G'day Mate!

You may recall the mufti of Australia who, in defense of the young Muslim men who were convicted of rape in 2000, said "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem." He then added "and then you get a judge without mercy (rahma) and gives you 65 years".

The "uncovered meat" has decided to respond. Melbourne grandmother Christine Hawkins has spearheaded the organization of a protest march, originally scheduled for Saturday, December 9th, at the Michael St mosque in Brunswick, Australia. The event has since been postponed to Australia Day, January 26th, 2007.

Mrs. Hawkins had this to say in an interview: "We're encouraging people to wear beachwear. The reason for that... we've called it the 'The Great Australian Bikini March' because it's got an interesting, iconic image for Australians that most Australians, you know, even from their childhoods remember summer holidays with great fondness, of going down to the beach, sitting in the sun, warm, swimming, lots of nice memories.

And that we're actually identified all the world for our beach culture, so it's a statement about maintaining our way of life through using the icon of beach culture.

And there's a bikini because of the comments made about "uncovered meat". So, basically what we're saying is look, we're not changing, we're Aussies. We're not going to be covering up to avoid rape."

The mosque has scheduled a barbecue and open house for the same day.

Some news sources have linked the event with racism since the march was scheduled for the anniversary of the Cronulla riots in New South Wales, which is the likely reason for the delay until January. Mrs. Hawkins denies the connection.

I myself think that it's a fun way to show disapproval of the imam's words, and totally reflects the character of the Aussies I have personally met. I also think it's refreshing to see that some people are not overly eager to prostrate themselves at the altar of Muslim outrage.

We could learn a lot from those Aussies.