Food for Thought

Five facts to fight Sonia Kruger’s fear of Muslims

''SONIA Kruger is scared.

The co-host of Channel 9’s Today Extra said this morning that she would like to see the immigration of Muslim people to Australia “stopped now”.

Why? Because Kruger wants “to feel safe”.

Kruger has subsequently stood by her comments on Twitter, writing “as a mother, I believe it’s vital in a democratic society to be able to discuss these issues without automatically being labelled racist”.

I’m also a mother and like Sonia Kruger, I’m scared of lots of things.

On holiday with my family, I’m scared the engines of the plane will cut out and we’ll all fall out of the sky.

Alone in the house at night, I’m sometimes scared a burglar will break in to steal my little boy out of his cot.

When there’s a spider in the bathroom, I’m scared that it will run up my leg, eat me and my son will grow up without his mother.

My fears are irrational. They have no basis in probability or reality. They’re ignorant and, yes, a little bit stupid (especially the spider one).

Yet being scared in these situations seems perfectly real and reasonable to me at the time. The only way to dissuade me from my fears is to bombard me with facts. My husband, seated beside me on the plane, will launch into his now-standard speech about turbulence being normal, more people dying on the roads than in the air and the physics of flight.

Facts are marvellous and powerful things, especially in the face of ignorance...''

by Jamila Rizvi