A bracing bit of anti-dhimmitude regarding the Al-Hilali “uncovered meat” uproar from Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian, with thanks to Ynkedoodl:
THIRTY years ago, Elton John may have crooned that “sorry seems to be the hardest word”, but these days the sorry word rolls off the tongue too easily. So it’s no surprise that Muslim cleric Taj Din al-Hilali thought a few apologies would get him off the hook for claiming that women in short skirts who smile and sway their hips are to blame for unleashing unlawful sexual appetites in men.
The mufti was tapping into the modern-day disease of apologitis. Say you’re sorry and endless Western tenderness and tolerance will forgive all. The West has mistakenly believed tolerance begets tolerance. Having discovered that it spawns intolerance, we are finally getting back into the values debate. That means realising that sorry just won’t cut it any more.
But right on cue, the first reaction from Abdul El Ayoubi of the Lebanese Muslim Association was: “We did accept his apology and we want to move on.” Whoa. Before we move on, let’s figure out precisely why sorry does not work any more. The sheik’s apology has the distinct smell of someone being sorry that he was caught. There was no hint of contrition from Hilali in the weeks between his speech and The Australian reporting it. His faint-hearted mea culpa once the media arrived looked more like one of those PR-spun apologies. You know the kind, like the one AWB was advised to make but declined.
Going into further damage control last Friday, the wily cleric from Sydney’s Lakemba mosque said his words were misinterpreted just like the Pope’s address at Regensburg University. Full marks for cunning, with Hilali and his supporters believing that if good-hearted people cut a Christian leader some slack, then a Muslim leader deserves the same courtesy. The argument fails on logic. The Pope is entitled to ask whether violence is part of Islam in an attempt to encourage Muslim leaders to talk openly about what it is within Islam that encourages jihadists. The validity of that question was instantly proved by the violent response it triggered. By contrast, Hilali’s medieval comments about women as meat pose no valid question. They are unacceptable in an enlightened world.
Read it all.