HREOC Website: Isma - Listen: National consultations on eliminating prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australias

Consultations
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|| Meeting Notes: 17 July 2003

Consultation with young Arab
Muslims and Christians and non-Arab Muslims aged 20 - 29, Adelaide, 17
July 2003

The consultation was organised by Houssam Abiad and facilitated
by Omeima Sukkarieh, HREOC (notes). Franco Parrella from the South Australian
Equal Opportunity Commission also attended the meeting. Eight young people
participated.

1. What are your experiences
of discrimination and vilification?

Experiences with ASIO

Several participants had experienced ASIO interviews,
most following anonymous calls in the wake of the January 2002 national
security public campaign. One participant was visited twice at home by
ASIO officers. On one occasion:

“They
were talking about that terrorism advert that they showed on the TV.
They asked me have you seen it and I said yeah. And they said to me
‘you’ve been dobbed in as a terrorist’. It didn’t
click to me and I said, ‘Ok, no worries’. And then when
it clicked, I said ‘You’re joking’. And he said ‘No,
I’m serious’. … They asked questions like which mosque
I go to, what do I do? They were being like, not mean but at the start
they were being very suspicious. But when they get to talking to you,
I just said them to them to come and look around the house and they
were ok.”

On another occasion he was ‘reported’ following
a visit by a group of Muslims to talk about Islam [called ‘Dawah’]
with Muslim households.

“We
go three days a month to different towns and we go to these towns to
visit the Muslims there. I had some youth with me and we went to a house
where he wasn’t Muslim, and he actually freaked out, and said
‘What are you doing? This is the second time you’ve come
to my house.’ I said, ‘Sorry, we made a mistake, someone
gave us the address, we thought you were Muslim’. So he actually
called the police and that’s when [ASIO] came to our house.”

The questions posed seemed to indicate that the officers
had a great deal of information about this participant already and also
that they possibly hoped to recruit him as an informant.

“They
were pretty cool, they were very nice. Basically they know everything,
they’re just checking up. They started asking who comes over and
who joins the Dawah and stuff. They said ‘Here’s our number
and we’ll in keep in contact’.”

“They
were helpful as in the fact that they said ‘If you feel anything
or if anyone does anything against you then here’s our number,
please call us.’ So they actually made us not feel offended or
feel far away from them, but actually they can help us to a certain
degree, so basically it felt like there was someone there we can call
if there’s ever any trouble and we’ve got their business
cards. Anyway, everything was fine with [ASIO]. They come and they leave
and they’re doing their job. If you’re not doing nothing
wrong then you’ve got nothing to fear. But if you’re doing
something wrong and they come to your door, then you’re going
to be shaking. In Australia, you can wear the Sunna clothing, you can
have your beard, you can do everything you want, you’re not doing
nothing wrong.”

Another participant was queried about an import of Qurans
and compasses used to determine the direction of Mecca prior to praying.

“They
were meant to be arriving at work and they were delayed. [ASIO interrupted
the delivery.] ASIO called us at work and [were] asking questions about
the purpose of the book deliveries and the purpose of the compasses
and if there are any messages behind it, or is there a purpose behind
the compasses or is there a direction they’re pointing to. Ever
since then at work we’ve started to become a bit careful in regards
to what you say on phones and things like that … After September
11 might have caused a lot of threats on both Arabs and Muslims indirectly.
However, I think the main problem is that people are very illiterate
about what Arabs are and what Islam is all about. They just assume the
worst case scenario.”

One participant was amazed by the number of people in
the room who had been approached by ASIO.

“Don’t
you find that there’s something wrong here with the fact that
nine Muslims in one room and three of you, who haven’t done anything
wrong, have been approached [as if] you have done something wrong. I
would like to know the figures of how many do get approached and how
many have actually been found to have done something wrong out of those
people, like what they’ve got out of the numbers that they have
been approaching, and who they’re approaching.”

Experiences with the police

“[A
cop] pulled me over initially because he wanted to defect me and like
the way he was carrying on and the way he was talking to me ... He wasn’t
actually talking to me, he was screaming at me like I was a kid. He
screamed ‘Get out of the car’ like I did something wrong,
and I was like ‘Fair enough, all right’. And I was getting
out and I said ‘Take it easy, I’m out of the car’,
and he just kept on going on and on. My car has already been through
the registration and it has already been approved for all the extras
and so legally I’m allowed. But this guy, obviously he was bored
and he had nothing better to do. He saw this Arab looking guy with a
beard in the car with blue lights inside of the car and thought ‘Let’s
give this guy a go’. He was screaming and shouting and carrying
on and towards the end, like I’m usually nice when police pull
me over, but it got to a point where I said to him ‘What’s
going on? Watch your language; watch the way you’re bloody talking
to me’. And he just kept on going. I said ‘Do you know what
your problem is? You’re racist! You’re picking on me because
I’ve got a beard!’ Then I said ‘Right, you give me
your badge number now and you can look forward to what’s going
to happen tomorrow’. And that’s when he backed right off.
He put his hand out and shook my hand and said ‘Don’t take
it the wrong way’.”

When asked whether he really would have taken it further,
this participant replies emphatically ‘Oh yeah!’ But when
asked where he would have taken it, he said ‘I don’t know’.

“I
got pulled over about a month ago, and I was speeding. I got stopped
and he asked me to get out of the car, no dramas. He asked me for a
breatho, and asked if I had been drinking and I said ‘No, I don’t
drink’. He said ‘What do you mean you don’t drink?’
I said ‘I’m a Muslim, I don’t drink’. He said
‘Do you know how many guys I get saying they’re Muslims?’
He was being like all sarcastic about it.”

“My
brother a couple of nights ago, driving home at about 9 o’clock,
a police officer pulled him over. He wasn’t doing anything wrong
or anything. Pulled him over and asked him for his license and his mirror
had fallen off. So they defected him for his mirror and they only gave
him one day to fix it and get it replaced and take it to the cop station
and get the defect off. He explained that he worked full time and that
wasn’t enough time to fix it. In the normal case, they give you
three days normally to fix it. Maybe when they saw his license and his
name, I don’t know.”

“I’ve
got friends and relatives in Melbourne and Sydney. It’s probably
ten-fold there [problems between police and Arab youth and their cars]
being more Muslim or Arab. Here there’s a few Arabs that do have
nice cars and do have run- ins with police officers but it’s probably
ten-fold or twenty-fold in Melbourne or Sydney. A friend of mine from
here who’s a Muslim, he went there and he was driving normally,
and absolutely nothing wrong. And a police officer drove next to him,
took one look at him and pulled him over. He said to him ‘What
have I done?’ And the police officer said to him straight out
‘You haven’t done anything wrong, but it’s standard
procedure’. Like he told him that it was standard procedure for
them to pull them over, take their details down, details of the car,
and then that’s it, see you later. They said it was for future
purposes, like if something was to happen to that car or whatever, then
they have the details of the guy. This was in Sydney. I think Arab youth
in Adelaide, compared to Melbourne are more chilled out and relaxed
and cops here know that and it does make a difference to the way they
deal with you. It's hard to explain but in Melbourne and more so in
Sydney, Arabs are looked at a lot worse than what they would be in Adelaide
by the rest of the community.”

“I was
driving the day after I reverted and I got pulled over by the police
and he said, ‘Can I please check your license’, and I said,
‘No worries’. He is looking at my license and he is looking
at me and because I had reverted I didn't have my hijab on in the license.
He was looking at me and he said, ‘I'm going to have to ask you
to take your headgear off’. I was saying I can't take it off.
He said you have to take it off. I said I can't take it off in front
of you because you’re not my husband. It was getting kind of...
I was just waiting for him to grab it because he just gave me this frustrated
moan. He looked like he was about to rip it off. And then something
else happened he had to attend to and then he said, ‘You’re
lucky I'm in a good mood today. I'll let you go into the license place
and get your photo taken like that; otherwise you can't use that license’.
I mean you can see my face in the license.”

