Wednesday, September 26, 2018

CULTURE WARS: Is small-minded bigotry how we honour the Diggers? Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s tsunami in a teacup


This concocted mass debate, like those before it and those to come, shows that we, as a nation, have no bloody idea about our values.





Late on the night of Anzac Day 2015, Malcolm Turnbull (then communications minister) contacted the head of SBS to complain about five tweets sent by a sports reporter that allegedly showed grave disrespect to those commemorating the sacrifices and memory of the Diggers.

The tweets referred to the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mention was also made of Diggers engaging in rape, torture, summary killings and theft in such far-flung places as the Middle East and east Asia. No Diggers were consulted when Scott McIntyre, the journalist in question, was sacked the following day. Nor were any academic historians, such as Professor Phillip Dwyer of the University of Newcastle.

McIntyre brought an unfair dismissal claim against SBS, which was eventually settled following a hearing in the Federal Court. McIntyre used his SBS Twitter account to send the allegedly offensive tweets. That isn’t the case with the latest “controversy” surrounding Yassmin Abdel-Magied.

If you were to rely merely on the headlines and the remarks of a Tasmanian Liberal senator related to a Nazi war criminal, you would think Abdel-Magied had issued a series of tweets from an ABC account describing the Diggers as rapists and murderers. Well, not quite. Here are her words:
LEST. WE. FORGET. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine)
The “unfortunate and disrespectful … cheap political point scoring” can be found between the brackets. The words first appeared on Abdel-Magied’s Facebook page and were subsequently removed and an apology issued.

Storm in a teacup? More like a tsunami in a teacup, if you ask me. All the major newspapers and media outlets jumped on the story, including Fairfax and The Australian, whose report began predictably with “Muslim activist …”. The Daily Telegraph described her as someone
... who labels herself ‘first and foremost … Muslim’.
Gosh, what else was Yassmin hiding among those three dots?

According to The Oz, Abdel-Magied issued the apology
... as people began to complain she had hijacked the Anzac memory for political and religious reasons.
Apparently, personal and racist abuse and calling upon someone to leave the country is a form of legitimate complaint. Which makes sense, really, as the 1130-plus moderated comments to The Oz story included this gem of complaint:
If she continues her Islamic ABC style left – wing rubbish then suggest she go back to an Islamic middle East blood bath ! Sharia law has NO place within Australian democratic society !
And this:
It seems to me that this woman doesn’t like the culture that was in Australia when she arrived from another whose culture she also didn’t like, hence, she’s here. Personally, I think she should go back to from whence she came. Maybe her whingeing would be of more effect in her old country.
And this:
For someone who arrived her as a two year old, people have a classic example of Islam at its best. Indoctrination is the order of the day Australians should be afraid, very afraid.
Other comments spoke of Abdel-Magied’s status as a member of a minority
YOU ARE A MINORITY, AND NEVER FORGET IT. IF YOU SERIOUSLY THINK YOU AND YOUR MUSLIM BROTHER/SISTERHOOD WILL TAKE OVER THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY ANY TIME IN THE FUTURE …
and why her kind should go back to wherever. The pollies will deny it, but we all know they see such sentiments as those of a key demographic.

It would be nice to dwell on the offensive, bracketed words except that there are just too few words to analyse. I will note in passing that Palestine isn’t exactly an Islamic issue. Israel’s nasty wall passes through numerous Christian settlements, among them the birthplace of Jesus. As for Syria, there are Syrian Muslims who support the Assad regime and Syrian Christians who oppose it. And vice versa. 

This concocted mass debate, like those before it and those to come (Newspoll-permitting), shows that we, as a nation, have no bloody idea about our values. Indeed, those who beat their chests the most tend to know the least. The irony of the most nationalistic papers is that they are almost exclusively owned by a man who gave up his Australian citizenship to become an American. Did he, by doing so, increase the average IQ of both our respective nations? Who knows?

I’ve heard stories about Diggers at Gallipoli who refused to shoot at Turkish troops engaged in nemaz (ritual prayer). Perhaps relatives of these Turks are now settled in Australia. Would it be an insult to the memory of our Diggers to suggest we can learn from them something of how to respect other people’s religious cultures? Or must small-mindedness, bigotry and stupidity be the only way to honour our war dead?

First published in Crikey on 26 April 2017



SECURITY: The real danger at Punchbowl High School is the ideological deradicalisation program


The debate about theoretically unsound and ideologically charged deradicalisation programs, like the one at Punchbowl High School, doesn't help students.






A few days before she was to commence her Australia/New Zealand tour, Ayaan Hirsi Ali called for all Islamic schools to be shut down. Sharri Markson, now at The Daily Telegraph, conducted the “exclusive interview” with Hirsi Ali.

