OPINION: Citizenship focus misses wider security issue

My road to Australian citizenship was long and hard. First I had to be born. Then I spent five months in a rather swish place called Karachi, then known for its trendy art deco cinemas and funky dance parties. Then I landed in northern Sydney, where I stayed until gaining something resembling a memory.

There was no citizenship ceremony. I did, however, attend the passport office to collect my passport. My father pulled me up to the counter, a task I doubt he could repeat now. He held the pen in my hand but I wasn't used to holding one. There were people waiting behind us in the queue, but my 4-year-old brain needed more time to ponder the subtleties of signatures. My father removed the pen from my hand and my butt from the counter, and I let out a God-Almighty sook. The passport arrived. On the signature line were typed the words "unable to sign".

So many of us have to be born here or come at a young age. We use our passport as ID when we lose our wallet. We use it to take holidays to Bali where many misbehave and harass the locals before returning with few memories.

But the idea of losing our citizenship just never comes to mind. Regardless of what crime we might commit, inside or outside Australia, there are courts waiting to try us and prisons to accommodate us. You can be an ex-student of Duntroon like Julian Knight (of Hoddle Street massacre infamy). You could be part of a paedophile ring, terrorising young boys at a Ballarat school or in the alleys of Yogyakarta.

Your actions can destroy the lives of entire communities, leading to suicides and broken lives. But as far as some 40 Coalition backbenchers are concerned, you are welcome to keep your citizenship. Your heinous crimes can terrorise generations. You can be a lone wolf paedophile or a mass murderer, as long as you aren't a terrorist.

Parliament's 'enthusiasm' for new anti-terrorism laws 

Because as we all know, terrorism is a major threat to our nation's security. No, I am not being sarcastic here. We have to acknowledge that there is a good chance someone could slip out of the country to a war zone and then slip back in after committing horrific crimes. A brainwashed kid with bombs strapped to his chest and unleash a blast that will kill and maim.

Let's remember that the first victim of the July 7, 2005 London bombing to be buried was a 20-year-old bank clerk of Bangladeshi heritage. Her name was Shahara Islam. The surname says it all.

The idea of stripping citizenship from people is being debated at a time when, in the popular imagination, terrorism is about al-Qaeda and the self-styled Islamic State. Foreign fighters have left and returned, but those fighting for Kurdish or other groups are largely ignored. Reports are now reaching us of non-ISIL parties, including Christian groups, engaging in such gruesome acts as beheadings.

Our politicians are always on the lookout for good excuses to expand the anti-terror laws to encompass more actions and more groups. As the learned authors of Inside Australia's Anti-Terrorism Laws and Trials note:

… Parliament's enthusiasm for enacting new anti-terrorism laws has not been matched by its attention to their maintenance and refinement. Indeed, it is undeniable that Australian governments have found it much more palatable to increase rather than limit or remove national security measures, tending to ignore reviews which recommend the latter course. The result has been a steady ratcheting up of the power of the state when it comes to the prevention of terrorism.

Matters of national security 

Terrorism is seen as an advanced form of criminal activity, even if its outcomes can be just as easily carried out by those with no political or religious inclination.

The government's discussion paper, entitled Australian Citizenship Your Right, Your Responsibility, states:

Citizens who become involved in terrorism are rejecting Australian values and commitment to a safe and harmonious society.

I doubt the paedophile priests in Ballarat were showing much commitment to Australian values. The numerous victims who tragically took their own lives and the families and parishes must feel quite terrorised at this time.

The paper continues:

Support for, or involvement in, politically motivated violence is not acceptable to Australians.

Indeed no Sinn Fein meetings were ever held in Sydney or Melbourne. No Australians ever followed the lead of men like Eric Blair (who is better known by his pen-name George Orwell) to fight in the Spanish Civil War. And no mosques or Liberal Party branches ever hosted representatives of the Afghan Mujahideen fighting the Soviets.

And national security? Recently I spoke to an Australian friend who works as a journalist in East Asia. "How goes it there?" I asked her. "It's fabulous. I've got a front row seat to World War III in the South China Sea. Most of Australia's shipping passes through here. America and China are almost ready to go. How are things down there? Is Abbott still scaring everyone about terrorists?"

Irfan Yusuf is a PhD candidate at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin Unversity. First published in the Canberra Times on 1 June 2015.

POLITICS: Refugee rhetoric that makes no sense

I really would hate to be John Nguyen. This young professional is the Liberal candidate for the Victorian seat of Chisholm. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Heck, it's a badge of honour to put your hand up for public office. And Nguyen isn't new to federal elections or to the area, having been candidate in the 2010 election.

