Consultations Homepage || Meeting Notes: 4 September 2003
Consultation hosted by the Lebanese Community Council, Bankstown, 4 September 2003
The meeting was chaired by Ms Hind Kourouche, Coordinator of the Council and attended by four other invited participants. Omeima Sukkarieh and Meredith Wilkie (notes) attended from HREOC.
1. What are your experiences of discrimination and vilification?
The meeting began by discussing the low incidence of reporting of incidents and the reasons for it.
"Sometimes it is reported but most of the time they never fill in a report; they just dismiss it straight away."
"I really don't think many people know who to complain to. That's another issue. Most people will go to the police and they will complain but nothing will get done about it. And they won't know what's happening. We've got to look at what you can complain about and who to go to. It's not just the police. There are other people and that's what you've really got to make people aware of. Especially people who don't really speak English. I don't think they really know where to go if they've been discriminated against.”
The consultations and contacts undertaken by the Council have led to the conclusion that:
"There isn't much trust in the system that's saying ‘report to us'. So therefore there's an immediate reluctance to report on those incidents. Another thing is that the dynamics of the community are such that everything's internal. They're not generous in their communication dialogue with external bodies. Therefore a lot of things don't actually get addressed. They're dealt with at the family level. They actually get eradicated at the family level. It's too hard to take the initiative to log a call. What they're more likely to do is, for example, come to a consultation like this and talk about it but then it's no longer their problem; they've dealt with it. So I agree: the helpline thing is not working well.”
A comparison was made with post 9/11 experiences in the USA.
"During my visit to the States I enquired with the Council for Arab Islam Relations and they had quite a sufficient methodology where they were capturing all of the statistics about the cases that had gone from the ground all the way through to court. What they felt was that, while the police had been harsh with the Arabic community and that other community members were being harsh with the Arabic community, they actually felt that when things went to the courts, the court was quite compassionate towards Muslims. The courts were showing support and therefore there were a lot of cases that were being won.
"What was also interesting was that attacks on the hijab after 9/11 had reduced, not increased in terms of discrimination, but the incidences were worse.”
"I used to wear the scarf. I was working for [a State government agency]. [On 12 September 2001] I came into work and I hadn't heard what happened the night before. When I came into work everybody was – their eyes – I could feel it – just burning. I was like ‘What's going on? Have I done something wrong?' One of the guys came over and said ‘Did you have a look at the newspaper?' I had a look and saw ‘September 11 – Two towers down' and I realised it was the Muslims etc. So I had a look myself and I thought ok this is where it's heading – I've been targeted. But there was no real discrimination. But I could feel the heat. It just came from every side. Everyone was just looking at me because I was the only person that was wearing the scarf in the whole building. Whether I went down or up I could feel the heat. I actually left in October when my traineeship finished. I was only there for a month so I only had the heat on me for a month.
"It got worse on the trains and it got worse in public – people looking and swearing at you. Saying really bad stuff to you. My mother doesn't speak very good English and I have to talk to her in Arabic. You can imagine talking Arabic wearing a scarf and these people sitting across from you and they're looking at you and thinking about September 11 and all this. And then just getting all these horrible remarks like ‘You wogs – go back to your own country'. ‘We brought you here.' It's very hard – not only for me because I can understand these people, what they're going through – but it's very hard for my Mum because she doesn't know. She's just a decent person.
"Once we were walking in Bankstown and my Mum had her scarf pulled off and spat on.”
"I put the scarf on after 9/11 as a form of being an Aussie courageous young woman. And nothing happened. People would smile at me and I'd smile back.”
"On scarf day I put on a scarf to go to work and a lady stopped me on Central Station and said ‘Dear, you look lovely'.”
"Seriously, they do compliment. I've had so many compliments. There are some areas where you get good comments and other areas where you get targeted and it's not a good feeling. When someone does say you look good, of course you feel better. But it depends what geographical area you're in. At Campbelltown for example you just hear of it, it's just so out there. The community are not really educated and they don't know so much. They just put other women down. It happens heaps. It just depends on education. The social status is low and that's why you find so much prejudice in these areas. But I've gone down to Bondi and I don't get the same reaction.”
