Mosques and masjids

Recently it was announced that this city will soon have its first mosque - or "masjid" as Muslims insist on calling it. This has provoked a rather predictable debate in the local media and coffee shops along entirely predictable lines. Critics argue that mosques and Muslims have no place in our culture and mumble dark warnings about terrorists and jihadists etc. Others like to point out that while Muslims are busily buildings their "masjids" here in Australia, Christians are certainly not being allowed to build churches in Muslim countries: on the contrary, Christians have never been so persecuted and oppressed as they are today in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Then there are objectors who are less ideological: they think the new mosque will cause traffic and parking problems and lower housing values.

All of this, as I say, is predictable. In almost every town and city in the country where a mosque has been built, you will find the same objections and hear the same arguments. No surprises at all. What I always find curious, though, are those people who are vociferous in their support for the new mosque. The anti- people and their motives are familiar enough. Many of them are Christians and they have a religious antipathy to Islam. Others are simply displaying an old fashioned xenophobia, a fear of the foreign. But what of those people who are fervently in favour of the mosque? What are their motives? I don't mean local Muslims, of course. Obviously they support the new mosque. Rather, I am curious about those people writing to the newspapers and holding forth over their lattes who are neither Muslims nor indeed religious at all; often, in fact, they are anti-religious people. So why, I wonder, would they want a mosque in their community?

This is something I have always found puzzling. In my former incarnation, working at the local university, I was an advocate for the Muslim students and often held positions on committees and working groups where I encountered this same phenomenon. The strongest supporters of Muslims and their interests were people who I knew to be viciously anti-religious. Often, in fact, I knew first-hand that these same people were agitating against the courses in which I was teaching - namely Religious Studies - because they were activist secularists who believed that no religion should be taught in Universities at all. I found myself sitting on panels and committees with them and watched puzzled as they demanded equal rights for Muslims and huffed and puffed about "inclusiveness" and so on. As I say, I knew these people to be atheist bigots with a passionate hatred of all religion. Why were they so keen to advance the cause of Muslims on campus? The incongruities were quite bizarre. Here were radical feminists arguing for the veil and animal liberationists arguing for halal slaughter. In this context, they were on my side, and their support was welcome. But it always made me feel very uneasy. I always wanted to say to them: "What is it to you? Why do you support Muslims on campus? What makes you so passionate about it?"

The answer they would provide was the single word: multiculturalism. "We support a multicultural campus," they would say. Fine, but I was still left feeling uneasy. I always suspected nefarious motives. When you see atheists getting behind a religious group you have to ask why, and the idea of "multiculturalism" doesn't really answer anything. The plainest example of the incongruity was the annual hooplah about Christmas. It could only happen in the phoney atmosphere of academia, but whenever anyone dared to say 'Happy Christmas' or similar, the atheists would go into a lather and denounce such utterances as "offensive" to "secularism". But they would also use Muslims as an excuse. Christmas, they would argue, offends our Muslim students. That's why we have to ban it. To say 'Happy Christmas' is a cultural imposition that offends multiculturalism. What about the Buddhists? And the Hindus? What about the Muslims? To celebrate Christmas, they said, offends our international students.

Not that I noticed. It wasn't Muslims (or Hindus or Buddhists) who hated Christmas. It was atheists who claimed to be speaking on their behalf.

What was their motivation? In the end, I concluded it was just vandalism and self-loathing. They just wanted to use Muslim students as a way of attacking Christians. That's all it was. They didn't really have any interest in the welfare of Muslim students. Nor did they have the slightest sympathy for any aspect of Islam. Indeed, by any measure, nearly everything about Islam is - or should be - deeply offensive to them, from belief in an interventionist, totalitarian deity, to women's rights. It was really quite extraordinary to watch these religion haters being all smiley and warm and affectionate about Islam. Their motives were devious. They welcomed and supported Muslims on campus purely as a way of getting at the Christians who they hated with a genuine passion.

The same motives are behind the local supporters of the new mosque. I see them in the newspapers and on social media. 'We support a local mosque!' they trumpet. I want to ask, 'Why? What's it to you?' The fact is, that what it is to them is a way of scoring points against the white anglo-saxon culture they despise. It happens to be their own culture, of course. They themselves are affluent white anglo-saxons. But they hate white anglo-saxons and white anglo-saxon history, language and culture. That's what I mean by self-loathing. They loath the very culture that has made them affluent and prosperous. And they are intent on vandalizing it. Actually, they hate Islam too. They hate all religion. But they are happy to use Muslims to "smash the cultural hegemony"of Christianity. They want a local mosque in order to insult and upset the local Christians. It is as petty as that. Their motives are dishonest and dishonourable. In that sense, their support for "multiculturalism" is toxic.

At the end of my tenure at the University I had withdrawn from my support roles to Muslim students. Amongst other things, I didn't like this hypocrisy. The Muslims were sincere people, but some of their supporters among the white anglo-saxon staff in the system were not. They had hidden motives. They were using the rights of Muslim students to advance a different, hidden agenda. That agenda is, basically, to trash the culture and history  and traditions of white anglo-saxon Australia which they regard as inherently criminal (ignoring the paradox that they themselves are a product of it.)

I support a local mosque. But there are mosques, and then there are masjids. It is perfectly proper for local people to be cautious about what sort of mosque this might be. There are many different Muslim organisations actively building mosques in Australia. Islam is not a single church. There are moderate groups and more extreme groups . Then there are extremist fringe groups that hang around the edges of moderate mosques. There is a wide spectrum. It is proper to ask questions. I'd like to know how much Saudi Arabian money is being supplied, for example, and with what strings attached?

On the whole, though, I don't share the fears of xenophobes. But nor am I a post-modernist. I believe in diversity AND cohesion. In my view, you want a local Muslim congregation that adds to the diversity of the city but, importantly, is also anxious to be part of the city and part of a cohesive culture. Not all Muslim organisations are like that. What you don't want are Muslims who indulge in the same hatreds and antipathies as their latte-slurping tertiary-educated anglo-saxon supporters

Speaking personally, I have every right to love Islam, and I do. That makes me all the more cautious about what ilk of Muslims we are talking about. And it doesn't mean I hate the West. What worries me are the atheist secularist God-haters who purport to love Islam and who clammer for a mosque here. I respect the views of local Christians, even where they are mistaken. They, at least, are not disingenuous. This is, after all, a predominantly Christian city. If a mosque is to go well here, there must be a proper relationship between the Christians and the Muslims. Finally, both of those faith communities must wake up to their common enemy, the godless relativists and their project to vandalize tradition.

As it happens, from what I have heard, those Muslim groups behind the local mosque are making considerable efforts to ensure it will fit into the city and are being sensitive to all local concerns and criticisms. 


Harper