But imagine what it is like to be candidate in a party whose major slogan would, if implemented during the late 1970's, would have seen you, your siblings and your grandparents locked up indefinitely in a detention centre and made to feel like "illegals". Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison keep screaming "stop the boats". Well guess what. The Liberal Candidate for Chisholm arrived in Australia in 1979. He fled Vietnam on a boat. He escaped communist persecution on a boat. One wonders whether Mr Abbott would have wanted to stop John Nguyen's boat from arriving. Fairfax Media reports Abbott visiting Nguyen at the Mulgrave Country Club. Abbott is quoted as follows:

''This is what modern Australia is all about,'' a beaming Abbott told the morning tea in Wheelers Hill. 

''This is today's Australia: a country that makes people from the four corners of the earth welcome because they have come here, not to change our way of life, but to join our way of life. They have come here not to detract from our country, but to add to it.''

Putting aside the issue of Abbott's policy on stopping persons fleeing persecution from arriving on boats (even if this is the only feasible method for them to get here), his logic sounds rather warped. On the one hand, he says that migrants do not wish to change our way of life. On the other hand, he says migrants have come to add to our way of life. How on earth does that work? How does adding to our way of life not involve a necessary change? Yet again we see how all this divisive bullsh*t rhetoric makes no sense.

Somehow I get the feeling that the Leader of the Opposition, a Rhodes scholar, doesn't believe alot of this crap.

VIDEO: How do Indians become citizens ...

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CRIKEY: Hang on a minute! Neo-con half-truths under the microscope ...

Neo-cons and the missing Muslim turned Catholic. There’s been some hoo-haa over the Pope overseeing the baptism of an Italian ex-Muslim commentator Magdi Cristiano Allam during the Vatican Easter service. Apparently neo-Cons across cyberspace are expecting monolithically violent responses from the Muslim world, much like the response that we’re still waiting for after neo-Con Daniel Pipes revealed that Barack Obama was allegedly once a Muslim. The problem is that I haven’t found a single media outlet from the nominally Muslim world making a fuss. One Jordanian chap has labelled the baptism "provocative", hardly a declaration of World War III. Most of the sectarian noise is being made by neo-Con sites like TownHall.com and National Review (and understandably from Catholic religious publications). In Australia, only Piersed Akurmen has thus far registered Allam on his radar. Still, let’s hope imbecilic and undemocratic rulers of Muslim states don’t orchestrate a repeat of the violent responses to the Danish cartoons...

Speaking out through keeping mum at the Daily Tele. The Daily Telegraph has an interesting definition of "speaking out". Its report on the Lindsay leaflet debacle today claims the women at the heart of the incident "spoke out yesterday". There’s just one problem: both former Federal Liberal MP for Lindsay Jacky Kelly and former candidate Karen Chijoff said absolutely nothing. Kelly even went so far as to remind the Tele that she was no longer an MP and therefore wouldn’t be talking about her private life. Chijoff refused to say anything beyond what we already have known for months – that she is no longer with her husband. As for former NSW Liberal Party State Executive member and former Helen Coonan staffer Jeff Egan, he didn’t even return calls. Now that’s what I call speaking out!



Challenging Janet (again). Janet Albrechtsen today continues with her obsessive monoculturalism, writing about stringent citizenship tests which the UK government has adopted, apparently following the Australian model. She doesn’t mention whether the tests will be multiple-choice and include questions about Don Bradman or English illegal immigrant Simpson and his donkey. She also mentions reports of Somali traditional courts in the UK deciding even criminal cases, as well as FGM. All this is mentioned in the context of Rowan Williams’ comments about sharia law. Is Albrechtsen claiming the Somali courts and the practise of FGM are religiously-based? If so, how does she explain that FGM is also prevalent amongst Christian, Jewish and Animist African communities? And why doesn’t she also mention the fact that American legal academic Noah Feldman mentioned in a recent essay for the New York Times Magazine i.e. that each time Dr Williams spoke about sharia, he specifically states his remarks applied equally to Jewish sacred law? Or does Janet think Jewish sacred law has no role in our Judeo-Christian heritage?

(First published in the Crikey daily alert for Wednesday 26 March 2008.)

Words © Irfan Yusuf 2008


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COMMENT: Why Fred Nile should leave Australia …

Whether Fred Nile opposes the establishment of the Quranic Society's school in Camden is neither here nor there, as far as I'm concerned. For me, there are deeper questions. I think Fred Nile is a threat to our liberal democracy. Here's why.

