Rothbard
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Wrote this for menzies house, Muslims have I gotten anything wrong?
It’s been a wonderful month of absurdities thus far, we’ve seen Brazil and Argentina knocked out of the world cup, we’ve seen Rudd toppled and replaced basically overnight, but the craziest thing we’ve seen all month is that wonderful whacky NSW politician Fred Nile coming out for female’s rights. No, not for abortion, or contraception, or for better processes in dealing with equal employment opportunities, but their inherent right to not be be-burkhad. Fred Nile, the original captain crazy has taken a moral and principled stand saying we need to ban the Burkha because women are being treated like cattle.
I’m not denying that there are a few cases where this is happening, but they’re almost certainly the edge cases. The other argument made on Menzies House by the Hon Bernardi, was that banning the Burkha is necessary because otherwise people will wear them to rob banks. Not only do we set the real police on them when they rob the bank, they’ll have to answer to the fashion police as well. Really intelligent legislative thinking, targeting the edge cases to make people who are uneducated about statistics think that something’s being done. Sure the Burkha is a really, really divisive issue. It’s designed to be, that’s how the whole thing works. Women have covered themselves for centuries at the behest of modesty laws or religious texts, and only recently (the past 50 years or so) have we seen a shift away from this to a more self-determined view of how women interact with the greater world.
Personally I find the Burkha to be dehumanising, not just removing any sense of sexual attraction in the situation, but delving into uncanny valley territory. That and the fact that women in the blue ones look like ghosts from Pac-Man should be enough to give anyone pause over the issue. It’s downright odd interacting with people wearing Burkhas because it feels so awkward, it’s so unnatural, there’s a giant absence of body language and it’s really disturbing. I get that. There are two ways to go about dealing with this cultural divide, a legislative one and a community-oriented one. The primary issue with some Australian Muslims is one we are causing with this legislation and our attitude to them, we’re effectively ghettoising them and allowing the kind of strict religious adherence to come to the fore. Legislating against religious dress is not the way to deal with practices that we don’t find particularly beneficial. We effectively push those who do want to force all women to wear the dress further underground but give them a larger audience of aggrieved Muslims who feel teir right for religious practice has been impeded upon, because it has.
Most of these people came to this country because it offers them a greater deal of social and economic freedoms than their home country. Australia is free from war, widespread disease and famine and free from a roaming religious police, these are all points in its favour. What we need to encourage is a dialogue between the Australian Muslim and Non-Muslim community, to show that we don’t just ‘tolerate’ (which is a nasty word and a nasty concept) but embrace their ideas and beliefs, because we want to westernize these individuals. What do you think is more likely to happen, a rapid islamisation of Australia if we embrace and interact with Australian Muslims on a greater level, or a greater Liberalisation of their interactions with the greater Australian community.
This new crusade with religious fervour and people strictly adhering to religious rules is effectively a new development over the past 15 years in response to somewhat warranted trepidation in the face of thousands of terrorist attacks performed by people who claim to be doing the acts in the name of Islam. It’d be downright absurd if we weren’t somewhat worried about their motivations. As religion has become a lynch pin and a targeted point of Australian Muslims they have embraced it in response rather than distancing themselves from it because they feel it really characterizes who they are. In short, by continually attacking the Islamic community in Australia, we’re effectively providing a path for a potential radicalization of some elements within the population. The real goal for the Liberal party and Australian society in general is to continually interact with the Islamic community and, again, make them feel welcome and that they’re a part of our society. Invite them to party events, register them in your local divisions, organize events at mosques where MPs talk to them and invite their community to come to sports games and fairs. By showing people how open and welcoming Western Civilization is by acting in an open and welcoming way, Australians as a whole will be able to make substantial inroads into reducing the potential paths to radicalization. This embrace of their culture and discussion of their values in an open and honest way will almost certainly promote a Westernising of the Islamic community in Australia, and lead to an overall harmonious society for all of us to enjoy.
