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Waging a cultural revolutionary war

By Irfan Yusuf - posted Monday, 11 September 2006


September 11, 2001 is seen as the beginning of a new (and very heated) Cold War. Writing in The Australian on August 11, Dr Tanveer Ahmed described politicised Islamic extremism as the new Marxism, an apparently monolithic force at war with an allegedly monolithic West.

Ahmed’s description of politicised Islamic extremism has been broadened by more jaundiced commentators. Addressing a dinner hosted by Quadrant magazine, former “Joh-for-PM” campaigner John Stone referred to “Australia’s Muslim problem” and “the Islamic cancer in our body politic”.

Perhaps more subtly, Canadian theatre critic Mark Steyn warned Sydney-siders in August of the dangers of “resurgent Islam”. He even suggested that the best antidote to conversion was convincing potential converts that it’s better to be Australian or American or British “or even French” than to be Muslim. As if being Western and Muslim were mutually exclusive categories.

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More than September 11, it was last years July 7 London bombings that brought home the real possibility of terrorist threats from home-grown sources. Sadly, such security threats are still used as an excuse to wage a cultural revolutionary war which seeks to replace decades of liberal democratic multi-cultural consensus with an illiberal, almost Soviet-style government-enforced mono-cultural experiment.

All this raises a number of questions. Does the existence of multiple cultures affect national security? If so, to what extent? If integration is an ideal, how should it be implemented? Should governments implement culture? Will the complete integration of all minority groups ensure security risks are minimised?

For the likes of Steyn and Stone, any multiculturalism involving nominally Muslim migrants necessarily represents a security risk. Their generally crude analysis seeks to identify common features allegedly forming an essential part of a monolithic Muslim culture.

Such simplistic formulations are not supported by even anecdotal evidence. In January I witnessed Indonesian Muslim artists perform the Ramayana ballet to a largely Muslim audience in an ancient Hindu temple complex located in the city of Yogyakarta, the cultural heartland of Javanese Islam. Such a performance by Muslims would be deemed sacrilegious in the Indian sub-Continent.

To speak of a single monolithic Muslim culture, whether in Australia or elsewhere, is as absurd as to speak of a single Christian culture. Brazilian Catholics have more in common with Brazilian Muslims than with Lithuanian Catholics. Lebanese Muslims have more in common with Lebanese Maronites than with South African Muslims.

If culture and terror were related, security officials should keep close watch on a range of communities. Writing in the Canberra Times on September 9, ANU Researcher Clive Williams provides a litany of terrorist incidents going back to 1868 when a Victorian Irishman belonging to a predecessor organisation to the IRA shot the visiting Duke of Edinburgh.

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Recent incidents include the 1980 assassination of the Turkish Consul-General and his bodyguard by Armenian extremists believed to be protected by local Armenians. The same group struck again about six years later in Melbourne.

Other groups believed to be responsible for terrorist attacks include the Ananda Marga sect and the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood. Muslim involvement in terrorist incidents includes deportation of Mohammad Hassanein in 1996 for attempting to attack local Jewish community targets.

Terrorism is hardly a mono-cultural affair, either in Australia or elsewhere. Hence, simplistic remarks by the Prime Minister about some Muslims refusing to integrate display a profound ignorance of the history, politics and motivations of terrorist groups.

Howard has rarely shown much sophistication in his understanding of Australia’s non-Western cultures. One of his former staffers, conservative columnist Gerard Henderson, commented on this in the Melbourne Age on May 25, 2004. Henderson wrote of “the one significant blot on [Howard’s] record in public life … a certain lack of empathy in dealing with individuals with whom he does not identify at a personal level: for example, Asian Australians in the late 1980s and asylum seekers in the early 21st century”.

Howard has repeatedly claimed Muslim migrants to be a new wave of migration, separate from Asian and European migration waves of the mid to late 20th centuries. This is historical revisionism at its worst, and most unbecoming of a leader so intent on our school children being taught “accurate” history.

One needn’t be a professor of history or demography to know that Muslims have been represented in all major waves of migration during the 20th century. For instance, post-war European migration included significant numbers of Yugoslav, Albanian, Turkish, Cypriot and Middle Eastern Muslim migrants.

The first book on Islamic theology published in Australia was authored by Imam Imamovic, a Brisbane-based writer from the former Yugoslavia who wrote his book in the early part of the 20th century. The first mosque built in Sydney, known as the Sydney Mosque, was established by Turks in the Inner-Western suburb of Erskenville during the 1950’s.

On ABC TV’s Four-Corners aired to coincide with the September 11 attacks, Howard repeats his claim that a small section of Muslim communities refuses to integrate. He goes further, saying: “And I would like the rest of the Islamic community to join the rest of the Australian community in making sure that the views and attitudes of that small minority do not have adverse consequences.”

Howard’s ambiguous reference to “adverse consequences” is most unhelpful. His inability to identify precisely what these consequences are means he cannot identify exactly how “the rest of the Australian community” have been working.

