OPINION
Last week, a national debate about LGBTIQ+ inclusivity and religious beliefs exploded across Australia. , citing religious and cultural reasons. Six of the seven were . This incident hit close to home. Firstly, because I am a queer Tongan-Australian woman who grew up in a Christian household, and secondly, because of my responsibilities as the general manager of a in Western Sydney called Sweatshop.
Sweatshop is devoted to empowering culturally and linguistically diverse communities through reading, writing and critical thinking. This has always included our proud support for queer and gender diverse writers and artists from our region – most of whom are people of faith in tandem with their sexual orientations and gender identities.
Recently, Sweatshop was excited to announce a (). This initiative would offer mentorships for ethnically diverse writers from Western Sydney who also identified as part of the LGBTIQ+ community. Throughout the mentorships, each participant would develop a work of fiction or nonfiction that would be published in an upcoming anthology. As part of the announcement for the project, that happened to feature a young woman wearing a hijab.
A few days after we posted the flyer, Sweatshop was informed by one of our staff members that she did not want to be associated with organisations that supported ‘gay’ people due to her values as a Muslim. Her concerns were taken directly to the founding director of Sweatshop, Dr Michael Mohammed Ahmad, who identifies strongly with both his Muslim and Arab heritage. Dr Ahmad believes that discriminating against any of our fellow human beings is not in the true spirit of the teachings of Islam, which he describes as a religion of love and unity; nor is it reflective of the way the Prophet Muhammad lived his own life; having implemented the most progressive and inclusive beliefs and ideas of his era.
Sweatshop's flyer promoting their Stories Out West partnership with ACON. Source: Supplied
Sadly, this was not enough to persuade our staff member, and she emailed us her letter of resignation the following morning.
Whenever our organisation is asked to address an issue that concerns the Muslim community, we always refer to the words of Australia’s first Muslim woman senator, Mehreen Faruqi. In 2017, Senator Faruqi was accused of ‘brainwashing’ after she publicly announced that her family would be voting in favour of same-sex marriage. Her has inspired my own spiritual journey toward Islam over the past five years: “As a Muslim, I grew up with the values of compassion, justice and dignity … We want our LGBTIQ+ friends and loved one’s to have the same rights we have. It’s that simple.”
As Dr Ahmad and I grieved our employee’s decision to resign from Sweatshop, the Manly Sea Eagles began to make headlines. Having grown up in a large Pacific Islander family myself, I know just how common homophobic views can be within our community. In 2019, for sharing that citied the King James Bible’s teaching that “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicaters, thieves, atheists and idolaters will go to hell”. However, it is important to note that these conservative views are not the teachings of ‘backwards brown people’ but rather the values that were thrust upon us by Anglo-Saxon missionaries and colonisers.
As people of colour, we are frequently encouraged to assimilate into a ‘White and western culture’, but it is through our own histories and traditions that we often discover the best versions of ourselves
, generations of Islanders have been taught about God through the King James Bible. As Europeans ‘invited’ themselves onto the islands and ‘passed on’ the words of the One True God, Islanders began to see themselves as a savage race who worshipped the false, inferior and pagan gods of our ancestors. We also began to persecute any of our people , which were an ordinary part of South Pacific cultures prior to the introduction of Christianity.
As people of colour, we are frequently encouraged to assimilate into a ‘White and western culture’, but it is through our own histories and traditions that we often discover the best versions of ourselves.
Non-binary Lebanese-Australian Muslim writer and mixed martial artist, Adrian Mouhajer, subverts the orientalist stereotype that Arab communities are ‘rigid’ in their recent . Whilst their ‘conservative’ family was originally at odds with Adrian’s gender expression, we learn that the relatives’ relationship to traditional forms of Arab masculinity actually enabled them to embrace Adrian, as opposed to pushing them away:
“Following my first match, even the most traditional males in my family — the ones that expected me to marry a man and have eight of his kids — were now treating me like one of ‘the boys’.”
As for my own community, Fijian-Australian Professor Jioji Ravulo, summed it up perfectly in his recent article for the : ‘Don’t blame Pacific Island culture for queer fear, blame colonisation’. In the article, Professor Ravulo argues that traditional Pacific Island culture was full of nudity and men showing affection for other men without shame:
“Pasifika people need to be proud of our pre-colonial views of queerness and reclaim such views as part of our ability to love our neighbour as ourselves. Such relational and fluid views on sexuality can also be something white and Western societies could learn from traditional Pasifika cultures.”
In the story of Noah’s ark, a rainbow was used to signify God’s grace upon humanity. It is in this multicoloured promise of redemption that people of colour must think critically about where our conservative views come from, and discover both old ways and new ways of connecting with our true selves. Although I agree that everyone is entitled to their own interpretation of their faith, we all benefit from deconstructing the origins of our belief systems. We may discover that our world has always been queerer than we were ever forced to believe.
Winnie Dunn is the general manager of Sweatshop Western Sydney Literacy Movement.
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