The British press and body politic have been rumbling and hand-wringing over the French banning of burqas over the weekend and this has naturally infiltrated the columns of their national newspapers and their celebrity Twitter feeds.
Most of the stuff written is a bit ho-hum, but I did read David Mitchell's Observer column. I like Mitchell, he's an incredibly funny but also very thoughtful person. The link, should you be interested, is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/25/david-mitchell-burqa-ban-tattoos
Mitchell titled his piece 'If Britiain decides to ban the burqa I might just start wearing one.'
If you don't read it, it certainly wasn't an apologist piece on religious freedom. Mitchell took a step back and said that if we ban people from wearing what they like (within reason) then personal liberty is threatened. The funniest part of the article was this:
'None of this means I think there's anything good about wearing a burqa. I think it's daft. I think any belief system that concludes that half the population should go around constantly covered from head to toe in black cloth, whether out of modesty, humility, tradition or stealth, has a massive flaw in it.
'And, while I'm at it, I think that it's ridiculous to believe in transubstantiation, that considering the Bible to be the literal word of God reduces that supposedly omnipotent being to a muddle-headed maniac and that the Hindu caste system and Roman Catholic rules against contraception could have been invented by Satan. There! Now no one will be able to guess who's killed me.'
So, just to confirm, he's not much one for religion.
Anyway, Graham Linehan, the brilliant writer of such things as Father Ted, Black Books (co-writer, anyway) and The IT Crowd weighed in on Twitter with this:
'@RealDMitchell nice piece, but disagree that a ban is a a sign of intolerance. It's saying we take equal rights for women seriously'
This made me think - Linehan went on to make the point that liberals (I'll assume he's including himself and Mitchell in that group) should be opposed to the burqa. I don't think Mitchell isn't, but he understands that banning it would be wrong from a personal liberty perspective.
The problem with banning the burqa, as I pointed out to Linehan, is that it probably won't help. Conceptually, we should be opposed to the burqa as we might be opposed to female circumcision, domestic violence and other heinous crimes against women and children. Women are left unable to challenge these things due to Islamic countries often having little in the way of formal education for women, leaving them with no intellectual stimulation. Oh, and they're liable to be beaten in some cases.
If you'll permit a personal anecdote, I'd like to recall a trip we had to KL last year. Malaysia is a very pleasant place indeed and despite its largely Islamic population, there aren't hordes of burqa/niqab/hijab-wearing women. In KL a minority choose to wear the headdress. There are plenty of them around, more so than I remember on my first visit in 2000 and two subsequent visits, but it's no Saudi Arabia.
Anyhoo, we were there around the Islamic Hari Raya festival, which is what the Malays call Eid-el-Fitr, the conclusion of Ramadan, I am led to believe that this is cause for great celebration and sees an influx of Gulf State Arabs set on a huge shopping spree. I have never, ever seen so many full-length burqa/niqab arrangements in my life.
I don't mind telling you, it's confronting for people who live in a country like Australia to see this, especially given the weather. What makes it worse is that you go somewhere like the Sunway, a waterslidey fun park and you see husbands wandering around in budgie-smugglers chomping away on an ice cream, often with multiple sons in tow doing the same. His poor wife is trailing along, head to toe in black and absolutely not allowed to have any fun whatsoever, but sit in the heat and watch. It was appalling.
I don't feel the need to see what's under the burqa, but why is are Muslim women subjected to it? As Linehan pointed out, this is a rotten thing to do to someone and anyone with liberal leanings should see the ban as a blow struck for the rights of women. In a perfect world, it would be. And it doesn't have to be restricted to liberals either, if you ask me.
They're both right, and this is the problem. This particular brand of Islam paints women into a frightening corner, a corner that no liberal, secular or even Christian-style government can extract them from. It's a helpless feeling that overcomes me when I see women obviously confined to this clothing - the 'I choose to wear this' line does not wash with me. Most often it's a choice between a wretched life trapped inside or a beating of some description; or wearing these unwieldy garments at all times in the hope of finding another human to interact with.
