Isolating fanatics

Muslim leaders should welcome the new anti-terror laws

Since the London Underground and bus bombings in July, we have all become more alert to the threat of homegrown terror: acts of evil perpetrated against tolerant Western nations by those who have been nurtured within them, but who have turned against their values after brainwashing by radical religious ideologues. The London bombings appeared to concentrate the minds of moderate Muslim leaders, and elicited from them more wholehearted condemnation of fringe Islamist elements than either the Bali bombings in 2002 or the 9/11 attacks. This was overdue and welcome -- and makes it all the more disappointing that, since the Howard Government announced its tough new terror legislation, some of these leaders have drifted badly off message, claiming the laws will victimise Muslims.

In fact, the laws do not mention any ethnic or religious minority. If they did target any minority, they would be anathema to Australians -- whose reservoir of tolerance, and commitment to civil liberties, runs deep. No, the laws are about those who incite and participate in terrorist atrocities. If the Muslim community stands in any special relationship to the laws, it is for the reason conceded by responsible Muslim leaders following the London bombings: some immigrant Muslim communities have allowed themselves to become infiltrated by radicals. It is those radical elements, not the Howard Government′s or the Blair Government′s new terror laws, that stand utterly at odds with tolerant multicultural values. As far as the extremists are concerned, all other groups living alongside them are not to be mixed with, and only to be tolerated until a worldwide Islamic caliphate reigns.

Let′s be clear, the threat to Islam in Australia comes from one direction, and one only: the fundamentalists who wish to hijack this great and dignified religion for their own lunatic ends. By playing to unwarranted concerns within their community about the new laws, Muslim leaders risk bolstering the prestige of these radicals, whom they should be isolating. Their responsibility is to issue constant and unambiguous denunciations of those who foment sectarian hatred in Australia, or justify terrorist acts overseas. The mistaken idea that the new laws are an "attack on Muslims" can only deflect attention from those who are truly attacking Muslims everywhere -- the Islamists. Not only do the fundamentalists thrust a wedge between Muslims in the West and the communities that welcome them, but also their indiscriminate attacks in places such Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Iraq regularly kill more innocent Muslims than members of any other group.

One Australian community spokesman, Keysar Trad, has gone as far as to urge his fellow Muslims to disobey the new laws, by revealing any friends or relatives they believe may be subject to preventive detention. He suggests the laws could be used to arrest those who criticise Australia′s presence in Iraq, and that "if you do say something in support of an oppressed people and you sympathise with them, then you could be misconstrued as having incited hatred". But how many ways are there to construe, for example, the words in a text sold from a radical mosque in Melbourne: "The Jew or Christian who insults the prophet should be killed"? Everybody knows the difference between comments like that, and those made "in support of an oppressed people". Attempts, in the current security climate, to muddy the difference between the normal, vigorous debates that occur in a democratic society and incitements to hatred and violence are wrong and unhelpful.

Moderate Muslims must be even more alarmed than the general community by the presence of Islamofascists in our midst. Theirs are the concerns that Muslim leaders should be ministering to. By spreading myths about the anti-terror laws, they risk creating the mistaken impression they act as a buttress between the radical Islamists and the Government. What they should be doing is standing firm between law-abiding Muslims and the radicals who wish to intimidate them.