In terms of the “debate” over immigration and multiculturalism, two interesting events occurred last night. The ABC’s Q&A had as a panelist Ian Nelson, Queensland State Director of One Nation. And Liberal Immigration Shadow Scott Morrison had to persist with a motion on asylum seekers he himself had set down for debate in Parliament after attempts to quietly withdraw it failed.
A very fine line was obviously being walked on Qanda, but it seemed as if the intent was to expose One Nation’s rhetoric as empty, contradictory and prejudicial. Barnaby Joyce was clearly very uncomfortable.
Simultaneously, the purveyors of increasingly bizarre anti-Muslim rhetoric from within the Coalition – such as Cory Bernardi and Kevin Andrews – are increasingly being left out on a limb.
Talk about “political correctness” and “free speech” accompanied the entry into politics of Pauline Hanson. Yet what this story has always been about – in large part – is the attempt of the state to contain discourse about cultural and religious difference within certain bounds in order to maintain social peace. Those limits may now be being reinforced. It will be interesting to see.
NB: Previous discussion on LP here and here.
Elsewhere: Michael Brull at The Drum.
The bounds of discourse can only be reached when you include targeted populations in the discussion. Until then, it’s just a bunch of old white guys sitting on a panel on television lording it over the rest of us. It means nothing.
“A very fine line was obviously being walked on Qanda, but it seemed as if the intent was to expose One Nation’s rhetoric as empty, contradictory and prejudicial. Barnaby Joyce was clearly very uncomfortable.”
I think it was more to show how closely linked the Lib’s rhetoric has become to One Nation, as bolstered by Ian Wilson happily agreeing that the Libs had stolen One Nation policies. Hence Joyce looking so uncomfortable and claiming that it was a bit of an ambush. Should have seen that one coming, Barnaby.
It did seem a bit of a freak show. Living in Melbourne, it was a reminder that there are politicians out there who think like Wilson. That rhetoric has never gained traction down South and I’m not sure why.
Joyce was so rude to Tim Flannery. It wasn’t a good look. It may play well in St. George, but not so sure how it goes down in other places.
I found Bligh’s neverending supply of charm a bit irritating, but I see why she behaves like that.
You didn’t see the young, black woman tt?
I wish she’d got to say a bit more.
The One Nation plonker was a racist areshole with the intelect of a gnat.
I reject the claim that Mr Joyce looked uncomfortable. Nor do I think he was rude to Prof Flannery.
@3 The young lady was given plenty of opportunites add her voice to the discussion but only managed to roll out a few lame platitudes that did nothing to contribute to the discussion.
“The One Nation plonker was a racist areshole with the intelect of a gnat.”
…whose rhetoric and policies are being lifted by the Libs.
The “young lady” was asked very few questions and cut through well when she got the chance.
“When I want I paleontologist I’ll invite you” – a churlish and ignorant thing to say to anyone. Joyce claims he has an open mind, yet only invites climate change deniers to speak in his electorate. He’s the perfect example of someone whose mind is so open his brains have fallen out.
Kim, I think it’s much more interesting to what extent discourses of State multiculturalism, and the level to which the capital-N Nation deals officially with difference are set by the ruling Party in Government and enforced as a bipartisan consensus.
I’ve been reading Chris Bowen’s recent speech on multiculturalism, and there’s nothing in it that wouldn’t have been found in any of the speeches made by Immigration Ministers going back to the 1970s—including the Howard era Ministers. It’s an entirely unexceptional set of motherhood statements except for what he’s got to say about bipartisanship. For right or wrong, I think he’s correct to say that the Australian model of State multiculturalism works because it’s unquestioned within the two-Party system. John Howard’s Immigration Ministers really did advance some fairly wide-reaching changes to the way Australian multiculturalism was articulated—thinking not just about “we shall decide who comes here and the circumstances”, but in particular of the throttling of the power of constituted ethnic lobby groups ie. FECCA. Labor, who’d made such use of them, had to come along for the policy ride, because who wants to be seen as being partisan when it comes to multiculturalism?
What’s out of the ordinary in Scott Morrison’s case is that he’s made a specific attempt as a Shadow Minister to try to reframe a national position on religious tolerance without squaring it with the other side first. His mistake hasn’t been to step outside the bounds of discourse (because it’s really quite difficult to do), it’s been to step wide while not in Government.
GetUp has a campaign to end mandatory detention of children. Donate here
Scott Morrison was Liberal Party campaign director for the very successful 2004 election campaign. Prior to that he was head of Tourism Australia, so after a career like that in public relations he knows how to communicate.
Phoney Tony supported Pauline Hanson’s rise to Federal Parliament as a Liberal member. Her chief of staff Mike Oldfield [not Tubular Bells fame - the other one] transferred from Tony’s office to her
David Oldfield, Bille. Thence into the crossbench of the NSW Legislative Council, and from there into the night shift in Sydney talkback radio land, where there be dragons, monsters, and beasts.
@6 – I don’t think we’re in much disagreement there, Liam. I’m interpreting the state in this instance as broader than the government of the day, and including strong pressure for bipartisanship. I think you’re spot on.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Liberals aren’t being leaned on by business supporters, who know this sort of thing is:
(a) bad for biz;
(b) bad for biz’ chances of getting its preferred policy agenda up.
I cant understand the excitement over Q&A amongst the many progressives, last nights show was a case in point. Key panelists virtually ignored in favour of predictable and contrived questions about immigration directed at Barnaby Joyce and some One nation bigot I have never heard of. Boring and mostly embarressing for the rest of the panel who may have contributed some interesting ideas if they had been asked about anything relevant to their interests or expertise. Is this the ABC’s attempts at populism? Does Tony Jones want to be the next Ray Martin? full of sneer and almost amusing asides, but not much substance. He really has become a ‘host’ rather than an interviewer or journalist.
‘Fine’ I have never heard of Ian Nelson, neither has anyone I talk to. One Nation are a marginal mostly agrarian based group full of ex Nats who left once the Nats took the nightie off and jumped into bed with the Libs. They dont have a serious foothold in this state, and the only reason they dont exist in Victoria and most of NSW is that Vic. particularly has no ‘regional’ areas its all too close to the big smoke!
