Despicable behaviour

Australia is renowned for the robustness of its political life, where backstabbing and usurpings and internal coups are a virtual commonplace. Some politicians have gained reputations — good and bad — for pushing the boundaries of acceptable behaviour by elected representatives and Pauline Hanson is one of them. She is the leader of the rightwing One Nation party and caused a ruckus when she entered the Senate chamber wearing a black burqa. She has called for a ban on the wearing of the burqa on the grounds of national security, and quickly drew the ire and the admonishments of a basket of other parties representatives.

The leader of the government in the Senate told Hanson that the ruling coalition had no intention of banning the burqa and that her actions were likely to be found offensive by Australian Muslims. There are around half a million Australian Muslims and they already face a rise in discrimination against them. The Speaker pointed out that countering the risks relative to extremism required the cooperation of the Muslim community. Banning the burqa was unlikely to do much to further that goal.

Although Hanson’s behaviour was offensive, ill judged and bizarre it is far from unique among politicians worldwide that are increasingly confident in advancing an anti-Muslim agenda. Time and again ‘security concerns’ are cited as the reason and they have had some success in Europe. Hanson is no fool. Odious as she is, she will have been playing to a receptive sector of the Australian electorate, not only the members of her own party. There may even be Senate members that were quietly supportive of her as not all members applauded the put-downs that came her way. There is a troubling and global swing to the political right, and events in Charlottesville less than a week ago and the equivocal initial response of President Trump tell us that extremism can and does reach the top. Be warned.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2017.

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