Terry Lane on this week's events

No more beating about the bogeyman - Opinion - theage.com.au

Terry's Age article this week (link above) is a real dog's breakfast. Long suffering from Howard Derangement Syndrome, he of course cannot let go of the idea that the police raids this week were probably just part of some diversionary tactic directed by the PM:

"Let's be generous here. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the happy coincidence of the Man of Steel's need for a bogeyman and the arrest of 17 "terrorists" has genuinely foiled a bomb plot. And let's assume too that the police who have benefited from extra money and power are not cynically rewarding their political master.

....Just suppose that for once we are not being deceived by self-serving opportunists; what should we make of events?"

However, he then swings over (via a fairly gratuitous swipe at ASIO's history) to making a point I can probably agree with. Namely, despite the government having an interest in repeatedly saying that the new anti terror legislation is not aimed at Muslims, in the present situation of course it is Muslims who will be being watched most closely. To quote:

"If the secret police are any good at their jobs they will target Muslim organisations. If there is any threat at all, we know that is where it comes from. In which case, let's stop beating about the bush and get it out in the open. The issue is not resolved when some Muslim puts his hand on his heart and tells us that "Islam means peace". We know that it doesn't. Right now we are not frightened of Baptists or Presbyterians."

And then his final paragraph is interesting, although completely devoid of practical suggestion as to how it is to be achieved:

"Putting a few ratbags behind bars will not solve the problem of an unsettling alien presence in the nation. The most urgent requirement is the assimilation of Muslims and the secularisation of Islam. The Man of Steel should tell us what he has in mind along those lines. We need an Ataturk."

[For any international readers, "Man of Steel" is his sarcastic nick for PM John Howard.]

Terry is famously athiestic, and it is his strong anti-religion views that have swung him away from the more "traditional" left wing view of multiculuralism, where it is deemed impolite to actually say that another culture's religious beliefs should be reformed or abandoned (while having no compunction about rubbishing your own country's Christian inheritance.)

So Terry has actually got himself into a position on Islam which is probably shared by many on the right side of politics, even the far right.

What do I think? Well, I am still reading bits and pieces about Islam and don't feel I have a solid basis for a detailed opinion yet. I don't know enough about the different branches of Islam and its history to have any good idea as to how it could be reformed. But of course, I have no issue with the question of assimilation. Clearly, other migrant groups have taken to assimilation in this country quite well, and I think one of the major ways of achieving this is through the younger generation's inter-marriage with Australian citizens. It is not clear to me how much the younger generation of Muslim immigrants to Australia are intermarrying. The publicity surrounding the gang rapes in Sydney suggest that there is not a hell of a lot of respect for Western women amongst some Muslim groups, which would also presumably mean little intermarriage.

I would not have thought that Australia has any substantial barriers to Muslims economically integrating here (in the same way apparently France has,) but then again I don't know (for example) how many work places make a prayer room available for Muslim staff either. (I am sounding very small "l" liberal when I say that, but I was chatting to a Malaysian guy and he explained how all office workplaces there have a prayer room for the Muslim men. I asked if it was a cause of resentment that they went and had a few 20 minute prayer breaks every day, but the chinese seem to live with it. I am not sure if a Muslim man here has ever had an issue with his non- Muslim boss over the need for prayer breaks.)

So, assimilation is a good idea, but I would like Terry to give us his personal (and practical) ideas about how to achieve that, rather than just making implied criticism of Howard for not addressing it.