UNSW Emeritus Professor Clive Kessler addressed AIIA NSW at Glover Cottages on Tuesday 12 May. His subject was Islam in – and against – History. It was a thought-provoking take on the essential nature of a religion that has spawned much press sensation and public fear, particularly since the advent of ISIL and its attempts to establish a Caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Clive’s starting point was Malaysia, which since the 2013 elections, has been in deep and fundamental crisis because ethno-supremacist forces were pursuing an agenda to establish Islamic religious domination. According to Clive, the prognosis for continuation of calm civil rule was not at all good. Indeed, he considered bland assertions about Islam’s essentially peaceful character by Malaysian secular leaders to be dishonest, just as are similar claims by secular leaders in other countries, including Australia.

Clive went on to argue that unlike the two other Abrahamic religions – Christianity and Judaism – Islam is driven by a sense of grievance, and a desire to reassert the political as well as religious dominance it once enjoyed. Clive compared the historical intertwining of the three religions with the profit and loss calculus of the financial press. In the beginning was the self-sufficiency of Judaism. Christianity later superimposed itself on Judaism, but later still, Islam took over and completed the puzzle. The Koran was regarded as the blueprint for a perfect form of mono-theism. Mohammad became the only legitimate secular and religious magistrate. Within 100 years of his death, Islam had taken over across the Middle East, Africa and later into the Iberian peninsula and southern France. Its later degradation left a lasting resentment in the hearts and minds of Muslims. This cognitive dissonance resulted in Islam becoming a wounded civilisation. To restore Islam, the Koran is seen by devoted Muslims as the constitution and guide, and for many of them, Jihad has become the means. Other religions may be tolerated, but only under the domination of Islam. Can minority Muslim communities in western countries quietly and honestly face the fact that hostility and intolerance towards non-Islamic faiths and life-styles are written into their religion’s constitution, and if they can, what if anything will they do about it?

Report prepared by Richard Broinowski

For edited video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRtodVLA1xQ