Paul Benedek, Brisbane
"Whenever I want to ride a bus to university, I pray that the bus driver won't be racist, pray that he will look beyond my scarf and treat me like everyone else", Salam El-Merebi, an activist with Al-Nisa, a Muslim women's youth group, told a forum at the Activist Centre on April 6. The Unity Against Racism meeting, organised by the Socialist Alliance and sponsored by Green Left Weekly, was a response to the recent rise in racism encouraged by governments and mainstream media.
El-Merebi described how just one week earlier a woman in a train had demanded, "Take off your bloody scarf, you're in bloody Australia", and how a friend was refused a job in a fish and chip shop unless she removed her scarf.
"The Bush administration, the Howard government and their allies are the real axis of evil, slaughtering Muslims every day, and no-one does anything about it", El-Merebi said.
"Where is the 'harmony'?", exclaimed Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a high-school member of Al-Nisa. "The Indigenous people of this land are treated like scum, Mediterranean and Asia descendents are still sneered at and called names, and recently the Muslim population have been under fire because of actions of men who have no ties to Australia whatsoever."
In response to Howard's claim that Australia has put its racist past behind it, Abdel-Magied said: "Our mosque in Kuraby was torched, my classmates got glass bottles thrown at them, and my mother was verbally and visually abused ... Howard refuses to acknowledge that these acts are occurring." But Abdel-Magied was also optimistic, adding: "My experiences have strengthened me, made me stand up for what I believe in ... We will win this fight, and we will win it the right way — together."
Louay Alzaher, from the Iraqi Solidarity Committee, drew the links between war and racism, "driven by a new wave of conservatism — globalisation". Murri leader and Socialist Alliance activist Sam Watson gave a short, sharp history of racism in Australia, then encouraged activists to step up to the challenge. "We are more powerful than Howard, because in our hearts we have the truth and the truth is powerful."
Watson spoke about a showdown with Labor Premier Peter Beattie at the next state election, noting that Beattie has matched Howard's racism with his contemptuous treatment of the people of Palm Island and the pitiful crumbs in return for wages stolen from Aboriginal people.
From Green Left Weekly, April 12, 2006.
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