One of Australia’s most outspoken Islamophobes has embraced Islam, saying it is the only hope against the onslaught of Western degeneracy.
Shermon Burgess became a national figure for his role in the far-right groups United Patriots Front, Reclaim Australia and the Australian Defence League over the last decade.
But on his Instagram account he has posted a video saying that Christianity has failed the West while Islam still stands up for traditional values.
He said: “The reason I came to Islam is because I’ve seen the degeneracy in the West. I don’t like the rampant alcoholism, the drug taking, the sleeping around. I believe the West has lost its values big time.
“I think Christianity has failed the West like a lot of other Muslims have said. It’s not strong enough to defend the West and this is because of its inability to act and protect its people, protect its congregation, protect its clergy … it just really angered me that there’s so many of these Christians and they are seeing what is happening to traditional values and morals in society and instead of stamping it out in the early stages when they have the ability to do so, they’re just sitting back and they’re not doing anything.
“And I’ve noticed in the Muslim communities here in Australia, especially in West Sydney, they get on top of it and if something, especially with what the LGBTQ community is doing at the moment … the Muslims were onto it and they chase these people out of the suburbs and they don’t just sit back in the mosque and talk about it. They know that if this gets hold in the Muslim areas like it did in the Anglo Christian areas it will be all over for them too.”
He added: “Muslims are the most protective of traditional family values which has really made me respect them and has made me become a Muslim myself… I like the fact that Islam has spiritual grounding, Islam has peace of mind, Islam has all these great things that the West originally used to have under Christianity. But Christianity just completely lost its way and completely went off the beaten path because of its extreme pacifist approach to everything… it sugar coats all of its teachings to accommodate the modern world which has made me very sick seeing that, and I noticed Islam isn’t doing this.
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“And I started researching into Islam because of this and I fell in love with the faith because of how strong and connected it is and how it looks after their own and how it stands up for things, whereas so many religions just don’t anymore. It’s like they’ve just adopted the degeneracy of the modern world… it’s sickening.”
In the past Burgess has likened Islam and Muslims to a cancer and organised dozens of protests alongside neo-Nazis.
“This isn’t an attack against our governments, this is an attack against us the people,” he once said about Islam.
“They [Muslims] are already overly highly represented in crime statistics in this country, so we have to look at if this is what we are receiving now with 500,000 of them, imagine when we hit the one million mark… we cannot afford to sit here until the problem becomes uncontrollable and we cannot get on top of it.’
“When you detect cancer you attack it straight away, you don’t let it grow.”
Burgess, a former council worker from New South Wales, was involved in 2015 anti-Islamic protests against the construction of a mosque in Bendigo, Victoria.
He was also a member of metal band, Eureka Brigade, which penned the violent anti–Muslim song Border Patrol, according to ABC News. The lyrics advocated burning mosques and also had a song entitled “S*** on a Mosque.”