Consultations Homepage || Meeting Notes: 10 June 2003
Consultation hosted by the Islamic Council of NSW, Lakemba, 10 June 2003
The meeting was chaired by Mr Ali Roude, chairperson of the Islamic Council of NSW, and attended by 16 invited participants. Mr Roude and Dr Bill Jonas, Acting Race Discrimination Commissioner, HREOC made brief opening presentations. Also attending from HREOC were Susanna Iuliano, Omeima Sukkarieh and Meredith Wilkie (notes).
1. What are your experiences of discrimination and vilification?
At work
One participant told of a friend with substantial expertise who was offered an interview for a position under the name Alex. When he attended the interview, however, they found that his name was Ali and he was not successful in getting the job.
At school
Derogatory graffiti targeting Lebanese boys at a high school where they are a large proportion of the school population was referred to. It was allegedly done by boys from the adjacent Catholic school.
“Teachers are not immune from the racism they hear on talkback radio. Students say that every time there’s another international event, their teachers look at them as another rapist in the making, another terrorist in the making. The fair go hasn’t filtered down to the schools.”
In public places
Participants felt racist abuse is more likely to occur in suburbs with high Arab and Muslim populations. And it was generally agreed that, “It does seem to be happening more to women wearing hijab. They see women as easy prey.”
“Usually it will be a man or woman from an Anglo-Saxon background who will mutter certain things: ‘Go home you wog’, ‘Terrorist’ and stuff like this and then just walk off. When you hear that once or twice you probably ignore it. But when you hear it consistently then it does emotionally disturb you. Where Muslims congregate, it’s happening a lot more. If they want to abuse a Muslim, they know exactly where to go.”
“I feel embarrassed and upset walking in the street with my wife. How do I explain it to my son that we are being treated like this? Even I’m confused at my age. One minute I’m Australian, next I’m an Arab and a Muslim. It’s very upsetting trying to explain to my son why all these things are happening ... Even the kids feel there’s no help provided by the government.”
On public transport
Railway station guards are also perceived to target Muslim and Middle Eastern youth for ticket checks unfairly. Buses have failed to stop for Muslim women or have closed the doors on them.
The insensitivity of the Australian Federal Police spokesperson in announcing the recent attempted hijacking of a Qantas jet en route to Launceston was also criticised. The steward who intervened was a Muslim; he saved the lives of 54 people but his religion was not mentioned. Rather the public was reassured about the hijacker.
“The first thing they said was, ‘It’s okay. He wasn’t a terrorist. He wasn’t a Muslim’. It had nothing to do with Islam but they still managed to mention it.”
Participants said they now fear travelling within Australia and internationally.
“We’re not taking holidays. We can’t go anywhere. We feel out of place at the beach.”
In the media
“Talkback radio makes more people afraid of Muslims even though most listeners will not lash out and discriminate.”
Other
The role of government was criticised.
“Politicians are using Muslims as an easy target.”
“There is a lack of leadership among government departments and politicians when it comes to confronting discrimination against Muslims. There is a lack of anything Islamic on the part of the federal government. The government projects fear and there is a lack of understanding. It is not projecting an image of acceptance and inclusiveness. This reinforces negative difference and otherness.
“It is unacceptable that the Prime Minister should attend only two community events in his term. The community needs his physical presence to say ‘I understand your problem. I’m with you and I hear your concerns’. Failure to participate sends a message of marginalisation.”
On the other hand it was suggested:
“He [ie the PM] won the previous election on a race card. If he mixes with Muslims and he reverses that, he’ll lose the next election and he knows that. He limits as much as possible his presence with Muslims so that the majority of Australians don’t start disliking him. He doesn’t want to be seen as a Prime Minister who likes Muslims.”
2. What is being done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?
The Muslim Women’s Association reported that a lot of its work is calming people down on the phone. Following a racist letterdrop in East Hills, Padstow and other suburbs just before the 2003 NSW State election, mothers were increasingly concerned about their children travelling on public transport and in playgrounds at school. The Muslim Women’s Association received a large increase in phone calls from anxious mothers and advised them to call the hotline. But everyone refused because of the fact that nothing is being done and they didn’t want to cause more trouble.
“Mothers are concerned about their sons and daughters; about how their sons have been dealt with by some police; about the behaviour of some teachers. The incidents are increasing. They’re not decreasing.”
The role of religious leaders was commended. The Imams have provided education in the course of their sermons, projected positive images of Islam opposed to what is presented in the media, and calmed the community down.
“No community organisations are receiving government funding to address racism. Whatever planning and whatever vision or activities that we have strategised to address the problems in the Muslim community – that’s been put on the backburner. We are preoccupied with reacting and are over-stretched. We are trying to assist the next generation of young Muslims who feel terribly disconnected from the mainstream of our society. That is not normal.”
“There are more of us than there are East Timorese. Yet we don’t get the same funding or anywhere near it.”
3. What more could be done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?
Strategies should bear in mind that most Australians are fair-minded according to one speaker. “Most are appalled by any form of discrimination against our community.” For example, about 50% of calls and letters to the Lebanese Moslem Association are positive and supportive, including offers of help. Bunches of flowers have also been left at the LMA office.
Strategies should also recognise that racism against Muslims and Arabs is an international phenomenon, not just an Australian phenomenon such as affected earlier migrant intakes.
“Whatever happens at the international level impacts on the local community almost immediately.”
