WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.600 Welcome to a special panel on liberal Islam. What is it? It's a very important question today 2 00:00:09.600 --> 00:00:21.340 in Australia and abroad where concerns about Islamic fundamentalism has given considerable 3 00:00:21.340 --> 00:00:30.720 alarm. Very extreme attitudes about the treatment of so-called fundamental Islam has led to 4 00:00:31.340 --> 00:00:38.080 alarming strategies about defeating it. I think there are very important additions and 5 00:00:38.080 --> 00:00:44.020 I think all four of us have experiences one way or another with an Islamic world which 6 00:00:44.020 --> 00:00:49.280 is profoundly liberal, a delight to be associated with it. 7 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:51.320 I've got three questions. One is, what is the role of Islam in the Islamic world? 8 00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:59.400 Three, I think they must be exhausted speakers. They seem to have been on, to have performed 9 00:00:59.400 --> 00:01:05.280 every day three or four times in the course of the festival. So I'm delighted they're 10 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:12.880 still here. I'm delighted they can take the time to discuss this somewhat complex question. 11 00:01:13.360 --> 00:01:18.500 They were issued with a kind of brief, which I'll read out to you because it's fairly 12 00:01:18.500 --> 00:01:20.880 challenging. Is there such a thing as... 13 00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:21.560 I'm not sure if I can get the whole thing out. 14 00:01:21.560 --> 00:01:27.100 ... liberal Islam? How significant is it and where does it flourish? All about it, 15 00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:32.180 I'd say. How does it work differently in places where Islam is a majority or a minority 16 00:01:32.180 --> 00:01:36.640 religion and in what senses might it be the way of the future? 17 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:42.020 Now, the way we're going to handle this is each speaker will speak for about 10 minutes 18 00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:48.580 and then we're going to have a discussion between them, among them, where they will 19 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:50.380 talk further about their... 20 00:01:50.380 --> 00:01:54.740 ... their personal experiences. First to speak will be... 21 00:01:54.740 --> 00:01:57.680 Do I have to introduce you all again? I don't think so. 22 00:01:59.860 --> 00:02:06.140 Yes? Good heavens. Sydney Jones, an American who has lived and worked in Southeast Asia 23 00:02:06.140 --> 00:02:12.760 for many years. She has been associated with Amnesty International. She is currently the 24 00:02:12.760 --> 00:02:18.780 regional director for the International Crisis Group, which Gareth Evans, a little known 25 00:02:18.780 --> 00:02:20.360 foreign minister of some years ago, is the director of. 26 00:02:20.380 --> 00:02:20.580 ... the International Crisis Group, which Gareth Evans, a little known foreign minister of 27 00:02:20.580 --> 00:02:28.860 some years ago, heads, located somewhere in Brussels. And Sydney has performed a very 28 00:02:28.860 --> 00:02:37.140 important role in discussing very complex issues in Indonesia and the Philippines, looking 29 00:02:37.140 --> 00:02:45.600 at ethnic conflicts, at regional issues, and looking at radical Islamic groups. Her research 30 00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:50.360 and historical work on both as a... really, to me, as a historian, I think, is a very 31 00:02:50.380 --> 00:02:54.720 important one. I see her work in a historical context has been extremely important in setting 32 00:02:54.720 --> 00:03:01.700 the context for understanding radical Islamic movements in Indonesia, well, in maritime 33 00:03:01.700 --> 00:03:03.820 Southeast Asia, perhaps is a better way to put it. 34 00:03:04.700 --> 00:03:13.460 Then we have... Who's next? Then we have Riaz Hassan. I'm sorry, Robin. Professor Robin 35 00:03:14.280 --> 00:03:20.360 Jeffrey is my countryman. We're both Canadians. He shares with me an interest on our curious, 36 00:03:20.360 --> 00:03:26.060 curious cultural history of... cultural concerns of ice hockey. He is an outstanding historian 37 00:03:26.680 --> 00:03:33.020 on South Asian history. He has lived in Australia for a very long time, as I have, and he has 38 00:03:33.980 --> 00:03:39.580 recently been appointed as director of the Research School for Pacific and Asian Studies. 39 00:03:40.380 --> 00:03:47.460 That's very important because for a very long time, sometimes quite thinly numbered, the... 40 00:03:47.460 --> 00:03:49.560 in terms of the number of people. 