I was actually rather impressed by QandA last nite.
The first 5 minutes really irritated me tho, and by the look on her face, Gina Castelain as well. I was disgusted that the first 5 minutes were given to the 2 rednecks, it seemed as if they were ignoring her.
- Razor
Yeah OK. I think she said far more with a few words than you’re capable of hearing. She carried herself with a lot more dignity than the twit on her right.
One thing. The audience last night … they … kind of made me proud (some of them anyway). I really got the sense that there are a lot of people who are sick of this bigoted racist garbage, and they took every opportunity to express it vocally. They laughed at the prick from one nation. And that guy, Yehya El Kholed, that was great to see, the way he confronted Nelson with what that vile crap actually means for people.
Usually I don’t think much of QandA at all. Last night I thought it worked.
Yeah, and it was nice to watch him squirm. Sure they set the jerks up, but only cos they gave them a platform in front of humans with a bit of heart. Those clowns were condemned by their own words imo, and to say there is something wrong with that … well tough Barnaby, its a free country, we don’t have to like the bile just cos someone spewed it.
There hasn’t been enough of this in the Australian media lately. For all its problems with bigotry the Australia I grew up in wasn’t as foul as One Nation’s bullshit. It was moving in the opposite direction as fast as it could. My brother was at my place last nite, and we were talking about what it was like back then, growing up. Even by those standards this bigoted anti immigunt stuff is simply unAustralian.
Billie – not a lot of love lost between Abbott and One nation though after he helped bring them down.
I’d have to agree with verity violet, although I only got through about a third before turning it off in disgust.
It’s the general air of contrivance clumsily disguised as spontaneity that gets to me.
All the questions have been carefully vetted beforehand to extract maximum controversy and disagreement from the participants. I guess that’s the ABC’s idea of ‘adventures in democracy’.
As to the wider point, the usual dire commentators in the MSM such as Paul Sheehan and Gerard Henderson (not to mention the even viler News Ltd versions) are doing their best to ensure the erosion of any hitherto agreed limits.
Muslims are mostly great, the same way as people anywhere of any race/colour/creed are mostly great.
Having read the Koran and Hadith and associated commentaries it is pretty plain that Islam is a stinker of an ideology. Yeah, there are some nice bits, but thoroughly applied, its horrid.
TEH LEFT and many liberals (small ‘l’) are in general denial or miscomprehension about how nasty Islam is, preferring to believe that the Jihadists have a corrupted or fake view of Islam. Unfortunately, the Jihadists have it right about what they believe.
Only approx 10-15% of Muslims support Jihadist Islam. The vast majority are too decent, or less indoctrinated, to appropriate the brutality of Koranic Islam.
Like the majority of Christians, most Muslims have only a nominal rather than committed adherence to their religion, or a pick and choose approach to what bits they care to practice.
Most Muslims will assimilate to Liberal Democracies fine, some will resist to the point of Jihad, and that approach will be supported by about 1 in 8 Muslims.
Susan Carland, wife of Waleed Aly, both absolutely not Jihadist, gave an interview to Malaysia’s Star newspaper in which she said that converts to Islam are routinely and persistently advised to sever ties with the general Australian community, a practice she disapproves of.
She said:
The newbies are asked to give up hobbies like painting, photography, dancing or playing instruments. They’re advised to move out and sever ties with their kafir (infidel) family and non-Muslim friends, while female converts are urged to get married as soon as possible [to Muslim men - Barra]
Bernardi and Morrison, and the Lib/Nats in general keep saying ‘we need to debate Muslim immigration’, but they never properly do. They just want to Dogwhistle.
The debate about Muslim immigration, in my view, needs to discriminate between Islam and Muslims. Bernadi and Morrison want to conflate Islam, Muslims and crime. like Bernardi here.
The anti-civil nature of Islam means that with Muslim immigration you inevitably get a minority that support Jihadist tactics and a larger surrounding group that reject assimilation.
Those are the costs of Muslim immigration. I am not sure if this is outweighed by the benefits.
Was interested to see Anna Bligh explain that Qld is a self insurer because its the most cost effective. So is the Commonwealth, no insurance covers roads. Wished Ally Moore on Lateline had persued Senator Xenephon when he brought up the story that we needed to raise a levy because Qld too mismanaged to organise insurance like any normal prudent householder does. The mining companies, Coles are self insurers for worker compensation claims.
Was annoyed that climate change got such a limited amount of air space.
Billie – would it still be cost effective for qld to self insure if the fed govt didn’t already pick up 75% of the repair bill? Interesting that other states do insure
Fine @5
and the perfect comeback would have been
“Well if I wanted an accountant, I wouldn’t ask you!”
but he’s too much of a gentleman.
@14 – baraholka, I’d be very wary of drawing that distinction. Very wary indeed. Aside from assimilating all Muslims together as if there are no differences (apart from the ‘Islamists’) and in fact assuming that the most important fact to know about anyone who has Islam as their religion is that, it’s clearly based on quite an artificial separation which logically agrees with Islamists that there is but one single way or truth.
@2 –
Oh, I do agree, Fine.
Goes with my thesis that it’s part of an attempt to pull back on this stuff, and rein in the Libs and Nats.
Chris,
NSW and Vic are smaller geographic areas with more benign climate. They may have more infrastructure that can be insured
NSW all those tunnels on the suburban railways
Or perhaps the states that take out insurance are being inefficient
So? So do the Lubavitchers. So do Catholic nuns, but Mary McKillop’s probably going to wind up on a banknote someday. Allowing people to associate with those people they want to, and not associate with people they don’t, isn’t multiculturalism—it’s just bog-standard freedom of association, a basic principle of liberalism.
Also, Daniel Pipes, it needs to be said, has nothing fair whatsoever to say about anything religious, and deserves to be shunned from every conversation about Islam, Israeli foreign policy, the Iraq war and the Middle East in general.
Exactly, Liam – taking the word of a prominent American neo-con to analyse developments in Australia isn’t a good start.
Baraholka, if, according to your source, “only approx 10-15% of Muslims support Jihadist Islam”, on what basis do you conclude that Jihadist Islam is the ‘real’ Islam?
