I posted this earlier in the week but have since added some extra very crucial points.
Islam lobbying to be recognised as a race.
Listening to The Danger of Ideas on the RN program Big Ideas overnight which was all about safe spaces and trigger warnings coincidently, (see my post of Wednesday evening) and I was struck by this question by a member of the audience directed to the Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane about lobbying going on to apparently have Islam elevated to the status of race in anti-discrimination law and where he stood and which side he would come down on.
Soutphommasane didn’t deny that this was on the table.
The critical point to be made is that if this were to happen it would be a backdoor method to afford Islam and Muslims the protection of 18c, which is obviously what they’re seeking to achieve, whereby no one could then insult, offend or humiliate and anything that was said no matter how innocuous, could be taken as an insult or as offensive.These two emotions by their very nature are subjective.
It would also have the triple effect of 1. Being an all pervasive nationwide blasphemy law, 2. Shutting the rest of us up and 3. Avoiding criticism.
Meanwhile the likes of Hizb ut Tahrir would be free to continually spray their toxic bile and poison.
The average Australian would have no idea this lobbying is going on or at what stage it’s at. How it squares with the fact that Islam is not a race because it is practiced by people of many races, I have no idea. It is a religious belief system/political ideology and would be like declaring and recognising Christianity or any other religion or belief system as a race.
Of course logic dictates that to elevate one religion to race status above others would be discriminatory in which case the tactic maybe, so as to avoid the accusations of discrimination, to elevate ALL religions to the same status safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t particularly bother other religions because they are, by enlarge, far more tolerant, accommodating and civilised.
Equally interesting in the exchange was the response by Soutphommasane. It was defensive by way of an aggressive, lecturing and sanctimonious tone as he deployed the time honoured tactic of answering from the high moral ground with a question of his own.
In the wash up he didn’t answer the question anyway and as you would expect got thunderous applause from the typical ABC audience.
The Q&A occurs at the 43.07 running until the 45 minute mark.
https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/peJLGVgpGQ?play=true