DIVERSITY: Are Australians Really Racist?

The late Padraic Pearse (PP) McGuinness was one of Australia’s most eccentric commentators and cultural warriors. At one time a columnist for The Australian - back in the days when its editorial line wasn’t beholden to the SAS (and by that, I mean the Santamaria Appreciation Society) – he went onto take control of what became the rabidly right wing Quadrant.

McGuinness wrote on just about every topic under the sun, whether he knew much about it or not. He seemed determined to be a contrarian, even when his views represented the orthodoxy.

During a spring clean, I found a book of his columns entitled McGuinness Collected Thoughts* and was particularly interested on his views on social issues. Much of the commentary concerned topics of his era which would have interested me back then had I not been chasing other forms of anti-communist activism.

One column, dated June 20 1989 and entitled “THE MYTH OF AUSTRALIAN RACISM” is a reflection on Australian attitudes to East Asians in the days following the Tienanmen Square massacre. McGuinness claims

[t]he events in China, and the Australian response to them, have served to discredit another myth ... the myth that Australians are racist.

McGuiness claims the “myth” has been

... assiduously disseminated by various tendencies in the media … to paint a picture of Australians in general as prone to racist intolerance and hostility to immigration, especially from Asia.

So what does McGuinness see as the real truth?

The truth is that this is not an accurate description of Australian popular opinion, today, and has not been for many years, if it ever was.

McGuinness then moves onto our history of post-Federation immigration. He paints a rosy picture of a nation that has

... treated the immigrants with a tolerance and willingness to live and let live, and to absorb … The Australian experience of immigration and integration is one of which any country in the world could be proud.

Has it all been good? McGuinness acknowledges that

[t]here are difficulties, there are stupidities, there are plenty of cases of bad policy.

But that doesn’t detract from the overall picture that

... of all mixed communities Australia is one of the most tolerant and decent.

McGuinness then moves onto indigenous people. It would be a huge understatement to suggest that his views represent a mere contrarian refusal to accept conventional wisdom.

The accusation against Australians with respect to the treatment of Aboriginal Australians have been wild and damning.

I doubt Tony Abbott would agree with McGuiness’ assessment.

But how many people coming from other countries, whether English-speaking or not, can claim that the history of communal intolerance, of violence of wars, invasions, and conquests, have been better than ours? 

Gee, that should make us all feel so much better.

There is much to be ashamed of in the past for everybody – but to accuse Australians of being any worse than any other country in this respect is simply absurd. Often enough we have been better.

I’m not sure if that means we have anything to be proud of. It just means we are probably at least as bad or perhaps a little better than an awful bunch. Now, try not to fall off your chair at the following:

The mistakes toward Aborigines fifty or eighty years ago may not look so bad in the future … The point is that there is simply no evidence of any general or systematic prejudice against Aboriginals among white Australians.

Shall I continue? Yeah, why not.

Nor is there any general and systematic racial prejudice among Australians toward Asians, or toward other foreigners. There is indeed a certain amount of fear and hostility toward strangers. That is universal. There is a certain amount of red-kneckery” among those wo are not politically sophisticated or well-informed … But it is pure nonsense to say that there is any deep-seated racism and unforgiving intolerance in the Australian community.

McGuinness excuses those he sees as being wrongly accused of being racists. He says their behaviour is often natural given that an influx of people means more competition for limited housing, jobs etc. It isn’t easy for locals

... when established habits of life are disturbed, when new and not easily understood ways of behaviour are encountered. 

Does he have a point here? So by now you would have some idea of where PP McGuinness was coming from. Are his opinions correct today? Where they correct back in 1989? Was he partly right and partly wrong? Are Australians really racist?

*(1990) Schwartz & Wilkinson

REFLECTION: On the desire to write ...

It feels like ages since I last visited this blog. I haven't had anything published since late 2011 when I ventured into the contentious issue of gay marriage. After that, a heap of family, work, personal and health issues took over.

This blog represents a difficult time of recovery. There is stuff here I'm somewhat embarrassed to read. There is also stuff that was noticed by editors and producers and lots of readers, stuff which I am proud of.

If it wasn't for this blog, I'd never have ventured into my humble attempts at opinion journalism. I'd never have had sufficient writing practice to write an 85,000 word manuscript.

But believe it or not, writing is tiresome. Write now, I'm trying to gather energy to write some more. But I'm finding it hard. Writers' block isn't the problem. It's more like writer's fatigue.

