Earlier this week, Caroline Overington published an opinion piece with The Australian. Within it, she criticised the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for hosting an exhibition in Malaysia and Indonesia, titled ‘Faith, Fashion, Fusion: Muslim Women’s Style in Australia’. ‘When did this become something the Australian government wanted to promote, and celebrate?’ Overington raises a pertinent question.

In calling on the outraged to employ laudable virtues such as empathy, patience, and understanding towards those seeking to harm them, Aly performs an act typical of mainstream liberalism. That is, to obscure systemic injustices and destructive political realities in preference of a terse symbolism that fails to address those material realities. In this case, an orchestrated appeal to an abstract forgiveness that does nothing to alleviate the suffering already felt by those on the receiving end of Australia’s many violent practices.