HIJABS, HOODIES AND LIES

I want to go back, reluctantly, to an issue I covered on my 3AW program yesterday about Muslim women wearing the hijab or a burqa in public. It was started by comments from a Brisbane radio host. Continued in a clash we had on 4BC and 3AW. And today blows up all over Page One of the Herald Sun with the headline Veil Ban Fury. Push to outlaw Muslim hijabs and hoodies in shops.

Just briefly. Yesterday I said an erstwhile colleague on sister station 4BC had come out and demanded that Muslim women who wear the traditional hijab or burqa should be charged with offensive behaviour.

Michael Smith, a former Victorian police officer, now 4BC drive-time announcer said  he found their behaviour offensive and I said  ‘I guess he’ll be going after nuns next. Or maybe men who wear beards.’

Now, in our live debate –such as it was – I agreed with him that people should not be allowed to enter banks with covered faces. Be it a burqa, a motorcycle helmet, a hoodie, or a clown mask. But Smith wasn’t only talking about banks specifically. He was talking about shopping centres in general. Talking about his daughter being scared when she spotted a buqa-clad woman.

 I asked him if he found the hijab offensive. He called me a ‘goose’, accused me of going off half-cocked, taking him out of context etcetera.

He denied saying that he was offended by women wearing such clothes in public. It was all about bank security.

That triggered a lot of e-mails which I read when I got off air. And they accused Smith of lying to me. That he had used the word ‘offensive’. And then I obtained Smith’s original blog which had been removed after some hours by management.

He talked about Roselands Shopping Center in Sydney and a number of women dressed in a black version of a Ku Klux Klan robe. And Michael Smith wrote:

‘I found their behaviour offensive. If I had still been a copper I would have considered charging them with offensive behaviour.’

He concluded by saying ‘This is very simple – you can’t get out and about with your face covered up and if our culture isn’t strong enough to make it clear then we need laws to remove any doubt’. And Mr. Smith promised to let his listeners and readers know how the law makers proposed to respond.

Well, Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the Government would never allow such a ban. And Victorian Acting Premier Rob Hulls says Smith’s views are Hansonesque –as in Pauline Hanson.

My advice to the new kid on the block is simple: If you think you are right stick to your view. If you are wrong, then apologise. But don’t say something in print and then, when you get in hot water, lie to me on air. Now, that’s offensive.

Friday, January 16, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2008