Keynote Speech

Speech given by Dr Ian Patterson

23 August 2006

I've enjoyed quite a bit of harmony this year - from all schools harmony day in March, the Board of Studies "Respect and Responsibility" harmony forum in May, ex MP Ross Cameron's "Harmony Leadership Dialogue" also in May, to applying for a "Living in Harmony" grant from the Commonwealth Government in August. Harmonious relations between different cultural groups have been difficult everywhere in the world, but in Australia we have had some unique influences helping to make harmony possible.

The nature of the land and its climate can work in mysterious ways to shape its peoples. This ancient land of Australia encourages accommodation. The aborigines accommodated to the landscape given to them. They didn't dig it up, didn't fence it, didn't build on it, didn't tame it in any way; they accommodated it and worked out techniques to survive by using what it offered. The land even accommodates koalas. Neither nimble nor possessed of excellent defensive skills against predatory bears, lions and the like, could the koala have survived elsewhere? Native animals of Australia do not eat each other.

We have learned to accommodate to three traumas of immigration.

The first began with the initial settlement of Australia and continued, like a cancer, for many years afterwards. In those days, the dominant culture was British Anglican with Irish Catholics as the underdogs. The British, whether convicts, soldiers or settlers, believed themselves to be highly civilised having come from a noble and imperial culture. In contrast, the Irish were from peasant stock, and unable to speak much passable English. In British eyes they were really no more than illiterate, uncivilised barbarians. Even worse, they were traditional Catholic whereas the British were the improved Protestant version of Christianity. The authority British did their level best to squash the Catholic Irish. They initially denied them priests, even required all children to attend Protestant schools, and worried that dissent could be fomented in large public gatherings for Mass, which they banned for 40 years.

The more the Irish were perceived to reject Protestant religion and British political and social institutions, the more they became apart and condemned. The Irish felt severely persecuted. While they could roam around in gangs creating minor disturbances more under the influence of drink than persecution, no significant disorder or any form of rebellion occurred.

By maintaining the spiritual ground as, "the only path to God", Roman Catholicism pitched a direct confrontation with the Protestants. The Catholic issue festered and boiled for most of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while literate priests and successful Irishmen began to work through political processes to achieve equality. My Dad cautioned me against playing with those Catholic boys from their separate school and church to mainstream Australia . The Catholic issue was substantially settled with the affirmation of State School Aid to schools and the burying of the Santa Maria conspiracies within the Labour Party, in the 1970s. Our accommodation to each other is now virtually complete. It took so long because stereotyped beliefs prevented genuine understandings of each culture.

But something else was at work to soften the strength of anti-catholic feelings in Australia . The fiercely partisan conflicts, expressed in arms, in Europe and Ireland , found no counterpart here in Australia . Yet, they were the same people. In part, it was because the population was not particularly religious, in any religion. It was even said that observing the big moral rules was sufficient for men to be called "religious". None of the piety of the American colonists or vent eh Canadian colonists infected New South Wales . Indeed, in this big vacant sunny land, people felt the opportunity for a freedom denied in their hide-bound ancestral lands, and they engaged it, believing that religion was a private concern and not matter of politics. Liberal Catholics took the view that all humans are brothers and sisters under God and that "salvation through Christ is not deposited in one religion only".

The second major trauma was brought upon us by the Chinese. During the Gold Rushes, Australia 's population trebled in 15 years with 20,000 Chinese in Cooktown alone and one adult male every seven in Victoria was a Chinaman. Since they brought no women with them, they attracted street girls to their dens which widely believed to sinks of opium-smoking and vice. The Chinese were seen as something less than human, representing the evil of the Old World , and merely the storm troopers before the inevitable Asiatic invasion by the Yellow Peril. The hatred of the Chinese was palpable - Chinese were roughly treated in mob actions fearful of threats to lower our standard of living and being undersold in the labour market. In 1901 the Immigration Restriction Act was passed which became known as the White Australia Policy. Even in the 1960's, Immigration Minister, Arthur Calwell was boasting that "two wongs don't make a white".

It was not until 1973 that this policy was revoked, but our accommodation to the Chinese living in every town and city of Australia had long been achieved as we have come to admire their work ethic and they have accommodated to our fundamental values. The fear of Chinese, the Yellow Peril, was reinforced by the Japanese attempted invasion of Australia in World War Two, yet it appears to have almost disappeared in this new twenty-first century.

The third trauma was the rush of European immigrants here at the close of World War Two. This was promoted by the slogan "populate or perish" for Australia simply could not ward off an attack by Asians as World War Two had so sharply shown. Scholars argued for a final Australia population of between 50 and 150 million. And that required massive economic growth to sustain it. The first major project being the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme. A wave of mass immigration commenced with people from the Baltic States , Eastern Europeans, Greece , Turkey , Italian, Arabs and many others. This influx, over time, broke the back of the Anglo-British power/authority structure and tradition in Australia which had dominated the country since settlement. I remember, in the 1960's that not standing for God Save the Queen in cinemas was a cardinal sin.

Australians did not find this transition easy. The Wogs were crucified in salacious wit and constantly put-down. They lived in Wog ghettos and were maligned and scorned. This dramatic, nation-changing time probably came to a conclusion in the political establishment of Multiculturalism by the Labour Party in the 1970's as the accepted Australian identity against the largely defunct British-Australian nationalism of the Anglo-Celtic ruling class.

