A better way to deal with the confronting burqa
There is a better way of dealing with the confronting burqa. I thought that Former Prime Minister John Howard expressed it best when he spoke of the burqa as “a ‘confronting’ form of attire”.
It is true that some people are completely confronted with the way some people dress, so much so that it drives them to anger, abuse and racist remarks. The dress may be a lot or a little, but it makes some people extremely uncomfortable when confronted by a person in supermarket or beach, dressed differently. It makes little difference. For some people, instead of a burqa, the most confronting form of attire would be budgie smugglers!
Many people do not have the benefits of multicultural experience, travel and education. The more experience a person has in a multi-cultural environment, the less confronting a burqa is. The more travelled a person is, the less likely they are to take offence. The more educated a person is into the way of the world, the more likely they are to avoid using abuse and racism.
As one minister wrote to me last week: “All you need to do is read the comments posted on news stories and you will see this is the case. As this link indicates.
The word “Un-Australian” appears frequently; often in the context of “burqa”.
One man who sends many emails regards himself as a Spirit filled Christian, but writes “Do we need any of these (coloured) scum in Australia – keep all aliens OUT!” He is a serious racist.
In letters I received, many people spoke of their fear, their anger at people from other lands coming to Australia, and their impertinence at practicing their culture and religion instead of adapting to our customs and culture. Some were moved to rage – all because of the way other people dressed.
I take their comments seriously. When people are so enraged from being confronted by a dress fashion different to what they are used to, it shows we have a lot of work to do in them.
The inability to handle what confronts us, leads to people being trapped by their own raw and often abusive emotions and reactions. But you can handle confrontation.
Confrontation can be uncomfortable, especially if you are a person who tends to become anxious. If you are suddenly confronted with a person who dresses differently, or if you see an explicitly sexual hoarding, or hear someone telling a disgusting joke, the response will differ from person to person. That may be a disapproving look, a raised voice, or escalation to the point of yelling face to face.
Some people cannot handle confrontation and start to shake, they lose control of their voice pitch, they want to hit out and cannot control their thoughts properly. This is the ‘flight or fight’ syndrome kicking in and it pumps adrenaline throughout your body in readiness to fight to protect your rights to a peaceful life.
Whatever the response, the person so confronted usually becomes anxious, thinks constantly over the event, and wants to fight against it or flee from it.
Some people respond with negative aggression and immediately start calling to whoever is in ear shot that such intimidation should be banned. They call for bans on books, activities, painting or photographs, cults, dress, plays, marches and displays.
They are confronted so they demand that the offenders should be punished. They escalate the level of fear in the minds of many who are not even involved.
They do anything rather than ask why they have been offended and what they should do about it. There is a better way to deal with the confronting situations.
1. Learn to tolerate discomfort with new behaviour as you handle confrontation.
2. De-escalate your own anxiety.
3. Consider your personal agenda. What do you think about people like the one who confronts you?
4. If you feel oppressed by the other person, you are most likely looking at a response that is not healthy.
5. Breathe a little slower, again this lowers your heartbeat and lowers the amount of adrenaline coursing through your body.
6.Don’t insult or argue. If you don’t get sucked in there is no argument to win, and you come out looking the better person.
7. Talk with the person concerned and lett them move at their own pace when they fully understand the whole situation. That also means re-examining and changing your attitudes and prejudices.
Adele Horan, The Sydney Morning Herald journalist, writes: “My mother, now 82, has been teaching English to refugees in their homes for 10 years, and, being Jewish, was extremely nervous at the start about Muslims, having never met one. Now after having taught several people from Sudan, Syria and Somalia, she realises there are ones she likes and ones she doesn’t, and a couple she has loved, including her current student, a mother of two from Sudan, who spent some of her small budget last week to buy my mother a dressing gown for her birthday. My mother won’t hear a bad word about Muslims, or refugees, knowing you can’t generalise.”
Instead of televising a nervous Anglo-Saxon male commenting on the national security issues of Islamic women wearing burqas, it would be better if he invited some Muslim clerics and women leaders to have a meal together to discuss inter-faith relations, and multicultural relations.
That is the Christ-like ministry of reconciliation. The film “The Imam and the Pastor” (Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye from Nigeria) shows how the whole nation can be impacted for good when this approach is followed.
It would be news for a Christian minister and an Imam to sit together, as many already do. Muslims, Christian and Jews sat together at the International Conference in Istanbul 20-23 June 2010. And the Affinity Intercultural Foundation hosted Rev Niall Reid, the Moderator from the Uniting Church Synod of NSW and ACT, at a discussion on the topic ‘Christian-Muslim Relations: Sustainable or Sensational?’ in May 2010; and the NSW Council of Christians and Jews met last Sunday July 4th 2010. At the Annual Conference of the NSW Right to Life NSW in September, an Imam, a Rabbi and I will speak.
We must work to make our nation a more accepting country, and a people who appreciate the basic humanity of each other without compromising our essential beliefs. That is exactly what some of us will be doing in the Parliamentary dining room in a couple of weeks when I host a dinner of Church and Mosque leaders.
I will be stressing how they should be encouraging Muslim men to realise how confronting their wife’s dress is to many people and how in this country they must give wives the choice of dress and not be fearful themselves of the consequences. After all, a burqa is a form of cultural dress that is not commanded in the Qur’an, and many Muslim women in Australia would never wear one. Reacting aggressively or banning legislatively is not the best response to our feelings of being confronted.
Rev the Hon Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC