Overcoming the impact of difference on social cohesion
Speech delivered by
Keysar Trad
at the
Advancing Community Cohesion Conference at Western Sydney University
(Wednesday afternoon session 12 February 2020)
Speech Abstract:
Recent
trends have used difference as an "Othering" process which created
social divisions. We need to appreciate
difference as an opportunity to grow and at the same time, differentiate between
the nature or type of difference and learn which differences to set aside for
being inherently important to "others" and those differences that can
be compromised without compromising core religious teachings or cultural mores
that form part of a person's identity.
This notion
needs to also be applied to what might be considered as offensive to our
sensibilities.
Recognising
that there will always be something that is offensive to others, what levels of
offensive behaviour can we accept?
When we refer
to a culture of respect and understanding, we need to find a comfort zone as to
differentiate between respect of the individual and their freedoms as against
respect for behaviours and our ability to isolate the behaviour from the
individual and address behaviours that offend us without disrespecting the
individual.
Overcoming
the sense of cultural superiority of the dominant majority, or minority to
create respect and social harmony.
Creating
avenues to debate difference within a comfortable framework that allows
advocates to engage in rational debates for the common good.
Method:
Will examine some of the
existing research and data on Othering attributed to political leaders and
media personalities.
Will analyise how certain
practices impact on others, for example; Halal food, religious dress such as
the Hijab or the Niqab, the Sikh Turban etc.
Data: will be taken from
existing research and or established religious teachings of those religions (as
written in their “holy books”) which will be used as an example.
Complete Text of Speech
(Due to time constraints, only a summary was delivered - as per the video above)
Start
of presentation:
I pay my respect
to the original custodians of the land, their elders past, present and
emerging.
Warning:
1 - If
anyone here objects to introspection and constructive criticism, I can tell you
now that you run the risk of being offended by my brief presentation. My intention is not to offend but to provoke
reflection and further discussion.
2 – My
references are easily Google-able.
3 – This
presentation is illustrative, not exhaustive.
4 – It is
not the purpose of this talk to vilify any religion, culture or race (other
than the culture of “entitlement”).
How do
we overcome the impact of difference?
1 – Diagnose
the problem and identify those who prey on it.
2 – Explain
the importance of the difference and highlight its neutral and or positive
effects through broad engagement. For
example, my scarf allows me to contribute without causing harm to you. Halal food provides great economic
opportunities for Australia and allows us to eat healthy.
3 – Create
your own business opportunities where unfair exploitation can be minimized.
4 – Improve
your political presence.
1 – Diagnosing
and identifying:
Difference
and Othering are a political tool used to profit a small number of individuals through
creating social change that is detrimental to sections of humanity.
Difference
is the easiest tool for opportunists to create Othering and thereby a “them and
us” outlook. This galvanizes rabble and
opportunists amongst the “us”. It gives
a tool for use in the exploitation of the labour and resources of others,
historically, robbing them of land and freedoms.
In today’s
globalized world, it is not enough to look at local examples, the politics of
some if not all the nations that I will mention impact on us and most of these
nations have lobbyists in Australia and elsewhere who profit from justifying
their actions.
The most
glaring contemporary examples of “Othering” are:
The state of
Israel[i] (the mother of all conflicts). The collective guilt of Europe (and the
US)[ii] borne from not protecting Jews living
in Nazi Germany has been used to justify the creation and ongoing support of
the Israeli state in historic Palestine thereby resulting in an Israeli
Palestinian conflict that is seeing some of the greatest repression against the
Indigenous Palestinian people. The
Palestinian-Israeli conflict is our world’s greatest source of “Othering”. Israeli politicians[iii] and Israel-linked think tanks and
lobby groups[iv] the world over expend great energies
and resources to demonise not only Palestinians denouncing them as terrorists
and keeping nearly 2 million in the second biggest open air prison but also demonizing Arab and Muslims[v].
(The Gaza strip has been outstripped by Kashmir which became the biggest
open-air prison on 5 August 2019).