So what should I do? Someone suggested I should return to blogging. So I'll give it a go and see what happens.

I always considered myself a rarity, someone who used conservative and/or liberal ideas to reach conclusions commonly associated with the allegedly monolithic Left. I think many opinion page editors couldn't understand me. Or perhaps the more conservative of them regarded me as a rat in the ranks.

Plus many editors couldn't understand why I was so offended when they would publish anything I wrote about Islam and/or Pakistan and/or the Middle East but nothing I wrote about subjects that really interested me e.g. Australian politics, the law or workplace relations. They must have thought my allegedly unpronounceable name made me an expert on all things exotic but a novice on anything more familiar.

There were exceptions. The Canberra Times and The Age were awesome. Crikey and New Matilda (and in my earlier days, Webdiary) were superb. There were others also. And doing book reviews for The Oz was always a joy.

So now the task ahead is to try and return to what was being done before. Or to go back to the future. Whatever. Though not with the same frequency as the time when I was averaging 3 articles a week. A return to blogging is a start. So watch this space.

Words 2012 © Irfan Yusuf



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REFLECTION/FILM: What’s that idiot doing?

I have a terrible habit of watching the same movie many times. If it’s a silly comedy, and if I take a liking to it, don’t be surprised if I would have already seen it at least 5 times within the first 12 months of having watched it. And don’t be surprised if I’ve memorised some of its more memorable gags.

It’s a habit I developed from childhood when video cassette recorders first came onto the market. It was around this time that we learned it was possible to record shows and movies shown on the TV. The vast majority of our video cassettes were of Indian movies. Fittingly, the first movie we had recorded from the TV also was an Indian movie. Well, kind of.

Peter Sellers’ The Party was played over and over again in our house. Sellers starred as Hrundi V. Bakshi, a bumbling Indian actor imported to Hollywood to play a soldier of the British Raj fighting (as luck would have it) in Afghanistan. At least the area on the set looked like Afghanistan, until Bakhshi accidentally blew it up while strapping up his sandals.



After being sacked from the movie, Bakshi somehow manages to score an invitation to a party hosted at the home of the magnate who owns the studio where the explosions took place. Sellers’ Indian accent sounds to me like a stereotypical American attempt to mimic the Indian accent.

His behaviour, dress and mannerisms (he’s even shown playing sitar at home) is such that you’d expect Indo-Pakistanis to be most peeved. But my memory is of my father and Indo-Pak uncles laughing heartily at Sellers’ accent, not to mention his awkward antics at the party. One of their favourite scenes was when he spoiled a gorgeous song whilst searching for a toilet. Perhaps my uncles appreciated that this party was Bakshi’s first such gathering, and they could relate to an Indian being marginalised by people because of his accent, his smiling clumsiness and his attempts to fit into any conversation he can find, all the while strictly avoiding a glass of wine. And they would have enjoyed the fact that, by the end of the party, it was Bakshi who was the only person (apart from the French actress he befriended at the party) that remained in one piece.



Perhaps they also realised that, in reality, The Party is less a spoof of Indians than of the American high society of the time. On the one hand, there is the hostess of the party who is happy to have an exotic Indian man along to the same dinner where she will also have Russian musicians and dancers performing - remember that this was during the heart of the Cold War! On the other hand, the majority of the guests as well as the host treat Bakshi with disdain. Even the daughter of the hosts, who appears with her friends later in the movie along with an elephant painted with hippy slogans that offend Bakshi sensibilities, soon bends over backwards to placate him buy having her friends scrub the poor beast.

A fair few of the scenes from The Party have been mimicked in other movies in both India and the United States. The Naked Gun 2½ featured a scene involving Frank Drebin (played by Leslie Nielsen) flipping a piece of food into Winnie Mandela’s headscarf. Meanwhile Arjun Singh (played by Amitabh Bachchan) manages to lose his shoe in some water in the Bollywood classic Namak Halal.

There are many classic gags and scenes I grew up with and whose broader significance (presuming they had any) I couldn’t appreciate until now. You can watch some of them below while I get ready to hit the sack. It’s 3:15am.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf




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REFLECTION: Usama bin Reagan

It was 1982. I had just entered high school and had completed my first 2 years at an evangelical Anglican Cathedral School in the heart of Sydney's central business district. It was my first English class, and my army-officer-cum-English-teacher (who would remain my English teacher for the next four years) taught me one of life's important lessons.

