Consultations Homepage || Meeting Notes: 7 June 2003
Consultation with young Muslim women hosted by the United Muslim Women's Association, Sydney, 7 June 2003
The meeting was chaired by Ms Maha Krayem Abdo, Coordinator of the United Muslim Women's Association, and facilitated by Omeima Sukkarieh and Susanna Iuliano (notes) from HREOC. It was attended by 15 invited participants who have been working together to produce the magazine Reflections.
Reflections is a new magazine written by young Muslim women for all young women across Australia. The magazine was launched in September 2003. It aims to educate both Muslims and non-Muslims about the beliefs and practices of Islam as well as the misconceptions about the religion. See http://www.reflections.org.au
1. What are your experiences of discrimination and vilification?
In public places
Wearing the hijab was recognised by the participants as a significant risk factor in public places.
"I was working for a law firm in the city, and obviously I am going to notice it a lot more because I have just started wearing it [ie the hijab] and I was called a terrorist by some men in business suits which was not expected. It totally shocked me. At Circular Quay Station, a group of students, they didn't have their uniforms on, they walk past and call you Bin Laden."
"That happened when we were walking to the Mosque. We were all wearing the hijab and some car comes past and guys call out 'terrorist' and they start screaming out 'Bin Laden, Terrorist' and we were all like 'what's going on.' It happens a lot outside the mosque."
"It happens everywhere. You get stupid comments everywhere. Like when people tell you to 'go back to Lakemba'."
"My friend lives in Blacktown and every time things happen to her. Once she got spat on because of her scarf and every time she walks home from the station to her house the cars beep at her and scream at her. She is Pakistani."
"It seems to happen a lot with women who are on their own and they intimidate you because you are on your own. It's like it gives them justification because they see a female with a hijab. I live on my own and go out on my own so quite quickly I adjusted to hearing these things. When I first started wearing the scarf it was very difficult."
"When I was in Year 12 and there was the rape incident, we missed the school buses and we had to catch the public buses on the main street. We were sitting there and this lady came in front of us and she was making really bad actions and it was to do with the rape. She was poking out her bottom and patting it and stuff like that. And it was bad as she was doing it and pointing at me and doing all the actions. My friends all wanted to scream and my friends are not all Muslims, they are Arabs and they wanted to tell her off. You could tell it was because of that and when I saw her after that I was so scared of her. I shouldn't be feeling like that. Another time, when I was working in Woolworth's she [the same lady] came up to me and asked for something and she couldn't even talk and she wanted my help and I just looked at her."
On public transport
"When the Melbourne to Launceston plane incident happened, I was in Canberra conducting cross cultural awareness training for the Australian Federal Police. People were talking about it and I had no idea what was happening. It had just happened when we were on the edge of coming into Sydney and people do not even have to ask me as they assume straight away that you do not speak English or there is something wrong with you or they talk over you all the time. When we were on the plane, two businessmen that were talking about it were sitting behind my husband and they were saying, 'I wonder which organisation does he belong to? Is he Muslim? Is he this, is he that?' I had the urge to say 'Will you just shut up'. The way the whole plane were looking at us was unbelievably weird."
"I was catching a bus once because the trains were not working. I went on the bus and I asked him is this to Lidcombe and he [the bus driver] was just staring at me. He was Asian himself. I was thinking he couldn't hear me. He says to me 'get off'. I was in complete shock. Usually I would have said something but because that was my first experience I just got off the bus. I was a paying customer."
At work
"People are always surprised that Woolworths allows Muslims to work there. Like for example Arab customers: you can tell which ones are not Muslims because they have a cross and stuff. They will say 'Are you Australian? How come they let you work here? Is it all right?' They think it is not possible."
One important theme in this meeting was participants' experience that they are expected somehow to represent Islam, to be experts in the religion and to justify the actions of other Muslims in a range of contexts including at work, at University and even at school.
"My friend, when she got a job at Kmart she had to keep answering questions about Islam, mostly from guys. They said to her 'Did you know that you are the first ever Muslim girl who wore the hijab to work in this store'. She was 20 years old and she was like 'They treat me so mean because I was the first girl who ever worked there'. So it is like if you wear the scarf you are representing the whole community. But we're not experts. We do not know everything about our religion. We always have to watch what we do and we always have to explain ourselves. Sometimes even if I make a little mistake they are like 'See she is a terrorist. Look what she does'."