Fred Nile has drawn the line. He has declared Australia to be a Christian country. He has also declared that we shouldn’t allow schools that reject Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Christ and the idea that Christ is the Son of God.

On that basis, I challenge Fred Nile to call for the closure of Moriah College. I call upon Rev Nile to hold a public meeting at St Ives which will support the closure of Masada College.

Jews, like their Muslim spiritual cousins, reject the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. Indeed, Judaism goes further. Whilst Muslims accept Jesus as God’s Messiah, Jews reject this notion.

So are we now going to say that Jewish schools are even more undesirable than Muslim ones?

Australia’s first Australian-born governor-general was a Jew. Jews have served in prominent positions at all levels of government, as well as in business, academia and the arts.

Muslims have also served in local and state governments, as well as in academia, the arts and business.

Believe it or not, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Druze, Bahais and followers of other faiths have also contributed to this nation. As have atheists and agnostics.

By sponsoring shadowy meetings and attracting racists and neo-Nazis from outside Camden to spread sectarian hatred, Nile is doing a grave disservice to the people of New South Wales.

Further, Nile’s antics are giving Christians a bad name. Christianity is an inclusive faith that teaches compassion, mercy and good will to all. Nile is preaching a message that has little or nothing to do with Christianity.

Some months back, neo-Con far-Right columnists and politicians were wondering why more Muslims weren’t calling for Sheik Hilaly to be silenced. I wonder whether they will be calling on Christians to silence Nile.

But unlike the Howards and Robbs and Costellos and Albrechtsens and Bolts of this world, I don’t subscribe to the Hitleresque doctrine of collective responsibility. Why should all Christians be held responsible for the mad senile rants of an ageing and increasingly irrelevant fundamentalist politician?

Let’s do some numbers. How many Australians tick the ‘Christian’ box on their census form? How many of these people voted for the Christian Democrats at the last Federal Election?

Need I say more? Here’s a claim that doesn’t need social research to back it up. The overwhelming majority of Australian Muslims and Christians and Jews and Sikhs and Hindus and Christians and people of other faiths and no faith in particular want to live in a country where people are free to believe and worship in any manner they wish. If Fred Nile and his gang of religious fruitloops cannot accept this, they should give up their Australian citizenship and set up their theocracy elsewhere.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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OPINION: Good & Bad News re Hilaly

I have some good news and some bad news in relation to Sheik Hilaly.

The bad news is that, thanks to an aggressive media and political campaign, Hilaly will probably survive as Senior Imam of the mosque in Lakemba managed by the Lebanese Moslems Association (LMA).

The good news isn't really news at all. Hilaly's status in the wider Muslim community is the same as it was when he first arrived in Australia . For most Muslims, Hilaly barely registers on their spiritual radar.

3 out of 4 Muslims don't speak Arabic. The vast majority of Muslims communicate in English. When I want to communicate with Muslims in Sydney , I don't go to the Arabic press or speak on Arabic radio. I write for this newspaper. More Muslims in Sydney read this newspaper than any foreign language paper.

Sheik Hilaly just isn't capable of writing in this newspaper without an interpreter. He isn't capable of communicating with most Muslims without an interpreter. Sydney has over 150 mosques and well over 200 imams. Quite a few (though sadly not most) imams speak English. The rest are largely irrelevant outside their small congregations.

Most Muslims, like most Christians, hardly go to the mosque more than once or twice a year. Some go every Friday for the congregational prayer. The LMA mosque where Hilaly preaches can hardly fit 5,000 people. Auburn Gallipoli Mosque fits around 6,000 people.

This Sunday, Sydney 's newest mosque in Bonnyrigg will be officially opened. Citizenship Minister Andrew Robb will be there for the event. So will be the most influential imam in Australia .

Am I talking about Hilaly? Nope. Australia 's most influential imam is a man who presides over the vast majority of imams in Australia . Most mosques are managed by Turks. Most Turkish mosques employ Turkish imams. Virtually all Turkish imams are trained in Turkey under the Presidency of Religious Affairs, a body run by the Turkish government.

So when the head of the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs, Dr Ali Bardakoglu, visits Australia over the next week or so, it should be an event the media will notice. It certainly is being noticed at most Australian mosques.

I rarely if attend Friday congregational prayers at the LMA mosque in Lakemba. The sermon is always in Arabic. Very rarely is any translation done. I learn nothing at the sermon. Frequently, sermons are known to take upto 2 hours. I have work to do. Lakemba is too far for me to travel to. I'd rather pray where the sermon is in English and I can budget for time on a busy Friday afternoon.

