I was searching for some statistics, and stumbled upon a website called The Forum, part of On Line Opinion - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate.
In The Forum discussion index, the front page displays around 150 articles for debate. There's a great diversity of topics covered by the articles. Most of the articles recevie a mere handful of forum responses (debate posts), a handful from 50 to 70 responses.
Only 4 articles have received more than 100 separate responses by readers.
Here are the slugs for each of those items:
Sharia law and Australia It is only a matter of time before Sharia law is proposed as a legitimate means of resolving disputes as they arise between Islamic Australians. - 22/3/2006
Sexing up stories about those 'evil Arabs' Tim Priest capitalises on the fear factor - aiding, abetting and profiting from Australia's Arab-phobia. - 15/3/2006
Just how Aussie do we have to be? Let's move past common stereotypes of Muslims. - 7/3/2006
The myths and realities of Islam’s Shariah law The Shariah system of personal law can co-exist with the Australian legal system. - 2/3/2006
What do I think that means? I think it means that people who read that debating forum are much more interested in topics relating to Muslims and their place in our society than in other topics.
The topic looms large outside Australia too. For instance, Last Monday 27 March, the Rt. Hon Tony Blair, MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom made an address to a joint sitting of the Austrlian Parliament. Of course, he covered matters in Iraq, and Islam in the United Kingdom. You can read his speech in Hansard. It starts at the bottom of page 2.
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