Albrechtsen goes Hard on Multiculturalism

Janet Albrechtsen may claim to be a conservative, but her latest column shows she’s anything but. How so?

Back in the early 1990’s, a conservative Macquarie University law professor told me of his dismay at the left-wing method of “critical legal studies”. What’s the point of criticising the legal status quo of law before understanding it?

Real conservatives try to understand the status quo. Where the status quo seems to work (even if imperfectly, which is always the case), they don’t seek radical change.

Albrechtsen doesn’t appear to have understood the reality of Australia’s multicultural status quo. She claims our current policy is "hard multiculturalism" – where people are separated according to culture and where minorities cannot be criticised.

Albrechtsen’s idea of criticising minorities was seen in her 1 November column where she joined Peter Costello in claiming all 360,000 Muslims were responsible for the speech given by Sheik Hilaly to 500 people inside a mosque with a capacity of 5,000 people.

"Criticism from some Muslims came only after The Australian reported the speech". True, Janet, but how else are Aussie Mossies meant to learn of the speech? Do we subscribe to the al-Qaida Islamic extremism podcast? And with hardly 20% of Muslims native Arabic-speakers, how are English-speakers like me to know each time a thick-Sheik blames women’s dress for rape?

What is her evidence that “the hard version endures”? Albrechtsen points to a Victorian ethnic lobby’s response to a discussion paper, and to Fraser’s claim that a Muslim election is coming up.

Perhaps Albrechtsen’s problem with multiculturalism is its allegedly removing her freedom to question the bona fides of 360,000 Aussies from over 60 different nationalities who tick “Muslim” on their census forms.

Albrechtsen ignores successive reports on Australian multiculturalism, all of which point to the need for a commitment to shared values and shared institutions.

I can’t see any evidence of hard multiculturalism in Australia (apart from ravings of Cronulla rioters and assorted clerics). Instead, I see people comfortably living side-by-side. There is a place in the sun for governments who legislate and enforce culture. But it’s not called Australia. It’s called North Korea.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Getting Brashed Off by the Brethren?

Peter Debnam isn’t the only conservative opposition leader unable to poke a major hole into an exposed Labor government. New Zealand National Party leader Don Brash resigned last week after a troubled leadership dogged by allegations of links to the shadowy Exclusive Brethren sect. The Nats select their new leadership team on Monday.

The Brethren allegations have become particularly damaging in the context of the imminent release of a new book by Kiwi leftist author Nicky Hager entitled The Hollow Men – A Study in the Politics of Deception.

Hager alleges that Don Brash came to the leadership on the back of support from allegedly shadowy right wing individuals and groups outside the formal National party structures. These include former NZ Finance Minister Roger Douglas and members of the allegedly liberal ACT Party.

More explosively, the Nats had knowledge of Brethren political activity since May 2005, longer than they had publicly claimed. Hager’s information is taken from 6 disgruntled Nats, and includes the text of allegedly secret e-mail correspondence between Brash and constituents.

The impending publication of the secret e-mails led the book to become the subject of an interim injunction application in the NZ High Court by Mr Brash who claimed to be acting to protect the privacy of constituents. The NZ Herald and 2 TV stations then approached the High Court seeking the lifting of the injunction which they claim breaches Section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights (yes, like virtually all English-speaking Western democracies, they have one of those!) which affirms and protects freedom of expression. Brash eventually applied himself to have the injunction lifted.

Last week, Brash and his colleagues used Parliamentary privilege to attack Hager as “a media whore”. Their attacks did little more than provide Hager’s claims with plenty of publicity. The book hits NZ bookshops today and will no doubt fill many a Kiwi Christmas stocking!

First published in the Crikey! Daily alert on 24 November 2006.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

The Pope visits Turkey

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Turkey yesterday, no doubt hoping to mend some of the unnecessary wounds arising from his recent speech (or perhaps more from the over reaction of some Muslims).

He has already met with the closest thing Turkey has to a Pope – the head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Department, Dr Ali Bardakoglu. The Pope will also take a stroll through the Ayasofia Museum in Istanbul, a Greek Orthodox Cathedral which Catholic crusaders sacked some centuries ago. The Ottomans converted it into a mosque, and Turkey’s secular authorities transformed it into a museum in 1936. Any form of worship (including Islamic) is strictly forbidden. I have Muslim friends who’ve been kicked out for trying to perform the Muslim ritual prayer.

