Maybe we can be friends with the bullies

(Title credit to @glengyron.)

In the wake of the murder of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, the debate around whether cops should march in Mardi Gras has become a proxy for a bigger argument: whether bodies like NSW Police can be reformed, and whether marginalised groups like the LGBTIQA+ community should engage with institutions that oppress them.

A similar debate has been going on for a long time in Muslim and Middle Eastern communities — whether to work with police and intelligence agencies on “deradicalisation” measures that criminalise people based on their religion and appearance; whether to invite politicians who traffic in Islamophobia to speak at the mosque or come to the Lakemba night markets; whether appearing on Sky News or writing op eds in the Daily Telegraph will convince their audiences that Muslims and people of Middle Eastern heritage are human beings. Over the last four months, this debate has become especially urgent.

Both communities have a tension between often-younger, more “radical” activists who believe that such outreach is a waste of time, and more establishment figures who open their arms to the cops, the politicians and the reactionary media, and who are anointed as “community leaders” by these institutions in turn. The boycott of Lakemba mosque by hundreds of Muslims who object to the mosque’s leadership inviting politicians to speak without holding them to account has a lot in common with the fight over cops in Mardi Gras, which has been going on for years.

I’m not a part of either community, but I do have a bit of experience that might be relevant to anyone thinking about this tension and which side of it they fall on.