Locke
Active member
Taken from The Age Online
i know france has a ban like the one and i would hate to see the same thing introduced here. i would like to think we were more accepting and multicultural than that. its a sad state of affairs. the news has been reporting about the problem with the Muslim community and how there needs to be more understanding between muslims and "australians", whatever that means. basically its small minded journos trying to create a rift by picking on the whole religion issue. i mean, its like you can be australian, or you can be muslim, but they wont let you be an australian muslim. but no comment is ever made about being catholic and australian. and why is that, because they have been here for longer? i dont think so? is it because there are any less problems with people of that religion in the world? no, look at how Ireland with the IRA
narrowmindedness, it will be the end of us all
Liberal backbencher Bronwyn Bishop has backed a push to ban Muslim girls from wearing headscarves at public schools, describing their use as an iconic act of defiance.
Ms Bishop backed the view of outspoken Liberal MP Sophie Panopoulos, who last week said she was concerned about Muslim women not showing their faces when they posed for photographic identification.
Ms Bishop today said the issue had been forced upon Australia, which was experiencing a clash of cultures.
"In an ideal society you don't ban anything," she told the Seven Network.
"But this has really been forced on us because what we're really seeing in our country is a clash of cultures and indeed, the headscarf is being used as a sort of iconic item of defiance," she told Channel Seven.
"I'm talking about in state schools. If people are in Islamic schools and that's their uniform, that's fine. In private life, that's fine."
But Muslim Women's Association president Maha Krayem Abdo said such a ban was dangerous, and that girls should be free to follow their religious beliefs at any Australian school.
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She agreed that in an ideal society nothing would be banned and said Australia had a leadership role to play on such issues.
"I think it's so dangerous to go down that path if we think ... that in an ideal society we would not ban anything," she said.
"And I think Australia takes on a leadership role in the world, that it is a fair-go society.
"I don't see anything contravening that fair go and equality that Australia strives for - so the hijab, no way would it in any shape or form, contravene that."
Ms Krayem Abdo said she found it difficult to comprehend the government's stated support for the freedom of Iraq, yet Ms Bishop's proposition was to prevent Australian Muslims from exercising freedom of religious rights.
Last year France's parliament voted overwhelmingly to outlaw the wearing of Islamic headscarves in state schools, although concerns remain over whether that decision merely deepened divisions within French society.
Education Minister Brendan Nelson said last week that he did not support a ban on headscarves.
The Australian Democrats leader Senator Lyn Allison said a push to ban Muslim girls from wearing headscarves at state schools was "deliberately divisive".
Senator Allison said Ms Bishop's comments encouraged religious and cultural separation.
"I think BB is being deliberately divisive. I think that it is insensitive that young women for religious reasons who chose to wear a headscarf are somehow provoking a response from others," she said.
"It seems to me that by saying that young people who go to state schools wish to wear a head scarf they can't but they can wear a head scarf if they go to a religious school.
"What that says is that we want to be separated. It doesn't say we want integration and that we want to improve relations between cultural groups and religious groups.
"It says if you are religious, you should go to a religious school.
"I would argue that it's time to examine, not that they are wearing headscarf or not, but examine whether the curriculum is the same, whether girls are being given the same opportunities as boys in those schools."
i know france has a ban like the one and i would hate to see the same thing introduced here. i would like to think we were more accepting and multicultural than that. its a sad state of affairs. the news has been reporting about the problem with the Muslim community and how there needs to be more understanding between muslims and "australians", whatever that means. basically its small minded journos trying to create a rift by picking on the whole religion issue. i mean, its like you can be australian, or you can be muslim, but they wont let you be an australian muslim. but no comment is ever made about being catholic and australian. and why is that, because they have been here for longer? i dont think so? is it because there are any less problems with people of that religion in the world? no, look at how Ireland with the IRA
narrowmindedness, it will be the end of us all