Tony Abbott’s invocation of “Team Australia” inspired an immediate pile-on, his comments hurled onto the heap of reasons why, or so it was said, he had to go. Sure enough, as Malcolm Turnbull re-endorsed all the coy circumlocutions, Australia’s jihadis kept reporting for duty.
As PM, Tony Abbott drew a lot of flak for his stance on homegrown Islamic terrorism, not least for his use of two rhetorical strains. On August 18, 2014, he said “my position is that everyone should be on Team Australia”, and on February 23, 2015, he went further: “I’ve often heard Western leaders describe Islam as a religion of peace … I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often and mean it”. These comments marked a departure from the tone and language chosen by senior politicians over most of the previous decade. And they sparked the inevitable round of hand-wringing and denunciations.
Unsparing in their hyperbole, The Guardian called them “damaging and dangerous” while The Age condemned them as “reckless”. In similar vein, Labor’s deputy leader Tanya Plibersek said they were “at risk of being counterproductive”. Notwithstanding the inanity of such claims, Abbott’s foray into tough language was short-lived. His enemies hurled it onto the pile of reasons why he had to go and, sure enough, the old ways were conspicuously restored by Malcolm Turnbull.
For present purposes, let’s call Abbott-style discourse hard rhetoric and the alternative soft rhetoric. Usually in the form of a mollifying post-atrocity sermon, the soft line combines four elements:
Terrorism has nothing to do with true Islam, which is a religion of peace.
The overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful and law abiding, and should not in any way be judged by the actions of a few.
The Muslim community and its leaders are as horrified by terrorism as the rest of us, and do all they can to prevent it.
Those who blame the Muslim faith and Muslims in general for terrorism have no place in our inclusive multicultural society.
However much it may represent conventional practise for progressives and the political class, as a strategy to prevent terrorism, soft rhetoric is a pretense. Its real purpose is to prop up official multiculturalism by diverting attention from a troublesome minority onto the supposedly racist mainstream. These are Australians who, we are lead to believe, will lash out at innocent Muslims on the slightest provocation. Never mind that this hardly ever happens. On the other hand, Abbott’s hard talk actually was about preventing terrorism, by making Australian Muslims and their leaders publicly accountable for developments in their community.