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.

OPINION: At least God has the Commonwealth on His side

There was a time when the Liberal Party stood for the "forgotten people", the people who didn't have a union or truckloads of cash and capital to back them up. Vulnerable individuals.

 

The 2014 budget hasn't given young and future voters much to cheer about. A swag of youth-related programs have been slashed, especially in regional areas. Often these are places where businesses are shutting doors, where workers are being laid off and where the only jobs available often involve flipping burgers in return for a few dollars.

And if you are unlucky or too depressed to do this kind of work, you may find yourself with no income source for six months. Apart from your parents, that is. Conservatives are all about family values, you know.

You might choose to study. No upfront fees! What a bargain! And enough debt to make getting married, having babies and putting a roof over their head almost impossible.

There was a time when the Liberal Party stood for the "forgotten people", the people who didn't have a union or truckloads of cash and capital to back them up. Vulnerable individuals.

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But that seems like ancient history today. There are plenty of vulnerable individuals today, especially with union membership falling. But instead of providing opportunity, modern Australian liberalism is all about kicking vulnerable individuals in the guts.

So to whom can young vulnerable individuals turn? What should they do? Jostle a few past and present female MPs? Hold placards upside down on national TV?

Hiding in the detail of Joe Hockey's 2014 budget is a clue. Young people could do with a dose of good old-fashioned religion. An injection of taxpayer funds to empower God is what's called for.

John Howard injected $90 million into a pastoral care scheme. Howard knew public school teachers were spending too much time sorting out the great unwashed kids whose parents were too selfish to invest in decent grammar school education. Too much money for beer and cigarettes, and not enough for chapel, Latin classes and rugby.

Money for wealthy public schools also got shared among the poor struggling private schools. The result was that all schools could claim funding under the National School Chaplaincy Programme.

The scheme was a huge success. By July 2011, a 28 per cent of state schools had taken the dosh. Writing in Inside Story on July 21, 2011, Monica Thielking and David Mackenzie noted:

The initiative had its critics, but generally the education sector welcomed the additional resources.

.

Also happy were the chaplaincy providers, most of whom were faith-based. Here was a chance to spread the word.

One spokeswoman from ACCESS Ministries was quoted saying:

[I]n Australia we have a God-given open door to children and young people with the Gospel. Our federal and state governments allow us to take the Christian faith into our schools and share it. We need to go and make disciples.

This missionary zeal was nothing new. Back in the 1980s my school was making us year 10 boys spend one hour each week for an entire term being indoctrinated by Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live?.

This series of videos presented the European Enlightenment as an atheistic tragedy, the French Revolution as a series of guillotines (OK, he got that one right) and modern "secular humanism" as responsible for everything from the Holocaust to the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Schaeffer's solution? Bring God back into public life, into the public square, into government. Spoon-fed theocracy. That's where my parents' school fees went.

Seriously, though, the chaplaincy scheme is a good idea so long as governments recognised that not everyone believes that the Son of God was sent to die for our sins. And that some youth problems are too tough even for prayer.

The very hint of the Commonwealth funding direct preaching in schools (even if this isn't generally the reality) doesn't sit well with voters. Even if Chris Pyne and Tony Abbott scream until the Christ comes home that states and territories are funding less godly counsellors and psychologists.

Which is exactly what is happening. An extra $245 million has been found in the budget for the chaplaincy program. But schools don't have the option of having a not-so-religious social worker to fill the role.

When it comes to our kids' pastoral needs, at least God has the Commonwealth on His side. But not in other areas of school life.

Chris Pyne has already indicated he wants a reviewed curriculum for schools which puts emphasis on Anzac Day and our Western civilisation. God's children mustn't be pacifist and certainly mustn't have a black-armband view of the past, even if His son was a Palestinian Jew.

The culture wars are alive and well in our schools. God help our kids.

Irfan Yusuf is an author and PhD candidate at the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. First published in the Canberra Times on Saturday 24 May 2014.

OPINION: Even cynics can't deny bravery

Claims among dubious Pakistanis that Malala Yusufzai is now Western puppet ignore her ongoing heroism. 

Malala Yusufzai hails from the Swat Valley, a region known as the Switzerland of Pakistan and once a popular destination for middle class Pakistani holiday makers and international tourists. Swat is home to ethnically Pushtun people known for their conservative cultural and religious mores but also for their hospitality. Washington Post correspondent Pamela Constable notes in her book Playing With Fire: Pakistan at War with Itself that ambitious Swati Pushtuns "fled to construction jobs in the Middle East; those who stayed behind were described as dreamy and tolerant".

Malala (also pronounced Malalai) is a common name for girls in these parts. It was the name of a famous heroine who spent her wedding day on the battlefield tending to the wounded men of her tribe who fought the British forces at the Battle of Maiwind in July 1880. With no one left to raise the flag, she grabbed it and sang a few couplets of freedom before being struck down by British troops. Spurred on by her bravery, the men made a final assault and defeated the British foe.

That heroic Malala rated no mention in British war chronicles, but she became a heroine for her people. 