English is all about writing. And the best way to learn how to write is to read. So make sure you do not start your first lesson in the morning without reading the Sydney Morning Herald.

Huh? Us adolescents reading a serious broadsheet read by men in suits on the train? Millard lectured us:

I have told you what I expect. And I know your parents all buy the Herald so you have no excuses.

He was right. My father has been buying the Herald since 1970. I doubt he has missed a single issue. And when he saw his son, the same kid who usually spent morning hours filling his ears with the musical lead of AC/DC, struggling through the local and international news stories, all my dad could say was Shabash! (Well done!)

Those were the days before the Oslo accords. So like most others, I read the Herald and believed that all Palestinians were a bunch of terrorists who hijack planes and kill Jews. And what made them worse is that they were aligned with the Soviets, those evil communists who invaded those poor people in Afghanistan.

Communists were bad in those days. But Mujahideen were good. Reagan was not just the president of the United States. He was also the Grand Ghazi, the Head Shaykh, the Murshid Effendi and the Master Mufti of the jihad against the Soviets.

Certainly that was the impression I got from reading the Herald, from watching 60 Minutes and from other news and current affairs sources.

Reagan and his advisers knew that they could not rely on the rabble of competing Afghan factions to fight the world's other superpower. He needed outside help. The Saudis and other Arab states were willing. Newspapers in Arab countries were advertising for volunteers to do Allah's (and the CIA's) work in Afghanistan. All the scholars and writers that Daniel Pipes loves to malign were used by Reagan and his murids in the Pentagon and various intelligence agencies for this cause.

I used to go to the mosque and hear khutbas about the great mujahideen. Some imams even said prayers for President Reagan. But Reagan had a secret weapon to unleash on the Soviets. It was the brains, the organizational ability and conservative fanaticism that Reagan probably wished he had in his own campaign team.

Reagan needed someone to coordinate the training, indoctrination and organization of the Arab volunteers. And who better than one of the favorite sons of a Saudi business family with close links to Reagan's own vice-president, George Bush. The Bin Ladins were huge fans of the old-style anti-Communist conservatives. Their errant son, Usama, had too much time and money on his hands. Better he be fighting a sacred cause in the desert than chasing skirts in the nightclubs of London and New York.

And so Usama bin Ladin became Usama bin Reagan. His job was to unleash as many 9/11's on the Soviets as possible. And all with the blessing of the Pentagon and the White House. Bin Ladin used his engineering skills and the ferocious devotion of his trainees to wreak havoc on Soviet forces.

Today of course, the Bush family is not exactly fond of Usama bin Reagan. They say they want him dead or alive. They said the same about Saddam Hussein. But for all we know, Saddam might be sitting in some 5-star hotel sipping champagne with the dude who runs Abu Ghraib prison, giving him tips on how many dogs it will take to rip the genitals off an Iraqi civilian. It takes a lot for the US government to mistreat their former employees.

What seriously pisses me off is how the neocons claim to hate Usama so much. Yet the way they are behaving benefits Usama's cause. What the hell am I talking about now?

Usama sits in his cave and babbles on about how the West is against all Muslims and how Western regimes are waging a war on Muslims. Of course, we all know that Muslims are doing a pretty good job at stuffing themselves up. They need no help from the West. Their own insistence on staying illiterate, broke, uncivilized, poor, uneducated, dictatorial and paranoid tends to place them on the civilizational backfoot. And when most of their so-called Islamic scholars and movements excel in these areas, it does not help.

Muslim minorities in the US, Australia, and other Western countries don�t help either. In the Australian state with the greatest concentration of Muslims (New South Wales, home of Sydney), we have an Islamic Council of NSW, a Supreme Islamic Council of NSW and a Muslim Council of NSW. All claim to legitimately represent Muslims here. In the US, you have some dude who wants to run a Supreme Islamic Council who labels 80% of Muslims as terrorists and extremists and wahhabists. With so-called leadership like that, is it any wonder we are in a mess?

However bad the condition of Muslims might be, I can say with great confidence that if Usama appeared in a Mosque in Sydney and tried to claim that the Australian government is out to target Islam and Muslims, he would be laughed out of the place.

By and large, Muslims just do not buy Usama's conspiratorial muck. Muslims know better. It is easy for Usama to make these bombastic claims. But he has not lived in a democratic, mature, liberal and free society. He has not lived in countries where (at least in terms of freedom and the rule of law), Islam is followed more than in most so-called Muslim countries. Try stopping an Aussie Muslim schoolgirl from wearing a hijab and be prepared to spend thousands in legal fees while she drags you through a range of courts and tribunals.