"That's right. It's a completely different reaction. Compared to Lakemba where you're walking around you've got all these Muslims wearing a scarf, when you go down to Bondi with 4 or 5 friends and everybody's just turning around, just looking at you. It's something that they don't see every day. It's something that they're not used to.”
"But it's not such a negative look as compared to Campbelltown. They look at you and then if you smile they smile back, say hello. In Campbelltown you can't even smile. I smile but sometimes you have people who just round back at you.”
"When I wore the scarf I would deliberately go to places like Double Bay, Circular Quay, and there's a lot of respect.”
"Four or five years ago I used to live in Campbelltown and the racism was horrific. The neighbours would throw rocks, bricks, beer bottles at our house. At one time all our windows were shattered. I was at home alone – I was about 12. I was really, really scared. We just had glass shattering one after another. My parents called the police but they couldn't identify who did it so they didn't do anything.”
HREOC asked whether the levels of fear and experiences of abuse had dropped again after September 2001.
"Now with the Iraqi War it's still a bit the same. After I left [that job] I had a hard time getting a job because I was still wearing a scarf. [It wasn't long after September 11 and] everything was still fresh. Even now with the Iraqi War going on with the Americans and the Australians, it is still very hard because my Mum still wears the scarf. So I'll be with her – you can't really tell that I'm a Muslim girl – but because I'm with my Mum and she's wearing the scarf it really identifies her as being a Muslim. If she didn't wear the scarf nobody's going to come up to her.”
"She might if she looks Middle Eastern. Christian and Middle Eastern people are actually being targeted. This type of insults it does happen. I've heard heaps of incidents happening in the Campbelltown area. And severe incidents, not just verbal abuse but physical abuse. It gets to the point where they just feel so isolated. They go back to their home and they lock themselves up. So, emotionally they feel so distressed.”
"Did it drop after September 11? No, it didn't drop. Absolutely not.”
"Because everything's still happening. You've still got the Iraqi War going. And it's escalating; it's not stopping. Every time you hear on TV that American troops are getting murdered and you hear about the bombings and Indonesia and all these things and you start thinking, when is it going to stop so we can have a bit of peace?”
"Our research has shown that it's actually been quite consistent and if anything it's been increasing. I believe after 9/11 it was a shock to the whole community. But what came out of it was a lot of educational programs and inter-faith dialogue. That was really quite positive because we began to build friendships with other religions and ethnic organisations. It opened the door for the cross-cultural and religious dialogue. But after Bali it was such a significant attack that impacted all the work we'd done over the previous year. The turning point was that we really had to prove ourselves before we got the sympathy of the public. It was so close to home and we were following [in the press] the individual cases – it was very intimate. We believe from our research that after 9/11 there was a significant bias but then that eased out but after Bali there was no return because the public didn't quite give us the sympathy. There's also actually quite a lot of fear in the [mainstream] community and that fear is a propaganda that's been driven by certain members of the government and media … There's a sense that a lot of migrants come in and don't appreciate the country. There's that sense of ‘We've let them in our door and rather than live with us they've become our enemy'.”
HREOC asked what the community workers advise their clients who are afraid and lock themselves in their homes.
"Some of them who live in Claymore or Campbelltown are actually scared to come into the office to discuss what's happening. We call them on the phone and they say ‘We can't come but we need help in relation to so and so'. Just this week we had a network meeting for the Arabic workers up in Campbelltown and this particular issue was addressed. We had a case: what happened was that she was verbally abused so much and her son said to her ‘Why don't you get the car plate number?' So she wrote it down but the driver saw her doing it which escalated the problems. Then she went to the police and reported it but he just dismissed it and said ‘We can't do anything'. She came in to one of the community workers' office and they took it forward. They reported it back to the police. We've got links in the police force. We can speak to the ECLO who can actually take that down.
"In general what do I do? I try to talk to them emotionally because none of them feel confident to go into the police to discuss it. No matter what I say, no-one will just go. They don't feel that they would get justice by talking to them. And they don't feel safe to actually come out.”
Funding contracts may not permit workers to make home visits to clients. This worker had once suggested that she might accompany clients so that they would feel safe but after she was herself badly verbally abused she could not pursue that.
"It was a bad incident. I just went back to the office and thought this was just shocking.”
