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|| Meeting Notes: 10 September 2003

Consultation with the Forum
on Australia's Islamic Relations (FAIR), Lakemba, 10 September 2003

The meeting was attended
by three members of FAIR and facilitated by Meredith Wilkie and Susanna
Iuliano from HREOC. Omeima Sukkarieh (notes) also attended from HREOC.

The Forum on Australia's Islamic
Relations

The Forum on Australia's
Islamic Relations (FAIR) is an independent, grass-roots public relations
group aimed specifically at promoting a positive and harmonious relationship
between Muslims and the wider community in Australia. FAIR publishes its
own newspaper called 'Australia Fair' and operates its own media and research
centre where basic functions are carried out such as monitoring the media
and issuing press releases. FAIR's main objective is to enhance the position
of Muslims in Australia and to promote a positive image of the Islamic
community through public relations and by successfully engaging the media.

FAIR is modelled
on the Council of Islamic American Relations in the USA. FAIR has officially
been registered with the Department of Fair Trading since about April
2003 however has been 'a loose body' for about two years. It is not ethnic
specific and looks at addressing the issue of all Muslims in Australia.
Currently, FAIR has been endorsed and supported by 12 organisations including
the Muslim Women's National Network of Australia and the Islamic Council
of NSW. FAIR is also completely self funded and all people working at
FAIR do so on a voluntary basis.

"Our vision
is to live in an Australia that does not label you according to your
faith or your beliefs, simply to be Australian with no epithets attached."

"The situation
regarding discrimination against Muslims in Australia particularly after
September 11 has necessitated the role of such an organisation as FAIR.
What people need to understand is that Muslims are a diverse group of
people with young people and older people. Therefore you can't label
Islam as one homogenous group."

Experiences and effects of
discrimination

One participant described
the impacts of discrimination noted by his wife who works on a voluntary
basis at the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) as a counsellor.
AFIC's counselling service is called Mission of Hope - Community Counselling
Service.

"The problem
that arises from vilification against Muslims is serious. My wife does
counselling for 'Mission of Hope' and is finding that [people are having]
amazing difficulties with identity formation. Some are growing to suicidal
levels. She talked to 13 girls in the last few months and six are suicidal
due to their exposure to discrimination. A friend who became a drug
addict due to affects of discrimination now hates Australians. They
are trying to get out of the problem but at the same time are being
embroiled in an identity crisis."

"The issue of
vilification is now beyond getting it right but about the fabric of
Australian society. The majority of cases known to us are just slim."
"It's sometimes the little comments that go unnoticed that affect people
too. After September 11, I have a friend who is a bus driver and wears
the hijab, and she told me about a guy who gets on the bus and says
'are you happy now?'"

People report incidents
and cases of discrimination to FAIR as the Forum has developed a reporting
facility for recording acts of discrimination and are "trying long
term to get all national statistics together"
.

Participants believe
that the most common method of keeping informed about the experiences
of discrimination by community members is through informal networks and
community work.

"There is a
huge misconception between what's an Arab and what's a Muslim. In recent
alcohol research conducted all Arabs were assumed to be Muslim. Unfortunately
[Arabs] are suffering from the misconceptions of being Muslims because
they are Arabs. This leads to Lebanese Christians saying 'it's not us,
it's the Muslims'. None of us [ie participants] are Arabs and we're
all Muslim. I'm of Italian background."

"It all comes
back to education. September 11 is a catalyst but not the overriding
factor in the resurgence of anti-Islamic feelings. The media jumped
on the bandwagon and it was selling and unfortunately the community
is paying the price dearly."

"The number
of events snowballed and that led to what is happening now."

One of the participants
who visits prison inmates regularly noted that " ...in jails, Muslim prisoners
are discriminated against in many ways"
.

"Hate
mail is also a huge problem. People don't pass it onto police."

One of FAIR's objectives
is to be the centre of coordination of all media enquiries relating to
the Muslim community in Australia, as there is a "need for a link between
the media and the Muslim community"
.

"The Islamic
community in Australia is based on personalities leading the organisations.
FAIR is appealing to grassroots as well as organisations."

"The unfortunate
thing is that most of the time is that you see the emotions flying FAIR
is trying to stop that from happening and has brought representation
broadly for the community."

Comments about the
lack of knowledge organisations have of media resources were made.

"SBS
has a database of spokespeople; the most moderate and informed and diversely
inclusive. But is it effective?"

The role of Islamic
organisations and their shortfalls were also noted. Existing community
representatives and leaders of some Islamic organisations are believed
to be "isolated sometimes from the rest of the community".