Now things have gone into reverse. Hardly a year has passed since a modern Malala was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman who boarded her school bus. Far from being silent about her, the British press can't seem to get enough of Malala. She now lives in the relative safety of Birmingham where she attends an exclusive school and has even been invited for tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

Back home, there has also been a fair amount of adulation, though mixed with strong feelings of resentment toward her Western admirers if not ambivalence toward Malala. Some Pakistanis claim the awards and accolades she has received represent a betrayal of innocent people killed by American drone attacks which have claimed the lives of more than 1000 Pakistani civilians. The West chooses to ignore (and hence implicitly applaud) these deaths as part of the so-called war on terror. Pakistanis read Western newspapers and websites, and can see Malala giving Western rightwing cultural warriors and leftwing do-gooders a new symbol with which to belittle Pakistan.

Prominent Western voices have in years past used a similar fetish to "rescue" non-white Muslim women. In her 2005 scholarly essay The war on terror and the "rescue" of Muslim women, Melbourne academic Dr Shakira Hussein mentions how in the lead-up to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Laura Bush and Cherie Blair (the respective wives of then US President and the British Prime Minister) both used the suffering of Afghan women to justify war. The United States and its allies initially removed the Taliban from power but at the same time allowed its own tribal Northern Alliance allies in Afghanistan to carry out similar, if not identical, forms of gendered oppression. To avenge the deaths of 9/11 victims, a greater number of Afghan victims (including women) were killed.

Given Western ambivalence toward the plight of many Afghans and Pakistanis at the hands of formerly Western backed terrorists and dictators, it's natural they might be a little suspicious of a situation where a young Pakistani girl is plucked out of obscurity by the West. In their eyes, she isn't the first Pakistani to be shot in the head by terrorists, and no matter how much one hates to say this, she probably won't be the last. But now she and her family live in relative safety. Hundreds of other Taliban victims and their families aren't so lucky. Their poverty-stricken voices aren't heard by the over-nourished West, nor are they nominated for international awards. God knows how they'd be treated if in desperation they boarded a rickety boat and headed for Australia.

But one can't help detect a certain conspiratorial tone from some Pakistani cynics. As if a 16-year-old is part of a Western plot to somehow destabilise Pakistan and ruin its image. It takes some guts for a girl who has survived being shot in the head to then visit the White House and tell the world's most powerful man to stop bombing her country. Yet this is what Malala Yusufzai intends to do. It is a task even Pakistan's leaders have failed to take up. Indeed for every finger pointed at Malala, surely three must point right back at Pakistan. Middle class Pakistani critics who emulate Western culture but resent a poor Pushtun girl being congratulated for her bravery should remember that.

As always, such conspiracies are egged on by Pakistan's neighbours. Pakistan's Dawn newspaper recently published a column by Nadeem Paracha which claimed Malala's real name was Jane, that she was the daughter of Hungarian Christian missionaries and that she was left with a Pakistani couple as a gift after they secretly converted to Christianity. The article was picked up as serious news by the allegedly serious Iranian Press TV news agency. It seems some in Iran's official media circles don't recognise Pakistani satire when they see it.

So what is the meaning of Malala? She is a symbol of Pakistani girls just seeking their God-given right to an education. The Prophet Muhammad insisted women and men seek knowledge, but God only knows which prophet the Taliban are following. How ironic that by almost snatching away her life, the Taliban have given her life genuine purpose and her nation's women greater stature. No amount of Pakistani or Western hypocrisy will take that away.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer. First published in the New Zealand Herald on Wednesday 16 October 2013.

EDUCATION: Here's another university funding scandal The Oz chooses to ignore ...

What is it with The Australian? Why do they keep missing university funding scandals??

Some years ago, they went into complete histrionics over $100,000 given to Griffith University in Brisbane by Saudi Arabia. There were cries of bias and sinister plots of Saudi and Wahhabi ideology being spread by stealth.

(It didn't last long after it was pointed out that the Saudis had invested even more money in News Limited.)

With such a commitment to higher education, why would The Oz miss two scandals concerning one of our most prestigious universities?

First there was the scandal over China Studies. And now there is the scandal over allegations against the United States Studies Centre.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf

CRIKEY: Costello shows little faith in the possibilities of education ...

In 1980, I started grade five at Sydney’s only Anglican cathedral school. My parents wanted to send me to a school which taught their values. But my parents are not Anglican. They are South Asian Sunni Muslims. Among my closest friends at school were a Jew, a Mormon and an atheist brought up in a nominally Catholic family. Their parents may have sent them to the school for similar reasons.

But Peter Costello thinks the main reason parents send their kids to a Christian school is this:

Parents who choose to send their children to a Christian school have a reasonable expectation that the child will get a Christian education. How could the school fulfil its obligation to the parents if it is required by law to employ non-Christian or anti-Christian teachers to provide it?

Perhaps Mr Costello should consult his well-heeled constituents of Sikh, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and other non-Christian faiths to find out why they choose to send their kids to exclusive (often selective) Christian schools. Perhaps having a name like Sydney Grammar or St Andrews on one’s resume can help overcome the prejudice of employers at allegedly unpronounceable surnames.