41 00:03:49.620 --> 00:03:50.000 ... 42 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:58.620 Indian Studies has been important at ANU, and Robin's move to ANU has given that... 43 00:03:59.340 --> 00:04:05.440 group of people considerable strength. So it's a delight that he's here. Riaz Hassan, 44 00:04:05.660 --> 00:04:13.120 Professor Riaz Hassan is the Australian Research Council professor. He's located at Flinders, 45 00:04:13.200 --> 00:04:17.860 where he has been for many years the professor of sociology. His work has been very important 46 00:04:18.440 --> 00:04:19.440 in the area of... 47 00:04:20.940 --> 00:04:28.980 studying Islam. He has produced two books in that area. He's also worked on a range 48 00:04:28.980 --> 00:04:35.560 of issues, but particularly around suicide. And his particular research problem, as the 49 00:04:36.200 --> 00:04:44.000 Australian Research Council professor, is around suicide terrorism. So he brings considerable 50 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:49.420 expertise to this... to the whole discussion today about... on one side radicalism, and 51 00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:55.360 radical Islam, and the other liberal notions of Islam. So I welcome the first speaker, 52 00:04:56.080 --> 00:04:57.240 Dr. Sydney Jones. 53 00:05:04.080 --> 00:05:11.140 I think I'll just sit here. I told my colleagues I wanted to go first because I had so little 54 00:05:11.140 --> 00:05:17.100 to say on this topic. I can get over with quickly. But I guess for me the most important 55 00:05:17.100 --> 00:05:19.400 issue with the notion of... 56 00:05:19.400 --> 00:05:27.820 liberal Islam is that any time we use labels, we get into trouble. And there's... there's 57 00:05:27.820 --> 00:05:32.360 a sense whenever you use liberal, it's in relation to conservative, just as whenever 58 00:05:32.360 --> 00:05:38.020 you use radical, it's in relation to moderate. And every single time, you have to say on 59 00:05:38.020 --> 00:05:44.680 what issue and in relation to whom or what. And the problem I have with even trying to 60 00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:49.040 define liberal is that I've seen too many times... 61 00:05:51.620 --> 00:05:52.640 I mean... 62 00:05:52.640 --> 00:05:52.980 I... 63 00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:18.340 goals of working toward an Islamic state like the Muslim Brotherhood. It can include utopian 64 00:06:18.340 --> 00:06:23.900 but nonviolent groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international organization which wants to 65 00:06:23.900 --> 00:06:31.220 re-establish the caliphate. Radical in terms of political views, yes. Violent, no. We have violent 66 00:06:31.220 --> 00:06:39.760 groups that are interested in stopping vice and go around bashing up bars. Radical, yes. Violent, 67 00:06:39.760 --> 00:06:45.960 yes. Terrorist, no. We have terrorist groups. And the problem is once we apply radical to that 68 00:06:45.960 --> 00:06:54.740 wide spectrum, it's as though everybody's the same. And the same goes for liberal. We tend to 69 00:06:54.740 --> 00:07:01.680 have these assumptions that when we say liberal Muslim, it means Muslims more like us. Muslims 70 00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:08.480 that have some kind of maybe Western background. Muslims that don't see 71 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:09.120 the 72 00:07:09.760 --> 00:07:17.620 world as a place of living under Islamic law as being a top priority. Muslims perhaps who are 73 00:07:17.620 --> 00:07:24.660 willing to wear Western dress rather than a head scarf or whatever. Muslims who are more 74 00:07:24.660 --> 00:07:34.080 tolerant and a kinder, gentler version of Islam than perhaps we see in some parts of the Arab 75 00:07:34.080 --> 00:07:38.900 world or than Saudi Arabia. And it's always in relation to something else, and it's always 76 00:07:44.640 --> 00:08:06.500 about spiritual 77 00:08:06.500 --> 00:08:10.360 example called the liberal Islamic network and one of the things that it 78 00:08:10.360 --> 00:08:16.380 promoted was looking at the Quran in a in a historical context and not trying 79 00:08:16.380 --> 00:08:21.780 to aim at adoption of Islamic law as the basis of the state for example but even 80 00:08:21.780 --> 00:08:27.400 the idea of looking at that parts of the Quran in a historic context rather than 81 00:08:27.400 --> 00:08:32.540 as the literal truth caused so many threats against this group that they 82 00:08:32.540 --> 00:08:35.800 eventually