Religiosity in Australian Muslim Communities: Coexistence of Secularism, Study notes of Religion

Download Religiosity in Australian Muslim Communities: Coexistence of Secularism and more Study notes Religion in PDF only on Docsity! For God’s Sake! Rethinking Secularism in Australia Melanie Brown A public religion: Muslims praying on the street outside Lakemba mosque, Western Sydney 1 This work is substantially my own, and where any part of this work is not my own, I have indicated this by acknowledging the source of that part or those parts of the work. Signed: _______________ Date: 11/10/2011 Honours dissertation Department of Government and International Relations The University of Sydney Word Count: 19793 Student ID: 307193926 2 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Muslims praying on the street outside Lakemba mosque, Western Sydney 1 Figure 2: Frequency of prayer (table) 54 Figure 3: An artist in Sydney’s Inner West publicly calls for a ban of the ‘burqa’ 55 Figure 4: ‘Jesus, a prophet of Islam’ billboard 57 Figure 5: Salam Cafe, SBS 59 Figure 6: The fake flyer distributed by Husic’s opponents in the 2004 Greenway election 77 5 INTRODUCTION Earlier this year, The Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan made a bold contribution to the popular discourse on religion, culture and politics. Hitherto a long-standing proponent of multiculturalism, Sheridan declared his new-found opposition to the policy, insisting that ‘not all immigrants are the same’; that Australia’s ‘Muslim immigration problems’ pose challenges to our secular way of life because ‘the community of Islam [is] church and state in one, with the two indistinguishably interwoven’; and that ‘to make all religions seem equal is simply to deny reality’ (2011). His point, rarely voiced so candidly, underscores a belief which exists in the common sense of many Australians: that the Muslim presence poses a threat to the secular foundations of Australia and, consequently, to social cohesion in a multi-ethnic and multi- religious nation. Sheridan’s sentiments were regrettably uncontroversial. Whilst his remarks drew some mild criticism from Immigration Minister Chris Bowen (2011), and the Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia (2011), there was no mainstream backlash against his views, which in digital form were widely circulated. This is because Sheridan’s article reflected two prevailing ‘common sense’ normative presumptions. First, many people believe that in modern times religion should be a private matter; or, put differently, that an assertive form of secularism which relegates religion to the private sphere is a necessary or desirable feature of a modern democratic society like Australia. Public expressions of religion of the kind pictured on the front page of this dissertation ostensibly violate Australia’s secular ethos. This perception is underpinned by a second presumption, usually held unthinkingly, and often reinforced by the ethnocentricity of popular culture: that Muslims are generally resistant to the secularising forces of modernity, due to the inescapably ‘other-worldly’ and thus 6 politically ‘fundamentalist’ character of Islam. This presumption draws upon an historical line of literature which characterises Islam as an impediment to democracy, secularism and modernity. It is central to what Edward Said famously dubbed ‘Orientalism’: the perception of Eastern peoples as exotic, highly religious, other-worldly and less than civilised, and thereby prone to lapses of violence, authoritarianism and despotism (1978). The power of these presumptions in the Australian context is not to be underestimated. Their grip can only be broken by developing a new perspective on the subject of secularism, modernity and Islam, one that is historically aware, theoretically sensitive and empirically well-informed. This dissertation pushes in this direction. It proceeds on two fronts. First, it proposes that the bigotry which has accompanied the growth of Australia’s Muslim population is cause for rethinking the old, worn-out ideology of secularism. The dissertation argues that certain presumptions which dominate the public debate on religion and secularism generally, and the place of Islam in particular, should be firmly rejected. It sets out descriptively, using new methods, with a sense of the history and the normative implications, a fresh understanding of the role of religion in Australian society. The dissertation proposes a second reason why a new perspective is needed: it argues that the Australian case is important because it has the potential to serve as a blueprint elsewhere for understanding and rethinking the role of religion in modern, secular societies. 1.The political significance of Australia’s growing Muslim population On the 2006 census, 399,000 Australians identified as ‘Muslim’. The Muslim population is predicted to swell to 714,000 by 2030 (Warne-Smith 2011). Given this projected growth, a broad re-examination of the appropriate relationship between religion and politics in Australia 7 personal, internal and private relationship with God, rather than in works or the arrangement of public institutions. Thus, the old secularism which demands the confinement of religion to the private sphere cannot treat all religions equally, because ‘different religions demand different types of commitments, spanning what we now think of as the public and private spheres in very different ways’ (Celermajer 2007: 112). As this traditional understanding of secularism cannot be applied to non-Christian religions, it must be rethought in the context of modern multi-ethnic and multi-religious Australia. This dissertation proposes a dramatic shift in the meaning of the term ‘secularism’. We must discard the old ideology of secularism which sees the secularisation of society as equivalent to the privatisation or outright extinction of religion. A different way of thinking is proposed, backed up by a radically different understanding of a secular state, whose prime role is to enhance the free-thinking pluralism of democracy through a stance of active neutrality towards different religions, which are then able to flourish both in the public and private spheres. It is evident in the twenty-first century that a religious society, in which religion has not withered away or retreated to the private realm, can readily exist alongside a secular state, which stands at some distance from religious institutions and norms. The worn-out nineteenth-century ideology of secularism must be rethought to reflect this reality. This dissertation suggests that in Australia a new, twenty-first century paradigm for governing the relations between religion and politics - an entirely new understanding of secularism - has to make room for ‘religious secularity’, a phrase which rejects the obsolete dualism between ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’,1 and promotes the flourishing of public religions in society, whilst maintaining the even-handedness of the state towards different religions. 10 What does this new secularism require? Neutrality of the state is not equivalent to its strict separation from religion; there can be interventions by the state into the lives of religious believers to ensure inter-religious harmony and social cohesion. Instead, it involves the freedom of state institutions from religious bias, alongside tolerance by the state of the flourishing of religions in the public and private spheres of society. A democratic state should attempt to enforce no one religion, to treat all believers and non-believers with equal respect, and to preserve a public space for the free exercise and expression of religions in society. This tolerance must be reciprocated by religions, which must respect the independence of the state to ensure its impartiality. This is achieved by a measure of ‘differentiation’ between state institutions and religious institutions and norms. Thus, the new secularism involves a multi- religious democracy defined by the independent existence and public expression of religion in the realm of society and recognition of the need for the independence of the state from religion, and thus an active neutrality of the state towards religions.2 More than a few Australian commentators fear that Muslims undermine this arrangement; since they presume the inherently political nature of Islam they suspect that it cannot respect nor tolerate the freedom of state institutions from religion. This presumption will be shown in this dissertation to be unfounded. There is great respect for the secular nature of Australia's institutions among Muslim communities, which implies - paradoxically - that they are an important active source of support for the new secularism. The presence of the Muslim diaspora may enhance the even-handedness of the Australian state towards religion, especially by forcing public debate on the proper place of the state in protecting religion in the public square. All public debates are informed by personal beliefs of some variety, and whilst religious beliefs must not be privileged in the public sphere, nor should they be excluded from 11 it by legal and political means. The ‘separation’ of religion from the state should not be confused with its role in protecting religious expression in society. Any attempt to radically alter the meaning of secularism necessarily involves revisiting and probably discarding entrenched and confused presumptions about the proper place of religion in contemporary societies, and Islam’s incompatibility with this antiquated, ethnocentric form of secularism. Fierce debates informed by deep-seated and poorly-defined prejudices surrounding the Muslim presence in Australia have emerged in popular discourses. Commentators like Sheridan adopt the language of secularism without the requisite awareness of the normative presumptions upon which this language is built. Some claim that Muslims threaten Australian secularism; others insist that secularism in the old sense is being disrupted by a publicly virile and thereby primitive religious minority. This naiveté in popular discourses is a direct consequence of the lack of scholarly inquiry in Australia which challenges the dominant presumptions about secularism and Islam. By contrast, in Western Europe for instance,3 a sophisticated conversation about the proper place of religion, and especially a public religion like Islam, in modern democracies is taking place in response to rapidly increasing and deepening religious pluralism (see, e.g. Asad 2003; Casanova 1994; Taylor 2007). This dissertation points out that much can be learned about the Australian case by engaging this conversation. Drawing upon this material, and with fresh local evidence, this dissertation argues that in Australia the old presumption that the retreat of religion to the private sphere is a necessary condition of democratic life is no longer relevant. It shows that religion is not dying away; and that for several strong reasons, religious pluralism is now a permanent feature of modern 12 The capacity for reform is enhanced by uncertainty in the law. The ambiguous interpretation of secularism by the Australian courts creates substantial room to experiment with a new form of secularism. The legal relationship between the state and religion in Australia is enshrined in section 116 of the Constitution. This section precludes the Commonwealth from passing any law establishing a religion, or any law which prohibits the free exercise of religion. It has a narrow scope, applying only to Commonwealth, and not to State, laws. No law has yet been struck down as offensive to the clause, despite several High Court challenges. In the most authoritative case,5 as well as the most recent case,6 the High Court concluded that in order for a law to be offensive to the section, it must have the purpose of achieving an object which section 116 forbids, despite the law’s effect. In interpreting the clause narrowly, the High Court left the parliament to decide what secularism means in Australia. This is in stark contrast to France, for instance, where it was left to the Conseil d’Etat in 1989 to decide that the wearing of religious dress in schools was compatible with laïcité (Gray 2011: 8). This unique legal ambiguity and historical apathy points the potential for a new understanding of secularism in Australia. Its model of secularism could emerge as a global pace-setter. Countries around the world, but especially in Western Europe, are currently experiencing unprecedented levels of religious pluralism, and are responding badly. The old, dogmatic secularism is making a comeback in Western Europe. The public religiosity of Muslims has triggered a backlash. Laws which prohibit covering the face have emerged in France (April 2011) and Belgium (July 2011), and such laws are imminent in Italy, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland (Chrisafis 2011). 15 The institutional adjustments required to achieve a multi-religious secularism in Europe are difficult to achieve because of the continent’s history. European secularism arose in predominantly single-religion societies (Bhargava 2011). The historical development of religiously homogenous nation-states in Europe fostered a uniquely ethnocentric approach which has most recently led to the widespread abandonment of the policy of multiculturalism. The scale of migration from the Muslim world is also significantly higher in Western Europe than in Australia. The traditional ideology of “secularism” - often involving hostility to public displays of any religion but Christianity - is therefore so entrenched in much of Western Europe that few astute mainstream politicians dare openly advocate its reform at the present time. By contrast, and despite the prejudice against Muslims in some quarters, Australia has recently reiterated its commitment to multiculturalism (Bowen 2011). As a nation of immigrants, it is not only more accepting of cultural ‘Otherness’, but is more comfortable with religious diversity, often for reasons of apathy. In Australia, the push to prohibit face coverings in public spaces (for instance) is thus a fringe policy, advocated only by those on the far right of the political spectrum. Here, then, is an opportunity. If an Australian working prototype of ‘religious secularity’ can be established, it could serve as an exemplar for other societies coming to terms with religious pluralism, especially those countries of Judeo- Christian heritage experiencing increasing Muslim immigration. Australia could enlighten Western European democracies to the possibility that there is room within secularism for public religiosity on a societal level, as long as a measure of freedom of secular state institutions from religious influence is maintained. Religious secularity is a more inclusive form of secularism which befits a multi-religious, modern democratic society. It 16 appreciates that of the three processes of secularisation identified above, only one is a vital condition of modernity: the development of a secular state, operationalised through the differentiation of religious and government institutions. Crucially, Australian Muslim communities respect this key aspect of secularism, as is demonstrated in the pages that follow. The argument in brief On these premises, the central argument of this dissertation is three-dimensional. First, within Australian Muslim communities religion is flourishing. Religion shows no sign of declining, nor of retreating to the private sphere. Second: this dissertation argues that the presence of publicly religious Muslims is forcing a vigorous debate about the place of religion in modern society into the public domain. Crucially, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the defensible core of the old secularism - the separation of religion from key secular institutions - is overwhelmingly respected by Muslim communities. A third key theme of the dissertation is that policies of secularism based upon outdated presumptions involving a uniquely Christian dualism between ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’ are no longer sufficient to deal with the complex dynamics of a modern democracy such as Australia. It is argued, instead, that we need a new form of secularism which recognises that a religious society can exist alongside a secular state. It is concluded that if Australia successfully adopts this more tolerant and multi- religious form of secularism, it might serve as a best-practice blueprint which could be adopted elsewhere, for instance by Western European states which are for the moment dealing badly with similar challenges to the old secularism. This dissertation comprises three chapters. Chapter one provides the intellectual background to the two presumptions which are challenged in this dissertation: that Islam is antithetical to 17 LITERATURE REVIEW This study explores a virtually untouched subject area. It assesses the implications of Australia’s growing Muslim communities for matters of law, education and politics. Whilst individually, these topics have been sparsely addressed, no study has thus far drawn upon, and fundamentally revised, the theoretical framework of secularism when analysing the relationship of Muslim communities with these institutions. Two Australian scholars have explored the relationship between Muslims and modernity (Bahfen 2010) and secularism (Celermajer 2007), but their attention differs from the present work’s focus on specific institutions, and the support within Muslim communities for a new secularism. Bahfen’s study is criticised in the coming pages for failing to question mistaken presumptions which underlie the prejudiced discourse surrounding Muslims in Australia. Celermajer deals with the construction of Muslims as the ‘Other’ through the secularism discourse in Australia. Whilst she perceptively challenges the legitimacy of the old, Christian- centric secularism, the focus of Celermajer’s piece is on why Muslims are regarded as radical enemies and threatening outsiders in Australia, whereas this dissertation proposes an alternative way forward from this impasse. This dissertation draws together two bodies of literature: studies of Australia’s Muslim communities, and sociological theories of secularisation and secularism. Several Australian social scientists have explored Australian Muslim communities, and their work is an important source of evidence in the present study. The subjects of these past works include histories of Muslims in Australia (Cleland 1993; Jones 1993a; Kabir 2004); issues of cultural integration and multiculturalism (Humphrey 1987, 2001); discrimination and Islamophobia 20 (Scott Poynting and Noble 2004); Muslim women and the veil (Jones 1993b); and ethnic and religious identities among certain Muslim communities (Bisin et al. 2007; Inglis 2010). Australian studies of secularisation mostly predate or ignore the large-scale Muslim migration that has happened during the past half-century. Due to the decline in churchgoing and the rise in the numbers identifying with ‘no religion’, the prevailing view has been that Australia followed traditional European patterns of secularisation (see, e.g. Ely 1981; Hogan 1979, 2009; McAllister 1988; McCallum 1987, 1988; Mol 1985). A few theorists have observed a ‘desecularisation’ process (Possamai 2008), yet no theory has emerged which adequately accounts for the complex trends we see in Australia. No scholar has assessed the impact of migration on these processes, and no study has recognised the need for a new conception of secularism which would better suit Australia’s religious diversity. This dissertation takes a preliminary step towards filling this gap. 21 METHODOLOGIES How is the gap to be filled? The absence of existing analysis in this area necessitates an imaginative mix of methodologies to grasp the complexity of the subject matter at hand. My whole approach challenges the prevailing fact-value dichotomy between empirical ‘political science’ and normative ‘political theory’. It advocates the adoption of multiple methodologies. Both quantitative and qualitative purists are convinced of the normative and empirical superiority of their methods. They each, implicitly if not explicitly, cling to Howe’s incompatibility thesis, which posits that qualitative and quantitative research paradigms cannot and should not be mixed (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004: 14). Yet Gerring and Yesnowitz (2006) point out that ‘normative theorizing must deal in facts just as empirical work must deal in values; they do not inhabit different worlds’ (2006: 108). Facts are seen as artefactual. The recognition of this middle-way, post-empiricist approach is vital to the continuing relevance of political science to policymakers and citizens. One way of doing this involves employing a methodological compromise, which adopts ‘mixed’ or ‘multi-method’ approaches, combining the virtues of a sense of the historical contingency of things, the need for conceptual clarity and thick descriptions and other empirical work, in order to attack complex problems from many angles. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie observe that there are pragmatic reasons for employing a method and philosophy that ‘attempts to fit together the insights provided by qualitative and quantitative research into a workable solution’ (2004: 15). 22 thick descriptions of Muslim communities; quantitative data analysis; and the scrutiny and evaluation of concepts and theories. Qualitative sources include: an analysis of the writings of fieldworkers in the social sciences who have studied Muslim communities in Australia; a reading of the history of Muslims in Australia; speeches, government documents, and newspaper articles about Australian Muslims; and an analysis of websites, blogs and other publications which have been developed by Australian Muslims. Quantitative data is drawn from a variety of studies which provide insights into religious beliefs and practices, and attitudes towards religion in the public sphere. In order to make sense of the vast body of available information, finally, this dissertation engages with the conceptual framework of secularism in order to show the pressing need for its radical revision. In addition to the normative arguments for the universal adoption of mixed methodologies, there are special reasons in this particular subject area for such an approach. Due to the pioneering nature of this study, its engagement with a virtually untouched area of research, this dissertation had to cope with the dearth of quantitative evidence available. Large-scale databases on the attitudes of Australian Muslims do not yet exist. Meanwhile, the diversity of the objects of study (i.e. the plurality of Muslim communities in Australia) implies that qualitative observations made about one group rarely hold when observing another group. Thus, in order to make meaningful generalisations some quantitative analysis remains a necessary strategy. But the converse is also true. The so-called facts, and interpretations drawn from quantitative and qualitative sources, need theories through which they can be understood and explained. Facts require theories, in that theories provide selection criteria for what should be considered as relevant or important facts. This need for theory becomes more compelling when one considers that the subject matter at hand - the relationship between Muslims and secularism - is so burdened by inherited presumptions, biased categories, and 25 taken-for-granted meanings that a critical analysis of preceding theories is imperative. A clear- headed conceptual methodology proved especially critical to this dissertation, due to the attempted bold re-description that takes place in the pages which follow. Revising and shifting the meaning of the term ‘secularism’ cannot be accomplished without a nuanced understanding of its deep history. The dissertation acknowledges the contestability of its own claims. By using a mix of methods, it dues not suppose that its own findings are instances of absolute Truth. Instead, it draws together ‘instrumental and provisional truths that are a matter of degree, not stagnant, and that we must be willing tomorrow to call falsehoods’ (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004: 18). It endorses a form of fallibilism, in that its key conclusion - that a new form of secularism is thinkable, practicable and desirable - is seen as an empirically-guided conjecture that is certainly subject to contestation, and to further analysis and revision. 26 CHAPTER ONE Background to the presumptions The two aforementioned, and clearly related, presumptions are steeped in a long and distinguished history of intellectual thought. As these histories have profound consequences for depth and potency of the presumptions, they are exposed in this chapter. This facilitates a reconsideration of the purposes and objectives of secularism and how they are best achieved in a multi-religious society like Australia. Presumption #1: Islam is incompatible with secularism To understand why Islam is widely seen as an uncompromising religion self-insulated against forces of secularisation, we must familiarise ourselves with the historical category of ‘religion’. It was during the eighteenth century that for the first time on a substantial scale a sustained reflection on ‘religion’ began. In that period, European travellers to the Ottoman Empire, the Persian lands and India began to encounter new religions, and thus to think comparatively. Was Muhammedanism understandable through the same category as Christianity, Hinduism or Sikhism? A definition of ‘religion’ emerged, at the most general and abstract level, which referred to a form of experience where human subjects feel themselves to be related to and dependent upon a transcendent force, relationship or process. However the ‘other-worldly’, transcendent cosmology of this category excluded many ‘Eastern’ religions, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shintoism. These religions are very much of this world, in that they do not rely upon a transcendental being. Confucianism, for instance, is a system of moral, social and political thought which some 27 Orientalist’, and accused both him and Samuel Huntington (who adopted Lewis’ catchphrase) of ‘demagogy and downright ignorance’ in presuming to speak for a whole civilisation. In Huntington’s infamous book The Clash of Civilizations (1997), he wrote that Western Christianity displays the unique dualism between God and Caesar, church and state, spiritual and temporal authority, a dualism that is essential for democracy to flourish. He reformulated the Christian adage to ‘render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s’. ‘In Islam’, Huntington proclaims, ‘God is Caesar’ (1997: 70). This presumption remains prevalent in Australia. The only existing scholarly analysis of Australian Muslims, secularism and modernity which currently exists inadequately addresses this misconception; in fact, it may serve to reinforce it. Naysa Bahfen in 2010 stated that ‘the Islamic viewpoint...does not support the notion that the church and state ought to be separated’. Bahfen does not observe that Islam has no conception of ‘church’; she instead argues this is because Islamic ideology is at loggerheads with the idea that modernity strictly relegates religion to the sphere of the home with no place in public life (2010: 223). Such a position is often preceded by a holistic, encompassing and dogmatic conception of secularism. The argument that religion and state institutions ought to be separated must be distinguished from the fundamentally different idea of religion being relegated to the sphere of the ‘home’, with no place in the public spheres of civil society, political society or the state. Casanova notes that despite its nature as a political as well as a religious community, ‘it is totally inaccurate to argue that Islam has no differentiated religious and political spheres’ (1994: 48). The eleventh-century Muslim theologian Abu Hamid Muhammad al- Ghazali stated in 1058 AD: 30 ‘Know that you can have three sorts of relations with princes, governors, and oppressors. The first and worst is that they visit you, the second and the better is that you visit them, and the third and surest is that you stay far from them, so that neither you see them nor they see you.’7 Behind this lay a long-standing conviction that concentrated political power was not consonant with Islam. Keane points out that contrary to popular wisdom, Islam was a vital element in keeping alive, and redefining, the spirit and substance of democracy after the military defeat of Athens (2009: 133). It is only more recently that the ‘Oriental’ autocratic state emerged, caused largely by foreign conquest and colonisation, whose effect was ‘to maim or destroy the vibrant foundation of social partnerships on which the Islamic empire rested’ (Keane 2009: 135). According to Casanova, al-Ghazali’s sentiment captures the ‘typical and traditional attitude of all salvation religions toward the world of politics, and toward the “world” in general’. Of the three options al-Ghazali outlines - (i) the state controlling religion; (ii) religion controlling the state; and (iii) a separation between religion and the state - the third is the preference of religious leaders. Although the second option, theocracy, enables religion to influence and shape the world according to God’s ways, it is a perilous option because ‘ultimately all theocratic attempts tend to succumb to the paradox of unintended consequences. The more religion wants to transform the world in a religious direction, the more religion becomes entangled in “worldly” affairs and is transformed by the world’. Consequently, the third option - distance, detachment and separation - tends to prevail. It is what both religious and worldly people prefer, since it protects the world from religion and religion from the world (Casanova 1994: 49). 31 Theological arguments that Islam is inherently ‘other-worldly’ and thus incompatible with secularism should therefore be treated with skepticism. The institutional form of secularism Australia has inherited is not religiously neutral, but rather is intrinsically linked with Christianity. Celermajer reminds us that ‘Islam is not the first religion to be decried as fundamentally incompatible with secular, democratic progress’. Protestants in nineteenth- century America labelled their Catholic foes un-American, and used a supposedly natural alignment with secularism as a means of excluding their highly religious Catholic rivals. Noting the presence of references to Christian values in the discourse of politicians, Celermajer concludes that religion in general is not problematic in Australia, but rather Islam in particular (2007: 112). The prejudiced presumption that Islam is an impediment to secularism in Australia should therefore be rejected. This dissertation shows why. It argues that we should avoid a unilinear, Eurocentric and bigoted conception of secularism, which requires the extinction of religion from society or its relegation to the private realm. Muslims communities in Australia are supportive of a new form of secularism, religious secularity, whose objective is to foster inter- religious harmony and social cohesion through the independence of state institutions from religious institutions and norms. Although Australian Muslims remain strongly attached to religious credo, they have a remarkable capacity to live comfortably in this world, and to respect Australia’s secular institutional architecture. 