Presently religious institutions and faith schools are exempt from the provisions of anti-discrimination legislation which forbid discrimination in employment on the basis of religion. This could change in Victoria, and Costello writes in both The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald expressing his opposition ...

... to restrict the freedom of religious schools to choose their employees on the basis of their religious faith.

I’ve acted for both Muslim and non-denominational independent schools in workplace relations matters. Muslim schools employ non-Muslim teachers, only requiring them to display respect and empathy to Muslim religious values. Female teachers aren’t required to cover their hair. School principals told me that they had to hire non-Muslim staff as there weren’t enough Muslim teachers.

This presumably means these schools would take advantage of discrimination exemptions and employ only Muslim teachers if they had half a chance. Would Costello support Muslim schools insisting Muslim kids only be taught by Muslim teachers? Perish the thought! This kind of non-integration and breach of Australian values is what Costello so often pontificated on when he was treasurer.

I’d be appalled by the idea of kids from Islamic schools not having non-Muslim teachers. Hopefully by the time there are enough Muslim teachers, the law will have changed so that neither Muslim nor any other faith schools can discriminate. Religious and cultural cocoons aren’t healthy for children or for social cohesion.

Then again, Anglican cocoons didn’t harm me. Back when I was at school, to be employed at St Andrews as a teacher, you had to show some kind of commitment to Christianity. Some teachers evidenced this by a letter from their parish priest. We’re not sure exactly how my popular Year 11 English Teacher, Mr Scott, evidenced his Christian commitment. But at the last St Andrews’ Class of ’87 reunion, one of the lads recalled Scott had a habit of wearing polka-dotted ties. I’m not sure if he still wears them to work.

First published in Crikey on 29 July 2009.

OPINION: An old piece on Camden xenophobes ...

Camden xenophobes don't reflect pluralist reality

How's this for road rage. You're driving down Camden Valley Way at about 80km/h after a long day's work. The sun has set. It's dark. Suddenly from the bushes, a tall Middle Eastern-looking bloke emerges, running across the road in front of you. He's wearing long robes and sports curly brown hair with a beard.

You suddenly swerve your car to avoid running him over. You stick your head out the window and scream out blasphemously, "Jesus f---ing Christ!" The man stares at you and implores, "Why are you swearing at me for? I just got run out of town by these strange white-skinned Camden people. I told them I was the Son of Man, come to establish the Kingdom of God. They told me they didn't want me there establishing some sharia state. They wanted to keep their place Christian. They told me to go back to Lakemba where my kind live."

I hope I haven't offended the religious sensibilities of Muslim and Christian readers. Despite some theological differences, both sets of believers look forward to Christ returning to establish peace and justice on Earth. The Quranic Society which wishes to develop its $1.5million parcel of Camden land for a school will hopefully not have to wait so long to see justice handed down by the NSW Land and Environment Court. The society was already expecting a fight with council even before lodging its development application. Members have mortgaged their houses to finance the development. The society's lawyer and consultant, former Sydney lord mayor Jeremy Bingham, boasts of never having lost a case like this.

In the meantime, some Camden residents can feel proud that their antics have placed their suburb on the world map. The Voice of America radio report described opposition to the school as

... as at times ... savage and graphic.

Neighbouring Campbelltown has a large Muslim community, most of whom are of South African origin. No doubt their relatives will be calling after one South African media outlet reminded readers of two pigs' heads rammed on metal stakes with an Australian flag draped between them at the site. You can imagine the reaction in South Africa when they learn of the involvement of the Australia First Party, one of whose leaders was convicted of a 1989 shotgun attack on the home of a local representative of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.

The London Independent report carried the headline of

Suburban Sydney shows dark side as Muslim school row gets vicious.

The Macau Daily Times reports Camden and Cronulla together.

In 2005 anti-Muslim sentiment boiled over into ugly riots on the Sydney beach suburb of Cronulla, where rioters targeted people of Middle Eastern appearance. And in 2004, a severed pig's head was similarly impaled in front of a Muslim prayer centre in Sydney's north-west.

Once again, a small number of very loud morons (including people with no links to the Camden community) are ruining Australia's reputation in our region. Their incoherent rants will no doubt make Camden and Sydney a laughing stock. One fellow summed up the stupidity of much of the protest in saying,

My kids can't read Islamic, how are they going to go to that school, it's all crap.

Yes, indeed, it is crap. I can't read Islamic either. And notwithstanding the fact that my religion forbids gambling, I'd be prepared to place money on the fact that if the Prophet Muhammad were not unlettered, even he wouldn't be able to read Islamic. It's easy to laugh at all this, and to write these people off as just irrelevant nutcases, but the fact is that such sentiments are common parlance now.

Even major newspapers print all kinds of imbecilic notions. In October 2006, a national broadsheet newspaper published a story about an alleged honour killing in Brisbane. The report actually manufactured a verse from the Koran which didn't exist. And I've lost count of the number of times I have emailed journalists and columnists to ask for a reference from Islamic scriptures to martyrs receiving 72 virgins.

