Howard, Integration and Gender Equity

I wish I could safely say that the PM’s mass debate over the 1% non-integrated of the 2% of Aussies who tick the “Muslim” box on the census forms is well and truly postponed. Sadly not. With interest rates going up and the ALP gaining bigger majorities in state elections, Muslim-bashing has become the PM’s pastime.

However, it is a good idea to re-visit one theme the PM raised. Laurie Oakes in The Bulletin claims that the PM’s notion that “people who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have got to learn very quickly that that is not the case in Australia” is “motherhood stuff”.

Yeah, right. Try telling that to all those mothers and other women too frightened to use Apprehended Domestic Violence Orders in NSW (or their equivalent in other states and Territories).

The PM’s claim that women aren’t treated in an inferior fashion in Australia makes me wonder which Aussie women he’s talking about.

OK, it’s true that Australia has banned that disgusting tribal practise of Female Genital Mutilation (which, even according to self-proclaimed ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali says isn’t a religious practise). Yes, most Aussie blokes don’t go bashing daughters and sisters for chatting up some dude.

We only do that when we are pissed, stoned and/or psychotic enough. Last year, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics released a report suggesting reported domestic violence rates across NSW had increased by 40-50% in the past 7 years. Reported incidents. Who knows how many women are too frightened to report.

In a society where women are bashed so frequently by their partners, it just isn’t possible to say women are treated as equals. The problem is that people keep treating domestic violence as a women’s issue.

When women are bashed and abused, it isn’t just the primary victims who suffer. Other men (fathers, sons, brothers) are also affected. And it is only when men take responsibility for this issue that things will start to change.

Each year, UNIFEM organises White Ribbon Day to campaign for the elimination of violence against women. Australian men wear white ribbons to show they oppose violence against women. A white ribbon is not a badge of purity or perfection. It simply says you believe that violence against women is unacceptable.

To get involved in the UNIFEM campaign, click here.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Islam Teaches Integration

With all this talk about migrants and integration, we’ve heard the PM, the Treasurer and various Muslim leaders (both self-appointed and appointed by the PM) give their views.

But what does classical Islamic theology have to say about the matter? And what have Muslims been practising over the past 1,400 years?

Recently I visited Malaysia on an exchange program organised by the Australia-Malaysia Institute. I visited a Museum of Islamic Art and Architecture in KL. There I saw some miniatures of mosques from different parts of the world.

The oldest mosque was a Chinese mosque dated to within 100 years of the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The mosque hadn’t changed since it was first built (apart from some minor extensions and renovations).

And what did the mosque look like? Did it have minarets and domes? No. The mosque was built in the same design as a typical Chinese temple or pagoda.

Then again, Middle Eastern mosques are built based on designs of Byzantine churches. Ottoman mosques are all based on what was St Sophia’s Church in Constantinople.

Some years back, an English Muslim scholar Tim Winter visited Australia for a series of lectures and workshops. Mr Winter teaches Islamic studies at Cambridge University, and has studied Islam at al-Azhar University in Egypt (perhaps the oldest and most prestigious Islamic university in the world).

Winter told his audience that Muslim settlers always adopted and co-opted the cultures of the places they moved to. Muslims always tried to ensure they made a neat cultural fit. They didn’t try to look or behave differently. They adopted the dress and customs of the host society and adapted their Islamic practises to suit their environment without compromising the fundamentals.

Winter even described a Victorian era mosque established by English converts. The mosque was built like a church hall. Each Sunday night, locals would be invited to visit the mosque where they would chat over cups of tea and plates of scones. In the corner, an organ would be used to play contemporary tunes.

An organ. In the mosque! Imagine the fuss if Aussie Muslims tried setting up an organ at the Imam Ali Mosque in Lakemba.

The PM’s message of integration may have originally been worded in an unfortunate manner. However, the fact remains that his message is consistent with classical Islamic teaching and has abundant precedent in Muslim migration history.

