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Consultations Homepage || Meeting Notes:Meeting Notes: 28 May 2003

Consultation hosted by the Australian Arabic Council, Melbourne, 28 May 2003

The meeting was attended by four invited participants and by Susanna Iuliano and Omeima Sukkarieh from HREOC.

1. What are your experiences of discrimination and vilification?

Prejudice in context

“In the month after September 11 we had a 20-fold rise in reports of incidents of racial vilification. So it peaked very much. September 11th came as a shock and people were extremely scared.

“The anti-war movement seems to have had some sort of an effect on the amount of racism [during the Iraq War]. There has been a lot of the community that was very supportive of the [negative] impact of the war in Iraq and it hasn’t sparked as much racism as it did after September 11th. The peace movement seems to be facilitating the voice for Arabic and Muslim Australians in rallies and that support of the Arabic and Muslim communities. The Gulf War - we were expecting it for a very long time. The AAC [Australian Arabic Council] were working on the war thing a year before it happened. We knew it was coming. So I think, because it wasn’t a shock, that had an affect. There [still] wasn’t a lot of space but there was some within the public sphere for Arabic and Muslim Australians to put there point across. Within the broadsheet papers or on the radio not enough but [at least] there wasn’t that fearful reaction immediately after which I think was one of the main causes of that cowardly racism where you yell out stuff on the street. It’s quite often just unleashing a pressure valve which they have built up and that combines with their ignorance and it explodes.

“From the Arabic Council’s point of view it is obvious that Muslim women are the most visible. But discrimination has many forms and it is just not about the women who are assaulted or taunted in a public place. It’s [also] people being told to change their names in the workplace. We have had a lot of incidents where young professionals have been told that unless they change their name they are not going to get the job. [Also] reports of discrimination within the education system, by police and police not being as attentive. So it’s right across the board not just in a public space. In public space, if there is an assault then the police can be involved. But most of it is more about comments yelled out or people feeling like they are not getting served in a shop.”

“But as you said after war in Iraq I have found it is getting a little bit less. Some people think that we have to be very kind to these people because there is a war in their country. I believe it is just for a short time and I believe that later there will be you know…”

Impacts on community relations

“Before Iraq they [Arabic speakers and others from the Middle East; Christians and Muslims] got on alright together. They were saying ‘We are all here. We all have the same reason that we left the country’. But especially now when there is no security in Iraq and some of them have a lot of problems from Iraq about their families, it’s started to get a little bit harder. They start talking about their religion now: Muslim and Christian. For example, I have two families [clients] who are Assyrian and from Iraq. Their relatives have been killed at home. Now what is happening in Iraq is affecting the relationship between Christian and Muslim. Some people understood that Assyrians were backing Saddam Hussein regime. That’s why.”

Impacts on children and young people

“My son told me that his friend at school was really embarrassed and shy to say to the other kids that he is Arab. I said ‘Just encourage him’. He said ‘No mum he is too scared to say. He keeps saying I am Italian or Greek’. Why? Because he thinks the other kids look at him and think he is bad, he is no good.”

“There were problems a few years ago that a group of youth established a group and called themselves the Lebanese Tigers. Now I spoke to the individuals as I was a youth officer [at the time]. I asked him questions and I come back to what he said. At school other kids labelled you [as] ‘you bloody Arab’, etc. So these kids in school they form a little net for protection to protect each other. But that net moved and got bigger and bigger and it moved to the street. So it became a gang. It started as protection then they go onto other things as they get older and older.”

Discrimination in the workplace

“One of my clients, who I have been working with for a long time, she finds a position available. She decided to apply and she came to the office and I helped her with all the papers and things. She had a very good experience and certificates from overseas from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. She had been there very many years working as a receptionist. Her English is perfect, typing, everything. She can speak three languages. I arranged the interview and she went. They accepted her for the job. ... But the first week she came to work, the boss’s wife comes back from holiday. She finds the receptionist lady was there wearing a scarf. And she said ‘Oh no. You go. We do not have opportunity for you to work. We don’t want you to work here no more’. She said to her ‘I just started two or three days ago’. And she say ‘No no. I am his wife. Don’t come anymore unless you change the scarf’.”

Experiences at school

“Most people in Australia do not realise that there is a difference between Muslim and Arab. They believe all Arabs are Muslim. It is not only the hijab that makes them treat those people badly. Sometimes even if with the dark hair they think you are from the Middle East and Muslim straight away. After September 11th happened kids at school they keep telling my kids, ‘You are Muslim’. But we are not Muslim. We are from the Middle East but we are Christian. Once my son started a fight at school with an Italian. When I ask my son in front of teacher why do you fight with this student, he says because he was teasing another girl with the scarf calling her ‘nappy head’.”