But whose responsibility is it to dispel such commonly held prejudice? The Rudd Government has announced that it will conduct anti-racism programs, but the real responsibility lies with Muslim religious leadership which should be spending time and resources on educating the broader community about Australia's Muslims and their heritage.

So what is Australia's peak Muslim body, the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, spending its resources on? After a disputed meeting, various factions of the federation went to the NSW Supreme Court. A receiver has been appointed for at least the second time.

Still, at least my colleagues in the legal profession are getting something out of this internecine warfare. The federation, a body dominated by middle-aged men with poor English skills, doesn't reflect Muslim Australians, the largest bloc of whom are Australian-born, English-speaking and aged under 40. And the xenophobes of Camden don't reflect the reality of pluralist Australia.

With the majority locked out of discussion on the Camden school project, it's little wonder the debate has been hijacked by extremists.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer. This article was first published in the Canberra Times on 30 May 2008.


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CRIKEY: From peacenik to IDF promoter ...?

How did an undergraduate peacenik morph into a spokesman for the Israeli army?

The Guy Spigelman I remember was a long-haired hippie-type affiliated with the Labor Students Club (controlled by the Socialist Left faction) and was elected to the Macquarie University Students’ Council on a ticket entitled "Students Against Racism", his number two being a female student of Jordanian background.

Though active in the Macquarie Uni branch of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), Spigelman was despised by Jewish members of the Liberal Club who saw him as too wishy-washy and too pro-Arab. Spigelman actively sought dialogue with students of Palestinian background.

In 1992, well before the Oslo accords and at a time when Palestinians were still regarded as a nation of terrorists, at a debate organised by AUJS on the topic of whether Israel should withdraw from the West Bank (or as some rightwing AUJS apparatchiks called it, “Judea and Samaria”) and Gaza, Spigelman supported Israeli withdrawal. Admittedly the reasons he used were more to do with Israeli security (he argued that a survey of retired Israeli generals showed most believe that holding onto the territories didn’t palpably increase Israel’s security) than with any right of Palestinians to a homeland. But he did hack into one Jewish student who made some racist remarks suggesting Arabs were inherently irrational and violent.

A 2006 post on Spigelman’s Australian Jewish News blog speculates on the factors that might affect support for Israel in Australia:

Another scenario - and this has been identified by polling undertaken in Europe - is that the world is becoming increasingly concerned with Islamic Fundamentalism and terrorism - and while there is no great love for Israel, there is less love for the Arabs.

This should not provide us with much comfort. We should not rely on the problems the other side has in order to better our position.

The other side? Maybe Spigelman wasn’t as inclusive and ecumenical in his thinking as I may have thought. Still, Spigelman does have some good advice on how supporters of Israel can help their cause:

...I believe the best advocacy is one that is vigilant in engaging all sectors of the society – from the left to the right – combined with encouragement (and not stifling) of informed debate – including criticism when it is warranted.

It’s advice ignored by Israel’s own ambassador in The Age today.

The author is a former Macquarie University Liberal student. First published in Crikey on Friday 16 January 2008.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Nelson (as a minister in the Howard government) and the Exclusive Brethren ...

Back in May 1995, I was one of 200-odd Liberals sitting on what was without a doubt the preselection of the year. Former AMA President Dr Brendan Nelson took on the Opposition’s spokesman on superannuation and retirement incomes, David Connelly, in the federal seat of Bradfield, a seat Connelly had held for years.

Some weeks before the preselection, Nelson had kept me on the phone for an hour, providing me with all sorts of reasons to vote for him. He must have made certain presumptions from my name, and proceeded to slam Israel for its ongoing occupation of the West Bank. He also slammed what he saw as a far-Right cabal within the Liberal Party who seemed to be opposing his chances at winning.

What someone had forgotten to tell Nelson was that I was at that time part of the same cabal! Indeed, I was one of the people busily spreading the fatwa issued by Sheik David Clarke (now MLC) that Nelson was way too wet for good "mainstream" conservatives to support.

Today, of course, Nelson has jumped into bed with that same cabal. He recites all their mantras about Australian values.

In August 2005, as Education Minister responsible for the funding of independent schools, he blew his dog whistle hard, publicly lecturing Muslim independent schools to teach Australian values or "clear off".

Nelson’s suggestion? During a doorstop interview in August 2005, Dr Nelson made these remarks:

... the Australian Government announced last year a $30 million program for values to be formally taught in every Australian schools including the thirty Islamic schools throughout Australia. I have sent to every school in the country the National Values Framework and the nine key values: responsibility, care for one another, tolerance, understanding, fair go, doing your best – a whole range of values, and over the top of it I have superimposed Simpson and his Donkey as an example of what is at the heart of our national sense of emerging identity. We are also going to be providing funding to all Australian schools to actually sit down with their parents, their teachers and their broader community and talk about the values they teach, how are teachers going to actually reflect the values we want taught in Australian schools, and more specifically, I will be meeting very shortly the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils and I will be discussing with them how we can formally develop programs to ensure that not just in Islamic private schools, but also in government schools, we make sure that all children and Australian Islamic children fully understand Australian history, its culture, its values. We believe in giving every person a fair go. We don’t care where people come from; we don’t mind what religion they’ve got. But what we want them to do is to commit to the Australian Constitution, Australian rule of law, and basically if people don’t want to be Australians and they don’t want to live by Australian values and understand them, well they can basically clear off.

