The Pressures of Integration?

So you think you will migrate? What about the Pressures of Integration?

It starts almost immediately upon your departure. As you board the plane the microcosm of the society that awaits unfolds right there in front of your eyes. From the non-separation of male/ female to uncovered Muslimaat, to parading hostesses, recruited primarily based on their good looks, to the serving of alcohol, the absence prayer facilities, are all encountered in your 13 hour journey to Australia. Strapped to your seat, you feel helpless and perhaps hopelessly churn through your emotions as your struggle to lower your gaze, shun the flowing of alcohol in the seats around you, share the toilets with female travellers, make wudu with the barest minimum of adapted provisions and complete khushu when you try to observe your prayers in mid flight’. It is almost inevitable that you would feel like a minority in a plane load of disbelieving forces.

The rush to disembark the aircraft provides no lasting comfort as Societal pressure takes hold. As your search for decent accommodation begins, you find yourself confined to localities often demarcated along the lines of ethnic backgrounds. A sigh of relief is heaved when suitable settlement amongst Muslims major localities minority feeling, , language barriers, dress code issues, employment difficulties (lying becomes the norm on resumes), you’re forced to accept kufr as the norm and compromise becomes your modular patern of thought - numbed, being part of the greater surrounding kufr, the desire to see this deen dominate and illuminate the world with its richness in intellectual depth is fast diminished to mild discussions on morals, kindness and merely surviving a day, a year, and in fact a generation. In the free ocean intermixing between sexes and the rampant array of lewdness, many a noble parent has lost their children. (bringing up children becomes a burdensome chore as opposed to a blessed path to producing Muslim intellectuals and a path to jannah) … all the while your personality is being chipped away – you become individualistic in your mindset and your own survival is paramount to those around you. The collective feel of finding a resolve is wretched away from you. The great duty to enjoin good and forbid evil becomes a thing frowned upon at best. The gloss on the rosy picture of success in Western lands fades away.

Anthropologists may bracket this as 'culture shock'. But such numbing effects on the psyche of a Muslim on ground zero has its source at the dictates of the elites who hover over society - the very elites who have embraced the capitalist ideology that forms the basis of thoughts and actions of western nations; these elites would do anything to safeguard the ideology they implement. That need to safeguard it has become urgency now as Muslims have redirected their lives toward Islam.

Thus we find a clear message from these Western governments that Muslims must integrate into Western society or there is no place for them in it. In Australia for example, following the 'values debate' in 2006 the then Treasurer, Peter Costello, made it clear that whoever wants Shariah law can leave the country. Domestic and foreign policies are specifically crafted to ensure these 'western values' are well understood and accepted by any immigrant. In the aftermath of the values debate the Australian government introduced new laws that require anyone applying for Australian Citizenship to pass the Australian Citizenship Test. This test requires all applicants to be well versed with the abstract values of secularism that Australia espouses; the very values that are inculcated in society and which lead to the societal pressures highlighted above upon a Muslim to integrate into Western society.

The political force that is the driver behind such a pressure to integrate imposes a domestic policy where immigrants are first granted a temporary residence which gives limited rights and privileges, then once that culturing period is over the citizenship test is encountered, and with the new “anti-terror” laws introduced in 2005 the scapegoating of Muslims has become a political point scoring fancy. Their own values of tolerance, cohesion and ‘mateship’ are thrown out of the window when it comes to their own benefit. The case of Dr. Hanif shows clear evidence of Muslims being used sacrificial lambs for political benefit, when he was linked to attempted bombings in London and Glasgow without any concrete evidence. The lurking elements of trial by media and guilt by association the saw the devastating effect of Muslims shying away from supporting a brother caught in the savagery of dirty politics. The Muslim is truly made to feel like a minority, his allegiance constantly questioned and his enslavement to the secular system continuously reassured through the use of ‘fear politics’.

What must not escape our minds is that these domestic policies are not detached from the global war on terror being orchestrated by the West in the Islamic lands and the ensuing battle for the hearts and minds - of the Muslims that is.

The effect is devastatingly evident as the political force mounts its foreign policy in drawing alliances to invade our lands, in the name of their war on terror. We sit numbed, fearful of a negative image, fearful of being labelled a terrorist and watch as the military leaves the shores well armed to destroy our brothers and sisters and their homes abroad. Enraged, yet helpless we may try to re-group. But there are elements who have lost their allegiance to the West and support such policies.

The famous Rand Institute report published in 2007 ‘Building Moderate Muslim Networks,’ suggested the use of “moderate Muslims” to reform Islam and counter those Muslims who were non-moderates i.e by default would either be extremists, radicals or terrorists.

And it is in this guise Australia worked to establish the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies (“NCEIS”) . The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) website does say that the courses under the NCEIS will “help prepare people for work with and in Australian Muslim communities as school teachers, social workers, health professionals, business managers, community leaders and other professionals” This shows a key drive to have Muslims from within our community working to limit our Islamic sentiments and at their hands have imposed secular values upon our hearts and minds and force us to integrate.

It has not been sufficient for the West to run scare campaigns to demonise our Islam by referring to it as an evil ideology (Tony Blair 2006). Such scare campaigns are aimed at polarising the Muslim community who are minorities in the West. The scare campaigns are essentially productive tools for exploiting the patriotic sentiments of a people. However given its volatile nature, patriotic sentiments only remain prevalent under a threat scenario. Before long the threat is eliminated and the sentiments vanish. Furthermore society is made up of more than just patriotic sentiments, and such scare tactics therefore builds hostility, further polarisation, no cohesion and eventually there is the risk that concerned citizens will start questioning the validity of their own government’s polices towards Muslims.

To achieve a more complete effect, the dilution of concepts that Muslims hold is essential. The push for pluralism with the beckoning call for tolerance means acceptance of other values even if they are not Islamic. Therefore, under the pretext of “social cohesion, harmony and security” a version of Islam that gives it recognition but relegates it to a lower level is essential to win the hearts and minds of Muslims in order to successfully implant in them secular, pluralist values.

The NCEIS initiative is not an isolated one. In fact it follows the values debate, the push for recognition of secularism and democracy by new migrants under the new citizenship tests and Intelligence Agency’s ( ASIO’s) focus on the Muslim community in their recruitment drive.

What cannot be dismissed also is that the Howard Government did not stop at funding the reformation of Islam only in Australia. In 2007 about $355 Million was aided to Indonesia under the Basic Education Program (BEP), which was to fund the construction or extension of about 2000 schools in 19 Indonesian provinces over a three year period. In March 2007 the then Minster for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, travelled to Indonesia under the auspices of a Sub-Regional Ministerial Meeting on Counter-Terrorism in Jakarta. His visit was also to monitor the progress of the Australian Government’s aid so he visited the BEP-funded Madrasah Tsaniwiyah, an Islamic junior secondary school in Bekasi, near Jakarta. This shows a concerted effort by Australia to address Islamic education beyond its borders.

The push for integration of Muslims in Australia and the West at large has continued under the new government and is therefore likely to continue. The Muslim has been wedged between a rock and a hard surface as to which way to move in terms of his aqeedah, his allegiance and his role in carrying the da’wah of Islam. There is a constant struggle in the West and this struggle is not likely to end until we see a comprehensive change in the political situation of the Muslims under the shade of the Khilafah.