Shouts from the desert

The image on the left appears on the front of the Christian Democratic Party's brochure that is causing so much controversy right now. While the brochure tries to make out that militant Islam is a threat to Australia, the use of this photo on a page that is otherwise black save for the title &emdash; "Aussie Values versus Radical Islam" &emdash; gives away the real motivation.

The sign being held up by he woman in the photo says "Jesus is not son of God. He is a Prophet of Islam". There is nothing radical about that statement &emdash; it is a mere statement of the the religious belief of the person holding up the sign. While Islam, having no central authority, is a diverse religion where it is dangerous to make blanket statements about the beliefs of all adherents, this view is fairly consistent throughout the whole religion. To use that photo as the lead in a brochure about "Radical Islam" is to paint all of Islam as radical. The real beef of the Christian Democrats is that Islamic belief offends their own sensibilities.

The middle two pages of the brochures contain a number of statements designed to stir up fear of Islam. It describes the teaching of Islamic beliefs to young children as "brainwashing" &emdash; presumably they think this is somehow different to the teaching of Christian beliefs to young children.

Statements are taken out of context &emdash; or put in another context &emdash; to make them seem more sinister. One of the vilified statements is that of Dr Ameer Ali:

Australia is a Muslim nation... yes it is a Muslim country

This statement may seem wrong if you read "Muslim" as "Islamic" &emdash; but "Muslim" does not mean "Islamic", it means "one who submits to God". Given that definition and Fred Nile's claim on the back page that Australia is a Christian country, he ought to be agreeing with Ali's statement rather than vilifying it.

Fred Nile's 9 point plan is on the last page.

1. The first point is that he believes Hilaly should be removed from leadership. How he plans to accomplish this is unknown, but given that this is in the context of seeking a seat in Parliament, the custodian of the coercive power of the State, it must presumably involve force, since Nile certainly has no persuasive influence over the Islamic community unless you count Nile's ability to confirm Islam's fears about Christians. Apparently Nile considers Hilaly's greatest offence that he said "Christians and Jews will go to hell." So Fred, according to Christian beliefs, what happens to the Islamic believer?
2. Next on Nile's hit list is Sheikh Feiz Mohammed, whose transgression is to say that "Jews are pigs and will all be killed at the end of the world" &emdash; a colourful expression that sounds remarkably like Christian teachings that say that non-believers will die come Judgement Day and the believers will be given eternal life.
3. Next Nile wants to take on YouTube (part of Google) to get "murderous threat videos against Australians" removed from the service. If there are indeed murderous threats being made they will no doubt be dealt with, but as for Nile planning on getting them removed from YouTube &emdash; an American service &emdash; that is an exercise in fantasy for a New South Wales politician.
4. Back to the basics of bigotry, Nile wants to ban the wearing of Muslim attire in public schools. Never mind that those who wear such attire believe doing so to be an important part of their religion.
5. The fifth point is more basic bigotry &emdash; Nile wants to ban burquas that cover the face in order to fight terrorism, because apparently the thing that really makes people want to be violent is that nobody has outlawed the practising of their basic beliefs.
6. Next Nile wants the Government to regularly inspect Muslim (by which he presumably means Islamic) schools to make sure they are not preaching hate. Apparently nobody needs to check that Christian schools are not teaching bigotry, because there are obviously no Christian bigots (well perhaps that much is true if we decline to recognise Nile and his ilk as Christians). Of course if the Islamic schools are going to preach hate they will have the decency to wait until the inspection groups arrive to do so, and the fact that Government squads are coming to look over their shoulder will obviously not give them reason to be suspicious of the State.
7. For his seventh point, Nile plans to "support moderate Muslims in their opposition to Islamic extremists." I suppose it can be difficult to come up with 9 points and not include one that is not objectionable, but I suspect moderate Islamic leaders can do a better job of combatting Islamic extremism without the help of Christian extremists.
8. Eighth, Nile wants all Australian citizens to speak English and accept Aussie values. I would like Nile to accept Aussie Values like acceptance too, so this might not be a bad idea, but I suspect those are not the kind of values he had in mind and I have a hard time with the concept of forcing somebody to have an open mind.
9. Finally, Nile wants "All Australian Muslim leaders to support freedom of speech, freedom of religion, human rights and the establishment of Christian Churches in the Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia." Thankfully Nile is not running for Federal Parliament since trying to make Saudi Arabia do this now would be a foreign policy disaster that would make the invasion of Iraq look like an unqualified success, but as for Australian Islamic leaders supporting the basic freedoms, most of them do, and even the ones who seem not to at times nevertheless seem to appreciate their benefits.

These individual points are less important than the overall thrust of the brochure though. This is a document that seeks to paint Islam as a threat, to stir up fear in the community and capitalise on fear that is already there. Where the plan points seem innocuous is it largely because they call for a state of things that already exists and in doing so imply that the planned state does not already exist. While there are no doubt a small number of Islamic people who have radical views that seek to impose their religion on others, they are a tiny minority and most of those radicals are young enough to be excused as subject to the exuberance of youth. Fred Nile has no such excuse.