Anthony Albanese final week expressed discomfort on the notion of “faith-based political events” following Senator Fatima Payman’s defection and subsequent resignation from the Labor Celebration. Albanese acknowledged that religion-based politics usually are not the trail to social cohesion, and that political factions solely serve to additional isolate minority religions.
However little consideration has been paid to what Albanese and different politicians are literally speaking about once they discuss faith.
Whereas Australia is formally a secular nation, it’s unavoidable that faith performs a major function in our tradition and politics. These influences vary from the on a regular basis — annual public holidays for Easter and Christmas — to the controversial — the affect of fundamentalist Christian actions on nationwide debates reminiscent of marriage equality. It’s no secret that Christianity dominates in Australia, having each the biggest nationwide demographic and declare over our calendar. What’s extra advanced is when and the way politicians like Albanese differentiate between faith and tradition.
Payman is hardly the primary politician to deliver faith into Parliament. Scott Morrison’s dedication to his Pentecostal Christianity knowledgeable various of his actions as prime minister. Whereas Morrison obtained a major quantity of scrutiny for his non secular religion, at no level did Labor instantly declare its incompatibility along with his place. General, Morrison’s faith was accepted as half and parcel of his persona: a person involved with conventional values.
Nor produce other, present parliamentarians been scrutinised for his or her non secular affiliations. Member for Macnamara Josh Burns has prevented his get together’s ire in direction of faith in politics, regardless of his vocal references to his personal Judaism in his opposition to Australia intervening in Israel’s conflict on Gaza. It’s accepted at face worth that his Jewishness informs his stance — although Zionism could be a controversial motion inside Judaism.
For Morrison and Burns, there has by no means been a sensible expectation of separating their faith from their politics. Fairly sensibly, their religion is recognised as a elementary side of their identification; to ask them to separate the 2 can be untenable.
For Payman, nonetheless, no such affiliation is accepted. As an alternative, politicians and journalists alike have put a highlight on her faith and demanded its severance from Payman’s tradition — the identical tradition that Labor has been all too blissful to laud as proof of its dedication to multiculturalism.
What’s the level of boasting of its assist for the primary hijabi lady in Parliament when Labor subsequently rejects the very system of which means that evokes Payman to put on the hijab?
Primarily based on his acceptance of politicians like Morrison and Burns, Albanese’s downside lies not with faith on the whole, however with Islam particularly. In segregating Payman’s Muslim identification, he ostracises Islam from all different traditions, positioning it as one thing alien. For all its urging that non secular minorities keep away from “isolating” themselves, Labor’s rhetoric isolates Muslims from all different non secular teams. Quite than the language of household values and dedication to neighborhood used to explain different non secular politicians, Payman has been painted as a zealot “guided by God,” as one Labor supply put it. They’d seemingly have you ever consider that Allah took Payman by the hand and led her throughout the ground.
A failure of non secular literacy
This rhetoric surrounding faith in politics is barely worsened by the dearth of non secular literacy amongst reporters. In 2021, Deakin College highlighted the failure of Australian journalists to offer knowledgeable reporting on subjects associated to faith, particularly regarding faiths aside from Christianity. This has solely worsened within the three years because the research, with journalists like Patricia Karvelas insistently reporting on Payman’s faith regardless of an overt lack of familiarity with Islam.
The shortage of non secular literacy is essentially as a result of our consolation in our standing as a secular nation. As a result of faith has no formal function in our politics, we assume that faith isn’t related to us in any respect. This complacency with our personal irreligiosity drives a scarcity of consideration to the topic of faith, even when schooling on the topic stands to profit us.
Australian colleges usually are not required to offer any schooling on faith. Whereas public colleges are mandated to not promote any specific world view, nearly all of personal colleges are affiliated with non secular establishments (notably Christianity), and thus ship non secular schooling closely knowledgeable by this. On a nationwide scale, colleges neglect to offer their college students with the skillset of non secular literacy.
A hole multiculturalism
The disparity of Labor’s strategy to religion casts a darkish shadow throughout its claims of variety. The get together wishes not multiculturalism, however selective culturalism. Numerous backgrounds are accepted till they fail to toe the get together line, at which level they’re rejected and labelled antithetical to “social cohesion.” Regardless of the lengthy historical past of non secular affect on Australian politics, Labor claims that the issue is completely new, heralded by the presence of politicians representing minority religions.
That is only a breath away from Peter Dutton’s assertion that Muslim candidates operating for election would spell “catastrophe” for the nation. Dutton says the quiet half out loud: his downside isn’t with “a celebration that has a spiritual view,” however with Islam particularly. Not like Dutton, Albanese makes an attempt to smokescreen xenophobia with issues about faith on the whole — a framing that falls aside as quickly as one applies any quantity of scrutiny to Labor’s precise attitudes in direction of non secular adherence.
Labor’s weaponisation of non secular language isn’t any accident. The shortage of non secular literacy within the media creates a nationwide panorama that daunts nuanced dialogue of faith and its function. Labor’s isolation of Payman doesn’t simply use this panorama to its benefit, it relies on it for legitimacy.
Discomfort with the subject of faith isn’t an issue inside Labor, however for Australia on the whole. Till we take care of our lack of non secular literacy, our declare of multicultural, multi-faith concord will proceed to be a hole one.