That interview continued ...

JOURNALIST: How much of an impact on values can Muslim schools have? For example, the mosques that they attend and obviously not all Muslims would go to Islamic schools.

DR NELSON: Well, all schools are about teaching children how to read, write, count and communicate and teaching kids how to learn. But education is also about building character, and the virtues that inform character must be taught in all Australian schools. They need to be explicit. It is a requirement of the Australian Government funding that not only will every school fly the Australian flag, but it will prominently display the National Framework for Values Education, superimposed over which is a silhouette of Simpson and his Donkey, which is at the heart of our sense of national emerging identity. And what’s important in the end is that we all love people that are talented, it doesn’t matter what school our kids go to, but in the end it is character that really counts. And the Islamic Council and the Islamic schools have been working very hard to teach very good values for their children. We want to make sure that not just those schools, but all schools that educate Australian children including Islamic children are focused on Australian values to make sure that – it’s not just the students but also the teachers – fully understand our values, our belief and the way they relate to one another and see our place in the world.

Now we know that hardly 12 months earlier, he was providing schools run by the Exclusive Brethren with exemptions from testing computer literacy for Year 6 and Year 10 students, despite this being made a condition of Federal Government independent school funding. Here's how The Age broke the story on 15 February 2008:

MORE evidence has emerged of the power of the Exclusive Brethren's lobbying in Canberra, with the sect's world leader giving thanks for the "unexpected recognition" from former federal education minister Brendan Nelson.

The Age has obtained a 2004 passage of Brethren "ministry" — transcribed words of Sydney-based world leader Bruce D. Hales and other sect figures — in which they discuss their schools.

"(The schools were) set up to deliver the young people from the world," Mr Hales told followers on July 24, 2004.

"We don't want to go back to it, we don't want to be stupid enough to go back to the world, otherwise the Lord might take away our liberties, might take away what the Government has given us. The Government is very favourable; been favourable to us this week, hasn't it, Mr David?"

Another senior Brethren man, David Stewart, replies: "Yes, very clearly. … Very ready support from the Minister for Education."

Mr Hales: "Yes, well, we need to be thankful for it. You get the unexpected recognition of what the saints (the Brethren) represent. You don't expect it, and then they give it to you, they're compelled to give it to you."

Mr Hales' words make it clear that Brethren lobbyists, including Mr Stewart, had met then education minister Dr Nelson in the preceding days.

The Education Department has confirmed that, during 2004, Dr Nelson had representations from the Brethren, and agreed to give them an exemption from testing the computer literacy of year 6 and year 10 students.

That year, computer literacy was made a condition of Federal Government funding of private schools, but at the time the Brethren shunned computers, believing them to be instruments of the devil.

Brethren spokesman Tony McCorkell said yesterday that the ministry reference merely recognised the responsive hearing given to the delegation by Dr Nelson at the 2004 meeting.

He said the Brethren's concern at the time had been that paperwork associated with its private schools would need to be lodged with the department electronically. Dr Nelson assured them they could still lodge returns on paper.

Brethren are now allowed to use computers on a restricted basis.

Once again, a Howard Government Minister has been caught doing dirty deals with the Exclusive Brethren and bending law and government policy to assist them with non-integration. Nelson obviously thinks it’s OK to provide $6.6 million in funding to schools that teach their students that computers are instruments of the devil.

Then again, Nelson’s admirers from this non-integrated sect might have a point. After all, Simpson and his donkey never used computers.

An edited version of this story was first published in Crikey on Thursday 15 February 2007.

CRIKEY: Professor Google and those left wing academics ...

In 1990, I enrolled in a commercial law course as part of my LLB program at Macquarie University. My lecturer was Mark Cooray, a conservative academic lawyer of Sri Lankan origin. In those days, Macquarie Law School was dominated by a group of “progressive” lawyers pushing the “Critical Legal Studies” barrel.

Cooray was scathing of the “Crits”, arguing their approach to learning and teaching law put the cart before the horse. “How can undergraduate students be expected to criticise the law before gaining a proper understanding of it?”

In their approach to exposing alleged biases of supposedly left-leaning academics, the Young Libs are behaving like a bunch of leftwing “Crits”. Which probably explains why the main (if not the only) instrument used by National Young Liberal President Noel McCoy to generate his list of academic leftists was that great scholarly authority Professor Google.

To borrow Cooray’s sensible conservative logic, how can undergraduates with little exposure to a discipline or subject be expected to criticise their lecturer or tutor before gaining an understanding of the discipline or subject itself?

Just how seriously should we take the words of academic novices when determining the degree of bias (or lack thereof) of an expert in a field?

It’s true that there is a lack of diversity in university education. Most universities don’t hire undergraduate novices to teach.

