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There's not much to say about Peter's repetitive scaremongering that has not been stated already. He lies about what I said about FGM which is odd because it's easy for anyone to read it. I was struck, not for the first time, by how flattened and half-educated Peter's world view is so that the evangelical abolitionists of the eighteenth and nineteenth century are basically the same as the zealously Trump supporting evangelicals of 2020 and a Muslim villager in India named Sadiq Khan and a man of the same name who is the Mayor of London are both potentially a threat to the nations they live in because of their common religion. In regard to the evangelicals his flattening of history reminds me of those pig-ignorant and self-deluding Republicans who say they can't possibly be in the racist or white supremacist party because Lincoln was a Republican.

There is no sign that Peter has widely read scholarly literature before embarking on his sweeping condemnation of Muslims in the West and the Islamic world as a whole. He has not even read a single general history of the Islamic world. I have repeatedly pressed him on this and he has come up with nothing. It's clear that, for his overarching thesis, he's relied on other far-right fearmongerers, people of such rightly little standing that Peter is too embarrassed to tell us who they are. If you're setting out, in public forums, to attack and denigrate a religious group within our society then it seems to me that you have a duty to thoroughly research, read widely, and actually know what your talking about. Peter has done nothing of the kind and certainly hunting for dross that matches your prejudices doesn't count.

His belief that 'our' society is under relentless assault by 'others', who are in fact mostly our fellow citizens, and 'we' are too weak and liberal to defend ourselves against them has a long and ugly history, emanating from the far right. Peter wants to stop Muslim immigration (he hasn't explicitly said so but what else are we to think when he paints Muslims in such lurid terms?) and, presumably, then force some kind of 'special measures' on the Muslim community here as they are a persistent threat because their religion is irretrievably evil.

Peter hasn't owned up to the logic of what he is talking about because he knows how fascist it looks. He thinks his particular version of fascist measures aren't fascist because Muslims deserve it, they are a real threat. So all we hear from him is the scaremongering, the specious talk about his love of freedom, but nothing about how the logic of his hate propaganda necessarily works out in terms of exclusion, repression, surveillance and other police state measures.

Let me personalise this a little, I want to emphasise that it's real people we are talking about, not abstractions who are simplistically defined by their religion. I live in Blackheath but I also have a flat in Auburn and spend some time there. As most would know Auburn is one of the most immigrant suburbs in Australia and, while strongly Muslim, it also has Chinese and many other immigrants. I enjoy Blackheath and I think it's a pretty friendly place but if I had to choose which was more friendly, welcoming and open then Auburn wins hands down. It's the Muslim communities, Turks, Afghans, Sudanese and others, in particular that create the welcoming vibrancy of the place. The enthusiasm about living in Australia and the willingness to share culture is palpable if you're willing to want it too and have the unblinkered eyes to see it. You wouldn't know it if you read the Daily Telegraph regularly and took it seriously (they also like to toss off civilisational challenge bilge, albeit rather less pretentiouly) but it's better to see for yourself.

The idea that they are a "civilisational challenge" to 'us' is ugly, destructive, baseless and bonkers.