Hugh Fitzgerald: One Minute and 33 Seconds, Or Pauline Hanson Ill-Prepared
Pauline Hanson, the Australian politician and leader of the One Nation Party, two days ago called for a referendum to change her country’s Constitution, so that section 116 of that document, which prohibits banning a religion, might be scrapped, in order that Islam might then be prohibited.
For Hanson claimed, as she has so many times before, that Islam is a political ideology and not a religion. She singled out the Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir as a pro-Sharia law group that was of particular concern. This was, for Hanson, a lost opportunity to win over those who are made uneasy by Islam, but who are also disturbed by what they regard as Hanson’s either/or remarks about the faith. She might have said, more accurately and more convincingly, that “yes, of course Islam is a ‘religion’ insofar as it concerns itself with the belief in, and worship of, a superhuman power. I don’t deny that aspect of it. But, ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid, that Islam is also, at the same time, and much more significantly, a ‘political ideology’ which has to do with extending the power and reach of the faith and its Believers, and with what the ideal Muslim state ought to look like.”
And she might then have added, in a more-in-sorrow tone, that “unfortunately, Islam as a ‘political ideology’ is far more important than Islam as a ‘religion,’ and we should not be shy about recognizing that. Both the Qur’an and the Hadith are concerned with the duty to defeat the Unbelievers, and the requirement that Muslims fight those Unbelievers, using whatever instruments – violence, either in regular combat (qitaal) or through terrorism, propaganda, wealth, or the weapon now mentioned by more and more Muslims, that of demographic conquest – are both available and effective, until the entire world is dominated by Islam, and Muslims rule, everywhere.”
Then she might have adduced Qur’anic passages, confidently citing, by sura and ayat, those that most strikingly support that claim of the duty of Muslims to engage in Jihad. She might have invited her listeners to read the Qur’an, as she did, especially (here should follow a very slow reading of a very short list of a half-dozen of the so-called Jihad verses, such as 3:151, 8:12, 2:191-193, 9:5, 9:29) and then another half-dozen verses denouncing the Unbelievers, such as 98:6, and recommended that they read, too, parts of the Hadith, ideally in the collection of Bukhari (Hanson could have taken care to explain how the different collections of Hadith are ranked by Muslims according to their assumed trustworthiness), to find out more about Muhammad, the Perfect Man and Model of Conduct.
And then she could have invited her listeners to simply look around the world, at just what has happened in those countries where Muslims have been allowed to settle in recent years in large numbers, and: “Ladies and gentlemen, please draw your own conclusions. What has the large-scale Muslim presence meant for the tranquility and physical security of Infidels everywhere? What has that large scale presence meant for the taxpayers who pay for their country’s welfare-state benefits? Am I wrong,” Pauline Hanson ought to ask aloud, “to worry”?
Last week, Ms. Hanson provided another example of an opportunity lost. She was walking through a shopping center in Cannington, a south-eastern suburb of Perth, greeting voters ahead of the Western Australian election. She was confronted by two hijabbed women and challenged as to her knowledge of Islam. Her encounter with them lasted for one minute and 33 seconds.
Continue reading Why Pauline Hanson hasn’t got what it takes
Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali.