Consultations Homepage || Meeting Notes: 13 November 2003
Consultation with the Antiochian Community Support Association (ACSA), Melbourne, 13 November 2003
The meeting was organised by Ms Amal El-Khoury and facilitated by Omeima Sukkarieh (notes) from HREOC. It was attended by nine invited participants.
Have you experienced prejudice and discrimination?
Some participants had not experienced discrimination themselves. One woman mentioned that she had experienced significant prejudice but did not give details. However, she related the following experience of her son.
"It's not me, it's my son who is in high school this year and they have a school project. He had to do a project on the country his parents came from, and it was Palestine. I was very little when I came here but I am a Palestinian too. He stood up in front of the class and he had to present a project, and when he said Palestine, everyone just laughed at him. After that he just didn't want to have anything to do with being Arab again. Then they sent him a [text] message on the phone which says 'Bin Laden'."
"At work, it is to a certain extent bad. If they need something, say if they want me to get a chair from another office, they say 'Oh, you Arab go and pinch it' or something."
Participants talked about their anxieties about travelling, especially overseas. However, it was at least as much due to fear of a terrorist attack as fear of discrimination due to their Arab appearance.
"They can be unpredictable and you are scared to travel. You think where are they going to hit next? Who are they going to hit next?"
"I have lots of offers to go overseas, but I refuse them, because I don't want to travel, and my face is Arabic. First of all it's what is happening around the world. Secondly it's my look."
"It's no longer a battlefield. It started to be a battle against innocent mums and dads and they've got nothing to do with it. I mean they [the terrorists] sat on the aeroplane and they said 'bad luck'."
One participant shares his experience after the Gulf War.
"I experienced something horrible, with my brother who is in Queensland at the moment, which is really scary, and that was in 1990, when Saddam Hussein hit Israel with the rockets. We were down in a suburb in Melbourne, and we happened to make a U-turn and there was a florist man sitting under a pergola or something on that street, so I went to the drive-way which happened to be right next door to his pergola that he was sitting when he was selling flowers. As soon as I backed into that drive-way to get out and turn into the main street, our back window is open and of course my brother is talking to me in Arabic, and all of a sudden, from nowhere, this man stormed at us shouting 'You bloody Arabs, you've gotta be shot and you've gotta be killed, you shouldn't be allowed in this country!'. I looked at him and I said 'Where the hell did you come from?' He said 'I am Israeli, I am Jewish, I am Jewish! You are killing us!' I didn't mean to ask where he came from, I was backing my car and like 'Where did you come from?' So I looked at him and said, 'Well, look, I am sorry that you feel that way but I am Palestinian and you've been killing us for the last 40 years!' He just shut up."
The group agreed generally that Muslims are the primary targets of prejudice and discrimination at present.
"A lot of them [ie Australians] do not discriminate, unless you sort of dress up in Muslim gear and stuff."
"Or if your name is Mohammed!"
One participant argued that senior people in the workplace are largely insulated from discrimination while those in more junior positions are affected.
"If you have a powerful position, if you are a manager or something like that, we get respected at work. People get to know us and they respect us. But if somebody who is lower, then they find the discrimination."
He related the experience of a Muslim colleague.
"During a conference he used to go and pray and things like that. But for Australians, this is very, very strange and they think 'how can you leave the conference, how can you leave the food and go and pray. You miss out on things, you miss out on activities?' But for him, this is normal of course. This person ended up retrenched or leaving by force because of these problems. The whole company used to talk about him. I mean, if he wants to pray he can pray in his room and go alone and do it there."
This story prompted a discussion about the extent to which Arab and Muslim Australians are entitled to retain their values and practice their religion in this country.
"I respect his rights to pray whatever he wants, but the thing is he's got to respect the laws of Australia. Look, I've been in China and at a train station a Jewish man stood in the middle of everybody and started praying. I didn't think it was appropriate. If we expect an American or English or Australian lady to put a veil in Kuwait or in Saudi Arabia because she has to respect the system over there, maybe a Muslim in Australia has to think twice before he does his praying in a community that is not in well-understanding of what is going on."
"Yes, we respect his rights, but also, he can't just stop his work and say 'I am going to go and pray'. The same thing happens also when an Australian lady comes to work in Saudi Arabia. She can't walk on the streets unless she has her face covered."