"I was working for a prominent law firm in the city and this was before I wore my scarf. I was one of their best employees, very hardworking, most accurate. But as soon as I put the scarf on I was harassed, I had girls laugh at me, I was secluded. They would always have their lunches in pubs and so obviously I didn't go. In my work I had constant appraisals which were positive. So I finished my fourth month and had my appraisal after that saying that I am a bad worker, that I am lying, I am cheating, I am hiding things from them. So I gave them my resignation and walked. Luckily I had previous good past references and I have never been out of work for longer than a week. But as soon as I put the scarf on I was out of work for two and a half months. Only recently I have found a position. I went for sixteen interviews at different law firms. If I hadn't had the scarf on I would have had a job within the week."
The group briefly discussed the difficulties posed for them by the Australian habit of bonding over alcohol drinks.
"If you have an employee bonding at a pub that is straight exclusion as there are conflict of interests here. Perhaps it is a culture thing and it is accepted. Like the ham sandwich thing. That is where the line is, when you start to put people off side because they think that their rights have been trampled on. I think that is the key because we do not want to be hated because I am a Muslim or treated special because I just want the same as everyone else."
"A young Australian girl always feels that pressure to have a drink. There is always that in Australian society anywhere. My husband is very tolerant. He would sit at the table with alcohol and with pork dinners and not say anything. But now that we have small children and we go to birthday parties and I say to them 'My kids can't have chips' it is like you are asking the world."
"You should be accepted as how you are. You shouldn't have to copy Aussie culture so you can become so similar. We do not have to do these things to become Australian. We already are Australian."
One participant compared her generation, born in Australia, with her parents' generation of new migrants. She felt those born here experience somewhat less pressure to conform but also more commitment to maintaining their identity.
"Our parents were leaving their country so maybe they just want to make a new start when coming here and conform. Now we want to maintain our past and identity and especially our Lebanese and Islamic identity. I think that we are being more forceful in showing people what we are and that we are not so Australian and that we are not going to conform to the Aussie way of life whatever that may be. I think we want to be different yet be the same. We are not going to conform to how they want us to be but we want to be treated the same."
Some of the participants had worked at polling stations during the recent State election. They described their experiences working with voters.
"People assume you are not English and they try to correct your grammar when you know you have spoken perfect English. People look at you [and] they just don't want to be with you [ie line up to have their names ticked off the roll]. They don't want to be with you because you have a hijab on and they just stare at you. They give me that look from top to bottom and they go stand behind a whole row of people who are waiting for someone without the hijab. [When I was opening the ballots] you sit there and read on them messages people wrote like 'the f ...ing Muslims' and 'send them back to their own countries' and I was the only Muslim there, and things like 'Osama Bin Laden' this and that. It was just one after the other. For example, I was saying to people 'This is for the small ballot papers and this is for the big ones.' And people were like 'I can read. Don't assume I am ignorant like you'. One after the other. But I had one good comment where one woman said 'I really like the fabric of your scarf' and it made me so happy. All these old angry people."
"I was an usher at the polling booths and I was telling them to go this way and a lady comes in and I tell her which way to go and she says 'I can see what desk is free'. Like 'ok, I am just telling you which way to go'. And she was like 'well I don't have to take orders from you'. I said 'I'm not giving you orders. I am just making the line go faster. This is what we do'. And she said 'Well how can they employ someone like you? These are Australian State elections and you are not even Australian. I'm going to talk to the Electoral Commission'. Another lady came up to me and I was explaining what you had to do to vote as I was told to tell everybody else. She said to me 'It is an and not what'. I said 'That is exactly what I said to you.' And she said 'No, no, no you remember that there is a difference between this word and that word'. I just really had enough. I was close to tears; I hadn't had lunch and I had had so many stares."
These workers felt they had received no support from polling booth supervisors on the day or since.
"Someone should be in charge there to say 'No, this is not acceptable'. There was no formal procedure for complaining."