Markson made the startling claim that, at Islamic schools,
... the science curriculum is censored and music and art classes are banned.
The example of only one school, linked to a Saudi financier, was given. Naturally Hirsi Ali’s response was quite tame:
It is child abuse pure and simple. Muslim schools should not be allowed in liberal society.
The story showed two graphics featuring Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) just to provide more balance.
Still, it isn’t just nasty pro-IS, government-funded schools that are a problem. News Corp has been running hot on a story about Punchbowl High School. The school has had an interesting run of principals.

One principal, Jihad Dib, is now the state member for Lakemba. Before entering the Macquarie Street bear pit, Dib was credited with having turned the school around both discipline-wise and also in academic performance. He is now opposition spokesman for education.

The Australian carried a similarly sensational report about the subsequent principal and his deputy who were stood down in early March
... in a move that has led to the airing of allegations around sexism and violence, including claims teachers were assaulted and threatened by Muslim students who professed to be terrorism sympathisers.
Its tabloid siblings have made a huge issue about the said principal, Chris Griffiths, changing his religion from rock ‘n’ roll to the dreaded Islam.

Perhaps the most troubling issue in all this is that the school is apparently one of 19 schools in NSW where “radicalisation” is a problem. One report cites Indonesia expert Greg Barton on the issue, getting his university affiliation totally wrong.

The same report described a deradicalisation program in these terms:
The Schools Working Together Program would include monitoring of religious activities at schools, vetting of any volunteers coming into contact with students and measures to ensure non-religious students weren’t pressured to convert.
If this is what the program is really about, it clearly isn’t targeted at white supremacists or the far right. It is targeted only at Muslim kids.
Griffiths was apparently resisting this program coming into his school. He would not have been the only one. I’ve spoken to a number of (non-Muslim) state high school teachers who see the program as purely aimed at Muslim kids. They tell me the program would be counterproductive and lead to resentment from many of the kids.

Similar and more extensive programs have been implemented in the United Kingdom. The problem with radicalisation is that we still don’t know exactly how the process works. One UK criminologist named Kris Christmann has identified eight models of the radicalisation process and 10 theoretical approaches to radicalisation in scholarly literature. Deradicalisation and counterterrorism strategies typically involve looking out for religious symbols and terminology familiar to and resonating with Muslims. This effectively mimics a deliberate strategy of al-Qaeda and similar groups. By understanding the process and trajectory of “radicalisation” as a process, “experts and officials” believe they more meaningfully understand “what goes on before the bomb goes off”. What a way to see high school kids.

So deradicalisation programs are theoretically unsound and ideologically charged. And now they will be implemented at Punchbowl Boys High School by a new principal whose last job was working at a juvenile detention facility.

First published in Crikey on 04 April 2007.

CULTURE WARS: Has political correctness failed?


Chris Kenny thinks that political correctness has failed "the mainstream"-- but what on earth does this actually mean?





Last night was cheapskate Tuesday. I could have seen a politically correct Hollywood movie for half-price — particularly one starring some pathetic left-wing, anti-Trump, pro-Muslim heart-throb. Instead, I headed to Sydney Town Hall for a mass debate on the topic of whether political correctness (PC) had failed itself.

The debate was hosted by the Ethics Centre. As is often the case with mass debates, few debaters stuck strictly to the topic — but, Chris Kenny did. Kenny was introduced by the chair as the associate editor of “a conservative newspaper” — a strange description for a paper whose editorial writers and columnists often spout ideas on cultural matters more appropriate to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

As the first speaker in the affirmative, Kenny said PC had failed itself. Other speakers focused on how PC had (or hadn’t) failed their community or interests or whatever. But now I’m starting to sound like a high school debating adjudicator, so I’ll stop with this line of interrogation.

Kenny argued PC had become self-defeating, largely because it was no longer based on facts, and therefore led to actions and conclusions that were all out of proportion. The Oz‘s associate editor said that, during the Martin Place siege, the New South Wales police (thanks to PC considerations) gave more priority to shielding Muslims from discrimination, than attacking Man Monis’ “terrorist attack”. Kenny described Man Monis as a “jihadist cleric”.

As I’ve written before, Man Monis was more of a fake sheik than a real one. And while it is true that one expert (presumably a psychiatrist) gave evidence at the inquest on Man Monis’ mental state, describing him as a terrorist — there was hardly consensus on the issue. Under Australian law, it isn’t enough for someone’s actions to terrorise their victims to designate them “terrorist acts”. There has to be political, ideological or religious motive. Were this not the case, thousands of perpetrators of domestic violence would be prosecuted under counter-terror laws. (Kenny also speaks of PC attitudes toward border protection and mentions the existence of a “queue” for refugees. What queue? There is none).

Kenny’s most potent argument — that PC is an invention of the political class, which has divorced them from the “mainstream” — again makes little sense. As first negative speaker, Mikey Robins, noted, Kenny and so many of those going on and on about PC are themselves part of the political class. Indeed, if PC has failed, why do conservatives feel the need to constantly protect us from it? Kenny noted the irony that PC started out not as a conservative insult of the left, but rather, as a self-mocking phrase between different sections of the left. Kenny and his allies may allege PC to be McCarthyist, but Joe McCarthy wasn’t exactly a card-carrying communist.