The Pope’s visit is being treated seriously by Turkey’s liberal-Islamist government. PM Recep Erdogan personally met the Pope at the airport. The Turks are keen to show their European credentials as a stepping stone to eventual EU membership. No Turkish government has been as keen to join the EU. And no Catholic Cardinal has been so opposed to the idea of a European Turkey.

Apparently the expressed views of former Cardinal Ratzinger on Turksy’s EU membership have now changed. Previously, the Cardinal held the view that Europe was inherently Christian and had no room for a Muslim-majority state. Now the Vatican’s chief spokesman says the liberal Muslim country does belong in Europe.

The Pope’s visit almost coincides with the release of a report earlier this month by a UN-sponsored High Level Group to establish an Alliance of Civilisations between the West and the Muslim world. Turkey’s PM co-chairs the group with Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The Report says that politics, not religion, is the biggest stumbling block in the way to an alliance between the two civilisations. The continued occupation of Iraq and the failure to deal with the Israel/Palestine question are fuelling resentment toward the West.

These aren’t issues a Pontiff can adequately deal with. They require political action. To his credit, John Howard showed leadership in Hanoi when he told President Bush at the recent APEC summit that more needed to be done about establishing a Palestinian state.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

HALAL MEAT!!!!!!!!!!

Now that I have your attention, I must tell you about a superb show that is on this Saturday night (as in tonight).

Two world-class North American comics are performing in Sydney at the Capitol Theatre in Campbell Street (near Central Station). Their show is called Allah Made Me Funny.

The show has already toured in New Zealand, Melbourne and Brisbane. The comedy kicks off at around 7pm. Tickets are still available online at Ticketek or Ticket Master.

For more details, you can read this review from New Matilda or you can check out the website.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Victorian Libs get sucked in by Danny's fire

Last month, I reported Tamil-Australian Assemblies of God Pastor and former Family First Senate Candidate Danny Nalliah telling an audience in the NSW Parliament that the Christian Right needed to take control of Australian politics.

Now The Oz reports that Nalliah is trying to start his political crusade by doing a secret anti-abortion deal with the Victorian Liberals. The story's headline describes Nalliah's ministry as “fanatics” and “a powerful Christian fundamentalist group ... advocat[ing] the destruction of mosques, casinos and bottle shops”.

Nalliah’s speech (as well as mine and questions) was recorded by one of his disciples here and initially distributed by an allied extremist group from Victoria calling itself Salt Shakers. The entire forum can be downloaded here.

A visit to the Salt Shakers website shows the group complaining about Victoria hosting a major multi-faith event in 2009 and claiming HIV is a gay disease. The organisation’s slogan is “Christian ethics in action”.

Nalliah’s organisation, Catch The Fire Ministries, already contains a Press Release in which Nalliah describes himself as a “Polemical Christian Leader. He refers to the need to “protect our Judeo-Christian Heritage in Victoria and wider Australia ”, and acknowledges that the Coalition and even Family First aren’t exactly God’s children.

“I am not stating that the Liberals, Nationals, Family First and CDP are perfect in practice, but we have to cast our vote to the party which is able to give us the best possible outcome to protect our Freedoms, Rights, and Christian Moral Values in our rapidly deteriorating pluralistic society where right is considered wrong and wrong is labeled right.”

Nalliah is no friend of pluralism of any kind. Nor is he a friend of any political force he deems to belong to the left. “Truly, the right of politics - Liberals, Nationals, Family First and CDP - are more willing to hear the Christian voice than the left -Labor, Greens, Democrats.”

Download and listen to the entire recording of the Fellowship of the Round Table Forum where Danny and I spoke. Witness Nalliah’s refusal to unconditionally condemn all acts of suicide terrorism and other violence perpetrated against civilians by the Tamil Tigers.