The decision of one participant to remove the scarf after September 11 was described.
"I was wearing the scarf ever since I was in Year 7. Even during school I was discriminated against but that wasn't a big issue for me. But for me to have to go to work and be discriminated against because I'm wearing the scarf I don't think was fair. After I left [a traineeship in October 2001] I found it very, very difficult. I was unemployed for about two years. Every job that I would go to I know that I've go the skills, that I've got the experiences, I know what I've done at work in good places. It would really, really surprise me to get a phone call telling me that I didn't get the job. I was thinking to myself, why? I know that I'm fit, that I can do this job. I know that I'm the best person for it. I automatically knew what was the reason. Three months later, when I took it off, I automatically got a job. It wasn't alright [to remove it] – my parents were really against it. But my Mum and my Dad are very understanding. We've been here for 20 years. So they're very broad-minded. I told them what was going on and explained to them that I needed to find work. And to find work this is what I had to do. But at the beginning they were a bit shaky.”
"She's an Australian. What she wears is her business. How she goes to work is a woman's personal choice. But there was a lot of discrimination in the workforce in relation to this. And again our research has shown that women of Islamic background were the most discriminated against in the workforce compared to the Jewish and Christian women.”
The inconsistencies and inherent racism in media reporting were raised.
"The media makes it really difficult as well. I remember when the gang rapes first happened and the description of the bloke that did specifically have ‘Middle Eastern Muslim'. When you look at that and you look at other rape cases that have been in the news paper before, you would never see, say, ‘Anglo-Saxon' and you wouldn't see that word ‘Christian' in there. That's where the media is going wrong – identifying people by their religion not just by the person that they are.”
"It also gives the idea that Islam oppresses women; therefore it's an Islamic idea to go out and rape.”
"The dynamics internally within the Lebanese community was interesting again. The Christian community no longer wanted to be recognised as being Lebanese. They were Phoenicians all of a sudden. The relationship-building needs a lot of work.”
The conversation later turned again to the causes of the current anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice in Australia.
"The problem we have at the moment is a result of a policy which, over the generations and over the years, has taken hold of the whole of Australian society. Seven or so years ago we encountered the experience of Pauline Hanson. She is a stooge of the Liberal Party. She was groomed in the Liberal Party. We all heard and still remember the abuse she put over every single migrant in this country. That's when the division began within our society. Lebos, Arabs, Muslims, this that and the other were outlawed. The funny part here is that John Howard and his party would say to Pauline Hanson ‘you're out; we don't want you; we can do without your racist thinking'. Then John Howard applies the very same principle in his immigration and refugee policies. It burns my heart. The small community associations are all cronies to the system. They want to be photographed with someone like John Howard or Peter Costello. And at the end of the day they want a bit of a handout. But are they really working for their own well-being, their own existence in this society? ... So what we are facing here is the very same racist policy that the likes of Pauline Hanson exposed on the social scene ... Since when were Muslims destroying this country or about to destroy this country or about to do harm to this country? If anything – go by the history - the Muslim community here in this country, the majority of which are hard working people, they believe in the country that's given them peace, given them harmony, given them good food, good freedom. That's why they've given their heart out. Do you mean to tell me that there are no criminals among the Anglo-Saxon element?”
"More recent developments should also be mentioned. There was the terrorism campaign and then the terrorism bill which was passed created a lot of community concern. It didn't allow the crisis in racism to dissipate. It just kept it going quite strong and quite active. Also now insurance costs for mosques and synagogues or any public liability insurance for a function with ‘Islam' or ‘Muslim' in the name is some ridiculous amount. That's deepening the perceptions and concerns.”
2. What is being done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?
Community organisation strategies and projects
"The Muslim Women's Network has recently received a Living in Harmony grant to work with journalism students to try to improve the knowledge of journalists because journalists know no more than the general population.”
Government strategies and projects
"The NSW Police Service has recently begun sponsoring their Arab and Muslim officers and staff to come together in open forums to address the cultural behaviours and sensitivity of Arabs and Muslims; to discuss and debate about what experiences they're having and why the Islamic community is standing out. I'd like to see it go further and they invite non-Arab and non-Muslim officers. In the West they consult members – 500 at a time – on how to raid (eg don't tread over their prayer mat), how to handle Muslim women etc etc. To provide that cultural understanding. The Lebanese Community Council was the only organisation invited as a guest organisation and I was asked to talk to them as well [at a forum in June or July 2003].”
