The former prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, is at odds with the Federal Government over tensions over Islam in Australia. The Government has branded the former Liberal leader an apologist for radical Islam, after Mr Fraser accused his party of marginalising Muslims for political purposes. Earlier this week, Mr Fraser said the Government was gearing up for what he called a Muslim election next year.
Category Archives: Australia
Australian media seizes upon Muslim cleric’s comments to whip up xenophobia
The Australian media, working hand in hand with the Howard government and the opposition Labor Party, has seized upon a sermon delivered last month by a Sydney-based Islamic cleric to escalate its hysterical campaign against Muslims.
Last Thursday, the Australian published translated excerpts from a sermon delivered by Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali last month, in which the Muslim cleric appeared to blame rape victims for their plight. “She is the one wearing a short dress, lifting it up, lowering it down, then a look, then a smile, then a word, then a greeting, then a chat, then a date, then a meeting, then a crime, then Long Bay Jail, then comes a merciless judge who gives you 65 years,” he said. This was an apparent reference to the extraordinarily harsh sentence imposed on 20-year-old Bilal Skaf for gang rape convictions in Sydney six years ago.
Hilali quoted an Islamic scholar who said that rape victims should be imprisoned for life because “if she hadn’t left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it”. He then continued, “If she was in her room, in her house, wearing her hijab, being chaste, the disasters wouldn’t have happened”.
The position that women are responsible for rape – which is, by definition, non-consensual – is backward and reactionary. The current political and media campaign against Hilali’s comments, however, is entirely hypocritical. It has nothing to do with a principled opposition to sexual violence against women. The banner of women’s rights and sexual equality is being cynically paraded by the most right-wing and chauvinist forces in order to advance their own agenda.
Australian media blamed for Islam bias
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty believes the media is fuelling a growing bias against Islamic Australians, warning that increased vilification of Muslims is fomenting home-grown terrorism.
In a speech delivered in Adelaide, Mr Keelty played down Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali’s inflammatory comments on women, asserting that “many in the community also say offensive things and many of them are white Caucasian Australians”.
He said rising vilification of Muslims was being fuelled by irresponsible media outlets which sensationalised terrorism-related stories with little basis in fact. And he called on Australians to teach the values of democracy and multiculturalism to the younger generation so that “our future is not worse than our past”.
Mr Keelty – who clashed with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in 2004 after the commissioner blamed the suicide attacks on Madrid train system on the war in Iraq – said he met privately with Muslim groups in Adelaide yesterday.
“You hear more and more stories of treatment of the Islamic community that really is substandard by members of our own wider community,” he said at a lunch hosted by the South Australian Press Club. “It is vilification, picking them out of the crowd because they dress differently or they speak differently. If we are not careful we risk raising a generation of Australians who will have a bias against Islam.”
The Australian, 27 October 2006
See also “Australia’s Muslims fear backlash”, BBC News, 26 October 2006
‘The veiled conceit of multiculturalism’
The Australian offers its contribution to the veil “debate”:
“Religious beliefs are by definition sacred, and as much as possible they should be a private matter. But when an individual or a community feels that their personal practices should trump widely held values while also setting themselves apart, the question arises as to whether those people would not be more comfortable in a place where such behaviour is the norm.
“At its heart is the question of where tolerance should end and the old adage, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans’, should kick in. While tolerance is certainly a positive virtue that should be strived for, it cannot be a cultural suicide pact…. Disappointingly, those who have traditionally been a positive force for the liberation of women against oppression in other spheres have here largely been silent on the question of Islam’s beliefs concerning half of humanity.
“… what confronts the West today is not so much a clash of civilisations as a clash of centuries. The jumbo jets that have enabled the mass immigration from Muslim countries to the West are, in effect, time machines that have brought millions of people from a pre-Enlightenment world – where men are the unquestioned bosses, stoning and forced amputation are punishments rather than crimes, and sectarian differences are worth dying over – to secular, liberal and postmodern democracies such as ours.”
Editorial in The Australian, 24 October 2006
Pope protests ‘show violence’ in Islam
Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop has hit out at Muslims protesting over comments by the Pope, saying their reaction shows the link in Islam between religion and violence. Cardinal George Pell has also labelled the response of some Australian Muslim leaders to the issue as “unhelpful”.
The Pope has since said he is “deeply sorry” for the outrage sparked by his remarks and stressed they do not reflect his personal opinion. But Cardinal Pell today backed Pope Benedict, saying the violent reaction to his comments on Islam and violence illustrated his fears.