had to change their name and they're no longer known as the liberal 83 00:08:35.800 --> 00:08:41.380 Islamic network you have people using liberal as a term of approbation as a 84 00:08:41.380 --> 00:08:46.060 pejorative term from within the Muslim community against those that they see is 85 00:08:46.060 --> 00:08:51.120 too secular and then you have Western attitudes toward the liberal Muslim 86 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:57.420 community as being a desiderata something that we should look for with 87 00:08:57.420 --> 00:09:03.020 and look up to as something that that that should be aspired to so you get 88 00:09:03.020 --> 00:09:04.960 into problems whenever you use 89 00:09:04.960 --> 00:09:05.780 you use liberal Islamic networks you have people using liberal Islamic networks 90 00:09:05.780 --> 00:09:08.780 labels like this in a way that, as I say, 91 00:09:09.660 --> 00:09:11.380 confounds more than it clarifies. 92 00:09:15.100 --> 00:09:15.660 Excellent. 93 00:09:22.280 --> 00:09:23.820 Thank you very much. 94 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:25.200 Now, Robert. 95 00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:26.460 You're looking at me, Peter. 96 00:09:26.900 --> 00:09:32.020 My role this afternoon, I think, is 97 00:09:32.020 --> 00:09:36.120 like a rather insipid layer of that ersatz spread that 98 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:39.700 isn't butter put between two very rich and scrumptious 99 00:09:39.700 --> 00:09:41.100 slices of wholemeal bread. 100 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:46.360 It's a privilege for me to be sitting here. 101 00:09:46.460 --> 00:09:48.640 Take me as perhaps a little bit of the spokesperson 102 00:09:48.640 --> 00:09:49.620 for the audience. 103 00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:52.360 I'm not a specialist in Islam, though I've 104 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:55.420 known Muslims for the time I've been working in India 105 00:09:55.960 --> 00:09:56.940 over the last 40 years. 106 00:09:57.020 --> 00:09:59.340 And I'll tell you a little bit about that in a moment. 107 00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:02.000 But I've known Riaz for many years. 108 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:04.840 And always greatly benefited from hearing him speak 109 00:10:04.840 --> 00:10:07.140 and marveled at his work, because he 110 00:10:07.140 --> 00:10:08.360 has an extraordinary background. 111 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:12.500 And Sydney's work I've known for about the last 10 or 15. 112 00:10:12.680 --> 00:10:14.460 And again, I've also heard her praises sung 113 00:10:14.460 --> 00:10:15.780 by some of my close colleagues. 114 00:10:15.940 --> 00:10:17.740 So you really have an extraordinary opportunity 115 00:10:17.740 --> 00:10:20.980 to hear two very, very experienced people speak 116 00:10:20.980 --> 00:10:21.660 this afternoon. 117 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:25.540 My task, I think, is to tell you a little bit 118 00:10:25.540 --> 00:10:28.420 about my experiences of the Muslims I've 119 00:10:28.420 --> 00:10:31.980 known in various contexts, which may resonate with some of you. 120 00:10:31.980 --> 00:10:32.660 And I think it's a good idea to resonate a little bit 121 00:10:32.660 --> 00:10:33.440 with your own experience. 122 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:36.440 Probably everyone here, if not a Muslim, 123 00:10:36.620 --> 00:10:39.080 has had some contact with Muslim people. 124 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:40.560 Let me tell you a little bit about mine. 125 00:10:40.740 --> 00:10:43.660 And how we'd categorize some of these people, 126 00:10:43.780 --> 00:10:46.020 I think we'll come back to Sydney's point. 127 00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:47.860 We're probably best not to try. 128 00:10:48.060 --> 00:10:51.780 But let me tell you, when I first went to India 40 years 129 00:10:51.780 --> 00:10:55.460 ago, I taught school in a town called Chandigarh in East 130 00:10:55.460 --> 00:10:56.060 Punjab. 131 00:10:56.140 --> 00:10:57.940 And there were no Muslims in East Punjab. 132 00:10:58.000 --> 00:10:59.500 This was 20 years after the partition. 133 00:10:59.500 --> 00:11:00.700 And Muslims were gone. 134 00:11:00.900 --> 00:11:04.060 They'd been either murdered or they'd fled to Pakistan. 135 00:11:04.300 --> 00:11:06.720 Just as on the other side of the border at that time, 136 00:11:06.740 --> 00:11:08.760 you wouldn't have found any Sikhs or Hindus either. 