Consultations Homepage || Meeting Notes: 18 June 2003
Consultation with young Arab men’s group aged between 16 and 26, Brisbane, 18 June 2003
The meeting was facilitated by Omeima Sukkarieh (notes) from HREOC and was attended by eight young men. The consultation progressed very much as a group discussion and this summary records some of the exchanges between the participants.
What are your experiences of discrimination and vilification?
Racial abuse
Racial slurs reported included:
- Called ‘Osama’ by work colleagues.
- Called ‘dirty wog’ and ‘you f…ing wog’ by players on opposing sports teams.
- “I
was called a ‘dirty Lebbo’ in a soccer game recently, and
by an Assyrian!”
“There’s a lot of mucking around and comments about people’s race in sport and even though it’s mucking around, it’s still discrimination.”
In public places
“In night clubs we are usually not let in because we are with girls and because we look Arab.”
One participant described his sister’s decision, not long after September 11, to remove her hijab.
“She found it very difficult to put a scarf on at school and she would come home crying some days. Once she walked into a shopping centre and a lady screamed out to her ‘Please don’t bomb the shopping centre’. She was serious; she was almost in tears. My sister walked up to her and said ‘What the hell is your problem? You’re crazy. What’s wrong with you?’ Just for no reason - for wearing the scarf, that’s it.”
“Sometimes you think if I’m with my sister she won’t be targeted but if she’s by herself then she will be.”
One participant mentioned his mother’s anxiety that he might become violent if someone abused her in his presence. Another noted that the tendency of services to treat everyone as if they are Anglo-Australian Christians is alienating for those who are not.
“Let me tell you something about the Australian mentality. Every time you go anywhere right, say to a hospital, a bank, a medical clinic, whatever, you know what’s the first thing they ask you, ‘What’s your Christian name?’ And the first thing I do, I just look at them and many times I have said ‘My Muslim name is ….’ Why can’t they ask ‘What’s your first name?’ Why do they have to ask what your Christian name is? They have this mentality where they think the whole world is just Christian and if you’re not Christian then you’re not a human being.”
In the workplace
“My old boss knew I was a Muslim and he told my colleagues as a joke that I was with Al Qaeda. There’s no need to say things like that especially when he holds such influence at work.”
“At work another guy said ‘Were you born here or are you of another background?’ You get questions like that all the time and, you know, I don’t even look Arab. I look as much an Anglo as the next person. He was trying to be funny but since September 11 these questions just got worse.”
Barriers to obtaining employment were discussed.
“If your name is Mohammed I think it’s hard to get a job. Hardly anyone employs someone with the name Mohammed anymore.”
“I’ve actually known people who have tried to call for a job and when they say ‘My name is Mohammed’ they say the job’s gone. But then two minutes later, just to test them, they call back and they say ‘My name’s Andrew or whatever’, and they say ‘Yeah, mate the job’s still available. Do you want to come in for an interview’.”
By police
Police scrutiny of a group of the participants on a visit to Sydney was criticised.
“This was just after the 55 year thing, the rape incidents and the sentencing. Me, [and friends] were having a friendly chat with these girls, and seriously it was just friendly chatting and it was out in the open in the public eye as well and these police officers pulled up right beside them.”
“Just to put it into perspective, it was Parramatta Road, Friday night, 2 in the morning; everyone’s coming home from clubbing so it was packed.”
“Anyway, we were talking to these girls, they were ok with us and we were ok with them. We were also standing at least two metres away from them too. Anyway, cops pull up, park their car on the main road, they ask ‘Girls are you all right?’ The girls say ‘Yeah we’re all right officer’. The cops ask ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yeah, we’re all right.’ They ask again ‘Are you sure?’ Something like six or seven times they asked them and then one of us said ‘Yeah, they’re all right officer’. And one of the cops said ‘You shut your mouth mate’. It was like they were saying to the girls; just say the word and they’re gone. They wanted to arrest us. They were waiting for the girls to say we were harassing them.”
“I don’t think I’ve spoken to a girl without hesitating since.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I have too actually.”
We asked about the attitudes of Queensland police by way of comparison.
“The cops I know and know me, they’re pretty cool with me but the ones I don’t know and don’t know me are a different story. I don’t think in Queensland they’re that bad, I mean being honest you get those bastards but I bet there are bastards everywhere. Cops stop me and defect my car and it’s not because my car is in bad condition but it’s a hotted up car and it’s a target for cops…nice car with an Arab driving it.”
“I think that the older generation police are more discriminatory, and the new recruits are better.”
“There aren’t enough Arabs in the police force anyway.”
