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

Consultations
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|| Meeting Notes: 17 November 2003

Consultation with Arabic young
people aged 18 - 27, undertaken by Australian Lebanese Welfare Inc., Melbourne,
17 November 2003

These notes summarise a discussion with eight young Christians
of Arabic speaking background led by Michael Mawal, Arabic Youth Worker
at Australian Lebanese Welfare.

1. What are your experiences
of discrimination and vilification?

Who is targeted?

“I
mainly work with a lot of Muslim people and one thing I found is that
regardless [of religion], after September 11 the people that were doing
the vilification were not doing it against somebody that could stand
up for themselves, so to speak, because they were doing it mainly against
older women, kids, defenceless kids, and people who represented something,
in terms they were wearing their hijab, so it’s obvious that they’re
a terrorist so we have to go get them. Or in America I know that the
two days after September 11 two Sikhs died because Sikhs wear turbans
even though they’re not Muslim, they’re not Arabs; there
is the ignorance of people where he’s wearing something on his
head so he must be Muslim so therefore he must be a terrorist so therefore
we must kill him.

“One
of the reasons why I did this group is because a lot of the time, after
September 11, the majority that were vilified were the Muslims because
they were easily identifiable especially the women who wear the hijab.
But I have always found that I still copped it even as a Christian and
was still called a terrorist and whatever growing up. So it doesn’t
matter whether I’m a Muslim or not, I’m still copping the
vilification and discrimination.”

“In
relation to discrimination and vilification not so much. Me being Lebanese
Christian I’ve never had anything like that happen to me. I found
more discrimination against my culture and the way I live and what I
aspire to do in my life as opposed to what others do in my country.”

Who are the perpetrators?

“It’s
usually the uneducated who make silly remarks and slanderous comments
towards others.”

“There
are a lot of educated people, presumably educated people, who do exactly
the same thing. I have stories about teachers, about workers, about
politicians, where you would think ‘wait a minute, you’re
educated, why are you saying something so stupid and ignorant’?”

“You’d
be surprised how many school educated people are ignorant about these
things. A lot of them don’t even know the difference between Muslim
and Christian, a lot of them don’t know the difference between
someone who speaks Arabic and lives in Syria and someone who speaks
Arabic and lives in Africa. They have no idea. They all speak Arabic,
they’re all Muslim, and they all come from the Middle East.”

Experiences at school

“I
had one but it was mainly when I came to Australia in ’98 [aged
9] I got beaten up in school by the kids and there was another girl
in the classroom who was Anglo-Australian, who no-one liked, and one
day she didn’t rock up to school and the teacher sat us all down
and gave us a big talk about being nice to other people, we shouldn’t
tease people, or hit them whatever… and she was specifically talking
about this girl, then all the kids started being nice to her. So I thought
‘cool’ you can tell the teacher. So I went and told the
teacher and she sent me away and told me I was dreaming. So there was
discrimination and vilification in that. It put a hatred in my heart
towards Australia that has never left me.

“I
understand that they were kids and had a very ignorant upbringing, and
there weren’t that many ethnics at the school; it was a very Anglo
dominated school. I went to other schools later where multiculturalism
is more accepted … [It] didn’t make me discriminate against
others; it made me realise that you should love one another.”

“Just
with all the media attention on the Middle East and the buzz around
the Middle East, when kids found out I was Palestinian background, my
nickname soon became ‘terrorist’. But initially, you really
don’t know how to react until you’ve had a few rumbles,
mingles. It’s sort of like a double edged sword because not only
were you called terrorist and crazy lunatic, you were labelled as a
Muslim. Not that’s it bad being a Muslim but you’d like
to be known for who you are. It’s just ignorance about other cultures
and other societies and that’s extending from the media; media
coverage in regards to Eastern issues.”

“I
copped that a bit because I grew up during the Lebanese war so, it was
always ‘there’s your mum coming with the tank’ or
‘terrorist’ and all this sort of stuff, which I used to
just play up to and say ‘be careful because I’ll just pull
out my knife and stab you any second if you keep saying those things’
and that sort of thing. I used to just play up to it.”

“All
my life of my schooling days. I don’t think I recognised it but
we were discriminated against at the start, and only until recently
till I started understanding these sort of things that it sort of came
to my head of discrimination and vilification. We were always a small
minority, always together and always picked on in the class for being
Lebanese. Simple as that.”

“My
school is very small - about 100 children - and you can tell straightaway
which families are racist, prejudiced. One particular family, straightaway
anyone who was from Arabic-speaking background was name-called a ‘terrorist’
and was frowned upon. But because we were in a supportive community,
those people who were name-calling were frowned upon for being unaccepting.
So that was a positive outcome.”

Michael asked whether there is any good or positive thing
about being called a terrorist. The responses were:

“People
are truly scared of you. People have a better idea about where you come
from.”

“It
means that you’re unique. Rather than being a Western thinker
[thinking] that everything the West does is right, you might attach
yourself to an organisation or a school of thought that goes against
the idea - the West is not always right.”

“We
are passionate about what we believe in.”

The role of the police

This group was aware of and very critical of NSW police
use of ethnic descriptors, particularly the official descriptor ‘Middle
Eastern appearance’ for crime suspects.

“Maybe
because there the Arabic population is much bigger than it is here,
but whenever there is a shooting or some kind of tragedy that happens,
they always say ‘a Lebanese or a Muslim’. But if it’s
an Australian, they won’t say ‘an Australian’ or if
it’s a Greek they won’t say ‘a Greek’.”

