The rise
of an ugly new phobia is threatening multicult- ralism, writes Robert Manne.
t
One of the most significant ways the world has changed since the terrible crime
of September 11 has been the rise of an ugly strain of Islamophobia throughout
the Western world. From this new ideological virus Australia has,
unfortunately, proven far from immune.
On the far right of the political spectrum something sociologists have come to
call "new racism" seems to be taking hold. Old racism argued that the
intractable differences between human groups were rooted in biology and blood.
This form of racism was discredited by Hitler and the Holocaust. A new racism
took its place. It argued that differences between human collectivities were
based on the ultimate incompatibility not of blood and biology but of culture
and religion.
After September 11, in Australia, this kind of new racism emerged with
surprising swiftness. Let one important example suffice. Former Treasury
Secretary John Stone had long been an opponent of Asian immigration. Following
September 11 the focus of his concern shifted to Muslims instead. According to
Stone, Australia was, from the cultural point of view, a "Judeo-Christian"
country. Because of its supposed incompatibility with such a culture, Stone
argued now that all future Muslim immigration must end.
Stone was aware, of course, that on account of his suggestion he would be accused
of racism. Such accusations were, he claimed, both mischievous and wrong. In
advocating a racially discriminatory immigration policy Stone pointed out he
had no interest in the colour of a potential migrant's skin. The only issue that
concerned him was "culture" and not "race". In light of the
academic definition of new racism, John Stone and his supporters unwittingly
supplied an almost perfect textbook case.
The second stand of Islamophobia, encouraged by the events of September 11,
took place on more traditional Christian ground. The best example here was seen
in the writings of Andrew Bolt, resident rightwing columnist at the Melbourne Herald
Sun.
At first Bolt responded to September 11 in a decent way. Was it not, he argued,
a "tragedy" that the crimes of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists had
rendered "the many peaceable Muslims among us the undeserving target of
suspicion and hate". Would it not, he argued, be "a disgrace if the
terrorist atrocities in the United States made us lash out" at Australia's
Muslim community? As it soon turned out, no one was more in need of such a
warning than Andrew Bolt himself. Within days he had begun to wonder darkly
about why Australia's Islamic leaders had not issued a fatwa against Osama bin
Laden. Although he had no fight with Islam, he said, but only with "the
terrorists who perverted its teachings", was it not the case that the
Koran was all "too easily interpreted to justify terrorism"?
Within three months of September 11, Bolt was experiencing "grave doubts
about the role of Islam in a secular, multiethnic nation like Australia".
Within six months he was absolutely outraged by the opinion that Islam, truly
understood, was a religion of peace and human rights. By mid2002, Andrew Bolt
had involved himself in the defence of an anti-Islamic campaign waged by a
fundamentalist Christian sect called Catch the Fire. The gloves were now
completely off.
"Let's compare," Bolt wrote on June 3, 2002, "those two most
holy of men those founders of great religions. Unlike Mohammed, Christ did not
slaughter unbelievers, execute women who sang rude songs about him, cut off the
limbs of apostates, sleep with a woman whose family he had just killed, have
sex with a nine year-old, urge the murder of Jews, authorise the beating of
wives ... and promise heaven above all to those who made war on infidels."
I do not know whether it was a matter of concern for Bolt or his editor that he
was writing, thus) of the man who stood at the centre of the faith of 300,000
or so of their fellow Australians.
As it happens, Andrew Bolt was not the only journalist in Australia who had
begun to play with fire. A third strand of Islamophobia. appearing in the press
after September 11 was rooted in something even deeper than religious soil - ethnic
difference and sexual fear.
After September 11, The Australian's columnist Janet Albrechtsen began
to take considerable interest in the terrible rape cases in Sydney perpetrated
by gangs of Lebanese Australian Muslim males. Concerning these cases, Albrechtsen
appears to have conducted a search for evidence with the express intention of
discovering as many instances as possible where Muslim males have been involved
in rape. On the basis of this anecdotal evidence she began to write in a manner
that suggested that rapes by Muslims of young women had reached epidemic
proportions in the West.