That would leave approximately 85-90% of people who call themselves Muslim — which is, I would remind you, about 900 million people — practicing something that you reckon isn’t “real Islam”.
I’m prepared to accept the views of the 85-90% (ie around 900 MILLION people) who call themselves Muslims as being representative of the ‘real’ Islam.
The guy with the machine guns ranting on videotapes in caves, not so much.
You obviously have much higher standards than I, however.
Billie, David Oldfield is now the Mornings host of 2UE in Sydney. A prime shift in Australia’s largest city. Scary that someone so evil now has so much power.
Roger Jones said:
Interestingly though, Bob Carter and Ian Plimer, whom Joyce feted are types of geologist so not “climatologists” — and in Carter’s case, like Flannery, he has published in paleontology.
Really though, the objection is a semantic one because climatology is multi-disciplinary, and paleontology is certainly a relevant discipline along with many of the others.
Flannery should have asked Joyce which scientific disciplines he thought were pertinent to climatology.
Joyce also verballed Flannery, claiming that Flannery had asserted that it would never again rain in Brisbane. That kind of outrageous claim is something that ought to be slapped down on the spot, and Joyce exposed for the reckless motor mouth in the service of pollution-as-usual that he is.
Perhaps you have things back to front Mercurius?
What can be clearly understood from Islam is that the strict reading of the hadiths and the koran constitues the proper approach to living as the prophet dictated.
You don’t get to choose – divergence is apostacy and punishable.Ask any Sufi.
For example the hypocrisy of the Saudi ruling elite is just that- bare two faced hypocrisy.
It isn’t an acceptable alternative, a sort of ‘hey , be cool, let’s all accept that this is open to interpretation’.
Of the 900 million most would not be correctly conducting themselves as pious muslims.
Islam strictly adhered to defines every action in every facet of life.
With regard to how acceptable an automatic wish to be supported by but exluding all other influence from the rest of the public in Australia is as a potential migrant – well it might give some pause for thought.
Generally I agree with Liam though, if you accept freedom of association (as long as they abide by the laws of the land ) then excluding yourself from others is a choice some will make.
murph the surf,
And how many Christians, do you think, are correctly conducting themselves as pious Christians according to the lights of the militant Christianist fundamentalists?
I’m as keen as anybody to keep a watch on religious fundamentalists/extremists, but I don’t care which religion they adhere to, only that they view it as their pious duty to force others to follow their narrow interpretations of the rules. And the first target of their attempts to dominate others are always the moderates of their own faith, because they want to consolidate before they extend the domination to the infidels.
The extremists/fundamentalists will always be with us, but they will always be aberrant, not the norm. Treating co-religionists harshly or mistrustfully just based on the narrow views/goals of extremists is not logical, no matter how emotionally appealing it might be.
I’m just interested by how many non-Muslims are apparently such great experts on its doctrines and practices. Surely people pronouncing on the true nature of Islam would have spent years studying comparative religion, or in close association with Islamic communities?
No need to be a smartarse Kim – I wouldn’t bother commenting if I hadn’t spent many years reading about islam and the arabs.
And likewise Tigtog the point of the comment is reflecting on the suitabilty of a migrant who may state upfront that the society they are moving to is unacceptable and yet they want to move to such a place.
The comparisons to christians is unnecesary and vexatious – they could be hindus so why display your own selectivity in this way?
Fundamentalists per se are fine as migrants to me but then I don’t think I represent a majority view.
I was a little surprised to see Tony Windsor also make a negative allusion to Hansonism influencing Coalition policy.
Must be that the late Peter Andren talked him out of his original ‘any enemy of the major parties is my friend’ ideology. He was big for that in 2001 when he was first elected to the Reps.
Murph, all you’ve done is repeat the assertion of the fundamentalists — that their fundamentalism is the one, true, Islam. You’re begging the question.
And 85-90% of Muslims disagree with you and the fundamentalists. And have done since the time of Mohammad. The hadith wouldn’t have ever come into being if the meaning and intention of the Koran was so obvious it requires no interpretation.
The question I had for Baraholka, and it seems you too, is why are you so ready to accept the fundamentalists’ word for it?
And, a corollary, why are you so quick to reject the lived experience of hundreds of millions of people, who are quite prepared to identify as Muslims, even though they’re just not ‘pious’ enough for you and the Wahhabists?
Same with Judaism. Which is why there are probably about five people in the entire world who actually live by the laws of Leviticus.
Every religion, every social group has its %%%%%-than-thou fundamentalists. You get holier-than-thou, lefter-than-thou, greener-than-thou, Jewisher-than-thou…wherever you go.
Doesn’t make them representative.
Doesn’t make them paragons.
Doesn’t make them right.
And if you base your entire analysis on the far-end of the bell curve, and ignore everybody who’s inside two standard deviations of the mean of behaviours — well, your analysis is gonna be a bunch of crud, mate.
Billie @20 – sure, but with the old govt only responsible for 25% of the rebuild cost that would have influenced at what point it’s cost effective for the old govt to insure. According to Xenophon, the qld govt were offered insurance for 50 million/year. maybe not cost effective your rebuild cost is a billion dollars because of e fed govt contribution, but what if that was removed and you need to take into account a 4 billion dollar rebuild cost?
That’s jackshit, Mercurius.
You want to know what Catholicism is you go and ask the Pope.
You don’t do an opinion poll of nominal Catholics who might just turn up in a church at Christmas and Easter.
You want to know what Islam is you go to a strict reading of the hadiths and the koran.
Unless your chosen position is to treat religions other than your own with contempt.
Mercurious I’m not trying to define acceptable practice – it is the way acceptable practice is defined by the authorities either from the centres of learning or the ayatollahs.
Put it this way – you are free to start the Church of Mercurious but don’t be surprised if the Pope is not interested.The existing bodies of knowledge and thought in major religions need to be recognised as having a relevant role in how each faith describes itself.
No one could disagree with your observation that most self identified muslims are living a less that religiously strict life.And it doesn’t carry any value – this mass of believers aren’t active in their faith or trying to extend the limits of understanding of their faith.
I do accept that the fundamentalists of any faith have a right to express what they believe is the correct set of precepts for a holy life.