Instead of maintaining postures based on political correctness, Muslims would be well advised to study their history and understand their own heritage. They might be surprised by what they find. It is fair enough to criticise the PM for singling out Muslims. But it certainly isn’t fair to criticise the PM for insisting on Muslims practising their own religion!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

NZ pseudo-Conservative MP tells Muslim women how to dress

First it was Fred Nile claiming women dressed like the Virgin Mary was a security hazard. Then Bronwyn Bishop and one of her Victorian colleagues claimed such women should be made to take part of their gear off before entering state-funded schools.

Now a National Party MP from across the Tasman has made the following erudite observation …

I do have a bit of a problem with Islam religion-type people wearing scarves
and burqas around the place. I think people should fit into the
country.

Bob Clarkson’s comments clearly aren’t based on facts. Only a minority of Muslim women on either side of the Tasman wear the hijab (head scarf). None are known to wear the Afghan-style tent-like burqa.

I’d love to see Clarkson tell the new head-honchess of North American Muslims, Professor Ingrid Mattson, that she needs to fit in. Or perhaps he could tell that to the women who’ll be gathering with Pru Goward this Friday to launch the National Muslim Women’s Conference.

But it gets better. Clarkson has now compared homosexuality to … wait for it … picking your nose in public.

If you walk up and down the street picking your nose, you're a bit
different, aren't you? You're going to offend somebody. Do it in your home if
you want to … Take that gay parade. They flaunted themselves out there that
they're all different than us, and to a certain extent, in my mind, they're
trying to make out that we should be the same as them.

Funny, ‘cause I always thought our Kiwi cousins were a little more tolerant, sensitive and new-age about this kind of stuff. I mean, mouthing off against gays is the kind of thing you’d expect from middle-aged blokes righteous enough to cast the first stone.

Clarkson’s comments have caused a furore in Kiwistan, with PM Helen Clarke claiming the remarks are typical of National Party “prejudice” toward minorities. Clarkson, however, has defended himself.

I'll put it this way: I'm very happy that I was born in 1939 in Gisborne as
a male and I've stayed that way all my life.

Methinks he should stay there (i.e. the 1930’s) where he belongs.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

When converts become easy pickings for extremists

THE headline from the Weekend Australian (12-13 August 2006) screamed out: “Terror’s new ‘white converts’”. Don Stewart-Whyte’s arrest shows extreme forms of Islam sometimes attract new recruits from unexpected quarters.

Like Christianity, Islam actively seeks recruits. Unlike Christianity, Islam has no central church or priestly hierarchy. Converts don’t go on any register. The process of conversion is quite simple – just recite a two-sentence Arabic creed. No priest or witnesses are required. People even convert on internet chat channels.

Islam attracts people from all walks of life. Prominent Aussie converts include former diplomats, prominent sportspeople and a former ABC foreign correspondent. A convert now heads the Islamic Council of Victoria.

Muslim converts often prefer to be known as “reverts”. Muslims don’t believe inherited or “original” sin. Babies are born naturally sinless. Hence converts claim they have merely “reverted” to that original sinlessness.

People turn to Islam and other non-Christian faiths for any number of reasons. They might feel outcasts in conventional society or disillusioned with aspects of mainstream culture. They might even be searching for an alternative lifestyle.

Mainstream religion isn’t a problem in Australia. Most Muslim Aussies treat their faith as a deeply personal affair. Religion only becomes collective during religious festivals or at weekly Sunday (or in the case of Muslims, Friday) services.

Islam’s core is deeply spiritual Sufi tradition Sunni Muslims describe as tasawwuf and Shia Muslims describe as irfan. It’s the stuff that inspires Turkey’s whirling dervishes. To this day, translations of Sufi poet Rumi remain the biggest selling poetry books in the US.

Most converts enter Islam after exposure to Sufi teaching for reasons similar to the attraction of Tibetan Buddhism.

Islam isn’t the only faith be hijacked by fringe extremists. In Sri Lanka, deeply pacifist Hinduism has been hijacked by Tamil Tigers who have turned suicide bombing into an art-form.

