Muslims don't need think tanks to say what's on their mind

Among those interviewed is Citizenship Minister Andrew Robb. Henderson asks numerous questions concerning Robb's experience with the Muslim Community Reference Group.

We learn about what Robb thinks of the group. But which group members has Henderson spoken with? Don't the views of the group's members count?

From this hotch-potch of information, Henderson manages to extract a model to approach the Muslim population. This model consists of eight points, only four of which actually mention Muslims in some way.

Henderson's theory is that government engagement with Muslim communities is a key element of its model in meeting the challenge of radical Islamism. This includes government unwillingness to engage with those Muslim religious figures who fail to uphold core Australian values of citizenship. Among these is Sheik Taj Al-Din Hilali. Henderson claims that the criticisms which Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd levelled at Hilali's January 2007 outburst created a climate in which Muslim Australians felt freer to state their own views than would otherwise have been the case.

In other words, Muslims would have remained silent if the politicians had not made an issue of Hilali.

How Henderson reached this conclusion is anyone's guess. Muslim community leaders have been criticising Hilali for years.

As far back as April 2006, Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Waleed Aly wrote in The Australian newspaper that Hilali remained of more interest to tabloid columnists than to Victorian Muslims, and that for Muslims living outside Sydney the former mufti generated a collective yawn.

Aly has had articles published in numerous newspapers and made numerous statements in the media critical of Hilali. He has been joined by a host of prominent Australian Muslims, including religious leaders.

Even insignificant voices, such as my own, were condemning Hilali well before January 2007. By that time, my criticisms had been published in The Canberra Times, The Daily Telegraph, The New Zealand Herald, Christchurch's The Press, Wellington's The Dominion-Post, Crikey, AltMuslim.com and NewMatilda.com. Henderson's claims that Muslims did not feel free to criticise Hilali before Howard and Rudd spoke out are laughable and show how little he knows about the communities he writes about.

Of course, Henderson has every right to write on such topics. He also has every right to interview whoever he wishes and refer to any or no expert. And his readers have the right to criticise him.

Natural justice demanded that I at least ask Henderson whether there was any reason for him taking the approach he did. I phoned him and asked why he chose not to interview any Muslims or reference group members. He became somewhat irate at this question. Our conversation ended with Henderson saying, "Why don't you go and write some rant for The Canberra Times?"

Here endeth the rant.