Sunday, 16 December 2007

 .

Newsletter 0162

This week's CCN is kindly sponsored by

TOMMARCO'S

Eid ul-Adha is a religious festival celebrated by Muslims worldwide as a commemoration of Ibrahim's (Abraham's) willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael for Allah (SWT). It is one of two Eid festivals that Muslims celebrate.

Eid ul-Adha is four days long and starts on the 10th day of the month of Dhul Hijja of the lunar Islamic calendar. This is the day after the pilgrims in Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia by Muslims worldwide, descend from Mount Arafat. It happens to be approximately 70 days after the end of the month of Ramadan.

For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Adha

The Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth, Lindy Nelson-Carr MP, invited community leaders to Parliament House in Alice Street in celebration of the achievements of 2007 and to acknowledge the work of ethnic community organizations in Queensland.

THE closure of a Muslim school by the West Australian government was a warning to other Islamic schools, the former head of Australia's peak Muslim body says.

The Muslim Ladies' College in the Perth suburb of Kenwick was shut down by WA Education Minister Mark McGowan for a series of "serious concerns" revealed during a departmental investigation.

The school did not follow the state's curriculum, it employed unregistered teachers, serious questions were asked about the school's financial viability, and some school buildings were shipping containers.

A spokesman for the minister said at one time, students at the school were being given religious instruction 43 per cent of the time.

The school's acting director Zubair Sayed has been arrested and charged with fraud over the alleged theft of almost $356,000 in federal funding from the school.

Ameer Ali, an academic at Murdoch University and former president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, said the government took the right step in closing the school.

"After several warnings, the government has taken action. No one can blame the government for this," Dr Ali said.

"I think it's a good lesson for the other (Islamic) schools across the state.

"They want to enter the field of education and provide some services to the community, (so) they must be up to scratch.

"They should follow the rules of the state to the word and they should not exploit the community."

Dr Ali said Australia's Muslim community already was under the spotlight and this had not helped.

"This is completely tarnishing the image of the community, and already we are in the hot seat ... and this adds to our predicament."

Muslim cameleer Bejah Dervish at Mullewa, WA, leaving for the Calvert Expedition in 1896 (National Library: B10486/1 SLSA)

An exhibition recording the contribution of Muslim cameleers to Australia's history opened at the National Library in Canberra.

Muslim cameleers - known as Afghans in Australia - were instrumental in establishing communication and supply links between Australian coastal and inland towns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Curator Dr Philip Jones says the Afghans contributed significantly to Australia's economic and cultural development.

"They successfully negotiated these enormous obstacles across the landscape and brought supplies and provisions and took wool and minerals back to ports from the inland in a way that was predictable and efficient," he said.

Dr Jones says that the cameleers have rarely been given adequate credit for their achievements and their place in Australian history has been largely unrecorded until now.

"The durability and the power of the European settler myth you might say, based entirely on the idea that it was Europeans that formed the pioneering spirit in central Australia, has really overwhelmed this story and marginalised it," he said.

Dr Jones says life as a cameleer was tough.

"But these people had come from very tough country, the northern Indian deserts and the Afghan deserts are forbidding landscapes," he said.

"They knew how to read the landscape, they knew how to find water, they knew how to pace themselves as much as their camels.

"Very few of them came to grief."

He says the Afghans were largely accepted in society.

"I think in ways that we would tend to be a bit surprised by now because after all these are people coming into small country towns, building religious mosques, praying five times a day, holding their religious festivals, speaking in a foreign language....a whole range of cultural practices and gestures which are today greeted with some kind of irritation if they're encountered in Australian society," he said.

"But it appears Europeans gave enormous benefit of the doubt to these people because they realised that without them they were lost as a community.

"There was no way of getting provisions to and fro to these country centres without the cameleers.

"Certainly durable friendships and relationships emerged between the different groups."
 

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2115630.htm?section=justin

by Mr Tom Calma

In the weeks since the resounding victory of the Labor Party at the Federal Election, there has been much post-mortem analysis of campaign mistakes, electorate messages and mandates for the incoming government.

However, one thing on which both sides seem to agree, and indeed they need to reflect on, is the political nadir reached when bogus flyers appeared in the Lindsay electorate in NSW which purported ALP sympathy for the Bali bombers and terrorists.

It was indeed a low point, but one that was indicative of an increasingly acceptable and politically licensed practice in which the race card was played to garner political support from segments of the community.

It was such a practice that led to Arabic speaking people being subjected to a different questioning regime when seeking permanent visas.

