Miranda Devine
Wednesday, May 11, 2016 (1:19am)
KUDOS to Waleed Aly. Not only did the most famous Muslim in
Australia win the Gold Logie, he also ridiculed Australia’s
entertainment establishment so subtly in his acceptance speech that they
gave him a standing ovation. Wonderful Waleed. Hit me again!
“Do not adjust your sets … there’s nothing wrong
with the picture,” he told the assembled luvvies at the Logies awards in
Melbourne on Sunday night. “I’m sure there’s an Instagram filter you
can use to return things to normal.”
Yuck Yuk. Get it? Because Waleed’s skin is a shade or two darker than
his The Project co-hosts’, racists should look through a filter that
turns him white. Inspired! The audience laughed and clapped in
appreciation at his joke.
Wonderful Waleed, political activist, human rights lawyer, academic,
newspaper columnist, TV host, GQ cover star, darling of the Left, poster
boy of Muslim victimhood, now crowned the king of Australian
television, up there with Ray Martin and Bert Newton.
And Waleed did not disappoint. He dedicated his Logie to “Mustafa” and
anyone else who can’t get a job in TV with an “unpronounceable” name
like Waleed.
“It matters to them for a particular reason. That reason was brought
home shudderingly not so long ago when someone who is in this room …
came up to me and said: ‘I really hope you win. My name is Mustafa. But I
can’t use that name because I won’t get a job’.” At this point, the
camera cut to actress Noni Hazlehurst, crying tears of joy, or perhaps
sadness. It was hard to tell.
“To Dimitri and Mustafa and everyone else with unpronounceable names
like, I don’t know, Waleed, I want to say one thing: that I am
incredibly humbled ... But I’m also incredibly saddened because the
truth is you deserve more numerous and more worthy avatars than that.
“And I don’t know if and when that’s going to happen but if tonight
means anything … it’s that the Australian public, our audience, as far
as they’re concerned there is absolutely no reason why that can’t
change.”
The audience loved his speech. There were whistles and cheers. What a guy.
But it wasn’t long before the Mustafa sob story unravelled. Poor
Mustafa, who couldn’t get a job in racist Australian TV unless he
changed his name, turned out to be Tyler De Nawi, star of Here Come The
Habibs. In other words, he got the job precisely because he was a
Mus-tafa. Who else could credibly act in a sitcom about a Lebanese
Australian family who win the lottery and move from Lakemba to Vaucluse?
The irony is that leftists tried to close down the show because it
alienated “non-white Australians by using cheap racist jokes,” as the
Change.org petition put it.
Despite their efforts, the show went on and Mustafa, aka Tyler, kept his job.
So why did Waleed have to concoct a tale of Muslim victimhood on Logies night?
Why couldn’t he just say thanks? Why couldn’t he graciously acknowledge
that the audience, or whoever votes for the Logies, anointed him
Australia’s best TV personality and doesn’t that show all the
fearmongering about racism and Islamophobia is wrong. Instead he gave a
sermon about how the TV industry needs to “change”.
A Muslim just won the Gold Logie. The system he rails against gave a
plum, prime-time hosting gig to a bloke named Waleed. What has to
change?
Perhaps he wants a diversity quota on TV. Muslims make up 2.2 per cent
of Australia’s population. Waleed is the first Muslim in 56 years to win
a Gold Logie, which means Muslims are now slightly under-represented at
1.8 per cent.
If he does a Ray Martin and wins again next year, the quota will be
exceeded, at 3.5 per cent. We should expect Waleed to apologise to the
Lee Lins and Luigis and Imeldas for hogging the category, and that’s
not even taking into account the other ethnic and gender fluid
identities that make up this great nation.
He could always wait a few years. To reach the diversity target of 2.2
per cent, a Gold Logie would need to be delivered to Waleed or another
Muslim entertainer by 2060, assuming the Muslim population remains
constant. It could get complicated.
But that’s OK, because diversity isn’t really Waleed’s goal. He was just playing to type.
His extraordinary success is in large part due to the self-loathing of
the Left and their relentless need to elevate themselves above the mob,
those suburban rednecks who lack their multiculti sophistication.
This virtue-signalling reached its zenith during the Lindt siege when
social justice warriors were busy tweeting “I’ll ride with you” hashtags
to combat imaginary Islamophobia while the poor hostages were being
menaced at gunpoint by an Islamist ordering up ISIS flags for
decorations.
Waleed taps into this leftist status anxiety so skilfully. So when the
most famous Muslim in Australia is feted non-stop in every media outlet
and crowned king of Australian TV, that is evidence of Islamophobia.
Just another opportunity for leftist self-flagellation.
Waleed couldn’t just say “ thanks”, because that would erode his product.
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