"Yes, but the difference between the two is, we are here, a free country and non-discriminatory. That's what life is based on, whereas over there, it's different."
What causes anti-Arab prejudice?
The discussion ranged widely over several causes of the prejudice against Arabs which the group recognised exists in Australia. The first point was that discrimination and prejudice are not uniquely Australian or Western phenomena.
"The Arab world did not like what the Americans did in the Arab World. And all of a sudden a hatred was created on the streets back home against Americans in general. Now we understand why the whole thing flares around the community rather than a person or a few persons because people don't understand how to verify between the wrong of one person or the wrong of the whole community. So the discrimination that is not really a new thing even to us; it is a thing that we understand very well; it grows everywhere."
Some felt that Arabs could have done more in the past to head off the possibility of prejudice.
"When they decided to take the decision that Sikhs and Jews are accepted as a race [under the RDA], where were our people to push that we should be understood as a group? We didn't care and that's why we are suffering today. We do not care. We can't blame the whole world because we sit back and do nothing ... We are the ones who are causing it more than anyone. We are always around and it is our duty to let them know about ourselves, but we never did."
The impact of the terrorist attacks was recognised as a significant cause of prejudice.
"What's happening in the Middle East, you see it on the news, but it doesn't really hit you. But all of a sudden, hey, it happens in America, it happens in Bali. Bali is like Australia. I mean how many tourists go to Bali? So it is near home."
"It started looking like a war between the Muslims and everyone else."
"They [ie Muslims] made it look like that."
"Well, they killed Australians. They targeted the tourists' area where they knew that there probably had very minimum percentage of Muslims injured, but they had a lot of tourists."
The role of politicians was discussed. This group felt that President Bush and Prime Minister Howard had stressed that the war on terror was not a war on Islam after September 11 and the Bali bombings.
"What happened in Bali, the situation that happened in Bali, again involved Islam, and John Howard stood and said it's not against Muslims. It's the people [ie the individuals] who we hold responsible. He never put it as against Islam ... The country here is trying to tell people that this doesn't mean the religion. They are trying to say that. Now I believe, if it was in the opposite corner, they will say that all Westerners are bad."
One participant, however, felt that "John Howard did not do enough".
Inconsistency in media coverage was discussed as another cause, particular in crime reporting.
"They talk about how we have been shooting or killing or something and people start to identify the person as an Arab or a Muslim. And if an Australian has done the same thing, they will not identify him."
"These days it is very publicised. People are very aware of the Arab nation."
"It's Asian as well. An Asian does the crime, and they will say 'an Asian' person."
Ignorance more generally was also mentioned.
"Most Australians here don't really know our culture. I have met so many Australians when they start talking about our culture either Palestinians, Arabs etc, they don't really know even where is Palestine, where we came from and even with Christianity, they didn't even know that there are Christians living with Muslims there. They didn't know that."
"There is a little bit because there is always the assumption that every Arab is a Muslim. That's all they know. There are Christian Arabs, too."
How has anti-Arab prejudice impacted on Arab Australians?
The reactions of young Arabs, especially, to the prevalent prejudice vary significantly. Some tend to mix only with others of similar background.
"A lot of them [ie young Arab males] struggle because they group together. There is a group mentality where they all get together and they feel that every race are out to get them."
"I personally won't keep a lot of Lebanese friends. I just think that they have too much a sense of ethnic identity. A Lebanese and an Egyptian, they won't necessarily get along because of this 'you're Lebanese' or 'you're Egyptian' [so] 'you are not like me'. There is discrimination within the Arab community. There is discrimination within the Arab community."
"There's nothing wrong with standing with your community. But, the problem is when you make a core of a community yours and block out the rest. There is nothing wrong with standing with your community; it's just up to the community to understand each other. But, where it's wrong is when you start discriminating against others. You have to blend in with everybody and accept everybody's culture as you want them to accept yours."
Others reject or deny their background and try to 'pass' as 'purely Australian'.