Without meaning to sound PC in a sexist sort of way, the ladies were the stand-out debaters of the night — starting with second affirmative Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the Warlpiri/Celtic Alice Springs councillor, as well as singer and advocate against domestic violence. She resents the fact that PC practitioners keep telling her and her people what they should call themselves. In her neck of the woods, the lack of PC is an indication that people (both black and white) don’t take themselves too seriously. And this is because they have more serious fish to fry.

Price says that PC is like racism — both are based on untruths and stereotypes. PC means that indigenous people, especially women, find it hard to speak about violence from black family members and community folk. In this case, PC can be deadly. As for white racism, Price says she would rather know who the racists are so she can face them head on.

The final speaker was second negative, Tasneem Chopra. (Disclaimer: I’ve known Tasneem since 1985. Also, I’ve always called her Tasneem and that won’t stop here. Of course, that doesn’t mean I agree with Tasneem on everything).

Tasneem says that for many urban women from “ethnic” backgrounds, PC is all they have to protect them from discrimination. PC exposes privilege and bias.
It allows us to call out bigotry, to stand up to dominant voices.
Tasneem called upon Kenny (or Chris, to be fair) to share his experiences of racism.
If you feel the need to be violent or racist, to threaten rape or other assault, your politics is incorrect.
With this youngish and largely female crowd, the negative side were always going to win the debate. OK, that wasn’t very PC.

First published in Crikey on 29 May 2017.


Friday, May 25, 2018

CULTURE WARS: Sorry, Malcolm, but multicultural Australia is not ‘united, strong, successful’



And guess whose fault that is?


And so, on Harmony Day, our erstwhile PM launched a document entitled Multicultural Australia: United, Strong, Successful. And what a colourful, sexy document it is: full of the smiling faces of people from different backgrounds and of all ages, all sharing their own or ancestral stories of struggle — full of wonderful talk about values, visions and all that jazz.

So is the document’s title correct? Upon reading the title of this 16-page document, I couldn’t help but say to myself: “Yep, minus the bigotry of many News Corp columnists and the strength of One Nation, etc, etc, and the emphasis placed on repealing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (a provision that hasn’t stopped the earlier nasty stuff, and whose effect is largely overcome by section 18D) and the paranoia about terrorism that has led to some 65 pieces of legislation since 2005 creating a parallel system of criminal law … minus all that, yes we are a multicultural Australia, which is probably more united, strong and successful than any other Western nation, except perhaps Canada.”

OK, I didn’t literally say all that to myself.

The statement really is a nifty document, short on specifics and high on restating values we already know but rarely see from the Coalition and their friends (at least at election time) in One Nation. The document spoke about the “glue that holds us together is mutual respect — a deep recognition that each of us is entitled to the same respect, the same dignity”. Indeed. And, in the words of our Attorney-General, the same “right to be bigots”.



Under the subheading “Shared vision for the future”, we read about the government continuing to promote “the principle of mutual respect and denouncing racial hatred and discrimination as incompatible with Australian society”. Then on page 19 we read: “… racism and discrimination undermine our society. We condemn people who incite racial hatred.” Unless, of course, if they are supported by the Institute of Public Affairs, the editorial bosses at News Corp, Coalition backbenchers, anti-halal/kosher certification freaks and/or the tiny number of people who read Quadrant. In this case, we will bend over backwards and change the law to suit their need to be as bigoted as they already can be under the law we are hell-bent on changing.

Of course, some of Australia’s neighbours don’t exactly have sterling records in this area. Malaysia’s special treatment for bumiputera (indigenous Malays) over everyone else (including non-Malay Muslims) is appalling. The campaign for the governor of Jakarta has involved overt racial and religious prejudice of a rather un-Islamic kind by influential Muslim preachers targeting a Chinese Christian candidate who is an ally to the current Indonesian President. I doubt it was that bad for Western Sydney Labor MP Ed Husic when anonymous flyers were circulated through the electorate of Greenway in the 2004 election.

Getting back to multiculturalism, I think it’s a bit much to say that it is all about values and vision. Historically, multiculturalism was a policy introduced to help persons with little English to access government services. Interestingly, most of these people were part of the post-War wave of European migration and had lived in Australia for decades, working their elbows to the bone in factories and infrastructure projects and not having the time to learn the local lingo.

Oh, and guess what: multicultural policies in Australia have always been regarded as a means to an end, not as an end in themselves. And what is that end?

Integration.