32 irretrievably, upon its dissolution at the beginning of the modern age’. We now live in times in which ‘discrepant worlds coexist within the same society, contemporaneously challenging each other’s cognitive and normative claims’ (Berger 1967: 9). Religion is plunged into a crisis of credibility (Swatos and Christiano 1999: 222). Berger argued that as a result of modernisation, this pluralisation - and thus secularisation - would become a worldwide phenomenon (1967: 12). While Weber and Berger focused on the impact of secular-rational bureaucratic organisation and the new religious pluralism on individual belief, a related theory of secularisation originated from the work of Emile Durkheim (1912). Durkheim predicted the loss of the central role of religious institutions in society as a result of ‘functional differentiation’ in modern industrial societies. Functional differentiation was a process by which specialised professionals and organisations (a secular bureaucracy) replaced most of the tasks once carried out by the churches. Stripped of their social purpose, Durkheim predicted that the importance of religious institutions would eventually fade away in industrial societies. More recently, Thomas Luckmann followed Durkheim to observe the marginalisation of religion to the private sphere as a result of this functional differentiation. For Luckmann, religion became ‘invisible’ in the sense of being an individualised and privatised form of salvation, that is irrelevant to the functioning of the primary institutions of modern society (1967: 85). Functional differentiation and privatisation were, for Luckmann, processes associated with modernity in the Western European context. When a global perspective is adopted, however, it becomes clear that a highly visible religion can function alongside ‘the primary institutions of modern society’, though there may be a level of separation between religion and these institutions. The best known example of this possibility is the rise of the 35 vibrant, expressive, and highly public strand of Christian Pentecostalism alongside functioning liberal democracies in much of North and South America, and to a lesser but growing extent in Australia. Conceptualising modernity From these roots, a normative expectation developed that diverse societies inevitably ‘progress’ towards a singular modernity, defined by the irrelevance of religion. Though Weber suggests it, Charles Taylor in A Secular Age (2007) makes explicit the argument that secularisation is a process born of Christianity, for Christianity is a self-secularising religion. In the form of a detailed narrative, Taylor demonstrates that it was Christianity itself that created the conditions for the possibility of secularity and secularisation. Taylor makes this point to undermine the argument that universally and globally, processes of modernisation necessarily involve religious decline. Alongside Taylor, theorists such as Eisenstadt reject this conception of a singular, Western, secular modernity, pointing out that there can be multiple modernities. Eisenstadt rightly argues that the hegemonic assumptions that Westernisation and modernity are synonymous should be rejected in favour of a conception of modernity which recognises a multiplicity of cultural programs (2000: 1-2). Desacralising secularisation theory The most powerful criticisms of secularisation theories note that post-Enlightenment philosophers presumed the inevitable decline of religion. Secularisation, from its genesis, was not so much a theory as a presupposed and taken-for-granted ideology. Weber and Durkheim are representative of a tradition which traced the genealogy of religion to the impotence of 36 primitive humanity in the face of the superior forces of nature; to the first attempts of the human mind to understand its own psyche; or to the attempts of the first social groups to represent themselves. Religion was therefore seen as either primitive physics (naturism), primitive psychology (animism) or primitive sociology (totemism), all of which would inevitably be replaced by the corresponding modern scientific paradigms (Casanova 1994: 29; Durkheim 1912; Weber 1918). Modernisation was defined by the abolition of the primitivism of religion. Secularisation is problematic when transferred to other world regions with ‘different dynamics of structuration of the relations and tensions between religion and the world’ (Casanova 2011: 257). For instance, to secularise means ‘to make worldly’, so the concept of secularisation can hardly be applied to religions such as Confucianism and Taoism, insofar as they are not characterised by high tension with ‘the world’ and have no ecclesiastical organisation. Other persuasive criticisms of secularisation can be loosely grouped into three categories. 1. Secularisation is not a coherent theory, but rather ‘a hodgepodge of loosely employed ideas’8 Dobbelaere and Shiner have differentiated respectively three, and six, discrete meanings of the term ‘secularisation’. For Shiner, this plurality of meanings is fatal, as several of the meanings are infused with polemical and ideological overtones. Abandonment of the secularisation theory is seen as the only reasonable solution (1967: 216). However, for Dobbelaere, the theory remains useful, despite the confusion this plurality can potentially create (1987: 109). 37 no evidence for the privatisation or decline of religion; yet the separation of state institutions from religion is constitutionally mandated. In distinguishing these three processes of secularisation, Casanova reveals the potential for variation within secularism as a policy and an ideology. Once the normative attachment to all three trends as ‘modernising processes’ is removed, the possibility for both the natural evolution and the intentional reshaping of policies of secularism, based on the aspirations of a particular society, is revealed. The impetus for reform In addition to the potential for reshaping secularism, there is a democratic imperative to consider a new secularism which avoids prejudice. There is often great hypocrisy where the old secularism prevails. European secularism is a tool for institutionalising intolerance, demonstrated by the double standards which exist. In France, the government shuns religious symbolism; yet there remains a cross atop the Pantheon, a monument to the country’s Christian history, unwittingly revealing the compromises between religion and laïcité that shape modern France (Calhoun 2010). Other European states have continued to privilege Christianity more overtly, through publicly funding religious schools (often with little pretension to neutrality), maintaining church property and clerical salaries, facilitating church control of cemeteries, and training the clergy (Bhargava 2010). The same can be said for Australia. Christianity infiltrates state institutions with little resistance. In 1968, Craig McGregor remarked with disdain; ‘the influence of the churches is strong within the community and they form a vocal and powerful pressure group at the Government level...they [take] part in 40 attacks upon the academic freedom of universities and from time to time attempt to destroy the secular nature of the State education systems’. The preamble to the Australian constitution remains overtly religious9, parliamentary prayer sanctifies Christian discourses in government, and Christian lobby groups have always had a dominant place in the political arena (Maddox 2005). State funding and tax exemption for religious schools, aged care, and private hospitals have a long history in Australian society (Democrats 2006). These observations highlight that public expressions of religiosity have long been condoned, well before the Muslim presence was noticed, which prompts the observation that this old secularism is biased because it tolerates one public religiosity, as long as it is Christian (Frame 2006). A rethinking of secularism is in order. What form of secularism is desirable in a democracy? What is the ideal relationship between religion and politics in a democratic society? The justifications for the new secularism are in democracy: secularism should be the most democratic response of the state to religious pluralism. The object of this new secularism must be to treat all religions equally, to ensure inter-religious harmony, and to promote social cohesion in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. Critical to achieving these objectives is freedom for religious individuals and organisations not only to worship privately, but to publicly advance their values in civil society and to sponsor organisations and movements in political society. In return, religious authorities must 41 tolerate the autonomy and freedom of democratically elected governments from religious doctrine. The theorist of democracy and religion Alfred Stepan advocates these dual freedoms, or ‘twin tolerations’, as an optimal means of attaining the objectives of religious equality, and the most democratic relationship between religion and politics (2001: 217). How are these democratic objectives to be operationalised? A new secularism with these goals must be a policy directed at the nature of the state and its institutions, rather than at society, where it is likely to impair individual freedoms. A secular state should treat all religious and non-religious individuals with equal respect; enforce no one religion; and preserve a public space for the free exercise and expression of religions. These aspirations require a minimum level of differentiation of religious and secular institutions to ensure the even-handedness of the state towards diverse religious groups, and foster peaceful relations between them. Strict separation of religion from state institutions is both implausible and undesirable; equality may be enhanced by the state’s interference in the lives of religious believers to ensure harmony and inclusion. Instead, the institutions of a secular state must be free from religious bias, and tolerant of the flourishing of religions in the public and private spheres of society. Public religions can exist in society, alongside differentiated institutions of the state. The philosopher Jurgen Habermas (2002) raises concerns that the separation between the religious and the secular has gone too far. He develops a discussion of ‘post-secularism’, arguing that the democratic public sphere loses the capacity to fully integrate public opinion if it cannot include religious voices, that it is deprived of possible creative resources, insights and ethical orientations if it is not informed by ideas with roots in religion. Habermas seeks to maintain religious insights that may still have liberatory potential, defending a liberalism which admits religion fully into public discourse, meanwhile maintaining a secular conception of the state. 42 CHAPTER TWO The flourishing of Islam as a public religion in Australia The mass movement of people across the globe in the second half of the twentieth-century has seen most nations move in a religiously plural direction. Australia is no exception to this trend. A recent Pew Global Attitudes survey, widely circulated in the Australian press, predicted that Australia’s Muslim community will grow from 399,000 to 714,000 by 2030 - an increase of 80% (Warne-Smith 2011). These flourishing Muslim communities, in various ways, challenge the status quo in Australia. Public rituals draw attention, and outspoken attempts by Muslims to erode prejudices often make Muslims a conspicuous feature of the Australian social and political landscape. These intrusions of religion into Australia's public sphere are increasingly condemned as antithetical to Australia’s secular ethos, making secularism a contentious issue. This chapter demonstrates why: among Australian Muslim communities, religion remains a potent, visible and socially significant force. To grasp the scale of Muslim migration, the chapter begins with a reading of the history of Muslims in Australia. It is also important to take from this history a sense of the incredible diversity of Muslims in modern Australia, as well as an understanding of the unintended and unforeseen nature of this cultural and religious heterogeneity. Through the appreciation of prejudices which accompanied this long history, chapter moves to an analysis of the present situation of Muslim communities in Australia, and their persistent public religiosity. It notices how this quintessential public religion challenges the pretenses of Australian society to impartiality towards different religious groups. 45 History of Muslims in Australia Australia’s first Muslim visitors were Makassar fishermen from Sulawesi, who visited the northern coasts to collect trepang from at least 1720, possibly earlier. Whilst the fishermen did leave a linguistic and genetic mark in remote northern regions, the first lasting religious presence arrived with the Afghan camel drivers, introduced to Australia by some of the earliest European settlers. Racial vilification was commonplace, prompted by a perception that Afghans were undercutting wages and stealing jobs (Kabir 2004: 43). In 1892 a group calling itself the ‘Charleville Camelphobists’ attracted unemployed protestors in a campaign to rid Australia of the Afghan presence (Kabir 2004: 48). This was despite the fact that the total Afghan population never exceeded a few hundred by some estimates, or a few thousand by others (Kabir 2004: 50; Stevens 1993: 49). Though mosques were constructed in Perth, Adelaide, Broken Hill, and Brisbane from 1890-1907, the Afghans largely evaded religious prejudice, as mosques were confined to segregated Ghantowns (Kabir 2004: 70). The Immigration Restriction Act 1901, the primary institutional vehicle of the White Australia Policy, reduced the flow of Afghans substantially. However, the Muslim population steadily grew due to migration of Muslims of European appearance or perceived European ethnicity: Ottoman Turks, Albanians in the 1920s and 1930s, and later Bosnians. Yet in total, Australia was only home to between 2000 and 4000 Muslims from 1911 to 1947. It was not until World War II ended that the demographic revolution of Australia’s religious landscape began. In 1945, Australia’s religious composition was relatively stable and homogenous. Anglicans dominated the landscape, forming 39% of the population. Catholics were a sizable minority, 46 and there were smaller numbers of Methodists and Presbyterians. Since the end of World War II, Australia’s religious fabric has been transformed. This was not intentional; little attention was paid by policymakers to the resulting religious diversity. The architect of the transformation, Minister for Immigration Arthur Calwell, was attempting to avert what was seen as an economic and national security crisis through an ambitious immigration program. Whilst the social implications of such large-scale immigration were considered, it was colour rather than religion that was the visible and decisive factor in manipulating the cultural composition of Australia. Australia’s geographical isolation from its allies, the vulnerability of a small population and the lingering wartime threat from Japan led to the perception that without rapid expansion, Australians could not defend the vast land they occupied from Asian invasion. Meanwhile, economists advised that without rapid population increase a higher standard of living was unachievable. The Government promoted its new immigration policy under the banner ‘Populate or Perish!’