Impacts on employment and
contracts

“We’ve
never had the immediate experience where we’ve had clients basically
stop at us and say things like ‘you bloody Arab or Muslim and
we’re not going to deal with you’. We haven’t had
that and, on the contrary, we make it clear to most of our clients that
we do come from an Arabic descent and we are Muslim, and that our behaviour
is professional as possible. And they tend to show some appreciation
and respect towards us once they get to know us. [In this way we] create
a bit of education in regards to what Arabs are all about and what Muslims
are all about. We have a lot of friends that are Australian, not Arab,
and have actually approached us and said, ‘We really feel sorry
for you guys and we can see the truth. How come no one else can see
it?’ And it gives you a good feeling actually. It’s a very
good feeling.”

“My parents
own a take-away shop. If a customer comes in and for whatever reason
they are not happy with something, then they just start throwing remarks
and yes, some of them can be quite hurtful. … I have other family
members who have got shops as well and it’s almost got to the
point, so they don’t scare customers away, they will tend to not
mention around the customers that they are Lebanese or they’re
Arab or whatever. If they can just have the opportunity to get to know
you a little bit, that goes a long way. If the customers don’t
give you that opportunity, it’s sort of like the ignorant people
that look at you and say ‘you bloody Arab’ or whatever,
and that’s the end of it.”

A couple of the participants
had tried door-to-door sales work and had found it impossible to succeed
in rural areas because of their ‘Middle Eastern appearance’.

“Australians
themselves like to deal with Australians. I mean not because they don’t
like to deal with us or anything. We realise in our industry as well
they trust you because they know you.”

“I went
to Murray Bridge with another Lebanese guy [to do sales] and people
literally were scared.”

One participant is
a security guard who applied to work at the airport where wages are higher,
job opportunities greater and the work relatively easy.

“And
my boss looked at me and goes ‘No mate. We don’t want to
discriminate, but you being at the airport…it’s just not
happening.’”

This participant
related another experience he has had while working as a security guard.

“Another
time I was working at the reservoir and they need security there because
at the water reservoir they said that terrorists are putting chemicals
inside the water and that can affect everyone having showers. So I was
working there and I walked up on my first day there and I knocked on
the door and he [just pulled this face] and [he] goes ‘ID please’.
I’ve got my uniform on and everything and no joke he asked for
ID. I said ‘Excuse me mate, don’t you see my uniform?’
and he said ‘No, we’ve just got to do it’. But you
know most of the time it’s ok.”

All participants
understood the practical realities of these situations and accepted them
in good humour.

“More
than 50 % of the time it’s more a laugh you know, but you get
those scenarios that aren’t.”

“I work
in a pharmacy. My boss actually said to one of the customers, ‘She's
converting to Islam you know’. And she goes, ‘Really? A
nice girl like you?’ I'm like, ‘What's that supposed to
mean?’ Then she said, ‘There was a girl down at Foodland
and she converted and she just got so much shit from everybody. They
were threatening to blow up her car because she was a terrorist and
this and that, so she actually converted back to Christianity’.
I'm like, ‘Oh, okay’. The lady's got so much nerve saying
‘A girl like you. You shouldn't do it, this and that - you will
get people threatening you’. I just laughed.

“My bosses
are, one’s Catholic and one’s Buddhist. When I told them
I was converting to Islam they said ‘Okay, do you have to wear
the veil?’ I said ‘I don’t have to but I want to’.
So she said ‘Then don’t wear it to work. You’re not
allowed to wear it to work’. I wasn’t going to anyway but
then I said to myself ‘I want to wear it to do something’.
[Bit it’s not allowed so] I just wear my uniform and put my hijab
on. When I get there I take it off, go to work and as soon as I leave,
I put it back on.”

