Larvatus Prodeo

I’ve had my say on the Hirsi Ali debate over at On Line Opinion. What primarily interested me was the way in which her interventions in Australian politics, and her story, were the subject of some absurdly illogical articles from the punditariat in the MSM - most egregiously irrational, in my view, were the columns from Janet Albrechtsen and Miranda Devine. If we’re going to trumpet the values of “Enlightenment reason”, I think it’s axiomatic that we need to be true to those values. And it seems to me highly significant that while both Albrechtsen and Devine claimed that “the left” condoned the vile practice of female genital mutilation on “culturalist” grounds, they were unable to identify anyone who actually did so. A number of columns were published from members of the Australian Islamic community, but the actual “secular left” was quite absent from the debate conducted in the broadsheet press. In fact, as I suggest, “multiculturalism, properly understood, in a liberal society does not and should not condone any practice, justified by whatever reason, which does such physical and psychological harm.” It does appear to have become part of the political culture of the right wing press to make accusations about “the left” without any foundation in fact, and this sort of symbolic politics of indignation does nothing to address the serious issues that do arise with regard to acts which transgress human rights and does less than nothing to improve the quality of Australian political debate. What we have exemplified in this debate is anything but a rational public sphere.