My wife sat near one of these women in the Sunway and had an awkward moment when the woman's daughter started playing a little game with her. My wife looked up for some sign from the woman of whether everything was okay and all she could see was a black screen of cloth. How do you communicate? The only thing that saved the moment was the fact that the woman spoke English and said, 'It's hard for women, isn't it?'
My wife desperately wanted to say, 'No, it isn't that hard.'
So I suppose the only answer is to say that the burqa ban is a good concept but its execution is poor. Right wing Islamic fundies aren't going to let their women remove the burqa in public, they'll just never let them out. For many French Muslim women, that means being banished to their two room tenement in a grim arrondissement.
It's probably also worth noting that, I think, in the end, the ulterior motive for the ban is to attempt to halt further Islamic immigration.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Random Demands Begin
One has to love an election to stir up the rabble-rousers. Catherine Deveney kicked off the random demand train this morning with this little gem:
'RT this if you would vote for a party who promises to remove tax-exempt status for religions. #ausvotes'
This followed some pointed tweets against the lunatic Danny Nalliah who was complaining that Gillard will destroy our Judeo-Christian heritage. Deveny pointed out that Australia has had 50,000 years of indigenous spirituality (conveniently forgetting, of course, she hates such science-free mumbo-jumbo) and that Nalliah was barking up the wrong tree, making her at least half right. The man is certainly barking.
Anyway, the point is, many demands are going to be made of us, particularly via Twitter, during this campaign. Many of them are going to be random demands we must make of our politicians, and if they don't fit in with our own personal obsessions we are not to vote for them.
I find this perplexing - if I take Abbott at his word (and ignore many of his actions), one would imagine that his Christian faith would be the top of my list and I'd vote for my Liberal member on that strength. One would be wrong.
If I were to look at Gillard's so-called red-headed, childless, unmarried atheism, one would expect I would put her at the bottom of the list. After all, Tony would never sleep around outside of/before marriage...oh, I see. Yes, yes he would.
(Steven Fielding is close last, just so you know)
I have a few pet issues. One is a free and open internet but with the ability for parents (and those who want to prevent themselves) to filter that. One filter for all is ludicrous, stupid and threatens our relatively free way of life. I think this country is absurdly wealthy and equally absurdly, we do little to help those in need in this country.
We pay our teachers and nurses bugger-all and expect the world from them. We are pushing our children into schooling that ignores individual strengths and interest and aims for a lowest-common denominator 'best-practice' so that a government can beat its chest and say how wonderful they are at education. Meanwhile our kids become disillusioned with education and drift without a purpose as they fill in dots on exams, the results of which they will never see but may affect their school in a profound way.
Which of these two parties will do something about these two things? Neither. Who will I vote for? The least worst. I will not boil it down to their belief systems because I believe Gillard's approach to compassion is rather more advanced than Abbott's. The Rudd and Gillard governments will no doubt do things I detest, and have done, but above all, they appear to have more compassion than the Coalition. Abbott's approach to compassion appears to me to be the much misappropriated (and untrue) 'Jesus helps those who help themselves.'
My Facebook page this morning hosted a mini-rant about the 'stop the boats' hypocrisy thus:
'Yes, to those fellow Christians who think it's sensible to vote for Tony Abbott 'because he's a Christian' I think you might just be missing the point. The old cliche, 'What would Jesus do?' about the 'boat people' (itself a racist, emotive term) makes me wonder how a Christian can honestly say Abbott is doing the right thing. Jesus was an asylum seeker once.'
There was a wonderful thing Jesus said (among many) and that was recorded in John 13:34-35:
'A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another'
Jesus loved us like no other. Whether you see the New Testament as a story or the truth, as a character, Jesus laid down his life and suffered the punishment of all of humanity, something he did not deserve. He didn't have to be dragged to the cross, he carried it himself. Many of those 'boat people' are in genuine fear for their lives and will contribute productively to Australian society.