3. What more could be done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?
The meeting proposed the following strategies for achieving some of the objectives identified by the Isma project.
Promoting positive public awareness and challenging stereotypes
HREOC asked what kind of community education strategies might work in a place like Campbelltown to reduce the prejudice the group described?
"I would say to get the Arabic community and the police involved together in some sort of leisure activities so that way they won't be scared of authority. Also to get the whole community as a whole to participate in some situations. That way you could maybe promote Arabic food for one day and promote the Greek food for one day. There's so many different nationalities there and that way you'll be creating harmony. The Migrant Resource Centre is doing heaps of work but for areas like that you've got to invest heaps more to actually promote something. You can't just base it on information sessions. You've got to create leisure activities to get the people involved and to feel better about what they're doing. I would personally target the younger generations so you can build their trust initially. And not only in schools. On Refugee Day coming up we'll have an information stall up in Liverpool just so that people can come up and say hello and see that we don't have green blood after all.”
"The media portrays a particular image of the Lebanese community. We need to create a more positive image. Why don't we talk about all the positive things we've done and achieved? That's where we should start.”
"Maybe have some type of award to get people motivated and to show people that we're not this bad image that the media's always portraying; we've also got this positive side that people don't recognise.”
"We need to get our people more educated to be tolerant, to be accepting and where to go for help. And also educate the Westerners as well to know that not all Muslims are what they say they are. Maybe a TV campaign to promote everybody getting along.”
"I think it's very important to educate the mainstream. There is very little if anything taught on other cultures in the NSW education system. There's a kit about Muslim women for secondary schools done by Dr Helen McHugh which is very good. The Catholic schools in studies of religion are doing quite a lot about Islam. In non-government schools there's much less being done. We need to try to broaden the curriculum to make kids understand what multiculturalism's all about. That there's not just one variety of proper Australian. Then you've got to get to the broader population. Really the only way to do that successfully is through the media unless we're preaching to the converted. We need to get to those who aren't tolerant, who don't know, don't particularly want to know, and don't care. But who get very worried when John Howard says ‘be alert not alarmed' and rush back to the fridge magnet. The only way to do that is through the media.”
"The concern that I have is that I don't think we should be isolating the Muslims as such and saying look how different they are. We're getting all this attention and the media's going beserk.”
"At a personal level there needs to be matching of dialogue in one on ones or in small groups to raise these issues. I don't think the platform really matters or that it has to be done only in community organisations. It has to be broader. For example I've consulted with law firms about Muslim women's participation in the workforce. Women associates and partners are quite open to the idea of employing women in hijab. But their male peers are resistant and women are not breaking through their domination and the male friendship thing. At that level of consulting it's quite acceptable – you're opening up dialogue. There's a different solution for each different audience. If it's done at the micro level you can target a certain group. Reading a script is ok but it's not really the essence of it. It's really getting into their mind at an individual level and ask ‘what is it that worries you?'. And learning from them their concerns and then addressing that. Then you find that they come around really quickly because they find they like you and they build up a dialogue and then they want you back for some more. I really think that's how we're going to build friendships. The institutional level strategies are going to take years and years. I think you can run dual campaigns where you have the smaller micro group as well as the macro.”
HREOC asked what role the ethnic media should play.
"The ethnic media unfortunately is nothing but a true picture of its own community. Being a business, like the mainstream, the ethnic media, particularly newspapers need community support but also advertising, promotions etc. We have half a million Australian Arab citizens here but the Arabic language readership would only be maximum 1.5% of community. Most don't read Arabic. Such a low number does not support half a dozen newspapers in this country. When I was involved as publisher back in 1978-80, we went almost kissing the foot of those in control of government advertising and we were given nothing. Why? Because we were telling it as it is not how they wanted us to tell it. So in order for the ethnic media to gain the dollar they have no other option but to follow the politics of their masters.”
Providing community support
"I've got to be given the feeling that I belong here. After 36 years I don't feel that I belong here. I've made what I've made but by hard work not handouts.”