At University
"I did comparative religion as a course and one of the topics was Islam. The lecturer who had apparently a PhD, a doctor in what he was lecturing, was quoting from Geraldine Brooks 'Nine Parts of Desire' in a lecture for a whole two hours. With total disregard to myself as a women with the hijab on, he just said how Muslim women are oppressed. He gave a historical background of Islam which is absolutely untrue. I suppose again it is a thing where I must respect the teacher. I wanted to say something but I felt like I was totally ignored and I didn't know how to express myself in the class. I was very angry, I was almost reduced to tears, and I wanted to cry. ... I sent that teacher an email and I expressed my views. I did it in such a respectful manner as well and I did not say anything bad about him. I received no reply. I know that he and [my other] teacher maybe discussed it for two hours the next week and yet I still haven't received a reply. Post September 11th it seemed like every class I went to I had to sit there and justify who I was, what I was, what I believed, the position of Muslim women and that we are not terrorists. It took a lot of energy out of me. Each time I came home I would cry."
Another student described her experience with a guest lecturer on Islam in a course on the history of the Middle East. The student was offended by the approach taken by the guest lecturer and disputed some of her points.
"I keep directing her and then she just stopped and looked at me and said 'Obviously you are looking at different sources than I am looking at. Go back and look at your sources'. I was like 'I have been brought up as a Muslim and I read the Koran and so I know what I am talking about'. And she goes 'Well maybe you are from Phoenicia or some sort of division'. ... It makes a difference if you have a lecturer who is open minded."
"They probably do know what they're doing but they don't care. What matters is that they are up there and they are speaking, they are giving their opinion not facts but they are making it seem as to be facts. The students that are there are walking out of that lecture thinking that they are the facts and they are the future journalists. They are the future. And we end up taking the blame and responsibility and the need to justify everything to everyone and that really puts you so down."
"On my first day in my Arabic and Islam lecture - the professor is really good - we were talking about women and inheritance. He said 'The men get double and I don't think this is fair' and he started to give his opinion. I said 'Well why isn't it fair?' He said 'In the modern times women work'. ... He is taking his own opinion into that lecture and students are taking on that view. The people that you work with or work beside if they had been sitting in all these lectures hearing all this stuff all about Middle Eastern history and what is Islam, what happens when they come out to be your employer or colleagues?"
At school
"My school is bad. This girl is like 'you wog' and stuff and she thinks it is funny. She is like 'the wogs came to our suburb and they are taking over our suburb, they are all wogs.' You can't let people say that to you. You have to let people know where they stand there thinking if they say wog it is funny but it is not."
"I remember when I was at school and September 11th had happened and we had the running for school captaincy and I was running for school captain and I wanted to say something but I felt that if I said something that position would be stripped off me. The day it ... the principal came to my class and pulls me out he goes 'You better watch what you are saying in class before ...' I go 'what did I say?'. And he said 'the teacher said to me that you said if you were given the chance you would have actually stood on the table and started screaming in class'. I said 'Seriously sir, I didn't do anything'."
This student felt that one of her teachers was deliberately provocative, baiting her by raising sensitive issues for classroom discussion. "I do not have to justify myself to anyone and this is when I wore the scarf. This teacher was actually my art teacher. I based my art on Islamic prejudices and she hated it and she would look at it and she would actually want to change my art work for me."
Other students had more mixed experiences with teachers at school.
"When you are good they are good to you. When I was in school in Year 12, I was the only one wearing a hijab and teachers were so nice to me as I was in the top classes and I was doing well. Then they were saying to me 'You are not like those other Lebanese boys who are in the bottom classes. You are different to them.' In Economics in Year 12 we were learning about the unequal distribution of wealth and the teacher played this video which was on all the honour killings in Jordan and it was just after the gang rapes as well. I was like 'What does this have to do with economics?' After we finished the video [the teacher asked me] 'what do you think of that?'"
"I think we were doing history and I think it was about American civilisation. Every time, before or after we would speak about Afghanistan, she [the teacher] would come, as we had Afghans in our class, she would come and say 'Can I speak to you at the end?'. And then she would say 'I'm sorry if I ever said something. Or if you do not want me to speak about it, just tell me. Or if you want to leave, you can'. And we said 'Don't worry you are not saying anything wrong'. She was good and understanding."
