Carnita Matthews

Waleed Aly is a well-rounded kind of chap. A lecturer in politics at Monash Uni and a former member of the executive committee of the Islamic Council of Victoria, he is also said to wield a mean axe in his rock, funk and jazz band.

Of Egyptian heritage, the Melbourne born-and-raised Aly has the gift of talking straight. And on the issue of the impending new NSW police powers to order drivers and suspects to remove their veils, he has a simple message: it was inevitable.

“This is the inevitable response to the scenario we saw a few weeks ago,” he told The Punch today, in what might cheekily be termed a “thinly-veiled” reference to the Carnita Matthews case.

Continue reading "Australia is still a long way from France" »

Is the case of the niqab-clad Sydney woman who berated a police officer and fronted court this week with an aggressive all-male cheer squad a sign that multiculturalism has failed? Or does it merely signal that the people involved in this case are simply a bunch of persecuted, trouble-making ratbags who would rather have a fight than a feed?

Judging from the commentary this week many people have opted for the first conclusion. I would argue strongly in favour of the second.

The danger in rightly identifying the conduct of these individuals as appalling and unwelcome in this country is that it will get cited as proof-positive of a broader problem. It should not be used to besmirch the name of the vast majority of decent people within Australia’s Lebanese Muslim community who go about their business and live their lives in a civilised and productive manner. Equally, we should call this sort of behaviour for what it is.

Continue reading "Just yobbos, not a crisis of multiculturalism" »