Let us buy you a drink. (You can even sit up the front)
Mar 9, 2016 22:12:22 GMT 10
Peter and graynomad like this
Post by SA Hunter on Mar 9, 2016 22:12:22 GMT 10
www.adelaidenow.com.au/rendezview/let-us-buy-you-a-drink-you-can-even-sit-up-the-front/news-story/165d5b3a0c52adf41c689d3495c3e1ca
A brief and happy email arrived the other day. “Hello Tim, guess what?” it read. “I won. I beat HT.”
The sender was freelance Sydney journalist Alison Bevege, and the “HT” to which she referred was extremist Islamic movement Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Alison had been battling them ever since October 2014, when she attended one of the group’s public meetings and was ordered to the back of the room. “Brothers to the front, sisters to the rear,” is Hizb ut-Tahrir’s standard seating policy, which is entirely in keeping with their blighted 7th century worldview.
Alison was unimpressed, and soon commenced a legal strategy aimed at dragging Hizb ut-Tahrir somewhere closer to the present day. This wasn’t easy, as Alison explained in an excellent RendezView piece earlier this week.
For a start, Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a registered organisation. Rather, it is what’s known in formal legal terminology as “just a bunch of primitive idiots with beards”, meaning that tracking them down and hitting them with a sexual discrimination suit would be very difficult.
Yet Alison persisted. Her initial 2014 complaint was lodged with the Anti-Discrimination Board. By May 2015 it had progressed to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Finally, following 17 months of hard work, Alison last week achieved her victory. The Tribunal found she’d been treated unfavourably on the grounds of her sex in contravention of section 33 of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.
Deliciously, Hizb ut-Tahrir was ordered by the Tribunal to clearly state on all promotional material for future events that segregated seating is not compulsory. Every time these clowns advertise a meeting they’ll be reminded of the time a slightly-built, very determined Australian woman took them on — and beat them.
I sent Alison a reply email suggesting a celebratory drink. But on further reflection that didn’t seem a just reward for all her efforts, considering how much time and money this quest had cost her. As a freelancer — or “just an unemployed bum journo”, to use her own description — Alison couldn’t easily afford to miss out on a year-and-a-half’s worth of possible employment opportunities.
So late on Sunday night I set up a little online funding deal at my Daily Telegraph blog. My readers are remarkably generous, and over the years they have donated many, many thousands of dollars to causes ranging from survivors of the 2002 Bali bombings to children’s hospitals in Cambodia. I felt confident they’d sling some cash Alison’s way.
It took 10 minutes or so — just 0.00134 per cent of the time Alison invested, and with none of the stress and exhaustion she’d endured — to knock together the “Buy Alison a victory drink” fundraiser at mycause.com.au, including its noble aim: “Freelance journalist Alison Bevege challenged an Islamic extremist organisation in court over its discrimination against women. She won, and deserves a drink.”
Then I tossed in fifty bucks to get things rolling, put up a link and went to sleep.
The next morning I checked on the total. I’d set a target of $500, because you don’t want to overreach with these things, but that number was already blitzed. We were into four figures and climbing. The total rapidly leapt from $1000 to $1500 to $2000 to $2500.
Alison, busy writing her RendezView piece and doing radio interviews, was initially unaware of this. Then, in the early afternoon, she finally had time to check the donation site. Another brief and happy email arrived: “Holy shit I clicked on the link and there is $3000!!”
And it didn’t stop there.
Sometimes online donations taper off once readers decide that sufficient funds have been raised. But on other occasions — and this was evidently one of them — readers power on, determined to drive home their support. As the overall amount increased, so did the size of individual donations. They were coming in so quickly that a representative of mycause.com.au phoned me to ask what on earth was going on.
By Monday night the Alison victory fund had amassed $4000. As I write this late on Wednesday the total is at $5330 and will probably hit $6000 or $7000 by the time the fundraiser ends.
These donations are not mere pledges, by the way. They’re all backed by complete bank account details — no meaningless hashtags here, just people who are genuinely interested and concerned will contribute real money.
Another point of interest: not one single member of Australia’s much-hyped Twitter lobby offered any help at all. They become confused and frightened when Islamism is involved. I bet that if Alison had sought funds for a legal battle against a Liberal politician she’d probably be floating around in a solid gold yacht by now and eating speech-capable oysters served from Faberge eggs by her slave chef Heston Blumenthal.