Presuming adverse consequences means security threats, Howard’s comments reflect a profound and fundamental ignorance of efforts made by Muslim communities to combat extremism, including individual Muslims reporting suspicious behaviour to authorities. Howard’s views contrast with those expressed by law enforcement officials (including Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty) that Muslim efforts have been crucial in catching suspects and averting terrorist attacks.

Perhaps the real problem is that Howard insists putting ordinary Muslims in a lose-lose situation. He has hand-picked a small number of Muslims to advise him as part of a “Muslim Community Reference Group”. His choice of Muslims is dominated by men of his own generation who are generally as out-of-touch with mainstream Muslims as he is.

Howard’s choice of Muslim advisers is reflective of his choice of Muslim “leaders” joining him for a summit in August 2005. Howard’s leaders were dominated by first generation migrant males of Howard’s age group, men who routinely exclude and alienate women and youth from community management roles.

It seems Howard wants to have the right to select which Muslims he talks to, and then reserves the right to criticise all Muslims should his chosen Muslims say the wrong things. If Howard were genuine about involving Muslim communities in decision-making on combating extremism, he might appoint mainstream Muslims who have made their mark on mainstream Australia, even if it means appointing people who will effectively challenge his views on culture and security.

If Howard were serious about national security, he might also consider following the lead of his Deputy. Peter Costello has shown a far more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between culture and national security. Costello understands it isn’t the wrong culture that presents a security threat. Rather, it is the absence of genuinely Islamic culture which is the problem.

In his February address to the Sydney Institute, Costello spoke of young Muslims in “a twilight zone where the values of their parents’ old country have been lost but the values of the new country not fully embraced”.

Further Costello has emphasised on the need for Muslim religious leaders to provide a greater degree of pastoral care to converts, saying leaders should “make it clear to would-be converts that when you join this religion you do not join a radical political ideology”.

Costello’s remarks, though crude and inaccurate in some senses, display a more sophisticated understanding of how the relative ignorance and zeal of young people and converts can be trapped by fringe extremists. Costello doesn’t see Islam itself as a problem, nor does he make any claims about Muslim cultures. He is more concerned with ensuring ordinary sincere Australian Muslims are not manipulated by foreign extremists.

Of course, it is easy for Muslim leaders to blame politicians for their woes. I believe Muslim leaders should be selective in how they respond, particularly to Howard’s ill-considered remarks. Muslim leaders should display more political sophistication, and appreciate that Howard’s rhetoric is probably more determined by interest rates and the unpopularity of his industrial relations laws than by any concern for the nation’s cultural health or security.

Muslim leaders should seize upon Howard’s admission that at least 99 per cent of Muslim Australians are fully integrated. It is difficult to fund similar endorsement of any other ethnic or faith community in Australia. It certainly flies in the face of infantile commentary often found in metropolitan tabloids.

Muslim leaders of Mr Howard’s generation should heed the lesson that Mr Howard refuses to heed. They should step down when alternative and effective leadership is available. Muslim organisations are in desperate need of generational change. Younger Muslims, including and especially women, must form part of this change.

Articulate Muslim women are far more capable of effecting positive change for Muslim women than neurotic feminists and cultural chauvinists that congregate on the op-ed pages of allegedly Australian newspapers. Muslim women need to come forward and take their rightful place as leaders of Muslim Australia. Their voices need to be heard, and they need to take control of decision making on issues affecting them and all women.

Further, Muslims need to ensure that a diversity of Muslim voices are heard from across the cultural, sectarian, gender and political divide. There is no reason why debates within the Muslim community cannot be discussed in the public arena where followers of other traditions can share their experiences.

In this respect, Muslim leaders must continue to strengthen their ties with their Jewish brethren. Australian Jews share profound cultural and religious similarities with Australian Muslims, who can learn much from Jewish experience in terms of community structure and infrastructure development.

Finally, Muslims need to invest a good amount of time and money in decent PR. They need to ensure that Australians are made aware of Muslim values to the extent that irrelevant middle-aged male politicians are no longer able to claim that Muslims should ensure their women are treated with as much disdain as Mr Howard’s faction of the NSW Liberal Party treats female preselection candidates.

Ordinary Australians do have legitimate fears about security. They have even greater fears about rising home loan interest rates, conservative opposition to life-saving scientific research and workplace relations policies that remove job security. One way we can address these real issues is if Muslims allay Australian fears about Islam. In doing so, we can ensure governments cannot shirk their responsibilities by hiding behind the sound of dog whistles.

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About the Author

Irfan Yusuf is a New South Wales-based lawyer with a practice focusing on workplace relations and commercial dispute resolution. Irfan is also a regular media commentator on a variety of social, political, human rights, media and cultural issues. Irfan Yusuf's book, Once Were Radicals: My Years As A Teenage Islamo-Fascist, was published in May 2009 by Allen & Unwin.

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