'Terrorists' tend to arrive by air, bankrolled by fellow nutters. The September 11 terrorists arrived by air, studied, were reasonably privileged, did rotten things. Note that last bit, it's important and renders much of the stop the boats rhetoric null and void.
Abbott, and to a certain extent Gillard, are lying to us about the size of the problem. That's not love, tough or otherwise.
'Stopping the boats' is not loving one another, it's being a jerk and not stopping to think or worse, not stopping to care, about the realities. Lying to the Australian people about the size of the problem is not loving one another. Insisting the boats are stopped by the Navy endangers thousands of people because people smugglers, like fundamentalist leaders who send minions to their death, do it all remotely and rarely have skin in the game. And I'm sure most Navy bods would rather help than hinder.
Abbott does not distinguish himself as a disciple of Jesus as his love for his fellow man appears to be restricted to white people born here in Australia who are obsessed with their mortgages and the cylinder count of their four-wheel drive and how much it costs to run this unnecessary beast. He appears untroubled by the realities of climate change - I don't give a damn why it's happening, if it might be in our power to stop it, we should try. And we should lead the way. Because if we can reduce or halt climate change, less people will feel the need to get on a boat and hope we'll take them or jump on a plane and fly into a building because our greed is destroying their part of the world.
Rambling now. You get the point. As a Christian, I will be 'voting for everyone,' not just for me and my own requirements, petty prejudices or bank balance. If our leaders are Christian, I think that's good for everyone (of course), but it's not the only reason to vote for someone. As a Christian, I believe we must be intellectually engaged and not just stop at 'Oh, he's a Christian, he's ticked the big box.' The first question for me is who comes closest to fulfilling the ideals of Christ, not who goes to church on Sunday. Either way, it's a compromise but I'd rather 7000 people in 18 months arriving by boat than 7000 possibly drowning alone in the sea after having a hugely rich 'Judeo Christian' country fire live shots across their bow to scare them away.
So I won't be insisting you RT anything random and won't be telling you how you should vote (does anyone even know what Deveny is on about? Does it mean the same thing here as in the US? I don't think it does...the church I make donations to does not provide me with a receipt with which to claim a tax deduction...). I am trying to smash the idea that 'Christians' will vote for Abbott for that reason and those who are thinking about it will hopefully consider the words of Jesus and what he stands for before they vote.
Rant over. Back to work.
'RT this if you would vote for a party who promises to remove tax-exempt status for religions. #ausvotes'
This followed some pointed tweets against the lunatic Danny Nalliah who was complaining that Gillard will destroy our Judeo-Christian heritage. Deveny pointed out that Australia has had 50,000 years of indigenous spirituality (conveniently forgetting, of course, she hates such science-free mumbo-jumbo) and that Nalliah was barking up the wrong tree, making her at least half right. The man is certainly barking.
Anyway, the point is, many demands are going to be made of us, particularly via Twitter, during this campaign. Many of them are going to be random demands we must make of our politicians, and if they don't fit in with our own personal obsessions we are not to vote for them.
I find this perplexing - if I take Abbott at his word (and ignore many of his actions), one would imagine that his Christian faith would be the top of my list and I'd vote for my Liberal member on that strength. One would be wrong.
If I were to look at Gillard's so-called red-headed, childless, unmarried atheism, one would expect I would put her at the bottom of the list. After all, Tony would never sleep around outside of/before marriage...oh, I see. Yes, yes he would.
(Steven Fielding is close last, just so you know)
I have a few pet issues. One is a free and open internet but with the ability for parents (and those who want to prevent themselves) to filter that. One filter for all is ludicrous, stupid and threatens our relatively free way of life. I think this country is absurdly wealthy and equally absurdly, we do little to help those in need in this country.
