Muslim majority rises to be heard

http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/muslim_majority_rises_to_be_heard_noo7xtNSXelD4Md2H2jo6N
Muslim majority rises to be heard

What do Muslim leaders condemning the Sydney violence have in common with Pope Benedict condemning the Syrian violence?

Both highlighted forgiveness as a shared monotheistic virtue.

Muslim lawyer Mariam Veiszadeh declared on ABC radio on Sunday morning that “our prophet was constantly ridiculed and repeatedly assaulted and abused, but every time he responded with dignity, restraint, kindness and showed patience”. A case in point from the Hadith is the story of the prophet’s pilgrimage to Ta’if to preach about God. When the locals abused and stoned him, he prayed for forgiveness of their sins because “they did not know what they were doing”.

During his inaugural three-day visit to Lebanon, Pope Benedict preached a change of heart for those who desire to live in peace, especially in Syria. He said that this involves “rejecting revenge, acknowledging one’s faults, accepting apologies without demanding them and, not least, forgiveness”.

It was a sobering reminder that none of the monotheistic faiths have a monopoly on forgiveness. This flies in the face of the popular perception that while Muslims only abide by “an eye for an eye”, only Christians abide by “turn the other cheek”.

Apart from reclaiming forgiveness as central to Islam, this was a milestone moment in the history of Muslim advocacy in Australia for other reasons that must go unnoticed.

As an advocate for over 25 years, I have watched Arab and Muslim reactions inflame and subjugate their respective communities. In the 1980s, leaders would anxiously apologise for the extreme behaviour of extreme minorities, as the culprits were dumped at their feet. In the 1990s, they would try to explain and justify the behaviour so as not to offend the culprits in this vulnerable minority group in Australia. After the September 2001 terrorist attacks, leaders began to disown the behaviour as un-Islamic, echoing John Howard’s coined phrase un-Australian.

But the weekend events drew a new line in the sand: Muslim leaders disowned both the criminal behaviour and the culprits as not true Muslims, but as Australians committing crimes in Australia: The individuals responsible for the violent outburst run completely contrary to Islamic tradition.

This was reiterated yesterday by the Muslim leaders’ press conference in Lakemba where the president of the Lebanese Muslims Association, Samier Dandan, condemned “the actions of a very small minority” and urged that we all “leave this matter in the hands of law enforcement agencies”.

He could have also commended the community for alerting the police about the text messages and the plans for a demonstration, thereby protecting innocents and indeed the US Consulate.

These “good relations” were conceded by Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione. This solidarity with police contrasts with the wall of silence that dogged the bike gang violence earlier this year.

Apart from condemning the criminals, Mr Dandan also condemned the vilification, both of the placard holders and the inflammatory film, and demonstrated that leaders have not been silent about the spark. However, his call for Muslims to “respond only to directives from reputable centres and mosques” may be preaching to the converted, as the bad apples prefer to take the law into their own hands and are unlikely to attend the mainstream mosques.

Leaders are fed up with these individuals dragging the community through the mud and essentially put on trial, and have shaken the tree so that these bad apples fall and roll into their own trials in courts. Leaders no longer talk about the Muslim community as singular but as plural. Unlike the Australian Catholic Church with Cardinal George Pell as its singular head, Muslims have no such hierarchy.

The abhorrent behaviour of the self-appointed defenders of the prophet, intoxicated with heroic hatred, drew swift, unanimous and un-orchestrated condemnation from all Muslim leaders. For a change, the first leadership faces we saw were Muslim women, not a sheikh. And for a change, it was their voices of reason, not voices of radicals, that were given centre stage. While the police resorted to capsicum spray to avert what could have been fatalities, these leaders sprayed their own Hazchem fire extinguishers to avert another wave of Islamophobia.

Ironically, those who responded to the Cronulla riot style SMS alert “We must defend his honour” have much in common with the instigators of the spark – the creators of the amateur film that mocks the prophet.

Both the movie makers and these trouble makers appear to be no strangers to crime and very unforgiving. They rely on social media, endanger innocents, disrespect the law and ignite violent confrontations.

The unreleased movie is ultra-insulting to any cinema audience, not only to Muslims, as it features “spaghetti western” scenes and a talking donkey. The YouTube trailer in English was brought home to the Arab and Muslim audiences on September 8 when it was dubbed in Arabic and featured on Egypt’s Al-Nas TV. This Islamic TV station strives for the normal upbringing of Muslim personal behaviour and ethics and its website includes a list of fatwas.

Equally provocative is Al Hayat TV or KMN whose vision is to “unveil the deceptions of Islam” and whose mission is to help “new (Muslim) converts develop a deeper understanding of Christianity”. This apocalyptic channel believes that “the kingdom must reach out to the Muslim world and the whole world and then shall the end come”. The movie makers such as Coptic convicted criminal Bassily Nakloula have grown out of this branch and have endangered the lives of an already endangered Coptic minority in the new Egypt.

Such cable TV stations preach inter-faith hatred, not dialogue or forgiveness, and they are beamed into Australian homes. They are the fuel that spread the flame.

These bad apples have much in common and grow on similar branches. Both Christian and Muslim leaders have a moral duty to shake them from their trees, or amputate the branch. The bad apples should fall at the feet of the law, not the faith. More importantly, the fact that these bad apple branches are grafted overseas poses a legal challenge for anyone serious about uprooting it from Australia. They heed a call to violence from global satellites, not a call to prayer from Australian minarets.

NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Nick Kaldis is in a unique position to stem the violence. He was born in Egypt and understands both the Coptic and the Muslim sensibilities. He can communicate in a language of peace, just as former prime minister Kevin Rudd spoke Mandarin to the Chinese government.

The mature Muslim response on the weekend has heralded a new era, where the voice of the majority, not the minority, has been given the prominence it deserves.
Australia can be a beacon to the world that our brand of multiculturalism has been moulded by those imported, and is good enough to be exported.

Joseph Wakim is the founder of Australian Arabic Council and former Multicultural Affairs Commissioner