Fuck David Hicks

Over this past weekend, my fellow Left-Wingers have worked themselves into a frenzy of self-righteous delight at the news that Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks (aka Abu Muslim al-Austraili, aka Mohamed Dawood) has won his latest court case in his ongoing campaign to get British citizenship.

Hicks, a 30 year old white Australian convert to Islam earned worldwide fame or notoriety (depending on your perspective) when he was captured in Afghanistan by US troops in late 2001. Like John Walker Lindh, another Honky for Allah, Hicks was found fighting on the side of the Taliban/Al-Quaeda forces.

Since then Hicks has languished in American detention. Categorised as an "unlawful combatant" not a prisoner of war he, like his fellow inmates, is denied the protections of relevant sections of International Law. The Hicks family and legal team headed by the implausibly clean cut US Marines Major Michael Mori hope that gaining British citizenship will see the Blair government petition the US for Hick's release - as they did with other British detainees.

Whatever.

Over the last four years, I have attended countless meetings, forums, rallies and chardonnay soaked fundraisers at which earnest types gather together to wring hands and listen to tedious speakers call for Hicks to be brought home. They urge compassion for this misunderstood young man who left his home and young family first to train with the Kosovo Liberation Army and then to take up arms with the Taliban. Poor David (according to the bleating of his increasingly irritating father Terry) was confused it seems. He had problems as a youth. His relationship failed. Drugs worked their insidious evil on his tortured mind.

Free David? Fuck David sounds better to me.

Now don't get me wrong, I have not joined the foetid ranks of the Queer Conservative and his sloping browed ilk. I rarely dissent from the Collective Will of the Left. My position on the rights of Hicks is the same as any other democratic socialist or progressive minded sort. It is best summed up by former Australian Diplomat Tony Kevin in his 2005 article on Crikey.com. It says in part:

"As an Australian citizen abroad, Hicks is entitled to effective Australian Government consular protection when arrested and charged with serious crimes by a foreign government. For the past four years he has not had this protection. To surrender his final fate to a military “court” where the US military is at once plaintiff, jailer, evidence-gatherer, prosecutor, judge and jury cannot give him a fair trial. At the very least, he should be tried by a US civil court (as was US citizen John Walker Lindh). Or he should be returned for trial in Australia as other non-US Guantanamo inmates (e.g., British, French prisoners) are being repatriated to face judicial process in their own countries."

Kevin is pretty much right. Hicks and all the Guantanamo Bay inmates are being denied procedural fairness and the provision of basic human rights. They should have full consular protection of their respective states and/or the Red Cross and other international bodies. They should be charged (where evidence permits) and brought before civil courts to face speedy trial, not the offhand processes of an American military commission. Hicks has complained about being abused and tortured, first by the Northern Alliance and later by the American military. This should be investigated and rectified.

Indeed there is only one point on which I differ with Tony Kevin and that's about returning Hicks to Australia for trial. As far as this little white pervert can see there are two problems here:

1. At the time Hicks was captured by the Yanks (late 2001) nothing he had been alleged to have done was an offence under Australian law. Should he be returned to Australia he would not face trial;

2. He is a religious extremist. I will elaborate further on this in a moment.

What sticks in your devoted correspondents craw in all of this are the calls for compassion and mercy for Hicks from my comrades in the Intellectual Elites. Justice, I can stomach - but compassion? For a religious lunatic? Fuck off Ibrahim. Let us not forget that Hicks, willingly and of his own choice, decided to fight with the Taliban - a religious and political movement which can only be described as repellent and extreme beyond all human imagining.

From 1996 until 2001 the Taliban, a Sunni muslim sect from the majority Pashtun ethnic group, ruled the Afghani people with an ethic straight from the dark ages. Women in particular suffered the most excruciating abuses under this regime of backwards village mullahs. The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) has documented in vivid detail the justice dispensed under the Taliban. Not only to women, but to other groups such as the Hazara people - an ethnic minority in Afghanistan who made the poor choice of being Shia muslims. It is believed that at least 15000 Hazara were murdered at the hands of the Taliban in the period 1996-2001.

Consider, if you will, this selection of links which indicate the mercy and compassion available to those who failed to meet the particularly narrow interpretation of Koranic law which prevailed under the Taliban.

