Things have been happening in the world since we returned from holiday. I wrote my blogs, of course, as memories of our journey, but during that time, the world has faced new horrors. Especially in UK. We saw the brutal murder of innocent kids attending a concert in Manchester, the slaughter of people enjoying an evening near London Bridge, and now the terrible fire at the Grenfell Tower. This account in the Guardian is awful reading as people inside try to survive.
The Weekend Australian magazine today has an interesting article written by two people, a man and a woman, both born in Pakistan and raised as Muslims, who have renounced their faith. The woman’s story in particular resonated with me. She is a psychologist who has studied the Quran, and has lived in Muslim society, so she knows of what she speaks. She says she is no longer a Muslim because Islam is essentially misogynistic. And I think she’s absolutely right. However, I’ll add that there’s a big difference between fundamentalist nut-jobs and people just wanting to live their lives.
I suppose some people will say the men who committed the murders in Manchester and London were nut-jobs. Could be, but people who shout Allahu Akbar as they shove a knife into somebody are terrorists. So is the fellow who took a backpack bomb filled with shrapnel to kill and maim as many as possible at a concert, in a location where it would do maximum harm. All in the name of God.
Man Monis, centre of the Lindt cafe siege which led to the deaths of two people, was undoubtedly a nut-job. But people in Iran asked why we had allowed this known criminal to enter Australia? Apparently Iran had asked to extradite this man. If he’d been sent back, two people might still be alive, and a lot more would not have been traumatized.
Then we hear that men accepted into Australia because they feared being killed if they returned to Iran actually went back home for a visit, at least one to get married. When the minister cancelled their visas they appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, who overturned the decision. These ‘refugees’ deliberately lied to obtain visas in Australia. They should be packed off back to Iran (or wherever they came from) on the first flight.
We allow men in Australia to flout our law by having multiple wives (married under Sharia law, not Australian law) and even support the women and their kids through CentreLink. In other words, they are ripping off our welfare system.
And just the other day the Queensland government was apparently left ‘red-faced’ when a dinner for ‘movers and shakers’ in the Islamic community to celebrate the end of Ramadan included sauces made with alcohol. Okay, devout Muslims don’t drink alcohol. That’s fine. I want to know why the Queensland Government is hosting dinners for Ramadan? Does it host dinners for other religious minorities? According to the census, 2.2% of Australians are Muslim. But 2.1% are Buddhist, 1.3% are Hindu. Does the Government host special dinners for their feast events? Or do we only do it for the Muslims to prove we’re politically correct?
All this talk of food leads me to Masterchef. I said in a post a few weeks ago that I enjoyed Masterchef because it was about the food. I’m sorry to say that’s no longer the case. While we don’t have the sniping between contestants that seems to be the appeal in My Kitchen Rules, Masterchef is not about food either. We still get the occasional challenge where contestants come up with clever dishes given a list of ingredients. But several times already in this series contestants have been asked to complete ridiculously complicated dishes created by professional chefs (and no doubt a phalanx of sous chefs making each of the components) in a set amount of time, having been given a recipe pages long, and a taste of the original. One professional admitted it took 45 attempts to get his creation right. And amateur cooks, working alone, are being asked to reproduce these constructions in as little as 5 hours. It’s commendable that some actually complete most of the steps. So once again, the ‘contest’ is about how the participants shape up under enormous pressure.
Speaking of pressure, let’s put it on the table; some of it is contrived. Last year one of the contestants was an airline captain. This year we have a doctor, a GP. Yet early in the piece we were expected to believe these men lost their composure completely. Over a mistake in a kitchen? If that was true, I’d rather avoid the plane and the doctor’s surgery. Masterchef has become just another ridiculous reality TV show. And now the Ten Network is in receivership, this might be its last hurrah. Such a shame.
And now for a few unseen photos from the recent trip…
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