Mainstream Muslims take for granted that Islam forbids suicide. The Prophet Muhammad said that the first man to be judged and sent to hell would be a person who claimed to have died as a martyr. In fact, that person didn’t die for God but only to be glorified by others after death.

Fringe politicised Islam has few followers among migrant Muslims. Australia’s radical “thick-Sheiks” have few followers among migrant Muslims, tending to attract Muslim youth and converts.

Mainstream Muslims aren’t a security threat, but failure of mainstream institutions to provide facilities for young people and converts is. Converts bring to the Muslim community a zeal which many migrant Muslims born into Islam don’t share.

Converts feel frustrated when ethnicity and migrant culture are presented as Islam by Muslim leaders. They are angered at imams who cannot speak English and at leaders making goofy public statements. Some non-European imams expect converts to abandon parts of Western culture, to change their names and to separate from their families.

Dean Jones recently described an observant South African cricketer as a terrorist. His gaffe reflects popular attitudes to Islam. Converts often hide their faith for fear of non-Muslim families and networks ostracising them. Younger converts are often dependent on their parents. The combined stress of family break-up and lack of support from “ethnic” Muslims is a source of enormous stress for converts.

New Muslims with no family support and on the fringes of Muslim communities fall into a dangerous twilight zone. Compounded with other factors (such as un-medicated depression), they are fresh pickings for extremist groups.

One effective ways Muslim communities can contribute to fighting terror is to be more welcoming to converts. Support services should be set up and mosques should break down their cultural and linguistic barriers. When Islam becomes a genuinely Australian religion and not just a cultural artefact, terrorists will be forced to look elsewhere for recruits.

(Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer. An edited version of this article was published in the Adelaide Advertiser on 15 August 2006.)

While blokes wear bangles …

“Only in America” is the common refrain we repeat when we read of some wacky development in the land of the free. But sometimes the Yanks do get things right.

On Tuesday, the Islamic Society of North America announced that it had elected a woman as President.

Now I’m sure some of our more conservative readers will be rushing to their bookshelves to make sure they get the right wording for that hadith. You know, the one where the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) apparently said that any Muslim organisation who chooses to be lead by a woman is bound to become the target of awful translations from Dicky Kerbaj at The Oz.

And before you get too excited, I should tell you that the rest of her executive are blokes. Plus, this isn’t the first time she’s been on the exec of ISNA. Last year, she was Vice President.

Anyway, who is this woman whose election threatens to bring the sky crashing down on the Taliban? Her name is Dr Ingrid Mattson.

OK, I agree. Her name isn’t exactly Shaykha Maulani Hojji Aisha Amina Khadija Yasmin as-Sumsheila. But she is a woman. She is also a Professor of Islamic Studies at the Hartford Seminary. From memory, they are the dudes and dudettes who produce that journal “The Muslim World”.

Dr Mattson is no stranger to Islam or Muslims. After completing her undergraduate philosophy degree at the University of Waterloo, she worked with Afghan refugee women in Pakistan from 1987-88.

In 1999, Dr Mattson earned her PhD in Islamic law from the University of Chicago. She went to study there on the invitation of Professor Fazlur Rahman, an American scholar whose students included the former Indonesian President and head of Nadhatul Ulama Sheik Abdur Rahman Wahid.

Dr Mattson has written on a variety of legal, political, historical, literary and social subjects, and you can read them all online here.

One day, Muslims in Australia can get their act together. Perhaps that will only happen when women take control. After all, Muslim men seem to have lost the plot. Or as my mother says: “Qambakhat admiyon ne chooriyan pahan-na shuru karliya hai!” (i.e. those blasted men have started wearing bangles!).

Still, at the very least Muslim women in Canberra are getting their act together. So if you are reading this and you happen to be female, make sure you head down to the Canberra Islamic Centre on 1 & 2 September for Sawt – Voices of Women National Muslim Women’s Conference. Pru Goward will be there to launch the show, and I’m sure the Lebanese (and other) women there will be friendlier to her than the ones she might encounter at the Epping Liberal preselection!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Sitting on the fence …

It’s often said that Islam and democracy cannot co-exist. The claim is made by fringe Muslim groups such as Hizbut Tahrir as well as by some critics of the status quo of Muslim-majority states.