Muslims know Usama and his like are full of crap. For the time being. But there is a problem. The neocons seem to want Western Muslim communities to believe Usama.

How?

Conservative governments are handing Usama victory on a platter. Conservative governments, including the Howard Government in Australia, are helping to make Usama more believable. Let me give you a few examples.

The government claims to have implemented a tough immigration system. If you break or flout immigration laws, you can be detained and deported. So if you are an Afghan Hazara fleeing Hamid Karzai's drug lords, expect to spend at least 12 months in a detention center in the desert. And if you are an English backpacker who overstays, expect to ... well ... um ... expect to keep working and getting pissed at the pub!

We have anti-terror laws which are being beefed up. And we have a list of organizations regarded as terror groups. In the US, Dubya made a point of declaring certain Latin American and Northern Ireland groups to be terrorist groups. Not the Howard Government. It seems you cannot be a terrorist group unless you have some link to Islam.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the people who are being arrested and charged are people whose acts occurred years ago and (in at least one case) who actively cooperated with security officials and provided information that led to the arrest of the big guns overseas. The nature of the charges includes placing information online and training with certain groups. And I am offering no prizes for guessing which religious faith they all seem to belong to.

But the classic is the way Guantanamo detainees are being treated. Hey, at least John Walker Lindh was treated like a citizen. At least the English jumped up and down for their detainees. The way Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer are behaving, you'd think Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks (the two Australian detainees) are as guilty as sin and should be shot at dawn.

An Australian citizen who finds himself detained overseas can and should expect all manner of assistance from the Australian embassy in that country. We expect the Department of Foreign Affairs to place all diplomatic pressure on the detaining country, and try to come to some kind of arrangement which can ensure punishment which fits our standards of justice. The fact that the person has been detained for pedophilia or smuggling heroine or terrorism or for having the wrong colored socks is irrelevant.

But the Howard Government has effectively told David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib and their families to shove off. The fact that Hicks and Habib are Australian citizens is irrelevant.

Now I would like someone to point out where the Buddhist section is at the Guantanamo prison. I don't know of any army rabbis working at the complex to service the spiritual needs of inmates. And I did not hear of any sweets being distributed during Deevali. What I am trying to say is that membership of a particular religious denomination and detention at Guantanamo Bay tend to go hand-in-hand.

Our Foreign Minister makes sure that Australians convicted of molesting little boys in Indonesia are given all consular and other assistance and that Australians caught with white powder in the suitcases are not locked up for too long. But it appears that if you happen to be of the wrong religion and find yourself in a spot of bother in Cuba, don't expect Messrs. Howard and Downer to do anything to help you.

Seriously, I would love to think that all of this is just paranoid hogwash. But my Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are just not giving me reason to believe otherwise.

First published in MWU on June 13 2004.

REFLECTION: Hurried thoughts on Mumbai ...

Well, it looks like this is going to be an all-nighter. Lots to read and write after having spent virtually the entire day with my eyes glued to the TV screen. My mother has spent a fair bit of time making and taking phone calls and speaking with family friends who have relatives living in Bombay.

We still refer to the place as Bombay. The name “Mumbai” seems like a kind of strange political and cultural correctness, an attempt to impose a provincial dialect on what is essentially a city for people across India. And now across the globe.

It sickens me that the people who could pull off such a coordinated and deadly attacks could dare call themselves “mujahideen”. They may use Iraq and Afghanistan and Kashmir and countless other causes for rhetorical purposes. But what they do bears little relation to jihad and to Islam as most Indians (and broader South Asians) know it.

I saw images on TV and in newspaper reports of people in Bombay hiding behind barricades and walls to avoid shooting. It reminded me of scenes of innocent civilians in Sarajevo having to crouch down behind concrete slabs and makeshift walls and anything else they could find to dodge sniper bullets. The so-called mujahideen are behaving like the goons of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

Mumbai or Bombay, call it what you will, simply doesn’t deserve this. India doesn’t deserve this. Neither does the broader South Asia, Asia and the world. Nor do Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Jews, Catholics, Parsees and the followers of any number of indigenous Indian faiths.