If Libs want to do deals by catching Nalliah's fire, they're bound to get their hands burnt.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Quick Thoughts on the High Court, Work Choices and Federalism

Justice Callinan’s minority judgment in the recent High Court decision on the constitutionality of Work Choices legislation is proof (if any is needed) that it isn’t just “Howard-haters” and unionists who oppose Work Choices. If anything, it seems that when it comes to states’ rights, unions and State ALP governments are the last true conservatives left in Australia .

Certainly when I studied constitutional law in 1990 (I was taught by the not-exactly-conservative Andrew Fraser at Macquarie University Law School), it was conservative columnists, politicians and jurists who argued that Labor governments backed by ALP-appointed High Court judges were conspiring to transfer more State legislative powers to the Commonwealth.

Conservative jurists argued that our constitution was designed to provide the Commonwealth with only limited legislative powers as largely set out in Section 51 of the Constitution. They argued that activist judges were engaging in creative jurisprudence, ignoring the wording of the Constitution and the intent of its drafters.

Among politicians opposing creeping centralisation of legislative power was then Opposition spokesman on industrial relations John Howard. Today, Mr Howard is using the same powers and benefiting from the same allegedly creative jurisprudence to push through Work Choices.

It’s ironic that we see Quadrant editor Paddy McGuiness and ALP pre-selection aspirant George Williams on the same side defending conservative constitutional jurisprudence. But even George Williams is forced to concede that the Court’s decision is not surprising, given the “long line of decisions” since the 1920 Engineers’ case.

Similar arguments were raised last year by Professor Greg Craven. Craven described Work Choices as merely one element in ...

the greatest attack on federalism as a concept since World War II.

He also made reference to opposition to the laws by the Western Australian Liberal opposition.

Craven reminds us of the historical reality:

Labor always historically has tended to oppose federalism and conservatives have tended to support it. We now see a fundamental shift in Australian constitutional politics – a conservative government prepared to attack federalism.

Sir Robert Menzies will be turning in his grave!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Channel 9 Sunday program exposes some Mufti-day realities

Channel 9’s Sunday program featured a forum on Muslim responses to the Hilaly affair.

Ellen Fanning brought together Muslims and non-Muslims to address the unfortunately worded topic of “Good Muslim/bad Aussie?”. The video is available on the website. The forum continues next week.

The forum proved what a disorganised rabble Lebanese Muslim leadership is. People were shouting over each other, at each other and at others.

Even ABC Religion Report presenter Stephen Crittenden struggled to get a word in above all the shouting. Crittenden is hardly an enemy of Muslims, and ABC’s religion programs aren’t exactly Islamophobic.

The shouting panellists would have been well-advised to listen to Crittenden’s simple message – that Muslim Aussies need to reassure non-Muslim Aussies that Islam isn’t a threat to Australia. The hecklers probably managed to achieve the opposite.

When Muslim Reference Group member Iktimal Hage-Ali expressed her disgust at Sheik Hilaly’s speech, someone up the back screamed out: “Excuse me, do you speak Arabic? How good is your Arabic?”

The heckler turned out to be a seasoned Sun-Herald scribe. You’d expect a journalist to know better than embarrass herself and her newspaper on national television.

In the wider scheme of things, her point really was beside the point. There’s no argument about the translation of Hilaly’s speech. And why can’t he speak in English when he claims to lead a faith-community 70% of whom are native English-speakers?

To put it another way, if Perth’s Catholic Archbishop can talk about the evils of mini-skirts in English, why can’t the nation’s most senior Imam?

The panel showed deep rifts between Sheik Hilaly’s followers and members of the pro-Syrian Lebanese al-Ahbash cult. One cult spokesman advised how he’d obtained a ruling from the cult’s Yemeni branch stating Hilaly meant to offend women in his speech. Apparently mind-reading is common in Yemen.

The forum expose that the debate over Hilaly’s position as “Mufti” is in reality a Lebanese turf war of little relevance to most Muslims. There is no empirical evidence Hilaly is recognised by the majority of Australia’s Muslims as mufti. And after watching his supporters (and his Lebanese opponents) make fools of themselves on national TV, most Muslims will wish mufti-day came to an end ASAP!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

CRIKEY: Dialogue with The Oz's opinion editor

In the past few days, I have been engaged with an interesting dialogue with Tom Switzer, the editor of the Opinion Page of The Australian newspaper. This dialogue has been conducted on the pages of the daily alerts of popular webzine Crikey! and is reproduced in full (with all relevant hyperlinks) below ...

