Peta Credlin: Senate should have debated Pauline Hanson burqa bill, not shut her down
Twenty countries have banned burqas yet Australia's Senate censured the politician who dared suggest debate, creating a stunning disconnect with global legislative trends, writes Peta Credlin.
Given that upwards of 20 countries have banned the burqa, in full or in part, including majority Muslim countries like Algeria and Chad, why shouldn’t Australia look at a ban here? After all, the full body, full face cover that some Muslim women choose to wear or are forced to wear is totally dehumanising. But unlike the Portuguese parliament, which maturely debated this issue in October and voted to ban the burqa in that country, our Senate shut down any discussion of the issue and then voted to censure Pauline Hanson for even bringing it up.
The immediate, near-universal condemnation of Senator Hanson, for dramatising the double standard of refusing even to debate banning the burqa yet instantly banning her from wearing it, shows in acute form official Australia’s hypersensitivity to anything that might offend Muslims.
Yet why should a society that not only allows but often encourages insults against every other religion be so jumpy about just this one?
And when Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong and Greens leader Larissa Waters justified their action against Hanson on the grounds that religious faith must be both respected and protected it is, given the now routine attacks on Christianity and Judaism, not religious freedom they’re defending but one religion in particular.
Rather than waste time formally censuring Hanson, the Senate should have allowed her to table the bill and then debate it. After all, isn’t that what the parliament is for, to debate important issues in a mature and temperate way rather than to shut them down and end up driving the debate underground? Because, believe me, ridiculing Hanson will not make this issue go away.
It might surprise Australians to know that Portugal is just the latest country to declare that the burqa has no place in their society. It is also banned, or partially banned, in France, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, parts of Germany and parts of China. Likewise in African countries like Cameroon, the Congo, Gabon and the Muslim majority nations of Chad, Tunisia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.
How is it that this diverse range of countries have banned or limited the wearing of the burqa (and the niqab, which allows the eyes to be visible through a narrow slit in the fabric) yet we are incapable of even debating allowing a full-face covering that dehumanises women?
Hanson’s proposed burqa ban did not extend to the lesser head covering that Muslim women often wear, the hajib or headscarf.
Religious women of various faiths (Muslim, Jewish, even old-style Catholics) have covered their heads for centuries, either when praying or out in public. I appreciate that women in Iran, as just one example, have long campaigned against even the hajib but it at least allows the face to be visible, meaning a woman remains part of the society in which she lives. She’s a human being who can see, speak without being muffled and show expression.
By contrast, in a burqa, not even a woman’s eyes are visible to the outside world. Suspending Hanson because she wanted a debate on whether women should be isolated from Australian community in such garments is madness. If senators didn’t agree, they should have debated her, not shut her down.
Banning the burqa is not an attack on Islam, as Wong has alleged. In 2009, Egypt’s leading Muslim cleric, Mohammed Tantawi, issued a religious edict, or fatwa, that wearing a face veil was not an obligation for women under Islam. Instead, Islam simply requires women to dress modestly. And, even in the most conservative Islamic countries, all that’s usually required of women is the hijab, or headscarf.
And yes, Hanson donning a burqa in protest against her bill being cancelled was a stunt. But no more so than bringing a dead fish into the chamber, as Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young did, to make some environmental point. Or wearing a keffiyeh during the governor-general’s address, as fellow Green Senator Mehreen Faruqi did, to make a point about Gaza. Or indeed wearing footy jerseys into the chamber, as senators often do before grand finals, to let voters know they’re with the right team.
Perhaps the pile-on against Hanson was intended to intimidate into silence the millions of people who might think that wearing a burqa is un-Australian.
If we can’t have an adult conversation about this, in our parliament, then we really are in more trouble than I thought.
THUMBS UP
Power Bill Truth: Finally ABS data has confirmed that electricity costs are up 37% over the past 12 months, exposing Chris Bowen’s lie.
THUMBS DOWN
The Allan Labor government for announcing it would make a fourth apology to Indigenous Victorians. How about an apology to ALL Victorians for stuffing up the state Jacinta?
More Coverage
Originally published as Peta Credlin: Senate should have debated Pauline Hanson burqa bill, not shut her down
What grates the most in global dash for taxpayer cash