“The violent reactions in many parts of the Islamic world justified one of Pope Benedict’s main fears,” Cardinal Pell said in a statement. “They showed the link for many Islamists between religion and violence, their refusal to respond to criticism with rational arguments, but only with demonstrations, threats and actual violence. Our major priority must be to maintain peace and harmony within the Australian community, but no lasting achievements can be grounded in fantasies and evasions.”
He said the responses of Australia’s mufti, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali, and of Dr Ameer Ali, of the prime minister’s Muslim reference group, were “unfortunately typical and unhelpful”. “It is always someone else’s fault and issues touching on the nature of Islam are ignored.”
Pell himself, or course, is rather more hardline on this question than his boss. He is the author of an article that depicted Islam as an inherently violent faith, drawing on rabidly Islamophobic writers such as Daniel Pipes, Andrew Bostom and William Dalrymple.
Islam maligned in veiled moderation
“A fortnight ago, John Howard commented on talkback radio that ‘a small section of the Islamic population’ was ‘very resistant to integration’. They failed to learn English quickly enough and didn’t accept Australian values such as gender equality. The comments were factual. But they were pointedly selective.
“If the test of integration is speaking English, Howard easily could have pointed to a ‘small section’ of almost any migrant community in Australia. If this is about gender inequality, he could have noted that Australia had worryingly high domestic-violence rates and that Australian Muslims didn’t contribute disproportionately to them. And if we’re talking about Australian values, one could easily point to a small section of white Australia with white supremacist views who clearly refuse to accept Australian values of tolerance.”
Waleed Aly in The Australian, 16 September 2006
‘Speak out against terror’, Australian Muslim leaders are lectured
Islamic leaders must do more to denounce terrorism and direct young people away from extremists, Treasurer Peter Costello said yesterday. In a wide-ranging critique of the failure of Muslim leaders in Australia to speak out against extremism, Mr Costello also backed calls by the Prime Minister for Islamic migrants to learn Australian values.
“This is where we really need the Islamic leadership of this country to stand up and contend unequivocally that terrorism, no matter who it is perpetrated by, is never justified under the cover of religion and to make it clear to would-be converts when you join this religion, you do not join a radical political ideology,” Mr Costello said.
Aussie Islamophobe defends Howard
“Here, as in Britain and the US, Muslim organisations have deliberately installed themselves as permanent aliens and adapted a culture of constant carping about the majority, from whom they maintain their isolation with such bitter determination. Language, culture and secular values unite the English-speaking West. These values have been an attraction to millions.
“But not since World War II have those values been under such sustained attack. This time, it’s coming from the very migrants who might have been expected to show gratitude for being generously received in the nation of their choice – and finding solace in the protection of the system they say they despise. John Howard was at his most diplomatic when he said: ‘There is a section, a small section of the Islamic population, and I say a small section … which is very resistant to integration. Fully integrating means accepting Australian values’.”
Piers Akerman in the Daily Telegraph (Australia), 3 September 2006
Australian PM stands by call on Muslims to integrate
John Howard says he has no need to apologise for telling Muslims they need to embrace Australian values. Mr Howard sparked controversy yesterday after singling out Muslim migrants for refusing to embrace Australian values and urged them to fully integrate by treating women as equals and learning to speak English.
The call for a shift in attitude among some Muslims infuriated community leaders and comes as The Australian revealed the Prime Minister’s own Islamic advisers have already accused Mr Howard and senior ministers of fuelling hatred and mistrust by using “inflammatory and derogatory” language.
But Mr Howard today stood by his comments. “I don’t apologise,” he told reporters.
The Australian, 1 September 2006
Howard’s colleague Peter Costello is also sticking by his view that Muslims who put Islamic law above Australian law are not welcome in Australia.
Australian banned from contacting Bin Laden
An Australian magistrate has ridiculed as “farcical” a government order banning a terrorism suspect from contacting the world’s most wanted man, Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
Magistrate Graham Mowbray made the comment while hearing an application to extend an interim “control order” placed on Joseph “Jihad Jack” Thomas after his conviction on terrorism charges was overturned on appeal. The control order restricts Thomas’s movements, imposes a curfew and prohibits him from contacting a list of people – including Bin Laden.
Political commentators have also scorned the inclusion of Bin Laden on the list, suggesting the government should instead be delighted if Thomas could lead them to the man the US has been hunting for five years. Thomas’ lawyer Lex Lasry, said the list included 13 people who were either dead or in custody at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He described the situation as “ridiculous”.
The government used controversial new anti-terror laws for the first time on Monday to place the control order on Thomas after an appeal court overturned his conviction and five-year jail sentence for receiving money and an air ticket from Al-Qaeda.
A control order can be granted if it is thought it might prevent a terrorist attack, or if it is suspected a person has received training from a terrorist organisation.