Terrorists regard nothing as sacred. Just a few months back, they attacked a hotel in Islamabad in the heart of Ramadan. Now they have attacked innocent civilians in a crowded Indian city. They even kidnapped an elderly rabbi, a man of God, Clearly these people have no shame.

Soon the Mumbai locals will be burying or cremating their dead. They will pray to God / G-d / Bhagwaan / Allah to have mercy on their deceased relatives. Other people from a host of different countries (including Australia) will be mourning their dead. I urge even hardened atheists to pray with me that God gives them strength.

In the meantime, let’s hope that the perpetrators are caught and brought to justice.

REFLECTION: On democrats and queue-jumpers

“When you appointed your humble sister to lead this nation, you not only chose the first woman to govern your nation. You also shone a bright light on Islam by being the first modern Muslim nation to elect a woman as its Prime Minister.”
Excerpt from the last speech of former Pakistan Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto.

"I lied about my past, but of course I did tell the Liberal Party"
Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Dutch TV.

To think some people are now comparing this stateswoman and leader to a migration fraud and neo-Conservative opportunist like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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REFLECTION: Vale John Ilhan

John Ilhan died today of a suspected heart attack.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.
(From God we come, to God we return.)

He was just 41 years old.

Here are a few of his statements ...

Loyalty first and foremost to Australia should also be remembered by some religious leaders, including some radical Muslim leaders in Australia, who pretend to speak for the faith, but instead promote intolerance and hatred.

My Muslim faith qualifies me to strongly denounce any racist and inflammatory comments made by any Muslim leaders because they perpetuate a stereotype that is unhelpful and dangerous ...

I love Australia for what it stands for. It embraces opportunity, inclusion and, most important of all, mateship. What Australia has taught me is that if you give something - like the hand of friendship or provide a service that fulfils a need - you will be repaid many times over. They say that America is the 'land of opportunity', but I say Australia is. I'm a good example - a working-class boy made good.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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REFLECTION: Meeting Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a woman with a mission. The problem is that I’m not quite sure what her mission actually is. And to make matters more interesting, after reading at least 100 articles about her (not to mention reading her The Caged Virgin and sitting with her for 40 minutes), I’m not sure if she knows what it is either.

If her mission is to increase sales of her books (including her autobiography Infidel), she certainly is achieving her mission. She is without doubt the star of the show at this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival, and her book was by far the biggest seller. But apart from dollars and euros, does she have any other goals?

I spoke with Ayaan Hirsi Ali this afternoon. Joining me during the interview was Jose Borghino, editor of the online magazine NewMatilda.com. I don’t wish to give too much away at this stage as I would otherwise be operating off my own recollections of the discussion. If you wish to know what transpired, you will have to subscribe to NewMatilda.com and part with A$77. It isn’t much for a yearly subscription of a superb publication.

I am, however, prepared to share some impressions.

Firstly, I know that many of Hirsi Ali’s allegedly conservative supporters such as Paul Sheehan are obsessed with her good looks. However, Hirsi Ali has a very strong mind and resents being treated as “just a pretty face”.

Secondly, Hirsi Ali is not an archetypal American conservative. In fact, she has views that would make many American conservatives reject her (and it seems many are starting to already).

For instance, when it comes to abortion, Hirsi Ali believes women shouldn’t be barred from access to abortion. She doesn’t believe it should be used as a contraceptive, but she does believe that women should have a choice.

Hirsi Ali is also deadly opposed to the teaching of Creation “science” in schools. In fact, she is opposed to the policies of Christian conservatives who want to bridge the separation or church and state.

She wants Muslims to adopt the values of the European enlightenment. Hirsi Ali hopes that Muslims can come up with an interpretation and understanding of their texts which is consistent with enlightenment values. She doesn’t believe one exists, but claims to have an open mind about the possibility.

Hirsi Ali seems to believe that there is little difference between the AK Party and al-Qaeda. She supports the maintenance of Kemalist secularism, and believes the AK Party wants to introduce sharia law by stealth. She also supports a military intervention to stop the AK Party, and suggests Muslims should be forced to adopt what she sees as secularism even if it is not popular.

The first translation of the Qur’an Hirsi Ali read was the one by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. The views she expressed to me about the Qur’an are certainly different to the ones she has expressed in other media appearances. Is she being misquoted?

Jose asked some absolute gem questions, but I’m afraid you will have to wait until you subscribe and the recording and our articles are placed on the NewMatilda.com site.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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REFLECTION: Cheers to our cultural diversity

AUSTRALIA Day is traditionally a day for the Australian patriot. Certainly we have much to be patriotic about. In a short time compared with other Western countries, we've become a wealthier and more cohesive bunch than most nations this side of the galaxy.