It isn’t a conflict for me nor do I automatically see fundamentalism as a threat.They certainly aren’t right and nowhere have I written they are – nor are they paragons.Rather they have the same rights we all have , not more not less.
But what does the Australian public expressing it’s thoughts through the democratic process think about this issue? Is a self identified fundamentalist of any faith going to be a suitable migrant?
Any Sufi?
“The Arabs”; this is a riot!
Ohh, so that’s how I should do it! (It’s a shame, I would’ve thought questioning a range of ‘rank and file’ Catholics would give me a far better understanding of Catholics as a group, and of modern Catholicism, than interrogating the Pope, but I’m living in Greg-land now, so…) Thanks Greg. I better go query Islam’s current Pope. Should I try the Yellow Pages? Under ‘popes’, perhaps?
Chris what is the virtue in over insurance – its a waste of money
Just for you James T- a reading suggestion – “The History of the Arab Peoples”.
GregM:
That’s what the fundamentalists claim. I’m curious as to why you accept their claim.
Muslims have only debated this question among themselves for 1400 years. How come after 1400 year of argumentation, the fundamentalists have failed to convince 85-90% of Muslims, but you accept their claims so readily?
I really want to know, honestly.
That’s funny coming from someone who didn’t bother with capital letters for Hadith and Koran.
I see that you and Murph have brought up the Pope and Catholicism as a rebuttal. That’s a curious lens through which to view this issue. Catholicism is practically unique amongst religions in having an acknowledged authority that dictates dogma. Neither Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or any other major religion work that way. No centralised authority. Religious questions are debatable, and debated, all the time — (and even among Catholics! Shhh!) — your view of religious authority is incomplete, inaccurate and unsatisfactory. It’s a caricature, and a false and crude one at that.
Murph:
Murph, you’re begging the question, again. Your line of argument fails the reality test. It denies the lived experienced of most of the people about whom you are purporting to offer an analysis. It fails at the first basic hurdle of ethnographic understanding.
I’m surprised you can’t see the self-referential problem with your position — you’re making a claim that the fundamentals of the religion are based in text — based on your own reading about Islam. Your method privileges text over experience — it’s a epistemic bias that you have thus far failed to justify.
However much you might have read about Islam or Muslims is about as useful a guide to understanding lived experience as reading a description of a sunset, or a review of a play, or the score of Beethoven’s Ninth.
Catholicism is not Christianity in its entirety. You can’t compaare one part of Christian belief with the whole of Islam. Just as different Christian sects interpret the Bible differently, so do different sects of Islam. A Sufi interprets the Koran differently to a Salafist, same Koran, same Hadith. The most extreme interpretation are the Takfiri which the vast majority of Muslims reject as a deviation from Islam. The Takfiri will use exactly the same reference sources as a Sufi. Just like Fred Phelps preaching hate preaches from the same bible as the Uniting Church.
Let me try another tack:
I mean, Murph still can’t spell my name right, and he must’ve read it dozens of times by now, in many threads.
Do you see the problem with text, now?
Billie @ 37 – I think this more a question of whether the other states in the future should have to help pay for repairs when qld has the opportunity to get insurance and at the same time the other states do insure. I’m not arguing that self insurance doesn’t sometimes make sense. Hey if the govt offered to cover 75% of repairs to my house or car for free I’d be tempted to self insure as well!
I think this is probably where you went off course originally, Baraholka. Islam isnt an ideology. Islamism is.
Religions call for faith and ritual. Ideologies call for action.
I think you barked up the wrong tree early in the piece here.
@murph the surf:
I grew up as a baptised Christian surrounded by a culture which identified itself as Christian – I know Christianity in a way that I cannot claim to know Hinduism. Why should I choose a religious culture I don’t know instead of the one that I do know?
However, I’m happy to apply exactly the same wary and jaundiced criteria to Hindu fundamentalists/extremists as I am to Christian/Buddhist/Confucianist/Muslim/Zorastrian/Asatru/Jewish/Pharaohnic/Druid/Olympian fundamentalists/extremists. Happy now?
@GregM:
You know, you’re not equating apples and oranges there.
On a similarly strict reading of the Bible as you advocate for the Hadiths and the Qu’uran, Roman Catholicism falls down all over the place. Just ask any Southern Baptist inerrantist.
I used to moderate the USENet forum alt.bible.errancy – what certain Protestant fundamentalists thought of the Pope and Roman Catholicism would curl your toenails. Should their fringe minority opinion be what we base/judge “true” Christianity on, in your opinion?
The serious problem for me, which has nothing to do with the the practicalities of for example immigration law, is not to be found at the extremes of religious thinking.
Merc is correct, when he identifies the extremists as being the minority and so I just want to leave them to one side for the moment.
The problem with even main-stream religion is when you take an issue like Euthanasia (hope I’m not treading on too many toes with this) and reflexively turn it into a moral issue. A more intimate issue would be the “sexualisation” of a society– which is an issue about which there should be political discussion, but political discussion can not occur in a (religiously-) moral context.
Religion is a doctrine in the sense that it is a mode of thinking which wrt many topics is restrictive and which makes communication with people outside your religion really difficult.
An example of this is neighbours of ours, who I remember saying, ‘politician so-and-so can be trusted, he’s a Christian.’ That is to say, there is a differentiation between for example Rudd and Abbott, but they are both inherently trustworthy, because they are (in this case) Christian.
Societies problems cannot be solved by religion. The subset of ideas in religion about how to live with one another and from which we inherent many of our laws etc. does not need to be dressed up in religious jargon. These ideas have already stood up to a long history of rigorous debate.
Is it just me or has ‘Q&A’ become repetitive, tedious, uninteresting and basically boring. The roll call of basically the same old voices on the panel and the repetitive mundanity of the questions even sends my dog to sleep. It is as though the ABC minions vet all the questions to fit some topical mold … but it seems like mould as have been the same for so long! Maybe the should have a panel of: Ben Elton, Ricky Nixon, Troy Buswell, .. and Piers Ackerman!
It was just nice to see Barnaby set up so beautifully. Squirming next to the One Nation wing-nut-job.
No James. As Mercurius points out “Catholicism is practically unique amongst religions in having an acknowledged authority that dictates dogma.” For islam , as is Murph’s point, you go to the koran and the hadiths for authority. You make of them whatever you can. As Mercurius has observed, what they mean has been a source of debate among muslims for 1400 years.