_______________________

Crikey 7 November 2006

Irfan Yusuf writes ...

Sheik Hilaly has called upon his fellow imams and other community members to find a better imam. On Sunday, I think I met one. The problem is he doesn’t live in Australia .

Sheik Hilaly claims to lead 360,000 Muslims. But the head of the Turkish presidency of Religious Affairs, Dr Ali Bardakoglu, presides over 180,000 imams in Turkey . He has worked as a judge, a lawyer, an academic and an imam. He’s the closest thing Europe has to an Islamic pope.

On Sunday, Dr Bardakoglu officially opened Sydney’s newest mosque at Bonnyrigg. One of the first things he observed was his appreciation at the large number of Muslim women in the audience, not to mention the fact that the MC at the function was a Muslim woman.

I think it is absolutely necessary that mosques involve women at all levels and in all their activities. And religious leaders must never say things to offend women members of their congregations.

Was this comment a coincidence? A committee member of the Bonnyrigg Mosque told me that Dr Bardakoglu had been fully briefed about the Hilaly situation. Many Turkish Muslims I spoke to after the formalities were concluded (including those visiting from Melbourne and other interstate locations) expressed their disgust at Sheik Hilaly’s comments as well as his contradictory posturing.

Yet there are still a number of Muslims backing him. Waleed Aly writes that even Hilaly critics are upset at the barrage of media attention, not to mention infantile remarks by Sheik Peter bin Costello and Mufti Janet bint Albrechtsen, both of whom have held 360,000 Muslims jointly responsible for the failure of 500 Muslims taking their time responding to the Sheik’s comments.
The Oz’s editorial lynching of Sheik Hilaly is actually diminishing the chances of his removal. Today’s quotes Mick Keelty suggesting:

... the value of reporting on the words of Sheik Hilali and others of his ilk is that they prompt moderate, middle-class Muslims to stand up and reject such retrograde views.

Yet The Oz allows few of such Muslims on their op-ed page or in letters to the editor. Instead, it allows room for Albrechtsen and writers whose sole qualification is having sat in a Melbourne taxi driven by someone claiming to be a ‘moderate Muslim’.
____________________

Crikey 8 November 2006

Opinion Page Editor Tom Switzer writes ...

The Australian's anti-Muslim operation is at it again, this time committing a "media lynching" of Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali -- or so Crikey and others in the past week would have us believe. We suspect, however, that this tempest will founder on the good sense of the Australian people who deserve to be informed about the outrageous statements of the nation's leading Muslim cleric.

According to our critics, The Australian's decision to publish an English translation of Sheik Hilali's speech -- comparing immodestly dressed women to meat left out for cats, and blaming them for sexual assaults -- was wrong because it reinforced the world's current anxieties and fears.

Never mind that our story goes to the heart of one of the world's most intractable problems: the clash between conservative Islam and Western modernity, and specifically the concept of women's liberation and free relations between the sexes. Surely this is an issue worth reporting and debating in some detail.

Irfan Yusuf, writing in Crikey yesterday, says "The Oz allows few [moderate, middle-class Muslims] on their op-ed page" on this issue. Yet in the immediate aftermath of the publication of our exclusive story, we commissioned and published several "moderate, middle-class Muslims" to write the lead opinion-page articles: Abdullah Saaed, director of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Islam at the University of Melbourne; Tanveer Ahmed, who is writing a book about Islam in Australia; Shakira Hussein, who is writing a PhD thesis on the Islamic treatment of women at the Australian National University.

All are moderates from within Australia's Muslim community who have publicly criticised the mufti's comments. (Incidentally, even of our usual critics Peter Manning, author of Us and Them: A Journalist's Investigation of Media, Muslims and the Middle East, has defended The Australian's decision to cover the Sheik's comments, arguing that the quicker the Muslim community forgets its ethnic differences and works out a "genuinely indigenous Islam that is Australian", the better.)