. British migrants were preferred to preserve cultural homogeneity, and were offered assisted passages. However, given the scale of the immigration program (and with fewer British citizens volunteering than expected), the government was compelled to widen its selection criteria. In 1947, the government agreed to accept 12,000 displaced Europeans each year, and committed to select refugees without discrimination of race or religion. In reality there was an ethnic pecking order, with a blanket ban on Jews, and blonde and blue-eyed Baltic people preferred. By 1954 Australia had received 170,000 displaced persons, bringing a plethora of new religious groups into the country. Among these refugees were the first substantial intake 47 For God’s Sake! Rethinking Secularism in Australia Melanie Brown A public religion: Muslims praying on the street outside Lakemba mosque, Western Sydney 1 This work is substantially my own, and where any part of this work is not my own, I have indicated this by acknowledging the source of that part or those parts of the work. Signed: _______________ Date: 11/10/2011 Honours dissertation Department of Government and International Relations The University of Sydney Word Count: 19793 Student ID: 307193926 2 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Muslims praying on the street outside Lakemba mosque, Western Sydney 1 Figure 2: Frequency of prayer (table) 54 Figure 3: An artist in Sydney’s Inner West publicly calls for a ban of the ‘burqa’ 55 Figure 4: ‘Jesus, a prophet of Islam’ billboard 57 Figure 5: Salam Cafe, SBS 59 Figure 6: The fake flyer distributed by Husic’s opponents in the 2004 Greenway election 77 5 INTRODUCTION Earlier this year, The Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan made a bold contribution to the popular discourse on religion, culture and politics. Hitherto a long-standing proponent of multiculturalism, Sheridan declared his new-found opposition to the policy, insisting that ‘not all immigrants are the same’; that Australia’s ‘Muslim immigration problems’ pose challenges to our secular way of life because ‘the community of Islam [is] church and state in one, with the two indistinguishably interwoven’; and that ‘to make all religions seem equal is simply to deny reality’ (2011). His point, rarely voiced so candidly, underscores a belief which exists in the common sense of many Australians: that the Muslim presence poses a threat to the secular foundations of Australia and, consequently, to social cohesion in a multi-ethnic and multi- religious nation. Sheridan’s sentiments were regrettably uncontroversial. Whilst his remarks drew some mild criticism from Immigration Minister Chris Bowen (2011), and the Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia (2011), there was no mainstream backlash against his views, which in digital form were widely circulated. This is because Sheridan’s article reflected two prevailing ‘common sense’ normative presumptions. First, many people believe that in modern times religion should be a private matter; or, put differently, that an assertive form of secularism which relegates religion to the private sphere is a necessary or desirable feature of a modern democratic society like Australia. Public expressions of religion of the kind pictured on the front page of this dissertation ostensibly violate Australia’s secular ethos. This perception is underpinned by a second presumption, usually held unthinkingly, and often reinforced by the ethnocentricity of popular culture: that Muslims are generally resistant to the secularising forces of modernity, due to the inescapably ‘other-worldly’ and thus 6 politically ‘fundamentalist’ character of Islam. This presumption draws upon an historical line of literature which characterises Islam as an impediment to democracy, secularism and modernity. It is central to what Edward Said famously dubbed ‘Orientalism’: the perception of Eastern peoples as exotic, highly religious, other-worldly and less than civilised, and thereby prone to lapses of violence, authoritarianism and despotism (1978). The power of these presumptions in the Australian context is not to be underestimated. Their grip can only be broken by developing a new perspective on the subject of secularism, modernity and Islam, one that is historically aware, theoretically sensitive and empirically well-informed. This dissertation pushes in this direction. It proceeds on two fronts. First, it proposes that the bigotry which has accompanied the growth of Australia’s Muslim population is cause for rethinking the old, worn-out ideology of secularism. The dissertation argues that certain presumptions which dominate the public debate on religion and secularism generally, and the place of Islam in particular, should be firmly rejected. It sets out descriptively, using new methods, with a sense of the history and the normative implications, a fresh understanding of the role of religion in Australian society. The dissertation proposes a second reason why a new perspective is needed: it argues that the Australian case is important because it has the potential to serve as a blueprint elsewhere for understanding and rethinking the role of religion in modern, secular societies. 1.The political significance of Australia’s growing Muslim population On the 2006 census, 399,000 Australians identified as ‘Muslim’. The Muslim population is predicted to swell to 714,000 by 2030 (Warne-Smith 2011). Given this projected growth, a broad re-examination of the appropriate relationship between religion and politics in Australia 7 personal, internal and private relationship with God, rather than in works or the arrangement of public institutions. Thus, the old secularism which demands the confinement of religion to the private sphere cannot treat all religions equally, because ‘different religions demand different types of commitments, spanning what we now think of as the public and private spheres in very different ways’ (Celermajer 2007: 112). As this traditional understanding of secularism cannot be applied to non-Christian religions, it must be rethought in the context of modern multi-ethnic and multi-religious Australia. This dissertation proposes a dramatic shift in the meaning of the term ‘secularism’. We must discard the old ideology of secularism which sees the secularisation of society as equivalent to the privatisation or outright extinction of religion. A different way of thinking is proposed, backed up by a radically different understanding of a secular state, whose prime role is to enhance the free-thinking pluralism of democracy through a stance of active neutrality towards different religions, which are then able to flourish both in the public and private spheres. It is evident in the twenty-first century that a religious society, in which religion has not withered away or retreated to the private realm, can readily exist alongside a secular state, which stands at some distance from religious institutions and norms. The worn-out nineteenth-century ideology of secularism must be rethought to reflect this reality. This dissertation suggests that in Australia a new, twenty-first century paradigm for governing the relations between religion and politics - an entirely new understanding of secularism - has to make room for ‘religious secularity’, a phrase which rejects the obsolete dualism between ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’,1 and promotes the flourishing of public religions in society, whilst maintaining the even-handedness of the state towards different religions. 10 What does this new secularism require? Neutrality of the state is not equivalent to its strict separation from religion; there can be interventions by the state into the lives of religious believers to ensure inter-religious harmony and social cohesion. Instead, it involves the freedom of state institutions from religious bias, alongside tolerance by the state of the flourishing of religions in the public and private spheres of society. A democratic state should attempt to enforce no one religion, to treat all believers and non-believers with equal respect, and to preserve a public space for the free exercise and expression of religions in society. This tolerance must be reciprocated by religions, which must respect the independence of the state to ensure its impartiality. This is achieved by a measure of ‘differentiation’ between state institutions and religious institutions and norms. Thus, the new secularism involves a multi- religious democracy defined by the independent existence and public expression of religion in the realm of society and recognition of the need for the independence of the state from religion, and thus an active neutrality of the state towards religions.2 More than a few Australian commentators fear that Muslims undermine this arrangement; since they presume the inherently political nature of Islam they suspect that it cannot respect nor tolerate the freedom of state institutions from religion. This presumption will be shown in this dissertation to be unfounded. There is great respect for the secular nature of Australia's institutions among Muslim communities, which implies - paradoxically - that they are an important active source of support for the new secularism. The presence of the Muslim diaspora may enhance the even-handedness of the Australian state towards religion, especially by forcing public debate on the proper place of the state in protecting religion in the public square. All public debates are informed by personal beliefs of some variety, and whilst religious beliefs must not be privileged in the public sphere, nor should they be excluded from 11 it by legal and political means. The ‘separation’ of religion from the state should not be confused with its role in protecting religious expression in society. Any attempt to radically alter the meaning of secularism necessarily involves revisiting and probably discarding entrenched and confused presumptions about the proper place of religion in contemporary societies, and Islam’s incompatibility with this antiquated, ethnocentric form of secularism. Fierce debates informed by deep-seated and poorly-defined prejudices surrounding the Muslim presence in Australia have emerged in popular discourses. Commentators like Sheridan adopt the language of secularism without the requisite awareness of the normative presumptions upon which this language is built. Some claim that Muslims threaten Australian secularism; others insist that secularism in the old sense is being disrupted by a publicly virile and thereby primitive religious minority. This naiveté in popular discourses is a direct consequence of the lack of scholarly inquiry in Australia which challenges the dominant presumptions about secularism and Islam. By contrast, in Western Europe for instance,3 a sophisticated conversation about the proper place of religion, and especially a public religion like Islam, in modern democracies is taking place in response to rapidly increasing and deepening religious pluralism (see, e.g. Asad 2003; Casanova 1994; Taylor 2007). This dissertation points out that much can be learned about the Australian case by engaging this conversation. Drawing upon this material, and with fresh local evidence, this dissertation argues that in Australia the old presumption that the retreat of religion to the private sphere is a necessary condition of democratic life is no longer relevant. It shows that religion is not dying away; and that for several strong reasons, religious pluralism is now a permanent feature of modern 12 The capacity for reform is enhanced by uncertainty in the law. The ambiguous interpretation of secularism by the Australian courts creates substantial room to experiment with a new form of secularism. The legal relationship between the state and religion in Australia is enshrined in section 116 of the Constitution. This section precludes the Commonwealth from passing any law establishing a religion, or any law which prohibits the free exercise of religion. It has a narrow scope, applying only to Commonwealth, and not to State, laws. No law has yet been struck down as offensive to the clause, despite several High Court challenges. In the most authoritative case,5 as well as the most recent case,6 the High Court concluded that in order for a law to be offensive to the section, it must have the purpose of achieving an object which section 116 forbids, despite the law’s effect. In interpreting the clause narrowly, the High Court left the parliament to decide what secularism means in Australia. This is in stark contrast to France, for instance, where it was left to the Conseil d’Etat in 1989 to decide that the wearing of religious dress in schools was compatible with laïcité (Gray 2011: 8). This unique legal ambiguity and historical apathy points the potential for a new understanding of secularism in Australia. Its model of secularism could emerge as a global pace-setter. Countries around the world, but especially in Western Europe, are currently experiencing unprecedented levels of religious pluralism, and are responding badly. The old, dogmatic secularism is making a comeback in Western Europe. The public religiosity of Muslims has triggered a backlash. Laws which prohibit covering the face have emerged in France (April 2011) and Belgium (July 2011), and such laws are imminent in Italy, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland (Chrisafis 2011). 15 The institutional adjustments required to achieve a multi-religious secularism in Europe are difficult to achieve because of the continent’s history. European secularism arose in predominantly single-religion societies (Bhargava 2011). The historical development of religiously homogenous nation-states in Europe fostered a uniquely ethnocentric approach which has most recently led to the widespread abandonment of the policy of multiculturalism. The scale of migration from the Muslim world is also significantly higher in Western Europe than in Australia. The traditional ideology of “secularism” - often involving hostility to public displays of any religion but Christianity - is therefore so entrenched in much of Western Europe that few astute mainstream politicians dare openly advocate its reform at the present time. By contrast, and despite the prejudice against Muslims in some quarters, Australia has recently reiterated its commitment to multiculturalism (Bowen 2011). As a nation of immigrants, it is not only more accepting of cultural ‘Otherness’, but is more comfortable with religious diversity, often for reasons of apathy. In Australia, the push to prohibit face coverings in public spaces (for instance) is thus a fringe policy, advocated only by those on the far right of the political spectrum. Here, then, is an opportunity. If an Australian working prototype of ‘religious secularity’ can be established, it could serve as an exemplar for other societies coming to terms with religious pluralism, especially those countries of Judeo- Christian heritage experiencing increasing Muslim immigration. Australia could enlighten Western European democracies to the possibility that there is room within secularism for public religiosity on a societal level, as long as a measure of freedom of secular state institutions from religious influence is maintained. Religious secularity is a more inclusive form of secularism which befits a multi-religious, modern democratic society. It 16 appreciates that of the three processes of secularisation identified above, only one is a vital condition of modernity: the development of a secular state, operationalised through the differentiation of religious and government institutions. Crucially, Australian Muslim communities respect this key aspect of secularism, as is demonstrated in the pages that follow. The argument in brief On these premises, the central argument of this dissertation is three-dimensional. First, within Australian Muslim communities religion is flourishing. Religion shows no sign of declining, nor of retreating to the private sphere. Second: this dissertation argues that the presence of publicly religious Muslims is forcing a vigorous debate about the place of religion in modern society into the public domain. Crucially, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the defensible core of the old secularism - the separation of religion from key secular institutions - is overwhelmingly respected by Muslim communities. A third key theme of the dissertation is that policies of secularism based upon outdated presumptions involving a uniquely Christian dualism between ‘religion’ and ‘secularism’ are no longer sufficient to deal with the complex dynamics of a modern democracy such as Australia. It is argued, instead, that we need a new form of secularism which recognises that a religious society can exist alongside a secular state. It is concluded that if Australia successfully adopts this more tolerant and multi- religious form of secularism, it might serve as a best-practice blueprint which could be adopted elsewhere, for instance by Western European states which are for the moment dealing badly with similar challenges to the old secularism. This dissertation comprises three chapters. Chapter one provides the intellectual background