Then there was the Dr Haneef affair which revealed a government’s haste to capitalise on people’s fears and insecurities. Not long after this unsavoury episode dropped out of the headlines did the news come through that the number of African refugees would be cut under our Immigration program. The reason? They apparently found it too difficult to settle.

What type of polity is reflected in a social and ethical agenda that allows bureaucracies to ask “additional questions” of particular racial groups, identifies a particular ethnic group as unsuitable refugees and scapegoat’s individuals to engender fear and insecurity? What type of society is created when such an agenda is inevitably absorbed into the everyday interactions between groups within our society?

In Australia, we have long accepted that people should not be treated differently on the basis of their race or ethnic origin. Our African communities experience immeasurable hardship when official credence is given to the already existing prejudices against them. The singling out of Muslim Australians in the same way has also provoked an outcry from those of us who see this as damaging to our entire community.

More recently, there has been the revulsion of two pig heads impaled on fence stakes in the outer Sydney suburb of Camden, reportedly as a protest against plans to open an Islamic school in the area.

And we must not forget the Northern Territory Emergency Response legislation which sidesteps Australia’s first law to protect human rights, the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (RDA).

So, as we look back, we see it was not a good year for our globally praised multiculturalism. As National Race Discrimination Commissioner however, I have hope.

As we move forward with a new government and into a new year, more than ever we have an obligation to ensure that government policy provides a strong and sustainable social framework to fight racism, xenophobia and discrimination, as well as promote social cohesion and community relationships.

Multiculturalism in Australia is the cornerstone for such a program. As a policy of community harmony it has worked well over the past two decades, replacing the failed policy of assimilation. It was and remains our most successful anti-racism strategy; it needs ongoing support and reinvigoration so that it can meet the new challenges that a culturally diverse society continues to present. We must not lose sight of the fact that, for example, between 1996 and 1998, 52 per cent of marriages in Australia were “mixed” in the sense that they involved people from different ethnicities. I am sure that the 2006 Census data will affirm an increase in the statistics and remember that any offspring are indeed multicultural citizens.

We must also address the new challenges of racism by ensuring that our laws provide strong remedies to redress discrimination and promote equality.

Presently, the RDA does not impose an obligation on government agencies to promote equality. In this regard, Australia is trailing behind the UK, Canada and other developed countries which have enshrined a duty to promote equality on government agencies as a statutory requirement.

In addition, the formalities of the legal process, and particularly the evidentiary requirements to prove discrimination under the Racial Discrimination Act, are making it difficult for complainants to succeed in an action for unlawful discrimination.

These are just some of the issues that need to be reviewed in order to ensure that the legal mechanisms continue to be responsive to new forms of racism.

If addressed, we can look forward to a new era of social cohesion in Australia for 2008 and beyond.

Mr Tom Calma is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and acting Race Discrimination Commissioner.
 

Source: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6756

Friday 14th December: A CCN Review

An easy mistake would be to think that with a title like that; the evening was solely dedicated to one country.

However, what actually happened was an around the world in 80 minutes showcasing music and dancing from an assortment of countries.

The musical journey started in Afghanistan and moved to the middle east then skipping to Spain, South America, over to India, down to South East Asia and back for the finale to Afghanistan.

The entertainment however, was only a distraction for the main purpose of the evening, that being to raise awareness and funds for the poor of Afghanistan.

The young organizers of the evening Samia Ahmad, Reena Rhandhawa, and Simin Rawi wanted to introduce the audience to ‘Mahboba’s Promise’.

This organisation is dedicated to assisting the women and children in war torn Afghanistan. With Mahboba not currently in the country, her representative Aisha Meguid gave a talk which highlighted some shocking facts about the number of orphans and widows in Afghanistan, and the circumstances in which they need to survive.

Mahboba Rawi is an extraordinary woman who migrated from Afghanistan many years ago, but still has not given up hope for her helpless country folk.

A Brisbane branch of Mahboba’s Promise is hoping to be organised shortly. For more information or to donate to Mahboba’s Promise www.mahbobaspromise.org

The delightful evening was with the help of many people who donated their time and services including the scrumptious food donated by Jotishma Bahn.

Three Jamiatul Ulama members of the Jamiatul Ulama, a student of the Jaami`ah al Ulum al-Islamiyyah (Darul Ulum at the Jamiat) and one other who embarked on a journey to travel across Africa to Saudi Arabia for Hajj by land are now in Makkah.

They made it there after crossing the Red Sea to the port city of Jeddah by a ferry together with many other hujjaj from Sudan.