Hilaly may proclaim himself to be the Mufti. But to most Australian Muslims, he is at best irrelevant and at worst a complete embarrassment. Non-Lebanese Sydney Muslims and Muslims from other cities and states regard Hilaly as a Lebanese problem. Disputes between Hilaly and his opponents in the Lebanese community are seen as a Lebanese turf war.

So when Australian-Lebanese GP Dr Jamal Rifi predicted Hilaly's refusal to resign would lead to rioting in the streets, the e-mail lists were hot. No, not hot with plans for which streets to burn and which windows to smash. Instead, Muslims were cracking jokes about how the only riot would probably be one in Dr Rifi's backyard!

Thankfully, Hilaly called off any protest or rally. He went on SBS Arabic Radio and on the Voice of Islam (VOI) Radio to speak. VOI has only one English-language program which runs for half an hour. The rest is in Arabic. Sheik Hilaly's call wouldn't have been understood by most Muslims, and few would have been interested in attending a rally in which virtually all speeches would be in Arabic.

Perhaps it is a good thing Hilaly refuses to learn English. If his views on Jews and women and cats were anything to go by, he deserves the status of irrelevance he has with Australia 's overwhelmingly non-Arabic-speaking Muslim communities.

An edited version of this article was first published in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday 4 November 2006.

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: Petro's spot-on when it comes to citizenship

Whatever you think of Petro Georgiou’s form of wet liberalism, his logic on citizenship issues is faultless. There is bugger-all evidence of chronic integration problems with migrants of any background. Indeed, the apparent problems cited are the same which have been levelled at virtually all migrants at some time or other.

Here's how Petro put it ...

By any standard, we are an exemplar of unity and respect for our multicultural diversity. We have brought together peoples of diverse nations, religions and cultures. Migrants have worked hard and committed themselves to this country. Through their efforts and initiative they have profoundly enriched the nation.

Until a few weeks ago, this was an article of faith on the part of every politician. Now we are told we need to make significant policy changes to address weaknesses in our citizenship laws.

What are the societal malfunctions that justify these changes?

I have looked closely at the Federal Government's discussion paper Australian Citizenship: much more than just a ceremony, and I can find no detailed, robust analysis of a problem, and no evidence of how the new measures would resolve a problem that has not been demonstrated.

Today, those accused of failing to integrate are Muslim Australians. The PM has made various confused and confusing references to Muslim integration. At one stage, he argued that Muslims were a new group, separate from post-war European and more recent Asian arrivals.

This, of course, is nonsense. A few nights back, I met a Bosnian developer who is heavily involved in the management of 2 Canberra mosques. He arrived in Australia during the mid-1960’s. One of Howard’s most senior immigration bureaucrats is the son of an Indian Muslim historian who had been teaching at ANU since at least the late 1950’s.

One Bosnian Imam I know based in Sydney is married to a lady I used to attend Muslim youth camps with back in the mid-1980’s. Her ultra-conservative father arrived in Australia in the same wave as other Croatian migrants.

It seems strange that a Prime Minister so concerned about accuracy in history teaching should make such fundamental errors about Australia’s first century.

At other times, Howard has suggested that the lack of integration only exists in (at most) 1% of Muslim migrants. Muslims make of 2% of the total population, numbering around 350,000. The number of problem Muslims numbers around 3,500.

In the world of fiction that is talkback radio and tabloid blogging (something I too can be accused of engaging in), some 3,500 non-integrating Muslims are a national security risk. Alternately, they tend to gang-rape Aussie girls or bash up surf lifesavers. Yet there are at least 20,000 members of the Exclusive Brethren whose leaders have been accused of being party to a host of illegal activities including: Centrelink fraud, breaching Family Court orders, engaging in schemes designed to avoid paying tax etc.

The PM’s formula on integration is based on poor information and a fundamental misunderstanding of the true relationship between culture, integration and national security. As Peter Costello rightly observed in his Sydney Institute address on citizenship, it isn’t people having the wrong culture that is the problem. Rather, it’s kids living

... in a twilight zone where the values of their parents old country have been lost but the values of the new country not fully embraced.

With all this nonsensical attempt by the Howard governments to regulate culture and legislate integration, it won’t just be Muslims finding themselves in a twilight zone.

(First published in Crikey! on 5 October 2006.)

Words © 2006 Irfan Yusuf


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