We also have a proud history. When many parts of Europe were burdened with collective anti-Semitism, our ancestors had little trouble appointing Sir Isaac Isaacs as the first Australian-born governor-general.

Within decades of getting walloped by the Turks at Gallipoli, we were good-natured enough to open our doors to Turkish workers. It's little wonder businessman John Ilhan, the nephew of Ottoman troops, can tell metropolitan tabloids:

I am the proud son of Turkish parents. I missed being born in Australia by a few years, but each day I thank my lucky stars that I came to this country I had relatives who fought against the Anzacs yet today, if there was another world war, I would fight for Australia without hesitation.

It hasn't always been a bed of roses. Few Muslims would disagree with Ilhan's assessment of some radical Muslim leaders in Australia, who pretend to speak for the faith, but instead promote intolerance and hatred.

During the Christmas break, my partner and I found ourselves driving through the federation town of Tenterfield, just south of the Queensland border. We visited the Tenterfield Federation Museum and saw relics of our federation fathers.

Here, on October 24, 1889, Sir Henry Parkes, then premier of NSW, made a speech said to mark the beginning of Australia's political journey towards federation. The tone was of inclusion, of ensuring that the interests of the peoples of all colonies be given appropriate measure.

The museum also displayed an uglier side to that era the racial riots directed at Chinese migrant workers. It didn't show the institutionalised disadvantage and discrimination against indigenous peoples. We saw its results at night when we found young indigenous children in varying states of inebriation on the lawns outside the town hall.

Perhaps a certain opposition leader inherited some of the anti-Chinese feeling when he said in August 1988 that it " would be in our immediate term interest and supportive of social cohesion if [Asian migration] were slowed down a little, so that the capacity of the community to absorb was greater." Why would someone say that after serving as treasurer in a conservative government that introduced a kind of muted multiculturalism a decade before?

Writing in the The Age on May 25, 2004, conservative columnist and former Howard staffer Gerard Henderson described the

... one significant blot on [Howard's] record in public life a certain lack of empathy in dealing with individuals with whom he does not identify at a personal level: for example, Asian Australians in the late 1980s and asylum-seekers in the early 21st century.

Australian multiculturalism has never been an end in itself. It's always been a means to an end, the end being the development of a uniquely Australian culture that recognises the reality that ours is a nation of migrants. Even when it wasn't a specific government policy, cultural diversity always existed on the ground as a social reality.

Decades ago, monocultural rhetoric focused on Asians (specifically Indo-Chinese). Today, it focuses on 360,000 Australians from more than 60 different countries who tick the word Muslim on their census forms.

On the eve of Australia Day, John Ilhan could write:

My Muslim faith qualifies me to strongly denounce any racist and inflammatory comments made by any Muslim leaders because they perpetuate a stereotype that is unhelpful and dangerous.

Ilhan showed a degree of self-critique common in his faith-community. Sadly, many monoculturalists could not engage in a similar degree of self-critique when it comes to the ugly actions of some people.

Allow me to inject some multimedia. Grab your laptops and go to the YouTube website. Type in "Cronulla riots" and view some of the videos appearing. You'll find ugly recordings glorifying the riots and the reprisal attacks. Some glorify the white-pride sentiments of the rioters, while others glorify the brutality of a small band of Lebanese thugs who engaged in reprisal attacks.

So who is responsible for these disgraceful anonymous videos? In the past few days, tabloid newspapers have been running hard on the trail of one set of videos linked to a Western Sydney high school. Before any firm conclusion had been reached, the Prime Minister had already made up his mind:

It's a reminder that there is undoubtedly within a section, a small section, of the Lebanese Muslim community, a group of people who are antagonistic to the values and the way of life in this country.

Why say that? Maybe the PM had information about those responsible for the video which even the NSW Police and the NSW Education Minister didn't have. Fair enough.

But why not issue similar condemnation of white supremacist and neo-Nazi websites which praised the Cronulla rioters? Then again, wasn't this the same Prime Minister who spoke of the rioters' "genuine grievances"?

One problem I have with our multiculturalism is that it's based on the myth that we are just a nation of migrants. Too often we have overlooked and ignored the history and culture of indigenous communities.

