KEY POINTS:
When the country hears that the Human Rights Commission is preparing a statement on religious diversity for the Prime Minister to present to an international forum next year, the hackles of many will rise in expectation they will be asked to look kindly on some attitudes and practices they would prefer not to see in our society.
National Party deputy leader Bill English no doubt shares that concern when he calls for wide public discussion of any such draft before Helen Clark presents it anywhere as a national statement.
But she offers a good reason for the exercise when she says it is intended to keep this country safe from the extremism that has developed in some immigrant communities elsewhere, notably Britain, other parts of Western Europe and even Australia.
The Sydney riots a year ago were an eruption of the long-simmering tension between gangs of assertive young Lebanese and their Australian contemporaries. Much worse has occurred in Europe, where terrorism such as the bombing of London public transport last year turns out to be the work of home-grown, frequently second- or third-generation, dissidents drawn from ethnic minorities.
Their cause is stated in religious terms but it is probably not entirely what it seems. Religion has been a rallying cry down through the ages for wars that were really about claims to power, wealth and territory. Religion faded as a rallying cry when the rise of nation states gave their citizens a new, secular and perhaps more rational identity to die for if necessary.
But for minorities who feel alienated from their host nations today, religion has returned as a cause with which to assert themselves in a largely secular society. In drafting some sort of national acknowledgment of religious diversity the Government plainly hopes to tackle a nascent or potential alienation at root. If we officially agree to respect all religions in our midst and give them any room they require, the most extreme religious chauvinists might be deprived of oxygen for their cause. The principle sounds fine but practical policy may be more elusive.
To help the Human Rights Commission, Helen Clark has called on the resources of the Ministries of Social Development and Foreign Affairs, among others. But, as Mr English suggests, the exercise will have to range much wider if it is to be effective. It must obviously consult minorities closely on the codes of dress and behaviour that have religious significance for them and those that do not. The exercise alone could be salutary for the minorities as well as the mainstream, distinguishing what is authentically important from the beliefs and behaviour that extremists might adopt simply to seek attention or provoke dissension.
But it would be idle to pretend that the exercise will demand nothing hard of most of us. Genuine respect for some religious codes of thinking and behaviour is extremely difficult for citizens of a modern liberal society, even when the supposed victims of oppression are among the keenest adherents to the codes. Again, a rigorous consultation exercise might reveal great disagreement within the religious minority about the codes they are supposed to observe, but the rest of us need to be ready to respect some illiberal notions.
Respect, of course, does not mean embrace, but nor does it mean mere tolerance. It is respect that every person needs; tolerance is for harmless oddities. And respect cannot be feigned for very long. Minorities are sensitive to the majority's perceptions of them. If the declaration on religious diversity is a bland concoction of bromides it will achieve nothing. If it promotes wider appreciation of different systems of values, it will be worthwhile.