Hence, we often read headlines in newspaper articles like “Islam must first get its house in order” and “Islam’s weaknesses must be acknowledged”. Naturally, many Muslims find such headlines offensive. After all, Islam is a faith and a set of principles based upon the same foundations and emerging from the same region as Judaism and Christianity.

When a democratic deficit exists in South American countries, we don’t see headlines saying “Christianity must get its house in order”. Similarly, when countries like Burma, Sri Lanka and Cambodia are gripped with endemic corruption, we don’t read of “Buddhism’s economic crisis”.

When something is given the label “Islamic” or “Islam”, for most Muslims this means the phenomenon being described emerges from the teachings, ethics and religious laws of Islam. What people of nominally Muslim faith might do or say isn’t anymore representative of Islam as what people do in Rio of Auckland is reflective of Christianity.

Unfortunately, in relation to those claiming or deemed to follow Islam, the mistake is made over and over again. It is reflective of the fact that so many people in the West regard Muslims as one huge foreign and potentially hostile population bloc. Muslims are one huge “them”.

For me as a Western Muslim, this can be very frustrating. Just as I become frustrated when I travel to Muslim-majority states and must politely put up with endless questions from my hosts about “those Westerners” or “them Europeans”.

For Western Muslims, the problem we face is one of sitting on the fence and being able to recognise the enormous variety in both pseudo-sectors. As far as we are concerned, Westerners fit into our “us” category as much as people from Muslim-majority states.

It’s easy to get offended when a Western journalist questions us on the timetable for “Islam’s reform” or “the democratisation of Islam” or “Islam’s embrace of liberty”. As far as we are concerned, the problem isn’t with Islam. The problem is with citizens of nominally Muslim states. Don’t blame the faith, the ethics and the religious law. Blame the supposed followers who have abandoned Islam.

As I finish writing these lines, I can’t help but wonder why I should feel loved to write something so damned obvious and self-evident. I guess we always have to remember that it is only by sitting on the fence that you can gain a better appreciation of the people and terrain on both sides. As the fence gets higher and higher, those on either side find it more and more difficult to appreciate those on the other.

And with the fence now reaching perhaps maximum height, being a Western Muslim isn’t something you should embrace if you are unable to keep balance or are afraid of heights!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Catch The Fire Appeal commences

The Age on 22 August 2006 reports the commencement of the appeal by the Catch The Fire (CTF) Ministries and the “two Dannys” (Nalliah and Scot) against the ruling of Victoria’s Administrative Tribunal.

CTF were found to have breached Victoria’s Racial & Religious Tolerance Act during a 2002 seminar they held on Islam and Muslims.

The Age report showed an interesting photo of former Islamic Council of Victoria President Yasser Soliman shaking hands with Pastor Danny Nalliah. Neither is looking at the other. Both are only half-smiling.

Professional Muslim-hater Tim Blair cites the fundamentalist JihadWatch website report and almost commits contempt of Court by describing the proceedings as “this stupid case”.

His comment circus of far-right ratbags are also worth reading, if for no other reason than their loopy logic. Some of them are try to show that the ICV Counsel’s argument (reported by The Age as suggesting that vilification of Islam necessarily involves vilifying Muslims) means that the bloodthirsty acts and motived of select lunatics in the name of Islam can be attributed to all Muslims. Presumably, this includes that vast majority of terror victims who are also Muslims.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Yesterday’s Australia

Each day I receive a bundle of media-related stuff including press clippings and summaries of talkback radio stuff. Today, I was looking through some stuff from the John Laws program.

Mr Laws’ program commences at 9am, at a time when most people are at school, college, uni or work. Most of his listeners (and virtually all his callers) would consist of the elderly and those out of jobs.

Many talk about terrorism. Naturally, since much terrorist activity reported is carried out by persons claiming to act on behalf of Islamist groups, the terror talk includes talk about Muslims.