I'm no expert on New Zealand history, but I believe our cousins across the Tasman have been far more open to asylum-seekers because their nation was built on a treaty with their indigenous peoples. The historical and cultural tang of Waitangi has ensured even the most conservative New Zealand government couldn't take on monoculturalism as a long-term political strategy.

Anyway, enough pontificating. Have a wonderful Australia Day. Put a halal shrimp on the barbie. And have an extra beer on my behalf!

First published in the Canberra Times on Australia Day, Friday 26 January 2007.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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REFLECTION: Martyring Saddam?

In the make-believe world occupied by neo-Conservative commentators, the execution of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was a victory for freedom and democracy, a time to rejoice at yet another diversion away from the continuous human suffering of Iraqi and American families who continue to mourn their dead as Iraq spirals into an even greater orgy of violence.

An editorial in The Australian triumphantly declared that

Saddam's death sends a powerful message to the dictators of the world that worse fates can befall them than a cushy exile.

(Ironically, the same paper commissioned an opinion piece praising the late Chilean dictator Pinochet.)

Of course, many of these dictators continue to rule the roost in various Middle Eastern capitals thanks to support from the West. A number of Arab regimes are ruled by dictators who have become most efficient at torturing political opponents. Today, their jails also house suspects in the “War on Terror” so that information can be extracted without Washington having to get its hands dirty.

Indeed, Saddam Hussein himself was a dictator propped up by the West. The United States looked the other way as Saddam used the years following his accession to power in 1979 to purge the Iraqi Ba’ath Party of any possible rivals. Within 12 months, the US and its European and Arab allies were openly supporting Hussein’s invasion of Iran , hoping it would undermine the revolutionary Shia Islamist government founded by Ayatollah Khomeini.

It was only when Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait that Western powers decided he had gone too far. Then US President George Bush Snr led a large Coalition of nations against a former ally now referred to as “Saddam Hussein, that evil dictator”.

Following the 1st Gulf War, the fear of Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons was used as the basis for imposing sanctions that strengthened Hussein and turned the Arab world’s wealthiest nation into a country with among the highest infant mortality rates in the world. No one seemed to mind when these same feared weapons were being used against Iranian soldiers and civilians.

No doubt Saddam was an evil dictator who used deadly weapons against his own people. So who, then, could express any concern over his execution some days back? For allegedly conservative commentator Gerard Henderson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald ...

[f]or the most part, with the obvious exception of the Vatican, opposition to Saddam's hanging in the West came from the civil liberties lobby and the left.

So anyone who opposes Saddam’s execution must be a Vatican cleric, a civil libertarian lawyer obsessed with process or a left-wing activist.

The neo-Con scribes may cheer on Saddam’s hanging from their comfortable armchairs. But the fact remains that the public hanging of Saddam Hussein was poorly-timed and executed (no pun intended). And it will be military and political decision-makers of the United States and its coalition partners (including Australia ) who must now deal with the fallout, knowing Saddam will cast a shadow on their efforts to return peace to the country.

The New York Times reported on 1 January of ...

... the intrigue and confusion that preceded the decision late on Friday to rush Mr. Hussein to the gallows.

American officials were dismayed with the manner in which the execution was conducted, with those present shouting sectarian slogans despite the pleas of the presiding judge Munir Haddad who exclaimed:

Please, no! The man is about to die.

Among those chanting were supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shia religious scholar whose private militia has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of opponents of all sectarian persuasions. The recent report of the Iraq Study Group described al-Sadr’s Mahdi Brigade as posing a greater danger to Iraqi security than even groups linked to al-Qaida.

The execution was a sectarian spectacle, designed to inflame tensions between shia and sunni Muslims. It took place in a manner contrary to Iraqi law, which stated that executions could not take place until at least 30 days had expired since the decision of the appeals court.

It is believed that Kurdish leaders weren’t happy with the decision. Hussein was still to be tried for massacres against Kurdish communities, including the notorious attacks that involved the use of chemical weapons. For many Iraqi Kurds, important questions about their past suffering will remain suspended.

The timing of the execution – the holiest day in the Islamic calendar – will inflame sectarian tensions even more than the chants of al-Sadr supporters. Sunni Arabs (as opposed to their mainly-sunni Kurdish co-religionists) tended to be treated favourably by Hussein, himself from an influential sunni tribe. Iraq ’s sunni leaders have openly expressed their suspicions that they will become second class citizens under a government dominated by shia Muslims.

