Abbott joins list of Islamophobes

SINGAPORE: Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday joined the list of Islamophobes and Islam bashers by reiterating that Western culture is superior to that of Islam.
In a Sydney Daily Telegraph opinion piece published on Wednesday, Abbott, a staunch Catholic, wrote of a need to “modernize” Islam, saying it propagates a culture that is inferior to that of the West.
Critics associated his comments with those of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has proposed a controversial ban on all Muslim visitors to the US, with the exception of foreign Muslim leaders.
“I am more than ready to assert the superiority of a culture that is decent and humane, and welcoming, over a culture that thinks it’s right to kill in the name of God,” he said in a speech in Singapore.
Once you embrace the principle of killing in the name of God, “we have the war of all against all, until there is only one man, or one particular faith or version of faith left standing. Now, that is a recipe for catastrophe, absolute catastrophe,” he added.
In September, Abbott suggested that the Daesh group was worse than the Nazis during World War II, angering members of the Jewish community.
“Daesh has a simple but deadly message — submit or die. To most, a medieval fantasy, but rational enough to many Muslims based on their scriptures,” Abbott said Wednesday.
“We need to address the allure of Daesh and part of that is defeating it, because as long as it survives, there is this idea that somehow it is of God, and if it fails, almost by definition, it is not.”
Abbott spent two years in office before being ousted in September by current leader Malcolm Turnbull in a Liberal Party coup, but is still involved in politics.