by David Palmer
Judge Michael Higgins famously asserted in his finding against the Pentecostal group, Catch the Fire, and Pastors Nalliah and Scot, under Victoria's racial and religious vilification legislation, that the "interpretation of the Koran by Pastor Scot represented the views of a small group of fundamentalists, namely, Wahabbists, who are located in the Gulf states and who are a minority group, and their views bear no relationship to mainstream Muslim beliefs and, in particular, Australian Muslims'.
Judge Higgins, demonstrating further his theological acumen, went on to declare that the one billion adherents of Islam "regard the Koran as equivalent to the Bible: that it agrees substantially with Christian beliefs save for particular events'. This would be news to most Muslims and Christians, if not downright offensive to both.
Furthermore, the judge remarkably assessed the shocking material cited from the Koran by Pastor Scot as no longer relevant to the 21st century. Such a judgment is clearly contrary to the views of those many Muslims who regard the Koran as the literal unalterable word of Allah.
Not that we need it, but the events of the past couple of months have certainly undermined the judge's decision in Victoria's first religious vilification trial.
A former Qantas baggage handler, Bilal Khazal faces a terrorism charge in the NSW Supreme Court. A Melbourne Imam, Sheikh Mohammed Omran, excuses Osama bin Laden of any wrong-doing in the New York and London bombings. At the same time, London police report a lead on four Britons, of Pakistani origin, heading up their list of suspects. Four Muslims caught up in the recent anti-terrorism raids in Melbourne tell The Age, "In our religion, they don't have democracy". According to the report, they affirm that religion embraces fighting the enemies of Allah.
The standard response from the Islamic Council of Victoria is that these people are not typical of Australian Muslims. While we must believe " or at least hope " that this is true, the evidence is building up that there are sufficient Muslims in Australia who do believe as Pastor Scot depicted them and this has to be a worry to the rest of us.
Rather than the token, ritual protestations from peak Islamic bodies, what Australians need to see are very public demonstrations by ordinary Muslims in large numbers out on the streets protesting the actions of Islamic terrorists. Some day we will have our own version of September 11 and July 7. The more these outrages occur, the more revulsion and enmity will build up against Muslims in general, however unjustified.
Which brings us back to Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot. At no stage did these men incite their audience to rise up and attack Muslims. Rather they exhorted their hearers to love Muslims.
As matters stand with the Victorian legislation, introduced to promote religious harmony, we can say without fear of contradiction that the government has managed to set Muslim against Christian, Christian against Muslim, and even Christian against Christian.
Is this what the government wants?
The Rev David Palmer is Convenor of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria's Church and Nation Committee. This is an edited article that first appeared on [url=http://www.onlineopinion.com.au]http://www.onlineopinion.com.au[/url]