In a Commonwealth parliamentary research paper published in 2010, Elsa Koleth notes:
James Jupp points out that Australian multicultural policies have always been premised on the supremacy of existing institutions and values and the primacy of the English language, while placing less emphasis on cultural maintenance beyond the immigrant generation ...
As the report notes on page 7, our population comes from over three hundred ancestries, including indigenous peoples with over two hundred and fifty different language groups. We’ve been multicultural for at least 50,000 years. So why tag all this national identity stuff onto what is essentially Australia’s multicultural reality and status quo? Is it the role of multiculturalism to save us from nasty terrorists and even nastier boat people?

And what’s the point of preaching multiculturalism and anti-racism and all that stuff (while you demonise desperate asylum seekers), when you change the law just to please powerful reactionary pseudo-conservatives, and when you take steps to marginalise and alienate young people you think are prone to “radicalisation”?​

First published in Crikey on 23 March 2017.

Saturday, May 05, 2018

CULTURE WARS: The Australian declares war on Yassmin Abdel-Magied, misses the point again

For some reason, Caroline Overington, in her attacks on Yassmin Abdel-Magied in The Australian, cannot seem to understand this whole idea of soft diplomacy.


 

In 2008, I went to an event at Gleebooks, an independent bookshop in Sydney’s inner west. The British Council and High Commission was putting on a do for a visiting author of conservative bent. The book was, in parts, entertaining but also included some rather sexist material. (Toward the end of the book, the author wrote about a female friend of his and made specific mention of the size of her posterior growing larger since the last time he saw her.) Still, that didn’t stop the British taxpayer from forking out some dosh, just as they would do for any author or performer or artist whose work suits their soft diplomacy interests. In the case of the present author, perhaps the book suited some “deradicalisation of young Muslims” purpose.

DFAT and Australian embassies do the same. As with all activities of DFAT, it all comes out of our pocket. Soft diplomacy, soft power, person-to-person contact, whatever you wish to call it. Australian artists and writers visit various places to collaborate with overseas artists via a host of programs run by universities as well as DFAT sections such as the Australia Indonesia Institute. Now I am no sycophant of Indonesia, especially when it comes to the treatment of Christian politicians like Ahok. But I learned a hell of a lot about the religious cultures and civil society organisations of our closest Muslim-majority neighbour when I visited Indonesia on a DFAT-funded junket in January 2006. As did the five other Australians who joined me.

So why am I saying all this? Because, for some reason, Caroline Overington of The Australian cannot seem to understand this whole idea of soft diplomacy. After a robust shouting match on Q&A over sharia between engineer Yassmin Abdel-Magied and independent Senator Jacqui Lambie on Monday evening, Overington decided on Thursday to run a front-page “scoop” headlined “Taxpayers billed for Q&A activist’s grand tour of Islamic regimes“.

A terrific culture-war story for The Australian‘s diminishing readership. It has all the ingredients: the wretched Q&A, the nasty ABC, the satanic Tony Jones and the nasty religion whose adherents make up a frightening 25% of humanity. But seriously, reading the story made me wonder what all the fuss was about. It was hardly a scoop. Overington herself notes that the not-so-grant tour was promoted “last November”. That’s three months ago.

Overington is especially upset about the fact that Abdel-Magied visited these nasty brutal regimes while claiming on Q&A that she saw Islam as “the most feminist religion”. Now, I’m no women’s activist, but I felt a bit perturbed about Abdel-Magied’s claim. True, in an ideal Islamic world, things might work out well for the Muslim ladies. But in reality, most Middle Eastern women aren’t enjoying the freedoms that Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Jacqui Lambie and Caroline Overington do here.

But it was almost as if Overington were arguing that someone with Abdel-Magied’s beliefs should not be sent by DFAT. What kind of woman should they send, then? Kirralie whatserface from the Q Society? Janet Albrechtsen? Andrew Bolt?

Overington discusses at length the awful treatment of women in the countries Abdel-Magied visited. This is all public knowledge, and Overington may ask herself why Abdel-Magied, her family, my mum, my siblings, me, my nephew and my nephew’s dog refuse to live in any of these places.

Still, the fact remains that we have to have relations with these nations. Overington’s employer was once partly owned by a Saudi prince. A fair few Australians do business with these places. Our food exports help shore up food security in the region, despite our insistence on fighting unpopular wars there, and pursuing a foreign policy that is despised across the region.

These nations also need to feel secure that not all Australian kids are ready to join Islamic State. Yes, the entire Middle East despises IS. Does sending a smart young lady in her mid-20s who works as an engineer on an oil rig to talk up Australia’s treatment of its Arabs/Sudanese/Egyptians/Muslims make sense? Clearly DFAT thought so. As DFAT told Overington:
Yassmin Abdel-Magied­ visited a number of countries in the Middle East to promote Australia as an open, innovative, democratic and diverse nation. She met youth representatives, scientists, entrepreneurs, women’s groups and others.
Soft diplomacy is money well spent. Perhaps Overington could learn some herself.

First published in Crikey on 17 February 2017.

OBITUARY: Iranian revolutionary leaves a complicated legacy


The guy was the wiliest of wily politicians who co-authored the constitution that created the revolutionary government.


Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani casts his ballot for the parliamentary elections in front of a portrait of late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini 

It was 1979. I was in year 4 at Ryde East Primary School. Something terrible happened. It was called a “revolution” and was all over the TV news, which, back in those days, I only watched because I was forced to. It took place in Iran, a country next door to my dad’s country and one whose name I always remembered because it sounded so much like my own.

Before this, Iran had been a really good place where everyone liked America, drank alcohol and dressed all modern and stuff. They had a nice handsome-looking king, but they overthrew him in favour of a bearded man named Ruhollah Khomeini with big nasty beady eyes whose colleagues also sported beards and wore black coats with black turbans. These guys rarely smiled, and their young followers used to scream death to America and death to Israel.

I wouldn’t have known it at the time, but one of the nasty black-cloaked dudes standing with Khomeini and whispering advice into his ear was a pistachio farmer named Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He died on Sunday, and his legacy will remain for decades o come.

Five years later, as my interest in political Islam grew, there weren’t too many religious books available in English. We didn’t have the internet, and media sources were also limited. Yet whether you watched Eyewitness News on Channel Ten or read the three-in-one rice paper weekly consisting of The Guardian, Le Monde and The Washington Post, the news on Iran was never nice. Our local mosques and imams also didn’t have nice things to say about Iran, despite being all cheery about the Afghan jihadists battling the nasty communists. And the only Iranian voices we ever heard were from those who were fleeing the Shah and the Islamic regime.

But any kid interested in political Islam had to learn about the Iranian Revolution. For these early years, the voice of relative sanity among the Iranian regime was Rafsanjani. Whether American diplomats were being taken hostage by Iranian students or American journalists kidnapped for seven years by pro-Iranian militias in Beirut or the same militias engaging in suicide attacks against Israeli troops, Rafsanjani was always being presented as the good guy. Yet the reality was that such violent excesses were unlikely to have happened without Rafsanjani’s acquiescence or at least knowledge. 

The guy was the wiliest of wily politicians and co-authored the constitution that created the revolutionary government before holding just about every major leadership position. Among the positions he held was commander in chief of the armed forces during the 1980-88 war with Iraq. Perhaps the best (and funniest) account of the effects of the war on Iranians living near the Iraqi border can be found in Good Muslim Boy, the memoir of Iranian-Iraqi-Australian actor and author Osamah Sami.

Rafsanjani wasn’t terribly liked by ethnic and religious minorities, including those of the same faith. He also is believed to have played a role in having Iranian dissidents in Europe assassinated, and also was involved in an attack on a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. At the same time, while speaker of the Iranian parliament, Rafsanjani oversaw a system in which Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians had seats reserved for them.

After the war, Rafsanjani was elected president. He held that position twice before losing to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s very own version of Donald Trump, in 2005. Hopefully for the world, we won’t be seeing an Iranian Trump win the 2017 Iranian presidential elections.

Rafsanjani went onto hold other influential positions. He also founded a university and wrote a 20-volume commentary of the Koran.

How will he be remembered? Iraqis, including devout Iraqi Shia, will recall him as the man who led a war effort against their country even as they resented Saddam Hussein. Lebanese and Israelis will remember Rafsanjani as the man who gave them Hezbollah. Militias claiming to represent Syria’s Sunni majority will remember Rafsanjani as wavering over Iran’s support for the Syrian regime.

And young Iranians? For them, Rafsanjani was a key leader of Iran’s self-styled Islamic Revolution. This remains at heart an ideological revolution even if most people it rules over have never seen the ideological and political struggles of the revolution’s founders. They have never seen the repression of the Shah, but experience on a daily basis arguably lesser repression of the theocrats. These young people never saw Rafsanjani imprisoned and tortured by Iran’s US-backed Shah and his vicious Israeli-trained SAVAK secret police. They are young people who don’t resent Western culture in the manner of Rafsanjani’s generation. And they are unlikely to share in the millions, which Rafsanjani and his family amassed during his time holding various positions in the revolutionary regime.

First published in Crikey on 12 January 2017.

Friday, May 04, 2018

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS: Guess who’s coming to $150-a-head anti-Islam dinner?


Who on Earth would turn up to Kirralie Smith's "Defending Freedom of Speech Halal Choices" fundraiser? Spoiler: it's Bernardi. And Christensen. And attention-starved Ross Cameron.


The other day my mate and I went to Nissin World Delicatessen, a popular supermarket for expats in central Tokyo. In the meat section, I saw imported meats from Australia, the United States and New Zealand. The Kiwis do roaring business here in Japan, and the huge, loud halal signs don’t seem to worry anyone. In this majority Buddhist nation, and even among its expatriate community (many of whom would be nominally Christian), the idea of eating the flesh of a cow or lamb slaughtered in the name of Allah isn’t going to lead to a House of Councillors inquiry.

