BevK February 28th, 2006
http://www.theage.com.au/…340.html?page=2
Liberal secularists like to paint broad brush strokes in which anyone who isn’t a liberal secularist and doesn’t agree with their political agenda is a danger.
Perhaps most significant, this Government has encouraged the rapid growth of private schools, mainly based upon religious separatism, and there is now a developing home-schooling movement in Australia among both fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. If Costello was serious about the obligations of citizenship he would recognise that these are a far greater long-term threat to the development of a shared commitment to liberal secular democracy than the ravings of one angry mullah.
He goes on to demonstrate that he doesn’t understand what free speech is all about. Apparently non-violent picketing and praying in the rain to show your opposition to something means you have simplisitic notions of what constitutes free speech. I think he means to say that my license trumps your free speech. I dont want to hear that you don’t like what I do, so you shouldn’t be allowed to say it. At least that’s the drift I get from this guy.
Of course, there is a real and major problem posed by Islamic fundamentalism, as is evident in scenes of rampaging crowds on the streets of Baghdad, Beirut and Tehran. But the vast majority of Australian Muslims behave much like other Australians, as was clear from the small protest last week outside the Danish consulate. The people who protested may have simplistic notions of what constitutes free speech, but so do the Christians who, over the years, have picketed films they find offensive, or who pray for rain every Mardi Gras.
He ends by labeling fundamentalism the problem. Of course, he also gets to define who is and who isn’t a fundamentalist. And he as much as says that they shouldn’t be allowed into his needed debate about the nature of democratic society because their beliefs are insconsistent with democracy.
We need debate about the nature of democratic society, about tolerance and about the coexistence between religion and the larger society. This debate is too important to become confused with stereotyping one particular religion or with allegations of racism. It is fundamentalism, not Islam, which is inconsistent with democracy.
