Tony Abbott on Muslim Integration

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#1 E. Mariyani on 12.15.06 at 9:16 pm

1. Muslim communities probably keep ‘going back’ to the ALP as opposed to the Coalition because former at least offers harbours of genuine hospitality and opportunity, while the latter is closer to a factory of hate.

2. Tony Abbott’s article draws close with one hand, so as to more easily slap Muslims in the face with the other.

I wonder who faces the greater cultural shock: Australians who notice a few women wearing headscarves, or migrants from Muslim countries adjusting to almost complete sexual freedom, gender equality, cultural diversity and commercial laissez faire?

Yes, who who faces the greater cultural shock: we civilized types, or those poor, poor morally backward foreigners who are so trapped within their 7th century bubble that they can bearly comprehend why we are so civilized?

3. Truth be told, Abbott’s article is nothing more than a rippped-off a speech (just shy of being plagiarised) by the ALP Senator John Faulkner on 1st Marsh 2006. The speech reads:

Australia is a young and immigrant nation. From our first settlement, through our Federation, to today, we have grappled with the distinctive challenges that has brought–grappled with the challenges and reaped the rewards. One of the great contributions that the labour movement has made to Australia is our understanding that unity is strength and diversity is wealth. We strive to gain the first without losing the second. We know it is possible to stand together without having to be the same, for our history shows that, when Australians stand side by side, proving their unity without denying their differences, they can do great things, things that live on in our history–at Eureka, in the campaign for the 1967 referendum to recognise the right of Australia’s Indigenous people to full and equal citizenship, at the barricades during the great maritime strike, in the factories during the herculean effort to arm and supply our World War II troops, at Gallipoli and on the Kokoda Track.

Unlike many older nations, our national identity has grown to include all the cultures within our national borders. We all share a fierce loyalty to Australia and a common pride in Australian values: values of a fair go, of not judging a book by its cover, of lending a hand and standing together. Those values are at the core of our national identity. They have been so, unceasingly, despite the tremendous changes our nation has seen.

Negotiating those changes without losing our way has never been easy. Nations, at the best of times, are fragile ideas that depend on the daily goodwill and mutual respect of their citizens. Our ongoing journey is a difficult one. At times when life seems uncertain, the difficulty seems insurmountable. At such times, we can lose sight of our values and our identity. A sense of national crisis can lead to intense suspicion of those whose culture and lifestyle seem alien to the majority.

For example, a part of our community might be regarded as suspect because many were recent immigrants. They put the strictures of their faith above Australian law and recognised a foreigner as their highest authority. Their loyalty and patriotism were suspect, particularly when newspapers published stories of secret training camps in the Blue Mountains for young men planning to fight against Commonwealth forces. Unemployed young men roamed the streets in gangs, and a series of harrowing and brutal gang rapes left many convinced that these immigrants had changed the country forever for the worse. Rather than admit that their culture and religion were at fault, their community leaders blamed discrimination in the legal system. They established separate schools where their religious values were taught and sought to change Australian laws and political institutions. And their families had large numbers of children while more and more Australian women were practising birth control. The name of this threat to Australia? Irish Catholics.

In 19th century Australia, religion and race became synonymous in the language of prejudice and discrimination. Religion provided an alibi. It hid racism under an acceptable antipathy to a religion and culture considered to be fundamentally alien to our Australian values and way of life. And religion provided a shelter and a solace for those who felt excluded or persecuted. Racism, prejudice and resentment grew into a mutual antipathy that scarred Australia for generations.

These days, the idea that Irish Catholics are inimical to Australia’s values is laughable. Indeed, these days the idea of Anglo-Celtic Australia is held up as our foundational national identity. Sectarianism is dead, and I have long regarded that as one of the most positive developments in Australian society in my lifetime. So I am dismayed to see a new sectarianism beginning to emerge.

Once again, the religion and culture of some Australians are being described as fundamentally inimical to Australian values. Once again, the religion and culture of some Australians are being used as an alibi for racism. And what is worse, instead of having a Prime Minister and a government able to show leadership and bolster our great heritage of tolerance, mutual respect and national unity, we have John Howard and Peter Costello. We have Danna Vale and Brendan Nelson. We have opportunistic politicians striking blow after blow at our traditions and values. This assault on Australian values by Mr Howard and his ministers is all about turning Australians of Muslim faith into this generation’s bogeymen, for cheap political gain.

To say that Muslim immigrants are unlike every other wave of immigrants who have enriched Australian political and cultural life, that there is something in Muslim culture that is utterly antagonistic to our society is to ignore that Australian Muslims have ethnic roots in 60 different countries–including England. Muslim countries around the world include Bangladesh, a democratic nation with a female prime minister and a female opposition leader.