Israel’s most powerful nation-backer, the USA has (contrary to international law[vi]) rehashed and repackaged a 40 year-old Israeli proposal[vii] under what it calls “the Deal of the
Century” a proposal that further robs Palestinians of rights, lands and
sovereignty. The Othering of indigenous
Palestinians by the state of Israel and its agents has led to large scale dispossession[viii] of land and lately, allegedly, the
stealing of human organs[ix] from Palestinians.
Europe’s
guilt over the holocaust of Jews, who were “Othered” by the Nazis, needs to
extend to Europe’s own colonial holocausts represented in continuing client
regimes in many African countries, the slave trade that killed tens of millions
of people[x],
the slaughter of American Indians[xi]
and the slaughter of Australian aborigines[xii]. (We do the lip-service of welcome
to country and lip-service respect to “the original custodians” but do nothing
to stop the persecution of Indigenous Australians whose rates of deaths in custody are appalling[xiii].
Our courts also allow a foreign mining
company[xiv] to deny them access to their sacred
land).
The world is
ignoring the present ongoing holocausts in Iraq, China, Burma, Palestine and what
may become one in India (God forbid) if the ruling BJP[xv] (and its RSS[xvi] base) is not brought to account for
its ongoing crimes. Israel is engaging in
its own holocaust against the Palestinian people, a holocaust based on the
easily identifiable religious and racial difference. All these atrocities are fueled by
“Othering”.
Myanmar (whose regime has the support of
Israel[xvii]) is an example where Buddhists[xviii] are using religious and racial
differences to mobilise pogroms and state persecution of the Rohingya leading
to mass murder, expulsions and displacements of large swathes of people.
China (also supported by Israel[xix]) is an example of Othering by a
political ideology, Communism has created a “god” of Chinese leader Xi Jinping[xx] who has incarcerated millions[xxi]
in concentration camps and sent more than one million informants or spies[xxii] into the homes of Uyghur Muslims in
annexed East Turkistan. There is
persecution of Christians[xxiii], Falun Gong[xxiv] and other minorities[xxv] by the People’s Republic of China. Difference has been used to steal land, harvest human organs[xxvi] and persecute millions of people. China declaring Islam as a mental illness[xxvii] or a contagious disease[xxviii] is exercising Othering in justify
its wholesale persecution of Uyghur Muslims. Harvesting organs treats these “Othered”
peoples like livestock rather than equal human beings.
For a Muslim
living in India (another country enjoying unconditional
support from Israel[xxix]), the mere accusation of eating beef
can lead to murder by a lynch mob[xxx].
Yet, Statista lists India as the second biggest beef exporter in the
world with over 1.9 million tons in of beef expected
to be exported by the end of 2019[xxxi].
According to Researchgate[xxxii], India is also the second biggest
“Halal” exporter in the world. It is not
about eating beef, it is using difference to whip up hatred, demonization and
the will to subdue, humiliate and usurp the freedom of the minority to the
profit of the ruling elites. In India,
this is culminating in the 5 months blackout[xxxiii] and brutal military occupation of Jammu
and Kashmir[xxxiv] and the Citizenship Amendment Act[xxxv] that is likely to lead to the
detention of nearly 2 million people in concentration camps. The ruling elites and their corporate media
are using Hindutva[xxxvi] (Hindu nationalism) as a call to
arms, the difference being religion and a ludicrous new notion of race.