However you don’t duck and weave and pretend that they are not there.
Not my argument at all. I have said that if you want to know catholicsm is you go ask the pope, not protestant fundamentalists. Although I am sure that they have fun views of him and whether his religion is christian at all.
Yet within the Catholic communion, worship and liturgy are very, you might say extremely, heterodox, even in the 21st century. Universality across culture’s rather… the point of Catholicism. What other Church could encompass the Maronites, Rose Bay nuns, Christopher Pearson, Fr. Ted Kennedy, South American liberation theologists, Irish whiskey priests, Mexican indigenous-ised Catholicism, the American Catholic Workers, Latin tridentinists, the Jesuits, the Christian Brothers, Opus Dei and my parents’ suburban church in Sydney? If you want to know what Catholicism is in the modern world the Vatican is simply a starting point of doctrine and a punisher of heresy, not an end to debate.
The authority about migration to Australia is the Migration Act 1958, but there’s a hell of a lot more to it than the legislation. Just ask any migration agent.
The Book comes with thousands of years of commentary, scholarship and exigesis which, in part, instruct the faithful on how to read them in the context of their lives and tradition, just like any other set of contested documents. Which you’re familiar with, right?
Naaah, but a Fundamentalist Church of Shakespeare would be orright.
Just think – all that cross-dressing and swiving in Verona would be a religious obligation!
The Bard spaketh thus!
Although, such a Church would have an interminably equivocal position on suicide, and indeed it seems that bloody revenge would be permitted under certain aggravating circumstances.
Clearly this Cult of the Bard are a threat to stable society. Any strict reading of their script will reveal the dark, subversive, true heart of the Bard and his followers.
I call upon our government to thoroughly investigate any prospective migrants who are Bardists, and treat them with due suspicion and hostility. If we don’t stop them now, we’ll all be speaking Elizabethan English in two generations.
It’s for our own good.
Mercurius sorry for any offence you have taken at the incorrect spelling of your moniker.
Your comment about a reality test is a point I’ll just continue to disagree with you about.
Running through much islamic thinking is the desire to return to the first days , the time of the first 4 prophets.This is a rejection of the concept that modernirty has enhanced the lives of believers.
While many don’t have the capacity to fulfill this preferred ideal it is the ubiquity of the striving that could be seen as a unifying force.
Certainly they are a population that could be assessed in a way that distributes them along a bell curve but the factors chosen to generate your Y-axis aren’t necessarily going to be something the population in question would recognise.
Assessing the presence of a desire to be a better person of faith might find a very different pattern emerge.
In the last comment I have to ask for an indulgence – the Y-axis is the horizontal one I hope!
That’s a whopping assertion, Murph. That’s not just about what you or I can read in English translations of the Quran—that’s a statement about its interpretation by the faithful, which I assume neither one of us are.
Nothing unique about that.
Try this:
This amended statement describes Protestant Christianity perfectly.
However this:
Is a pack of nonsense. What sort of “modernity” are you talking about here? For example, Luther railed against the “modern” practices of the Catholic Church. Was Luther anti-modernist? Does that mean that all good Lutherans are anti-modernist.
Toss that broad brush away Murph, you are incapable of wielding it effectively.
And for the sources of your thinking, pay attention to David Cameron’s owning up on behalf of the West to anti-Islamic racism.
Because your essentialist arguments are racist.
Liam,
I realise the problem of this argument, but to be facetious, everyone knows that:
murph is making a generalisation, whether or not he’s Muslim is not really important, I would of thought. Would you prefer it if he was a Muslim? Would that make the statement more persuasive or even truthful?
Joe, as you say it’s a statement of a broad generalisation about belief and practice, and rather a pejorative one, so I’d say insider membership was rather important.
For the same reasons JPZ and other Americans get cross when Australians on this site make broad generalisations about the United States, or the reasons feminist women on the site get cross when blokes make broad generalisations about what feminists have to say about topics x, y or z.
It’d demonstrate sensitivity and familiarity, which is rather more important IMO than truth in discussions of religion on the internet.
Liam it isn’t perjorative at all and I don’t wish to do much more than share what I have read at various sources.
The comparisons to christianity might help some but they are other people’s arguments not mine so I’ll just steer away from this sort of compariosn.
As for the modernity – well I think you can rest assured Katz that the fundamentalists we are discussing would reject anything after about 800AD. It also seems unnecessarily harsh to say others can’t discuss this idea when it is an active idea for others.You might think it unuseful but isn’t part of the problem here a lack of tolerance of difference?
Politics is such an ugly buiness I’ll leave my superiors to dissect and comment of the self interested revelations of those they see as modern day prophets.
Well Liam,
They’re certainly interesting observations! Are you catholic?!!
I do think though Murph, that one of the things to keep in mind is that a large majority of Muslims live in fairly undeveloped societies, something over which they themselves don’t have a whole lot of control over. This alone can probably explain much of what you’ve said above.
Maybe if the future looked a bit more positive for Muslims Arabs there interpretation of the prophets might change?
Depends, Joe. Are you asking me, or the Pope? You’re going to get very different answers.
OMG- serendipity!!
He exists! All praise the bard.
Anyway Liam,
I want to know what you think you are and what you think a Catholic is, if they’re not the same. Are you a subset of Catholicism or is there no relationship to the missionary priests in Mexico etc.
Is the pope Catholic?
Murph, it is very interesting to talk about modernism and anti-modernism.
But, as I implied above, first it is useful to define what you mean by those terms. See my parallel with Lutheranism as an example. Are Lutherans anti-modernists?
I didn’t see the latest QANDA, but check out the comment thread on this Herald Sun story about a report on racist attitudes in Australia. (For a more sensible, less spittle-flecked account, see Ross Gittins in today’s AGE.) There’s the usual tsunami of complains about Political Correctness Gorn Too Far. As usual, they all equate “freedom to say what I think” as “freedom to say what I think and not be criticised for it”. Or, the “Freedom of speech for me, shut up you!” argument.
It’s also interesting to see the immediate narrow focus on “fundamentalist Islam” as if 1) all Muslims = fundamentalist, 2) there are no other groups which Australians are treating badly – intervention anyone?
