Sarah Stephen
On June 24, a mosque in Melbourne suffered an arson attack. The following day, a Muslim prayer hall in the north-western Sydney suburb of Annangrove was vandalised. Pig's heads were put on spikes outside the hall and offal was smeared on the walls and floor inside.
These two incidents are visible reminders of hostility to Muslims that still runs deep among sections of Australian society.
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) released a report on June 16 called Isma (which means "listen" in Arabic): National Consultations on Eliminating Prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australians. The report was the product of a consultation process launched in March 2003, which involved interviews with 1400 Arab and Muslim Australians from across the country. The experiences documented in the report make for horrifying reading.
Participants identifiable as Arab or Muslim by their dress, language, name or appearance told of having been abused, threatened, spat on, assailed with eggs, bottles, cans and rocks, punched and even bitten. Drivers have been run off the road and pedestrians run down on footpaths and in car parks. People reported being fired from their jobs or refused employment or promotion because of their race or religion. Children have been bullied in school yards. Women have been stalked, abused and assaulted in shopping centres.
The anecdotes recounting discrimination in employment revealed a disturbing degree of institutionalised discrimination.
A Canberra participant told HREOC: "I know a person who went for a job and sent in two applications — one with his Arabic Muslim name and a slightly different one with an Anglo-Saxon name. He didn't get an interview with his Arabic persona but he did with his Anglo. They must not even have looked at them. They must have just seen the name and tossed it aside."
A Sydney participant told HREOC: "I'm hesitant to say I've experienced discrimination, but when I was looking for a job my resume said I spoke Arabic. I didn't get one interview. Then when I took this off my resume I got four interviews. It might have been a coincidence."
A Brisbane participant told HREOC: "I've actually known people who have tried to call for a job and when they say 'My name is Mohammed' they say the job's gone. But then two minutes later, just to test them, they call back and they say 'My name's Andrew' or whatever, and they say 'Yeah, mate the job's still available. Do you want to come in for an interview?'"
There were many examples of discrimination against women who wear the hijab. A woman in Adelaide told HREOC: "I'm a qualified dental technician and it was really hard for me to get employment with my scarf. I applied for a position at a dental laboratory and the boss, well we talked on the phone and everything was ok. When he saw me for the first time he was shocked. But I had all the qualifications and experience, and I got employment for two weeks.
"Then he told me I was a really good and hard worker but that I could not continue being employed there unless I take off that scarf I asked him 'Are there any other reasons why you wouldn't give me this job?' He said 'No. You're a really nice person and a hard worker but I don't want to bring religion into my laboratory'."
Participants identified the pivotal role of the mass media in constructing negative stereotypes. A Sydney secondary student told HREOC: "If I wasn't Muslim myself, I wouldn't like them either the way the media portrays them."
Many participants said they felt isolated, scared, uncomfortable, vulnerable and alienated. "I don't feel like I belong here anymore" was a common sentiment. Many Muslim women felt so intimidated that they now spent much more time indoors. A woman in Sydney told HREOC: "I used to always go down to the city as a day out with my kids but a year ago I was physically abused and since then I no longer step out of the house alone, not a train to the city or anything." Other women now relied on friends and relatives to go shopping with them.
While the government has created a climate where many non-Muslim Australians live with a perception of fear of Muslims, it is Muslim and Arabic Australians who are living in a state of real fear, based on their frequent, sometimes daily, experience of physical and verbal abuse and discrimination.
A Sydney woman recounted how, following the distribution of the Let's Look Out for Australia booklet, which encouraged people to "be alert, not alarmed" and report suspicious behaviour, she was reported to her real estate agent by a neighbour for washing her balcony with soapy water.
A Melbourne woman recounted: "A close friend was walking on the beach with her son and his wife and grandson the police came within 20 minutes of them being on the beach because someone rang and said 'We have to report to you something suspicious' only because she was wearing the scarf."
Prime Minister John Howard hinted at the end of June that the "be alert but not alarmed" terrorism awareness campaign could be re-launched in the run-up to the federal election.
A Perth participant reported an experience of ethnic profiling. "I was subjected to searches for three hours. I was asked why I had spent time in Cairo, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. They read my diary from A-Z. They even removed the film from my camera. When I queried the treatment they said they were entitled to do it. When they let me go they didn't apologise or acknowledge the reason for this treatment. They realised I was a Muslim because of my name. I decided never to travel again."
The report cited the experiences of a community-based counsellor in Sydney who had talked to 13 young Muslim women in the previous few months, and six of them were suicidal due to their exposure to discrimination.
The report also outlined the variety of ways that people responded to abuse. While many people felt intimidated and lacked the confidence to confront the perpetrators, some answered back to verbal abuse and others fought back against physical abuse. One woman explained that she had answered a man who asked her "Are you a terrorist?" with the question: "Are you a paedophile?"
Dr Akhbar Khan from the Islamic Association of Western Suburbs Sydney recounted to GLW an incident that happened on June 28. A fellow doctor who was waiting for a letter from his family in America went to check a letterbox across the road from the medical centre which was similarly numbered. With no reply to a knock at the door, he looked in the letter box. He was set upon by the occupants, who hit him with sticks, broke his glasses and dragged him inside their house.
When the police arrived, rather than charging the occupants with assault, they searched the doctor's belongings and asked him why he had medicines in his bag. He explained that he carried medicine samples and had his own blood pressure medication, but the police nevertheless decided that it was suspicious enough to take him away in their paddy wagon.
Khan was asked to provide a written character statement, and because he knew the police inspector and challenged the ridiculous treatment the doctor had been subjected to, no charges were laid. Dr Khan pointed out: "They acted as if he was the criminal, when in fact he was the one who was attacked."
Khan recounted another incident which revealed the extent of anti-Muslim racism within the police force. Eighteen months ago, he had witnessed a group of young white men eating at a restaurant and driving off without paying the bill. He took their license plate number and reported it to the police. The police took a statement from the restaurant owner, who told them that the men were soldiers and had fought in Afghanistan. The police then said something to the effect that Khan and the restaurant owner should be careful or the soldiers might kill them. The cops are now saying that they cannot find the paperwork for the case.
Keysar Trad, director of the Lebanese Muslim Association, told GLW: "I do not believe that any person is inherently racist, however, a person may be conditioned through various catalysts to become racist. We are finding that in the present backlash against Muslims, the biggest catalyst to condition people against Muslims has been fear."
Asked who he thought stood to benefit from the lie that there is a link between Muslims and terrorism, Trad said: "The lies are supported by vested interests that stood to profit from these lies. For example, the weapons manufacturers can only thrive in a war setting. Colonialists can only thrive when the lands they wish to colonise are inhabited by the 'other', in this case these lands are rich with oil that can rescue the economies of the West, so funds were invested to ensure that these ideas are promoted."
From Green Left Weekly, July 7, 2004.
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