RUTHFULLY YOURS

It has taken me a little while to catch up with this story – for once the post-election horse-trading ended and a government was formed, my attention was occupied by other historic firsts, namely, the entry into the House of Representatives of the following: our first Australian Aboriginal member of the House (Ken Wyatt, representing Hasluck in Western Australia), our youngest-ever MP (Wyatt Roy, aged just 20, representing a seat in Queensland), and our first non-Labor Jewish MP (Josh Frydenberg, Liberal, representing Kooyong in Victoria).

As samples of sheer naivety, and of failure, in a general pink cloud of pluralist euphoria, to recognise that an identifying-as-Muslim MP (he need not have taken a ‘religious’ oath on a Koran, he had the option of making a non-religious ‘Affirmation’) might be a very different sort of thing from a Jewish or an Aboriginal MP, I draw attention to two articles – from the Australian Jewish News, and from The Australian – about the opening of parliament, that  each include reference to the swearing-in of Mr Husic – a son of Bosnian Muslim immigrants, whose full name is Edham Nurredin {= ‘Light of the Religion, or Deen’?} Husic – CM.

First, the Australian Jewish News, Naomi Levin reporting –

jewishnews.net.au/news/2010/10/04/multicultural-moment-at-parliament-opening/15720

‘Multicultural Moment at Parliamentary Opening’.

‘A day of formality and tradition was made more moving this week with an extraordinary expression of multiculturalism.

‘On Tuesday, Labor’s Michael Danby, wearing a white kippah and with his hand on a siddur, was sworn in as a Member of Parliament opposite his parliamentary colleage, Ed Husic, who (like Congressman Keith Ellison in the USA – CM) took his oath on the Koran.

An oath that reads as follows: “I [Name] do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Her heirs and successors according to law.  SO HELP ME GOD!”.  An oath that no sharia-aware Muslim could ever sincerely swear, involving as it does the pledging of loyalty to the non-Muslim sovereign – female, to boot, at the moment! – of a non-Muslim state whose laws and customs are at variance with sharia on so many points that it would take several pages to list them all – CM.

‘It was a picture of multicultural Australia, as the two MPs made their same oath on their different prayer books (Oh, Naomi, Naomi, if only you knew how many ugly ‘prayers’ cursing the Jews are contained in that Koran…CM), both pledging to serve the Queen and the Parliament.

Now, I know that Mr Danby, and our two other Jewish MPs, Mr Frydenberg and Mr Dreyfus  who appear a little later in this report, recited and will keep their oaths in all sincerity, for as Jews in a non-Jewish state they are guided – like generations of their ancestors, all over the world – by the Prophet Jeremiah’s advice to the Jews in exile in Babylon, to ‘seek the peace’ of the [Gentile] city in which they dwell. But as I contemplate the Muslim Ed Husic, glibly reciting his oath with his hand on the very book that William Gladstone once held up in the House of Commons in London and called ‘accursed’, declaring that so long as it – the Koran – was in existence, there would not be peace on the earth, I find myself thinking of one Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, who when his Jewish-American judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum in shocked tones asked him  ‘didn’t you swear allegiance to this country?’ [i.e. when he swore the Oath of Allegiance at the time of gaining his American citizenship in 2009], replied – “I did swear, but I didn’t mean it” – CM.

‘Afterwards, when the pair was returning to their seats, Husic, the son of Bosnian Muslims, offered a hand to Danby.

Mr Danby: I know I have written at least one letter to you, in the past, that mentioned Islamic Jew-hatred; I hope you may remember that, and walk warily with your oh-so-plausible Muslim colleague – CM.

‘Also being inducted on Tuesday was Liberal Ken Wyatt, the first indigenous MP.  Wyatt took the oath wearing traditional garments.

That is: he had on, draped over his parliamentary suit, a bookah, the traditional Nyoongar kangaroo-skin cloak, given him by Nyoongar Elders as a sign of honour. And very elegant it looked.  And his maiden speech, which I have read, was excellent. As with our Jewish MPs, I have no doubts about his character or his loyalty to the Commonwealth of Australia – CM.

‘Wyatt was not the only first on the Opposition side of the chamber; it was the first time the Liberal Party had welcomed a Jewish MP to its benches.

