I thought the issues in this matter would be obvious from the background of the actual event itself and from the Wikipedia link I provided re Zaky's actual background in my article, . Public response elsewhere indicates that this is not the case. So I'll make this effort to present them explicitly.
1) Zaky's background:
He had his passport revoked in 2003. He sought formal appeal against this decision. He was refused access to the 'evidence' upon which the decision was made and the decision was upheld.
He was greatly upset by this and made a fair bit of public fuss about it. Zaky readily admits some of his response at the time was over the top, but he also submits that he was only 19 and that he can be a bit of an idiot.
The Australian and Alan Jones picked up on this and, for whatever reason, gave some public bandwidth to Zaky and his concerns.
Quite probably as a result of this publicising of Zaky and his gripe, an ASIO agent posed as a reporter and sought to induce Zaky to enact a siege upon ASIO staff and give him the 'scoop story'.
At some point in this induced farce Zaky made a death threat toward this ASIO agent. On the face of it, this sounds understandable.
Zaky was then arrested and charged for his threat. He was held in solitary at Goulbourn prison for 2 years and eventually tried under newly enacted terrorism laws that were not even in place at the time of his arrest.
The judge and jury found him not guilty of the terrorism charge. The judge allowed admission of the evidence regarding the death threat even though it was illegally generated via entrapment and should not have been admissible. Zaky pleaded guilty and was convicted.
2) The current event:
Zaky appeared on Q&A and asked Minister Ciobo how he would be dealt with under the new pending legislation to rescind citizneship. Clearly this question is vital to him and anyone in the community like him. They all pay their 8ç for the ABC just like we do and are fully entitled to be heard and to hear on the matter. More broadly though, the question and the answer provide a vital measure to to all of us who might want to better understand exactly what this new legislative bundle may or may not actually mean.
Ciobo's answer was revealed the chilling reality that decisions would be based upon visceral reflex and not any objectively considered merit. No surprise really but usefully shocking to have it out in the open.
Zaky observed that the Minister's attitude, and thereby it can be presumed the Government's, would help mobilise vulnerable local sentiment toward ISIS rather than away from it.
At that point the world melted down. Utterly unlikely allies, beginning immediately with Tony Jones, all worked together from that point to completely obscure these stark utterances of ugly truth beneath an incendiary mob attack upon Zaky and upon the ABC, which has offered itself up for sacrifice either out of stupidity, cowardice or complicity toward the weirdly horrible status quo that we are being steadily conscripted into.
3) Zaky's misogynous tweets:
He did not tweet about women per se. He tweeted about two particular journalists who happen to be women.
The gist of his tweet was that they were whores. Personally I find his concern for their particular behaviour, and his character analogy of them, quite compelling.
I am not about to insulate myself from the useful truth and meaning of his communication simply because he frames it in the language and imagery that is common to a youth from the western suburbs of Sydney. Why is elitism any better than so-called misogyny? Both are divisive and marginalising. Moreover, persons fortunate to have an education should be better able to rise above such failings rather than seek advantage in their own 'elevated' form of it.
3) Fundamentalism:
Zaky is a prominent and repeated denouncer of ISIS and advocate against Moslem youth joining them.
Due to this he has received personalised death threats directly from Mohamed Elomar, an active Australian ISIS operative in Syria.
Zaky has continued his anti-ISIS advocacy despite these threats.
Maybe those anti-ISIS identities who are denouncing Zaky might like to compare their own effectiveness and bravery regarding the task with his.
4) Why this is an important issue:
It reveals the innate character and implementation of a very severe, potentially far-reaching new 'security'' regulation.
It reveals the innate character and purpose of the Govt. implementing that regulation.
It reveals the ruthless and coordinated intent of a media and community sector in prosecuting this socio-political character and purpose.
It reveals the gormlessness of the rest of the media and the community toward objecting to both the actions and the purpose of such obvious manipulation. In fact, with some rare and largely muffled exception, they are all falling over themselves to not be seen as being in any way obstructive or oppositional to this purge toward an acceptable national orthodoxy. Any particular minority group or point of view (population and growth management?) should be extremely worried about this dynamic.
It suggests that the Government's purpose is, at best, careless toward the actual effect it might have upon vulnerable Moslem youth and their communities, and, at worst, it might actually seek to provoke young moslems to subscribe to ISIS et al. This serves to keep the domestic electoral fire on National Security alive for the Coalition and it helps maintain middle Eastern instability, which has been instigated and maintained as a western Geo-political agenda from the beginning. This in turn keeps the domestic border security issue alive. Deliciously cynical isn't it? Keep the refugee source ignited and then make a big electoral deal about keeping our shores safe from their consequent flow. Personally I find such abysmal futility utterly sickening, even if only stubborn stupidity is at the nub of it.
But no, say the crowd, this is all a meaningless distraction orchestrated by an attention-seeking misogynistic fundamentalist.
Yeah, and endless economic growth is good and population increase is both inevitable and beneficially productive. Essentially the same narrative and source, isn't it?
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