The Burka Comes to Australia’s Parliament: Pauline Hanson’s Panto
NOVANEWS
By Dr. Binoy Kampmark
Featured image: Senator Pauline Hanson wears a burqa during question time at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday 17 August 2017. Fedpol. (Photo: Andrew Meares / Great Lakes Advocate)
In few environments could this work. A member of Parliament (barely breathing, but still a parliament) running within a Muslim minority country (a small minority, at that) with mocking intent, dons a burka, sits in the stands, and receives appropriate mind bending outrage when she strips it off.
One thing can be said: Australia’s Pauline Hanson of her self-described One Nation Party was, in the basest way, impressive. She donned the religious garb of a religion she detests, whose injunctions and mores she barely knows how to enunciate. Her ignorance is profoundly ...