HREOC Website: Isma - Listen: National consultations on eliminating prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australias
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|| Meeting Notes: 21 June 2003
Consultation hosted by the
Muslim Council of NSW, Sydney, 21 June 2003
The meeting was chaired by
Mr Farouk Kassar, Chairperson of the Council, and attended by 18 invited
participants including the Federal MP for Auburn, Ms Barbara Perry. Susanna
Iuliano and Omeima Sukkarieh attended from HREOC.
The Muslim Council was established in January 2003 and
has about 22 member organisations. It is recognised by the Australian
Federation of Islamic Councils and represents Muslims in NSW.
Experiences and causes of
discrimination and vilification
The education system
The meeting heard that some parents were frustrated at
the failure of public schools to protect or defend their children from
vilification.
“I
know that one parent went to the extent of taking the children out of
school and sending them to another.”“I
know of parents sending their kids from my area [Liverpool] and pulling
them out of public schools and sending them a far distance to Islamic
schools. [It is because of 11 September.] Most of the women wear a hijab
and they go to pick up their kids from school and remarks have been
passed … and the kids have been bullied. Because they listen to
the television they have been hammered by the words and when the mothers
and the parents go to pick there kids up they all see who the kids are.
You don’t even have to tell them she’s a Muslim. Because
she is with the mother they just know and then they get bullied.”“My
kids were at a public school - a mostly Anglo-Saxon school - and I moved
them to the Malek Fahed School. And really the feedback I got from them,
my kids was that they were very good in school and felt safer there.
You are accepted from teachers and kids.”“The
more your children go to - and I can understand why you would want to
send them to Islamic school instead of general where they are discriminated
against - but the problem is, it leads to other problems. The more they
are isolated, the more they are going to be looked at by the general
Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Celtic community as being different: different because
not only do they look different but they act differently, they go to
different schools, their women dress differently … The problem
is, the more you segregate yourself into a different group that is distinct
from anybody else out there, the more they are going to have reason
to say you’re different from us, you’re somebody else, you’re
a different culture.”“The
parents are saying they are moving the kids to Islamic schools not for
the better education and that’s the tragedy. The kids have to
be moved from one school to an Islamic school which may not be that
good a quality. It’s about safety.”“I
might agree and disagree at the same time. Although I do realise that
we are moving our kids because probably for security reasons, it does
not have to be a quality school when you are moving them. But how long
shall we wait and should it be at my kids’ expense that none of
them will end up at some point of time learning to
live with us. As a parent we can talk all hunky dory but, when it comes
to the crunch, no parent will want to see their kids being pushed and
shoved and nobody will want to be there.
The following history was recounted by one parent.
“My
son defended a fellow Muslim girl at school from people bullying her
about her religion and [the principal] suspended him and destroyed the
future of my son. After another problem at school he is sent to a special
school with his bad record. A cop called him a terrorist not long ago.
Now my son goes to TAFE and yesterday he had a problem with another
student trying to get him into trouble. In Bankstown, Lakemba, etc,
there is a lot of pressure on young people and they are not able to
do one wrong thing. Police must be better with young people and others
in the community.”
The media
“[T]he
media … are up against the Muslims. What happens around the world
is that if there are any problems then straight away they are Muslim
terrorists. By saying that word it means a big discrimination to Muslims
all around the world. So that’s turning the public in Australia
against Muslims. I think the first thing we have to complain against
is Australian policy and then Australian media. We have to concentrate
all our efforts into changing the policy and changing the way media
deals with the public in here. Everything about what is happening in
Kashmir, in Bali, or Sri Lanka or even Palestine which is not mentioned
in your documents, you mention Israel rather than Palestine (referring
to statistics) and you are ignoring our rights as being Palestinians
for thousand of years. That’s the first discrimination against
us.”
[HREOC explained that the fact sheets on Australian Muslims
and Australians of Arab, Middle Eastern and North African ancestry –
the documents referred to by this speaker – summarise Australian
Bureau of Statistics data which do not provide separate figures for Palestine.
The fact sheets are at: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/racial_discrimination/isma/fact_arab.html
and http://www.humanrights.gov.au/racial_discrimination/isma/fact_muslim.html]
The media’s impact on the self-esteem and sense
of belonging of Muslim children in Australia was of particular concern
to participants.
“All
of our kids watch TV all of the time. Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews,
whatever - they watch TV. There is a news update and straight away they
mention Muslim terrorists. So straight away it is stuck in the minds
that Muslims are terrorists. So when they go back to school they will
be discriminated against because they are ‘bloody Muslims’.”“We
have this problem too as we have been implanted with the word ‘Muslim
terrorist’ and that’s what we are. It has been implanted
into the kids … and that’s when you start to have these
problems at schools.”“The
thing I hate is how Muslim girls take off their hijab after school.
That’s wrong. We are Muslims.”“I
think the media is the main cause because kids are picking on Muslims
at school and these kids get it from their parents and their parents
get it from the media.”
Stereotype of women’s
oppression in Islam
Ignorance or misconceptions about the hijab was mentioned
as one cause of prejudice and discrimination.