The same is largely true in Australia (apart from the futile Senate inquiry into kosher and halal certification). Indeed, most halal-related litigation Muslims involves halal butchers suing halal certifiers, halal certifiers suing other certifiers and religious bodies seeking to enforce contracts in which certifiers promise to pay some stipend. Halal v Halal.

But now Australia’s fractured far right has joined the halal fray, largely a case of yesterday’s anti-Semites becoming today’s anti-Halalcertifites. As Dr Shakira Hussein notes, kosher certification was once used as a means to attack America’s Jewish minority. Now the same racist themes are being used to attack halal certification and the tiny minority of Australians who identify as Muslim, including ones like me who are happy to eat halal-uncertified McDonald’s in Tokyo.

Kirralie Smith and her colleagues from the Q Society/Halal Choices/Australian Liberty Alliance have found themselves defendants in a defamation claim brought by one of Australia’s major players in the halal meat game. Smith posted a video on Facebook headlined “Mosques promote bigotry. Islam is divisive”. She mispronounces the name of the dreaded faith as “Izlaam”, claiming that it isn’t a religion in the same way as Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or Christianity. She claims Islam is a “totalitarian ideology” with both political and military aspirations. She also says that we don’t want people who behave violently against those who disagree with them.



But Smith has come across a Muslim businessman who prefers not to get angry but instead to use the non-sharia civil law system via defamation proceedings. She needs every dollar to defend the court case and has organised public events in early February in Sydney and Melbourne to raise funds. For just $150 you get

... a sparkling welcome, a variety of fine finger food and a generous serve of free speech. Article 19 UDHR applies. Drinks at bar prices. 

And where does the money go? The promotional material states:

All proceeds and donations go towards the legal expenses incurred by Q Society of Australia Inc, Kirralie Smith, Debbie Robinson et al. in the defamation action initiated by Mr Mohamed El-Mouehly (Halal Certification Authority Pty Ltd) before the NSW Supreme Court.

It continues:

This is a landmark case with considerable ramifications for freedom of expression in Australia.

How does litigation pursued in accordance with a jurisdiction legislated in Australia since 1847 have considerable ramifications for freedom of speech?

Indeed, how often do you see senators and MPs involved in fundraising for one side or the other in a free speech case? Even in the case of Danny Nalliah’s defence of religious vilification claims brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria, entertainingly covered by Hanifa Deen’s book The Jihad Seminar, Peter Costello delivered an Australia Day message to a meeting organised by Nalliah and had been the recipient of Nalliah’s prayers, but that’s about it.

Peter Costello also won’t be on the podium of the ALA event. Neither will Danny Nalliah or Fred Nile or even Pauline Hanson, who has campaigned heavily on Islam-related stuff (from halal meat certification to sharia law to toilets in the Tax Office building). No one from the United Patriots Front or the Reclaim Australia mob will be present.



Indeed, were it not for the presence of Cory Bernardi and George Christensen, the event would hardly have been worth reporting on. This event is more conspicuous by who will be absent than present. The Islamophobic space in Australia has some powerful media and political backers. But its hardliners are deeply divided, mirroring the divisions in the Australian far right, for which hatred of Muslims has replaced hatred of Asians and Jews and other “Others”.

In the electoral stakes, at 0.66% of NSW Senate votes Kirralie Smith came well behind One Nation (4.1%), Fred Nile (2.7%) but ahead of Danny Nalliah’s Rise Up Australia Party (0.17%). When it comes to the “Islam-critical” sector, as John Howard once never said,

The things that divide us are more important than the things that unite us. 

Instead of other prominent Muslimphobes, Shariaphobes and Halalphobes, the podium will include a crime writer, an ageing hard rocker and some bloke named Ross Cameron. And now a couple of Coalition backbenchers.

First published in Crikey on 10 January 2017.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

WAR: Three things you don’t understand about the Syrian war


For a start, the rebels are not one big happy family all fighting for a common notion of justice.



My goodness. There has been so much internet chatter among Aussie and Western Muslims about the fall of Aleppo to Syrian regime forces aided by Iranian proxies and Russia. But it’s OK. I doubt the chatter will lead to another 0.002% of Australia’s Muslims heading off to join Islamic State.

Instead, the chatter has largely been outpourings of grief at reports of massacres by the regime. Videos from al-Jazeera English and Channel 4 UK are being shared of civilians in Aleppo recording what they believe will be their final messages to the world. One lawyer of Pakistani Muslim heritage living in the US simply posted the words to U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday.

The group Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) — which former PM Tony Abbott wanted to ban and which insists only the revival of some sort of caliphate will solve all our problems — is complaining that a photo of a massive march in Istanbul against the Syrian regime was misappropriated by media organisations that failed to mention that HT organised the rally. For goodness sake, guys!

