It’s Hanson-Young who wears veil over eyes

Pauline Hanson and Sarah Hanson-Young go head-to-head on Sunrise.

If any more proof were needed of the dastardly consequences of Pauline Hanson’s burka-wearing stunt last Thursday, they can be found in the words of a fellow senator who witnessed it.

The trauma was such that despite this senator’s tertiary education and her having served in the Senate for nearly a decade, she could express herself only by means of a barely comprehensible diction.

“Um, the entire mood of the chamber changed,” said Sarah Hanson-Young when interviewed on Sky News after the incident. “And, um, I never quite felt anything like it, ah, in that place there was, um, obvious, um, anger, um, frustration, um, disbelief that she would — she would kind of use her position like this, um, but then when she stood up and asked the question of George Brandis, um, as Attorney-General, um, she on one hand tried to say, um, that ah you know that why should the burka be let into Parliament it’s a security risk. And she went on to then try and say that, um, this is uh, you know, a garment that, you know, is oppressive to women.”

.@sarahinthesen8 says @PaulineHansonOz's point in wearing a burqa into the senate 'was incredibly confused'. MORE: https://t.co/VnQDMMl9P4 pic.twitter.com/ocFnJk3S78

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) August 22, 2017

And suddenly the senator turned soothsayer. “The next attack in Australia will be on your head, Pauline,” declared Hanson-Young on Sunrise in a joint appearance with Hanson on Monday.

While her attribution of causation is laughable, her high dudgeon over potential lives lost is a sick joke coming from she-of-the-open-borders philosophy.

More than 1200 lives were lost at sea following the dismantling of the Howard Government’s Pacific Solution, yet Hanson-Young remains unrepentant.

“Tragedies happen, accidents happen,” said the then-Greens immigration spokeswoman dismissively in 2011 when asked if her party accepted any responsibility for deaths in demanding onshore processing.

Hanson-Young really does have a veil over her eyes if she thinks mocking Islamic garments is the cause of terrorism. It’s like this, senator: Islamists have, um, a hatred of the West, you know, and loathe, um, stuff like, ah, the Enlightenment, and, um, the secular, ah, state, and they, um, kind of want a world, ah, caliphate, um, and, ah, will perform jihad, um, to get it. And it is made kind of easier for these, ah, malleable, um, simpletons when, um, cultural Marxists, ah, continue, you know, in spite of the bloody obvious, to, um, deny the link between these, you know, ah, mediaevalists and, um, the so-called religion, ah, of peace.

Admittedly Hanson’s wearing of the burka was attention-seeking, but Hanson-Young should be the last to criticise someone for that. At worst Hanson committed so-called cultural appropriation, which according to one member of the poncho police, is “as insidious a form of racism as any,” and “destructive in every form to Australian multiculturalism.” Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane immediately condemned Hanson’s antics as “disgraceful”.

A disgraceful stunt from Pauline Hanson today in the Senate. A fine and powerful response from Attorney-General George Brandis pic.twitter.com/OL9268u8HZ

— Tim Soutphommasane (@timsout) August 17, 2017

“Bless the Burqa,” proclaimed the billboard of Gosford Anglican Church. What would a leftist priest like Father Rod Bower want to bless it for — its mandatory imposition by fundamentalist theocracies such as the Taliban, perhaps? Incidentally, is it not odd for a man of the cloth to be having an each-way bet at the Abrahamic Races? Even the lacklustre George Brandis choked up as he admonished Hanson. “To mock its religious garments,” he said, “is an appalling thing to do.”

#Auspol Bless George Brandis, Bless our #Muslim Sisters and brothers and....#BlesstheBurqa pic.twitter.com/Ln5daYTvGx

— Fr Rod Bower (@FrBower) August 17, 2017

Why do so many normally composed people drop their bundle at the hint of someone doing something even slightly irreverent of Islam? Forget the claims of sacrilege, the origins of the burka predate Islam, which adopted the garment from Persian Zoroastrianism. It is at best an anachronism, a proto-onesie if you will.

Whether face-covering garments, regardless of religious significance, should be allowed in our public institutions is one we should be discussing freely. Perhaps a frank and fearless national broadcaster could examine the question in the context of sharia law, even if — perish the thought — some views offend doctrinaire Islam?

In ABC’s case, it gives only token exposure to alternative views. Last Friday, ABC Sunshine Coast’s Jon Coghill interviewed Muslim lawyer and businessman Haset Sali, a former president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. Sali supported Hanson’s plan to ban the burka, saying that the Koran did not require women to cover their faces.

Given the issue was still hot in the national space and a prominent member of the Muslim community was advocating reformist views, surely ABC would elevate this story from its regional slot and place it on the online news site? No, Aunty could not condone an official narrative violation, despite the interview attracting around 2000 shares on Facebook.

As for objectivity in this affair, ABC political correspondent Andrew Probyn might as well have been an angry mullah. “What Pauline Hanson did today was despicable and shameful,” he said in covering the story for 7.30. “She vilified a section of our community, worse, she risked inciting hatred against vulnerable women. Some people may find the burka confronting, but for Senator Hanson to cloak this offence in the name of national security was nasty.” Actually, for Probyn to cloak his own opinions in the name of reporting a news story was nonsensical. So much for the ABC charter and its editorial policies which require that “the gathering and presentation of news and information is impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism.”

When it comes to coverage of Islamic affairs, ABC has demonstrated a pattern of selectivity and bias. Remember Keysar Trad, the then former president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils who in February this year claimed his religion allowed a husband to beat his wife as a “last resort”? Media Watch chastised the ABC for its failure to pursue a story of significant public interest. “The national broadcaster should have been all over this story,” said host Paul Barry, “but they were all very busy looking the other way.”

Yet Barry himself has not been impartial in this respect, as was evident in May this year in the sheik Mohammad Tawhidi matter. A self-professed moderate, Tawhidi, of the Islamic Association of South Australia, wants Islam to undergo a “reformation”, claiming that Australia’s Muslim society is “infected by extremists”. His contrarian views have caused not only hostility in the Islamic community but also within the ABC. “The media really should not be giving him a megaphone,” Barry said, adding that the sheik’s views were “divisive” and “offensive”. And we can’t have that, can we?

When Barry devoted a good portion of this week’s Media Watch to Hanson’s insistence on improved ABC accountability, he was merely continuing the ABC tradition of circling the wagons. The Coalition’s plan to “buy” Hanson’s vote on media reform, Barry said defensively, came “at the expense of bashing the ABC”. Instead of railing against the proposed legislative amendment to ensure ABC’s reporting is “fair and balanced,” Barry should have proposed a collective banging together of Ultimo heads. In the absence of objective and impartial reporting, they can expect the likes of Hanson to keep haranguing them.

Unfortunately the ABC elites and the Hanson-Youngs of the world clad themselves in their own metaphorical burka and much of what it symbolises — an insular culture, a suspicion of mainstream Australia, a dogmatic orthodoxy, and an exclusivity that brooks no coexistence in its space. There is a remedy for that, and it begins with removing the garment and taking advantage of some much-needed peripheral vision.