Others described the burden of being expected to be experts on Islam.
"The thing about being from one of the local schools around here in an area where Muslims are, well there is a lot of Muslims. I went to a school where there was 93% Muslims, and you still had a lot of teachers who came up to you and expected you to know everything. It put pressure on teenage girls who were developing; where these girls are going through their own physical changes let alone going through world, national and political changes."
"My little brother is in Year 1 and he had to defend what Islam was. Why does a 6 year old have to debate politics with his teacher?"
Provision of an appropriate space to pray was not assured in participants' school experiences.
"We don't really have a prayer room. We use the store room."
"Some schools don't have prayer rooms but our maths teacher gave us a special key but we had to hide it, otherwise we would have had to do what we did before, which was pray on wet grass."
Issues about uniforms continue to arise.
"In PE we used to be forced to wear shorts but now we are allowed to wear tracksuit pants and in Ramadan we are allowed not to do PE. Swimming costumes are usually an issue for Muslim girls though."
"There isn't such a huge awareness about Muslim dress. My teacher once told me to tuck my shirt in but I couldn't, so I got detention. We usually get detention for school uniform issues."
"Our scripture teacher keeps telling us off about our uniform. We aren't provided with appropriate uniforms. There should be something uniform in place."
"When I changed schools to Macarthur Girls High School, you were only allowed to wear pants if you were a Muslim, but you needed a permit card to do it."
In using public services
One participant described a recent change of policy at Bankstown Hospital's ultrasound unit. The only ultrasound technician was male and recently a patient's husband became upset because of the male technician touching his wife and there was an altercation. The Hospital rules that husbands and partners would be excluded from the unit until the last five minutes of the examination when they could enter to see the foetus on the screen.
"So there is no awareness. For a hospital where most Muslim women will go and have their babies, you would think they would know. There is no teaching there and then they have taken out the policy that because of this incident no men are allowed to come in, whereas any other hospital you are allowed to. If you have just got married and you have come to Australia and you speak no English, you are from a Muslim country, and then the first thing that happens is that you are taken away from your husband and put into a room with two men and you are being examined from your belly button to your pubic bone, how are you going to cope? Why should you have to be under that pressure when any other hospital in Sydney you can go with your husband? You book your ultrasound and there is no 'Ok you are a Muslim; you have sensitive needs; do you realise that for this appointment you will have to go in by yourself ? Would you like to bring another female?' Why can't they say this?"
"My sister gave birth a couple of weeks ago and she was next to these Lebanese Christians and they were really nice people. [Their baby was] six weeks premature and he [the father] wanted a separate room. He got into a fight and argument. The cleaner comes up to my sister and says 'Ah see, they are all the same. They are so aggressive. I bet it is an arranged marriage'. My sister said 'I am a Muslim. Your lot are known for cleaning like the Lebanese are known for arranged marriages. The cleaner goes 'Not all Yugoslav people clean'. And my sister goes 'Yes well not all Lebanese people have arranged marriages'. Then my sister goes 'You know that women wasn't Muslim don't you?' And the cleaner just stopped."
In the media
"People who watch SBS or ABC empathise, but they know already it is mainstream media like Channel 9 or 10 that is the most majority watched and mostly the ones that are vilifying Muslims and Arabs. That is where you get all those attitudes coming out of. They watch TARBS also."
"Media is the major force behind most of our problems. SBS and ABC are preaching to the converted. It's the commercial media that are vilifying Muslims and Arabs."
"They actually say in the letters [to the editor] we don't want them, send them back to where they came from. How can they let them say that in the media? They are broadcasting it everywhere."
Responses and impacts
"So much stuff has happened to us but now we are so used to it, so we might think we are being a bit paranoid and so that is why we might not want to speak out. ... We say to ourselves 'I'm not going to talk about this incident that happened on the train or when I was on my way to Uni or as I was walking'. We say 'ignore it and it will go away'. For example, nobody knows what happens at schools. You tolerate your teachers and that is part of our practise. We respect and we tolerate even though they're in the wrong."
