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Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg is not only an expert on gender, he’s also a bit of an expert on Islam.

He was asked on Sunday about Pauline Hanson’s claim, on a podcast back in April, that a lot of Islam is based on terrorism.

Here’s what Hanson said…

“It’s an ideology and a lot of it’s based on terrorism incompatible with our culture and our way of life. And wake up Australia.”

The Australian newspaper called Hanson’s remarks “incendiary”.

Fair enough.

But an argument being incendiary tells you precisely nothing about whether or not the argument is true.

Andrew Bragg on Islamic Terrorism

Here’s Andrew Bragg responding on the ABC Sunday morning…

“Where people of the Muslim faith have engaged in acts of terror they’ve done so on the basis of a mutation in their own mind.

“The very vast majority of Australian Muslims have no interest and would entirely reject the idea of taking up arms against their fellow Australian citizens.”

So according to Andrew Bragg… when Muslims commit acts of terror… it’s got nothing to do with Islam.

It’s all down to a mutation in their own mind.

Perhaps Andrew Bragg has special insights into the minds of terrorists.

He certainly seems to have insights into biology that the rest of us don’t have.

But his assertion that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam does raise more questions than it answers, doesn’t it?

Avoiding the Difficult Questions

If Muslims who commit acts of terror do so because of a mutation in their own mind… why does this strange neurological condition seem to occur most often in Muslims?

Why aren’t Baptists, or Presbyterians, suffering this same mutation of the mind that leads to acts of violence?

When was the last time a Methodist screamed “For John Wesley!” before detonating a vest?

Over the course of 500 years the Anglicans have produced dreary sermons, endless committee meetings and weak cups of tea… but never suicide bombers.

Now, of course, I agree with Andrew Bragg that the vast majority of Australian Muslims have no interest in taking up arms against non-Muslims.

And thank God for that.

Although now I’ve accidentally raised another awkward question…

Which God are we thanking for that?

Do the vast majority of Muslims live peacefully because Islam is a religion of peace, or because they choose not to follow the violent example of its founder and what seem to be violent commands found within parts of the Islamic scriptures?

Dismissing jihad as a mysterious mind mutation does seem to be a rather convenient way of pushing those difficult, but important questions aside.

Liberal Deputy Leader Jane Hume certainly isn’t interested in those questions.

Here’s her response to Hanson’s comments about Islam…

“To suggest all Muslims believe in a terrorist ideology is divisive, inflammatory and un-Australian. Australians want change, not outrage or hate.

“But real change has a plan and that is what Australians will get with a Liberal-­National government.”

Pauline Hanson didn’t suggest all Muslims embrace terrorist ideology. They clearly don’t… or we’d be in big trouble.

Hanson said that Islam encourages terrorism.

So can we talk about that?

Well no. Not according to Jane Hume, who says the conversation is divisive, inflammatory and un-Australian.

We Need to Have Serious Conversation

Now I agree with her that a conversation about whether or not Islam — as practiced by Mohammad and as outworked historically across the world — promotes violence is going to be inflammatory.

How could it not be?

But since when was it un-Australian to question religious ideology? Especially a religious ideology that’s been imported to this country via our immigration system.

Surely that’s a conversation worth having.

Not least because last year 15 Australians were shot dead… allegedly in the name of this religious ideology.

Clearly our security agencies believe Islam has something to do with terrorism.

Otherwise ASIO would have agreed with calls from the government’s Islamophobia Envoy to remove religious motivation as a central criteria for terrorism offences.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald…

“ASIO… strongly disagreed… arguing for religious and ideological motivation to remain in the definition of terrorism, as they ‘reflect the key overarching belief systems through which narratives can… mobilise large numbers of people to action, including towards violent action’.”

In other words, ASIO appears to believe that ideas matter, belief systems matter, ideology matters.

Which makes the Liberal Party’s preferred explanation — that terrorism is merely the product of a mysterious mental mutation — feel less like serious analysis and more like an escape hatch.

Because once we’re forbidden from asking whether ideas influence behaviour, we’ve already decided that some ideas are simply too sacred to examine.

Pick your poison.

Pauline Hanson asking uncomfortable questions about Islam?

Or the Andrew Braggs of this world shrugging their shoulders at every terror attack while scratching their collective heads at why so many people keep having the exact same mind mutation?

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Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report.

Images via screenshot of X and Wikimedia Commons.