Q&A recap: Paris attacks, immigration, solutions, military intervention

FORMER UN official Andrew Macleod had this insult for ISIS on the latest episode of Q&A - he compared them to paedophile priests.

WHEN audience member Mohammad al-Khafaji asked panellists on Q&A why the Muslim community was always called upon to denounce terrorist attacks, he did so out of frustration.

The Iraqi refugee, who also lived in Syria, revealed that he was grateful for the opportunities that he had in Australia and was “determined to give back”.

However, he said he felt the atrocities carried out by Islamic State had nothing to do with his religion and questioned why he and his community were always expected to explain “themselves as Muslims”.

“When do people realise that this has nothing to do with any religion and when can we move forward?” he asked the panellists.

But former UN Official Andrew MacLeod disagreed with Mr al-Khafaji’s belief that religion wasn’t involved.

He told the audience religion has been the “motivator” behind attacks throughout history and that people have been able to use it to inspire hate for centuries.

And that today it has been able to spread much faster because of technology.

“What we see in this century because of the impact of information, technology, a vast spread of communication is the distorted message of the religious text is passed to a lot more people and a lot faster, so religion is used as a motivator, but are these people true Muslims? I don’t think so,” he said.

“In the same way that a paedophile priest has done such a heinous act that it takes them outside of the spectrum of Christianity, in my view. I don’t care how much a paedophile priest says he is a Christian, his actions prove to me he is not. I don’t care how much a terrorist claims Allahu Akbar, he is not a Muslim by the very actions he is undertaking, but we need to be aware that religion is being used as a motivator.”

Mohammad al-Khafaji asks panellists his question on Q&A.

He told the audience that it was important that the world learns to distinguish between the “us” and “them” mentality and warned our language and words had to be measured.

He also revealed that when the world went into mourning over the Charlie Hebdo attacks, he lost a friend in a horrific terror attack in Pakistan which the world did not react too.

“When the ‘Charlie Hebdo’ attacks happened back in January, 12 journalists were killed, in response, we sent - we, the West - a number of world leaders and hundreds of thousands of people protesting up and down the streets of Paris for an objection to the murder but also demanding the right to free speech and demanding the right to offend,” he said. “Everybody recognised those cartoons were offensive, yet a few weeks earlier 132 children and nine teachers including a friend of mine were butchered in a school in Pakistan because the children were the children of military officers who were fighting the radicals that we, too, are also fighting, yet we said almost nothing.

“What is the message we are sending to Islam? We will protest loudly for the right to defend you, but silent when your children die.”

Earlier, panellists all offered their condolences to French ambassador to Australia, Christophe Lecourtier who told the audience that despite the attacks France will remain resilient.

“You know there is a special connection (between Australia and France) because of the Great War between us, but more than that, we share the same values,” he said. “It means that we want to be able to go out with anybody, to dress as we want, to be in love with any people we want, we love. So that’s the kind of things these people do not accept, and until the very last moment you can be sure that France will resist that, and we shall never retreat one millimetre from our values.”

All the panellists also offered their advice on how the world should respond next.

Mr MacLeod said it was important that people did not fall into the trap of placing all Muslims in the same bracket.

He said it should be “us”, the moderates, against “them”, the extremists.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne said while it was important to continue our way of life he also said the Western world needed to build upon its military offensive against IS.

Labor’s Kate Ellis said it was now time for “cool and calm heads” and for messages of unity from all our political and community leaders.

She also questioned why former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was commenting on the issue.

“I for one cannot for a moment comprehend why Pauline Hanson was on our television over the weekend speaking about these events and about Muslim Australians,” she said.