What an excellent gesture, no doubt most of the loons here will label him an 'enslaved dhimmi' etc. but perhaps he's just not a narrow minded bigot intent on causing hatred and conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims as some here are.

Anyway I say Good onya Phil, a great gesture, and a good show of fair dinkum Aussie values, not the fake put-on variety that Howard and his cronies were peddling.

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Phillip George wants to bring Islamic art to a wider audience

An Australian artist has produced a range of Islamic surfboards in an attempt to create a greater understanding between East and West.

Phillip George was inspired by his trips to the Middle East and by riots in 2005 when Lebanese Australians were targeted on a beach in Sydney.

He has called the range the Inshallah - or God Willing - surfboards and has put them on exhibition in Sydney.

There are 30 surfboards in all, each adorned with intricate Islamic motifs.

Mr George hopes that the Inshallah surfboards can help bridge cultural and religious misunderstandings within Australia.

His inspiration has come from his travels and also from the Cronulla riots, when a crowd of mainly white Australians gathered at a beachside suburb of Sydney and targeted people of Middle Eastern appearance.

This is an attempt to fuse the Australian beach culture with the Islamic culture, he says.


The boards are adorned with intricate patterns from Islamic culture

"What I've done to bring the joy and the interest of our Islamic art to an Australian audience," said Mr George.

"I have actually transposed a lot of my photographic images - the work of the tiles and shots of the mosque - on to a surfboard so that they become a lot more acceptable or easy to digest for an Australian audience."

The exhibition, Borderlands, is at the Casula Powerhouse arts centre near Sydney.

All the surfboards face Mecca, and visitors have included schoolchildren from Cronulla, a mainly white suburb, and pupils from Sydney's Islamic schools.

This is not the first time that symbols of the Australian beach culture have been used in this way.

A local designer has already brought out what she calls a burqini - a full-length swim suit to make Muslim women feel more comfortable at the beach.

Source: BBC

The artwork is very attractive.  This is where multiculturalism finds common ground - food and art.  It's a pity these two areas couldn't be exploited more.

The intricacy of the art reminds me a little of aboriginal art - an area where the aborigines do gain a lot of respect.

That is exactly the type of negativity, that we could safely assume, this artist would hope to see put behind us, Grendel.

I have made no secret of my disdain for some aspects of the muslim culture, which has seen the spread of so much conflict and violence.

I have also noted the fact that the greatest obstacles to Islam progressing, and evolving into a more moderate, and peaceful religion, comes from within Islam itself, from the extremist Islamists, but to treat all muslims, and everything about Islam as negative, only helps these extremists promote mistrust of the west, amongst the muslim world.

Imagine what the world may be like today, if moderate progressive christians had not steered their religion away from the extremist violence of the inquisition era?

Islam is confronted with the same challenges as those earlier christian reformers were, paradoxically by those claiming to be the most ardent, and true upholders of their faith. The fact that they are having to face this directional crisis, in a much more modern, and tolerant world than that of the christian reformers, of hundreds of years ago, would inspire hope that the average muslim would be more capable of accepting the need for this long overdue evolution to occur.

We need not passively accept the wrongs promoted by Islamist extremists, to display tolerance for Islam, but we should try and restrict our criticism to areas where it is relevant, and try and refrain from childish, "ours is better than yours", style, petty point scoring.

I have to say "so what?"

Put what he likes on there. I have always been impressed by middle eastern caligraphy and Muslim art. Art that channels extra energies into patterns and mosaics etc because they are not allowed to draw human figures. Not sure if that extends to animals.

It may turn out to be of some positive effect on those that have not seen it before. But the art work tells nothing or little of the culture specifically.

Well it certainly comes across as negativity Grendel.

It is not about being right or wrong, it is about people trying to promote understanding, whether they be christian, muslim, or atheist, is not the issue.

It is about people, and my views in that regard have not changed, I still think that your average joe, whatever his belief, just wants a peaceful decent life for their family.

You know how critical I have been of certain Islamic practices, but that doesn't mean I think all muslims are bad, or inferior, I think their religion needs to evolve, and I think that by not ostracising them, we will see them be more comfortable in taking the path away from extremism, because it is the right thing to do, not because they are bullied into it.

If Phillip George incorporated some of vatican, zionist, buddhist, atheist, etc. symbolisms together with islamic symbolisms would it still sell as the help bridge between cultural and religious misunderstandings?

Calanen,

Quote:


1) The Lebanese thugs who cause trouble around Sydney are from both Christian and Muslim background, also some of them aren't even Lebanese, they're Assyrian and from other backgrounds (and many of them are purely Christian). So please don't use the term Islamic here, as it's completely incorrect and is just trying to wrongly direct hatred towards a religion which has nothing to do with these actions.

2) Anyone who goes to beaches hassling girls in bikinis etc. (which is what a lot of the problems were about) is certainly not Islamic. Any Lebanese Muslims involved in going to Cronulla stirring up trouble would hardly be an example of Islamicness, anymore than Martin Bryant for instance is a representative of being Anglican....

Hey fd, abu...   what's that about me starting this topic etc....