Consultations Homepage || Meeting Notes: 10 September 2003
Consultation with the Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations (FAIR), Lakemba, 10 September 2003
The meeting was attended by three members of FAIR and facilitated by Meredith Wilkie and Susanna Iuliano from HREOC. Omeima Sukkarieh (notes) also attended from HREOC.
The Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations
The Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations (FAIR) is an independent, grass-roots public relations group aimed specifically at promoting a positive and harmonious relationship between Muslims and the wider community in Australia. FAIR publishes its own newspaper called 'Australia Fair' and operates its own media and research centre where basic functions are carried out such as monitoring the media and issuing press releases. FAIR's main objective is to enhance the position of Muslims in Australia and to promote a positive image of the Islamic community through public relations and by successfully engaging the media.
FAIR is modelled on the Council of Islamic American Relations in the USA. FAIR has officially been registered with the Department of Fair Trading since about April 2003 however has been 'a loose body' for about two years. It is not ethnic specific and looks at addressing the issue of all Muslims in Australia. Currently, FAIR has been endorsed and supported by 12 organisations including the Muslim Women's National Network of Australia and the Islamic Council of NSW. FAIR is also completely self funded and all people working at FAIR do so on a voluntary basis.
"Our vision is to live in an Australia that does not label you according to your faith or your beliefs, simply to be Australian with no epithets attached."
"The situation regarding discrimination against Muslims in Australia particularly after September 11 has necessitated the role of such an organisation as FAIR. What people need to understand is that Muslims are a diverse group of people with young people and older people. Therefore you can't label Islam as one homogenous group."
Experiences and effects of discrimination
One participant described the impacts of discrimination noted by his wife who works on a voluntary basis at the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) as a counsellor. AFIC's counselling service is called Mission of Hope - Community Counselling Service.
"The problem that arises from vilification against Muslims is serious. My wife does counselling for 'Mission of Hope' and is finding that [people are having] amazing difficulties with identity formation. Some are growing to suicidal levels. She talked to 13 girls in the last few months and six are suicidal due to their exposure to discrimination. A friend who became a drug addict due to affects of discrimination now hates Australians. They are trying to get out of the problem but at the same time are being embroiled in an identity crisis."
"The issue of vilification is now beyond getting it right but about the fabric of Australian society. The majority of cases known to us are just slim." "It's sometimes the little comments that go unnoticed that affect people too. After September 11, I have a friend who is a bus driver and wears the hijab, and she told me about a guy who gets on the bus and says 'are you happy now?'"
People report incidents and cases of discrimination to FAIR as the Forum has developed a reporting facility for recording acts of discrimination and are "trying long term to get all national statistics together".
Participants believe that the most common method of keeping informed about the experiences of discrimination by community members is through informal networks and community work.
"There is a huge misconception between what's an Arab and what's a Muslim. In recent alcohol research conducted all Arabs were assumed to be Muslim. Unfortunately [Arabs] are suffering from the misconceptions of being Muslims because they are Arabs. This leads to Lebanese Christians saying 'it's not us, it's the Muslims'. None of us [ie participants] are Arabs and we're all Muslim. I'm of Italian background."
"It all comes back to education. September 11 is a catalyst but not the overriding factor in the resurgence of anti-Islamic feelings. The media jumped on the bandwagon and it was selling and unfortunately the community is paying the price dearly."
"The number of events snowballed and that led to what is happening now."
One of the participants who visits prison inmates regularly noted that " ...in jails, Muslim prisoners are discriminated against in many ways".
"Hate mail is also a huge problem. People don't pass it onto police."
One of FAIR's objectives is to be the centre of coordination of all media enquiries relating to the Muslim community in Australia, as there is a "need for a link between the media and the Muslim community".
"The Islamic community in Australia is based on personalities leading the organisations. FAIR is appealing to grassroots as well as organisations."
"The unfortunate thing is that most of the time is that you see the emotions flying FAIR is trying to stop that from happening and has brought representation broadly for the community."
Comments about the lack of knowledge organisations have of media resources were made.
"SBS has a database of spokespeople; the most moderate and informed and diversely inclusive. But is it effective?"
The role of Islamic organisations and their shortfalls were also noted. Existing community representatives and leaders of some Islamic organisations are believed to be "isolated sometimes from the rest of the community".