Yet as with any conflict that affects people living thousands of miles away from its epicentre, much of the discussion and debate has lacked nuance. Among the simplistic notions are:

1. Everyone supports the rebels

This might make sense if the rebels were all united. Luckily for the Assad regime, and sadly for its opponents, the rebels are about as united as the Coalition. Based in Istanbul is al-Majlis al-Watani al-Suri (the Syrian National Council) formed in 2011. A year later, it formed a Syrian National Coalition with a host of other opposition groups, but subsequently left in 2004. The council/coalition includes exiled members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, some Kurds (but not many, given what is seen as Turkey’s influence over the council/coalition), Christians and a few other blokes (lawyer Catherine al-Talli resigned in 2002).

On the military front, things haven’t been much better. There is the Free Syrian Army with numerous militias. Here are the Islamist groups we are taught to hate, often with good reason (e.g. ISIS) and those that are being sponsored (albeit indirectly) by the US.

The civilians themselves support and work with one another if for no other reason than to survive. Writing of her visit to the rebel-held part of Aleppo, one CNN journalist, Arwa Damon, speaks of her encounter with “Sama”:
In Aleppo, at a hospital run by the opposition, I met a young woman who goes by the pseudonym Sama. She was living with the hospital ‘staff’ — now made up mostly of young men and a handful of women, many of whom had no prior medical experience. Among her colleagues at the hospital are people of different backgrounds — moderate, conservative, Islamist, Salafi — and on a regular basis they debate what the future Syria should look like. In some way, the revolution has brought together individuals who otherwise would have never interacted, to trade ideas and ideologies. ‘We even shout at each other,’ Sama tells us with a wry smile. ‘I was with the revolution from the start, the revolution is one line, it’s not Islamist, it’s for all Syrians and Syrians are from all sects.

2. The battle is one between Shia and Sunni

Unfortunately, there isn’t enough space for me to explain the historical, theological and political factors that divide these two major sects, a division that goes back over 14 centuries. Suffice it to say that the predominant sect that resembles Syrian Shi’ism is the Alawi (also known as Nusayri) sect. Now if you like, you can spend the next few days reading this magnificent work by an Israeli scholar. Suffice it to say that both Syria and Lebanon have a fair few Alawis and that they have traditionally lived impoverished lives, marginalised by both Sunni and Shia.

The current government in Syria is headed by the Assad clan who happen to be Alawi. The majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslim, but there is a very strong Christian presence, including descendants of Armenians who fled the Ottoman purges, with many settling in Aleppo.

3. Syria is all about ISIS/Islam — nothing else

Then again, mainstream Australia sees this whole Syria thing as a war on Islamic State and nothing else, with the aim being to keep our streets safe, even if other people’s streets turn to rubble. Or they see it as a war within, or between, or even on, Islam. Hence the attitude in many (especially almost alt-right) circles is: yes, it’s very sad that civilians are suffering, but we don’t want any Muslim refugees (potentially carrying the IS bug) here, thanks very much.

And let no one say that “real” (i.e. white) Aussies fighting on the side of the Kurds are doing anything wrong. The Kurds are totally blameless, notwithstanding evidence that they too have been committing atrocities. Our white Christian boys wouldn’t be caught dead fighting with terrorists in Syria.

First published in Crikey on 19 December 2016

CULTURE WARS: How do you stop polygamy? With overreaching surveillance, of course


Pauline Hanson thinks there needs to be a national identity card in order to stop Muslims from claiming Centrelink benefits for multiple wives.



Once again those bloody Muzzlems are up to no good. Marrying more than one wife and then claiming multiple spousal benefits. I mean, can you believe it?

And so the headlines and talkback hosts blared over the weekend. The Channel Seven Sunrise program on Sunday carried the words “MUSLIM MARRIAGE DOLE RORT” on screen. Prue MacSween, one of the panellists, reminded us all that polygamy was illegal. She’s right, except that in Australia the way you get around it is to have only one of the marriages registered. It’s a bit like having a wife and a fuckbuddy or mistress or girlfriend or whatever.

She complained that
... these people are thumbing their nose at us and rorting the system.
These people? Us? Yep, these people have polygamous unions. They marry more than once. We don’t do that. We know that real Australians enjoy adulterous relationships rather than polygamous ones. 

(To be fair, when probed about the use of the word “us”, MacSween said she was referring to taxpayers. Though she then spoke of “them” coming here and not standing up in court.)

She also mentioned Centrelink’s claim that it would cost more money to police and enforce the law against this unknown number of polygamous rorters. I sympathise with her in this respect. Some years back, I worked as a welfare rights lawyer running appeals against Centrelink decisions between the Social Security Appeals Tribunal and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Representing the Commonwealth in the AAT was an excellent and highly professional advocate. The poor chap managed appeals in two states and was about to have a third state added to his load. This would mean he wouldn’t be able to attend all hearings and he’d be jammed. The result? More settlements, which were not in the interests of the Commonwealth and the taxpayer.