137 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:11.940 But what I did find in my school, the vice principal 138 00:11:11.940 --> 00:11:12.800 was a Christian. 139 00:11:13.140 --> 00:11:16.380 And his wife was also a Christian. 140 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:17.360 Her name was Beulah. 141 00:11:17.420 --> 00:11:19.000 And she was a redoubtable lady. 142 00:11:19.100 --> 00:11:20.080 She was a very large lady. 143 00:11:20.280 --> 00:11:22.220 Her maiden name had been Bashiruddin. 144 00:11:22.380 --> 00:11:24.740 And her grandfather had converted to Christianity 145 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:28.400 before the First World War. 146 00:11:28.400 --> 00:11:31.180 And she, of course, had been raised a Christian. 147 00:11:31.260 --> 00:11:32.960 But they kept their Muslim family connections. 148 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:35.200 And a couple of times, I had the opportunity 149 00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:39.300 to go with her to Delhi and to visit her Muslim relatives, who 150 00:11:39.300 --> 00:11:42.080 lived in the old part of Delhi, around Chandni Chowk, 151 00:11:42.220 --> 00:11:45.540 if you know Delhi, on the top stories of one 152 00:11:45.540 --> 00:11:49.320 of those old four-story houses, where there's a bursati on top, 153 00:11:49.540 --> 00:11:51.740 and there were pigeons, and people flew kites. 154 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:54.580 The girls in the family wore burka 155 00:11:54.580 --> 00:11:56.260 when they went down to the bazaar. 156 00:11:56.260 --> 00:11:58.320 But they were happy to have me come into the house. 157 00:11:58.320 --> 00:12:00.800 And the girls took the burka off at that point. 158 00:12:00.860 --> 00:12:02.160 They were going to college and so on. 159 00:12:02.220 --> 00:12:04.800 But when they were out moving back and forth publicly, 160 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:07.520 it was just more convenient and a little bit more anonymous, 161 00:12:07.680 --> 00:12:09.440 a little bit safer to wear the burka. 162 00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:12.200 But they were quite happy to have me coming with their auntie 163 00:12:12.700 --> 00:12:13.800 to be in the house. 164 00:12:13.980 --> 00:12:18.400 And that was my really first close experience of Islam. 165 00:12:19.460 --> 00:12:24.180 Subsequently, as a teacher in universities in Melbourne 166 00:12:24.180 --> 00:12:27.800 in the 90s, we had three. 167 00:12:27.800 --> 00:12:30.800 Very different Muslim PhD students. 168 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:33.120 The first one was from India, from Allahabad. 169 00:12:33.380 --> 00:12:34.660 He was the most aristocratic. 170 00:12:35.220 --> 00:12:38.480 And he's a great joker, and he's still a close personal friend. 171 00:12:39.760 --> 00:12:43.580 And you wouldn't know that he was a religious person at all 172 00:12:43.580 --> 00:12:44.140 if you met him. 173 00:12:44.180 --> 00:12:46.160 Indeed, you would think he was the most irreligious person. 174 00:12:48.180 --> 00:12:50.960 But when you wanted to talk about Islam, of course, 175 00:12:50.980 --> 00:12:52.560 he knew it all, because he'd learned it all. 176 00:12:52.900 --> 00:12:54.680 He knew a great deal, because he'd 177 00:12:54.680 --> 00:12:56.360 learned it from his mother, who was still alive, 178 00:12:56.580 --> 00:12:57.740 and his grandmother, who had only 179 00:12:57.740 --> 00:12:58.520 recently died. 180 00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:00.560 And the family were good Muslims. 181 00:13:00.700 --> 00:13:03.020 They were also very aristocratic North Indian Muslims 182 00:13:03.020 --> 00:13:06.000 who really could trace their ancestry back 183 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:07.540 to very early times. 184 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:09.480 Now, he was an Indian. 185 00:13:09.660 --> 00:13:13.700 The second student who arrived was a Punjabi Muslim, 186 00:13:13.880 --> 00:13:14.900 a Pakistani. 187 00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:17.900 His dad had been in the Air Force in Pakistan, 188 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:20.520 had been in the Bangladesh War in 71. 189 00:13:21.520 --> 00:13:25.820 And this particular fellow was, again, not all that devout, 190 00:13:25.820 --> 00:13:27.380 but he was a very proud Pakistani. 191 00:13:27.740 --> 00:13:29.020 And he was a very proud Punjabi. 