That is not to say that Australia has never seen views and values utterly antagonistic to democracy and tolerance. One person — here as a visitor to our nation — called for the replacement of democracy with religious government: at the Parliamentary Prayer Network conference in the Great Hall of this building last year. Another, a pastor of the Catch the Fire ministries — a church addressed by Peter Costello in 2004 — incited members of his congregation to pull down mosques and temples.

I do not hold all Australian Christians responsible for the statements of a few lunatics who want Australia run by the laws of Leviticus. I do not think that these extremist statements are an expression of general Christian values, nor do they indicate that there is anything in Christianity inimical to Australian values. Nor do I think that Muslim extremists who think the only good law is their personal interpretation of strict sharia law are expressing general Muslim culture or Islamic values. To elevate disturbed fringe dwellers of any faith or community to ‘representatives’ is a deliberate attempt to tar the whole of that community with the one brush.

John Howard, Peter Costello and the other dog-whistling members of this government are trying to create a new sectarianism in Australia: a division within our community on the basis of religion and race. They talk loudly of Australian values, but let me tell you: there is nothing less Australian than the attempt to split our society for political gain.

#2 Abu Yusuf on 12.15.06 at 9:51 pm

Tony Abbott has on several occasions spoken thoughtfully about Muslims, from 2003 lecture in the United States on Multiculturalism and recently after the Benedict speech. His views appear to be genuinely held and reasonable.

I read his speech in conjunction with John Faulkner’s and cannot find examples of copying beyond a similarity in theme (which is not unusual as this is the most pressing question in the Western world)

The liberal party has members who make their dislike for Muslims widely known, but there are also others who have taken principled stands, for example Petro Gergiou, Victor Perton, Bruce Baird, John Hewson, Malcom Fraser, John Valder and Tony Abbott.

I think we should appreciate a Howard government minister who has resisted the electoral appeal of bashing Muslims in favor of opening a discussion with them.

Being kind to Muslims is unlikely to win him any additional votes.

#3 E. Mariyani on 12.16.06 at 6:21 am

I’m not saying Abbott is Bronwyn Bishop. No-one would slander him in such a malicious way.

On the other hand, beware politicians bearing gifts. One doesn’t have to be a political genius to figure out what’s happening. Rudd is making the running on a ’softer’, more ‘compassionate’ (more left-wing) spirituality in politics as a political means of differentiating himself from the ‘if-they’re-going-to-criticise-me-then-clerics-can-shut-up’ approach of Howard. On the otherside of the chamber is Costello, who has opted for the ‘if-you’re-openly-Muslim-then-get-out’ path. Abbott is trying to position himself in between the two as a distinguishable alternative in an attempt to gain a foot-hold as a ‘contender’ for Coalition leadership and eventually PMship. There is no point in being naive about the motivations of politicians.

Side-note: the novel comparison between Irish Catholics and Muslisms doesn’t seem to have occurred to Abbott before Faulkner’s speech. The first time Abbott refers to the comparison himself is in response to a question from an ABC Radio journalist:

CHRIS UHLMANN: I’m just wondering whether Lebanese Muslims are becoming the Irish Catholics of the 21st Century. They are caricatured as having divided loyalties, of treating their women badly and huddling around Bankstown.

TONY ABBOTT: Mmm. Ah, the issue is that the Irish in Australia eventually became part of the team. Now, you know, that was partly, they moved, and it was partly, everyone else moved. And I think it’s important for Islamic people in Australia to become part of the team as well.

Certainly that’s what most of them want to do, but there are some radical leaders who seem very resistant to that, including Sheikh Hilali, and I think it’s high time that the Muslim mainstream let those people like Hilali know where they really stand.

Acknowledging sources is a common courtesy (and an Islamic practice), but then again, this is politics.

#4 Abu Yusuf on 12.16.06 at 8:30 am

these are the links for the 2003 speech

http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/n.....aspx?ID=85

and for the “post Benedict” speech

http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/n.....spx?ID=797

I don’t think that naiveté is the issue here, we must look to speak to all those who wish to speak to us, and we should follow the Sunnah of pour Prophet (PBUH) in doing so. Let GOD judge motives

#5 E. Mariyani on 12.17.06 at 1:31 am

Of course God is the judge of the virtue or not of intentions … but it is exceedingly naive to not at least attempt to take into account likely motives lest (1) one effectively treat everyone as behaviourist machines, and (2) one is suckered-in at every opportunity (e.g. I hope you do attempt to take into account motives when thinking about buying a used car).

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