DAR AL HARB - AUSTRALIA: MOSLEMS SETTING UP ELECTORAL CHALLANGE BECAUSE THEY ARE BEING "PICKED" ON

Sydney Muslims plan electoral challenge

Muslims in the Australian city of Sydney are due to hold a series of meetings to consider endorsing candidates for three seats in the upcoming State election.

The Islamic Friendship Association's Keysar Trad says the major parties are picking on Muslims, and are using them to divert attention away from real issues such as water and health.

He says the Muslim community may contest the state leader's seat of Lakemba, as well as the suburbs of Bankstown and Auburn:

The state Premier, Morris Iemma, says he welcomes a challenge in his seat.


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Muslim leader attacks Hilali's state poll plan
David King and Imre Salusinszky
January 22, 2007

A PROMINENT Islamic leader has described Australian Mufti Taj Din al-Hilali's plans to field Muslim candidates at the NSW election as "about as helpful as Pauline Hanson getting back into politics".

Australian Federation of Islamic Councils legal adviser Haset Sali made the comment yesterday after Sheik Hilali called for a "shake-up" of Australian politics and revealed plans to recruit and endorse Muslim candidates in at least three western Sydney seats.

Sheik Hilali backed away from plans to personally contest the Sydney seat of Lakemba, held by NSW Premier Morris Iemma, but plans to enlist candidates to run as independents in three Labor-held seats.

Mr Iemma called on Sheik Hilali to bring it on, so that Muslim voters had the opportunity to "reject his lunacy".

"Don't hide behind another candidate. If you want to challenge, challenge yourself," he said. "It will be an opportunity for decent, right-thinking people of that community to reject the lunacy that he's put up."

Sheik Hilali's spokesman, Keysar Trad, said the plan was to field candidates in the seats of Bankstown, Auburn and Lakemba and use their preferences to "get politicians to lift their game".

Lebanese Muslim Association president Tom Zreika, who has close ties to the Liberal Party, said the sheik had a big support base. "He'll have a lot of support in the community. As to whether he's going to win, that's another question," he told Network Ten.

State Labor secretary Mark Arbib challenged the Coalition and the Greens to declare if they would direct preferences toward Sheik Hilali's candidates.

"Peter Debnam and the Liberals must come clean on their plan to run a candidate linked with the mufti against Premier Iemma," he said. "The sheik's main supporter, Tom Zreika, is a senior Liberal Party member and a Liberal councillor on Auburn city council; it begs the question, what role is Peter Debnam and the Liberal Party playing?"

NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam said Sheik Hilali should "stay out of politics and stay overseas".

"He's got no positive contribution to make. His divisive and offensive attitudes are not welcome," he said.

The sheik is expected to return to Sydney this week from Egypt to meet with Muslim community leaders and select candidates.

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Shakira Hussein: Islamic ticket sends all the wrong messages
Muslim candidates will distract attention from legitimate concerns
January 22, 2007

THE reported plan by Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali to endorse Muslim candidates (possibly including himself) for the NSW state election in March appears more like an attempt to shore up his flagging support among Sydney Muslims than a serious desire to enter parliament.

As more and more of his erstwhile supporters distance themselves from his increasingly peculiar public statements, Hilali seems to be calculating that by generating a confrontation between himself and unpopular state politicians, he will provoke a situation in which he can yet again assume the role of victim. This tactic has worked well for him in the past. A significant number of Muslims who disagreed with his opinions nonetheless felt compelled to come to his defence when he was seen as coming under attack from external figures who were hostile to Muslims in general.

The sheik's electoral influence is limited. His support base is confined to Sydney and to Muslims of Lebanese background. Despite his highly contested title of Mufti of Australia, he is of little relevance to Muslims of Turkish, Indian or Bosnian extraction. And there is scant evidence to suggest that even in his Lakemba heartland many people will look to him for guidance as to how to vote.

Yet his intervention is still damaging, adding to perceptions that Muslim participation in Australian politics is about pursuing a Muslim agenda rather than about contributing to Australian society as a whole.

Of course, religiously endorsed political candidates and parties are not new in Australian politics.

A generation of Catholic voters were urged by their clergy to vote for the Democratic Labor Party. The Family First party has a close relationship with the Assemblies of God church.

Muslims also have the same entitlement as anyone else to pursue religiously identified politics.

However, particularly in the present social climate, this would be self-destructive, generating further distrust of Muslims. Australians are suspicious of religious politics in general and much more fearful of Muslim political agendas than of Christian ones. They will wonder what special interests a Hilali-endorsed candidate might pursue and why these interests could not be tackled through the usual political channels.

Hilali may claim that he would seek "a sincere, honest, candidate whose loyalty is totally to Australia". But voters would be entitled to query whether candidates handpicked by a sheik because of their Muslim identity really intend to place the needs of all constituents on an equal footing. This suspicion could then spill over into a fear of all political participation by Muslims, so that any Muslim candidate, however low-key their religious affiliation, would be seen as representing Muslims first and foremost. Muslims with serious political ambitions will not thank the sheik for this.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Sydney Muslims plan electoral challenge

2) Muslim leader attacks Hilali's state poll plan

3) Shakira Hussein: Islamic ticket sends all the wrong messages