192 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:33.180 He made a living by driving taxi in Melbourne 193 00:13:33.180 --> 00:13:35.720 for a Turkish taxi owner, so he was 194 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:39.660 able to use the community usefully to pick up work. 195 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:47.320 He was certainly much more outwardly a Muslim 196 00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:50.920 than the Indian chap who had been with us a little bit 197 00:13:50.920 --> 00:13:51.280 before. 198 00:13:51.580 --> 00:13:55.160 And he was particularly proud of being a Pakistani. 199 00:13:55.680 --> 00:13:57.720 The third candidate who arrived was a Muslim. 200 00:13:57.720 --> 00:14:01.180 He arrived a few months after the Punjabi was a Bangladeshi. 201 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:04.500 His father had been killed in the 1971 war in Bangladesh 202 00:14:04.500 --> 00:14:06.680 by the Pakistani military, presumably. 203 00:14:07.100 --> 00:14:09.280 And he was perhaps the most devout of all. 204 00:14:09.420 --> 00:14:12.500 He had come with his wife and his two daughters. 205 00:14:12.680 --> 00:14:15.300 His two daughters, little girls, primary kids at that stage. 206 00:14:15.480 --> 00:14:18.320 They went to local schools in Preston in the North Melbourne 207 00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:18.720 suburbs. 208 00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:21.180 And what was interesting was his wife 209 00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:24.380 became more traditional in the three years 210 00:14:24.380 --> 00:14:25.320 she was with us in Melbourne. 211 00:14:25.500 --> 00:14:27.700 She came not wearing the hijab. 212 00:14:27.720 --> 00:14:31.820 hijab, not being particularly concerned about dress. Indeed, if you'd seen her in the street, 213 00:14:31.980 --> 00:14:35.840 you would have thought, oh, she's maybe from India, maybe from Pakistan, from somewhere. 214 00:14:36.020 --> 00:14:40.580 By the time she left, she was much more obviously a Muslim in her dress. They're now back in 215 00:14:40.580 --> 00:14:44.940 Bangladesh. The girls are being educated. One of them, I think, was gone to UBC in Vancouver 216 00:14:44.940 --> 00:14:53.780 in the last 18 months. They nevertheless would have been the most religiously convinced of the 217 00:14:53.780 --> 00:14:59.260 three graduate students who passed through Melbourne at that time, each one giving me 218 00:14:59.260 --> 00:15:06.340 a slightly different perspective on Islam. Recently, in the last two months, I had a 219 00:15:06.340 --> 00:15:12.040 very interesting visit from a young PhD student currently studying at Jawaharlal Nehru University 220 00:15:12.040 --> 00:15:18.280 in Delhi. Nabil is from Kerala, down on the southwest coast of India, where there's a large 221 00:15:18.280 --> 00:15:23.640 Muslim population. Muslims reach Kerala before they reach North India. They reach Kerala almost 222 00:15:23.640 --> 00:15:29.680 at the time of the prophet by ship as traders. Nabil comes from a Muslim community that's 223 00:15:29.680 --> 00:15:38.120 matrilineal. That's not something one normally associates with Islam, but nor is it indeed a 224 00:15:38.120 --> 00:15:44.820 practice that's still followed amongst Kerala Hindus. It's been a practice abandoned by Kerala 225 00:15:44.820 --> 00:15:50.520 Hindus, legally abandoned in the last 30 years. It's been wound down in the last 100 years, 226 00:15:50.640 --> 00:15:53.520 but this small Muslim community retains many of its 227 00:15:53.520 --> 00:15:53.620 materialities. 228 00:15:54.600 --> 00:16:01.300 Nabil, wonderful sort of fellow, very witty, funny sort of chap. Again, more like my friend 229 00:16:01.300 --> 00:16:08.560 from the PhD days from North India, very difficult to tell that he's religious at all, except 230 00:16:08.560 --> 00:16:13.900 for a few dietary things, and then the capacity to talk about his own culture when asked, 231 00:16:14.120 --> 00:16:14.700 when invited. 232 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:23.400 The final encounter I've had, and I'll finish in a moment on that, is about three weeks 233 00:16:23.400 --> 00:16:23.620 ago. 234 00:16:23.620 --> 00:16:28.900 We had two dozen young Muslim Australians, most of them undergraduates at Melbourne University, 235 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:33.360 come and spend a couple of days in Canberra. They were doing a kind of tour of the power 236 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:37.960 sites of the nation. We all know that Canberra is the power site of the nation. And they 237 00:16:37.960 --> 00:16:45.300 spent the best part of a day at the ANU. And they were fascinating, because they were all, 238 00:16:45.380 --> 00:16:49.900 almost without exception, they had dinky-dye accents. If you spoke to them on the phone, 239 00:16:50.060 --> 00:16:53.600 you would think that they weren't working in a call center in Gurdjieff. 