My initial concern when I read about the call to ban the hijab was that it is precisely these types of comments that cause division and inflame prejudices against Australian Muslims.
Unfortunately, only days after these comments my concerns were confirmed when a constituent of mine, Mr Rachid Malis, whom I met some years ago, came to see me with what he considered to be a very urgent matter. Rachid has lived here for over 20 years and he is the proud and devoted father of four Australian-born children, the youngest being severely disabled. He wanted to see me about an incident involving his eldest daughter, who studies a business course at the local TAFE where, a few days earlier, she had been attacked. She was surrounded by 10 men; she was sworn at and assaulted and her hijab was ripped from her head. Needless to say, his daughter no longer wants to go to school, because she feels persecuted and unsafe and is reluctant to leave the safety of her home. Rachid has asked me and asks this House: ‘What do I do? What if my children are harmed? What if I take matters into my own hands? Wouldn’t they then say that all Muslims are violent?’ Rachid’s feelings and reactions are typical of any parent, including me. The difference is that this Muslim father, who lives in this country and calls it home, has to face the fact that he and other members of his community are suddenly under such intense scrutiny and faced with such vilification that they are beginning to wonder what is happening to their neighbourhood.
As I move around my electorate in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, home to one of the highest number of Muslim Australians in the country, I am beginning to wonder the same thing. On a daily basis I see schoolgirls going to and from school, wearing hijabs but also wearing jeans and runners and behaving like every other kid in the street. Wearing the hijab to school does not interfere with their learning abilities, so why all the fuss? The question is: are we not, after all, a free and tolerant society?
When politicians seek to provoke the community by singling out for attack the traditions and cultural or religious practices of one group of Australians simply because it is the in thing to do at the moment, then the fabric of our society is clearly in danger of being torn, with the potential for dangerous consequences. Rachid’s predicament is one example of those consequences, and there are many others. I have a firm belief, on the basis of my own migrant experience, that Muslim Australians will in time integrate into the broader Australian community and that the education process will play a vital and key part in this integration. But when a child’s school environment becomes a place of taunts and attack, then that child will be reluctant to attend our schools and our schools will be left to confront the legitimate concerns of parents, who will question the school’s ability to nurture and protect students—and all this over a headscarf.
The member for Mackellar recently described the headscarf as an ‘iconic symbol of adherence to Islam’. That may be the case, but that is also the case with other religious traditions. Catholic women could not enter church without wearing a veil and my own grandmother wore a black scarf all her life, consistent with Greek traditions of the time. Women throughout time have worn some form of headdress, across cultures and across religions, from the elaborate to the modest, from the sophisticated to the drab. Women have worn it to enhance beauty, to conceal it, for modesty, to protect against the elements, for fashion and for tradition. Whatever the reason, women have always worn some form of headdress and we continue to wear it, each for our own reasons, and the question remains—so what?
I am heartened to hear that the Prime Minister and other members opposite have rejected the views of the members for Mackellar and Indi, who so carelessly spoke about banning hijabs in schools. Examples such as Rachid’s remind us that there are consequences for doing so, and rather than making divisive suggestions that single out Muslim schoolgirls for attack, the member for Indi and the member for Mackellar should have more confidence in the strength of the cohesive, multicultural society that they themselves have grown up in and, indeed, succeeded in. Likewise, the Australian Muslim community will find its own way through the natural progression of integration, but it will do it through our encouragement and our acceptance, not through our derision and rejection. We need to encourage and embrace newer communities. We need to accept their diversity and incorporate it into the broader diversity of the Australian community. To attack it, to reject it, to deride it, to look down upon it, to treat it with contempt, simply will encourage divisions and tear the fabric of our society.
