Sonia Kruger’s proposed ban on Muslims ignores bigger picture

SHE’S an articulate and intelligent woman, so when Sonia Kruger proposed banning Muslims in Australia, one emotion resonated more than any other.

Sonia Kruger wants Australia to close its borders to Muslims. Picture: Today

OPINION

I THOUGHT I had lost my ability to be shocked.

After a coup in Turkey, terror, Brexit, Boris Johnson and brutal police shootings, I thought I was topped out on drama.

But then Sonia Kruger appeared on breakfast television and proved me wrong.

In case you missed it, the Today Extra host said she wanted a ban on Muslims entering Australia to ensure “safety” for the country.

“Personally, I would like to see it (Muslim migration) stop now for Australia,” she told Lisa Wilkinson. “I want to feel safe, as all of our citizens do when they go out to celebrate Australia Day, and I’d like to see freedom of speech.”

Clearly not the “beautiful” Muslim friends she had, but just, you know, the “fanatics”. She speculated the reason Japan hadn’t had so many terror attacks was because of its homogenous population.

After the inevitable reaction, she tweeted: “As a mother, I believe it’s vital in a democratic society to be able to discuss these issues without automatically being labelled racist.”

She’s right about that; we should be able to have a national conversation without hysterically branding one another. But then again, as Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane put it: “If you don’t want to be called a racist or a bigot, start by not doing something that involves racism or bigotry.”

Because no group has a monopoly on terror in a world that has seen attacks from Paris to Nice to MH17 to the death of Jo Cox. From police shootings in Dallas to a massacre in a Charleston Church. There’s even been one in Japan — where 12 people were killed in a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo Subway in 1995.

While Islamic State and Boko Haram are undoubtedly responsible for a brutally efficient recruitment strategy that has seen thousands of foreign fighters flock to join them, as radicalisation expert and Labor MP Anne Aly said “there is no unitary definition of terrorism”. It’s been used to describe everything from Nazi Germany to radical Islam and other causes in between.

Do we need to talk about terror attacks perpetrated in the name of Islam? Yes. Do we need to ban every person associated with the religion for fear of being a terrorist? Absolutely not.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see the appeal of putting such a horrific and complex problem in a neat little box. Of wanting to pull up the drawbridge and block out atrocious details, which are picked up and magnified by a content-hungry media, as a way of making it stop.

But the reality is not that simple. Banning Muslims because of terror attacks is like banning men because of rape. Terrorists are monsters, but let’s not tar one billion people with the same brush.

And by its own logic, it doesn’t even work. Imagine if, as Kruger says, you shut the doors right now. That still leaves 500,000 (by her count) Muslims in Australia to worry about.

Except, oh wait. They aren’t all terrorists. They’re our neighbours, friends, colleagues, lovers, brothers and sisters. They’re academics, bankers, shop owners and taxi drivers. They’re from 183 different countries and make up 2.2 per cent of our population. More than three quarters identify their nationality as Australian.

That’s why that initial shock at Kruger’s comments quickly turned to shame.

Shame that an educated, articulate, high-profile and intelligent woman with all the tools to know better chose the easy option and failed to see the bigger picture.

She had clearly researched and thought about this, but still chose to turn inward rather than look deeper and try harder to understand it. To see past headlines and sound bites and find a better way.

Australia is better than that. And she should have been too.

[e-mail]