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GIFT RECEIVED
Like his brother, Malcolm Wood is a generous fellow:
The brother of freed hostage Douglas Wood today visited the senior Islamic cleric who travelled to Iraq to try to secure his brother’s freedom.
Malcolm Wood presented Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, with a gift at his Sydney home and said his help was greatly appreciated ...
“At danger to his life and in ill health he went to Iraq and help save our brother Douglas,” Malcolm Wood said today.
“I think it’s likely the Sheik’s efforts helped immeasurably.”
Nice of him to say so, and possibly even useful in the context of whatever bridge-building is meant to be underway with moderate Muslim leaders, but the Sheikh’s bizarre record doesn’t exactly indicate a lot of helping.
There must be a special circle in hell for people who use their relatives to justify positions exactly the opposite of those the relatves held. Of course, most real “progressives” are smart enough to wait until their relatives die doing something meaningful to use their dead bodies to contradict the beliefs they died for.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 31 at 10:12 AM • permalinkI wonder what the gift was: a Holy Bible maybe? Hee, hee, hee
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 07 31 at 07:43 PM • permalink“immeasurably…’ I’ll have to remember that one next time I need an amibiguous accolade!
Posted by W i l l i a m on 2005 07 31 at 08:27 PM • permalinkSheikh Hilaly is apparently trying to mend his ways and for that I commend him. However it has become quite clear to anyone with an ounce of objectivity that he played absolutely no significant role in the release of Douglas Wood, and to keep pretending otherwise is plainly foolish. Not even the ABC, and idiots like David Marr are likely to go there anytime soon, although SBS’s tragic Dateline program played with fire airing an interview with Hilaly just after his glaring inconsistencies put the matter to rest once and for all.
Last night the ABC’s newreader, the over-the-hill gay party boy Joe O’Brien, made the snide remark that, “Douglas Wood couldn’t meet the Sheikh as he was on his way back to his home in America.”
Having said all that I understand completely why Malcolm Wood made the gracious gesture he did. Maybe The Age will begin an attack on the other brother now for his absence yesterday…nothing would surprise me there!kywong73, you have a point there. But pandering to the sheik’s vanity (or so it seems to me) is not what some would call “appropriate positive reinforcement”.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 08 01 at 12:54 AM • permalinkI am as cynical as most about the “bizarre record” but I am in agreement with kywong73 on the Woods’ characters and Tim’s comment about bridge-building. My take is that I approve of people who try to generate the maximum good will out of a situation.
Posted by Semi-conductor on 2005 08 01 at 02:11 AM • permalinkI do see your point, but to me, this is sort of like giving Michael Moore public praise for Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore tried to build bridges as well, but I had a problem with him praising the terrorists as “Minutemen”. Or giving Margo a “Mr. Spock Award” for her contributions to the public debate.
I don’t know that the sheik praised the terrorists like Moore did, but any help that the sheik provided can barely be viewed as “positive”. Perhaps a notch or two above Margo’s contribution.
I don’t see rewarding “bizarre behavior” as being a Good Thing. Perhaps I am just not as gracious as most people.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 08 01 at 05:58 AM • permalinkMuslims in Australia and other developed countries around the world are faced with a challenge to their identity from extremists. The fact that they have done very little to confront this challenge indicates the uncertain committment to the values of our culture of personal liberty and human rights. It seems that when confronted with a literal interpretation of their religion Muslims cannot find an alternative interpretation they can stand by and be proud of. This stems from the reality that the religion is flawed, it central preceps are of intolerance and subordination and even in tolerant Muslims cannot find an interpretation of the Koran which is entirely in keeping with the evolution of moral standards as they exist today.
The fact is that in the Koran there is no enlightened being, as there is in Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism, the central character displays few of the qualities which would gain admiration from citizens of civilised modern society, and gender inequality cannot be reinterpreted away from the explicit context in which it is described in the Koran.
Muslims are ashamed of their connection to extremism but cannot refute the claims of the extremists without refuting the virtue of their religion. The are stuck, they cannot undermine the central premise of their identity and to fail to do so will cause them to be identified with the extremists as is already happening.
How do we assist moderate Muslims in saving themselves? We could start by telling them to get off their rumps on the fringes of society and take positive action towards marginalising extremists from themselves. We cannot allow Muslims in Australia to continue to close off and foster the sense of victimhood which causes people to drift towards extremism. We should tell it how we see it to Muslims and Muslim communities and we should hold Muslims responsible for the actions of their coreligionists. We should celebrate genuine moves by Muslim activists or leaders to correct this worsening situation and hold these people up as models for Muslim and non-Muslim Ausralians.
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Douglas didn’t thank the sheik personally. Imagine that.