Finally, it would appear, we are beginning an honest conversation about the assimilation of Islamic cultures into mainstream Australia. This conversation is long overdue, and in fact, has been continuously pushed asunder by the progreesive Left, for whom politically correct words matter far more than genuine ideas and honesty. Thus, ‘assimilation’ has been viewed as a perjorative.
In a perverse way, it was a relief to hear Hizb ut Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar use the ‘A’ word as he carried on last weekend about the ‘forced assimilation’ of immigrant children having to sing our national anthem. To which any sane person must surely have replied – ‘…and you say that like it’s a bad thing?’
In an interview only a few nights before, the ABC’s Lateline, hosted by Tony Jones, spoke to a former British radical Islamist, Maajid Nawaz, and an American atheist neuroscientist, Sam Harris, about their book Islam and the future of tolerance.
Among the many areas they touched upon is the moral confusion of the Left. Harris said: ‘It’s not that free speech has been threatened, it’s that free speech has been destroyed on this particular point. When you look at how liberals respond to this, in the case of the murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, they by and large blame the cartoonists. How morally confused do you have to be to blame the cartoonists who have been butchered by theocratic maniacs who are shouting Allahu Akbar in the streets of Paris?’
Nawaz claims moderate Muslims can genuinely reform the religion, but must do so within our existing democratic and secular social mores. This is relevant to the numerous debates surrounding Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘less confrontational’ approach to Muslim communities. Allowing Muslims to see themselves as separate to ‘Team Australia’, and worse, using Muslim sensitivities as a reason to abandoning necessary changes to 18C, risks allowing the perception to exist that you can have both – a modern, democratic Australia co-existing with a community who adhere to strict Islamic values. Ultimately, one set of values must take precedence.
‘So the only realistic, pragmatic and intellectually sound way forward is for all of us to unite around secular, liberal, human rights, democratic values and believe in their universality and call for them whether we’re calling for them to be applied upon non-Muslim white men or brown Muslim people. These values apply to everyone equally,’ said Nawaz.
Nawaz also criticises those who continually pretend the Islam/terrorist link is overplayed. ‘It’s incorrect for we, as Muslims and generally, actually, I’d say, those on the left of centre in this debate, to insist that Islamists and jihadists have nothing to do with Islam. That’s actually an exercise in dishonesty.’
At least we are now having the correct debate. And using accurate words and phrases to do so.
Glass ceiling, by a nose
Former PM Julia Gillard was quick to jump on the back of the Prince of Penzance for a quick canter around the feminism track, tweeting shortly after the nation-stopping victory her congratulations to Michelle Payne for being ‘the first woman jockey to win the Melbourne Cup’. A feat Ms Gillard presumably sees as ranking alongside her own achievement as the first woman politician to win the Australian Prime Ministership.
But the comparisons swiftly end. Where Julia Gillard and her fellow female Labor MPs such as Penny Wong, Tanya Plibersek et al relied substantially on ‘Emily’s List’ political correctness to gallop to the front of the pack of their respective parliamentary careers, Ms Payne sought victory the old fashioned way: through gritty determination to prove the ‘chauvinistic’ bastards wrong.
We share in heartily congratulating Ms Payne and her brother Stevie on their remarkable against-all-odds struggle to overcome personal adversity through hard work and single-minded determination. As another Aussie glass ceiling is shattered, it is clear that it is individual strength of character and perseverance that is the real winning formula this nation and its women should emulate, not relying on quotas, chat show whining feminism, corporate lists, Opera House love-ins, book festivals or other such ‘progressive’ nonsense.
Let Australian women succeed as individuals through their own merit and grit, through knock backs and failures, to triumph and success. Not as political pawns at the behest of modern feminism’s sad, defeatist ideology.
