My wife and I ventured to the Woodford Folk Festival (over an hours drive north of Brisbane) to sample the activities on offer on the Saturday and Sunday (New Years Eve) of this week long event.

While we did have some previous pre-arranged engagements to see to (including securing George Negus for a Multicultural dinner in aid of the Kuraby Special School on 31 March – more details on that to follow), one of the events I wanted to take in was the forum on “The World of Islam”.

The forum's panel consisted of Halim Rane, Rasheeda Joseph, Sheikh Ahmad Abu Ghazaleh, Yasmin Khan and facilitated by the highly respected raconteur, SBS TV journalist George Negus.

 

So while my wife went off to learn the niceties of “belly dancing” I headed for the more intellectually stimulating Forum instead. As a non-Muslim I would consider myself to have a reasonably good understanding of Islam and the local Muslim community. So I was a little more than curious to find out how well the forum would be received, and how many people would actually forsake a workshop on Bollywood dancing for a panel discussion instead.

To say that I was a little more than surprised at the size of the crowd, which was in excess of 1500, would be a gross understatement!

George Negus kicked off proceedings by informing the audience that he had lived in and out of a number of “Muslim countries” over the past 25 years. After a brief introduction of the panel members and a reminder that this was not an academic forum, Negus put a series of questions to the panel members.

Yasmin Khan was the first cab off the rank and was asked her reaction to the death of Saddam Hussein. Besides admitting to a tear in her eye and the fact he had carried out some terrible crimes against his people, the word hypocrisy drew applause from the audience.

Halim Rane was next to explain about the five pillars of Islam followed by Rasheeda Joseph who addressed the media abuse of the word Jihad.

George Negus then put several questions to the man I call 'the voice'. Sheikh Ghazalah followed the recitation of the first verse of the Koran with a stirring translation. He then went on to describe what it takes to become a Muslim and fielded the question on suicide bombers in relation to the Palestine/Israel conflict. Sheikh Ghazalah's  response was that this was not a prescriptive religious act despite the claims of those involved that they were acting in the name of the religion (which reminded myself of those in my home country of Ireland who claimed to be acting in the name of Catholic or Protestant interests when carrying out acts of violence). It was, he added, an act born out of the desperation arising from the social, economic and political realities of the current conflict. Sheikh Ghazalah then concluded with the statement: “We are all brothers and sisters in humanity before religion”, a point, in my humble opinion, so often ignored these days..

The audience, which had remained attentive and captivated throughout, was then asked to ask questions of the panel. Some of the questions included, what was the purpose of the Hijab? It was explained that modesty in dress was also a requirement of men and some women did indeed choose not to wear one.

Was Saddam a good Muslim? Sheikh Ghazalah responded that it was not his position to make moral judgment on any individual no matter what sin he (or she) had committed. George Negus added (half joking) that anyone who had the misfortune of ever being cast into the Islamic version on hell would face a faith far worst than they could ever imagine or experience here on earth.

I am not sure what television station an audience member watched when he asked; “Mecca looks a like a blast, a big party and can anyone go?” George Negus suggested that having to walk seven times around “a black rock” was not, in most people's book, either a blast or a party. Halim cleared any misconceptions stating that it was a religious pilgrimage that was conducted seriously and with great dignity.

There were several other questions raised including media representation of Muslims and how accurate these reports were. The media, responded the panel, was inclined to show exactly what they wanted their audience to see and they thrived on the negative to generate controversy and boost sales and audience numbers. A young lady, who introduced herself as working closely with young Muslims in Sydney, asked a question concerning Muslim youth unemployment, a question that could have received more attention.

The question of Jesus was raised in relation to Islam and Sheikh Ghazalah answered that Jesus was also a prophet in Islam, an answer that to many of those of Christian faith in attendance would have been somewhat of a revelation in itself but also serving to demonstrate that those of the Abrahamic faiths had more in common than most would have realized.

A women’s place in Islam was also raised. It was pointed out that Muslim women were not obliged to do any housework or cooking etc at all. Islam places no obligation on them in this respect. In fact, a Muslim woman is allowed to demand a 'salary' from her husband for performing such duties. (I was glad my wife wasn’t around when this was being mentioned! Thank God for those belly dancing lessons). The comment of one panel member that there are some Muslim men who still believed a woman’s place was in the kitchen left the fact that men in all religions and cultures also hold such beliefs as a significant point that seemed to go begging.

Sandy McCutcheon, the well known ABC Radio National presenter was invited onto stage. As one who lived one half of the year in Morocco, McCutcheon described his experiences as a non-Muslim living in a Muslim country. He was always treated with the utmost respect there and had made many Moroccan friends and shared many a fine meal with local Muslim families.

While one of the panel members expressed a view that some (Muslim) migrants were hijacking Islam in Australia, George Negus commented that there were approximate 1.5 billion Muslims world-wide and that the religion was here to stay and that (some) people needed to get used to the idea!

When the forum concluded I made the following observations:

The fact that it ran almost 15 minutes overtime at an event that imposes strict time schedules speaks for itself.

George Negus was an excellent facilitator and managed to keep some humour going throughout.

Overall the panel conducted themselves in a very professional manner and the audience seemed to have warmed to their reasoned arguments and explanations.

In brief conversations at the end of the forum with some members of the audience I learned that several of them had had little or no interaction with the Muslim community prior to this event.

While I have no doubt that most Woodford attendees would have already arrived with a propensity for acceptance of other peoples' ideas and beliefs, I was left in little doubt that the forum generated an increased sense of goodwill and awareness of Muslims and Islam in general and an appreciation of what is meant to be a Muslim. It was more to the pity that there was no coverage of the event from the mainstream media (other than CCN, of course!).