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Howard pressures Muslims to just 'fit in'(The Jakarta Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)from THE JAKARTA POST -- SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 2006 -- PAGE 7 Judging by the recent comments of Prime Minister John Howard and his Treasurer, Peter Costello, regarding the need for Australian Muslims to fit into Australian norms and values, it seems that the country would feel secure only in its own own insecurity. Otherwise, how would one interpret gratuitous remarks of these leaders, telling Australian Muslims (albeit a small militant minority among them) to shape up or ship out First the Treasurer: he told the country's Muslims, during an address at the Sydney Institute (a think tank of sorts, which doesn't have much to do with the Muslims), "Before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objections to those values, don't come to Australia." He warned that those who broke the compact should be stripped of their citizenship John Howard has supported Peter Costello in his remarks, and believes there are areas of concern regarding some Muslims in the community who refuse to accept Australia's core set of values flowing from its Anglo- Saxon identity. He also finds it "confronting" to see (Muslim) women wearing veils Commenting on the cultural paradox of women's images, Gwyn Topham, a columnist, has written, "It seems it's now more acceptable for Australian women to appear naked in a magazine than wear the hijab in public." Be that as it may, Costello's 'no-nonsense' comments about the Muslims has made Pauline Hanson's day. The former One Nation leader and Member of Parliament became larger than life in the nineties by her vitriolic racist attacks on Asian migrants and the country's Aborigines, and thus helped John Howard consolidate and expand his popular constituency. She now feels vindicated and applauds Costello for his comments on the Muslims, adding that "he needs to throw these people out of this country who do not embrace Australia." The point to make here is that without this latent sense of insecurity (it could be "yellow peril", Muslims or whatever), Australians somehow don't feel entirely safe. And this sense of insecurity is constantly drilled into them by their political leadership. They feel comfortable with John Howard because he articulates and reinforces their sense of insecurity. Having done that, he presents himself in the role of the strong leader with impeccable credentials to keep Australia safe and secure The way the saga of the boat people from the Middle East, seeking asylum in Australia, was played out, with John Howard keeping these dangerous hordes away from the Australian coast, is a clear example. At present, it is the Muslim citizens of Australia, with militants among them being an ever-present danger The Sydney Morning Herald cartoonist, Moir, depicted it so well recently. He sketched what looks like smoldering fire/smoke of latent racism rising, with John Howard and Costello helping to further fuel the fire by pouring petrol on it from a petrol tank The fear of Muslims is not just confined to militants and terrorists among them. Danna Vale, a government Member of Parliament, recently highlighted this fear in the midst of a debate about ministerial control over the availability of an abortion pill. She created the scary scenario that with the easy availability of abortion options for women, non-Muslim Australia was in danger of aborting itself "almost out of existence." She said that this could turn Australia into a Muslim country over the next 50 years due to the prolific fertility of its Muslim population Such public expression of latent fear of Muslims created a furor, and Danna Vale had to back off. The absurdity of her argument is so patent just looking at the size of Australia's Muslim population, even if one were to take into account the higher rate of births among Muslim women. Out of Australia's total population of about 20 million, Muslims number less than 300,000-about 1.5 percent of the total population. How will they perform the gigantic task of outstripping the rest of Australia in reproduction is beyond any calculation? But she has her supporters. According to Angela Shanahan in The Australian newspaper, "Danna Vale's comments this week were a classic case of someone saying something everyone is thinking, but no one will say." If that is the case, it is not just the militant Muslims that are a worry but the general Muslim population of Australia Her argument is that Muslims are crime prone and ghettoized. And as their numbers increase through increased fertility, they might become an even greater menace-not just the sort that took to retaliatory violence after the recent Cronulla beach race riots but some of them might even come under the influence of "fundamentalist Islam." What would she suggest next? -- to ban Muslims from reproducing or limit their birth rates to the national average! Compared to the likes of Danna Vale and Angela Shanahan, John Howard and Peter Costello are relatively benign. They simply do not like Muslims to be so different, like wearing veil, talking of sharia law and so on. According to Peter Costello, multiculturalism (which is based on respect for difference) is good if it applies to food and dancing like "eating souvlaki and dancing the zorba..."; thus reducing multiculturalism to a clichi of sorts. He has criticized, what he calls, "confused, mushy, misguided multiculturalism". He favors assimilation into the mainstream culture Prime Minister John Howard too advocates "greater integration". He says that multiculturalism is not right if it means a "federation of cultures." He has advised Muslims to work at avoiding their alienation John Howard is enjoying ten years as Australia's Prime Minister, the second longest in the country's history. The race card played an important part in his political ascendancy. In the nineties, it was the Asians who copped it with Pauline Hanson dumping on them. Today, it is the Muslims Peter Costello, who is waiting in the wings to take over the mantle from John Howard, knows the winning formula. He is rehearsing it so well that if and when he becomes the prime minister, it will become his second nature. S.P. Seth, Sydney The writer is a freelance writer based in Sydney and can be reached at [email protected] Copyright 2006 The Jakarta Post |