to the two presumptions which are challenged in this dissertation: that Islam is antithetical to 17 LITERATURE REVIEW This study explores a virtually untouched subject area. It assesses the implications of Australia’s growing Muslim communities for matters of law, education and politics. Whilst individually, these topics have been sparsely addressed, no study has thus far drawn upon, and fundamentally revised, the theoretical framework of secularism when analysing the relationship of Muslim communities with these institutions. Two Australian scholars have explored the relationship between Muslims and modernity (Bahfen 2010) and secularism (Celermajer 2007), but their attention differs from the present work’s focus on specific institutions, and the support within Muslim communities for a new secularism. Bahfen’s study is criticised in the coming pages for failing to question mistaken presumptions which underlie the prejudiced discourse surrounding Muslims in Australia. Celermajer deals with the construction of Muslims as the ‘Other’ through the secularism discourse in Australia. Whilst she perceptively challenges the legitimacy of the old, Christian- centric secularism, the focus of Celermajer’s piece is on why Muslims are regarded as radical enemies and threatening outsiders in Australia, whereas this dissertation proposes an alternative way forward from this impasse. This dissertation draws together two bodies of literature: studies of Australia’s Muslim communities, and sociological theories of secularisation and secularism. Several Australian social scientists have explored Australian Muslim communities, and their work is an important source of evidence in the present study. The subjects of these past works include histories of Muslims in Australia (Cleland 1993; Jones 1993a; Kabir 2004); issues of cultural integration and multiculturalism (Humphrey 1987, 2001); discrimination and Islamophobia 20 (Scott Poynting and Noble 2004); Muslim women and the veil (Jones 1993b); and ethnic and religious identities among certain Muslim communities (Bisin et al. 2007; Inglis 2010). Australian studies of secularisation mostly predate or ignore the large-scale Muslim migration that has happened during the past half-century. Due to the decline in churchgoing and the rise in the numbers identifying with ‘no religion’, the prevailing view has been that Australia followed traditional European patterns of secularisation (see, e.g. Ely 1981; Hogan 1979, 2009; McAllister 1988; McCallum 1987, 1988; Mol 1985). A few theorists have observed a ‘desecularisation’ process (Possamai 2008), yet no theory has emerged which adequately accounts for the complex trends we see in Australia. No scholar has assessed the impact of migration on these processes, and no study has recognised the need for a new conception of secularism which would better suit Australia’s religious diversity. This dissertation takes a preliminary step towards filling this gap. 21 METHODOLOGIES How is the gap to be filled? The absence of existing analysis in this area necessitates an imaginative mix of methodologies to grasp the complexity of the subject matter at hand. My whole approach challenges the prevailing fact-value dichotomy between empirical ‘political science’ and normative ‘political theory’. It advocates the adoption of multiple methodologies. Both quantitative and qualitative purists are convinced of the normative and empirical superiority of their methods. They each, implicitly if not explicitly, cling to Howe’s incompatibility thesis, which posits that qualitative and quantitative research paradigms cannot and should not be mixed (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004: 14). Yet Gerring and Yesnowitz (2006) point out that ‘normative theorizing must deal in facts just as empirical work must deal in values; they do not inhabit different worlds’ (2006: 108). Facts are seen as artefactual. The recognition of this middle-way, post-empiricist approach is vital to the continuing relevance of political science to policymakers and citizens. One way of doing this involves employing a methodological compromise, which adopts ‘mixed’ or ‘multi-method’ approaches, combining the virtues of a sense of the historical contingency of things, the need for conceptual clarity and thick descriptions and other empirical work, in order to attack complex problems from many angles. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie observe that there are pragmatic reasons for employing a method and philosophy that ‘attempts to fit together the insights provided by qualitative and quantitative research into a workable solution’ (2004: 15). 22 thick descriptions of Muslim communities; quantitative data analysis; and the scrutiny and evaluation of concepts and theories. Qualitative sources include: an analysis of the writings of fieldworkers in the social sciences who have studied Muslim communities in Australia; a reading of the history of Muslims in Australia; speeches, government documents, and newspaper articles about Australian Muslims; and an analysis of websites, blogs and other publications which have been developed by Australian Muslims. Quantitative data is drawn from a variety of studies which provide insights into religious beliefs and practices, and attitudes towards religion in the public sphere. In order to make sense of the vast body of available information, finally, this dissertation engages with the conceptual framework of secularism in order to show the pressing need for its radical revision. In addition to the normative arguments for the universal adoption of mixed methodologies, there are special reasons in this particular subject area for such an approach. Due to the pioneering nature of this study, its engagement with a virtually untouched area of research, this dissertation had to cope with the dearth of quantitative evidence available. Large-scale databases on the attitudes of Australian Muslims do not yet exist. Meanwhile, the diversity of the objects of study (i.e. the plurality of Muslim communities in Australia) implies that qualitative observations made about one group rarely hold when observing another group. Thus, in order to make meaningful generalisations some quantitative analysis remains a necessary strategy. But the converse is also true. The so-called facts, and interpretations drawn from quantitative and qualitative sources, need theories through which they can be understood and explained. Facts require theories, in that theories provide selection criteria for what should be considered as relevant or important facts. This need for theory becomes more compelling when one considers that the subject matter at hand - the relationship between Muslims and secularism - is so burdened by inherited presumptions, biased categories, and 25 taken-for-granted meanings that a critical analysis of preceding theories is imperative. A clear- headed conceptual methodology proved especially critical to this dissertation, due to the attempted bold re-description that takes place in the pages which follow. Revising and shifting the meaning of the term ‘secularism’ cannot be accomplished without a nuanced understanding of its deep history. The dissertation acknowledges the contestability of its own claims. By using a mix of methods, it dues not suppose that its own findings are instances of absolute Truth. Instead, it draws together ‘instrumental and provisional truths that are a matter of degree, not stagnant, and that we must be willing tomorrow to call falsehoods’ (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004: 18). It endorses a form of fallibilism, in that its key conclusion - that a new form of secularism is thinkable, practicable and desirable - is seen as an empirically-guided conjecture that is certainly subject to contestation, and to further analysis and revision. 26 CHAPTER ONE Background to the presumptions The two aforementioned, and clearly related, presumptions are steeped in a long and distinguished history of intellectual thought. As these histories have profound consequences for depth and potency of the presumptions, they are exposed in this chapter. This facilitates a reconsideration of the purposes and objectives of secularism and how they are best achieved in a multi-religious society like Australia. Presumption #1: Islam is incompatible with secularism To understand why Islam is widely seen as an uncompromising religion self-insulated against forces of secularisation, we must familiarise ourselves with the historical category of ‘religion’. It was during the eighteenth century that for the first time on a substantial scale a sustained reflection on ‘religion’ began. In that period, European travellers to the Ottoman Empire, the Persian lands and India began to encounter new religions, and thus to think comparatively. Was Muhammedanism understandable through the same category as Christianity, Hinduism or Sikhism? A definition of ‘religion’ emerged, at the most general and abstract level, which referred to a form of experience where human subjects feel themselves to be related to and dependent upon a transcendent force, relationship or process. However the ‘other-worldly’, transcendent cosmology of this category excluded many ‘Eastern’ religions, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shintoism. These religions are very much of this world, in that they do not rely upon a transcendental being. Confucianism, for instance, is a system of moral, social and political thought which some 27 Orientalist’, and accused both him and Samuel Huntington (who adopted Lewis’ catchphrase) of ‘demagogy and downright ignorance’ in presuming to speak for a whole civilisation. In Huntington’s infamous book The Clash of Civilizations (1997), he wrote that Western Christianity displays the unique dualism between God and Caesar, church and state, spiritual and temporal authority, a dualism that is essential for democracy to flourish. He reformulated the Christian adage to ‘render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s’. ‘In Islam’, Huntington proclaims, ‘God is Caesar’ (1997: 70). This presumption remains prevalent in Australia. The only existing scholarly analysis of Australian Muslims, secularism and modernity which currently exists inadequately addresses this misconception; in fact, it may serve to reinforce it. Naysa Bahfen in 2010 stated that ‘the Islamic viewpoint...does not support the notion that the church and state ought to be separated’. Bahfen does not observe that Islam has no conception of ‘church’; she instead argues this is because Islamic ideology is at loggerheads with the idea that modernity strictly relegates religion to the sphere of the home with no place in public life (2010: 223). Such a position is often preceded by a holistic, encompassing and dogmatic conception of secularism. The argument that religion and state institutions ought to be separated must be distinguished from the fundamentally different idea of religion being relegated to the sphere of the ‘home’, with no place in the public spheres of civil society, political society or the state. Casanova notes that despite its nature as a political as well as a religious community, ‘it is totally inaccurate to argue that Islam has no differentiated religious and political spheres’ (1994: 48). The eleventh-century Muslim theologian Abu Hamid Muhammad al- Ghazali stated in 1058 AD: 30 ‘Know that you can have three sorts of relations with princes, governors, and oppressors. The first and worst is that they visit you, the second and the better is that you visit them, and the third and surest is that you stay far from them, so that neither you see them nor they see you.’7 Behind this lay a long-standing conviction that concentrated political power was not consonant with Islam. Keane points out that contrary to popular wisdom, Islam was a vital element in keeping alive, and redefining, the spirit and substance of democracy after the military defeat of Athens (2009: 133). It is only more recently that the ‘Oriental’ autocratic state emerged, caused largely by foreign conquest and colonisation, whose effect was ‘to maim or destroy the vibrant foundation of social partnerships on which the Islamic empire rested’ (Keane 2009: 135). According to Casanova, al-Ghazali’s sentiment captures the ‘typical and traditional attitude of all salvation religions toward the world of politics, and toward the “world” in general’. Of the three options al-Ghazali outlines - (i) the state controlling religion; (ii) religion controlling the state; and (iii) a separation between religion and the state - the third is the preference of religious leaders. Although the second option, theocracy, enables religion to influence and shape the world according to God’s ways, it is a perilous option because ‘ultimately all theocratic attempts tend to succumb to the paradox of unintended consequences. The more religion wants to transform the world in a religious direction, the more religion becomes entangled in “worldly” affairs and is transformed by the world’. Consequently, the third option - distance, detachment and separation - tends to prevail. It is what both religious and worldly people prefer, since it protects the world from religion and religion from the world (Casanova 1994: 49). 31 Theological arguments that Islam is inherently ‘other-worldly’ and thus incompatible with secularism should therefore be treated with skepticism. The institutional form of secularism Australia has inherited is not religiously neutral, but rather is intrinsically linked with Christianity. Celermajer reminds us that ‘Islam is not the first religion to be decried as fundamentally incompatible with secular, democratic progress’. Protestants in nineteenth- century America labelled their Catholic foes un-American, and used a supposedly natural alignment with secularism as a means of excluding their highly religious Catholic rivals. Noting the presence of references to Christian values in the discourse of politicians, Celermajer concludes that religion in general is not problematic in Australia, but rather Islam in particular (2007: 112). The prejudiced presumption that Islam is an impediment to secularism in Australia should therefore be rejected. This dissertation shows why. It argues that we should avoid a unilinear, Eurocentric and bigoted conception of secularism, which requires the extinction of religion from society or its relegation to the private realm. Muslims communities in Australia are supportive of a new form of secularism, religious secularity, whose objective is to foster inter- religious harmony and social cohesion through the independence of state institutions from religious institutions and norms. Although Australian Muslims remain strongly attached to religious credo, they have a remarkable capacity to live comfortably in this world, and to respect Australia’s secular institutional architecture. 