So where did this Young Liberal idea come from? It seems the Young Libs are taking a leaf out of the far-Right CampusWatch project which seeks to expose Middle East Studies academics who don’t subscribe to the types of hawkish positions on the Middle East that even many Israelis find disturbing.

One can only wonder what newly elected Liberal Leader Malcolm Turnbull would make of such pseudo-conservative nonsense from the Young Liberals. Then again, these were the people whose votes proved so crucial to his preselection victory.

First published in the Crikey daily alert for Friday 10 October 2008.


Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

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CRIKEY: Why Rudd shouldn't introduce full-blown compulsory student unionism ...

Back in 1994, I penned an article for the Macquarie University Liberal Club’s organ Liberal University Students’ Tabloid (LUST) supporting the introduction of voluntary student unionism (VSU).

I argued that university services were like textbooks. You didn’t have to buy a brand new textbook. You could borrow someone else’s, buy a second hand copy or borrow one from the library.

Similarly, you don’t have to make use of university union services and facilities. You shouldn’t have to pay for things you don’t use, nor should you have to pay for a representative body you don’t necessarily want representing you. Union fees, whether for services or representation, should be voluntary.

VSU was a sacred cow of the Australian Liberal Students Federation (ALSF), an umbrella body of student Liberal clubs. The NSW Young Libs, then dominated by the small "L" faction known as "the Group", opposed VSU. Instead, they supported Voluntary Student Representation (VSR). This meant that you still had to pay fees for services but not for representation (which, at Macquarie, generally was spent on sending lefties off to some commune in Nicaragua, then ruled by Sandanista communists, or Cuba).

Former Howard staffer and State MP for Lane Cove Adrian Roberts was President of the UTS Union. In those days he was aligned with the Group and supported VSR while opposing VSU. Few NSW State MP’s (including conservatives) supported VSU. In Federal Parliament, VSU was supported by Howard, Abbott and Minchin while it was opposed by Brendan Nelson, Robert Hill and others regarded as small "L" libs.

When Howard became leader in 1996, the internal debate over student unionism was considered won by supporters of VSU. We regarded student unions as baby-parliaments where ALP hacks honed their skills. Liberal students rarely got anywhere unless disguised as something else or running joke tickets. For instance, current right wing Liberal Party President Nick Campbell ran in Macquarie union board elections on a green ticket.

The Howard government brought in VSU. In theory, it was a sound move. Union services are like textbooks. But as in practice, as reported in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, universities often have to make up the shortfall in student union services by spending money that would otherwise go to salaries or research. VSU has hit campuses in regional areas particularly hard, which probably explains why National Party MPs like Barnaby Joyce continue to oppose it.

If Rudd reintroduces compulsory fees for limited student services, that should be a good thing. But any move to force students to pay for student representative bodies could signal a return to the days when student money was spent sending lefties to communes while Labor students get subsidised political training.

First published in the Crikey daily alert for 21 August 2008.

UPDATE I: Here are some responses from Crikey readers in their Comments, corrections, clarifications and c*ckups section for Friday 22 August 2008 ...

Student unionism: 

Simon Wilkins writes: Re. "Why Rudd shouldn't introduce full-blown compulsory student unionism" (yesterday, item 13). I was an undergrad at the same time as Irfan Yusuf, but at a different Uni, and I have a different recollection of why Young Liberals couldn't get elected (VSU or not). Their lack of support was only bettered by their choice of candidates that seemed to lack the full complement of social, political and possibly genetic abilities. If you can't get elected without running as a joke ticket, perhaps it suggests that when voters recognise who you are, they don't want to vote for you. This fact renders Irfan's vague point about "subsidised political training" pointless. If Young Lib's could have run a decent campaign directed towards the needs of students they would have received the same "subsidy" he is so upset about. As a result of VSU, student campus life and interaction has been significantly diminished by a petty policy that forces Universities to pay for the services that they actually care about (sport) and let shrivel the intangibles like student clubs and societies (including the young liberals, who also received funding from student union fees). 

Lastly, comparing union services to textbooks is an odd analogy. Pro-VSUers always tried to convince you it would be a "user-pays" system when in fact it has resulted in complete denial of services. Also "second-hand" text books tend to be obsolete (by definition) and how you can get second hand union services is beyond me. But whether Irfan means it or not, the analogy exposes the true meaning of the pro-VSU position. Those students, and Universities, that can afford to pay from their own pocket get the new books and services and those that can't lose out. What a great system. My advice to the PM? Take the word Unionism out of any Uni fee charge and prevent a repeat of the Liberal lie. An equal levy on all students would at least allow some restoration of campus life. If that means Young Liberals have to run as the "Party Party" again, then so be it. 

Jim Hart writes: I suspect the biggest reason Irfan Yusuf and most of the Liberal Party don't like student unions is the name. The word union has a fine tradition in universities but that doesn't seem to stop the right-wingers from equating it with trade unions and from there it's a short step to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua via Moscow. So Irfan thinks student services are like textbooks -- either buy your own or use the library. But hang on, if the library had enough copies for every student who needed one those books would have to be bought by the university which gets its money from... oh dear, that means we all pay fees and taxes to provide books for students who aren't prepared to look after themselves. Sounds a bit like socialism to me Irfan. 