Other experiences

Several other experiences
of discrimination or abuse were briefly described.

“My dad
wears the full on cap and the ‘abayeh’. We walked out of
the front gate of my house and there was a car load of Aboriginals that
drove past and they had the nerve to scream out of the window, ‘You
bloody terrorists, go back to your country!’”

“[A friend]
reverted to Islam and she comes from an Italian background, a Catholic
family. Basically once she reverted back to Islam there were a lot of
problems at home. Basically conflicting beliefs and the rest of it made
it a very negative situation with her parents. Now neither her nor her
parents could take it anymore, and then the girl moved out. Now she
has applied for Centrelink benefits: Austudy. There are strict guidelines
under which a person can get the independent rate and she has applied
for the rate based on the fact that she can't stay at home because of
the religious clash that has happened between her and her parents and
basically if she had stayed home it would affect her studies, it would
affect her emotionally, it would affect her mentally in a number of
ways. She wasn't allowed to pray, she wasn't allowed to enter the house
wearing a hijab. She had to take it off before entering the house and
just things like that. Centrelink didn't acknowledge that that was a
good enough reason for her to leave home and so they haven't allowed
her to be entitled to any Centrelink benefits basically. She has appealed
close to about six times to a number of different tribunals and still
to no avail. Now she receives no benefits and even finding work is difficult.”

By way of contrast,
a couple of participants reported having been ‘cheered on’
in a presumed terrorist fight against the USA.

“We get
cheered on sometimes and people yell out ‘Osama!’ to all
the boys in the car and it’s funny really. These people once at
this service station they go ‘Hey, mate, mate!’ and we go
‘Yeah, what?’ and one of the guys says ‘F… America
mate!’ And we’re like God forbid!”

Other impacts of contemporary
prejudice

“When
we go [to Dawah], we used to stay anywhere in Australia before, and
we used to have the mosque to stay at. But now what’s happened
is, because of these incidents, some mosques have said we can’t
stay there. If we’re not doing anything wrong, we should be able
to sleep in the mosque and do what we used to do, but what’s happening
now is they [referring to the people at the mosques] say, ‘We
want all of your addresses, all your names and everything’.”

“The
reputation that they [Sydney Lebanese] have, we do get a fair few comments
here. If you mention you’re Lebanese or whatever, straight away
they bring up the stuff that happens in Sydney. In Adelaide it’s
ok so far. But I believe in Sydney, Lebanese are pretty much right out
the door. But it’s still a bit under control here because there
are pretty good members of society – Arabs - who still hold pretty
good reputations, pretty good jobs, they serve the community pretty
well, and they’ve still got a bit of control in Adelaide itself.
People know they’ve contributed here.”

“l reverted
not long ago and it was hard explaining to my parents that I’ve
reverted or what I believe in now. They just don't understand and no
offense to Australians but they are very - like - whatever they’re
told they believe in and they can’t change. When I first started
I would get laughed at when I would walk in with it on. My brothers
and my mum and dad would just look at me, shake their head and laugh.
My parents have actually come around to it because of how dedicated
l am. I just stood my ground and said look, I’m sorry, but this
is what l believe in, and so they respect me now.”

Responding to discrimination
and abuse

One participant
counseled against reacting to abuse.

“If we
turn around and we do something, as in swear at the people, then they
get even more violent. Like one time there was a person who was drunk
and came to my sister, and she’s wearing the hijab, and there
was this aboriginal guy who came and protected her and he was like ‘sister,
is this guy giving you any trouble?’, so if Allah (SWT) loves
you, Allah (SWT) created everything in the world, and controls everyone’s
heart; if you’re pleasing Allah (SWT), you’re praying five
times a day, Allah will send someone to help you. If you’re keeping
God happy basically, no-one can harm you, but if you’re going
against the will of Islam, if you’re not praying your prayers
and if you’re not following Islam, then there’s tests and
trials that will come and this is what we believe. If we’d open
our heart, if our love for the person is stronger than their hatred
for us, trust me we’ll win over those people. This is what I believe
in.”

