Waleed Aly: “Just Do Things”

Waleed Aly is a well known Australian sports commentator, musician, political science lecturer, TV show co-host and published writer. When you list it all out like that he almost sounds like a proverbial renaissance man, a myth… except he’s real. I was first introduced to him through the Australian TV show he helped found, Salam Cafe which was eventually picked up by a national TV station. The popular Australian show involves Muslims having a round table style discussion leading into comedic clips. I would soon find out that that was only the tip of the Aly-iceberg. I recently had a chance to ask him a few questions and was presently surprised by his responses:

IK: You studied law. Do you think that your involvement in activism has come through because of law and understanding how the system works and wanting to do something about it? Or do you think you’ve always been interested in trying to make a change or influence society in some way?

WA: You know, I hate to disappoint you but I’m a very bad excuse for an activist. I’m not very good at advocacy and to the extent that I am good at it, it’s an accident. I never really have seen myself as an activist. And everything that looks like activism that I do has happened almost by accident. The way I do things and the way I approach things is usually just because I’m interested in something; I want to understand it or I want to engage with it. So that’s what I do. And so I started writing in mainstream media in Australia and engaging in a lot of the issues that were going around. Now, it just so happens that at that time, when I was sort of beginning to talk about issues to do with Muslims, Islam was a really big deal. So that created an opening and it meant that I was writing about things that I was passionate about. But I felt like I wasn’t writing as an activist; I was writing really as a commentator. Obviously, as a commentator there’s no such thing as neutrality – you’re positioning yourself somewhere. When I was doing community work and working as a director of the Islamic Council of Victoria, which is a community representative organization, it happened because I was invited. Someone asked, “Would you like to be on the board?” And I said “Let me think about it.” And the next thing I knew I was on the board. So I didn’t go in saying, “I’m going to be an activist and go out there and change the world.” I want the world to change, but I don’t want to be the one to do it (Laughs). If I’m the one changing the world, then we’ve got problems.

IK: You seem to be following what you’re interested in and if that leads to things that are bigger than yourself then it does and if it doesn’t then it doesn’t.

WA: Yeah. I mean really that’s the way it is. That’s the thing, you know how you go and buy the self help tapes or go to the courses and they say, “You gotta plan”? Or you have your goal and you look at it every day and tell people about it and that sort of thing? I don’t do that (Laughs). I’m the worst example of that. I don’t plan anything. I just turn up and do things and then stuff happens. If I had put up a ten year plan or a five year plan and decided, “That’s what I’m going to do”… I don’t have the imagination for it to be anything inspiring. I would be a miserable, depressed commercial lawyer. That’s because that’s all I could think of, “Oh I’ll be a lawyer, and that’s what I’ll do.” I never would have been doing the stuff that I’m doing now. And that happened because things opened up and I took a chance. I usually do just about anything that comes up and that I think is interesting. My only philosophy is just do things. Because when you do things, things happen. There is a reaction. It may not always be the best reaction, you know. I’ve given a lot of speeches I didn’t want to give – just speaking at little things I didn’t think were important. But there was someone in the audience who invited me to some massive conference where I got to speak in front of some really important people and made some amazing contacts. It’s just things like that.

IK: How does your book differentiate itself from other books that try to relate Islam with “The West”?

WA: I haven’t read all the other books to say, but I can tell you what my book is. The reason I call the book People Like Us … well it’s a title with a double meaning. The first meaning is that so many of us approach the world and the problems within it from the perspective of ourselves being the universal people. And that is to say that all the problems of the world would be solved if only it were full of “People like us.” Everybody does this. The problem with the world is not that I fail to understand something or we had a miscommunication. The problem with the world, and to the extent that we face problems, is that you are different from me. And the solution to our problems is for you to become more like me.

So I’ll give you a really basic example that I use in the book. The whole world, particularly the Muslim World, would be a much better place and a much more enlightened place if only they would embrace secularism. If only you became like us; if only you adopted secularism then you would be reconciled. But you’re not like us. And it is to the extent that you’re different that is the cause of your problems.

And the secondary meaning is in the process of doing that, we overlook or forget that the people we’re speaking about have histories that inform who they are. They have sociologies that inform who they are and external circumstances that inform who they are. And when we fail to understand their thought and their behavior in those terms, we fail to understand them in human terms. That is, we forget that despite all their differences they still are “People like us.”

I didn’t actually realize that that was my analysis until I finished writing the book. The last thing I wrote was the introduction and that’s when it all came clear to me.

IK: We didn’t really talk much about Salam Cafe. Did you ever receive backlash for doing that show from Muslims?

WA: Oh yeah absolutely (Laughs). Yeah that happened. I mean, remember the show was on for a long time before it was on national television; it was on community television. Which I guess is like public access. In doing that, yeah you get a lot of backlash. A lot of Muslims were very upset about the show. “There shouldn’t be women on the show and if there are, there shouldn’t be men.” (Laughs). “And if you’re going to be there you shouldn’t be laughing.” You know, “Don’t make fun of the deen etc.” Which of course is not all we’re doing.

It was an irreverent show. Something the American audience might not understand is that in Australia the central social value is probably irreverence. We are an irreverent people. If I’m sitting down and having a conversation with the Prime Minister, I can call him Kevin. Really. In America it’s “Mr. President”. That just sounds ridiculous to us. When you get in a cab, you sit in the front seat. No one is allowed to take themselves too seriously. And no one is above being made fun of and if you can make fun of yourself then that’s very endearing. This is the cultural matrix in which the show exists. So you then have a show that is by Muslims talking about Muslim issues that’s making fun of Muslims as well. And the Australian public loves it. They’re going, “It’s about time you showed us you’re human!” And there’s a portion of the Muslim audience that’s going, “We’re already being attacked, why do you need to add to it?” And those people invariably have no idea of the environment that we’re operating in.

So we had that but the overwhelming response of Muslims was really positive because they felt represented. They also felt that people like them were suddenly on the television and found some of the observations we had to make about Muslims funny because we recognized the truth. And the fact that they were then able to share that with the rest of Australia in a way where we were the ones telling it; it’s very empowering for a lot of people.