Keysar Trad cops plenty of flack, with Laws and his callers wondering why Trad doesn’t stop terrorists or at least condemn them.

The constant theme of so many callers is that ordinary Muslim citizens need to take responsibility for terrorist attacks and for extremists from among their midst.

Mark Steyn asked me to do the same on Monday night (14/08/06) during a Q & A session at the CIS “Big Ideas Forum”. I have his exact words, but would need permission before reproducing them on this blog. Suffice it to say that he suggested:

a. Most (or a large number of) Muslims support the sentiments that inspired terrorists and hence they were potential terrorists.

b. Every Muslim knows inside that Muslims are the ones committing virtually all terrorist attacks.

c. The problem is one inside Islam itself, that Islam itself enables Muslims to commit such acts and that Muslims need to reform Islam.

His statements drew loud applause from his largely geriatric audience. Afterwards, one audience member said to me: "You people are all violent".

Australia has an ageing population. All Abrahamic faiths (including Islam) teach their followers to show respect to elders. But Islam also insists elders show mercy to their youngsters. Certainly the CIS audience (whose average age must have made them eligible for Australian Pensioners Insurance) didn’t show much mercy to myself and other young Muslims present.

However, one elderly lady did approach me after the event. She was a mature-aged student who was completing a degree in religious studies at the University of Sydney. She said to me words to the following effect:

“Don’t worry about those ratbags. They are all old and ready to die. Look at them – half of them can’t even walk! I’m old and grey but my brain works. I’ve studied your religion at university, and I know everything that character on stage said is hogwash. Ignore him and his followers. They are yesterday’s Australia.”

Some moments later, a young man approached me. He seemed to be of Indian or South American extraction, and he introduced himself as someone close to one of the speakers. And what was his message?

“Steyn really frightens me. I’m so glad you stood upto him. His mob are the type who would no sooner go after me thinking I’m Muslim even though I’m not.”

The rhetoric of Steyn and co scares even non-Muslims who might be deemed Muslim because of stereotypes Steyn and his ilk busily spread. I should be scared. And I am. We should all be frightened when even respectable thinktanks provide a stage for xenophobes to spread their hate-speech.

When racism and ethno-religious intolerance gains respectability, the terrorists have won. It is upto young Australians, today’s Australia, to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Most of our politicians grew up during the White Australia Policy. They regard racism and prejudice as normal. Our politicians are happy to openly make racist remarks toward anyone deemed Aboriginal and/or Muslim and/or Sikh.

We need to make sure that we don’t repeat the mistakes of our parents’ and grandparents’ generation. In fighting political correctness, we cannot allow ourselves to go to the other extreme.

Muslims have a special responsibility in this regard. We have been blessed with a religion that has a zero-tolerance policy on racial and religious prejudice. We need to set the example by ridding our communities of racist attitudes.

We need to fight anti-Semitism in our community wherever it still exists. We need to rid ourselves of ethnic-based mosques. Groups like the Lebanese Moslems Association and the Fiji-Muslim League of NSW should remove all membership restrictions that bar other ethnic groups from joining.

We also need to do all that we can do to stop extremism where it exists. We need to provide support systems for young people and converts who might be vulnerable to being sucked in by fringe extremist forms of theology. We also need to bridge the gap between Sunni and Shia Muslims, to set an example to Muslim communities in Iraq and Pakistan where sectarian violence us endemic.

And we need to publicise our efforts. Now is not the time to be modest about our achievements. People want to feel re-assured. People want to feel secure. Smart PR based on actual efforts and real achievements.

Yesterday’s Australia are dying off. Aussie Muslims are a young community. We are home-grown. We owe it to our country and our people to build bridges. There’s no point trying to change the Steyns and the types that enjoy his tripe. For every Mark Steyn, there are 500 ordinary Aussies and Canadians and Americans and Brits and Kiwis and Europeans and others prepared to listen with an open mind.

Yesterday’s Australia should be left where they are – in yesterday!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006