"I would say that there are a lot of our Arabic community who do too much to mix with the Australian people. They overdo trying to be accepted, while I don't think Australians are looking for that. OK, sometimes it gets a little bit too much, and sometimes, overdoing it could cause a backfire in denying that you from a certain race ... Is it because we are ashamed? Or are we really thinking that they might think of us as bad because we are an Arab or a Muslim or whatever? Or am I thinking am I gonna be looked at in a different way, and that's why I try harder to keep away from my community and mix with them [referring to non-Arabs or non-Muslims]'? This actually creates the worst result you can have. We get to a stage where we are ashamed of our origin. The reasons for that is the subject we are talking about tonight. It is discrimination against us as a nation, as an Arabic-speaking people. And probably, I would say, the Muslims are copping a big part of it, with the religion being mentioned in the news lately."
"Especially regarding the first generation, like with parents coming from different Arab countries: the kids seem to be lost between the two cultures. It's due to the fact that they don't want to belong to that particular gang or that they don't want to belong to that particular ethnic group. So they really go to the extreme and try to be pure Australian. My sister-in-law was with my mother-in-law and her young kids about 10, 9, 8. Because my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law were talking in Arabic on the train, they left them. They said 'Don't talk in Arabic, don't say things in Arabic'. And they left them as if they don't want to know them."
Pride in oneself and one's heritage was also seen as important.
"This guy that I know, he is purely Lebanese from Batroon [a small village in the north of Lebanon]. Now, he is purely Australian, and he is married to an Australian lady. When I was visiting them, this guy is about in his sixties, so all of a sudden, with support from his Australian wife, he said to me 'I want to show you a video about my hometown', that he never lived in. His father was born here, and he never lived in this town either. It was amazing. I had goose bumps when he told me and showed me about Batroon in Lebanon. He said that it is a beautiful place and that he couldn't wait to go and see it. And being in his sixties, of course, I gave him credit because he realizes what life is all about. He said to me 'Our ancestors are very important to us. It's about where we come from. We are proud of it. Look, Australia is a beautiful country and we love it, but as much as I love, and you love Australia because you were born here, at least even if it [Batroon] is only a town or a small village, whatever it is, it is the most beautiful place on earth. Why? It's my background and it's my ancestors, and it should never be forgotten if you realize your life and the value of it.' Because if you were born in Australia and you go to India, the moment you say that 'Oh, I am Indian now, and I don't want to remember anything about Australia', hey, watch out. What have you done? What happened to your background? So, we have a little bit of what we call, well we get to a stage where we are ashamed of our origin. We do ...We have to be careful, if we are not proud of ourselves, if we do not really respect our ancestors and where we came from and talk about it even to Australians and say 'You were born in Geelong and Geelong is a beautiful place, can I show you where my father was born or where I was born and proud of it. It's beautiful. Egypt is a great place.' Egypt is longer history than Australia and well-known in world history, and why wouldn't I be proud of it? If I were an Egyptian, I would absolutely talk about these things, the Pyramids for example, for hours, because they are the most beautiful place on earth."
What can be done to eliminate anti-Arab prejudice?
Changing Arab community attitudes
"You should always remember that we are all Australians. You are here in Australia, right, so let's all be Australian or act together. You may be of a different culture, but live together."
"Do we expect the world even when we travel [and live] overseas to take our 'Shariah' [religious law] into their law? It's not going to work. So we need to modify ourselves. Our 'Shariah' law needs to be looked at. Is it, in itself, maybe causing discrimination to all of us, without us noticing? Not that our 'Shariah' is wrong. To us it's fantastic. But maybe to others it's touching a very fine line and we may have to look ourself and clear up ourselves in that way in front of the world."
Changing the law
"Government can only put out a law and it's all they can do. Then if something cropped up, [it's up to you to] take it on and it will be an example. But at least, in the back of your mind, you know that the Government is not really with the wrong, it's with the right. It's symbolic."
Need for anti-racism education in schools
"That's the biggest thing. If you get it through schools, then it will all be finished in one to two generations. I think if you work it with schools and put in a good system of teaching the kids ...It's not like you have it every week or so. You just have a program where they get around the school and talk to them in groups and teaching them. Then within one to two generations it will all be gone."
"When September 11 happened, my girls at school, at the time they started to tease the Arabs, and the school put a stop to it. They got all their Arabic girls together and they said if anybody said anything to them, we want to know about it, and they just put a stop to it completely, and that was it, it was never heard of it again."
Promoting successful community members
"Are we harvesting this intelligent group and putting it on TV, telling the Australians that Mohammed and Elias are successful business people. Or in Ballarat the gold mine; have we ever told them that it was Mohammed and Elias who did it?