 

Haj Backpackers’ Profiles

1) Maulana Imtiaz Bhayat - Aalim & Imaam of Bethal Masjid (Mpumalanga) AGE:32 MARRIED
 

2) Maulana Abrarulhaq Essack - Aalim & Imaam of Masjid Hamza (Ext 9 Lenasia) AGE: 24 MARRIED
 

3) Maulana Muhsin Saber - Aalim & Imaam of Mayfair Jumuah Masjid (Johannesburg) AGE: 28 MARRIED
 

4) Hafez Mohammed Bham - Student at Jaami`ah al Ulum al-Islamiyyah (Darul Ulum at the Jamiat) AGE: 21 BACHELOR
 

5) Hafez Imran Mohammed - Businessman Azaadville AGE: 33 MARRIED
 

Note: Radio Islam has a blog about the trip: http://www.radioislamlive.com/haj/

Evidence of extremism in mosques 'fabricated'

A rightwing thinktank which claimed to have uncovered extremist literature on sale at dozens of British mosques was this week accused of basing a report on fabricated evidence.

The report by Policy Exchange alleged that books condoning violent jihad and encouraging hatred of Christians, Jews and gays were being sold in a quarter of the 100 mosques visited.

But BBC2's Newsnight said examination of receipts provided by the researchers to verify their purchases showed some had been written by the same person - even though they purported to come from different mosques.

Article continues

Ways to fight against Islamophobia discussed at İstanbul conference

The "International Conference on Islamophobia" held in İstanbul over last weekend brought together around 100 scholars, academics and NGO representatives from around the world to discuss the issues surrounding the status of Muslims and suggest solutions for the problem of pervasive misconceptions about Islam and widespread anti-Muslim sentiment, also known as Islamophobia.

The "International Conference on Islamophobia," organized by the Union of NGOs of the Islamic World (UNIW), took place at the Grand Cevahir Hotel on Saturday and Sunday.

At the conference British writer and lecturer Karen Armstrong asserted that the West is deeply Islamophobic.

She noted that Islamophobia is the result of a long process of prejudice, dating back to the Crusades. She said, however, that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 have strengthened the prejudiced belief that "Islam is a religion of the sword."

Article continues

Moscow’s first Muslim clinic opens
 

Sharia will be enforced in the facility: patients and staff will be segregated on the basis of sex with female patients treated by veiled female doctors for men as well as halal medicines and food. The initiative is part of a renewed co-operation between Russia’s Muslim community and the Russian government. The chairman of the Mufti Council of Russia is quite happy.
 

Moscow (AsiaNews) – Moscow’s first private clinic based on Sharia law opened its doors yesterday. “The policlinic will strictly abide by Sharia law by observing, above all, gender differences in its services,” said Anna Kisko, a spokesperson for the health network responsible for the facility.

In the new centre women will be served by female specialists; men by male specialists, she told the Interfax Religion agency.

The administrative personnel will also be dressed accordingly to Sharia law, i.e. the doctors will only have their hands open and female doctors will have to wear headscarves or possibly hijabs.

The opening of a Halal cafeteria and a prayer room with a screen separating men from women should also be available at the policlinic. In addition, all medicines used at the policlinic will have to conform to Halal principles and not contain any alcohol.

Article continues

  Iran Deja Vu

  Muslims celebrating Hajj Pilgrimage and Eid Ul Adha

Last Sunday, the Brothers from the Gold Coast took on Brother Ishqi Shuaib's Sri Lankan slingers. Once again the Gold Coast lost the toss, but once again it was to be the only contest they would lose.

The Sri Lankan boys elected to bat first, and given that the outfield was slow, any target above 170 from 25 overs was going to be competitive. The Gold Coast bowlers were well led by Dr Usman, despite some fielding mishaps which were attributed to the heat rather than a lack of skill. The Sri Lankan boys managed to reach 175 from their allotted 25 overs, leaving the Gold Coast boys with plenty to think about over lunch.

Despite an early loss of an opener, the Gold Coast boys continued to play their natural game, led by Brother Hammad top scoring with 47. The bowling was tough to get away, but the loss of a key bowler early in the innings made things even harder for the Sri Lankans.

After leading the bowling so well, Dr Usman then chimed in with the bat, setting up a comfortable victory for the Gold Coast after it looked a little tight earlier in the innings. A special mention must be made of Maulana Uzair who was a guest player for the Gold Coast, and his great batting effort ensured the strike was continually rotated as he provided good support to his batting partners. I'm also sure that Maulana had a special feeling after the game given he was on the winning side.

To all those businesses out there looking to team up with a champion team, please call Shahzad Khan on 0433-175-134 to discuss sponsorship arrangements.

