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July 30, 2006

New Zealand: Tribulations Of Muslims And Mosques

According to the New Zealand Herald and Stuff, a mosque in Lower Hutt, a community near Wellington in the southern part of North Island, New Zealand, has been vandalised. The incident took place on Saturday night, the second attack in recent weeks.

Worshippers arrived at the Lower Hutt Islamic Centre this morning at 6.30 am, to find swastikas daubed on the exterior wall, as well as the number 666. Four windows were smashed.

Only two weeks ago, the mosque suffered an attack, and has been targeted five times in the current year. The mosque had replaced broken glass windows in its library and kitchen with plastic panes. Several years ago, teenagers were jailed for breaking into the mosque.

Hanif Khan (pictured above left), chairman of the Hutt Valley Trust, the Islamic body which governs the mosque, is understandably upset by the latest incident. "We have not done anything at all. We are peaceful and not motivated to go against people," he said.

"We know some of the kids who are doing it, but not all. It's just ignorance. We understand that. Last time we took a bag of lollies to them," he said.

Other religious places have been attacked recently. 16 Jewish headstones were destroyed in Bolton street Cemetery, Wellington in 2004. Three weeks after that, a chapel at Makara Cemetery was razed to the ground. 92 graves were vandalised and in the grass and on the chapel, swastikas had been drawn.

Teenage vandalism maybe, but such actions only cause distress unnecessarily.

There are more problems brewing in New Zealand's Muslim community. Stuff also reports on a factor which has been affecting mosque communities in other countries with high immigrant communities, such as Oslo, Norway and Britain, the issue of factionalism and the conflict between old country traditions and those of the host country.

Many new Muslim immigrants to New Zealand cling to traditional methods, and gain support from their kith and kin, leading to them becoming elected onto boards of mosques, and also imams.

But because the immigrants come from different communities, there is inevitable tension amongst cliques, and a division between ways of resolving issues "traditionally" and more progressive means expected within the host nation, New Zealand.

Abdullah Drury, formerly a board member of the Muslim Association of Canterbury (Christchurch, South Island), explains: "There's just a cultural clash all the way along the road...They often think, it's a mosque, therefore it must, in some way, resemble the mosque back home."

He claims that many of these ethnic and traditional ways are at odds with the ethnic and traditional ways of other migrants in the Muslim communities. He said there had been a large influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa, many of them poorly educated, and without language and cultural acumen.

Their sheer weight of numbers cause them to gain power, exploiting voting systems, but having little knowledge of NZ management. Drury says: "They're totally out of their depth, they don't know what they're doing."

He singles out the Deans Avenue mosque in Christchurch as an example of a mosque community which has been undergoing power struggles for some months.

Javed Khan, president of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (Fianz) concurs, though he says the problems are not widespread. He says: "There would be some people coming with different cultures and different sort of ways of thinking and that is a bit of a challenge for us and it will take some time to sort of get these people to come to terms with that."

The president of MAC, Khalifa Al-Hasi claimed that the universal belief in the Koran is more binding than ethnic or community ties. He blamed "small rifts" upon those with personal and political agendas.

According to Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, the comments of one politician have set the proverbial cat amongst the Muslim pigeons of New Zealand.

Don Brash (pictured, right) leads the National Party, the conservative opposition, and he was strongly criticised yesterday for his comments about immigrants accepting the "bedrock values" of New Zealand or not coming to the nation.

64-year old Brash told an immigrant consultants' conference on Friday that diversity was great, but in moderation. He said "A certain amount is good for one's health - too much too quickly alters your personality and can be thoroughly bad."

He categorised the "bedrock values" of NZ as "an acceptance of democracy and the rule of law, religious and personal freedom and legal equality of the sexes."

He also stated that immigrants should already know, or be prepared to learn, the language of their host nation.

Though Brash did not specify which groups were flouting the principles upon which the nation stood, Muslims were quick to identify themselves as targets, and of course, victims.

Javed Khan of Fianz said on Radio New Zealand that Brash wanted immigrants to conform to his own notions of a New Zealander, and that did not include Muslims.

The president of the Federation of Ethnic Councils, Panchara Narayan, said that the comment on language suggested Brash wanted immigrants to come from English-speaking countries. He claimed Brash's speech was tinged with racism and Islamophobia.

The Sydney Morning Herald noted that the NZ Race Relations Commissioner, Joris De Bres, stayed out of the line of fire by stating that the public should make their judgements on Brash's statement, rather than himself.

I know little of Don Brash and his history, apart from his tenure for 14 years at the head of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and his popularising of the kiwi fruit internationally, but there is a universal standard usually set for any migrant - "When In Rome, Do As The Romans Do". Unless one is Muslim, of course, and then Rome must always submit to the selfish demands and intransigence of Islam.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 30, 2006 3:14 PM

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