"FAIR
has an organised, professional and proactive approach to looking at these
issues facing the community but it does not want to be the voice of all
Muslims."

It was suggested
that there is a need for organisations and the media to "talk to people
who really are Australian and being brought up here"
to get a real
sense of the issues faced by the majority of the community.

Importance of legislative
change

"We are looking
for change in legislation with the benefit in the change being that
people will stop to think about their actions before they attack."

"People think
twice about making anti -Semitic comments because it's illegal and it's
illegal because the current law covers Jews and Sikhs. Once you have
the legislation, you know that it's enforceable by law and once the
government has endorsed it then you know. People will think twice about
racist and derogatory remarks about Muslims."

Responding to the media

Participants believed
that the media is one of the biggest instigators of the increasing level
of discrimination against Muslims in Australia with one participant saying
"our main gripe is about the media". FAIR regularly responds to
articles and various media coverage which they feel negatively portray
or impact on the Muslim community in Australia. One of the mechanisms
they use to do this is submitting formal complaints to the Australian
Press Council and the Australian Broadcasting Authority. There are currently
two complaints under investigation by the APC and one by the ABA. FAIR
also has a matter regarding an offensive leaflet that was distributed
last local elections before the tribunal under the NSW Anti-Discrimination
Act.

"Changing legislation
is important, but it's not about changing it to silence people about
talking about Islam because we welcome discussion and debate. But it
is about controlling how far we go in demeaning and offending a group
of people based on ignorance and misunderstanding."

"It's a free
and democratic society and because of that we want fair and accurate
reporting."

"People like
Alan Jones, it's their bread and butter ... that's why monitoring radio
as well as TV and press is important."

FAIR buys transcripts
from 'Media Monitors' and 'Rehame' and is currently focusing on Alan Jones.

"We are
finding that their words are reconditioning people, by using the same
words. There is a clear inconsistency around the use of the words 'Muslim
man'."

An example was given
regarding the reporting a few years ago about Mt Druitt High School which
was labelled by media as 'the dumbest school'. The school successfully
lobbied for an injunction to stop that. Participants argue the same should
apply and injunctions should be available to stop "consistent messaging
using terms such as 'Muslim, or Lebanese Muslim Gang Rapists', and Muslim
Terrorists"
.

"FAIR
recently made a complaint to the ABC about the use of the term jihad.
According to the independent findings, the complaint was not upheld on
the basis that the term jihad in the Oxford dictionary does mean 'holy
war'. FAIR stridently refuted such a definition to no avail, although
there was a strong guarantee that the ABC would use the utmost care and
remain vigilantly responsible when the term was included in any report."

FAIR runs a Media
Outreach program for journalists which is assisted by the University of
Technology Sydney. This is designed to assist journalists to write better
and informed articles and to accommodate any queries that they may have
about Islam and Muslims in Australia.

Although letter writing
to put a view forward or to make a complaint was common, participants
believed that this activity in many cases proves futile as they receive
no response.

"Stations
such as 2UE and 2GB don't bother to write back."

Future objectives

"It's
the binding nature of Islam which makes it a clearly identifiable group
and we should be dealing with all religions. We need to look at the attacks
on all religions, e.g. synagogues, mosques, temples ... our aim is to compile
as much statistics as possible."

FAIR currently runs
a youth program on radio called 'Fairplay' which tackles media and human
rights issues as well as looks at the Islamic community in an introspective
way.

FAIR will be participating
in the NSW Community Relations Commission (CRC) symposium in October 2003
to discuss where to go from here in regards to future strategies to address
the issue of discrimination against the Arabic and Islamic communities.
This symposium was a follow up of the Community Harmony Reference Group
which was established by the CRC to address this issue on which "everyone
wanted to have some kind of resolution"
.

FAIR aims to develop
a media kit and conducts media workshops for various community representatives
with the long term objective of establishing a 'think tank of intellectuals
together to start talking about issues involving Muslims and setting agendas
for future strategies and work"
.

FAIR also deals with
interfaith groups in promoting understanding between religions. A highly
successful project which was co-founded by FAIR is the Goodness & Kindness
Campaign which has received funding through a Living in Harmony grant
from DIMIA. The campaigners have spoken to more than 4,000 students in
2003 and aims to visit another 10,000 students in 2004. Broadly speaking
it involves a Muslim, Christian and Jew presenting to primary school students
their shared values demonstrating that people of different faiths can
work together.

FAIR has an official
website: see www.fair.org.au