The following incident was described by one participant.
“Just after September 11, one day I was driving on a main road. My car actually makes small noises because of one of the bolts. So a cop pulls me over and he parked right in front of me and started braking. It was the SWAT team and the dog was barking from the back of the car and it was real hectic. And another cop car comes up from behind. The cop ended up giving me a $240 fine. But the point is he had no ticket book on him. I had to wait half an hour while he called back-up to get him a ticket book from the police station. I was fined for noise pollution. Someone could fart and be louder. It was ridiculous.”
“What’s that got to do with you being Muslim bro?”
“It doesn’t but all three of us in the car were Arab looking and there was another car in the next lane that was clearly speeding. He could have stopped him. He asked me very weird questions. He asked ‘Where are you from?’ and I go ‘I’m Australian’. And he asked me again ‘Where are you from?’ and I go ‘I was born here’. And so he asked ‘Where are your mum and dad from?’”
At airport security checks
“When I was on a Virgin flight, the lady at the check–in on the plane told me to take off my chain with the sword on it and give it to the flight attendant because she said it was a sharp object. [The sword is a small charm commonly worn on a chain as a religious symbol by Shiite Muslims.] I mean it was so small and that was just stupid.”
“When me and my mum came back from Lebanon in August 2001, we were pulled aside for extra checking of our bags even though we had declared everything. The customs officer made me take my bumbag, shoes, socks and jacket off. She didn’t find anything. She said ‘I was hoping to find drugs on you’. That’s exactly what they want.”
“In December 2002 we came back from Jordan and on our return to Brisbane we were checked and believe it or not we were the only ones who were checked. They made us go through the X-ray and they found nothing. People would say that it’s their job and that they just wanted to double check everything. But they don’t do that with everyone, do they?”
In the media
“What about that point about whenever a Muslim does something, in the media they highlight their name and the fact of their religion but whenever someone else does it they never ever barely mention their name or their religion. Why only when it’s a Muslim or an Arab they have to mention where they’re from? This is the same sort of racism that has been happening to the Aborigines throughout the last well who knows how many years; that they have been crying out for. Why do they have to mention he’s of Aboriginal appearance? I don’t understand.”
Sources and causes of racism
Participants described their perceptions about the underlying causes of prejudice against Australian Arabs and Muslims. They felt that most groups in Australia can be racist, not only Anglo-Australians. As one commented “It’s multicultural racism”.
Divisions within the Arab community were noted.
“I think actually that the Arab Christians these days want to separate themselves from the Arab Muslims. I think that there’s even racism within the Arab community. The Christians want to separate themselves from the Muslims and actually want to be known as Westerners and not as Arabs. They don’t want to be known as Arabs anymore.”
Ignorance and a lack of interaction with Muslims were mentioned as common causes of anti-Muslim prejudice.
“When people say ‘terrorist’ or whatever, they don’t say ‘Arab terrorist’, they say ‘Muslim terrorist’. They say Islamic fundamentalism and some people don’t even know what a fundamentalist is so they just think that it means Muslim.”
“The fact of the matter is that the word ‘terrorism’ means ‘Muslims’. I can give you a couple of examples. The IRA, they are one of the biggest terrorist groups in the world, they are never ever claimed as terrorists. On television they had that bomb the other day. They said the IRA organisation left a bomb in the truck and that they were going to do it because they don’t believe in protestant beliefs. And they never used the word ‘terrorists’. … There are serious issues with the media.”
“I think it’s just a lack of knowledge that people have about the Muslim religion and they just see their views from the media. People are educated through their interaction with Muslim people and basically getting a better understanding of who they are and how they live.”
“No, it’s ignorance of people. That’s human civilisation and you can’t change it. You’ve got the less smart people and you’ve got the smarter people and the smarter people don’t believe everything they hear.”
One participant was concerned about the way the aggressive behaviour and comments of some influence the public’s perceptions of all.
“Whether [Muslims in Australia] are doing the right thing by Islam or not doing the right thing by Islam they’re still Muslims and they’re still representing us. [Other] people only know what they see and what they hear. They’re not going to know how we are as people because they’ve never met us before. It’s going to be very hard for people to just click their fingers and change their minds and attitudes about Muslims for no reason.”
“You get every culture doing bad things, like the Jews do bad things as well and so do Christians.”
“But the Jews aren’t against the people here. They think we are. Why? Because the people, all the media and everything basically, people don’t know whether we are with them or against them.”
Are existing legal protections adequate and effective?
We asked whether participants were aware that Queensland anti-discrimination laws have recently been amended to include religious vilification. None of them was aware of it.