We pay our teachers and nurses bugger-all and expect the world from them. We are pushing our children into schooling that ignores individual strengths and interest and aims for a lowest-common denominator 'best-practice' so that a government can beat its chest and say how wonderful they are at education. Meanwhile our kids become disillusioned with education and drift without a purpose as they fill in dots on exams, the results of which they will never see but may affect their school in a profound way.
Which of these two parties will do something about these two things? Neither. Who will I vote for? The least worst. I will not boil it down to their belief systems because I believe Gillard's approach to compassion is rather more advanced than Abbott's. The Rudd and Gillard governments will no doubt do things I detest, and have done, but above all, they appear to have more compassion than the Coalition. Abbott's approach to compassion appears to me to be the much misappropriated (and untrue) 'Jesus helps those who help themselves.'
My Facebook page this morning hosted a mini-rant about the 'stop the boats' hypocrisy thus:
'Yes, to those fellow Christians who think it's sensible to vote for Tony Abbott 'because he's a Christian' I think you might just be missing the point. The old cliche, 'What would Jesus do?' about the 'boat people' (itself a racist, emotive term) makes me wonder how a Christian can honestly say Abbott is doing the right thing. Jesus was an asylum seeker once.'
There was a wonderful thing Jesus said (among many) and that was recorded in John 13:34-35:
'A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another'
Jesus loved us like no other. Whether you see the New Testament as a story or the truth, as a character, Jesus laid down his life and suffered the punishment of all of humanity, something he did not deserve. He didn't have to be dragged to the cross, he carried it himself. Many of those 'boat people' are in genuine fear for their lives and will contribute productively to Australian society.
'Terrorists' tend to arrive by air, bankrolled by fellow nutters. The September 11 terrorists arrived by air, studied, were reasonably privileged, did rotten things. Note that last bit, it's important and renders much of the stop the boats rhetoric null and void.
Abbott, and to a certain extent Gillard, are lying to us about the size of the problem. That's not love, tough or otherwise.
'Stopping the boats' is not loving one another, it's being a jerk and not stopping to think or worse, not stopping to care, about the realities. Lying to the Australian people about the size of the problem is not loving one another. Insisting the boats are stopped by the Navy endangers thousands of people because people smugglers, like fundamentalist leaders who send minions to their death, do it all remotely and rarely have skin in the game. And I'm sure most Navy bods would rather help than hinder.
Abbott does not distinguish himself as a disciple of Jesus as his love for his fellow man appears to be restricted to white people born here in Australia who are obsessed with their mortgages and the cylinder count of their four-wheel drive and how much it costs to run this unnecessary beast. He appears untroubled by the realities of climate change - I don't give a damn why it's happening, if it might be in our power to stop it, we should try. And we should lead the way. Because if we can reduce or halt climate change, less people will feel the need to get on a boat and hope we'll take them or jump on a plane and fly into a building because our greed is destroying their part of the world.
Rambling now. You get the point. As a Christian, I will be 'voting for everyone,' not just for me and my own requirements, petty prejudices or bank balance. If our leaders are Christian, I think that's good for everyone (of course), but it's not the only reason to vote for someone. As a Christian, I believe we must be intellectually engaged and not just stop at 'Oh, he's a Christian, he's ticked the big box.' The first question for me is who comes closest to fulfilling the ideals of Christ, not who goes to church on Sunday. Either way, it's a compromise but I'd rather 7000 people in 18 months arriving by boat than 7000 possibly drowning alone in the sea after having a hugely rich 'Judeo Christian' country fire live shots across their bow to scare them away.
So I won't be insisting you RT anything random and won't be telling you how you should vote (does anyone even know what Deveny is on about? Does it mean the same thing here as in the US? I don't think it does...the church I make donations to does not provide me with a receipt with which to claim a tax deduction...). I am trying to smash the idea that 'Christians' will vote for Abbott for that reason and those who are thinking about it will hopefully consider the words of Jesus and what he stands for before they vote.
Rant over. Back to work.
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