Some Arab
majority Muslim countries are no exception, though with some of those
countries, most of their victims are fellow Muslims, the civil war in Syria has
drawn Shia “Muslims” from Iran[xxxvii] and Lebanon to support the
repressive Syrian Alawite regime and kill Mostly Sunni Muslims. They’ve virtually handed over Syria to another
country (Russia[xxxviii]) rather than transition into a
genuine democracy. We see a war in Yemen
(described by some as the world’s
biggest humanitarian crisis[xxxix]) with one side armed by Iran[xl] and the other side armed by amongst
others, the US, the UK and Australia[xli]. Most victims in that conflict are, as usual,
the most disadvantaged. In the case of
terrorist group ISIS, most of their victims were fellow Sunni Muslims. The US wars on Iraq (1991 and 2003), the US
2003 invasion of Iraq and the resultant regime change transformed a nation where Muslims of
all denominations lived peacefully with each other and with people of other
faiths[xlii] into a country of sectarian and
religious strife governed by one of the most corrupt[xliii] sectarian[xliv] client regimes. In essence, Iraq was transformed into a
country governed by “Othering”. The
large anti-government demonstrations in Iraq by Shia Muslims (against the Shia
government and its powerful local and foreign Shia backers) illustrates the
true face of Othering, that it is a tool used by the ruling elites to exploit
the masses.
Othering
in Australia
There are
other more local glaring examples from our modern history that have led to such
atrocities as Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers (children overboard[xlv] and Tampa[xlvi])[xlvii]
and Muslims.
The Othering
in Australia led to the infamous 2005 Cronulla Riots[xlviii]. The culprits[xlix] who incited the riots through
Othering hatred are yet to face any form of recrimination for those seditious
actions.
This
Othering has led to a hatred of Islam and Muslims and to calls to ban some of
the practices that are sacred to Muslims, for example, the calls to ban Halal
food, the calls to ban face covering and the scarf. This Othering also led to job market discrimination[l]
against Muslims.
Halal refers
to foods (and actions) permissible to Muslims.
Australia, according to 2017 research by Aljazeera[li] was the second biggest “Halal” meat
exporter in the world (second to Brazil) and followed closely by India which
holds the third spot in overall Halal meat exports.
Former Australian
senator Cory Bernardi, has referred to Halal certifiers as “cockroaches” the Halal industry as a
“racket”[lii] and forced a parliamentary enquiry[liii]
into the Halal industry in Australia. Pauline
Hanson the leader of the One Nation Party wanted to ban what she referred to as
the “Halal certification rort”[liv].
Hanson’s anti-Halal campaign has forced some companies to not use the
Halal Label[lv].
Fake[lvi] Imam Tawhidi claimed that Halal
certification “threaten’s Australia’s way of life”[lvii].
One does
not need foreign agents when their own parliamentarians work so hard to divide
society and hurt the Australian economy?
Attacks
on scarf and Niqab are anti-women!
Pauline Hanson
wanted to ban the Burqa[lviii] and ban Islam[lix].
Attacks on Muslim women’s attire, if successful, will only hurt women by
excluding them from public engagement if they choose to follow their
understanding of their faith. When a
devout woman is left with the choice of breaking faith or staying at home to
keep her faith, many will choose to stay at home.
These examples
are not exhaustive, turbaned Sikhs have been attacked[lx] believed to be Muslim[lxi], churches with Arabic writing or domes have
been attacked for being confused as Mosques[lxii].
In another
tragic irony; we find that even though we have more than half a million Muslims
living in Australia, a community that includes Imams, academics, lawyers,
doctors, architects, engineers, teachers and accountants, we still find so
called “experts”[lxiii]
from right wing lobby groups disguised as think tanks whipping up more fear in
Australian society and being used in terrorism trials and media interviews
thereby leading the narrative on Islam and Muslims. These “experts” continue the orientalist trend in
presenting Arabs and Muslims as an exotic and dangerous Other who cannot be
trusted[lxiv] to explain these issues without a
hostile media rebuttal. I found a very
uncomfortable nexus between the recent vicious attack on the pregnant Muslim
woman at a Parramatta café[lxv] and the timing of an inflammatory
Islamophobic report by the Lowy Institute in November 2019[lxvi]. These “experts” are also relied upon in terrorism trials[lxvii] to inform the court on such matters
that include interpreting motives of suspects.
Such “experts” maybe of limited use if there were no practicing Muslims
who can explain the nuances of their faiths.
However, the use of such “experts” when there are many articulate
Muslims who can fulfil the task shows mistrust, perpetuates the Othering and
leads to injustice.
