Former Australian PM denounced for anti-Islam comments

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Friday 11 Dec 2015 - 16:00 Makkah mean time-29-2-1437 Melbourne, (IINA) - Australian politicians and Muslim leaders have denounced former Prime Minister Tony Abbott after he called on the West to proclaim its "superiority" over Islam, condemning how such views fuel extremism across the board, Anadolu Agency reported. "Cultures are not all equal", Abbott wrote in an opinion piece for Sydney-based The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, calling "religious revolution" in order to not "remain in denial about the massive problem within Islam". Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who ousted Abbott in September, has responded to the comments by saying, "(what) we must not do is play into the hands of our enemies and seek to tag all Muslims with responsibility for the crimes of a few". "The vast, vast majority of Muslims are as appalled by extremism and particularly violent extremism as we are", he added. "The leaders of the great Muslim-majority nations and the largest one is our close neighbor, Indonesia, are especially appalled by it". Meanwhile, opposition leader Bill Shorten has accused Abbott of using "inflammatory language" and called on Turnbull to "pull Tony Abbott into line" for seeking to divide the community. "Making assertions about cultural and religious superiority is entirely counterproductive," Shorten said in a statement. Australia's sole federal Muslim MP, Ed Husic, compared Abbott’s comments to those of Donald Trump, noting what he saw as a broader effort by some to "Trumpify" Australian politics. Ahmed Kilkani, the founder of Australia’s biggest Muslim media organization, told Anadolu Agency that Abbott is "playing right into the hands of the extreme fringe of society that want to create an ‘us and them’ world full of fear and hatred". "I am not sure when Tony Abbott became a theologian of world religions, but the issue is not with Islam as a faith", Kilkani asserted. "The issue is with a minute number of individuals perverting Islamic teachings to justify their own psychotic, mostly political, agendas". Kuranda Seyit, Islamic Council of Victoria spokesperson, mocked Abbott’s claims about Islam, describing them as so inaccurate they are "ridiculously comical". "To say that Islam has not adapted to modernity is preposterous", Seyit said, referring to Muslim scholars "debating issues from the place of women in religion, freedom of speech, ethics and principles around war, access to education, economic ethics of free trade, just to state a few". Seyit and others suggested that Abbott is "using Islam to make a political comeback". AG/IINA