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January 16, 2007
Senator Brett Mason, a Liberal senator from Queensland, has an op-ed in The Australian on multiculturalism entitled, 'Nation must get precedence over ethnicity'. In it he outlines his conservative understanding of multiculturalism:
It looked really good on paper. Immigrants would be encouraged to retain their distinct cultural identities on condition that they subscribed to the tenets of Westminster democracy...The Australian brand of multiculturalism intended to maintain a fine balance between sectarian rights and mainstream responsibilities. Minority groups would be free to follow their creeds as long as they did not contravene the values of democracy. And in the event of such a conflict, the tenets of Australian multiculturalism mandated that individual rights, gender equality and religious freedom would always reign supreme.
The phrase that 'minority groups would be free to follow their creeds as long as they did not contravene the values of democracy' suggests that you cannot question the 'values' of democracy or have different values. Critique of liberal democracy is off limits.
What Mason ought to have said instead of 'values' is the rule of 'law '--thus ''minority groups would be free to follow their creeds as long as they did not break the law of the nation state. ---In replacing the rule of law with values Mason covers up that strand of conservatism that is anti-democratic and authoritarian.
Mason then repeats the standard conservative critique of multiculturalism that claims conceptual shortcomings mar the core of Australian multiculturalism and have have spawned hesitancy and confusion in its application.
At its core, the word multiculturalism implicitly elevates ethnic tribalism over national commonality. The term makes express reference to factionalism without specific mention of the unifying factors that are supposed to be the pride of this policy. It sends the message that diversity is an end in itself, rather than merely a means to the end of a better Australia.
That duality position ignores a middle position in which you can affirm your ethnic community and Australian democratic values. 'Ethnic tribalism' is like religion in a liberal democracy---it's a personal matter premised on the public private distinction. So Australian Muslims are more than happy to comply with the secular rules of Australia because these are the best guarantee for religious freedom.
Mason of course rejects the liberal account. He sees Sharia Law in opposition to the rule of law in Australia:
In several European nations, Muslim leaders have begun to press for the application of sharia law to their communities. And because sharia constitutes a distinct legal code, there is nothing in the strict definition of Australian multiculturalism that would preclude such a demand in Brunswick or Lakemba. In fact, that is precisely what the radical Muslim Hizb ut-Tahrir movement is doing when it calls for a Taliban-style Islamic caliphate in Australia.
This ignores the conflicts in interpretation over Sharia law within Islam. It ignores that several of the countries with the largest Muslim populations, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, have largely secular constitutions and laws, with only a few Islamic provisions in family law, or that Most countries of the Middle East and North Africa maintain a dual system of secular courts and religious courts, in which the religious courts mainly regulate marriage and inheritance.
How is the latter different from the way that Christianity works in Australia? Isn't Mason denying religious freedon to Muslims or the existence of Islamic reformation in Australia?
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heh Nation must get precedence over ethnicity
State gets to dominate individuals - especially politically weak minorities. Multiculturalism is the liberty for an individual to pursue their cultural interests without coercion.
The state has no horse in that race. Mason's argument is statism.