|
May 03, 2006
The op.ed by Abdullah Saeed in today's Australian is an important contribution to the ongoing public debate around both integration and Australian values and the citizenship test proposed by Andrew Robb, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, in his speech to the Sydney Institute.
Saeed rightly says that there is a widely held belief among Australians that Muslims as a group are the most reluctant to integrate into Australian society:
...the perception persists that it is only Muslims who do not want to integrate or are reluctant to commit to Australia's fundamental values. This view has a lot to do with the simplistic notion that Muslims are a homogeneous group of people who are on the whole unemployed, who form ghettos, detest our freedoms, want to live under sharia law and cannot accept our fundamental values such as democracy, rule of law, equality of the sexes and religious and intellectual freedom.
Saeed shows that this perception does not accord with reality and that it is only that a small minority of Muslims who adopt a position of not wanting to integrate or are reluctant to commit to Australia's fundamental values. He says that the vast majority of Muslims who call Australia home have adopted fundamental Australian values, argues that Islam both affirms this acceptance and supports a legal legal system based on justice, fairness, equity and non-discrimination.
These points have been made before in public debates---repeatedly and consistently. So why all the current fuss about integration and a commitment to Australian values? What's going on here?
Saeed highlights a key issue:
Doubts about Muslim commitment to Australian fundamental values have arisen also partly as a result of some Islamic religio-cultural practices; for example, the hijab, which an increasing number of Muslim women wear. For such women, it has nothing to do with a failure to commit to Australian values. Rather, they are enjoying the freedom available for them to wear any type of clothes they want, just like other Australians. Similarly, other practices related to food, dress, hairstyles and coverings, religious affiliation and worship have nothing to do with fundamental Australian values.
It is a key issue as it goes to the heart of Australia's secular liberal democracy--the freedom of citizens to practice their religion. It is here that there should be a priority of individual right over the collective interest, as these religious practices do not infringe on the rights of others or offend against the constitutional order or public morals. Fundamental Australian values include religious freedom, this freedom is understood to be a fundamental right, and only "compelling interests" are sufficient to justify infringements of the right to religious freedom.
Saeed's argument is that Muslims should accepts the citizenship test as this means that Muslims will help change the perception that they do not support fundamental Australian values. Fine. What is "missing from this is a contribution from the government --they need to affirm the right to religious freedom by Australian citizens, and to clearly distinquish the policy concern for integration from assimilation. Since Andrew Robb did the latter, not the former, the suspicion remains that the Howard Governmet is willing to sacrifice the religious freedom of Australian Muslims to enhance the general welfare (upholding public order and security).
I appreciate that 'rights' stick in the throat of many Benthamite act utilitarians causing them to choke on the nonsense on stilts; but rights are 'shields' providing strong protections against demands made by the political community dealing with war on terrorism. Something protected as a matter of right--religious freedom--means that it may not be overridden by ordinary considerations of public policy justified in the name of general welfare of the nation. The problem with the utilitarian's consequentionalist conception of the general welfare is that it rides roughshod over individual freedom. This is a flaw in terms of substantive political justice in a liberal democracy--and a well known one.
|
Gary. So here we go again the Muslim debate. I can't believe it. This whole debate is nothing but cheap political oportunism of the highest order. What is going on here is the same method of madness used by Downer on his propaganda lesson on history.
I don't need a diploma in psychology to nut out what is going on here, I can already tell the differance between shit and clay.This whole excercise is to appeal to the base racism that is found in, (if we are honest) in most of us. They being the hawks, Howard, Downer, Rudd et al are trying to share the guilt trip on the rest of the community who don't share their veiw on how to fight their war on terrorism. Because of all the innocents who have been caught up in this fiasco, I know!!!!!!lets pay out on the Muslim community at home to justify what we have done.
You do not have to get into a big philosophical debate about what clothes they wear,what they eat, who they worship and what they think it is to be Australian. Before 9/11 none of this was an issue in our country, sorry excuse me I may be lying, maybe in a shearing shed full of red necks.
When you are as old as I am, I have seen all of this before. If it wasn't the italians, it was the Greeks, if not the Greeks it was the Irish, if not the Irish it was the English, if not the English the Asians. And where did most of this racism come from? Well not the University's and places of learning or the church hierachy or other enlightened courses, but from the propganda spread by governments who want the plebs to carry out their policy by stealth.
Phill.