"You always get stares and stuff. When I first put it on [the hijab] you think oh my god. But now if I am on a train and an old lady for example is giving me the dirty I just think that she is probably angry at everyone. I always see it but think who cares if she is angry."
"Everywhere you go and you have a new encounter with somebody new, 60% to 70% of your energy is putting in extra energy and effort to justify yourself. I can speak English; I am the most articulate person in the room; I am so well presented; I am educated; I am all this stuff. Why should you have to do that? You just can't concentrate on what you are there to do which is look for a job or study or whatever it is. You get sick of it."
"I think they have brought this thing around themselves that they think you can't go anywhere by yourself. My mum is always like 'Go around with someone. You know what is happening in the media. You shouldn't be going around by yourself'."
"[After September 11] I was going shopping in the city. I was all by myself and I didn't have much time and I was rushing around getting all the stuff I needed. I think it was because I was by myself and walking quickly. I think it attracted a lot of attention and there was this swarm of security guards just everywhere and people just staring at me. I was thinking in the back of my head maybe it is because I'm walking too quickly. I was thinking these people are scared - should I be here? Why am I here? I can just do this in Bankstown or something. Should I be putting these people out, scaring them, while they are just trying to shop. That is what I was thinking."
"I just went from a private Islamic school to public school. I have friends coming up to me and they are talking about September 11th and they just keep going. I was like I am not even going to bother to try to explain. You get sick and tired of the stupidity."
"You explain yourself so many times that you don't want to explain it anymore. Like when you are doing a subject at Uni and a whole semester focuses on the demonisation of Islam. It's like every class is about Islam only, and you're expected as a Muslim women to sit there and speak for two to three hours of the class, justifying."
"Out there people think if you don't conform, why should you be here; why don't you just pack your bag? These are attitudes that come out all the time. If you do not all conform to what we do then all of you go back to where you came from. Now when does this become racial discrimination? This is printed in local newspapers where there are people aged 15 or 16 reading them and it affects us. How do we cope with that? We are young people who have to deal with all of these stresses and stuff and no- one is thinking how are we supposed to cope with all this pressure and trauma. And we are being told to go back to somewhere we have never been or seen. Imagine being told you are not welcome to the only place you have ever known. That is what is happening."
Several participants commented on the impacts on their freedom of movement caused by heightened national security-related surveillance of the Muslim community.
"Your parents get stressed if you go to an event. Say there is a [religious] lecture or a class or something. They are afraid you are not going to come home. It is so frustrating because you want to learn; you want to prove yourself and you can't go as the place might be bugged and you will be investigated."
"If you have a religious identity they think you are going to be targeted and they think of you."
3. What more could be done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?
Ethnic descriptors.
"We don't want them to judge us by incidents. They make little issues come out just because a Lebanese guy did it. If you want to bring out that issue why don't you bring out all the crimes and see. They make things worse and that is why it affects us. Because we go to school, we go to Uni, we are in the news, and if you are in the news what do you think? How is labelling ethnicity going to fix it?"
Need for consultation.
"We would like to speak to these people, who are the writers of these stories? Who are the producers that are putting these things out? We want to say do you know the ramifications of what you are doing? Do you know the effect you are having on young people? Who are the politicians making these laws? How do they come up with these laws? Do they go out there and consult people? Do they go around nationwide state to state and ask what has happened to you? Who do they go to? They do not go to where it really counts where it is really hurting."
Community representation in government.
"There are less Chinese than there are Muslims, but in local government there are more Chinese representatives than there are Muslim representatives. I think that is a problem. We need to get local people on board and I think we can as a community do it because we do not have a voice at the moment. Have a look at the Australian breakdown and how much the Chinese and their politicians are achieving for them."
"I think it is important to have people raise their voices. Especially to the ones in Canberra they really do not know what is affecting people and how much."
Suggestions for schools.
"Teachers need to realise that what they say has an effect on the students, their perception. A lot of the teachers are ignorant and need to be educated about that."
"If kids get discriminated against they should find it easier to go to the teacher and report racism, not hard."
