessity, but more of probability.

     As well, surveys of UK Muslims indicate that 43 percent support the introduction of aspects of sharia law into Britain: The Australian, May 31, 2017, p. 14.  Court rulings in Australia are already being influenced by sharia law: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/sharia-law-affecting-court-rulings/news-story/5158234ef2f296c922f02f93726534a7; http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-17/muslim-group-wants-sharia-law-in-australia/2717096; http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/broad-support-for-australian-sharia-law/news-story/34d23cedc2e3bb4306940cbbc223db6e. There is thus broad support for many aspects of sharia law by Australian Muslims. As their numbers increase by immigration, regardless of the terrorism issue, whether they are refugees or not, so will demands for a change to liberal democratic institutions. Those who cannot see this are dumb, blind, or perhaps  born-again multiculturalists funded by some taxpayer grant or job in some ivory towered university.

     There clearly is something fundamentally wrong with our elites if their opinions are so distant from overseas authoritative views. Political correctness about immigration is a mad cult in this country and it needs to be radically deconstructed.

     In this respect, it is interesting to consider the fate of a man of the Left, Gilles Kepel, a French Islam expert, who is now on an ISIS hit list for daring to quote from the Koran, as The Australian May 30, 2017, p. 9, put it.  Actually Kepel has made a far more penetrating critique than that, arguing that Europe cannot effectively deal with the Islamic terror threat, and that nations will fall into civil war over the issue: https://counterjihad.com/french-scholar-islam-gilles-kepel-prepare-war; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3785331/Generation-Jihad-Scholar-Islam-predicts-civil-war-Europe-young-Muslims-facing-poor-job-prospects-turn-radical-groups.html; https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/09/gilles-kepel-keep-those-muslims-satisfied-keep-europe-for-them-a-big-rock-candy-mountain.

     This sort of debate somehow is not possible in the intellectual backwater of Australia, where all that can be said are childish cliques, such as “diversity is our strength.”