240 00:16:53.600 --> 00:16:56.920 They were down in Bangalore. You would think they were down the road in Collins Street. 241 00:16:57.040 --> 00:17:02.780 Very, very identifiably Australian accents. Probably half of the young women wore the 242 00:17:02.780 --> 00:17:10.420 hijab, half didn't. And what they were saying was, look, what, for us, we don't get, we 243 00:17:10.420 --> 00:17:14.260 haven't got a voice yet. Nobody's really talking for us. We haven't made any movies yet. We 244 00:17:14.260 --> 00:17:15.320 haven't written any books. 245 00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:20.380 Now when one of them said that, another one leapt in and said, well, we have. There's 246 00:17:20.380 --> 00:17:23.580 this woman, Randa Abdel Fattah, who's really a great writer. She's a great writer. She's 247 00:17:23.580 --> 00:17:26.600 written a book called Does My Head Look Big in This? 248 00:17:27.600 --> 00:17:33.380 Which is, this is dolly fiction for, you know, adolescent girls, sort of 14 to 18 year olds. 249 00:17:33.560 --> 00:17:37.800 And Does My Head Look Big in This? is about a year seven girl who's going to a new school 250 00:17:38.320 --> 00:17:42.480 and decides, she's Palestinian, decides that she's going to wear the hijab. And her mother 251 00:17:42.480 --> 00:17:46.780 doesn't wear the hijab. And her parents sort of say, well, that's lovely, darling. You 252 00:17:46.780 --> 00:17:49.980 go ahead and do it. But you know you're going to have to face a lot of problems with it. 253 00:17:50.060 --> 00:17:53.340 And it's the story of how she puts on the hijab and sticks to it. 254 00:17:53.580 --> 00:17:54.360 And goes through it. 255 00:17:54.560 --> 00:18:00.680 The author, Randa Abdel Fattah, has done a second one now set in Sydney, which begins 256 00:18:01.240 --> 00:18:06.380 with the Cronulla riots. And it's called Ten Things I Hate About Me. And it's about, again, 257 00:18:06.500 --> 00:18:10.920 a young Palestinian girl coming to terms with the internet, with racism in a Western Sydney 258 00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:16.460 school. And the students who came said, well, look, this woman is starting to give us the 259 00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:22.520 kind of voice we need to really tell it like it is to be a Muslim Australian. And that 260 00:18:22.520 --> 00:18:26.980 seemed to me a very interesting thing to be saying, particularly by people as articulate 261 00:18:26.980 --> 00:18:27.520 as these. 262 00:18:27.760 --> 00:18:35.940 So I guess my notion would be that in Australia, we need to foster an environment where various 263 00:18:35.940 --> 00:18:41.020 voices develop, voices that are diverse enough to begin to accommodate the diversity of Islam 264 00:18:41.020 --> 00:18:43.720 and indeed the diversity of current Australian life. 265 00:18:44.860 --> 00:18:45.520 Thank you. 266 00:18:46.500 --> 00:18:47.860 Thank you very much. 267 00:18:47.860 --> 00:18:49.700 Thank you very much. 268 00:18:51.840 --> 00:18:52.500 Thank you very much. 269 00:18:52.520 --> 00:18:54.920 I just, my back is... 270 00:18:54.920 --> 00:18:59.940 Thank you very much. 271 00:18:59.980 --> 00:19:07.660 Let me build on the elegant observations that my fellow panelists have made. 272 00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:21.840 About three years ago, perhaps four now, Clifford Geertz, one of the great anthropologists and 273 00:19:21.840 --> 00:19:22.480 one of the great... 274 00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:31.220 students of Indonesian Islam and Moroccan Islam, wrote a remarkable essay, which I strongly 275 00:19:31.220 --> 00:19:35.740 recommend, in the New York Review of Books in July 2003. 276 00:19:36.580 --> 00:19:40.200 He reviewed, and the title of the essay was Which Way to Mecca? 277 00:19:40.940 --> 00:19:42.280 And it had a cartoon. 278 00:19:43.760 --> 00:19:46.860 An English, it was a very famous cartoon from New Yorker. 279 00:19:46.860 --> 00:19:54.480 An English colonial public servant is going on his jeep in the desert in Saudi Arabia, 280 00:19:55.300 --> 00:20:01.220 and there is an Arab Bedouin whose brain is facing Mecca. 281 00:20:01.940 --> 00:20:06.260 And he kneels out of his jeep, he said, hey fellow, which way to Mecca? 282 00:20:07.640 --> 00:20:10.520 So, and that is the cartoon. 