32 irretrievably, upon its dissolution at the beginning of the modern age’. We now live in times in which ‘discrepant worlds coexist within the same society, contemporaneously challenging each other’s cognitive and normative claims’ (Berger 1967: 9). Religion is plunged into a crisis of credibility (Swatos and Christiano 1999: 222). Berger argued that as a result of modernisation, this pluralisation - and thus secularisation - would become a worldwide phenomenon (1967: 12). While Weber and Berger focused on the impact of secular-rational bureaucratic organisation and the new religious pluralism on individual belief, a related theory of secularisation originated from the work of Emile Durkheim (1912). Durkheim predicted the loss of the central role of religious institutions in society as a result of ‘functional differentiation’ in modern industrial societies. Functional differentiation was a process by which specialised professionals and organisations (a secular bureaucracy) replaced most of the tasks once carried out by the churches. Stripped of their social purpose, Durkheim predicted that the importance of religious institutions would eventually fade away in industrial societies. More recently, Thomas Luckmann followed Durkheim to observe the marginalisation of religion to the private sphere as a result of this functional differentiation. For Luckmann, religion became ‘invisible’ in the sense of being an individualised and privatised form of salvation, that is irrelevant to the functioning of the primary institutions of modern society (1967: 85). Functional differentiation and privatisation were, for Luckmann, processes associated with modernity in the Western European context. When a global perspective is adopted, however, it becomes clear that a highly visible religion can function alongside ‘the primary institutions of modern society’, though there may be a level of separation between religion and these institutions. The best known example of this possibility is the rise of the 35 vibrant, expressive, and highly public strand of Christian Pentecostalism alongside functioning liberal democracies in much of North and South America, and to a lesser but growing extent in Australia. Conceptualising modernity From these roots, a normative expectation developed that diverse societies inevitably ‘progress’ towards a singular modernity, defined by the irrelevance of religion. Though Weber suggests it, Charles Taylor in A Secular Age (2007) makes explicit the argument that secularisation is a process born of Christianity, for Christianity is a self-secularising religion. In the form of a detailed narrative, Taylor demonstrates that it was Christianity itself that created the conditions for the possibility of secularity and secularisation. Taylor makes this point to undermine the argument that universally and globally, processes of modernisation necessarily involve religious decline. Alongside Taylor, theorists such as Eisenstadt reject this conception of a singular, Western, secular modernity, pointing out that there can be multiple modernities. Eisenstadt rightly argues that the hegemonic assumptions that Westernisation and modernity are synonymous should be rejected in favour of a conception of modernity which recognises a multiplicity of cultural programs (2000: 1-2). Desacralising secularisation theory The most powerful criticisms of secularisation theories note that post-Enlightenment philosophers presumed the inevitable decline of religion. Secularisation, from its genesis, was not so much a theory as a presupposed and taken-for-granted ideology. Weber and Durkheim are representative of a tradition which traced the genealogy of religion to the impotence of 36 primitive humanity in the face of the superior forces of nature; to the first attempts of the human mind to understand its own psyche; or to the attempts of the first social groups to represent themselves. Religion was therefore seen as either primitive physics (naturism), primitive psychology (animism) or primitive sociology (totemism), all of which would inevitably be replaced by the corresponding modern scientific paradigms (Casanova 1994: 29; Durkheim 1912; Weber 1918). Modernisation was defined by the abolition of the primitivism of religion. Secularisation is problematic when transferred to other world regions with ‘different dynamics of structuration of the relations and tensions between religion and the world’ (Casanova 2011: 257). For instance, to secularise means ‘to make worldly’, so the concept of secularisation can hardly be applied to religions such as Confucianism and Taoism, insofar as they are not characterised by high tension with ‘the world’ and have no ecclesiastical organisation. Other persuasive criticisms of secularisation can be loosely grouped into three categories. 1. Secularisation is not a coherent theory, but rather ‘a hodgepodge of loosely employed ideas’8 Dobbelaere and Shiner have differentiated respectively three, and six, discrete meanings of the term ‘secularisation’. For Shiner, this plurality of meanings is fatal, as several of the meanings are infused with polemical and ideological overtones. Abandonment of the secularisation theory is seen as the only reasonable solution (1967: 216). However, for Dobbelaere, the theory remains useful, despite the confusion this plurality can potentially create (1987: 109). 37 no evidence for the privatisation or decline of religion; yet the separation of state institutions from religion is constitutionally mandated. In distinguishing these three processes of secularisation, Casanova reveals the potential for variation within secularism as a policy and an ideology. Once the normative attachment to all three trends as ‘modernising processes’ is removed, the possibility for both the natural evolution and the intentional reshaping of policies of secularism, based on the aspirations of a particular society, is revealed. The impetus for reform In addition to the potential for reshaping secularism, there is a democratic imperative to consider a new secularism which avoids prejudice. There is often great hypocrisy where the old secularism prevails. European secularism is a tool for institutionalising intolerance, demonstrated by the double standards which exist. In France, the government shuns religious symbolism; yet there remains a cross atop the Pantheon, a monument to the country’s Christian history, unwittingly revealing the compromises between religion and laïcité that shape modern France (Calhoun 2010). Other European states have continued to privilege Christianity more overtly, through publicly funding religious schools (often with little pretension to neutrality), maintaining church property and clerical salaries, facilitating church control of cemeteries, and training the clergy (Bhargava 2010). The same can be said for Australia. Christianity infiltrates state institutions with little resistance. In 1968, Craig McGregor remarked with disdain; ‘the influence of the churches is strong within the community and they form a vocal and powerful pressure group at the Government level...they [take] part in 40 attacks upon the academic freedom of universities and from time to time attempt to destroy the secular nature of the State education systems’. The preamble to the Australian constitution remains overtly religious9, parliamentary prayer sanctifies Christian discourses in government, and Christian lobby groups have always had a dominant place in the political arena (Maddox 2005). State funding and tax exemption for religious schools, aged care, and private hospitals have a long history in Australian society (Democrats 2006). These observations highlight that public expressions of religiosity have long been condoned, well before the Muslim presence was noticed, which prompts the observation that this old secularism is biased because it tolerates one public religiosity, as long as it is Christian (Frame 2006). A rethinking of secularism is in order. What form of secularism is desirable in a democracy? What is the ideal relationship between religion and politics in a democratic society? The justifications for the new secularism are in democracy: secularism should be the most democratic response of the state to religious pluralism. The object of this new secularism must be to treat all religions equally, to ensure inter-religious harmony, and to promote social cohesion in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. Critical to achieving these objectives is freedom for religious individuals and organisations not only to worship privately, but to publicly advance their values in civil society and to sponsor organisations and movements in political society. In return, religious authorities must 41 tolerate the autonomy and freedom of democratically elected governments from religious doctrine. The theorist of democracy and religion Alfred Stepan advocates these dual freedoms, or ‘twin tolerations’, as an optimal means of attaining the objectives of religious equality, and the most democratic relationship between religion and politics (2001: 217). How are these democratic objectives to be operationalised? A new secularism with these goals must be a policy directed at the nature of the state and its institutions, rather than at society, where it is likely to impair individual freedoms. A secular state should treat all religious and non-religious individuals with equal respect; enforce no one religion; and preserve a public space for the free exercise and expression of religions. These aspirations require a minimum level of differentiation of religious and secular institutions to ensure the even-handedness of the state towards diverse religious groups, and foster peaceful relations between them. Strict separation of religion from state institutions is both implausible and undesirable; equality may be enhanced by the state’s interference in the lives of religious believers to ensure harmony and inclusion. Instead, the institutions of a secular state must be free from religious bias, and tolerant of the flourishing of religions in the public and private spheres of society. Public religions can exist in society, alongside differentiated institutions of the state. The philosopher Jurgen Habermas (2002) raises concerns that the separation between the religious and the secular has gone too far. He develops a discussion of ‘post-secularism’, arguing that the democratic public sphere loses the capacity to fully integrate public opinion if it cannot include religious voices, that it is deprived of possible creative resources, insights and ethical orientations if it is not informed by ideas with roots in religion. Habermas seeks to maintain religious insights that may still have liberatory potential, defending a liberalism which admits religion fully into public discourse, meanwhile maintaining a secular conception of the state. 42 CHAPTER TWO The flourishing of Islam as a public religion in Australia The mass movement of people across the globe in the second half of the twentieth-century has seen most nations move in a religiously plural direction. Australia is no exception to this trend. A recent Pew Global Attitudes survey, widely circulated in the Australian press, predicted that Australia’s Muslim community will grow from 399,000 to 714,000 by 2030 - an increase of 80% (Warne-Smith 2011). These flourishing Muslim communities, in various ways, challenge the status quo in Australia. Public rituals draw attention, and outspoken attempts by Muslims to erode prejudices often make Muslims a conspicuous feature of the Australian social and political landscape. These intrusions of religion into Australia's public sphere are increasingly condemned as antithetical to Australia’s secular ethos, making secularism a contentious issue. This chapter demonstrates why: among Australian Muslim communities, religion remains a potent, visible and socially significant force. To grasp the scale of Muslim migration, the chapter begins with a reading of the history of Muslims in Australia. It is also important to take from this history a sense of the incredible diversity of Muslims in modern Australia, as well as an understanding of the unintended and unforeseen nature of this cultural and religious heterogeneity. Through the appreciation of prejudices which accompanied this long history, chapter moves to an analysis of the present situation of Muslim communities in Australia, and their persistent public religiosity. It notices how this quintessential public religion challenges the pretenses of Australian society to impartiality towards different religious groups. 45 History of Muslims in Australia Australia’s first Muslim visitors were Makassar fishermen from Sulawesi, who visited the northern coasts to collect trepang from at least 1720, possibly earlier. Whilst the fishermen did leave a linguistic and genetic mark in remote northern regions, the first lasting religious presence arrived with the Afghan camel drivers, introduced to Australia by some of the earliest European settlers. Racial vilification was commonplace, prompted by a perception that Afghans were undercutting wages and stealing jobs (Kabir 2004: 43). In 1892 a group calling itself the ‘Charleville Camelphobists’ attracted unemployed protestors in a campaign to rid Australia of the Afghan presence (Kabir 2004: 48). This was despite the fact that the total Afghan population never exceeded a few hundred by some estimates, or a few thousand by others (Kabir 2004: 50; Stevens 1993: 49). Though mosques were constructed in Perth, Adelaide, Broken Hill, and Brisbane from 1890-1907, the Afghans largely evaded religious prejudice, as mosques were confined to segregated Ghantowns (Kabir 2004: 70). The Immigration Restriction Act 1901, the primary institutional vehicle of the White Australia Policy, reduced the flow of Afghans substantially. However, the Muslim population steadily grew due to migration of Muslims of European appearance or perceived European ethnicity: Ottoman Turks, Albanians in the 1920s and 1930s, and later Bosnians. Yet in total, Australia was only home to between 2000 and 4000 Muslims from 1911 to 1947. It was not until World War II ended that the demographic revolution of Australia’s religious landscape began. In 1945, Australia’s religious composition was relatively stable and homogenous. Anglicans dominated the landscape, forming 39% of the population. Catholics were a sizable minority, 46 and there were smaller numbers of Methodists and Presbyterians. Since the end of World War II, Australia’s religious fabric has been transformed. This was not intentional; little attention was paid by policymakers to the resulting religious diversity. The architect of the transformation, Minister for Immigration Arthur Calwell, was attempting to avert what was seen as an economic and national security crisis through an ambitious immigration program. Whilst the social implications of such large-scale immigration were considered, it was colour rather than religion that was the visible and decisive factor in manipulating the cultural composition of Australia. Australia’s geographical isolation from its allies, the vulnerability of a small population and the lingering wartime threat from Japan led to the perception that without rapid expansion, Australians could not defend the vast land they occupied from Asian invasion. Meanwhile, economists advised that without rapid population increase a higher standard of living was unachievable. The Government promoted its new immigration policy under the banner ‘Populate or Perish!’. British migrants were preferred to preserve cultural homogeneity, and were offered assisted passages. However, given the scale of the immigration program (and with fewer British citizens volunteering than expected), the government was compelled to widen its selection criteria. In 1947, the government agreed to accept 12,000 displaced Europeans each year, and committed to select refugees without discrimination of race or religion. In reality there was an ethnic pecking order, with a blanket ban on Jews, and blonde and blue-eyed Baltic people preferred. By 1954 Australia had received 170,000 displaced persons, bringing a plethora of new religious groups into the country. Among these refugees were the first substantial intake 47 policymakers. In 1987 Michael Humphrey wrote that ‘since Australia is a secular state and religion is treated as a personal matter, the role of religion in the political arena has largely been ignored’ (1987: 233). Such a statement would, today, be ludicrous. A series of events occurred, probably beginning in the 1990s but certainly climaxing with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which altered the public discourse from concern with race to a fixation on religion. Australia’s involvement in the 1990-91 Gulf crisis, the arrival of unauthorised refugees, as well as the rise of militant Islamist groups in the 1990s, caused Muslims as a religious group to be targeted for discrimination. The September 11 terrorist attack, perceived as religiously motivated and deepening the characterisation of Islam as a violent and other- worldly religion, heightened the religious focus of Australia’s immigration debate (Brown 2011). An age-old controversy re-entered the public consciousness with renewed vigour. Commentators and individuals began to ask in large numbers, ‘is Islam compatible with secularism, and hence democracy?’ Samuel Huntington popularised the negative perspective; after the terrorist attacks he became ‘a prophet of sorts’ (Kepel 2011). Adopting the catchphrase ‘the clash of civilizations’, Huntington reinvigorated the historical Orientalist presumption that Muslim peoples are resistant to, or even inherently incompatible with, secularism, democracy and modernity. Muslims, conceived as an homogenous group with religion as the defining characteristic, were accused of being unable to culturally assimilate. The Bali terrorist episode, in which more than 80 Australians were killed, strengthened these attitudes (Houlihan 2005; Morris 2003a). Mosques were attacked, and abuse of veiled women became commonplace. Phone-in radio shows, where bigotry flourishes, were flooded with anti-Muslim calls (Economist 50 2002). However it was the London bombings of July 2005, carried out by ‘homegrown‘ terrorists which led to some of the most fervent vilification of Australian Muslims, due to a perception that Australian citizens were potential terrorists (Jupp 2006). At the end of 2005, sectarian riots broke out around Cronulla beach in Sydney’s south. Religion became a focal point of the public debate, and Muslims was firmly associated with extremism in the Australian consciousness. By this stage, around 400,000 Australians identified as Muslim. The escalating public awareness about religion in general, and specifically about the presence of Muslims in Australia, is exemplified in the discourse of populist politician Pauline Hanson. Best known for her 1996 maiden speech to parliament, vilifying Asians, by 2007 Hanson had shifted her tone from racially to religiously charged, calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration (Ho 2007; S Poynting 2006). Today, we face deep-seated prejudices in Australian society as a consequence the misplaced presumptions about Muslims and Islam outlined in chapter one. They usually rest upon two observable features of Australian Muslim communities, to which the remainder of this chapter now turns: Muslims in Australia remain a highly religious group, and Muslim communities are a conspicuous feature of Australia’s religious and political landscape. In the coming pages, evidence is assembled to show that despite the prolonged presence of Muslims in Australia, there is no sign of a withering away of religious beliefs and practices in Muslim communities, nor of religion’s retreat into the private sphere. 51 The public religiosity of Australian Muslim communities Australia’s Muslims show little sign of ‘losing their religion’, a trend which has been observed amongst the Australian population at large (Frame 2009). In fact, the experience of migration has, for many Muslims, prompted a deepening of religiosity. Migration has been called a ‘theologising experience’ (Smith 1978: 1175). Attachment to religious organisations, beliefs and practices can increase as some immigrants use these to remind them of their origins, to distinguish themselves from other Australians and to help provide meaning, social support and community in the settlement process (G. D. Bouma 1994: 80). For Muslims in particular, travel, whether in the form of inner spiritual journeys or pilgrimages, is directed towards achieving greater religious consciousness (Humphrey 2005: 137). Bouma, Daw and Munawar found in their interviews that it is not unusual for Muslims to say that they learn more about Islam after migrating to Australia. One interviewee said: ‘I was not a religious person when I arrived in Australia. As the children grew up and the Pakistani community increased I also experienced an awakening of religious fervour...I reverted back to my cultural dress and became regular in my prayers...I even started arranging milad [a religious celebration] at my place once a month’ (2001: 70). Respondents reported that their practice in the homeland was ‘automatic’ or ‘unreflective’, whereas migration brought a new depth to their faith and religious practice became more 52 Although this personal and private religiosity is of interest, because it demonstrates that Islam is unlikely to disappear in Australia, of greater consequence are the public manifestations of that religiosity. Although practices vary substantially among Muslim communities, Islam is a ritual-rich religion, and those rituals are often highly visible in the public sphere. The focus of the next section is on two key forms of public religiosity which have recently generated the most vigorous debates: the prominence of religious symbols and rituals in public spaces, and public attempts by Muslim individuals and groups to dispel prejudices within the Australian community. Public religious symbols Figure 3: an artist in Sydney’s Inner West publicly calls for a ban of the ‘burqa’ Islam is the quintessential ‘public religion’ in Australia. No symbol of Islam has generated more heated debate than the hijab, or ‘headscarf’. Whilst hostility is predominantly reserved for women wearing the burqa or niqab, most Australian Muslim women continue to wear 55 some form of the hijab, conspicuously setting them apart from non-Muslims. Inglis indicates that two thirds of Australian Lebanese women, and 29 percent of Australian Turkish women, cover their head (2010: 149). In a survey of participants at an Eid festival in Brisbane, Rane et al found that half of the respondents believed that Muslim women should wear the hijab in some form (2010: 5). The greatest vilification of conspicuously Muslim women occurred during the Cronulla riots in 2005, but recent laws banning full head coverings in Europe have reignited the debate. The most recent calls to ‘ban the burqa’ appeared in the NSW Parliament after the arrest, conviction, and successful appeal of the Muslim woman Carnita Matthews for falsely accusing a police officer of ripping off her hijab during a traffic stop (McGovern and Fishwick 2011). In response to the overturn of her conviction, a media frenzy about the threat of Islam and specifically the ‘burqa’ to national security was unleashed. Though some uphold these justifications for objecting to the hijab, what is far more plausible is that the symbolism is rejected because the garment has become the most salient, contested and controversial emblem of contemporary global Islam (Casanova 2009a: 23). It is an expression of a stubbornly public religion. Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop reflected this sentiment when she demanded that the government ban the headscarf from public schools. She argued that the headscarf was ‘not just a headscarf’, but an ‘iconic item of defiance’, and that it represented ‘a clash of cultures’ and ‘a challenge to our freedoms and way of life’ (2005). The mosque is a second contested public symbol of the growing Muslim presence in Australia. Inglis reports that most Muslims are likely attend mosque at least monthly, with 37% of Lebanese and 22% of Turkish Muslim participants attending once a week or more (2010: 149). The construction of mosques has attracted considerable criticism from local 56 communities. Humphrey describes the ‘organic’ construction process which characterised much of the Muslim history in Australia, whereby community meeting halls often evolved into temporary prayer halls and became official mosques (2005: 136). The gradual development of Muslim institutions by local ethnic communities frequently gave rise to a perception by suburban communities that Australian suburbs were being invaded by an unfamiliar and perhaps hostile religion. When residents of Annangrove in suburban Sydney appealed to the Land and Environment Court against the local development of a prayer centre for the local Indian Shi’ite community, they argued that ‘holy war’ had been declared against the residents who opposed the centre (Humphrey 2005: 136). Some residents are disturbed by the public broadcast of the call to prayer; others apprehensive after seeing images in the global and local media of hundreds of Muslims spilling onto the streets during prayer times, creating a public spectacle. Disgruntled communities are often further perturbed by overseas funding which is often received for the building of mosques. The Turkish government’s mosque-building program, for instance, entrenched for some the perception of Islam as a transnational religion whose adherents could not be loyal to Australia. Deliberate attempts to advance a positive impression of Islam Figure 4: ‘Jesus, a prophet of Islam’ billboard 57 CHAPTER THREE Differentiated institutions The process of institutional differentiation noticed by Durkheim involved the emancipation of secular institutions from ecclesiastical control. In twentieth-century Australia, it refers to a level of freedom of secular institutions from religious norms. We have already noted that institutional differentiation cannot be absolute. Instead, a sufficient level of separation between religion and state institutions must be respected to ensure the equal treatment of religions by those institutions. This chapter demonstrates, contrary to popular perceptions, that this separation is respected by Muslim communities. Apprehension about the growing Muslim presence in Australian society has generated speculation that Muslims will either establish parallel religious or political institutions, or infect secular Australian institutions with religious principles. Such fears are based upon the presumptions outlined in chapter one: that Islam is inherently political and other-worldly, and that religious decline, privatisation and institutional differentiation go hand in hand, so that a religion which is flourishing publicly necessarily undermines processes of institutional differentiation. This chapter challenges this dominant discourse by examining three particular institutions: the legal, educational and political systems. Firstly, there exists a belief that Muslims, because of a unique religious requirement that religious ‘laws’ permeate all facets of worldly life, overwhelmingly advocate the supremacy of divine law over secular, human law (Zwartz 2007). Bill Muehlenberg, a commentator in Quadrant recently argued that shari’a is ‘creeping’ into Australian law, and if it does not stop we will end up ‘with only one legal system: sharia law’. This will lead to a new segregation, 60 with Westerners who do not embrace the totalist Islamist agenda being turned into second class citizens, or ‘dhimmis’ (2011a). These views are reinforced by the use of the Arabic term ‘shari’a’ to ideologically reify Muslims and their laws as the ‘Other’ (Salaymeh 2011). It obfuscates the distinct varieties of Islamic law that exist in codified form. By definition shari’a requires ijtihad, or interpretation, and codifications by states like Iran and Saudi Arabia reflect not just Islam, but also the history and culture of their societies (Aslam 2006: 865). Nevertheless, thanks to abundant misrepresentations by the press, the term ‘shari’a’ conjures images of stoning, amputations, public executions and the oppression of women. Secondly, a widespread perception exists that Muslims are deliberately forging a separate community, and resisting assimilation by fusing religious and secular education. In the Western European process of functional differentiation observed by Durkheim, responsibility for education passed from religious institutions to the state. These state-operated schools became increasingly based on rational, secular principles. Religion-based schooling has a long history in Australia, with state funding available for all religious schools. Yet there exists a perception that the education of Muslims in Islamic schools isolates these children from Australian society, reinforcing differences, fostering resentment and entrenching a defiant religiosity. Islamic religious education is thought by many commentators to be the most important source of anti-Western attitudes among Muslims, perhaps even serving as a breeding ground for terrorism and violence (Saeed 2005: 63). Muehlenberg even argues that Australia is undergoing a process of ‘Islamisation’, due to the funding of Islamic schools, the implementation of Muslim religious instruction in state schools, and the failure to ban Islamic dress in these schools (2011b). 61 Thirdly, elected Muslim representatives within the Australian political system have been accused of inappropriately representing religious beliefs rather than geographical constituencies. In 2010 in the NSW Parliament, Labor MP Tony Stewart denounced the Lebanese Muslim Association for undermining Australian democracy by running its own candidate at the State election (Parliament 2011). Stewart was ‘perplexed’, because he felt that the LMA is undermining the principle that Australian governments represent ‘the people’, not religious faiths. This chapter demonstrates that these fears and accusations are unfounded. It concludes that there is overwhelming support for a new secularism which requires the exclusion of religion from secular institutions. LEGAL INSTITUTIONS Shari’a politics The Australian anthropologist Ghassan Hage identified the fear of an alien legal system operating in Australia as the primary source of objections to public displays of Muslim religiosity. For Hage, Australians are confronted by the hijab not because it is a source of cultural otherness, but rather because it symbolises the threat that the law of the ‘other’ will be imposed upon Australian law (2008). The perception that Muslim communities threaten the separation of religious principles from secular law in Australia is flawed. It is usually based upon two misleading presumptions: (i) that to conform to shari’a undermines or violates the secular legal system, and (ii) that the implementation of all shari’a principles has widespread support among Australia’s Muslims. This section argues, contrary to common perceptions, that in most cases shari’a and secular law can coexist; and that the aspects of shari’a which cannot conform to Australian law gain 62 institutions ignore the many ways in which Muslim communities have already found space to observe their own customs within the Australian legal system. Muslims submit themselves to Australian law when they obtain state authorisation of Islamic marriage celebrants; organise visas for imams from overseas; obtain permission to bury their dead according to Muslim burial rites; contest misrepresentations about Islamic culture and practice; establish Islamic schools; and expand the role of Islamic welfare with the privatisation of government welfare (Humphrey 2001: 41). Practising Islam in conformity with the existing legal framework can be seen, for example, in development applications for mosques and Islamic schools in the Local Council and the Land and Environment Court; the discussion of religious law in the Family Law Council and the Australian Law Reform Commission; and the recruitment of imams in the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (Humphrey 2001: 41).12 Family law: marriage and divorce The most contentious aspect of the shari’a debate in Australia relates to family law. According to Black and Sadiq (2011), this is what mainstream Australian discourse perceives as ‘bad shari’a’. This section examines the compatibility of Islamic marriage and divorce law with both Australian law, and Australian norms of gender equality. Marriage It is possible for Muslims to comply with both the Marriage Act and Islamic law when they wish to wed (Hussain 2001: 163). Imams may be appointed as celebrants, and there are no stringent requirements as to the form of the ceremony. The desire of a minority of Muslims for polygamous marriages has posed a far greater issue. Under shari’a, polygamous marriages 65 are allowed only in exceptional circumstances, which differ according to particular interpretations of Islamic law. A few men have contracted polygamous marriages in Australia through a religious ceremony which is not recognised as a legal marriage under Australian law, but is rather considered a de facto relationship (Hussain 2001: 169). Since there is no legal