“Approximately four months after September 11th reports were starting to feed into the Council that instead of calling other kids a derogatory term like ‘wog’, it was ‘Arab’. It didn’t matter what the background of the person. If a kid couldn’t kick a football he was called a ‘dirty Arab’. That for me illustrates how comprehensively that infiltrated down into the school from what they see in the media. It wasn’t just identifying someone from a Middle Eastern background. It was about saying if you can’t play footy you are a dirty Arab.”

“Something happened to me last week. What happened was the school phoned me and said ‘We have some difficulties with some families from Iraq, Muslim and Christian. There were four Muslim families and five Christian families. They said ‘They came here for the meeting. They are newly arrived and with the interpreter we explained to them that their kids need to go to another school because there is an English program there four days a week and one day they come to the original school. But those parents, we didn’t hear anything from them and we can’t find them even at school when they come to collect their kids. Can you find what’s happening?’

“So I said ‘Ok. Just arrange a time between the parents, kids, me and the school and we will find what is happening’. So we went there and I was waiting for half an hour. At three o’clock the bell rang and no parents to collect the kids. I saw the kids. They just walked out of school and went home. Very small kids. I believe they can’t even cross the road or do anything unless their parents collect them. So I said something is happening here. So I followed the kids and saw all of the parents on the corner of the school. They were hiding and they had told the kids ‘Just come to the corner and we will collect you’.

“I said ‘What is happening here? We have a meeting together.’ They said ‘No, no. We are not going to this meeting. Please don’t tell them that we are here. We are going to go home’. I said ‘No. Come. We are going to sit and talk. Why are you scared?’

“So we went there and the principal started to talk about the project. Ok so you spend all this money for this project but those people they need to educate a little bit. Give them more of an idea about what is this project and what is the benefit of this project. Not just through an interpreter word for word who then says bye bye and goes home.

“The principal starts to talk about the project and when I look at them their eyes are telling me that there is something missing here. I said ‘Can you just give me a second? I just want to talk to them’. I said ‘Do you know why you are here?’ They said ‘Yes we know. I don’t know. Maybe we did something really bad. They want to remove our kids from this school to another school. They want to punish us’. I said ‘ Who said that?’ And they said ‘Yes, yes. Through the interpreter we understand they don’t like our kids to be in this school’.

“I said ‘Look, are you going to any of these English classes?’ They said ‘Yes’. I said ‘Do you know your son needs exactly the same as you - some extra English classes. How would you feel if your son was sitting in a class and the whole place know what is going on and your son doesn’t have any idea at all? Or in case your son he say something and all the kids start laughing or tease? Do you like that?’. They said ‘Oh no. I do not want my kids to be less than others’. I said ‘Later when they finish primary they go to high school. They are not doing one to one [any more]. They are going to be sitting with 20-30 kids. He must do something as this extra English is to his benefit. They are spending money to give your son an opportunity so when he comes back to this school once a week he knows what is happening’. They said ‘Ok now we know what is happening. We don’t mind even to pay $20 a week so a bus can collect our kids and take them to the other school’.”

The role of the media

“My view is that [media in Victoria] is not as sensationalised. The Victorian public doesn’t accept the same level of reporting that the Sydney public accepts to be frank. I have been up in Sydney and listened to radio and read newspapers and you do not get that level of hysteria here in Melbourne. You certainly get a lot of racism within the press but not that level of hysteria. And I think that tends to be the difference between Sydney and Melbourne.

“Part of that is because it is not legitimised by the government in Melbourne. When you deal with issues of crime and ethnicity in Melbourne, it doesn’t have the undertones of the use of ethnic descriptors. Criminals by law are not allowed to be referred to as of Middle Eastern appearance in Victoria because it was suggested by the council that that would increase racism. New South Wales is the only state that still has ethnic descriptors. So when you have ethnic descriptors and irresponsible media and then a Premier or people of power who are suggesting that terms like Middle Eastern appearance are ok, that criminal activity is somehow inherent in particular ethnicity, they feed each other. Those three areas of police, the media and the government, if they are legitimising what each other is doing, then it builds up. Here the government doesn’t support it. It has much stronger diversity policies. They do not feed it.”

“Most of the time I blame the media. The media here always report the negative. The good things are never reported. For example, when we have the Arabic festival, it was initiative to get all the Arabic speaking other cultural groups together for the festival. We invited the media and none of them attended. In one of the meetings I put up a proposal. I said I wanted to bring the media to this festival. I said just get two little boys to start a fight and somebody will ring the media. … The media must take a major role to turn the clock around and turn the things from negative to positive. Concentrate on the good things that are happening.