Helen, that’s incredibly depressing reading
I am quite aware of that though it’s not just the koran which has commentary but also the hadiths. As I said to James “You make of them whatever you can. As Mercurius has observed, what they mean has been a source of debate among muslims for 1400 years.”
Gittins:
That simply isn’t true. If it were true a toddler would have the same instinctual fear of a toddler of a different colour the same way as she is frightened of heights or of fire.
On the contrary, toddlers are completely unaware of colour differences, or if they are aware, they are merely curious, not fearful.
Thus, the only conclusion that can be drawn from this observation is that fear of people who look different isn’t innate, it is learned, or more specifically, taught.
Elsewhere: Michael Brull at The Drum.
A more comprehensive account of the survey Helen mentiob\ns in the Canberra Times.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/40pc-in-act-say-they-are-antimuslim-survey/2084276.aspx
I can’t say I’m surprised by the extent of anti-Muslim feeling. We are, in a sense, at war with/in Afghanistan and this kind of feeling against a perceived ‘enemy” is common in war-time.)german-Australians during WW1 is a good example.)
Nor, bacause I live in the bush and have Aboriginal friends am I surprised at racism towards Aborigines. One tends to come across it regularly out in the bush in my experience. However, I am somewhat shocked at the percentage of Australians claiming to be anti-Jewish. I suppose if one unpacked this there might be a bit of confusion between being anti-Israel/Zionist as opposed to being anti-Jewish, but its still a bit of surprise that, in Canberra at least, its over 19%.
Go below for the report that has sparked that discussion Helen@65 and others. The media has already begun to distort it’s findings. Same as usual.
Challenging Racism: The Anti-Racism Research Project
http://www.uws.edu.au/social_sciences/soss/research/challenging_racism/
Yes, you’ve got to be carefully taught.
Some of the data is very old: “New South Wales and Queensland were surveyed at the start of the study period in 2001″.
I can’t see how you could make any valid claims about state differences on the basis of a survey which is administered to the various samples once over a ten year period.
@29
“And likewise Tigtog the point of the comment is reflecting on the suitabilty of a migrant who may state upfront that the society they are moving to is unacceptable and yet they want to move to such a place.”
This doesn’t appear to make much sense except in a theoretical way. There may be aspects of the Koran that can be strictly “exclusivist” but the fact that someone muigrates to a Australia, a largely secular country, indicates that they have chosen to ignore these tenets. I think you have to be quite literally minded, much like a fundamentalist christian, to be able to believe that a Muslim can hold these two conflicting ideas in there minds.
I need to make a correction – it is the period of the first 4 caliphs that are idealised.
I think its a pretty complex issue.
http://www.aussiemuslims.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43458
@75 Idealised by some Muslims but not all. Just like some Catholics choose to use contraception rather than adhere by the strict sanctions of the Catholic church on contraception.
Katz at #68
You are correct.
I left a detailed refutation of Gittens’ premise, which I summarise as ‘we are hardwired to xenophobia by evolution”, in the comments but I’m afraid it is submerged among the tide of other comments.
Although after a quick skim read I did notice at least one other commenter picked up Gittens on this point.
I tried to link to a Youtube interview with Steven Rose by Richard Dawkins where, IMO, Rose demolishes the Gittens/Dawkins et al unevidenced assertion but it has been removed [some sort of legal argument].
For those interested I managed to find this as an alternative:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9ZAzeneo2Q&feature=related
Its part of a series but I lucked into the bit where Rose kicks the inbred xenophobia idea in the teeth very succinctly.
Katz, TigTog and Hannahs Dad – i thought the point Gittens was making isn’t that its genetic, but rather thats its almost intrinsically developmental – and learned very early. ( Not that its justifiable, but that we’ve got to understand that to respond appropriately to it.)
( To be clear, i wasn’t a fan of that piece in the first place, i just want to clarify what seems to have been the point he was awkwardly trying to make.)
TigTog and Katz, I’m not so sure its got to be clearly and directly imbued. The research would imply it is actually a very very subtle developmental inculcation happening almost from birth and not necessarily from parental input, but broad social factors.
As much as i’d like to agree with you Katz about toddlers being pre-racial, that aint the reality. Neurological processes develop far more rapidly. If you wanna think evolutionary neurobiology, consider the role of pattern and novelty in the formation of the brain. We are hard-wired to notice difference – we are socialised to interpret that difference if you will.
The second paper at this link is worth a read. ( btw TT i’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the studies on racial perception and stereotyping amongst autistic children).
http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=Lawrence+Hirschfeld+race&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2004&as_vis=0
Not sure if i have to spell out in capital letters that all of that above in no way justifies or condones racism, i’m just trying to tease out the complexities. I ‘don’t think anyone’s interests are served by simple analysis in the long run.
I never alleged Gittins said it was genetic. He used the word “instinctive”. If you want to draw a distinction between “genetic” and “instinctive”, then so be it.
As I suggested upthread, a toddler can notice difference without drawing negative conclusions.
In any case, the history of “race” is well enough known. Racial ideas developed at a certain time, relatively recently, and were contingent upon contemporary circumstance. This history of the idea of race puts a lie to the idea that consciousness of racial superiority is in any way innate in human consciousness.
The idea that racial consciousness is innate, instinctive, or genetically imprinted is nothing more than pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.
Without going to Gittens’ article for quotes sc I saw it differently.
He used a false analogy, chimp behaviour, and tried to directly relate that to human behaviour.
We ain’t chimps.
Its that simple really.
He used the word ‘evolution’ to state, IMO, that we are hardwired to xenophobia and as such I reckon he reproduced without nuance the viewpoint of evolutionary psychology, previously labelled biologic or genetic determinism, which has been strongly criticised as such by a stack of scientists, Rose and Lewontin for example.
Rose really rips into the genetically determined evolutionary behaviour idea on at least two main grounds.
Firstly we simply have too little knowledge about how behaviour has evolved in humans and secondly to compare chimps, in this instance, is to ignore both the vastly different environmental and social contexts of species.
We are a bio-social organism and we have too little knowledge of how we operated as such say a million years ago
to start a political article about xenophobia with the presumption that we were a xenophobic species hundreds of millenia ago when everything around us was vastly different.
I have no great argument with Gittens’ overall theme in his article but I was disappointed to see him resurrect the ghost of Ardrey’s territorial imperative and Lorenz’s aggression theory without realizing that this whole scientific field is highly controversial and politically tinged.
Did you read the paper i linked to ( second one down) ?
Hirschfeld agrees with me.
He insists that race consciousness is a cognitive process, though one which may be inculcated to children by many pathways at a young age.
In any case, Hirshfeld’s objects are school-aged children, not the toddlers that I referred to.
It should not require reminding that schooling, especially early schooling, is an intense experience of acculturation. Suddenly the child returns home with words and ideas that had never been expressed at home.
In short, Hirschfeld would bridle at the use of the word “instinctive” in relation to acquisition (Hirschfeld’s word) of racial consciousness.
I confess, I had not.
I have now.
Altho’ I further confess that I’m not sure which is the target article.
I read “Children and Race” which seemed to me to support the case that children need to learn stereotypes from adults and the broader society and, translating that to this context, xenophobia.
I collected a stack of [out of context] excerpts to that effect from that article.
Here is just one:
“What they [3 y.o.'s] display is the ability to distinguish between individuals using information that older children and adults employ in diagnosing the social category of race.
Wrong article?
Are you familiar with the Rose v Dawkins [ just to take 2 of the head honchos] debate on the subject of evolutionary psych?
Are we furiously agreeing?
I’m not sure what is going on here.
Gittins article was nonsense because it assumes that those who oppose boat people do so because they are dark or Muslim. They don’t. They oppose them because they are immigrant queue jumpers pretending to be refugees.
Scott Morrison put a motion in parliament that Australia give priority in their refugee program to people applying offshore rather than arriving by boat. He was told by some liberal wets to “stop the political tactics around asylum seekers’.
His motion is not a “tactic” but a sensible suggestion that goes to the heart of the issue. For every boat arrival that is given a visa, one less refugee in an overseas camp is accepted. The total quota is fixed at around 13,600 per year and is fully subscribed.
This is an issue which the refugee lobby will never even start discussing. They will seek to stifle debate with legalistic arguments about where and whether people have the right to apply for refuge, under a 60 year old UN convention signed by that great left-wing icon Robert Menzies. The effect of boat arrivals exercising their right is to bring the queues in Africa and Pakistan to a halt. That is why it is rightly called queue-jumping. Arriving by boat, legal or not, avoids the off-shore queues. One need only ask the question “Why would an Iranian of Afghan refugee take a dangerous boat rather than wait in the camp?” There can only be one answer. They believe (correctly) that their best chance to be accepted is to take the boat.
But what about the convention, human rights, our international reputation you cry? Yeah, that’s the most important thing. Let’s worry about that while the real reffos in Somalia and Pakistan can just rot.
Er student T you have accidentally wandered into the wrong blog.
The one you want is down the corridor, turn right, that’s a very hard and sharp turn to the right, go down, steeply so, the slippery slope and there amidst all the babbling and hysteria you will find your niche.
Dear oh, dear Student T. What are you a student of exactly? Where do you get your information?
Here’s a quote from Judi Moylan’s speech in Parliament the other day. She rather trashes your ‘crowding out’ theory. In particular, please pay attention to the last sentence. You may learn something.
“In his motion today the member for Cook continued his efforts to make political capital out of the Australian refugee program. Yet, like the coalition’s election costings, his efforts are riddled with errors. The motion conflates the refugee and special humanitarian components of the humanitarian program, which are effectively quarantined from each other in terms of the number of visas granted and the priority accorded to processing them.
The motion erroneously suggests that Australia has rejected women at risk because irregular maritime arrivals have crowded them out, a mistake repeated by the member for Cook in his media release last November. This is not the case. The number of places available for refugees overseas is not affected by the number of protection visas granted to onshore applicants, and that includes irregular maritime arrivals.”
Blimey Fine did Judy really include this line?
“Yet, like the coalition’s election costings, his efforts are riddled with errors.”
I find that pretty significant.
Check out Grog’s Gamut. That’s where I got it from. She’s an unhappy camper.
So, to be honest, I think the damage has been done to the Australian political body. All “sides” have some responsibility, although for me personally, Howard’s lessons from US politics are the single most significant event, which has lead us to the current political crisis surrounding immigration. We need to be clear about this: This issue is a serious divisive issue and seeks to turn the attention of politics to a media hot-air bubble. Serious issues are being neglected, such as media ownership, financial regulation, MSPT (there are many others), are being neglected, while our attention is focussed on what is on the balance a peripheral policy area.
(Not to mention the acute need to progress environmental policy.)
There are at this stage two clear possibilities:
1. Australia develops as a secular multicultural society. No more pictures of politicians flaunting their church-going credentials. Arguments based on morals are vigorously challenged, etc. In effect, we believe in progress for all and the Modernist project continues.
2. We reject multiculturalism, the majority vote rules and we identify ourselves as Christian. Religion has a role to play in political discourse, other people can believe in their Gods, but privately. A public festival here or there is tolerated, but they can basically STFU.
Or the default, where democratic processes continue to erode as we continue to dance to the tune of significant private interest groups who are not interested in public regulation and governance in their domains.
I believe that we need to start moving in the first direction. We need politicians who are going to stand up and not take a part in this ridiculous pantomime any more. We, the Australian people are suffering as a result of this paper thin corruption of public opinion.
(It’s also interesting to see the way political correctness is being spun again in the MSM.)
Well i seems like we are furiously agreeing over concepts, and arguing over semantics and stage of development.
I omitted to define what i am arguing happens very early. I should have explained i was arguing awareness of otherness, and to some extent fear of difference in the first two paras, about racism when i addressed TigTog and Katz in para 3 (which i believe kids pick up very easily and early, not only under overt inculcation), and about the stage it happens with Katz in para 4, which i believe is earlier than commonly thought
I should explain i get frustrated whenever i hear how impossible it is for small kids to demonstrate or act out behavior that (could be interpreted as) exclusionary or problematic to others. Developmentally, in my experience that just isn’t the case, even though it isn’t done with any intentional malice or awareness.