283 00:20:10.760 --> 00:20:15.320 It's one of the sort of classics, you know, on take on, 284 00:20:16.280 --> 00:20:16.840 the 285 00:20:16.860 --> 00:20:20.360 colonial rule and its relationship to religion and natives. 286 00:20:21.060 --> 00:20:27.760 But in this particular essay, Clifford Geertz reviewed about 12 books, 287 00:20:28.360 --> 00:20:30.240 which have appeared since 9-11. 288 00:20:31.100 --> 00:20:35.340 And he made an observation that if you want to make money, 289 00:20:35.960 --> 00:20:39.640 write a book that feeds the prejudices of the West. 290 00:20:39.980 --> 00:20:41.520 You'll be fine. 291 00:20:43.260 --> 00:20:46.580 And he then goes on to, you can read it, 292 00:20:46.580 --> 00:20:50.340 and perhaps modesty prevents me from saying so, 293 00:20:50.360 --> 00:20:51.620 but I will say that anyway. 294 00:20:52.320 --> 00:20:55.560 One of the books he thought you should read is my book, so you can. 295 00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:01.780 Now, liberal Islam, what he really, 296 00:21:01.860 --> 00:21:08.480 the point he makes is that the great deal of what West is concerned about, 297 00:21:08.580 --> 00:21:14.280 people, even the non-Western countries, are concerned about Islam after 9-11, 298 00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:15.820 is actually, 299 00:21:15.820 --> 00:21:18.280 is really muddle of things. 300 00:21:18.820 --> 00:21:24.040 And he tries to make sense of this muddle. 301 00:21:24.580 --> 00:21:26.220 And it does a very good job. 302 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:29.920 Now, one way to approach the topic of liberal Islam 303 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:32.260 is simply to look at people who use the term. 304 00:21:33.420 --> 00:21:40.180 As Sidney was saying, there was a very good liberal Islamic network on the internet, 305 00:21:40.380 --> 00:21:44.060 which they have changed, I'm not sure what they're called now. 306 00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:45.600 But they did a very good job. 307 00:21:45.600 --> 00:21:47.180 For some time. 308 00:21:47.840 --> 00:21:51.560 There's a very interesting book by Charles Koorsman from University of, 309 00:21:51.580 --> 00:21:55.000 I think, Carolina, North Carolina, Liberal Islam, 310 00:21:55.120 --> 00:21:56.960 which actually brings together a lot of writers. 311 00:21:59.160 --> 00:22:02.840 About three months ago, the Rand Corporation published a book, 312 00:22:03.500 --> 00:22:08.420 has published a study, Building Moderate Muslim Networks. 313 00:22:09.200 --> 00:22:15.040 And I think that study will become now probably the policy setter for 314 00:22:15.040 --> 00:22:15.580 the United States. 315 00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:16.980 For many years. 316 00:22:18.360 --> 00:22:20.580 Again, building modern Muslim networks. 317 00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:22.540 You can actually download it from Rand Corporation. 318 00:22:23.340 --> 00:22:27.400 But for my money, I think one of the best writer on this is 319 00:22:28.300 --> 00:22:35.080 Professor Khaled Abu-Al-Fadil from University of California in Los Angeles. 320 00:22:35.360 --> 00:22:37.320 And his book, The Great Theft. 321 00:22:37.580 --> 00:22:39.560 Which I think deals with this issue. 322 00:22:39.700 --> 00:22:40.840 How within Islam. 323 00:22:40.980 --> 00:22:43.240 Because the whole idea of liberal Islam. 324 00:22:43.560 --> 00:22:44.120 And. 325 00:22:44.900 --> 00:22:48.380 non-liberal Islam really lies within the, 326 00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:50.660 it's essentially a reflection 327 00:22:50.660 --> 00:22:52.880 what is going on within Islam itself. 328 00:22:53.560 --> 00:22:55.400 I mean, by and large, what they mean, 329 00:22:55.600 --> 00:22:57.180 but I looked through all this, 330 00:22:57.320 --> 00:22:59.180 and what I thought, basically, 331 00:22:59.540 --> 00:23:01.520 the Rand Corporation, the liberal Islam, 332 00:23:01.840 --> 00:23:05.880 the Charles various writing in Professor Kurzman's paper, 333 00:23:06.220 --> 00:23:07.760 and Khalid Abu Fadl, 334 00:23:07.860 --> 00:23:11.540 basically that liberal Islam should be non-theocratic, 335 00:23:11.940 --> 00:23:13.160 it should be democratic, 336 00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:16.640 it should be tolerant of sectarianism and minorities, 337 00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:19.100 egalitarian, particularly in relation to women 338 00:23:19.100 --> 00:23:21.440 and human rights, is pluralistic, 339 00:23:21.480 --> 00:23:23.180 and should believe in human progress. 