“It is not always that blatant. I know that we had a really good story. We had a big school forum in the northern region with all the teachers, the principals and all the students and community workers. It was a really positive initiative about everyone getting together and working out strategies to address racism post September 11th. We lobbied the paper and they agreed to send a journalist and to do a story on it. The story ended up being a photo of two Muslim girls in a schoolyard with ‘Muslim girls attacked’ across the top. That is the problem: the Arabic community are either the victims or the villains. There is no room in the middle with a solution to show that they are just like everyone else in the community. They are either fighting or they are victim of vilification. The only way we can get into the media is to push the vilification side and that is ridiculous as there are so many good people in the community who are all working together and trying to actively encourage the community to participate.”

2. What is being done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?

Community organisation strategies and projects

“The Australian Arabic Council had a really effective strategy that came out of September 11th last year, knowing that the first anniversary was going to bring up a lot of images and concerns for the community. We tried particularly in one school where there had been a lot of racism. We had a [Council] member address the assembly [also a teacher at the school]. We actually tried to get the Education Department’s support for it as a wider initiative. This one person did a heartfelt speech at this school assembly. The kids were probably from a lower social economic background with a lot of diversity and a lot of racism that, in particular, teachers of Arabic background at that school felt quite intensely. After this person got up and did the speech in assembly, she was walking around that afternoon and students were coming up and saying ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise how my racism was going to affect you’. And they changed their attitude from that day. So that worked at that school in terms of addressing that teacher’s workplace. That’s a really positive way in which people from the Arabic community particularly when they are working in schools can affect the actual environment which they are in every day. When it is personal it hits home a bit more.”

“There is a Muslim Women’s group now in my area. But some of them they are scared to attend the group because the male in the community says ‘Why are you attending this group? What are they going to teach you - how to complain about your husband? How to call the police?’ Not only Muslims but also Assyrians. [When they arrive here] the men settle better than the women especially if the woman does not have any family here. She feels lonely and doesn’t know what to do. They are really isolated because most of the time they are at home looking after the kids, and the husband is doing most of the things outside the house. He knows where to go banking, schooling, social security, everything. But I find the women are more isolated. They do not have any idea what is happening outside.”

“[Through the efforts of the AAC] the Arabic community has now officially mobilised that when SBS shows a program for example on the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, if it is pro-Israeli the Arabic community is now mobilised enough so that they can send out an email and people complain to SBS. They will then balance it with one that shows the Palestinian side. But who watches SBS? [Only] the people who are aware of what is happening in the world.

“At the moment there are email alert lists where if there is an article in the newspaper we circulate an email out saying that this article has been in the newspaper, here is a suggested few issues that you could write about in response and here is the email address of the newspaper. It has been done of the last few years in relationship to various objectionable articles that come up. It’s not just articles. It is TV programs. If ‘Sixty Minutes’ does a report on the Middle East that is particularly biased …

“ABC is great as they are actually forced to respond. If they get a certain amount of complaints, it is actually necessary that they seek to address it. I have had success with Channel Nine. On the anniversary of September 11th they had this awful re-enactment of the hijacking of one of the planes at 6.30pm. It was so inappropriate. It had the stereotypical looking Arabs running around planes speaking in what was apparently Arabic but it sounded nothing like it and holding knives to people’s throats. And this was at 6.30 at night on the anniversary of September 11th. So I called Channel Nine and then I called two friends and both of them called two friends and it went on like that. And they took it off after we had been on the phone. I don’t know whether that was because of a whole lot of complaints or whether it was because something else happened.

“Similarly with newspaper. If they get a whole lot of letters they are forced to print them. We can jump up and down about the media again and again but we also have to play their game. So if something objectionable is written in the newspaper we have to know the lines so they we can respond to it. If they do get a response then they will print a letter or they will respond by trying not to do it next time.”

Government strategies and projects

Some of the activities of Moreland City Council (http://www.moreland.vic.gov.au/)were described. Moreland has a population of 140,000 with more than 145 languages spoken.

Strategies and projects include:

Not all local governments have developed such positive relationships with their Arab residents.

“I got a phone call from a Multicultural Liaison Officer from a city council … to tell me that there was a group of Arabic speaking people on the beach and that they were there until quite late at night. The Council wanted them to move and could we send a translator. So I said ‘Have you been to talk to them?’ ‘Oh no’, she said, ‘There are hundreds of them’…. It turned out that there was something like 40 people; there wasn’t hundreds at all. I said to her ‘Have you talked to them?’ ‘Oh no. I wanted to know the culturally appropriate manner in which to tell them that they are being too noisy and to go home.’ I said ‘They probably speak English. Just go and talk to them.’ ‘Oh no. You will need to send a translator.’ I just thought she hasn’t even gone and asked these people what they were doing there. I said ‘They are Australian citizens. Go and tell them to go home if they are being too noisy. Tell them they are annoying the neighbours. Treat them like anyone else but don’t stereotype.’ This is the Multicultural Liaison Officer who confidently told me that she had no Arabs living in her electorate. [But] I know of several people of that background living in her city council who may not appear in the hijab and may not look like a typical Arab. But she wouldn’t even go and talk to them without taking someone with her because she was too scared.”