“When
I was in Franklins not long ago, a woman came up to me and just started
to pull at my hijab and said to me that ‘Your hair is nice. Why
don’t you take this off’? So I explained to her why I wear
it and that it was my religion and I asked her ‘How do you know
my hair is nice? You haven’t seen it’. Then my husband came
to me and said ‘Don’t worry about it’. I felt that
the woman is mocking me. I didn’t get upset about it. I just felt
the need to explain to the women why I wear the hijab, but unfortunately
I couldn’t because of my language.”“The
wearing of the hijab: … In my view anybody can wear whatever they
want. There is no restriction. This is our way. We need it as protection
for our women. It’s according to our beliefs and Islam belief
so that nobody will look at her. If she has a short skirt with her thighs
being shown everybody will be attracted to her. So it is just protecting.”“They
[the Anglo Saxon community] don’t understand why the women dress
with the hijab. They don’t understand that that’s the reason
for it. It’s not so much religion that they consider it to be.
They think - the average Joe out there who is Anglo Saxon or Anglo Celtic,
who is not a Muslim - doesn’t so much associate the hijab with
religion. They associate it with men’s oppression of their women.
They believe that it is a trait of the Arabic people and their focus
is on the Arabic people. They say they believe that the women dress
like this because their men insist on it not because they themselves
believe it to be part of their religion and part of their religious
duties but because they see it as being the men oppressing their women
by hiding their faces so that nobody else can desire them or look at
them. So you are always going to have that.”
Historical prejudice and the
international context
“The
media, the community generally in the west, Anglo Saxons, Anglo Celtics,
they did not need any excuses of September 11th or Bin Laden or anybody
else to dislike the Arabs and the Muslims. They didn’t need any
of that. They always disliked them; they will always dislike them. If
you ever want to overcome that discrimination start here, start with
something like this. Help people understand what you are about. You
will never ever change their attitude towards Middle East, or Arabic,
my friend, whether you are a Muslim or a Christian. I have been a Christian
all my life and I have been discriminated against all my life. I appear
in court before Judges and Magistrates who discriminate against me because
I look like this. It didn’t matter whether I was Catholic or Christian
or Muslim.”“Every
one of us has a deadly virus inside of us, that virus we call discrimination.
That discrimination is coming against everyone who is coming strangely
or newly to another society. That’s exactly what’s happening
within Australia. They have some type of discrimination but we add the
fuel to the fire. How can we conquer that virus? How can we find a solution
to that virus? I think it’s from long, long ages ago. Discrimination
is from one country to another and one religion to another, from one
village to another. The discrimination is there and is heated up because
of political reasons. Australia is an ally of the USA and U.S.A is inflaming
this situation all over the world against Muslims in general.”
Failure to make religious
discrimination unlawful
The failure of federal and NSW anti-discrimination legislation
to provide comprehensive protection against religious discrimination and
vilification was discussed.
“We
keep going around in circles. The people just say forget about it, no
one wants to listen to us, it’s no use people are shoving us from
here to there. That’s why you don’t hear of the complaints.
That’s where I think the core of the problem is. Why just leave
out religion? How do you expect us to complain? At the moment that is
the missing link. If we don’t get that fixed we will still be
going around in circles.”“At
the moment I think the best thing that could happen is if someone calls
you a dirty something they better call you a ‘dirty Arab’
than a ‘dirty Muslim’.”“When
we all migrated to Australia they accepted us by colour, by race, and
by religion as well. So how come we can complain about race or colour
but not religion? How come this is not connected?”
National security campaign
The meeting also touched on the impacts of the federal
government’s national security campaign.
“The
book the government sent it to each house in Australia [referring to
fridge magnet campaign], I read it and then sent it back. We can see
the terrorist group: [they] just picked the whole Muslim group. The
Jewish terrorist group is not mentioned; the Irish terrorist group is
not mentioned there. This is our most concern for our women, our children,
our people and this is our dilemma. The word Muslim has become discriminating
as a word to make these people perceive us as bad. If you mention Muslim
in a shopping centre or in the airport, we feel it. Every time ASIO
wants to increase their power, they target Islamic groups. The community
has a fear of Muslims and Muslims have a fear of being targeted.“Terrorists
is coming from the minority from all the communities not only Muslims.
It is how they target Muslims in anti-terrorist campaigns. The Muslim
people have never accepted terrorism as a religious duty. The government
doesn’t realise that we see Osama not as a Muslim. If I ask my
kids, ‘What do you think about Osama?’, they will say ‘he
is an idiot’ and ‘he is not a Muslim’. In Islam if
you want to even cut a tree it is not acceptable. What do we see our
government - John Howard and the Attorney General - doing every time
that something happens? They say Islam is an issue.”
What more could be done to
fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?
“The
Muslim Council – it is your job to try and get a proper education
system to educate children at schools no matter what. John Howard should
be the first one to be educated about Arabs and Muslims. And there should
be community unity. We have all of us should put our comments against
any TV channel, any newspaper, any magazine there comments any comments
in a discriminating way. We have to put our comments to them, and say
that Muslims are not terrorists, Muslims are Australians.”“Someone
from the Muslim Council New South Wales or other state councils should
go out to public schools and educate the students and teachers at the
same time about Islam and culture. Politicians need to be educated also.”
“It’s
not just because of September 11 that this is all happening. It has
been happening for a long time. We need television programs that encourage
everyone to love each other. September 11 is just an excuse.”
“The
media are looking for something controversial to make a big story to
get more people to buy the paper. But I think we have more influence
to control the government, to put pressure to our government to stop
this silly behaviour, to stop John Howard. The government needs to know
that this racism exists in this country.”“I
have been in this organisation for about 23 years and all these things
that people keep saying about education, it has been done over and over.
Then, when you think you have covered everything, something else comes
up. There is a concentrated effort to keep bringing hateful issues to
prominence and propagate and campaign against Islam. So how do you deal
with these things? We have been trying to figure out answers for these
for the last 25 years.”