It’s been a wonderful month of absurdities thus far, we’ve seen Brazil and Argentina knocked out of the world cup, we’ve seen Rudd toppled and replaced basically overnight, but the craziest thing we’ve seen all month is that wonderful whacky NSW politician Fred Nile coming out for female’s rights. No, not for abortion, or contraception, or for better processes in dealing with equal employment opportunities, but their inherent right to not be be-burkhad. Fred Nile, the original captain crazy has taken a moral and principled stand saying we need to ban the Burkha because women are being treated like cattle.
I’m not denying that there are a few cases where this is happening, but they’re almost certainly the edge cases. The other argument made on Menzies House by the Hon Bernardi, was that banning the Burkha is necessary because otherwise people will wear them to rob banks. Not only do we set the real police on them when they rob the bank, they’ll have to answer to the fashion police as well. Really intelligent legislative thinking, targeting the edge cases to make people who are uneducated about statistics think that something’s being done. Sure the Burkha is a really, really divisive issue. It’s designed to be, that’s how the whole thing works. Women have covered themselves for centuries at the behest of modesty laws or religious texts, and only recently (the past 50 years or so) have we seen a shift away from this to a more self-determined view of how women interact with the greater world.
Personally I find the Burkha to be dehumanising, not just removing any sense of sexual attraction in the situation, but delving into uncanny valley territory. That and the fact that women in the blue ones look like ghosts from Pac-Man should be enough to give anyone pause over the issue. It’s downright odd interacting with people wearing Burkhas because it feels so awkward, it’s so unnatural, there’s a giant absence of body language and it’s really disturbing. I get that. There are two ways to go about dealing with this cultural divide, a legislative one and a community-oriented one. The primary issue with some Australian Muslims is one we are causing with this legislation and our attitude to them, we’re effectively ghettoising them and allowing the kind of strict religious adherence to come to the fore. Legislating against religious dress is not the way to deal with practices that we don’t find particularly beneficial. We effectively push those who do want to force all women to wear the dress further underground but give them a larger audience of aggrieved Muslims who feel teir right for religious practice has been impeded upon, because it has.
Most of these people came to this country because it offers them a greater deal of social and economic freedoms than their home country. Australia is free from war, widespread disease and famine and free from a roaming religious police, these are all points in its favour. What we need to encourage is a dialogue between the Australian Muslim and Non-Muslim community, to show that we don’t just ‘tolerate’ (which is a nasty word and a nasty concept) but embrace their ideas and beliefs, because we want to westernize these individuals. What do you think is more likely to happen, a rapid islamisation of Australia if we embrace and interact with Australian Muslims on a greater level, or a greater Liberalisation of their interactions with the greater Australian community.
This new crusade with religious fervour and people strictly adhering to religious rules is effectively a new development over the past 15 years in response to somewhat warranted trepidation in the face of thousands of terrorist attacks performed by people who claim to be doing the acts in the name of Islam. It’d be downright absurd if we weren’t somewhat worried about their motivations. As religion has become a lynch pin and a targeted point of Australian Muslims they have embraced it in response rather than distancing themselves from it because they feel it really characterizes who they are. In short, by continually attacking the Islamic community in Australia, we’re effectively providing a path for a potential radicalization of some elements within the population. The real goal for the Liberal party and Australian society in general is to continually interact with the Islamic community and, again, make them feel welcome and that they’re a part of our society. Invite them to party events, register them in your local divisions, organize events at mosques where MPs talk to them and invite their community to come to sports games and fairs. By showing people how open and welcoming Western Civilization is by acting in an open and welcoming way, Australians as a whole will be able to make substantial inroads into reducing the potential paths to radicalization. This embrace of their culture and discussion of their values in an open and honest way will almost certainly promote a Westernising of the Islamic community in Australia, and lead to an overall harmonious society for all of us to enjoy.
