Previous PM Scott Morrison calls on Muslim leaders to embrace wholescale reform to stop ‘political Islam’

Previous PM Scott Morrison calls on Muslim leaders to embrace wholescale reform to stop ‘political Islam’. By Dennis Shanahan in The Australian.

Scott Morrison is urging Muslim leaders to accredit preachers, translate religious teachings into English and clamp down on links to foreign Islamist groups, in a taboo-breaking agenda to cast extremism out from mosques and schools.

In one of the most extraordinary and detailed policy interventions by a former prime minister, Mr Morrison has told the nation’s Islamic leadership that they can no longer avoid serious questions over how they practise and govern their religion in Australia.

 

 

He has also told the imams that they face a post-Bondi reckoning, as Christians did after the child sex abuse royal commission. …

Mr Morrison said in his speech the Muslim community needed nationally consistent standards for imams’ conduct, a countrywide register for preachers, and a self-sufficient Islamic peak body that had the powers to intervene and discipline radicals and antisemites in their institutions.

Blowing away the left’s protection of Islam:

Pre-empting accusations of ­Islamophobia from the political left in Australia, Mr Morrison said the issue of reform in the Australian Muslim leadership could no longer be taboo and he believed Islamic leaders largely wanted to stop radicalism.

“Some will seek to characterise these remarks as hostile to Australia’s Islamic community, and even multiculturalism itself, trolling out the usual accusations of Islamophobia,” he said.

“To the contrary, I am advocating reforms I believe will help religious leaders in our Islamic community keep the wolves from their flock.

“To treat such issues as taboo serves only those who wish to keep these influences opaque and in the dark, where our two homegrown extreme Islamist terrorists were radicalised.

“After December 14, all options to combat antisemitism must be on the table without fear or favour; this includes how Islam is practised and governed in Australia.” …

Islam Australia isn’t liking the national conversation:

The nation’s top imams declared Labor’s antisemitism and hate laws as “Islamophobia in law and practice” while Mr Albanese’s hand-picked Islamophobia envoy cited research from under-fire anti-Israel academic Randa Abdel-Fattah to say the reforms passed last week could be a “rallying cry” against Muslims.

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils teamed up with antisemitic and radical Islamist body Hizb ut-Tahrir to attack Labor’s move to list the latter as a hate group. …

Learn from how Middle Eastern Governments deal with Islamist ideology:

Mr Morrison said Western countries such as Australia needed to learn from those that were trying to stamp out radicalism. …

Over the past decade, Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman, as well as Egypt and Jordan, have taken deliberate ­action to confront radical Islamist ideology,” he said.

“They have reasserted state authority over religious teaching, standardised sermons, licensed imams, and shut down informal or foreign-funded networks that acted as vectors for extremism. Political Islam has been curtailed. …

“No freedom is absolute and such freedom always comes with responsibility.”

At last, someone prominent groping towards a solution.

And of course the left and the Islamists deny there’s any problem in their camp (SMH, by Brittany Busch):

Morrison’s speech drew swift condemnation from Labor MPs and the Australian National Imams Council, which said the comments were “reckless, irresponsible, and deeply ill-informed”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Morrison was a “pretty divisive figure” who was pursuing his own agenda, while Chalmers was confident in the government’s approach to cracking down on antisemitism and hate speech. …

President of the Australian National Imams Council, Imam Shadi Alsuleiman, rejected Morrison’s attempt to draw a line between the Muslim community and the Bondi attack. …

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy labelled Morrison’s intervention as “problematic and troubling”, and said Muslim Australians should be able to practise in peace like any other religious group.

“The Liberals are dividing this nation. They’re trying to hold 1 million Australians responsible for the acts of two individuals. And I’m appalled by that, and I oppose it 100 per cent,” he told Sky News.

Clueless or disingenuous liars? You decide. I’d quote from the Koran, but they would pretend it away as usual (or note it was hate speech and throw me in jail).

hat-tip Stephen Neil