There’s no ‘harmony’ in Waleed Aly’s sanctimonious sermons
When it comes to the hateful ideology of Islamism or its mirror, white supremacy, Waleed Aly’s track record shouldn’t afford him moral high ground, writes Miranda Devine. His attack on Scott Morrison was hypocritical and biased.
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It was a bad idea for the Prime Minister to submit to a televised interrogation by Channel 10’s chief narcissist Waleed Aly last week.
The 30-minute interview on the jejune panel show The Project was a set-up, from the silky insolence of Aly to the slumping chair designed to make a middle-aged man look sloppy.
It is a mystery why Scott Morrison felt he should reward the foul calumny of the previous week, when Aly effectively branded him and Peter Dutton hypocritical Islamophobes.
But reward Aly the PM did, squandering his authority to be lectured by a cocksure 40-year-old whose mawkish moralising disguises a hardcore identity politics agenda.
Perhaps the PM thought it was worth abasing his office to appeal to the dwindling number of Millennials who watch The Project, a program whose desperate wokeness reflects the fact that ratings are bleeding away by 12 per cent a year.
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But it wasn’t just Morrison sitting in that awkward armchair. It was every Australian he represents, and he had no right to elevate Aly to the stature of moral arbiter of the nation.
Let no one forget that Aly previously was spokesman and board member of the Islamic Council of Victoria, an activist organisation which consistently downplays Islamist terrorism, even while Victoria has remained a hotspot for the homegrown brand.
Factless spite from a comedy and current affairs show caught out running unsourced Guardian hit jobs... https://t.co/E3t9G5zqEN
— Chris Kenny (@chriskkenny) March 20, 2019
It has called for “safe spaces” for Muslim youth to meet and “use words which in a public space would sound inflammatory”.
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It also has criticised the use of control orders against terror suspects, demanded oversight of university research of anything related to Muslims to “recognise Islamophobia”, as well as a “review” of refugee policies.
It has promoted anti-Israel protests at which Palestinian activists spat on an Israeli flag.
None of this is a recipe for community harmony.
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As host of The Project, Aly has made a habit of downplaying Islamist terrorism, most famously describing it as just a “perpetual irritant” which “kills relatively few people”.
So, this is not someone who speaks from the moral high ground when it comes to the hateful ideology of Islamism or its mirror image, white supremacy, which drove the Christchurch terrorist to slaughter 50 innocent people in two mosques.
The PM was never going to convert Aly fans who took to social media to berate him afterwards for various offences such as “slouching” in the uncomfortable chair.
He “embodies smug male privilege”, wrote one tweeter.
No doubt Aly’s interview with Jacinda Ardern, to be aired tomorrow night, will be quite different. Judging by the promos showing the NZ Prime Minister rushing to hug Aly, expect a fawning display aimed at eliciting criticism of Australia.
The comparisons with Morrison will be harsh, and you can bet there will be no slouching chair.
And yet Morrison has nothing to be defensive about. He struck just the right tone in the wake of Christchurch.
He listed his actions to Aly: “The first step, call this out for what it was. Next step, go and sit down with Muslim brothers and sisters that I know and express my deepest and serious condolences… On Sunday, I went to the Coptic Church in Arncliffe in Sydney, a community no stranger to shootings in churches.
“On Monday, I went to the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce here in Melbourne and I gave a speech which talked about the need for Australians to see each other as individuals, not herded into particular groups.
“I think it’s important that we have disagreements, but I wish we could disagree better… that we always didn’t leap to assuming other people’s motives.”
It was a very good and gentle point, which was lost on Aly.
As the PM tried to highlight, there is no shortage of goodwill in this country, where there has been an outpouring of compassion for Christchurch victims and praise for the New Zealand response.
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But that doesn’t stop vicious political opportunists such as Greens leader Richard Di Natale from the “leap to assuming other people’s motives”, as the PM puts it.
Specifically, Di Natale and his ilk keep trying to lay blame for Christchurch on all conservatives, dishonestly conflating “Right” with extremist “far Right”. It is such an absurd slur that it must come from some deep-rooted psychological projection of their own hateful thoughts. Call it the Di Natale effect.
The fact is that Di Natale is a straight, white male leading a splintering party consumed by the identity politics of gender, race and sexuality, so his inflammatory attack on Sky News host Andrew Bolt last week was a cynical bid to boost his flagging appeal.
“We need laws to protect the community from your vile hate speech,” Di Natale told Bolt after inviting himself on his show. “You and the entire News Corp empire.”
The Greens leader is just the flip side of Senator Fraser Anning, a hate preacher intent on weaponising the Christchurch tragedy to sew discord.
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He is doing exactly what the terrorist wanted. In his rambling manifesto the terrorist (who I won’t name, to deny him the fame Ardern says he craves) describes himself as an “ecofascist” who hates conservatives, wants to save the environment and aligns himself with the People’s Republic of China. He sounds like a Greens voter.
But conservatives don’t leap to blame Di Natale for Christchurch.
We abhor identity politics which seeks only to divide us into warring tribes. We want Christchurch to be a bridge to more compassion, not the excuse for more hatred.
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