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After the attack on New York's Twin Towers in September 2001, New Zealand Muslims like Anjum Rahman learned to be very wary. After the Bali bombings the next year, and again after the London Underground was bombed in mid-2005, even in this remote part of the world they felt under siege.
"After the London bombings, within a weekend I had three separate incidents. It's just people yelling out things," says Rahman, an Indian-born Hamilton accountant who covers her head with a hijab, or scarf.
In Auckland, a refugee who was studying English in 2001 tells of a fellow student, a Somali woman, who was beaten at a bus stop by youths because she was Muslim. Others waiting did nothing.
In mid-2004, a group of Somali young people was attacked in Wellington, around the same time that Jewish graves were desecrated.
By the standards of France or even Bondi Beach, these incidents were modest. But they worry New Zealanders who value religious tolerance - not least Prime Minister Helen Clark, who travelled to Cebu in the southern Philippines last March to attend an Asia-Pacific "dialogue on inter-faith co-operation".
People of non-Christian religions here made up only 5.1 per cent in last year's census, compared with 51.2 per cent Christian.
But 20 years ago the ratio was much more extreme - 72.8 per cent Christian and only 1.4 per cent professing other religions.
Tomorrow night at Waikato University, 90 people from a variety of faiths led by our first Governor-General of Hindu heritage, Anand Satyanand, will gather for the fourth National Inter-faith Forum to debate a proposed National Statement on Religious Diversity.
The draft statement (see box) largely restates ideas such as freedom of religion and tolerance of differences which are accepted tenets of our society. But the context - the assumption that Christianity is now just one religion among many - has given the statement a symbolism which is galvanising a Christian fightback.
Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki plans to have delegates there to attack the first of the statement's eight fundamental principles - that "New Zealand has no state religion".
"It is a birthright of those born into a Commonwealth realm to 'inherit' Christianity as their religion," Destiny says in a one of 600 submissions received on the draft statement.
But not all Christians agree. Bishop Richard Randerson, the Anglican who declared himself an agnostic, was a delegate to the first Asia-Pacific dialogue on inter-faith co-operation in Yogjakarta, Indonesia, in December 2004. The New Zealanders there, from a variety of faiths, came up with the idea of a national statement.
In Wellington, the initiative was taken up by Race Relations Conciliator Joris de Bres. He commissioned Paul Morris, professor of religious studies at Victoria University and a member of Wellington's orthodox Jewish congregation, to write a first draft of a statement which was presented at a National Diversity Forum last August.
An amended draft was then debated at 10 local forums. Morris says the Wellington forum represented the full range of the world's religions.
Submissions were sought by December 15 and a working group was set up to produce a revised draft for the national forum in Hamilton. The group comprises Morris, de Bres, a Human Rights Commission official, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Baha'i and four Christians - Randerson, Dr Jenny Te Paa of St John's Theological College, Catholic Archbishop John Dew, and the director of the Vision Network of evangelical churches, Glyn Carpenter.
If the Hamilton forum approves a final version of the statement, the Government will be asked to "adopt, endorse, support, welcome or note" it.
Clark will then present it to the third Asia-Pacific inter-faith dialogue at Waitangi on May 29-31.
Clark's commitment stems from a desire to avoid the kind of religious conflict, particularly between Christians and Muslims, that has been sparked by immigration in Europe.
"For my government, that has meant renewed efforts to build stronger links between our small Western nation, with its predominantly Judeo-Christian value system, and governments and peoples in the Islamic world in particular," she told the Cebu meeting.
Morris, who saw tensions first-hand in Europe last year, says New Zealand's Muslim community of 36,000 does not face anything like a European-style backlash. "There are 5 to 7 million Muslims in France. There is a very large British Muslim community, although they are from a different, mainly South Asian background," he says. "I went to a new town housing new immigrants in France that is 90 per cent North African.
"We don't have any parallel to that here. My impression is that there is a failure of integration highlighted in the European context, and that isn't such an issue here.
"But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be vigilant, and the whole aim of the national statement project is to do this better."
His draft statement recognises the "formative role" of Christianity in New Zealand's heritage and culture as well as the recent growth in non-Christian communities.
But Glyn Carpenter's Vision Network objects to a line in the preamble that affirms a "national commitment to religious diversity".
"I don't know that Muslims would have a commitment to religious diversity. They have a commitment to people becoming Muslim, and we have a commitment to people being Christian," he says.
"So I'm not sure that we have a commitment to diversity, but to understanding how we live together as a diverse community."
Both he and Tamaki object to the principle that we have no "state religion". Carpenter, who worships at the Northcote Baptist Church, says our heritage is Christian, most New Zealanders are still Christian, we should not be afraid to use Christian prayers in Parliament and at public events such as Anzac parades and school assemblies.
Carpenter, Tamaki and the Integrated Schools Association all object to another principle that "schools shall teach an understanding of the diversity of religious and spiritual traditions in an impartial manner".
"In most integrated schools they look at other religions, but by definition it would be difficult for any integrated school based on religious grounds to be impartial," says the association's executive director, Vaughan Darby.
Carpenter says: "We believe that if there is to be religious education in our schools, the proper connection between the Christian faith and our nation and society needs to be taught."
On the same basis, he objects to Morris' last principle of tolerance of other religious practices. He says tolerance should not extend to practices which treat women as unequal, for example. He also wants to include rights "to publicly express one's religious belief", or proselytise, and to change one's religion.
Morris is prepared to compromise. The line about "commitment to religious diversity" is likely to change in a revised draft that he will present in Hamilton on Monday.
In the clause on religious education, the words "in an impartial manner" may be deleted and, in a nod to our Christian tradition, schools may be exhorted to teach about religions "that refer to the local community".
He wants to leave in the statement that New Zealand has no state religion, but will change it from a statement of fact to an "aspirational" goal. He also suggests changing the word "tolerance" to words that carry less ideological baggage, such as "mutual respect".
He is also writing a proposed commentary to explain that the statement is about values and processes rather than having the force of law. He accepts that it may prove impossible to reach a consensus at Hamilton.
"The process can still be reported on at Waitangi," Morris says. "My view is that these issues are rarely discussed and debated, so this clearly becomes a tremendous opportunity to do so."
* Clarification: Bishop Richard Randerson was referred to as an agnostic. However, he does not mean this in the commonly understood sense that nothing can be known of the existence of God but rather that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved by scientific means.