340 00:23:23.460 --> 00:23:26.120 I mean, that's all wonderful things. 341 00:23:26.340 --> 00:23:28.500 This basically, what these are, 342 00:23:28.520 --> 00:23:32.340 this essentially liberal ideas of the Enlightenment 343 00:23:32.340 --> 00:23:34.880 basically should be transplanted. 344 00:23:35.840 --> 00:23:37.300 Now, the question is, 345 00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:40.000 the Western approach is, 346 00:23:40.020 --> 00:23:43.140 how do you actually create liberalism? 347 00:23:43.160 --> 00:23:47.300 And I think the transplanting democratic cultures 348 00:23:47.300 --> 00:23:50.180 in Muslim world is probably not a very, 349 00:23:51.140 --> 00:23:52.480 not as successful, 350 00:23:52.760 --> 00:23:55.000 it's certainly not something I would recommend 351 00:23:55.660 --> 00:23:57.440 after the experience in Iraq. 352 00:23:59.020 --> 00:24:02.740 But let me just give you my take on liberal Islam. 353 00:24:04.540 --> 00:24:07.400 Liberal Islam is not something that exists out there, 354 00:24:09.740 --> 00:24:12.700 because liberal Islam is in relation to a Sydney, 355 00:24:13.160 --> 00:24:15.180 as Jones was saying, in relation to something. 356 00:24:15.400 --> 00:24:16.420 So if there's a liberal Islam, 357 00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:18.420 there has to be an orthodox Islam. 358 00:24:19.760 --> 00:24:20.980 They can't exist. 359 00:24:21.340 --> 00:24:23.880 They say, you can either see them as typology, 360 00:24:23.960 --> 00:24:25.320 or you see them as a continuum, 361 00:24:25.540 --> 00:24:26.800 one end to another. 362 00:24:27.240 --> 00:24:29.500 How do these two traditions come to be? 363 00:24:29.880 --> 00:24:31.260 How do they come into existence? 364 00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:34.640 The existence of these two traditions, 365 00:24:34.860 --> 00:24:36.620 liberal and orthodox, 366 00:24:37.600 --> 00:24:40.460 are product of relationship between the text 367 00:24:40.460 --> 00:24:41.260 and the believers. 368 00:24:44.540 --> 00:24:45.880 Text and the believers. 369 00:24:48.300 --> 00:24:51.140 And out of this relationship develops 370 00:24:52.040 --> 00:24:55.860 not only liberal and orthodox tradition, 371 00:24:55.920 --> 00:24:57.600 but whole range of other traditions. 372 00:24:57.760 --> 00:24:59.400 But that's for the time being, say, 373 00:25:00.180 --> 00:25:03.600 the two traditions that we are going to talk about, 374 00:25:03.640 --> 00:25:05.580 at least the tradition liberal Islam. 375 00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:11.360 Now this relationship between text and believers 376 00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:15.240 basically have been conceptualized 377 00:25:15.760 --> 00:25:18.300 as resulting into two kinds of Islamic tradition. 378 00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:22.420 High, orthodox Islam, 379 00:25:23.180 --> 00:25:25.120 which is ascetic, puritanical, 380 00:25:25.800 --> 00:25:26.600 and based on scripture. 381 00:25:28.120 --> 00:25:29.120 It is a religion of text. 382 00:25:30.040 --> 00:25:32.700 The people, it's a religion of literate people, 383 00:25:32.800 --> 00:25:36.360 because all major religions have text, 384 00:25:36.520 --> 00:25:38.960 and people who can read have greater advantage 385 00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:39.900 than those who don't. 386 00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:42.140 As opposed to religion, 387 00:25:43.740 --> 00:25:46.020 the popular religious tradition, 388 00:25:46.360 --> 00:25:49.180 which I call the liberal tradition, 389 00:25:49.460 --> 00:25:51.480 which is pluralistic in Islam, 390 00:25:51.760 --> 00:25:54.640 shrine centered, and is indulgent. 391 00:25:55.460 --> 00:25:56.420 Takes all kind of liberties. 392 00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:00.160 And is oriented towards saints and saint worship. 393 00:26:03.800 --> 00:26:05.740 Before I go on, I should tell you that, 394 00:26:05.820 --> 00:26:08.720 I should mention in passing that these two traditions 395 00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:11.720 exist in Christianity and Judaism and in other religion. 396 00:26:11.720 --> 00:26:14.040 But they're much more pronounced in Abrahamic religion 397 00:26:14.040 --> 00:26:15.360 than they are in other, 398 00:26:15.460 --> 00:26:16.940 but they are a universal phenomena 399 00:26:17.540 --> 00:26:20.320 when religion has a text and group of believers. 400 00:26:21.800 --> 00:26:25.480 Now, in Islamic world, there are remarkable examples 401 00:26:25.480 --> 00:26:27.100