In conjuring this moral panic as Media Watch revealed last Monday
Albrechtsen, on more than one occasion, distorted the evidence on which she
relied. Where, for example, a French sociologist had written of rape as an
initiation rite of young men, Albrechtsen claimed, quite falsely, that he had
been writing specifically about Muslim males. Or again, to reveal the
callousness of the local Muslim leadership on the question of the Sydney rapes,
Albrechtsen claimed in a recent column that a leader of the Lebanese community
had absolved the young men of moral responsibility for their crimes. As it
turned out, in the article from which she quoted, the question of the rapes had
not even been discussed.
No one possessing even a passing acquaintance with the history of race
relations could be unaware of the explosive potentiality of the question of
interethnic rape. Accordingly, no contemporary subject in Australia demands
from a journalist greater wisdom, maturity and tact. Janet Albrechtsen's
writing has been factually careless, socially reckless and morally cavalier at
once.
The emergence of Islamoohobia in Australia in recent times is not, in the end,
difficult to explain. The ground was prepared with the rightward drift in
Australian political culture during the period of Hansonism. For three years,
anti-Islamic, feelings grew as a consequence of the denigration and
incarceration of the mainly Muslim asylum seekers from the Middle East. Those
we mistreated we came to despise. With the coincidence of the Tampa
"crisis" and the September 11 terrorist attacks, a dangerous
explosion of anti-Islamic feeling took place.
In a recent ABC television program, a secular Islamic leader spoke with
eloquence about the wounds inflicted on the Muslims of Australia by the
continuous insults to their culture and religion over the past year. His
sentiments are easy to understand. Islamophobia now represents by far the most
serious threat to the idea of multiculturalism, and even to the ideas of
religious and ethnic toleration, that Australia has witnessed for very many
years.
Robert Manne is associate professor of politics at La Trobe University. Email: r.manne@latrobe. edu.au
If multiculturalism means accepting all cultures equally then God help us! Should the British colonialists in India have allowed the Hindu suttee (where widows were expected to jump on their husband’s funeral pyre) to continue. Should we allow Sharia, Islamic law to operate in Australia with whippings for drinking alcohol and fornication, stoning to death for adultery and amputation of hands for theft?
Although not a member of their flock, or a Christian for that matter, I consider “Catch the Fire Ministries” did the country a service in raising the evils of Islam. I hope you noticed that the Muslim complainants lost their case despite wording their complaints in a way that would gain sympathy, for example saying that Muslims, implying Australian Muslims, did this or that, when it was Prophet Muhammad who was being referred to. (This form of Muslim lying was called ‘outwittings’ by Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali and taqiyya (dissimulation) in Arabic)
You chide Andrew Bolt for what he wrote but I have seen nothing untrue in his material (and I have post-graduate qualifications in Islamic Studies) . Muhammad did slaughter unbelievers, assassinate a woman who recited rude poems about him [and two male poets, plus execute a POW who had thrown offal at him], cut off the limbs of apostates [and put out their eyes] , sleep with a woman whose husband he had just killed, have sex with a nine year-old, order the killing of Jews [all 600 adult males of the Banu Qurayza, and take their families as slaves], authorize the beating of wives…and promised heaven to those who performed jihad. So what was the point of your comments?
One virtue of letting the Australian people know of the unsavoury nature of Islam is that Islamic daw’ah , conversion to Islam, should be reduced. Converts are almost invariably fanatics. Witness David Hicks who went to Afghanistan to fight for the Taleban.
I have not followed the Albrechsten material but there was no doubt that ethnic and religious motivation played a large part in the actions of the young Lebanese Muslims. If Anglo-Australians were dhimmis, non-Muslims in an Islamic state, they would be “fair game” for Muslim rapists. For one thing a non-Muslim cannot bring a charge against a Muslim in a pure Islamic state, and rape can only be proved by the testimony of 4, adult, male, Muslim witnesses to actual penetration and from various angles according to some jurists.
I could go on, but you are doing our civilization a disservice by publishing such material, as you did. We do not wish to hurt the feelings of individual Muslims but the needs of society are paramount. It may well be that some Muslims are ignorant of their Qur’an, Hadith and Sira, and this would be a shock to their system. On our website we give the references for what has just come out of the top of my head above, so I have sent you a CD-Rom of our web site to peruse at your leisure.
Sincerely,
Bob Burns