Anyway, Alison and I are catching up for that victory celebration this week. It’s at a venue where we can sit wherever the hell we like.
Any Hizb ut-Tahrir members are welcome to attend, but they’ll be buying their own damn drinks.
A brief and happy email arrived the other day. “Hello Tim, guess what?” it read. “I won. I beat HT.”
The sender was freelance Sydney journalist Alison Bevege, and the “HT” to which she referred was extremist Islamic movement Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Alison had been battling them ever since October 2014, when she attended one of the group’s public meetings and was ordered to the back of the room. “Brothers to the front, sisters to the rear,” is Hizb ut-Tahrir’s standard seating policy, which is entirely in keeping with their blighted 7th century worldview.
Alison was unimpressed, and soon commenced a legal strategy aimed at dragging Hizb ut-Tahrir somewhere closer to the present day. This wasn’t easy, as Alison explained in an excellent RendezView piece earlier this week.
For a start, Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a registered organisation. Rather, it is what’s known in formal legal terminology as “just a bunch of primitive idiots with beards”, meaning that tracking them down and hitting them with a sexual discrimination suit would be very difficult.
Yet Alison persisted. Her initial 2014 complaint was lodged with the Anti-Discrimination Board. By May 2015 it had progressed to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Finally, following 17 months of hard work, Alison last week achieved her victory. The Tribunal found she’d been treated unfavourably on the grounds of her sex in contravention of section 33 of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.
Deliciously, Hizb ut-Tahrir was ordered by the Tribunal to clearly state on all promotional material for future events that segregated seating is not compulsory. Every time these clowns advertise a meeting they’ll be reminded of the time a slightly-built, very determined Australian woman took them on — and beat them.
I sent Alison a reply email suggesting a celebratory drink. But on further reflection that didn’t seem a just reward for all her efforts, considering how much time and money this quest had cost her. As a freelancer — or “just an unemployed bum journo”, to use her own description — Alison couldn’t easily afford to miss out on a year-and-a-half’s worth of possible employment opportunities.
So late on Sunday night I set up a little online funding deal at my Daily Telegraph blog. My readers are remarkably generous, and over the years they have donated many, many thousands of dollars to causes ranging from survivors of the 2002 Bali bombings to children’s hospitals in Cambodia. I felt confident they’d sling some cash Alison’s way.
It took 10 minutes or so — just 0.00134 per cent of the time Alison invested, and with none of the stress and exhaustion she’d endured — to knock together the “Buy Alison a victory drink” fundraiser at mycause.com.au, including its noble aim: “Freelance journalist Alison Bevege challenged an Islamic extremist organisation in court over its discrimination against women. She won, and deserves a drink.”
Then I tossed in fifty bucks to get things rolling, put up a link and went to sleep.
The next morning I checked on the total. I’d set a target of $500, because you don’t want to overreach with these things, but that number was already blitzed. We were into four figures and climbing. The total rapidly leapt from $1000 to $1500 to $2000 to $2500.
Alison, busy writing her RendezView piece and doing radio interviews, was initially unaware of this. Then, in the early afternoon, she finally had time to check the donation site. Another brief and happy email arrived: “Holy shit I clicked on the link and there is $3000!!”
And it didn’t stop there.
Sometimes online donations taper off once readers decide that sufficient funds have been raised. But on other occasions — and this was evidently one of them — readers power on, determined to drive home their support. As the overall amount increased, so did the size of individual donations. They were coming in so quickly that a representative of mycause.com.au phoned me to ask what on earth was going on.
By Monday night the Alison victory fund had amassed $4000. As I write this late on Wednesday the total is at $5330 and will probably hit $6000 or $7000 by the time the fundraiser ends.
These donations are not mere pledges, by the way. They’re all backed by complete bank account details — no meaningless hashtags here, just people who are genuinely interested and concerned will contribute real money.
Another point of interest: not one single member of Australia’s much-hyped Twitter lobby offered any help at all. They become confused and frightened when Islamism is involved. I bet that if Alison had sought funds for a legal battle against a Liberal politician she’d probably be floating around in a solid gold yacht by now and eating speech-capable oysters served from Faberge eggs by her slave chef Heston Blumenthal.
Anyway, Alison and I are catching up for that victory celebration this week. It’s at a venue where we can sit wherever the hell we like.
Any Hizb ut-Tahrir members are welcome to attend, but they’ll be buying their own damn drinks.