Sure, when you pay student union fees you don't use every service. As a student I probably subsidised evil socialists at subversive lefty conferences but I also paid for teams of reactionary sexist footballers to get drunk at interstate competitions. Last year my taxes paid for propaganda for despicable IR policies, while this year I funded a porno art magazine and some Olympic medals. And every few years I am forced to participate in an electoral process dominated by factionalised parties with candidates that never totally represent my views. Many if not all student bodies are poorly run, lop-sided, driven my minorities, and a sandpit for playing with ideals and ideologies. What else would you expect from a bunch of kids who are barely past puberty? It seems like a pretty harmless way to start training the next generation of entrepreneurs, social workers, journalists and politicians. VSU weakens not just our tertiary institutions but society in general. 

Piers Kelly writes: Irfan Yusuf wrote: "...nor should you have to pay for a representative body you don't necessarily want representing you". Isn't it a little churlish to want to abolish student representative bodies just because the people you like to vote for don't win very often? If students don't want to be represented they can vote the system out of existence. Democracy is kind of clever like that.

CRIKEY: The Australian misses new uni funding scandal

A foundation directly linked to the Chinese Ministry of Education is providing half the funding for the University of Sydney’s new Confucius Institute. The funds involved are approximately $100,000 per year for “start-up costs”. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

China's consul-general, Shaofang Qiu, said Beijing would not take kindly to the institute hosting students or academics who were opposed to China's policies on Falun Gong or Tibet.

This isn’t the first time a foreign government has funded a foundation. The Australian ran a long series of articles and op-eds concerning a donation of $100,000 made by the Saudi embassy to the Griffith Islamic Research Unit (GIRU). You can read more about that fracas here, here and here.

The Oz brought out some expert heavyweights -- including a district court judge and three religious broadcasters -- to prove Saudi money always means only extremist Wahhabi teaching will be tolerated.

One of its reporters even claimed that GIRU’s head was a member of an allegedly secretive group (read about their secrets here) proved he was part of a giant Saudi conspiracy. The fact that the group in question has been declared heretical by Saudi religious authorities didn’t stop the hysteria.

In the case of GIRU, there was no indication from the Saudis or from Griffith University itself that there was an expectation that Saudi-style Islam would be taught or that views critical of Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be tolerated. Compare this to the situation with the Confucius Centre, where the Chinese consul-general has already declared that China wouldn’t tolerate criticism of his country’s human rights record.

Of course, it’s quite possible The Australian hasn’t picked up the story yet. By now, they must know about it. Let’s hope, for the sake of consistency, that our national broadsheet stirs up at least as big a ruckus as it did over Griffith Uni.

First published in the Crikey daily alert for 18 June 2008.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf



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COMMENT: Camden seeks help ...

Well, it seems not everyone in Camden is a redneck. Let's face it. Out of 30,000 locals, 1 in 10 lodged a submission against the Camden Muslim school. One wonders what proportion of these really were inspired less by planning and heritage concerns and more by religious and/or racial bigotry.

Now Radio Australia reports that Camden Council has contacted the Federal Government seeking its assistance to run a program promoting multiculturalism.

The immigration department's Kate Pope has told a Federal parliamentary committee, the Council contacted them recently to discuss whether a program could be established.

"To look at whether there is an opportunity for us to assist with some project of some kind in association with the New South Wales Government with the community relations commission in relation to a harmony promoting initiative that might be suitable for Camden."

Good on them. We should wish the Council well.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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EVENT: Film launch ...

Come along and support the students and staff of both these fine Sydney schools.


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COMMENT: Why Fred Nile should leave Australia …

Whether Fred Nile opposes the establishment of the Quranic Society's school in Camden is neither here nor there, as far as I'm concerned. For me, there are deeper questions. I think Fred Nile is a threat to our liberal democracy. Here's why.

Fred Nile has drawn the line. He has declared Australia to be a Christian country. He has also declared that we shouldn’t allow schools that reject Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Christ and the idea that Christ is the Son of God.

On that basis, I challenge Fred Nile to call for the closure of Moriah College. I call upon Rev Nile to hold a public meeting at St Ives which will support the closure of Masada College.

Jews, like their Muslim spiritual cousins, reject the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. Indeed, Judaism goes further. Whilst Muslims accept Jesus as God’s Messiah, Jews reject this notion.

So are we now going to say that Jewish schools are even more undesirable than Muslim ones?

Australia’s first Australian-born governor-general was a Jew. Jews have served in prominent positions at all levels of government, as well as in business, academia and the arts.

Muslims have also served in local and state governments, as well as in academia, the arts and business.

Believe it or not, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Druze, Bahais and followers of other faiths have also contributed to this nation. As have atheists and agnostics.

By sponsoring shadowy meetings and attracting racists and neo-Nazis from outside Camden to spread sectarian hatred, Nile is doing a grave disservice to the people of New South Wales.