Add to this the fact that we have published a variety of moderate Muslim voices over the years about the clash between conservative Islam and Western modernity -- from the Islamic Council of Victoria's Waleed Ali to widely acclaimed international author Irshad Manji -- and it is clear that The Australian has a much better track record on this issue than any other newspaper in the nation. For this, we are accused of "racism and religious bigotry". Go figure.

________________________________

Crikey 9 November 2006

Irfan Yusuf writes ...

Yesterday, the opinion editor of The Oz Tom Switzer told us the world is divided along neat ideological lines between two allegedly monolithic entities of "conservative Islam" and "Western modernity". Hence dangerously sexist attitudes of an irrelevant imam become part of this apocalyptic ideological struggle.

Switzer was present at the CIS Big Ideas Forum when the venerable Owen Harries gently castigated Mark Steyn for claiming a monolithic West existed. Harries correctly noted the intense rivalry and resentment underscoring relations between the EU and the United States .

Harries isn’t the first Western thinker to point out the diversity within Muslim cultures and Islamist political movements. Indeed, many (if not most) scholars of modern Islamist movements argue that the ideological basis of groups like al-Qaida is inherently modernist and heavily influenced by Western political thinking. Further, many neo-classical Muslim theologians state that much Islamist political thinking represents religious heresy.

Switzer’s arguably narrow ideological approach means his ability to recognise emerging Muslim voices is open to question, especially where such voices don’t make a neat fit into his misunderstanding of the enormous variations in both Western and Muslim cultures.

That isn’t to say that Australian contributors (Muslim or otherwise) to The Oz on such issues have been useless. Apart from Irshad Manji (rejected by even the most ‘progressive’ Muslim writers), The Oz’s commissioned contributors listed by Switzer have made important contributions. Arguably this has been in spite of and not because of Switzer’s simplistic assumptions about the West and the rest.

Still, Switzer at least is trying to understanding the issue. That’s more than can be said for FoxNews.

And it isn’t upto Switzer or anyone else at The Oz or any other newspaper to deal with Hilaly. Primary responsibility rests with Muslim leaders themselves.

And given Hilaly’s views on sexual violence are held by so many in mainstream Australia, it’s high time we as a broader Australian community focussed on the need to eliminate violence against women. That means focussing on unfortunate attitudes held by all prominent people. It also means focussing on all perpetrators. Turning this into a sectarian wedge issue by focussing on one set of perpetrators effectively involves ignoring a much larger set of victims.

UPDATE I: It seems Switzer has made another error. Shakira Hussein has confirmed to me that she is not writing a thesis on "Islam's treatment of women". Rather, her topic is encounters between women from Western and Muslim backgrounds.




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On the passing of Bulent Ecevit

Could the death on Sunday of Turkey ’s former left-leaning PM Bulent Ecevit mean the end of aggressive Kemalist secularism?

Like many countries in Europe, Turkey has experienced a significant shift to the right. The current Prime Minister, Recep Teyyip Erdogan, is regarded as a social conservative. Conservative leaders in nominally Christian countries (including Australia ) look to their religious heritage. Similarly Turkey ’ current PM looks to Turkey ’s Islamic heritage for legitimacy.

Yet Turkey ’s current government is by no means seeking to reintroduce the Caliphate or any other form of theocracy. The ruling AK Party is more like the Muslim equivalent of the German Christian Democrats.

At the same time, the AK Party is the most pro-EU government in Turkey ’s history. In this sense, they are following the precedent of Ecevit who won European Union candidacy for Turkey in 1999.

Ironically, Ecevit spent much of the 1970’s trying to keep Turkey away from the West and the EU. Though known as a leftist, he exercised a certain degree of pragmatism when it came to free market reform. At the same time, Ecevit stood for a balanced foreign policy, supporting Israel yet criticising it for committing what he described as “genocide” in its 2002 attacks on Palestinian refugee camps.

Ecevit’s most controversial decision was to send Turkish troops into northern Cyprus in 1974, apparently to protect Cypriot Turks from what was viewed in Turkey as a genocide carried out by Cypriot Greek national chauvinist forces.

