DAR AL HARB-AUSTRALIA: NO WE DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT ISLAM INTO OUR WESTERN SOCIETIES...

Sheik stirs fears over Muslims
Paul Mulvey
December 28, 2006 12:00am

IN September, an elderly Muslim man told some of his peers that scantily clad women were not unlike uncovered meat.If they expose themselves, who's to blame the cat for devouring them?
Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilaly, Australia's senior Muslim cleric, thought his sermon at the Lakemba mosque, in suburban Sydney, was for his followers' ears only.

But he was the one devoured when his comments incited a firestorm of protest.

Many Muslims called on him to quit as their mufti. But his faithful supporters were strengthened in an "us and them" siege mentality alienating them from mainstream Australia.

And all Muslims were once again under the spotlight as their religion's role in our Western democracy was questioned.

Australian Muslims were often synonymous with bad news this year: the sheik, gang rape trials, terrorism suspects, Melbourne schoolboys urinating on the Bible, and a Young Australian of the Year recipient caught up in drug raids.

Even good news soured. When the RSL offered a place in the 2007 Anzac Day march to a 17-year-old Muslim convicted of burning an Australian flag during the Cronulla riots, a flood of outrage, led by talkback radio, forced it to retreat from this act of forgiveness.

Cronulla also prompted the far-Right Australia First party to decide to stand a candidate in that electorate, on an anti-immigration platform, in next year's NSW election.

Many fear that these divisions could tear our society apart.

Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser hit out at the incumbent, John Howard, for creating discord and using fear of Islam as a potential 2007 election ploy.

"There are already suggestions that this next election will be a 'Muslim election', as a while ago it was the 'Tampa election'," Mr Fraser has said.

"It would create a terrible and unnecessary divide between Islam and the rest of the community."

Kuranda Seyit, director of the Forum on Australian Islamic Relations, also holds such fears.

"The signals are there that they are going to use the Islamic integration question as a ploy to create fear in the community," he said. "I think next year is going to be an even more turbulent period for Australian Muslims.

"John Howard is the master of manipulating public opinion. It could be as Malcolm Fraser warned: Islam will be the next Tampa," he said.

"I'm torn between optimism and a gloomy forecast for the next couple of years. In five to 10 years, it will be better."

But Australia First's candidate, John Moffatt, can only see things becoming worse.

"No, I don't hold much optimism. It's an intransigence," Mr Moffatt said.

"There are two groups so diametrically opposed in every way you can think of. You're going to have my view proliferating like a bushfire."

But Mr Seyit is encouraged by reactions to his anti-racism and anti-violence workshops in Sutherland Shire, in southern Sydney.

"There has definitely been some heartwarming experiences in the last year between Muslim Australians and (others)," he said.

"I've sat there and seen some really good friendships formed and an improvement in attitudes on the part of young Lebanese boys and the young European Australian boys.

"Boys who came into the room who didn't want to look at each other ended up all huggy and friendly and talking about surfing and stuff young boys talk about."

He believes that with more education and more exposure to each other, young Australians of Muslim and non-Muslim origins can lead the next generation towards more harmonious relations.

Stepan Kerkyasharian, chairman of the NSW Community Relations Commission, agrees.

"There's a desire from all concerned to improve that relationship," he said.

Surf Life Saving Australia has made a concerted effort to recruit Muslims. And the Rural Fire Service has also embarked on a campaign to attract Muslim volunteers.

But Mr Kerkyasharian says it's not all about Muslims embracing typical Australian values: mainstream Australia must also embrace Islam.

"The fundamental key is that we separate Islam as a religion and the Australians who profess that religion," he said.

"If a Christian Australian president of a community organisation speaks, we don't say that person is speaking as a Christian.

"But we must also accept that Islam is now part and parcel of Australian society." AAP


NO WE DON'T HAVE TO ACCEPT THAT ISLAM IS A PART OF OUR SOCIETIES...

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