According to one speaker:
“This century is going to be a tough century for Muslims – not just in Australia, but globally. In a previous century it was the communists. This century it will be Islam. If we want to make our lives easier in this country as Muslims there are three things I believe we need to do. We need to become more vocal. We need to form a lobby regardless of whatever national background we have. And thirdly we have to interact more with the non-Muslim community. If we can do this for the next 10 to 20 years, the remaining perhaps 80 years will be easier for us. By sitting on our backsides and not doing enough, I don’t think it’s going to lead to a solution.”
On the other hand, there was a feeling that “the community is exhausted”, “the community is already under too much pressure” and “we can’t be more vocal than we already are and the onus should not be on us.”
Isma Objectives
The meeting proposed the following strategies for achieving some of the key objectives identified by the Isma project.
Promoting positive public awareness
The significance of political leadership was stressed. Politicians should be saying to the public that Muslims are just like us; they have a different belief system but they are not a threat; they should be respected and treated like everyone else.
“We need to encourage the Prime Minister to make more positive public statements about Muslims.”
The school curriculum should cover the contributions of Muslim scholars, scientists, philosophers have made to the understandings within science, mathematics, astronomy etc that we are studying today.
The Muslim community in Australia could usefully emulate the intellectual institutions that exist in Europe, the UK and the USA.
“Both good and bad ideas emanate first from intellectual circles. The Muslim community should establish a stronger link with the academic community. We lack an intellectual institute or think tank ourselves to study Islam and the role of religious minorities in the West. There are technical skills and also funding for schools but the academic side is lacking.”
Challenging stereotypes
Mosque open days have proven successful in reversing stereotypes. When people learn about Islam they commonly say how different it is from what they had thought before.
Stereotypes remain prevalent, however.
“We still need to explain that Muslim women do not pose a threat when the media is constantly whipping up a lot of hysteria to do with Muslim dress. And when we have Fred Nile leading the campaign linking terrorism with Muslim dress. It’s very difficult for members of the public not to see us with great suspicion and fear.”
“The problem lies a bit with us too. We’ve been here for the past 30 or 40 years. But we’ve only recently started these dialogues [explaining Islam to non-Muslims in Australia]. If we had started when we first came here – admittedly we faced a language barrier then ... But perhaps this is the job of our children in future so that we have this close relationship with the non-Muslim community. To tell people about Muslims and tell them we are not people to be feared. We are human being like you. We have our obligations to God but we also have our obligations to our fellow human beings.”
Ensuring complaints are taken seriously
There was interest at this meeting in increasing legislative protection against religious discrimination and vilification. “It’s a preventative measure.” “You’ve got to start somewhere.”
“It doesn’t mean that you’re going to get a lot of complaints. But people will know that if they behave in such a manner people can take them to court and say, look, what you did was wrong.”
Australia’s failure to incorporate the 1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief was criticised. [However, note that HREOC has some, albeit limited, jurisdiction with respect to this Declaration since it was declared to be a relevant international instrument for the purposes of HREOC’s human rights jurisdiction in February 1993.] Article 4 was quoted:
1. All States shall take effective measures to prevent and eliminate discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief in the recognition, exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms in all fields of civil, economic, political, social and cultural life.
2. All States shall make all efforts to enact or rescind legislation where necessary to prohibit any such discrimination, and to take all appropriate measures to combat intolerance on the grounds of religion or other beliefs in this matter.
“Unfortunately both the federal legislation and NSW legislation do not cover religion which makes it difficult for our community to lodge any complaint regarding harassment or attacks. We lodged many complaints, especially regarding the media which has created disharmony in the community, but the President of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board was not in a position to act on them because the Act does not give him the power to do so.”
“The Racial Discrimination Act should be amended to make it unlawful to discriminate on the ground of religious belief and practice. When the Act is amended to include religion as a ground, the definition of discrimination should cover not only direct and indirect discrimination but also state that a person discriminates against another person if he or she does not reasonably accommodate the religious practice of that person, unless to do so would cause undue hardship. We are optimistic in the current circumstances that the Act will be changed, especially knowing that the Australian Constitution provides some kind of guarantee for the practice of religion. The Prime Minister mentioned in his speech to a community organisation recently that he will ensure that the law is changed to accommodate discrimination on the basis of religion. He said so in response to the previous speaker who raised this issue.”
Further, if a factor inhibiting extension of legal protection is a wish not to include cult practices, it was argued that “it should be possible to quarantine genuine religions”. Moreover, much discrimination against Muslims is at least partially race discrimination.
“There are so many acts of discrimination that start off targeting a religious group that directly or indirectly end up flowing on to target people from a variety of different backgrounds. So there is an effect on people who are covered by the legislation. If someone says ‘Muslims’ it covers Arabs but also non-Arabs and targets Indians, Pakistanis, Indonesians etc.”
Another speaker said that no existing definition of racism can capture the Muslim experience. Internationally the world is entering a new phase. “‘Racism’ is the wrong term to try to use to define these problems.”
“Our biggest issue will have to be around how we deal with the media. The hostility to us is fuelled by the media. It seems that no laws, regardless of the way the government has promoted cultural and religious diversity as an asset to this nation, the issue of religion remains one of the most neglected areas in terms of ensuring that people are actually recognised as having rights in terms of the core religion that they have.”
Reliance on discrimination complaints as a strategy for eliminating discrimination was criticised.
“Generally HREOC and similar agencies respond to complaints. That’s reactive rather than proactive. Part of HREOC’s role is to identify incidents of discrimination. HREOC should not just wait for someone to raise a complaint. For example, it doesn’t take much effort to monitor some of the rubbish that you hear on talkback radio.”
Other agencies were also criticised.
“Police and security are not taking discrimination complaints seriously. Rather they are putting a lot of effort into making them disappear. It’s obvious enough but they don’t want others to believe it’s happening.”