obstacle to a person living with a married spouse and a de facto partner, there is no inherent conflict with Australian law. Yet this is seen by some as violating Australian principles of gender equality, because polygamy is a privilege accorded only to men. However there has been a push from Muslim feminists to challenge common interpretations of Islamic law. Much of the gender inequality which is perceived in shari’a principles draws upon the interpretations forged within economically underdeveloped countries with patriarchal histories and cultures. As there is no ‘essential’ or ‘pure’ shari’a, it is susceptible to reform through reinterpretation of Islamic texts. Muslim feminists and modernist scholars have scrutinised Islamic family law texts, and have concluded that the predominantly male jurists who developed these laws from the tenth to the twelfth century did so in ways that reflect the gendered roles and expectations existing at their time (Buckley 2010: 83). Yvonne Haddad notes that the migration experience to the West can empower Muslim women to question these gender norms, and the validity they draw from Islamic texts (2005: 115). Divorce In Islamic law, divorce has always been permitted, though it is ‘the thing most hated in the eyes of God’ (Hussain 2001: 175). Only men may exercise the right of talaq, divorcing the wife by the pronouncement of the word ‘talaq’ three times. This is seen by some as discriminatory towards women, who do not possess this right. Women are only able to 66 divorce their husbands by making an application to the court. They can ‘buy’ their divorce by returning their mahr to the husband, or they can establish that their husband is guilty of desertion, failure to maintain them, cruelty or other grounds allowed by shari’a, the court may grant them a divorce (Hussain 2001: 176).13 Under Australian law, the irretrievable breakdown of marriage, evidenced by twelve months separation, are the only grounds for divorce. Whilst most Muslim women can comply with these criteria, and obtain a legal divorce, Muslim communities will not recognise the divorce unless they also comply with shari’a. Whilst this does not pose a problem for men (as they can simply pronounce talaq), women have no recourse to a shari’a court in Australia to obtain a religious divorce. This has also posed a considerable problem for women in the Jewish community (Hussain 2001: 176), with husbands taking advantage of gaps between the civil and religious systems to deny wives a religious divorce while granting them a civil one (Buckley 2010: 95). Thus, ironically, Muslim women in Australia can often be placed in a more difficult position in relation to divorce than their counterparts in Muslim countries, because there are no official bodies which can arbitrate disputes under religious law (Buckley 2010: 90-91; Jamal 2007). The resulting dilemma of ‘limping marriages’ has led some Muslim leaders to put forward proposals for reform, which usually involve establishing systems within the Australian law to facilitate conformity with shari’a practices. Such measures are both in the interests of Australian Muslim communities, and in the interests of gender equality. However they have been met with great resistance, as ‘shari’a has no place within the Australian legal system’ (Merritt 2011b). 67 overseas, such as in the UK, they make judgments only with respect to consenting individuals who have chosen not to use the civil court system. They operate within British law, and there is an appeal process by which decisions of these Muslim bodies are reviewable by civil courts. As Krayem argues, ‘it is not about creating a separate legal system but about allowing such minority groups to be better accommodated in the existing institutions and legal structures’ (2010: 118). She goes on to emphasise that Muslims are not seeking an enforcement or official recognition of shari’a: ‘there is no evidence to suggest that any proposal has been put forward for any multicultural state to recognise the content of Islamic law within its legal system. To do this would be to involve the state in matters of religion and its interpretation’ (Krayem 2010: 118). As there is no universal interpretation of shari’a principles, inevitably controversies would arise. This brings us back to the main point of this thesis: both religious and worldly people tend to prefer institutional separation, because it not only protects the world from religion, but it protects religion from the world (Casanova 1994: 49). EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS Indoctrinating the youth? The distinguished Australian Muslim scholar Shahram Akbarzadeh has written that ‘contrary to the views of former treasurer Peter Costello, devout Muslims do not champion the establishment of sharia law in Australia. What is important for them is no different to other groups. Education opportunities and employment prospects for themselves and their kids rates much higher than any other concerns’ (2008). 70 He has a point. Contrary to common perceptions, Australia’s Muslim communities overwhelmingly support the separation of secular education from Islamic religious teachings. Most Muslims are neither pushing to establish a distinct religious school system, nor are they attempting to introduce religious education into state schools. Rather, attempted reforms are restricted to ensuring that their children are educated with Islamic values in mind. These values are generally not specific to Islam, but rather apply across many different religions. This is evident in the striking numbers of Muslim parents who send their children to Christian schools - around 30-40% - due to the single-sex environment at secondary level, and the strong moral education foundation (Morris 2003b; Saeed 2003). There is overwhelming support for a new secularism which requires the separation of religious and secular institutions. Those parents who do not send their children to Christian schools overwhelmingly prefer the state education system. Only around 10 percent of all Muslim children attend Islamic schools (Clyne 2001: 117). One dominant justification which surfaced in Irene Clyne’s 2001 study 15 was the perceived sub-standard secular education provided by many Islamic schools. Clyne’s interviewees showed themselves to be supporters of the new secularism by overwhelmingly choosing not to send their children to Islamic schools because of the poor academic standards and limited resources, and thus choosing a good secular education over religious instruction (2001: 133). Clyne identifies two competing expectations that Muslim parents possess: the expectation that their child will gain the high standard of education that has become essential to achieve a secure future, and the expectation that education is shaped by their own cultural background and the strengths of their religious beliefs (2001: 119). This involves a trade-off between a 71 good education, which will ensure participation in broader Australian society, and religious identity, which will ensure full participation in the Muslim or ethnic communities. The prioritisation of the first expectation indicates that the requirement of a comprehensive secular education has trumped the desire for religious teachings. Instead, parents ensure that their children obtain a religious education through special after-school or weekend classes or religious teaching at home. They believe that ‘on balance, their children should receive a good secular education at school and a good religious education at home’ (Clyne 2001: 133). This attitude is reflected in the words of one Muslim teacher who criticised Islamic schools for allowing parents to opt out of their responsibilities: ‘By sending their children to Islamic schools, parents are washing their hands of their responsibility to teach Islam to their children’ (Clyne 2001: 133). Adherents of this view generally feel that being accepted by peers in a conflict-free manner and learning to live within the new society is more important than comprehensive religious education. This involves the literal confinement of education to two different spheres: religious education to the home and mosque, and secular education to the school. Where controversies arise over the fusion of religion and secular education, they usually involve a push for education which is consonant with Islamic values, rather than a call for Islamic religious education. Parents feel that state schools are not promoting the type of behaviour which is expected. For the Muslim parents involved in Clyne’s consultations, correct behaviour was defined in cultural terms such as ‘protecting family name’ or ‘shaming the family’ rather than Islamic terms. One respondent suggested that their idea of correct behaviour involved ‘respect for authority, a reserved and modest manner, consideration for 72 identification with his religious community put an additional onus on him to be consciously fair and equitable at all times and to demonstrate that he is not just speaking for Muslims, especially when issues such as the development of religious facilities come up for debate (Al- Momani et al. 2010: 19). Zraika emphasised that‘I represent the whole community, and I’m not in it to say I’m a Muslim candidate for the Muslim people. I’m an Australian candidate for the Auburn community’. We might say, to put things paradoxically, that the religiosity of the Lord Mayor is the condition of possibility of his emphatic secularity as a representative of Auburn. Such secularist views are found not only among those running for election, and who wish to attract a wide constituency. The report cites one participant explaining their decision to vote for a particular individual: ‘Even if he’s a Muslim, that means nothing. There are many non-Muslim MPs who understand what is happening to Muslim communities and we can talk to them openly...Whether representatives are Muslim or Christian it doesn’t matter, we just want them to treat us as equals’ (Al-Momani et al. 2010: 61) The report suggested that among younger Muslims especially, there may be a shift from the traditional Labor Party vote to the Greens (Al-Momani et al. 2010: 47). This reflects a desire to be publicly heard and acknowledged, more than anything. Many felt that Muslims’ traditional Labor voting had made the Party complacent and unresponsive to their concerns (Al-Momani et al. 2010: 47). This is reinforced by a recent article on the website Muslim Village. It asks Muslims to vote in whichever way would ensure that their electorate would become a ‘swing seat’, allowing them to gain a voice (Village 2010). This followed a call by 75 Samier Dandan, president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, to do the same. In a speech, he said: ‘We have reasonable and solid expectations of what our community deserves, not as Muslims, but simply as Australian citizens’ (2010). Dandan urged Muslims to focus on the issues - both religious and secular. As well religious burial16 and mosque construction17, he cited concerns over access to healthcare, and rising unemployment in Bankstown and Lidcombe. In 2004, the group which edits the MuslimVillage website, along with a coalition of Muslim organisations, put together the Australian Muslim Electoral Taskforce, which settled on a number of key issues and approached the major political parties. The issues included ‘Palestine...pornography, censorship of media, settlement...freedom of religion, Islamic schools [and] anti-discrimination’. The Greens and Democrats responded, whilst Labor and Liberal ‘just didn’t really care’ (Al-Momani et al. 2010: 24). It was the willingness of the Greens to be responsive to the needs of Muslim communities, rather than any cultural or religious affinity with Greens principles, that was the most important factor in attracting the Muslim vote. The increase in support for the Greens has occurred despite the incompatibility with many of the party’s policies with Islamic principles. This is exemplified by the issue of same-sex marriage, which is prohibited in Islam. Many of the interviewees who were members of the Greens supported the party’s position on same-sex marriage, and all agreed that they could not support human rights for their own communities whilst denying those rights to the gay and lesbian community (Al-Momani et al. 2010: 45). The rising vote for the Greens despite these ostensible ‘moral’ disagreements perhaps indicates that in matters of party politics, Muslim communities are very much for the new secularism. 76 The election of the only federal Muslim parliamentarian, Ed Husic, the Member for Chifley, further demonstrates the commitment of Muslim representatives to the secular nature of political institutions. From a Bosnian family, Mr Husic describes himself as a non-practising, ‘cultural’ Muslim. Yet he was the first Australian MP to be sworn in with the Qur’an, and he does report experiences of religiously-based prejudice in his political pursuits (Wilson 2010). Husic has accused elements within the Liberal party in Western Sydney of repeatedly seeking to use his Muslim background as a divisive political issue (Dikeos 2010). Whilst running in 2004 for the neighbouring seat of Greenway, traditionally a Labor stronghold, the issue of his Muslim faith was targeted directly. Fake flyers describing him as a devout Muslim working hard to get a better deal for Islam in Greenway were distributed (pictured below). Though successful in Chifley in 2010, there was, as a result, an 11.6% swing away from Labor in that seat. Figure 6: the fake flyer distributed by Husic’s opponents in the 2004 Greenway election That Australia now has a Muslim representative in its federal parliament is significant for two reasons. First, it suggests a determination by the broader Australian community that a person’s 77 The themes of this dissertation are not unique to Australia, yet if Australia embraces religious secularity, it may help to inspire profound reforms on a global level. Australia might emerge as a pioneer of good practice. Its new, more tolerant and democratic secularism could serve as an important model for Western Europe, which is currently fortifying its public spaces against religious intrusion, exacerbating social exclusion. Conflicts between Muslims and the old secularism in Europe are commonplace - from the Rushdie affair in 1998, to the hijab disputes in France and elsewhere, to the cartoons crisis of 2005. Despite all this, and mirroring the situation in Australia described in chapters two and three, Muslims in Europe acknowledge and praise the secular character of European states (Cesari 2009a: 287). That being so, the battles that have arisen are principally to do with the ostensibly secular nature of European societies: the status of Islam in public life, the delimitation of the public and private sphere, religious freedom, freedom of expression, and the visibility of religious practices. In the face of such disputes, in Europe as in Australia, a redefinition of secularism may resolve some of the difficulties produced by Muslim integration. The new secularism has great political potential. Further study is crucial. Methods of enhancing the inclusion of Muslims within secular institutions must be further developed. Studies could specifically engage with the views of Muslim individuals and communities through in-depth interviews about the old and new secularisms. An examination of the relationship between the new secularism and policies of multiculturalism would be invaluable. From such studies, it is conceivable that policy changes could take place in line with this new way of thinking. Room could be made within secular institutions for Islamic values and practices. Representative bodies of different Muslim communities might be supported in the political arena, to ensure that Muslim voices are heard. Importantly, political parties should be forced to clarify their positions as to what secularism in Australia entails, to minimise uninformed speculation in the 80 media based upon archaic European ideologies of secularism. 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