Another participant
reported that friends of his had made the decision to remove their hijabs.

“She
and her sister have been wearing hijab for most of their life and after
September 11th they have had some incidents basically at university
and at school, that sort of stuff. They have actually gone without the
hijab. Just to see that they have worn the hijab all through their young
years - they are 22 and 23 - through the hard times and physical and
mental challenges. They actually wore the hijab in front of their friends
at school … They have done all that and they've, even up to this
stage, they have just been so discriminated against by people. I don't
know, maybe they got hurt somehow or feared but now they don't wear
the hijab.”

This participant
was determined that he would not make similar compromises.

“I have
got one Muslim motivation that you don't go around by the name of Terry
and Justin and Devon. I don't even try to change my name. People say
on the phone ‘Can I call you Sam?’ and I say ‘No,
not really you can't. I'd rather my name. That's what I'm called and
that's what I want to be called’. I try to make a point to every
single person that at the end of the day l am Muslim and I'm proud of
who l am and believe it or not that's where the education starts and
that's when people start to go like ‘Far out....cool...’.”

Avoidance is one
response; in this case avoidance of media coverage that is considered
insensitive or inaccurate

“We
used to sit down and watch T.V. and news 24/7. I don't even turn the
T.V. on anymore. It's just sickening because how can you just look at
it and it’s not even making sense to you?”

2. What are the causes of
anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?

One participant made
the important point that before planning what can be done to eliminate
prejudice, the causes of prejudice should be identified. The discussion
focused on the role and influence of the media.

“I think
the main cause is actually the media. The media is what everybody uses
and what they show, well that is the impression everybody is getting.
Probably 99% is what they see on the T.V., read in the papers and hear
off the radio, so I think there has to be something done there first
in the way that Arabs or Muslims are being portrayed. It’s not
just about working with the media to show a better image of Arabs or
Muslims, it’s working with people to be critical or not so naive
when it comes to the media.”

“We are
basically trying to prove ourselves when we shouldn't even try to do
that. The actual media itself is bringing something that's not lawfully
right and it is causing us to explain ourselves. We shouldn't have to
explain ourselves, we shouldn't have to prove that we're better than
this because the actual media itself is bringing us to a level which
we are trying to actually rise above. It is not an easy thing to do
to prove yourself in a society where you’re a minority. It doesn't
help when you’re a little group trying to make it to the big league.
It is not an easy thing to do.”

“You
know, what I think it comes down to is just being able to get a second
side to the story, not just the one side you see on the media constantly.
For example, during September 11th and also Afghanistan and the Iraq
War, on T.V., you know the shows like ‘Law and Order’ and
all those shows that never have an Islamic based story, all of a sudden
every show that you flip on that comes out of Hollywood or wherever,
has got some sort of Islamic undertone to it. And most of the time -
not all of the time - the Muslim is like a criminal.”

Participants recognised
that some shifts in awareness have occurred.

“I could
also probably say that in the last maybe 12 to 18 months, l think I’ve
started to see that there are some non-Arab people starting to accept
that not everything they hear is the truth; questioning what is coming
on the media and l think that is starting to come through but it's still
a long way to go. I think that's starting to happen because at the end
the truth can't be hidden forever, so eventually it's going to leak
out. It only takes a little bit and only a few people to open their
eyes and have a look at the real issue and it will grow and it will
come out. But it is still way behind and there are certain groups who
are still trying to push in the opposite direction.”

“Luckily
there are reporters who do show the other side. It’s just that
people don’t know about them because their stories are always
buried somewhere.”

However, the power
of the media and the fundamental difficulties of challenging that power
were identified as major issues.