Shop 6, Le Metro, 8 Station Road, Indooroopilly

Mention CCN when you place your order and you can claim a 5% discount

Q: Kareema, my teenage son is keen on getting fit and building muscle mass. He's working out daily and has purchased some protein powders and shakes to speed up the process. I'm not too sure if this is a good idea, any advice?


 

A: I truly believe that a well balanced diet will provide all the protein he needs to increase muscle mass, as long as he's training correctly.

The recommended daily intake of protein is 0.75g per kilogram of body weight for young adults and 1g per kilogram for older adults.

Perhaps he could do some research on the net regarding natural food sources of protein which will give him some idea of what foods to eat.. (instead of the powders and shakes).

After all, we need to work for what we want - and a healthy diet, together with a daily exercise
routine, is sure to get some results!!
 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THIN PEOPLE DO NOT...
--------------------
I read every diet I can get my hands on. I even follow their suggestions. But eventually, inevitably, I always get fat again. Now, at last, I've found The Answer. After living for almost 14 years with a man who never gains an ounce no matter what I serve him, I've found out what it is that keeps him thin: He thinks differently. The real difference between fat and thin people is that thin people:

split a large combination pizza with three friends;
nibble cashews one at a time;
read books they have to hold with both hands;

fill the lolly dish on their desks with paper clips;
counteract the mid-afternoon slump with a nap instead of a cinnamon Danish;
think it's too much trouble to stop at a special store just to buy chocolate;
try all the salads at the buffet, leaving room for only one dessert;
find iced tea more refreshing than an ice-cream milk shakes;
think banana splits are for kids.

Source: Radio Islam Newsletter - Friday, 14 December 2007

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Need an answer to a fitness related matter? Send your question to Kareema at  fitness@crescentsofbrisbane.org.

All questions sent in are published here anonymously and without any references to the author of the question.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RECIPE

Curried Chicken and Pasta Bake

Curried chicken baked in individual ramekins makes the ideal starter for dinner parties.

Serves 4 - Preparation Time: 10 mins - Cooking Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

125 ml milk

30 ml margarine

250 ml sour cream

2 smoked chicken breasts

125 ml fresh breadcrumbs

310 ml water

1 box Knorr Macaroni & Cheese – Cheese & Chicken flavour

10 ml curry powder

150 g broccoli, broken into small florets

125 ml Cheddar cheese, grated

Instructions:

Mix the milk, water, margarine and the contents of the Macaroni & Cheese sauce sachet and pasta and bring to the boil in a saucepan, then simmer for 8–10 min

Combine the sour cream and curry powder and season with salt and pepper

Cut the chicken into thin slivers and mix with the broccoli and cream mixture and macaroni and cheese

Spoon into four ramekin dishes, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and cheese and bake for 10–15 min or until the cheese melts

Source: SANHA Halaal e-Bulletin 20. Send an email to helpline@sanha.org.za to subscribe.

At the height of a political corruption trial, the prosecuting attorney attacked Mula Nasruddin.
 

“Isn't it true,” he bellowed, “that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?”
 

Mula Nasruddin stared out the window as though he hadn't heard the question.
 

“Isn't it true that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?” the lawyer repeated.

 
Mula Nasruddin still did not respond.
 

Finally, the judge leaned over and said, “Brother Nasruddin, please answer the question.”
 

“Oh,” the startled Mula Nasruddin said, “I thought he was talking to you.”

 

Click on image to enlarge

ICQ & AIIC Eid-ul-Adha Programme	ICQ & ICOB Eid-ul-Adha Programme	Kuraby Mosque Eid-ul-Adha Programme
GIRU Conference

To claim your date for your event email theteam@crescentsofbrisbane.org.

Write For Us

The best ideas and the best feedback come from our community of readers. If you have a topic or opinion that you want to write about or want seen covered or any news item that you think might be of benefit to the Crescents Community please e-mail

theteam@crescentsofbrisbane.org.

Share your thoughts, feelings and ambitions for our community through CCN.

If there is someone you know who would like to subscribe to CCN please encourage them to send an e-mail to theteam@crescentsofbrisbane.org with the words “Subscribe Me” in the subject line.

Disclaimer

Articles and opinions appearing in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Crescents of Brisbane Team, CCN, its Editor or its Sponsors, particularly if they eventually turn out to be libelous, unfounded, objectionable, obnoxious, offensive, slanderous and/or downright distasteful.

It is the usual policy of CCN to include from time to time, notices of events that some readers may find interesting or relevant. Such notices are often posted as received. Including such messages or providing the details of such events does not necessarily imply endorsement of the contents of these events by either CCN or Crescents of Brisbane Inc.