Of course, Saddam had many opponents from within all sectarian, tribal and ethnic sectors of Iraqi society. Handled properly and in accordance with the law, his execution could have been a source of national healing. Instead, Saddam Hussein will be regarded as a martyr by far more people than necessary.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf


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REFLECTION: Thoughts on Terror

Within days of September 11 2001, pictures of the suspects wearing turbans and sporting beards were released. The cover of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph showed a man wearing blue turban and black beard taken into custody. The headline read “FIRST ARREST”. Within days, a bearded turbaned petrol station attendant was shot dead in a reprisal attack.

What did all these turbaned and bearded men have in common? They were all male. They all had beards. And they were all Sikhs.

Whether we like it or not, most Westerners have little knowledge of this unusual group known as they and them. Who are they? How do we recognise them? How do we find them? Do they live among us? Why do they hate us?

We (as in all of us)have spent so much time and energy focussing on asking questions about they and them. In doing so, we have almost forgotten who we and us really are. At times, we’ve even sought to fight them by mutating us to look and act in a manner similar to them.

But when we scratch a little beneath the surface, we soon realise that the distinction between us and them isn’t as big as we think. In many cases, we are they are mirror images. If only we bothered looking in the mirror!

So who are they? Different labels are used. In the most recent edition of the (sadly now fringe) conservative Quadrant magazine, John Stone speaks of

... the Islamic cancer in our body politic.

He says that the real problem:

... lies in the essence of Islam itself ...

... and believes that:

Islamic and Western cultures are today, within any single polity, incompatible.

Such simplistic and absolutist rhetoric about they and them mirrors the simplistic logic of those responsible for a large portion of terrorist attacks across the globe. One only needs to read the speeches and writings of bin Ladin and Zawahiri to see the same nonsensical assumptions made about the West.

But middle-aged migrant Muslim leaders also don’t help when they react to every criticism of Islam. They have to accept that people have the right to criticise Islam.

I was brought up in Australia. I don’t regard Western civilisation as a cultural and political monolith. Anti-American and anti-Western feeling holds little attraction. I understand there’s more to America than Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush, and more to Australia than John Stone.

In January, I visited Indonesia as part of a delegation of young Australians organised by the Australia Indonesia Institute. The visit opened my eyes to the enormous diversity within our allegedly monolithic and nominally Islamic neighbour.

In India, Muslims and Hindus clash over the birthplace of the Hindu hero Lord Rama in the North Indian town of Ayodhya. In the Javanese cultural heartland of Jogjakarta, I saw the Indonesian Muslims performing the Hindu Ramayana ballet in the auditorium of a Hindu temple to a largely Muslim audience.

In Jakarta, I learned of a thriving jazz scene. I met Muslim women who sit on a government panel of religious scholars and issue fatwa's (religious rulings) supporting birth control and fighting corruption. I saw women walking the streets in Western clothes, including tight hipster jeans, without being harassed.

Indonesia has so much variety of culture and language. It is a thriving democracy in which freedom of the press runs riot. Newspapers compete to expose financial scandals among politicians.

During a normal day in Jakarta, travelling from one part of the city to another can mean being stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam. The final day of my visit involved a long drive to the airport. This time, the 2-hour drive only took 15 minutes. The streets were empty. It was Chinese New Year.

Of course, Indonesia isn’t exactly a haven of racial ad religious harmony. But we aren’t exactly a haven for drunken rioters and drug smugglers either. Still, the issues we were most asked about were the Cronulla riots and drug smuggling.

For some reason, many Indonesians we met spoke on the presumption that Australians were a bunch of drunken stoned Muslim-hating drug smugglers. Their impressions of Australia were gained from their own media. They never expected to meet us - a delegation of Aussie Muslim lawyers, engineers, researchers and even a hijab-wearing policewoman!

Perhaps the most interesting experience was visiting a Protestant university in Yogyakarta. We spoke with a group of Indonesian Christians who expressed their concerns about living as a religious minority. We discovered the concerns of Indonesian Christians were largely the same as those of Australian Muslims.

Terrorism is about fear and hatred, which is in turn built on ignorance. You hate those you are afraid of. Your fear is built on ignorance that makes you presume others are different to you. The best way to overcome fear is to understand others and enable them to understand you. When this happens, the gulf between us and them reduces.

You can’t fight terror with terror. Hating all Westerners is as crazy as hating all Jews or all Muslims (Western or otherwise). Neither group are murderous monoliths.