“I think
the media is a voice for big players in world politics and whatever
those big players put on the media is to justify their cause, whatever
it may be. And I think what they have done in my opinion is to create
a common enemy to the world and in my opinion, that enemy that they
have created is Islam as a religion and Islam as a way of life and the
people who follow Islam are a threat to those political powers. They
want people to fear Islam and to fear the people who follow Islam and
live that way of life so they can justify their cause, whatever it may
be.”

“And
I think after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the leaders of the western
world have felt that Islam or Muslims are the biggest threat to their
society. It's got a lot to do with the new world order, and I reckon
that the government, that's how it fights this threat, through the media.
All that sort of control comes from the higher authorities and I think
that it's going to take a lot to sort of [make it better].”

“When
they have a basic enemy, they - people in power - use the media to discredit
that community as much as possible and make people fear that enemy as
well so they can get the sympathy of the public community to do what
they need to do basically at the end of the day. That's what the media
is.”

3. What more could be done
to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?

One participant explained
what he could do individually and with his friends and community.

“At the
end of the day, no matter what politicians say about Islam or whatever
the case is, there is always going to be a positive and a negative …
They might lift you up and then bring you back down and at the end of
the day it's what you do to yourself, your community and the way you
portray yourself that counts. What would leave a mark on people and
will make them realise that being Lebanese or Arab or Muslim or being
any sort of nationality have actually got a good implication on society.
The more good you do with goodness is why people start saying ‘Look
at this Muslim doctor helping people out or that Arab engineer’.
The only thing we can do is change our little society, our little world,
our friends around us and the people we deal with daily. These are the
things we can affect and change effectively as well and when we work
with them it will make it easier for us to live.

“I'd
be very interested in holding or contributing to holding seminars for
people who are out there that are actually wanting to know about what
being an Arab or being Muslim is. Maybe information seminars that can
be held for people that are interested and just market it. You've got
to just go out there and explain to them what you are all about. And
again that's working through community groups. That's the only thing
we are capable of doing unless they give me a couple of million dollars...”

There was support
for the extension of anti-discrimination laws, both federally and in South
Australia, to make religious discrimination and vilification unlawful.

“Why would
anyone not want it in there? The law definitely needs to change. It
needs to protect minorities!”

The legal protection
should extend to the media.

“There
needs to be more regulation with the media. It's way more important.
Regulations and laws are obviously important but people have that discrimination
in them because they are well educated by the media, so that actual
ignorance won't exist if there are regulations. I reckon they need a
responsible governing body to look at it.”

“Maybe
it’s a case of putting some sort of governing body that has to
have the material put through them before it gets approved to go on
TV.”

The need for external
regulation of the media was underscored by the fact that community responses,
such as complaints or letters to the editor, have so little influence.

“I think
there needs to be some kind of board or committee that’s set up
to respond to all the stuff that happens in the media. There are so
many badly written articles, and not just in the newspapers but even
in women’s magazines like Cleo and Dolly and no-one responds and
that's what kills me. If people stood up and said I'm going to write
to the editor and say, ‘Look, you've given people the wrong information;
you need to be more aware of what you’re writing’. There
have been articles that have been printed in Cleo about female circumcision
saying that it's an Islamic practice when it isn't and people have responded,
they haven't printed it but how come there is no board against discrimination
to stop this?”

“Okay,
but if for instance you were to write back, I don't think that it would
make a difference. I think what they need initially is someone to do
all that stuff to start with, some sort of governing body to say, ‘No,
this article is biased or discriminatory or whatever and it needs to
be altered in order to be put in or don't put it in’. These articles
put in these magazines and on news are there to lift the ratings of
these magazines. These articles are sold purely for the purpose that
they have got a story in them that is reflecting something not true.”

Participants recognised
that it is the popular channels and, by extension, popular press which
need to change to reflect more the diversity of Australia.

“All
those sort of [positive educational] programs are only ever aired on
SBS and ABC and nobody watches. If just one of those shows, for half
an hour, was aired on Seven, Nine or Ten, that would open the eyes of
so many people. Why are they always on SBS and ABC, which nobody watches?”