OPINION: Shariah-compliant swimming in Geert Wilders’ world

It was perhaps the greatest line ever in a spy flick. Austen Powers (Mike Myers) stands shoulder to shoulder with his father (Michael Caine), facing the villainous Goldmember (Myers). The father takes the lead: 

There are only two things I can’t stand in this world: people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures ... and the Dutch!’

Which in a way sums up the sentiments of a certain Dutch MP now visiting our shores. Geert Wilders will have us believe he doesn’t hate Muslims. He insists he isn’t opposed to multiculturalism. He just doesn’t like cultural relativism. In his eyes, the religious culture of one quarter of humanity is inferior and incompatible with freedom.

As Wilders stated at his recent Melbourne Press Conference: 

I call on all the Muslims in the world to leave Islam for Christianity or atheism or whatever they

want. This will be good for them and also for our free society.

Leave Islam? What exactly does he mean? Is there a single room called Islam with a single revolving door above which is an exit sign? If one wanted to leave Islam, what steps should one take to be accepted by Wilders and his followers?

What should one do to make Wilders feel safe from impending Islamic takeover? And just what on earth are these Muslim types doing differently to everyone else now?

Let’s see. They send their kids to their own schools. As we all know, no other religious congregation insists on doing the same as this 8—10 per cent of Muslim parents. How many Catholics do you know who send their kids to Catholic schools?

It’s unheard of. But for these Muslims, it’s all about passing on their supremacist ideology.

Look at my parents, so insistent that I grow up with Islamic values that they spent thousands of dollars sending me to St Andrews Cathedral School. (It’s true that the school chaplain sometimes told us kids that the prophecy of the ‘666' in the Book of Revelation referred to the Pope, but you know how some Sydney Anglicans are.)

Also, these Muslims don’t follow our laws. They want to impose on us their own Sharia law.

I have witnessed this myself. Have you heard of Sharia-compliant swimming? Come down to my local pool in South Eastern Melbourne where I share the ‘slow’ lap lane with other serious swimmers.

We are a motley crew of different shapes and sizes and colours. One bearded bloke wraps a white turban around his head, which in some people’s eyes might make him the most Sharia-compliant of us. No doubt that would horrify the other turbaned blokes down at his Sikh temple.

Anyway, the other day we were swimming in the lane when some young lads started swimming across us. One even swam under me. I immediately stopped. He had passed and joined his group of scoundrels at the other end of the pool. They were giggling and speaking to each other in Dari.

So exactly who are the Sharia-compliant swimmers? Is it the bloke with the wet turban? Is it the Malaysian-Chinese lady who covers her hair with a rubber hijab? Or is it those nasty children of Islamic asylum seekers who want to set off a chlorinated civilisational war?

In a few weeks, these kids will join other Hazara Australians for a massive festival to celebrate Naurooz. Should Wilders and his friends be afraid of the local council sponsoring the event? Is this creeping Sharia, in the form of a new year’s celebration dating back to pre-Islamic Zoroastrian times, evidence of an impending takeover?

I hope Wilders goes on a tour of Indonesia, once a colony of his country and the largest Muslim-majority state on earth. He can visit the ancient Hindu temple in Jogjakarta and watch Muslim dancers perform a traditional opera based on the ancient Hindu epic tale of the Ramayana. He can drink and dance at any one of Jakarta’s jazz clubs. He can also visit Interfidei, an activist group that stands up

for the rights of religious minorities.

Yes, there are strange and extreme elements in this old Dutch colonial possession. But at election time, the wackos don’t often do terribly well. Indonesia’s thriving democracy has room for everyone.

And indeed there is much more to the Netherlands than Mr Wilders. Just ask Dutch voters, who in the 2012 elections delivered his Freedom Party a massive blow. They currently hold only 15 out of 150 seats. Yes, it is still 10 per cent. But it seems around 90 per cent aren’t buying Wilders’ message of fear and loathing.

And it seems hardly any Australians are either. On that note, I’d better go for a swim.

(First published in Eureka Street on 22 February 2013)