Great Shakes! Its the Sheikh!

Our esteemed Mufti Sheikh el-Halawi has done it again with some completely stupid comments that

·       the cause of sexual assaults on women are women via the way that they dress,

·       that women should be married, dressed in muslim attire and remain in doors

·       that women dressed modestly (read: in standard western clothing) are portraying themselves as pieces of meat.

Charming isn’t it.  I am all for multiculturalism and I was appalled when Bronwyn Bishop tried to ban Muslim head dresses from school and the Muslim community was up in arms and rightly so.  Now we have the reverse and whilst it is good that the Mufti has apologised overnight (something that Bronnie never did), it doesn’t remove the fact that these sort of inflammatory comments were made in the first place.  Why cannot people on both sides of the divide realise that the other side has a right to their own religious and cultural beliefs and stop using high profile members of either community gaining access to the media to sprout their personal and yet highly offensive views.

I am sure there are racists and bigots on both sides, but do we really need to give them so much air time when the vast majority of people just don’t care?