Australian philosopher Raimond Gaita will give the inaugural Common Good Lecture this week at the State Library of NSW - on Multiculturalism and the War on Terror. He speaks to Stephen Crittenden about sharia, Aboriginal tribal law, and what he calls "practical multiculturalism". Also- a response by former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh to last week's item about Benazir Bhutto's posthumously published book.

...

Bruce Haigh: Yes, quite. I mean this was an insight into American thinking on Islam and it was frightening. It's a bit like reading an AFP dossier. I mean this is nonsense thinking and yet it is official thinking, and I would have turned it around.

Stephen Crittenden: What, you think the AFP's got a frightening vision as well, do you?

Bruce Haigh: Yes, quite, they do. Very much so. I mean this is the immaturity that we're faced with within our own major organisation, the AFP. But also in other intelligence organizations, and having been close to them over the years, yes, the mentality that's brought to bear is a kind of subdued hysteria.

....

Stephen Crittenden: The central argument in her book is that Islamic extremism thrives under dictatorship. I made the point in the interview last week that extremist Islam thrived under her democratically elected government.

Bruce Haigh: Yes, quite. This is what I'd really like to see unraveled. And what we saw in that particular book was official American thinking. I mean there's an organisation there called Freedom House (I think it is) that's quoted in that book, and you go onto the website and you look at the countries; they've graded the world according to whether they're fully democratic and free or whether they're not. Can you believe that West Papua is fully free and democratic? According to Freedom House. Because they've decided that Indonesia for whatever reason, is fully democratic and therefore any territory within Indonesia is fully democratic. So this is the sort of lack of subtlety, the nonsense, the lack of rigour, and you said that Seigel had said that Benazir had written the book and then he looked at it and altered a few things. I would say it was completely the other way around, and it was written in America, and she looked at it and changed it. Because every now and again I see her voice coming through, but most of the time I don't recognise the voice that's in that book. Except for that section, the chapter on Pakistan which has been more or less lifted out of her earlier book.

------------------

Gus: cartoon at top is more or less accurate at time of printing... Meaning there are problems of communication between religions especially on certain levels of "tolerance"... the word is ugly, but the extended meaning should allow a bit more flexibility of behaviour, especially in the acceptance of women as fully fledged equals and in the acceptance of the value of other religion and of no religion — should one chose so. Few religions do allow this to be. What matters is that we do not harm any one else in our choices or actions, under any banner for god or country.

On the subject of women, sure some religions claim "respect" and all sorts of distorted bizoids but the end result is a latent push to patronise or to dominate the "weaker" sex. The Taliban and other such make no bone about giving nothing much to women except make them hide their face and give then a monkey's education beyond being brainwashed by the Koran's exclusive source of understanding of life...

In men and women, any singular source of "knowledge" (unscientific religious garb) has the potential to create the same fanatics we saw during the decimation of the Cathares (religious body that allowed full equality of men and women around the 10th century in Europe) and during the Inquisition, in which heretics were tortured and killed in sadistically organised acts by priests supposed to uphold the sanctity of life... Such stupidity, still is prevalent with the Bin Laden of this planet who get annoyed about the pressures put upon them by the other side's stupidity and intransigence or lies. It eventually grows into a fierce resentment that nothing can defuse, especially nothing such as more violence under the banner of an oil tainted crusading president.

Be religious as much as you wish — as long as it is a personal non violent expression of one's beliefs and not the expression of a controlling intransigent culture. 

ELEMENTS of Islamic law - the sharia - should be legally recognised in Australia so that Muslims can live according their faith, a prominent Muslim leader says.

Addressing an open day at Lakemba Mosque on Saturday, the president of the Australian Islamic Mission, Zachariah Matthews, said parts of sharia could be recognised as a secondary legal system so that Muslims were not forced to act contrary to their beliefs. ''Sharia law could function as a parallel system in the same way that some traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander law was recognised in the Northern Territory,'' Dr Matthews told the Herald after the session.

''I don't think we are so unsophisticated that we cannot consider a multilayered legal system as long as it doesn't conflict with the existing civil system.''

----------------------

Gus says and emphatic: "No way José". See toon at top.