The best thing about Graeme Gilbert is that he spells “Grayam” differently from the way that I spell it. He’s using my name and he’s wearing it out.This man is as big a threat to our way of life as the Islamo-fascists he criticises.
I subjected myself to at least an hour of Gilbert’s bile last night as I travelled the coastal road from Grafton to Coff’s Harbour. Caller after caller rang up to tell us what a threat Muslims are to our way of life. They were short on specifics. It seemed to centre around what Muslim women allegedly wore. One caller wanted to know why he had to remove his motorbike helmet when he entered a bank, but Muslim women could enter wearing a Hijab with only two eye holes cut in it.
I’ve yet to hear of a bank held up by hijab wearing Islamic women, but to Graeme it was sufficient proof that Islamiscists could take over the country “without firing a shot”.
He declared that wearing the hijab was “unhealthy”. Why? Well, you could ask any doctor, apparently. Actually, it was to do with the risk of a Vitamin D deficiency. You need sunlight to generate Vitamn D in your body, and so obviously these women would be Vitamin D deficient.
Thank God for the Aussie tan which makes us not like these other unhealthy people. Melanomas before hijabs any day.
60 years after the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Graeme is witness to the fact that fascist tendencies lie in even the most peaceful and civilised of societies.
Gilbert declared that when Muslims are in our house, they should abide by our laws. That apparently means they should be just like us. No deviant dress thanks very much.
I’ve always loved the Sikh temple at Woolgoolga, north of Coff’s Harbour. To find this exotic piece of religious veneration in the middle of a dinki-di stretch of Australian bush has always said a lot to me about Australians’ broad and generous views of life. Listening to the Gilbert sewage and then driving past the temple put it in a different light.
For me it is a celebration of diversity. For people like Graeme, diversity is fine, as long as you behave just like the rest of us.
What distressed me most about Gilbert was that barely anyone rang in (it was talkback) to challenge him. They should have. I’d like to think if I hadn’t been driving, I would have. Not to abuse him, although he probably deserves it, but to show him up for the fool that he is.
Yesterday the Prime Minister was proposing tougher laws for those who advocate terrorism. Those laws won’t work. Arresting the perpetrators will only make their message stronger to those who want to hear it. The only answer to terrorism is to reassert our beliefs. Which is why John Howard ought to pay more attention to people like Graeme Gilbert. And why we all should pay more attention to people like him.
By asserting an exclusionary version of what it is to be an Australian they weaken our ability to oppose a curative world view to that of the fanatics.
If I have an opportunity next time I hear Gilbert, I’ll ring him up to put him straight. You should think about it too. He’s on the “Super Radio Network”. (I doubt whether they’ve heard about Nietsche or his concept of the Superman, but it fits). Ring him up and give him a good purgative. There’s not much I recognise as unAustralian, but he fits the bill. Oh, and keep sending those white feathers to Jason Gillespie.