The Department of Human Services were also cutting down on the expense of investigators to conduct surveillance on suspected cheats. During my own research for client cases, I came across numerous AAT decisions where the evidence of investigators was used to show that the Centrelink client wasn’t being honest about their relationship status. Without such surveillance, the tribunal will have to decide between the client’s word and Centrelink file.



Oh, and by the way, it isn’t just Muslim polygamous arrangements who can breach Centrelink rules. The MacSweens and Bernardis and Hansons of this world might not be aware that our law recognises these thing called de facto relationships. Our Social Security Act recognises that you can live in a domestic arrangement with someone you aren’t married to, or even with someone you can’t legally marry, such as a same-sex partner.

Perhaps the most frightening response to this pseudo-issue was from Pauline Hanson, who called for the introduction of an Australian identity card. Seriously, Pauline, that is sooooo 1980s. Back in 1985 the Hawke government introduced the idea of an Australia card that was designed not so much to catch welfare cheats as tax cheats. Conservatives led by John Howard lined up to oppose the card, only to support a similar proposal 10 years later. After much mass debate, the proposal was dropped. 

Perhaps Hanson or her advisers should read this very helpful e-Brief published by the Commonwealth Parliament’s Law and Bills Digest Section. She should also understand that her constituents will not appreciate a Big Brother ID card forced on them just to stop a handful of polygamous Muslims.

First published in Crikey on 12 December 2016.

EUROPEAN POLITICS: Et tu, Angela? Merkel picks politics over people


If Merkel really wants to stamp out the wearing of face veils, she will find no greater ally than the mainstream German Muslim communities.

Three Muslim women

And so it goes. The Brexit effect becomes the Brexit/Trump effect, which then becomes the Brexit/Trump/Italy effect. It could almost have become the Brexit/Trump/Austrian Nazi/Italy effect. It may become the Brexit/Trump/Italy/One Nation effect. And it all leads to one simple conundrum: how do centre-right parties stop the seemingly inevitable rise of the “populist” far right?

The conventional wisdom is to take on a key aspect of the far right so as to take the wind out of their sails. That usually means pick the minority the far right loves to hate and throw them under the bus — preferably the minority that is weak and cannot fight back.

In the past 12 months or so, Germany has shown genuine leadership in relation to refugees escaping the horrors of war in Syria. Some 1.1 million refugees were resettled during 2015 alone. Asylum applications have been expedited so that people are not left in limbo.

This isn’t the first time Germany has had to take in large amounts of refugees. After the end of World War II, when Germany was decimated by the Allies, millions of expelled Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs and other refugees of German ethnicity were expelled from homes and lands they had lived in for centuries.

It was extremely tough, but Germany managed. The new Germans eventually assimilated despite their differences with the German-born Germans, and despite the fact elderly people and children made up many of the refugees’ numbers.

The new Syrian refugees are largely of working age. Many are professionals who, even if not German-speaking, can at least speak English. They wear Western clothes, and many were well-travelled before the war. In this photo of students from the University of Aleppo sitting for their exams in 2013, I can’t find a single burqa.

Whatever the horrors of the Assad regime, it was a regime that allowed religious and ethnic minorities to flourish. Historically, Syria was the land of Byzantine churches, of saints who spent years sitting atop poles, of some of the oldest Christian music in the world. In his 1997 book, From The Holy Mountain, William Dalrymple writes about the strong Christian presence in Syria and the centuries of interaction between the various faith communities of the former Byzantine world.

The idea of lecturing and hectoring this largely modern, educated refugee diaspora about not wearing the burqa or some other face covering (as Chancellor Angela Merkel is now doing) makes little sense. It would be hard to find a Syrian woman who wears the burqa, just as you’d be hard-pressed to find a third-generation German-Turkish woman wearing one. Why even talk about it?

German Muslims who refuse to integrate will likely find pressure on them not just from the courts but also from their own communities. Seriously, how many German Muslims would agree with the claims of an 11-year-old girl before a German court that
... even wearing a burkini, or full-body swimsuit, breached Islamic dress codes ...
? Imagine a Syrian refugee family who saw women drowning in the Mediterranean having objections to their daughters learning to swim.

If Merkel really wants to stamp out the wearing of face veils, she will find no greater ally than the mainstream German Muslim communities — Turks, south Asians and Syrians. A far better strategy would be consulting with them to see how community education and other grassroots strategies can assist.

Of course, the far right and their friends in the German and European and, indeed, our Breitbart-wannabe Australian media will find any excuse to turn a small incident into a mountain of “creeping sharia”. This places pressure on mainstream conservative parties to respond. Some will respond by focusing on who they are and what they stand far. Others will point to a small minority and declare “We are not like them!” hoping this will take attention away from the hate brigade.

It is a strategy that is rarely temporary, It turns the normal centre right into enablers of the far right. And the last thing a leader of Germany would want to be is an enabler of the political descendants of Nazism.

First published in Crikey on 9 December 2016.