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Waging a cultural revolutionary war

By Irfan Yusuf - posted Monday, 11 September 2006


Further Costello has emphasised on the need for Muslim religious leaders to provide a greater degree of pastoral care to converts, saying leaders should “make it clear to would-be converts that when you join this religion you do not join a radical political ideology”.

Costello’s remarks, though crude and inaccurate in some senses, display a more sophisticated understanding of how the relative ignorance and zeal of young people and converts can be trapped by fringe extremists. Costello doesn’t see Islam itself as a problem, nor does he make any claims about Muslim cultures. He is more concerned with ensuring ordinary sincere Australian Muslims are not manipulated by foreign extremists.

Of course, it is easy for Muslim leaders to blame politicians for their woes. I believe Muslim leaders should be selective in how they respond, particularly to Howard’s ill-considered remarks. Muslim leaders should display more political sophistication, and appreciate that Howard’s rhetoric is probably more determined by interest rates and the unpopularity of his industrial relations laws than by any concern for the nation’s cultural health or security.

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Muslim leaders should seize upon Howard’s admission that at least 99 per cent of Muslim Australians are fully integrated. It is difficult to fund similar endorsement of any other ethnic or faith community in Australia. It certainly flies in the face of infantile commentary often found in metropolitan tabloids.

Muslim leaders of Mr Howard’s generation should heed the lesson that Mr Howard refuses to heed. They should step down when alternative and effective leadership is available. Muslim organisations are in desperate need of generational change. Younger Muslims, including and especially women, must form part of this change.

Articulate Muslim women are far more capable of effecting positive change for Muslim women than neurotic feminists and cultural chauvinists that congregate on the op-ed pages of allegedly Australian newspapers. Muslim women need to come forward and take their rightful place as leaders of Muslim Australia. Their voices need to be heard, and they need to take control of decision making on issues affecting them and all women.

Further, Muslims need to ensure that a diversity of Muslim voices are heard from across the cultural, sectarian, gender and political divide. There is no reason why debates within the Muslim community cannot be discussed in the public arena where followers of other traditions can share their experiences.

In this respect, Muslim leaders must continue to strengthen their ties with their Jewish brethren. Australian Jews share profound cultural and religious similarities with Australian Muslims, who can learn much from Jewish experience in terms of community structure and infrastructure development.

Finally, Muslims need to invest a good amount of time and money in decent PR. They need to ensure that Australians are made aware of Muslim values to the extent that irrelevant middle-aged male politicians are no longer able to claim that Muslims should ensure their women are treated with as much disdain as Mr Howard’s faction of the NSW Liberal Party treats female preselection candidates.

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Ordinary Australians do have legitimate fears about security. They have even greater fears about rising home loan interest rates, conservative opposition to life-saving scientific research and workplace relations policies that remove job security. One way we can address these real issues is if Muslims allay Australian fears about Islam. In doing so, we can ensure governments cannot shirk their responsibilities by hiding behind the sound of dog whistles.

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About the Author

Irfan Yusuf is a New South Wales-based lawyer with a practice focusing on workplace relations and commercial dispute resolution. Irfan is also a regular media commentator on a variety of social, political, human rights, media and cultural issues. Irfan Yusuf's book, Once Were Radicals: My Years As A Teenage Islamo-Fascist, was published in May 2009 by Allen & Unwin.

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