3. What more could be done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?

Tackling media misinformation and stereotypes

“As soon as the media approaches anybody in the community they need to have training about how the media will edit, in particular, and take what they say on board. A lot of people need to be prepared that if they are going to call up for talkback they are probably going to get somebody pretty rude to talk back to them on the phone and they have got to learn how to handle that. So I think media training for spokespeople is really important. Also really important is that we harness a lot of the younger Arabic Australians to encourage them that when they read something in the paper that they disagree with that they respond to it. Ultimately commercial media is commercial and has to respond to the way the audience respond to it.”

“I think on issues of Arabic Australians and Muslim Australians, whoever puts their hands up is going to be shot down. That was shown in New South Wales. That was the anti-discrimination commissioner defending the Arabic community. I think the most effective way is to (a) mobilise especially Arabic kids as it gives them something to do and a way in which they can address racism. If you teach them how to write letters to the papers and how to respond that gives them something to do, to respond to the way they are being marginalised. The other side of that is encouraging a wider network of prominent Australians to write letters and issue press releases condemning it. It is all very fine for HREOC to do it and the EOC. Unless we have got celebrities or footballers doing it then it is not going to make a difference at all because you are preaching to the converted.”

Building awareness and self-esteem in the Arabic community

“Within the Arabic communities, something that the Australian Arabic Council is looking at doing with young people at the moment is that we need to provide education seminars for Arabic Australians about what are the positive things about Arabic culture? They do not learn that at school. If kids were taught at school that Arabs came up with the first writing system and that they invented this and that and look at this history, then when someone comes and says to them ‘You are a terrorist’, they have got a smart comment to come back with. They can say, ‘Well actually did you know that the Arabs invented this? So there you go’. Again empower them to speak up for themselves.”

“At the local school there should be seminars not only on how the Italians live or the Lebanese live or the Iraqis or the Iranians. Multiculturalism should be a subject itself.”

Anti-discrimination laws and complaints processes

“[Putting in a complaint] is a long process and it wasn’t going to get her job back. It is good to make complaints but it is not going to get her job back instantly. Some people are even scared to. I told this lady we are going to call Equal Opportunity Commission and she said no. I found many people are talking to me about their experiences and they say ‘Please don’t tell anyone’. Some people are afraid.

“They’re frightened because of where they come from. In Iraq we do not have the right to complain. Whether it is good or bad we do not have the right to complain: easy, simple. For example, if I go and visit a doctor and he gives me an injection, I do not have right to ask what is this injection for. How can I complain? In Iraq [I had to] fight for my passport. The officer is writing my name wrong - my name and my kids’. I was frightened to death to tell him that spelling was wrong. I was too frightened to say anything. If I say anything he would say ‘Who are you? Who do you think you are? Do you think that you are better than me? No passport - go home’. With all this experience we have had there we can’t complain because we are scared to complain.

“It will be very difficult to change [that attitude]. We aim to try and educate all the women. My aim is with mums and build a good family. We say that if you are not happy with something ask. Even at a parents’ interview at school sometimes they are scared to go. They say ‘Yes. Yes.’ and smile, or ‘No. No.’ They do not ask what is my son doing at school. They have a right to know what he is studying but they are scared to. They keep it inside or they tell the group or neighbours that speak Arabic.”

“Unless you educate people you are always going to have racism. And in the kind of racism that the Arabic community faces you can’t legislate it. Who is going to take the guy to court who drove past you in the street and yelled things out of the window?

“What individual is going to put themselves up as an example like that? That is the issue. People are not going to report that kind of thing. People come to us and very rarely they realise that we can do a complaint. People do not want to take it to court. They are worried about the time it is going to take, the fact that they are probably going to have a newspaper column written about them and that it might even make the news. Who would want to go through that? And why do that when you probably go through that every day, every week? Why would you want to do that when you see what happens to the people that do go up on the stand? The Islamic Council in Victoria lodged a complaint under the Act and they got vilified in the media for it. As a Council we would think twice about lodging a complaint because we do not have the resources to lodge a media campaign.

“[Re the recently introduced Victorian racial and religious vilification laws] Our platform was that unless there was an educational campaign about diversity in general to accompany the legislation then it wasn’t going to work. They did a brief diverse Victoria campaign. I don’t think it was hard hitting. What I think we need sometimes is like the advertising campaign about road deaths … strong ads that tell people no. Instead what we get is images of food and dance. We don’t get images of multicultural communities contributing.

“You are not going to solve anything with punitive measures. You will only solve it with education and that is really expensive. We have wanted that for a long time and it requires a lot of resources. But that is how you will fix the problem.”