“Shouldn’t that already be taken as a given, why does it sound like it’s a privilege to be protected in this country?”
“I’ve never heard of it. Why don’t they give it more exposure?”
We then asked about their attitude towards making a formal complaint.
“Is the risk worth it? How successful will the complaint be if you can’t even complain informally.”
“What can you get out of complaining other than money? Taking money for your religion is wrong.”
“You can stop it from happening again.”
“But it’s not going to stop it from happening again.”
“If you take a case up and it does end up in court then it might end up with more bad publicity for the Muslims. And let’s say you take up a complaint against your employer, they might not victimise you but there’s a high chance the other workers will.”
What more could be done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?
Improving public awareness of Muslims
The participants made several recommendations for improving public awareness and acceptance of Muslims. One participant felt the awareness-raising should start within Muslim families, to teach moderation and balance.
“How about we educate our youth especially better about proper Islam not the sort of Islam that is either too left or too right and too extreme? How about a balance? You see, if the Muslim people had a better knowledge about the proper Islam which is not too extreme and not too light - which is the balance because in the proper Islam there should be a balance in life - and if that was taught to the Muslim people, then the non-Muslim people would learn more about the proper Islam itself. The only Islam that is being portrayed which is obviously through the media and whatever else, is the extreme Islam.
“Every family should start working on themselves. Every Muslim parent should teach their children the proper Islam and live the proper morals of Islam which are the highest of all morals. If every family started within themselves and they taught their kids the right way then their kids would start acting better towards people because the best morals and the best actions are taught in the proper Islam. If everyone followed it there would be no problems because the Muslims would treat people better than what people treated them no matter what because that’s what we believe. And then against their will the people will start to believe that Muslims are good people because that’s what we are supposed to be and that’s what proper Islam is.”
We asked whether interfaith dialogues would be effective. The comment was made that ‘It’s a start’.
“But the leaders already respect each other in a sense. It’s the people that you need to be concerned about.”
“At Kuraby mosque the other day I was driving past and I saw a big Catholic school bus full of males and females and they were being shown the Kuraby mosque. So things are already in process. I’m pretty sure that the view those kids had before they went into the mosque was different and then they think ‘wait a minute, this is not a place that harbours terrorism; this is a peaceful place’. It breaks down the barriers.”
“It’s like that dialogue between schools in Sydney - Wiley Park Girls High School and St. Patrick’s College - you know how they swap their school students. But in a way that’s shallow because it was obvious that was a one day thing only, an event made for TV. Obviously it wasn’t something they did off the cuff. How else are you going to have publicity? It was a made-for-TV event. If you do that thing informally without the cameras, I think you are more likely to get some decent responses from the kids and the interaction is more genuine. I understand the idea of it, where they want to foster a better image in the media, but …it’s got to be mainstream.”
“But if that’s the first step then it’s worthwhile but at the same time I think that program was good because my boss actually told me about it, he said he watched it and he said it was good.”
The importance of Muslim role models was discussed. Hazem El-Masri’s contribution in this respect was acknowledged.
“He’s always out there as much as he can, speaking at and going to whatever he can to help the community. Who else do you know who does that?”
“I think he’s a real good role model.”
“They had this article once about him and how he prays before the game and he fasts during the games and stuff and they showed a picture of him reading the Qur’an and that was good. When he first started playing, his team mates called him ‘Allah’ but he asked them politely to not call him that.”
“I think he has been the best Muslim role model in Australia, particularly for Arab Muslims. I really do.”
School education on other religions and cultures
“I think we need to educate our school kids a bit more. You get to pick up a language to learn for example and in learning the language you learn about the culture. With religion classes they always had Christianity and nothing else, so how are these kids supposed to learn about the culture and the religion? In school when they teach languages they usually have Japanese or Italian and that’s it, never anything else outside of that.”
“I think before religion you’ve got to teach a person about other cultures.”
Overcoming media bias
To conclude a very brief discussion as to whether it would be possible to influence the media or place positive stories about Muslims, one participant commented:
“I actually think that it’s not pointless but it will come to no avail, because there is that much bad press about us already that a few shows here and there trying to give us a good name still won’t help. The majority of the media is bad and it still won’t help.”
Improving Arab youth relations with police
We asked how police might work with more effectively with young people from Arabic speaking backgrounds
“More community work, I mean I’d like to hang out with cops more.”
“I think there should be more Arab cops, because if there was more Arab cops that would break down the wall between the Arabs and the cops and the system.”
“But that could backfire because just say some Lebanese Muslim did something really bad then other cops are gonna say just because this cop is Muslim that he let them off.”