Further, Nile’s antics are giving Christians a bad name. Christianity is an inclusive faith that teaches compassion, mercy and good will to all. Nile is preaching a message that has little or nothing to do with Christianity.

Some months back, neo-Con far-Right columnists and politicians were wondering why more Muslims weren’t calling for Sheik Hilaly to be silenced. I wonder whether they will be calling on Christians to silence Nile.

But unlike the Howards and Robbs and Costellos and Albrechtsens and Bolts of this world, I don’t subscribe to the Hitleresque doctrine of collective responsibility. Why should all Christians be held responsible for the mad senile rants of an ageing and increasingly irrelevant fundamentalist politician?

Let’s do some numbers. How many Australians tick the ‘Christian’ box on their census form? How many of these people voted for the Christian Democrats at the last Federal Election?

Need I say more? Here’s a claim that doesn’t need social research to back it up. The overwhelming majority of Australian Muslims and Christians and Jews and Sikhs and Hindus and Christians and people of other faiths and no faith in particular want to live in a country where people are free to believe and worship in any manner they wish. If Fred Nile and his gang of religious fruitloops cannot accept this, they should give up their Australian citizenship and set up their theocracy elsewhere.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Tampa docking in Camden??

Back in 2001, the Liberal Party chose an optometrist from Camden as candidate for the Auburn state by-election. From what I saw of her, she didn’t have any hint of sectarian or racial prejudice. And how could she in a State seat with such an enormous range of different ethnic and religious groups. That by-election was on Saturday 8 November. Three days later, everything changed.

You’d think a proposal to build a school in a small semi-rural village on the outskirts of Sydney would be just another planning issue. The Council would advertise the plan, residents might raise objections based on parking or traffic or whatever. What could religion possibly have to do with it?

I have a mate who lives in Camden. He enjoys grunge rock, likes to surf, does a little farming with his mum and parties a fair bit. And he happens to be of Muslim heritage. Last night, he told me:

I went to school with half of these people. Many are people I’d consider mates.

Believe it or not, Muslims have their sectarian prejudices. Many Muslims in Bankstown who always come out in support of extensions to the local Buddhist temple will simply refuse any application from the pro-Syrian Lebanese al-Ahbash sect. When the sect wanted to build a complex in Bass Hill, few Muslims outside the sect rallied behind it.

That proposal also showed some very un-Christian attitudes from Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party. Their press release speaks of "educational apartheid" and claims kids at the school would have "zero contact" with other kids. The allegedly Christian Democrats are again out in force at Camden, joining a coalition of other far-Right fruitloops, such as this chap. And so we have the legitimate concerns of a small community are being hijacked by the far-Right, a coalition of Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis getting together to fight "Islamic extremism".

For many in Camden, this will be the first time they will come face to face with Muslims. Well, actually it won’t. My Camden mate tells me he knows some 70 Muslim families in Camden, mostly professionals or small business people who enjoy the semi-rural lifestyle and/or aren’t interested in paying through the nose for their rent or mortgage. And because they have completely "integrated" , you don’t even notice they’re there.

So where do these Camden Muslims fit into the picture? My friend said:

They don’t. People are too scared to go to the public meeting. They know outsiders have taken over the debate, and they don’t wanna get lynched by their neighbours.

Federal Liberal MP Pat Farmer was at the rally. He claims much opposition to the school development isn’t racist. I believe him. But his is now a marginal seat. I’m sure he would have been on the phone to the PM afterwards. Will this become another Tampa? Will we see Howard promising to use federal powers to overcome planning decisions of local councils?

I guess it depends on how desperate Howard gets. Watch this space.

(First published in the Crikey daily alert for Wednesday 7 November 2007.)

COMMENT: Camden planning debate hijacked by wackos ...

The people of Camden, a small town on the outskirts of south western Sydney, have every right to debate the merits or otherwise of any major development in their town. No doubt many will be concerned about a new McDonalds restaurant as much as they would be worried about a 1,200-pupil school.

Sadly, the legitimate concerns of Camden folk are being hijacked by wacky far-Right types. The Winds of Jihad blog of Muslim-hater Sheik Yer'mami includes a number of posts from Darrin Hodges of the self-styled Anglo-Australian National Community Council. Hodges has been distributing hate material in the Camden local area. His blog includes links to far-Right racist groups including MEMRI and anti-Semitic American commentator Ann Coulter. One post on his blog claims that Islam is in the process of invading Camden.

When outsiders try to infiltrate local debates with a view of spreading sectarian hatred, the results can be a divisiveness that can be difficult to control and that diverts attention away from the real merits of the debate.

Already, issues of race and religion have entered the discussion, as can be seen on the online forums here and in the Camden Advertiser's blog here.

If only this could be treated simply as an issue of local community involvement in Council planning decisions. But sadly, rednecks are busy spreading their infantile prejudices on the rest of us. Now all we need is for John Howard to see a possible wedge and parachute himself into this debate with a view to scoring some desperately-needed votes. Then again, maybe Camden voters will realise that Howard's pet prejudices are not going to help them make their mortgage repayments increased due to interest rates Howard's 2004 election promise couldn't keep down ...