"FAIR has an organised, professional and proactive approach to looking at these issues facing the community but it does not want to be the voice of all Muslims."
It was suggested that there is a need for organisations and the media to "talk to people who really are Australian and being brought up here" to get a real sense of the issues faced by the majority of the community.
Importance of legislative change
"We are looking for change in legislation with the benefit in the change being that people will stop to think about their actions before they attack."
"People think twice about making anti -Semitic comments because it's illegal and it's illegal because the current law covers Jews and Sikhs. Once you have the legislation, you know that it's enforceable by law and once the government has endorsed it then you know. People will think twice about racist and derogatory remarks about Muslims."
Responding to the media
Participants believed that the media is one of the biggest instigators of the increasing level of discrimination against Muslims in Australia with one participant saying "our main gripe is about the media". FAIR regularly responds to articles and various media coverage which they feel negatively portray or impact on the Muslim community in Australia. One of the mechanisms they use to do this is submitting formal complaints to the Australian Press Council and the Australian Broadcasting Authority. There are currently two complaints under investigation by the APC and one by the ABA. FAIR also has a matter regarding an offensive leaflet that was distributed last local elections before the tribunal under the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.
"Changing legislation is important, but it's not about changing it to silence people about talking about Islam because we welcome discussion and debate. But it is about controlling how far we go in demeaning and offending a group of people based on ignorance and misunderstanding."
"It's a free and democratic society and because of that we want fair and accurate reporting."
"People like Alan Jones, it's their bread and butter ... that's why monitoring radio as well as TV and press is important."
FAIR buys transcripts from 'Media Monitors' and 'Rehame' and is currently focusing on Alan Jones.
"We are finding that their words are reconditioning people, by using the same words. There is a clear inconsistency around the use of the words 'Muslim man'."
An example was given regarding the reporting a few years ago about Mt Druitt High School which was labelled by media as 'the dumbest school'. The school successfully lobbied for an injunction to stop that. Participants argue the same should apply and injunctions should be available to stop "consistent messaging using terms such as 'Muslim, or Lebanese Muslim Gang Rapists', and Muslim Terrorists".
"FAIR recently made a complaint to the ABC about the use of the term jihad. According to the independent findings, the complaint was not upheld on the basis that the term jihad in the Oxford dictionary does mean 'holy war'. FAIR stridently refuted such a definition to no avail, although there was a strong guarantee that the ABC would use the utmost care and remain vigilantly responsible when the term was included in any report."
FAIR runs a Media Outreach program for journalists which is assisted by the University of Technology Sydney. This is designed to assist journalists to write better and informed articles and to accommodate any queries that they may have about Islam and Muslims in Australia.
Although letter writing to put a view forward or to make a complaint was common, participants believed that this activity in many cases proves futile as they receive no response.
"Stations such as 2UE and 2GB don't bother to write back."
Future objectives
"It's the binding nature of Islam which makes it a clearly identifiable group and we should be dealing with all religions. We need to look at the attacks on all religions, e.g. synagogues, mosques, temples ... our aim is to compile as much statistics as possible."
FAIR currently runs a youth program on radio called 'Fairplay' which tackles media and human rights issues as well as looks at the Islamic community in an introspective way.
FAIR will be participating in the NSW Community Relations Commission (CRC) symposium in October 2003 to discuss where to go from here in regards to future strategies to address the issue of discrimination against the Arabic and Islamic communities. This symposium was a follow up of the Community Harmony Reference Group which was established by the CRC to address this issue on which "everyone wanted to have some kind of resolution".
FAIR aims to develop a media kit and conducts media workshops for various community representatives with the long term objective of establishing a 'think tank of intellectuals together to start talking about issues involving Muslims and setting agendas for future strategies and work".
FAIR also deals with interfaith groups in promoting understanding between religions. A highly successful project which was co-founded by FAIR is the Goodness & Kindness Campaign which has received funding through a Living in Harmony grant from DIMIA. The campaigners have spoken to more than 4,000 students in 2003 and aims to visit another 10,000 students in 2004. Broadly speaking it involves a Muslim, Christian and Jew presenting to primary school students their shared values demonstrating that people of different faiths can work together.
FAIR has an official website: see www.fair.org.au