‘Josh Frydenberg, the new member for Kooyong, also donned a kippah to pledge his allegiance to the office.  Watched on by his parents and fiancee in the public gallery, Frydenberg swore his oath on a bible that had been used to swear in the last Jewish Governor-General, Sir Zelman Cowan.  Frydenberg, who was smiling with excitement to have grabbed the seat he has aspired to for many years, remains a close confidant of Sir Zelman, who at 91 was too frail to make his way to the ceremony himself…

‘Also sworn in on Tuesday was Labor MP Mark Dreyfus…” (Dreyfus is also Jewish.  This at least means that Aussie Jews outnumber the Muslims in Federal Parliament three to one. – CM).

And now for what ‘The Australian’ had to say just before the swearing-in.  Lauren Wilson reporting:

www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/new-mp-is-first-in-australia-to-be-sworn-in-with-koran/story-e6frg6nf-1225930365789

‘New MP is first in Australia to be sworn in with Koran’.

‘Before union boss turned western Sydney MP Ed Husic takes his seat in the 43rd parliament of Australia, history will be made.

‘Mr Husic, the son of Yugoslavian migrants, is the first Muslim elected to federal parliament, and will today become the first MP sworn in by the Chief Justice of the High Court with his hand on a copy of the Koran.

‘The Blacktown-based former national president of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union arrived in Canberra yesterday carrying with him the Koran of his proud migrant parents who will watch on from the public gallery as he takes his oath.

‘While downplaying his religion and the significance of his contribution to Australian political history, the MP for Chifley said “getting elected to parliament, full stop, is an enormous privilege”.  But Mr Husic conceded others might well see his oath as a significant moment for Muslim Australians.  “Given my background, there are some people taking a small slice of pride or happiness”.

I’ll bet there were.  It will be interesting to see what kinds of demands may be made now a Muslim has gained a place in Australia’s federal parliament.  And somehow I doubt that Ms Wilson, reporter, has ever cracked open a Koran or had a look at the Life of Mohammed as translated by A Guillaume or Sir William Muir; for if she did, she might be less naively enthusiastic about the entry of a Muslim into the Parliament of Australia, and somewhat sceptical of the likely sincerity of any Muslim’s oath of allegiance to an Infidel state – CM.

‘The swearing-in of MPs at the commencement of a new parliament is an occasion of great ceremony, and the newly-elected member for Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg, will also bring with him a Jewish Bible of great sentimentality.  The Hawthorn-based lawyer will today be sworn in on the same Bible his friend and mentor Sir Zelman Cowen used in 1977 when he was sworn in as governor-general.  The ornate book, printed in Israel in 1971, is made from the plates of the London Edition of the 1881 Jewish Family Bible.

‘To have Sir Zelman loan me this Bible and the symbolism for me of having such a distinguished person and friend sitting on [sic: ‘at’? – CM] my shoulder as I take the oath is significant,” Mr Frydenberg said yesterday.  “He has been a very special friend, mentor and guide and he is somebody I have a deep and abiding respect for, as a person of high integrity, personal courage and a lifelong commitment to public service.

And to complete the ‘set’ of what Ms Wilson probably thinks of as three equivalent ‘holy books’, having similar content and significance for their owners – though this is, of course, not the case – she concludes her article thus:

‘Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities Tony Burke will also bring a family heirloom to tomorrow’s swearing-in ceremony.  Mr Burke…will today make his oath using the Bible of his great-grandfather, which dates back to the 1800s.”

Unfortunately, the text of Mr Husic’s maiden speech has not yet been published on the parliamentary website.  I will keep an eye open, and when it does appear, I will put it up here.  I think it is likely to be…interesting.  And when I do, I will link and excerpt Mr Ken Wyatt’s and Mr Josh Frydenberg’s maiden speeches alongside, so that readers may ‘compare and contrast’.

In the meantime, to give our readers here an idea of the way Mr Husic thinks – and why I have decided that I definitely do not trust him –  I offer the following link which will take you to a sly little piece of his, entitled ‘Religion was used as a weapon’, that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald in October 2005,  in the wake of a previous election.

www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/religion-was-used-as-a-weapon/2005/10/19/1129401314365.html