For example, you may notice if child has only ever seen able bodied people, there are particular neurological/developmental/attachment stages where, if they encounter someone in a wheelchair it won;t make a fig of difference, but, in another stage just a short time later they will usually stare, be intrigued, cautious and often avoidant, not because they are mean, but because it doesn’t fit the cognitive expectation of the familiar and ties in with attachment stage. They will tend wait for cues from others parents, peers and broader social influences ( tv for instance), about how to engage.
Hannah’s Dad @88 and Fine @89, from reading Grog’s blog post it seems to me it was Andrew Leigh, rather than Judy Moylan, who made the speech quoted by Fine which includes the comment about the Coalition’s election costings, although Moylan did speak against Morrison’s disgraceful motion.
@sublime cowgirl,
despite my choice of song, I think the “carefully taught” is a red herring precisely because it makes people think of overt inculcation, when what is really meant is teaching by example. If an adult in regular contact with a child expresses particular views regularly as commentary on what they read in the paper or hear on the radio/television, if they mutter things under their breath about only some of the neighbours, if they are effusive about People Like Us and nervous/suspicious/hostile to People Not Like Us, then kids will absorb these attitudes as This Is The Way We Do Things. The adults in question never even have to once address their comments directly to the children at all – the children learn by seeing it done.
Ah yes, it was Leigh, thanks. But, the facts still stand of course.
Liam @21, Kim @22
Daniel Pipes may be bigoted and a neo-con but on his figures relating to support for Jihadist Islam within the Muslim community I think he is correct. If you think he’s wrong then cite the errors. You can’t just say ‘Daniel Pipes therefore wrong’.
On Freedom of association, you have a reasonable point, but you have inverted the normal meaning of the term.
Freedom Of Association is normally taken to describe the right of the individual to join any group they wish, not that your faith group’s decision to withdraw from the general community on the basis of its supposed uncleanness is accepted. The latter is prima facie a sign of psychological ill-health in the group.
However you are basically correct: the package of personal freedoms afforded in a liberal society includes non-harmful weirdism and voluntary withdrawal.
But why come to Australia if you don’t want to associate with anyone else here ? There must be nicer places than Oz if everybody here is so unclean you can’t touch them or associate with them.
One reason for coming to Oz is that you might have been kicked out of your home country because of persecution by other Muslims, another that you might wish to afford youself
of the educational and economic opportunities in Oz. To do the latter and take the benefits, while rigorously disassociating oneself from the society implies that the kaffir’s cash is not quite as unclean as their person.
Overall, though, I agree with you that the Islamic tendency to mandate withdraw from general society, as noted by Susan Carland, is probably not in itself anything much to be concerned about, though Carland says it is ‘very dangerous’, which I take her to mean ‘adverse to the well-being of converts’.
Its the Jihadist and anti-civil elements of Islam that are a problem.
I would accept Muslim Asylum seekers but not in the general immigration intake. One in eight who approve of Jihad is far too high a quotient.
On the Lubavitchers and other isolationist groups, all welcome to come in whatever numbers provided they are not Jihadist or proponents of aggressively anti-civil practices such as one finds in Sharia law.
I think your equivalence of Nunneries with the Islamic Ummah is inaccurate. Nuns are typically not isolationist groups as they generally have a ‘service’ component to their vocation in which they provide educational, health or palliative services to the general community. They are not in withdrawal from/detestation of general society
but in service to it.
Additionally, Nuns are rarely Jihadist, I suspect less than 1 in 8.
Anyone’s welcome except those likely to demand submission to their particular brand of totalitarianism.
Another characteristic of the isolationist Islamic Ummah is that it is only isolationist in its early stages. Following the paradigm of Mohammed, the Ummah is isolationist only until the necessary political/military strength is achieved to extract concessions and ultimately submission from the Kaffir.
So, the Islamic rejection of assimilation is strategic to a future goal of domination, I mean peace. That is why the Islamic failure to assimilate constitutes a latent danger not shared by Lubavitchers (or Nuns).
Islam, with its particular combination of totalitarianism, systematic and vicious discrimination, and capital punishment for apostasy, must rank near the top of the pluralist/liberal ‘no thanks’ list.
Most Muslims thankfully practice only a fraction of Koranic islam as they are mostly nominals, same as in all faith groups.
Returning to the original post, it is heartening to see that the xenophobic views and intolerance of Islam voiced by Andrews & Bernadi is not gaining much traction either publicly or, seemingly, within their own party. But don’t be fooled. Try tuning in to the shockjocks of commercial radio – in your own state – and know that racism is alive and kicking in Oz (as apparently a survey found this week).
These poorly-educated wireless hacks are nevertheless verbally gifted at fanning the flames of intolerance/ climate change denial or any other progressive interest. Heard one jocker on MTR state last week that he didn’t think Indigenous Australians should be labelled such, we are all Oztralians.
It was good to see Media Watch expose this racist propaganda on Monday night – and that the Fairfax network is getting in on the act – though i do wish they would realise that Sydney radio is not the only culprit.
Coincidentally, as i write this ABC radio news is broadcasting an item on the opposition to a small Muslim prayer gathering every Friday at the Neighbourhood House in East St Kilda, Melbourne. There are, quite simply, no reasonable grounds on which to object. So please, if you can be bothered, sign the petition to uphold diversity and freedom of religion, link here:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/support-divercity-in-east-st-kilda/
Nick Lowes from Hope not Hate writes on the results of a new survey on race and immigration in the UK and its political implications for that country.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/26/britons-immigration-multiculturalism-study
It would seem to contextualise David Camerons recent speech somewhat.
Amongst many other factors, (and i really do believe we are doing a lot of things right with our social policies), i wonder how much sheer economic luck viv a viv the GFC/our resources boom buffers us from more of the nastier debate?
An excellent contrast with the Hope not hate Research from the UK above, Peter Lewis from Essential Media writing in the drum writes:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44546.html
I made the mistake of reading some of the comments attached to that article, sublime cowgirl. Jesus, some people live in a moral sewer.
Baraholka @ 95,
Thank you for your link to Umberto Eco’s essay on Ur-Fascism on your web-site. It should be required reading, on both sides. Okay, all sides.
Best wishes.