Sugar-coating the reality of Islam

How appalling. Two Australian women, sitting alongside each other on a panel, shouting abuse at each other about the status of women in Islam.

That was yet another low-point in the debate in Australia about Islam.

The clash on the ABC’s Q&A last night certainly provided a few minutes of lively television.

But it was unedifying, ill-informed and played to prejudices on both sides of the debate.

Jacqui Lambie is what television producers call “great talent” — a direct communicator who can deliver a punch and can be compelling to watch.

Her adversary last night was Yassmin Abdel-Magied, whose family came to Australia from Sudan when she was two and who now lives happily in Australia as a mechanical engineer.

It’s as if the moment the “Muslim button” was pressed that these two lost it, shouting at each other a level of abuse that does nothing to further an important discussion.

Amid the shouting, the content of each was questionable.

Abdel Magied argued that women are treated well in Islam.

This may be the case in Brisbane, where she lives, but the idea of trying to argue this about Islam in general is nonsense.

The two main drivers of Islamic practice in the world today are Iran and Saudi Arabia — Iran is the leader of the Shia world while Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Sunni world.

Many Muslims in Australia follow the rulings and teachings of the spiritual leaders in these countries.

In Iran, discrimination against women is entrenched in the law — the treatment of women as second-class citizens is open and formalised.

The notion that they are equal is absurd.

For example, if a negligent driver in Iran hits and injures a female pedestrian the courts will make the driver pay half the compensation that they would if they injured a male pedestrian.

I covered the 2009 “Green Revolution” in Iran for The Australian, an uprising violently crushed by the Ayatollahs.

While I was there I got onto a bus with an Iranian-English woman who was showing me around Tehran.

I got on the front of the bus, for the men, and she got on the back, for the women.

A wooden pole separated the two.

When we began talking, an Iranian woman sitting on the bus confronted us — were we married and if not then we should not be talking to each other in public.

In Iran, a man and a woman should not talk in public unless they are related.

That same Iranian-English woman told me how “Islamic police” would walk alongside her in the street and tell her to wipe lipstick from her face, or that her scarf was not covering all her hair.

I was invited into some homes, where I spoke to many young Iranian women about their status.

Clearly frustrated, the married ones told me that an Iranian woman could only leave home, even to go to the shops, if their husband or father gave them “permission.”

The women, who are connected to the world through the internet, movies and the strong university educations available in Iran, were both upset and embarrassed by this reality.

Things in Saudi Arabia are just as bad — women are not allowed to drive cars. Supporting that ban, Saudi cleric Sheikh Salah al-Luhaydan claimed it had been scientifically proven that driving “affects the ovaries” and leads to clinical disorders in children.

Bear in mind that Sheikh al-Luhaydan is a spiritual leader, guiding future generations of Saudis in their attitudes.

This sort of medieval mentality is found in many parts of the Arab world.

In 2010, the United Nations put on a summer camp for children in Gaza. But a Salafist group, Free of the Homeland, said the UN was “teaching schoolgirls fitness, dancing and immorality.” Two days later the camp was attacked and destroyed.

Then in 2013, the UN decided to fund a Gaza marathon. About 1500 people registered, including many woman and children.

But Hamas, which controls Gaza, banned girls and women from participating.

The UN cancelled the event.

It is important that we discuss Islam, its problems and how it functions in countries such as Australia.

To help that debate, we need to hear from sensible, moderate Muslims on how to deal with concerns that a large number of Australians have when they look around the world and see incident after incident of terrorism committed by Islamic extremists.

Ultimately, in my view, the solution to Islamic extremism must come from inside Islam.

We need to remember that when Islamic State first formed in — it was then called al-Qa’ida in Iraq.

It formed in 2004 as a response to the US-led invasion of Iraq.

It was key figures in the local communities — the Sunni tribal leaders — who confronted them.

These tribal leaders drove them out of Iraq because they found their methods and philosophy appalling.

The group reformed as Islamic State — or ISIS — when the uprising in Syria began in 2011.

Islam is currently engaged in a battle for its future, and its identity.

That underpins much of the instability in the Middle East, particularly in countries such as Syria and Iraq.

For Yassmin Abdel-Magied to sit in a studio in Sydney and try to sugar-coat reality of how well women are treated in Islam will not help anyone.

Perhaps she meant that for Muslim women in Australia the reality is much different than for Muslim women in many parts of the world — if that is what she means she should state that.

That, in itself, would lead to a fascinating debate: are there some countries where it is good to be a Muslim woman but some countries where it is not good to be a Muslim woman?

Nor will Jacqui Lambie help the debate by barking “Sharia law” every time she is asked to contribute.

We need informed debate not shouting and abuse.