A woman beaten in Kabul for removing her burqa

Four men hanged publicly

Bodies of political prisoners rotting in the streets of Herat

Scences in Kabul following the amputation of the hands and feet of two men accused of theft

A public execution in Kabul

The massacre by the Taliban of 3000 Hazara people in January 2001

Amputations, beatings, brutal summary executions. Mass murder. Corpses left to rot in the streets. The Taliban (which means "seekers of knowledge") instituted a system of social order which many in the West would have thought was left long in the distant past.

Not so, gentle reader.

Girls were not permitted to attend school nor to work in public places. Secular education was dismissed as satanic so boys only attended Madrassahs or religious schools. As women could not see male doctors and as the relatively small number of female medical practitioners were no longer permitted to practice, the reality for Afghani women did not include any standard of health care. In fact (with the exception of gathering water) women and girls were not permitted to leave their homes without the escort of a male relative and always wearing the ubiquitous burqua.

Executions under the rule of the Taliban were public and horrific. In addition to being hanged from street lamps and cranes on street corners (a practice also beloved of the Iranian regime), supposed wrong doers were often buried up to their waists (in the case of men) or their necks (for the women folk) and then stoned or shot.

In the middle of all of this, we find the confused David Hicks, trained in warfare by the KLA and now with his Koran (English translation no doubt) in one hand and an AK-47 in the other bunking down with Islamic nutcases in the wastelands of Afghanistan. To trot out an old cliche, when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

I feel no sympathy for this repulsive individual. Dear Davey doesn't like the consequences of being on the losing side and he wants to come home. I view him in the same way I view Americans who have supported George Bush and his republican frat boy mates, but now have doubts. If you don't want to be lumped in with the racists, the fruitcakes and the god-bothering pointy heads don't support them, whether that support is voting for them or taking to the field of battle on their behalf.

At this juncture, I should expand a little on why I don't want Hicks to be returned to Australia. Basically, the bloke is a loony. Anyone who declares themselves to be follower of fundamentalist Islam (or Christianity for that matter) should be considered to be mentally unsound and not suited to mix in civilised society. Frankly these people make me feel uncomfortable. I don't like religious people. Like many secular Australians, I don't want to live near or be exposed to such characters.

You see, bad things happen when people "of faith" arrive on the scene. Just ask the indigenous people of North America. Whether it's a Jehovah's Witness stuffing anti blood transfusion tracts under your front door, or a hooting, hollering pro-lifer spitting on and hissing at women going to abortion clinics or even a cranky Islamic "martyr" decked out in this year's latest Semtex fashions who is desirous of redecorating your favourite cafe -- these people just fuck shit up.

70 plus virgins? Fuck that. Give me one fire-breathing sex fiend with a 10 inch cock and a bottle of amyl and I'll probably kill just about anyone you care to name.

There is something particularly spooky about christians and muslims, especially those of the fundamentalist stripe. I have to confess that I place these two religious movements at the top of my icky list. Observant followers of Judaism, Farsis, Bahais for example are all much less offensive. Sure their stupid, superstitious beliefs are just as ridiculous but when was the last time you had a black hatted orthodox Jew knocking on your door and exhorting you to eat kosher, oy gevalt? Unlike like wild eyed disciples of the Prophet or tight lipped cattle prods for Christ - these other, lesser religions don't proselytise. In Matty the Damned's world view, that counts for something.

On balance, I think it's much better that Hicks remains in the good old USA. I mean the place is already leaking god struck sociopaths. What the Taliban (and other similar regimes throughout the muslim world) sought to impose on Afghanistan is not that different to what Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or even dear old Freddy Phelps would like to see happen in that One Nation Under God. I'm sure he'll feel right at home. Even if it is in a cramped cell being broom handled by a 300 lbs monster named Bubba. Shit, let the Brits have Hicks. Whatever you do, don't send him back down here - we don't need the fucker.

I support justice for David Hicks. I support his right to a fair and impartial trial before a civil court. I support his right to be treated with dignity before the law, despite the fact he supports a religious movement that denies these rights to others.

But don't expect me to feel compassionate towards him. I'll save my compassion and sympathy for the people of Afghanistan and all others who languish under the dirty hand of religious extremism and authoritarian brutality wherever it may be found.

IN SOLIDARITY
MtD