A few weeks ago, I gave a speech in which I expressed strong support for a continuing immigration programme, but argued that all immigrants should be expected to share New Zealand’s “bedrock values” of respect for democracy and the rule of law, religious and personal freedom, and legal equality of the sexes.
Many of those who commented on that speech tried to get me to say that I was opposed to the immigration of Muslims and I refused to do that.
But in the intervening weeks I’ve been having second thoughts, prompted partly by the attempt of British-born Muslims to destroy up to 10 civilian aircraft in flight, but mainly by what has been revealed about the attitude of Muslims in the United Kingdom more generally.
A recent poll of 1,000 Muslims, undertaken for the UK’s Channel 4, revealed that 30% would like to live under sharia law; 28% would like to see Britain become an Islamic state; 45% believed that September 11 was a conspiracy between Israel and the United States; 22% thought the July 7 bombings in London were justified; and 19% had “respect” for Osama bin Laden.
These are profoundly disturbing numbers.
My colleague, Bob Clarkson, recently criticised the wearing of burqas by Muslim women and noted that those wearing burqas could be “crooks hiding guns”.
I myself don’t object to the clothes women want to wear (or not wear), and recognise that “crooks hiding guns” can as easily be wearing an overcoat or a wind-breaker.
But I can certainly understand why banks which object to people entering their premises wearing motorcycle helmets or hoodies might object to people entering their premises wearing a burqa.
But what people wear is not the fundamental issue. Rather, the fundamental issue is whether it is reasonable to expect Muslims to become fully integrated into New Zealand society, as successive generations of other immigrants have done and are doing, whether from Western Europe, or the Balkans, or the Pacific, or Asia.
After my speech on immigration a few weeks ago, I met with Mr Javed Khan, president of the Federation of Islamic Associations and three of his colleagues. He was concerned that my speech had anti-Islamic overtones, and I agreed to meet him to assure him that no such overtones were intended.
Mr Khan and his colleagues pointed out to me that all four had migrated to New Zealand from Fiji, and that all four were supporters of New Zealand’s remaining a secular state where people of all religions are free to worship God as they understand Him, or indeed not to worship God at all if they so choose.
I found myself thinking “Muslims from Fiji OK; Muslims from the Middle East not OK”.
And then I read a very disturbing paper by Mr John Stone. On 28 June this year, addressing a dinner in Sydney, he said:
“We need to understand that the core of the Muslim problem – for the world, not merely for Australia – lies in the essence of Islam itself. It is the problem of a culture that, for the past 500 years or so at least, has failed its adherents as its inward-looking theocracy has resulted in it falling further and further behind the West. It is that sense of cultural failure, that sense of smouldering resentment that fuels the fires so busily stoked by the more extremist Muslim teachers. Fiercely exclusive rather than inclusive, Islam holds that Church and State are inseparable; that women, while respected so long as they stick to their appointed place in the Islamic scheme of things, are less than equal to men generally, and that even the most extreme violence is justifiable when applied in pursuit of approved Islamic ends. Until all that changes – and it can only be changed from within Islam itself, if indeed it can be changed at all – the Islamic culture will never reside in harmony with others… I believe the evidence is incontrovertible that Islamic and Western cultures are today, within any single polity, incompatible. Certainly I know of no example that can be cited to the contrary.”
He went on to advocate curtailing “very sharply, to the point of virtually halting, the further entry of Muslims” to Australia.
Now if Mr Stone were some kind of extreme right-wing nutter his views might perhaps be ignored. But he is certainly anything but that. In addition to being a former Australian Federal Senator, Mr Stone was for many years the Secretary of the Australian Treasury. His views warrant serious consideration.
He acknowledged that drastically curtailing “to the point of virtually halting” the further entry of Muslims would be attacked as discriminatory, but went on to argue that “we have every right to ‘discriminate’ against the admission to Australia of people of any culture that we believe will be incompatible with the peace, order and good government of our country.”
One very practical step he advocated was requiring all would-be immigrants to receive, accept the contents of and sign for a formal statement of those aspects of Australia’s national life to which all newcomers should conform – including such things as the separation of Church and State, the equality of treatment of men and women, the non-acceptability of certain cultural practices (such as polygamy and female genital mutilation), the rights of women to marry those of any faith (or none), the rule of law, and so on.
Sounds rather like my own view that would-be immigrants should be expected to sign up to New Zealand’s bedrock values, and in my view that should apply to those of any religious persuasion.
Copyright © 2024 Don Brash.