It is a
betrayal of society in its entirety to be influenced by neo-orientalists who
are extracted from or supported by states that have a vested interest in
demonizing a minority. In this regard,
we see the Australian government at the highest level seeking Israeli experts to train and inform
our security agencies[lxviii].
Such “experts” are trained in persecuting civilian populations as
outlined, their actions in Palestine might create rather than counter
terrorism.
(Addendum, this
concept was in the delivered summary but not in the written speech, it has been
subsequently added to the written speech). Another
popular Othering exclusion of Muslims is the denial of the right to propose improvement
to the law or public policy. More often
than not, these suggestions are condemned, even the teaching of an Islamic law
elective at the university of Sydney was slammed as “creeping
Sharia”[lxix]. This nefarious exercise depicts Muslims as
invaders and aims to make readers close their mind to any thoughts or views of
Muslims and to develop gross contempt for Muslims and Islam.
In Western
societies, most persecution is against Muslims.
Columbia University’s Professor Hamid
Dabashi describes in a Dec 2018 Aljazeera Op/ed, “Muslim cleansing” as a
“global pandemic”[lxx].
Most other groups/minorities
have a strong force of well-to-do members through whom they gain
protection. The power of well-to-do
numbers creates a defensive deterrent to ensure that the impact of being
offended is limited more often than not to dialogue and discourse.
Whilst the
allegation of beef-eating can lead to death in modern India, we’re long past
the days of the Spanish Inquisition[lxxi] where accusations of differing
beliefs were sufficient for severe persecution, interrogations under torture
and forced conversions[lxxii]. Today, the offence takes affect not through
mere belief, but through the communication (verbal or through dress) of this
belief.
It should be
noted that much of this information is the tip of the iceberg, this is because
researchers do not have enough access to verify all the reports that come to
them and because many victims are afraid to tell their entire story. As a result, much goes unreported.
I now offer
a rhetorical question: what is the real threat posed by the mere communication
of these disparate beliefs to parliamentary democracies that have inbuilt
methodologies for peaceful change?
Offensive
religious beliefs:
The Hindu caste system[lxxiii] offends all egalitarians yet most if
not all societies have unofficial class division and almost all societies have
cultural or religious ideologues, special lobby groups, selected welfare
organisations, armies, wealthy merchants, working battlers and those who have
been “Othered”. In this system, each
class enjoys their own special privileges.
This statement does not excuse the class or caste systems, it merely
shows that all societies are capable of creating such divisions that rob them
of equality and raise certain people above others.
Eating beef
offends Hindus, but majority Hindu India is the second biggest beef exporter in
the world.
Attributing
partners or children to God offends Muslims and Jews.
The belief
in God offends atheists and disbelief in God offends those
who believe in God.
If we
momentarily move away from diverse ideologies and cultures to science, a seemingly
universally accepted system that has become common amongst all cultures, we
find that scientific pursuit requires curiosity and challenge. The pursuit of progress requires that we
challenge paradigms, not doing so leads to stagnation or false science. It is an inherent element of human nature to
question and thereby expand our ability to think.
Respectful
query of culture and dogma should be encouraged in a manner similar to
scientific query. This will lead to
better understanding.
Many verses
in the Muslim’s Holy Qur’an and statements
from prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him glorify the pursuit of
knowledge[lxxiv], call on reflection[lxxv], contemplation[lxxvi], analysis and critical thinking[lxxvii].
The first word to be revealed from the Holy Qur’an, found in the opening
of chapter 96 is Iqra`, this word encompasses the meanings of “read”, “repeat”
(after me) and “recite”.
Yet
evolution scientists are offended by intelligent design (creationism) and many
religions are offended by the theory that man evolved from an ape.
Any
difference can be used to prey on societal fear and ignorance of what is depicted
as the Other and can lead to persecution and harm. Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”[lxxviii]
showed how allegations of witchcraft were used as a tool for Othering leading
to the execution of 20 men and women (and naturally taking over their assets).