Each of the immigration traumas took time to settle. There appear to be no quick solutions to accommodations between Australian culture and different foreigners. However, it has taken much less time for accommodation to the European migrant post-war than for the Chinese. Hopefully, we may take even less time to accommodate to our Moslem brothers and sisters.

The very isolation of Australia influenced its people. In the late 1800's ordinary citizens accommodated to the isolation of this land by rejecting all the conflicts of old-world imperialism to forge a destiny of their own. Francis Adams from England noted that Australia was a truest republic in the world: in England the average man feels he is inferior; in Australia he feels he is an equal. This belief manifested itself in organised Trade Unionism, the eight our working day, universal suffrage including votes by women and voting by secret ballot all long before any other civilised community anywhere in the world.

This ancient, largely arid, continent was difficult to settle and not a place where one could rely on his own individual will to succeed. We always needed help from neighbours given the regular disasters of flood, fire and drought. Thus it became a moral compulsion to lend a hand in time of trouble - the tradition of mateship settled. Australia now has more people involved in voluntary service activities per capita than any other country. Australians give more to charitable organisations than any other nation on a per capita basis.

The most striking feature of Australian history is its lack of serious communal strife, given even more significance with the rush of immigrants after the War. It remains the only continent in the world where war has not been waged. Little wonder, then, that this is the only place in the world were you'll find expressions like: "She'll be right mate", "No drama", "No worries", "No problem", "G'day" - surely these are the most accommodating of expressions.

And so it was until the Cronulla riots. That seminal event sharply focussed attention on the rising Islamic community in Australia . Throughout the years of quiet multiculturalism, we were encouraged to tolerate the different customs and beliefs of others. "Tolerance" was the big moral precept. Now, for the first time in our history, we have people who are openly challenging our values and even demanding that their set of laws and beliefs should apply to all Australians. This is no longer an issue of "tolerance" but one of "understanding". What we desperately need now is an understanding of Islamic culture to head off and control any rising tide of anti-Islamic sentiment. That sentiment if already building but it needs to be focussed on the right Moslem group not Islam as a whole, and certainly not against what I call the Mainstream Islamists.

The fact is that mainstream Islam is the dominant worldwide culture. Mainstreamers look with pride to the tolerant, wealthy, humanely religious culture of Mohammed's city-state of Medina . Mohammed's Medina is what Islam is meant to be - the model of Islamic perfection.

In Medina , men and women prayed together reflecting the Quranic message that men and women were created from one cell (4.1). The Quran said, "God has established for you (the Arabs) the same religion enjoined by Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus" (42:13). In Medina , Mohammed recognised Jews and Christians as protected peoples. He had a dream of a single, united religious leadership encompassing all three faiths of Abraham. Indeed the Quran clearly states, "There can be no compulsion in religion" (2:256). In Medina , the old tribal law of "an eye for an eye" was changed by Mohammed to the Quranic "the retribution of injury is an equal injury but those who forgive the injury and make reconciliation will be rewarded by God". (42:40)

Mainstream Islam follows the Quran's injunctions forbidding the killing of women, monks, rabbis, the elderly and non-combatants, and stating an outright prohibition on all but defensive wars. By far most Moslems in Australia are mainstream Islamists. No worries - no fear!

I met these mainstream Islamists when I was principal of the Australian Islamic College in Rooty Hill. The Australian Islamic College - note the priority of the words. In talking with me, many of the men would make a point of saying "I'm an Aussie". I arranged for a group of Year 9 boys from Shore School to visit. They spent the day in classes and talking with Moslem students. In the end, the Shore boys didn't like the moral precepts of no dating and arranged marriages, admired their living their religion, and concluded, "They are really very like us". Soccer matches have been played against Cranbrook School and this has brought both communities closer in understanding each other. Every culturally different independent school should have a brother/sister relationship with a mainstream Australian school which should include teacher exchanges as well as pupil interactions.

However, there is a medieval, lunatic fringe that live in a Middle Ages darkness which relies on a literal interpretation of the Quran, shows little interest in any intellectual activity except the study of the Quran, and holds primitive and oppressive social values. This fringe is evident in the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt , the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia and in Al Qaeda.

Unfortunately, they gain some legitimacy by claiming the moral high ground over Western secularism, pornography, materialism, the debasement of women, same-sex relationships and the like - what they call the bacteria of West-toxification. Even some of the mainstreamers hold to this moral advantage over the rest of us. The medieval fringe however believes the world is divided between the House of Islam and the House of War where a perpetual state of war must exist until the entire world embraces Islam and submits to Muslim rule. From these ranks come the suicide bombers.

We want none of these people in Australia . If they are already here, expressing their resentment about and values and culture we should find means to counter their influences. First, they must be exposed and condemned by Islamic leaders. The voices of mainstream moderate Moslems need to ring louder. The most vulnerable to the ideology of the primacy of Islam over all religions with the consequence of domination and conversion of all others, the most vulnerable are those already disaffected by unemployment and perceived employer bias their recruitment. These youth need to be identified, their source of disaffection discovered and attended to by both Islamic and Australian leaders. I understand some 30% of Moslem youth in Western Sydney is without work. This is not a job for police. As Saaed Kaan (Vice Chairman Community Relations) wrote in Monday's SMH, the Howard Government would be better served by attending to this unemployment problem rather than spending millions hoping to "train" imams and sheiks in Australian values in a proposed Islamic Studies Centre at one of our major universities.

A final word from the Dali Lama, "You can develop the right attitude towards others (harmony) if you have kindness, love and respect for them, and a clear realisation of the oneness of human beings".