In Australia, the Liberal Party is the main conservative party - the party was named for an older ideal of liberalism.
And Senator Bernardi is, further, from the conservative wing of the party.
Thanks for the explanation. Always learn something here. Regards.
I’ll try and put this into context.
What Senator Bernardi is responding to is an idea presented in the Australian press that ‘Muslim extremists’ are the source of the threat against us, which implies that the problem is those Muslims who follow an extreme or unusual form of Islam.
He is pointing out that this is not the case. Muslim terrorists are not following an extreme or unusual form of Islam. They are following a form of Islam that is exactly based on what the Koran says. They are doing exactly what their holy book tells them to do. This isn’t an extreme or unusual interpretation - it’s a mainstream interpretation of the Islamic faith.
Not all professed Muslims follow it - but those who don’t are actually the ones who have moved away from the core of their faith. They are the ones who are interpreting the Koran differently from what is literally written. They have accepted there are elements of a book written over 1000 years ago that are not compatible with the modern world and so they have modified their practices.
The fundamental problem is the tenets of the faith itself. For Muslims to live in a modern world, in a civilised culture, they have to reject at least some elements of the Koran.
People need to stop pretending that the ‘extremists’ are in some way an aberration of Islam. They are not - they are simply doing what they believe their faith requires.
That is Bernardi’s point, in my view. Islam, as laid down in the Koran, is the biggest problem that need to be addressed.
Islam have never had a reformation. It’s never had a renaissance.
The Christian world wrestles constantly with the idea of how to live a Christian life in a changing world. Large sections of the Islamic world simply doesn’t want to change.
Some parts of it do better than others - Indonesia, the most populous Islamic nation is actually trying to be a secular democracy and for the most part succeeding. But to do this, it is explicitly having to embrace ideas that are opposed to the Koran - such as including in its constitution, a concept of freedom of religion - a concept that does not exist in the Koran. And even there, they are wrestling with some areas, and some groups, who do not want to change.