Healthy
societies look at such “offensiveness” as a catalyst for further learning. They ponder, reflect, contemplate and analyse
in order to discover a constructive way forward. It is possible through such processes to
peaceful transition away from certain behaviours whilst learning the benefit in
understanding other behaviours.
The
difference in beliefs and the articulation of these differences didn’t affect
the harmonious and respectful coexistence of Muslims and Christians and members
of other faiths in Iraq prior to the overthrow of the Hussein regime. It doesn’t affect the peaceful respectful
coexistence between Muslims and Christians in majority Muslim countries such as
Lebanon, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia or Egypt where Christians and other religious
minorities are completely free to practice and discuss their beliefs openly.
I cannot
hope to exhaustively discuss all these i
ssues in these 20 minutes. I do hope though that these examples will
illustrate a tiny aspect of the societal betrayal of Othering and might inspire
more meaningful discussion.
What is becoming
clearer is that minority blame is a means to distract from other actions such
as government policies, or new restrictive laws, reductions of workers’ rights
and entitlements, reductions in funding for healthcare, schools, universities,
the unemployed, the elderly etc. Othering
is a means to make some in society less equal than others[lxxix].
It is no
surprise that measures introduced to deal with the
fear of terror were recently used against climate change activists[lxxx].
We often hear that in Australia, the Chinese, the Catholics, the Greeks,
the Italians then the Vietnamese were once persecuted minorities and now the
Muslims. This illustrates that Othering
is and has always been a tool of distraction and repression that allows for
changes to increase the power and influence of those who have it and reduce it
from the average battler and those who support the average battler even to a small
extent.
2 –
Explain and engage:
In reality
though, differences enrich society, they give new perspectives and open
societies to new markets and opportunities.
Persecuting those who have differences is a betrayal of society that
denies it full access to the capacities of those who are Othered. Rather than giving them equal access, so that
we can benefit from their differing perspectives and thereby their abilities. Othering, persecuting and denying minorities
their equal rights cheats the majority by depriving them from full access to
the ingenuity of the minority.
The Qur’an
says that difference should be celebrated as difference gives us an opportunity
to learn from each other (49:13). The
Qur’an also says that those who seek to become the sole lords of this earth create
and prey on division (28:4).
Difference
is easy to exploit by dumbed-down societies, this exploitation is done by those
seeking short-sighted personal gain at the expense of the common good. Our world prospers when we celebrate
difference rather than demonise it.
Celebrating difference creates opportunities for all, demonizing only temporarily
helps the few. This is demonstrated in
the fact that the previously demonized minorities were able to become highly
effective contributing members of society once they were accepted and embraced
as part of the “us” rather than being demonised as the “Other”.
Therefore,
we overcome the impact of difference through
1 – Diagnosing
the problem and identifying those who prey on it.
2 – Explaining
the importance of the difference and highlighting its neutral and or positive
effects through broad engagement.
3 – Creating
our own business opportunities where unfair exploitation can be minimized.
4 – Improving
our political presence (in politics, the media, the judiciary and other spheres
of influence).
[xxxv] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50670393
This is not unique to India, Australian citizenship can also be cancelled in certain circumstances: https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/five-ways-you-can-lose-your-australian-citizenship
This is not unique to India, Australian citizenship can also be cancelled in certain circumstances: https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/five-ways-you-can-lose-your-australian-citizenship
[xlvii] The Children Overboard incident is a false accusation
by the minister for immigration and the prime minister of Australia that asylum
seekers being removed from their boat by the Australian Navy were threatening
to throw their children overboard. The
Tampa incident relates to a Norwegian ship rescuing 430 asylum seekers en-route
to Australia from a sinking ship.
[l] http://library.bsl.org.au/jspui/bitstream/1/2803/1/Labour
force outcomes for Australian Muslims.pdf
(Poynting S. Bin Laden
in the Suburbs, 2002, p 45)
[lxxii] ibid
[lxxvi] http://www.iccuk.org/media/khutbas/Contemplation in..
(May 21).pdf
[lxxix] Orwell, G, Animal Farm, 1945, Chapter 10. “all
animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
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