Ironically, the present conservative Muslim government has steered Cypriot Turks toward supporting reunification of Cyprus . 65% of Turks voted in favour of reunification, while over 75% of Greeks opposed it in the 2004 referendum. This didn’t stop Cyprus from being ‘rewarded’ with EU membership in May 2004.

Perhaps the most significant comment Ecevit made was when he changed his mind about EU membership for Turkey : “It is now understood,” he said, “that there can be no Europe without Turkey and no Turkey without Europe .”

Whether ruled by Kemalist secularists, aggressive nationalists or mild Islamists, Turkey is clearly headed west. For that, Turks have their veteran politician Bulent Ecevit to thank.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

OPINION: Good & Bad News re Hilaly

I have some good news and some bad news in relation to Sheik Hilaly.

The bad news is that, thanks to an aggressive media and political campaign, Hilaly will probably survive as Senior Imam of the mosque in Lakemba managed by the Lebanese Moslems Association (LMA).

The good news isn't really news at all. Hilaly's status in the wider Muslim community is the same as it was when he first arrived in Australia . For most Muslims, Hilaly barely registers on their spiritual radar.

3 out of 4 Muslims don't speak Arabic. The vast majority of Muslims communicate in English. When I want to communicate with Muslims in Sydney , I don't go to the Arabic press or speak on Arabic radio. I write for this newspaper. More Muslims in Sydney read this newspaper than any foreign language paper.

Sheik Hilaly just isn't capable of writing in this newspaper without an interpreter. He isn't capable of communicating with most Muslims without an interpreter. Sydney has over 150 mosques and well over 200 imams. Quite a few (though sadly not most) imams speak English. The rest are largely irrelevant outside their small congregations.

Most Muslims, like most Christians, hardly go to the mosque more than once or twice a year. Some go every Friday for the congregational prayer. The LMA mosque where Hilaly preaches can hardly fit 5,000 people. Auburn Gallipoli Mosque fits around 6,000 people.

This Sunday, Sydney 's newest mosque in Bonnyrigg will be officially opened. Citizenship Minister Andrew Robb will be there for the event. So will be the most influential imam in Australia .

Am I talking about Hilaly? Nope. Australia 's most influential imam is a man who presides over the vast majority of imams in Australia . Most mosques are managed by Turks. Most Turkish mosques employ Turkish imams. Virtually all Turkish imams are trained in Turkey under the Presidency of Religious Affairs, a body run by the Turkish government.

So when the head of the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs, Dr Ali Bardakoglu, visits Australia over the next week or so, it should be an event the media will notice. It certainly is being noticed at most Australian mosques.

I rarely if attend Friday congregational prayers at the LMA mosque in Lakemba. The sermon is always in Arabic. Very rarely is any translation done. I learn nothing at the sermon. Frequently, sermons are known to take upto 2 hours. I have work to do. Lakemba is too far for me to travel to. I'd rather pray where the sermon is in English and I can budget for time on a busy Friday afternoon.

Hilaly may proclaim himself to be the Mufti. But to most Australian Muslims, he is at best irrelevant and at worst a complete embarrassment. Non-Lebanese Sydney Muslims and Muslims from other cities and states regard Hilaly as a Lebanese problem. Disputes between Hilaly and his opponents in the Lebanese community are seen as a Lebanese turf war.

So when Australian-Lebanese GP Dr Jamal Rifi predicted Hilaly's refusal to resign would lead to rioting in the streets, the e-mail lists were hot. No, not hot with plans for which streets to burn and which windows to smash. Instead, Muslims were cracking jokes about how the only riot would probably be one in Dr Rifi's backyard!

Thankfully, Hilaly called off any protest or rally. He went on SBS Arabic Radio and on the Voice of Islam (VOI) Radio to speak. VOI has only one English-language program which runs for half an hour. The rest is in Arabic. Sheik Hilaly's call wouldn't have been understood by most Muslims, and few would have been interested in attending a rally in which virtually all speeches would be in Arabic.

Perhaps it is a good thing Hilaly refuses to learn English. If his views on Jews and women and cats were anything to go by, he deserves the status of irrelevance he has with Australia 's overwhelmingly non-Arabic-speaking Muslim communities.

An edited version of this article was first published in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday 4 November 2006.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf


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