“A
friend of mine was in Sydney about early nineties, and he was there
with two or three friends. Two of the three were Lebanese and one was
Italian or Greek or something like that. They were reading in the paper
about a crime that had been committed and the police were on the lookout
for a thirty year old something, Middle Eastern man with a dark complexion.
So what they did was… even though they weren’t all Middle
Eastern, they were all dark complexion and in their late twenties, early
thirties… so they took a camera and went to the police station
and they said ‘excuse me officer but I think one of us must be
the criminal. Can you tell us who it is so we can hand ourselves in.’
And they were just looked at like ‘what the hell are you talking
about’ and ‘who are those weirdos’ and why are they
doing this on camera. But what they did it as was to show how stupid
that description was because it could fit any single person even someone
who wasn’t Lebanese, or wasn’t Middle Eastern. So, that’s
just a little way of people fighting it.”

The role of the media

“Filipinos
don’t get discriminated against as much as the Arabs. If you look
at Hollywood, Hollywood seems to follow world events. Initially it was
James Bond against Russians and when the cold war threats had dissipated
we had James Bond against Afghanistan. We’ve got all these movies
that are depicting Arabs as stupid, aggressive, violent… whatever
it is… rapists…everything. So little kids look at this and
they want to be like their heroes and they see an Arab and they’re
like ok go against the Arabs. There was one on ‘Law and Order’.
About an airline company that prohibited a Muslim from travelling on
a plane because they feared he was a terrorist. The mere fear of terrorism
became justification for discrimination and the courts ruled in favour
of the airline company. I mean like you put a show on TV that’s
respected, loved, watched and all these Westerners are viewing this,
taking it all in thinking ‘you got a point’. And let’s
face it a lot of Westerners are very passive in their outlook on those
things, they’re not going to think against that view, they’ll
adopt it as theirs thinking that it’s tolerated.”

“The
media runs rampant with racial vilification. They say ‘a criminal
of Middle Eastern appearance’. That’s the worst kind of
discrimination. And everyone’s going to be looking out for a Middle
Eastern person.”

The influence of government
policy

“The
government clearly doesn’t want the Australian citizens to keep
their own culture. They want to melt them all and make this new culture.
So, if the government can’t accept this how are we going to persuade
the public approval.”

2. What is being done to fight
anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination?

The efforts of Muslim students on the Bundoora campus
of La Trobe University were briefly mentioned.

“It’s
very heavily populated by Muslims and I know they have their own prayer
rooms and washrooms set up at uni. Only they’re allowed to go
into the rooms; they have a special access code to go into rooms. I
know like when it was around September 11, and the recent terrorist
things that have been going on, they’ve been having like information
sessions on what their faith is and how it’s not related to the
terrorism and things like how they’re different to other religions
and how they believe their religion is a peaceful religion, and just
sessions on asking questions… ‘Are we terrorists?’…are
we this are we that…sort of questions… come find out.”

Other initiatives were also mentioned.

“Our
church released a lot of articles on and against war: what war does
to people, the effects of war, long-term and short-term. It’s
very much against anyone using physical violence against anyone.”

“This
group called ‘Women from Palestine’ is actually run by women
- women representing an Arab group. They do a lot to combat racism in
the west by discussing issues.”

The following individual effort was described.

“A
colleague of mine, about two years ago, actually after September 11
and all the asylum seekers came out, she runs a support group for Iraqi
women and decided to seek some money out, get some funding, which she
got. What she did was she got three of the women in her group to tell
their stories about their lives in Iraq, why they decided to leave,
who decided to leave, what they had to do to leave, their journey across
the deserts, what happened to them at the refugee camps they went to,
how they got to Australia and what happened in Australia. And we were
able to publish that and give it out to people, to organisations, to
make them better understand what an asylum seeker is. So, that might
not have reached millions, might not have reached thousands, but it
reached hundreds, or tens, whatever. So you can still do things. I guess
I’m getting a bit of a message that a lot of you are thinking
that unless the government does something or unless it’s this
huge thing then nothing’s going to be achieved. But you can.”

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

“I
don’t think more needs to be done. I think a different approach
needs to be taken. So, not necessarily bombard people with the same
tactics we have happening now, with like the one little bit of media
coverage, or like little talks here and there, or a poster here and
there in certain areas. But a different approach to handling it because
whatever is happening now doesn’t seem to be making such a huge
impact. Something different needs to done.”

“I
think we need to publicise all these things further. You were saying
with any bits of information, any festivals, all those sorts of things,
now even with the education, it’s all in place. But the awareness
is not there, it’s not publicised enough, people do not know about
it. Not only local papers but the vast media of advertising. Also advertising
through schools where all this education is supposed to be happening.”

Raising community awareness
about Arab diversity

“We
don’t need to raise awareness within our community, everyone knows
what the issues are. We need to raise awareness to the external society.
And when we continually say Arab and Islamic groups then we’re
continuing to leave that spider web across the Arab community. I mean
there are many different cultures and we’re vastly diverse and
we’re assuming that by labelling Arab and Islamic, everyone thinks
that Arab and Islam, it’s the same thing. People associate Islam
with Arab as it is. We need to open up and say that there are Christians,
there are Jews, there are this and that. I mean Christianity, the West
is based on the teachings of Christ and where do they think He was born?
Washington?

“Whether
you’re Christian, whether you Jewish, whether you’re Muslim
- as long as you look Arabic you’re still copping it. The reason
today is that people think that Arabs are one group in the same pot,
and the longer we allow this stereotype to remain … the perception
won’t change; they’ll continue to attack people that are
Arab. But if we somehow open it up and make them realise that it’s
a very diverse part of the world, you can’t just label this person
a Muslim or Arab just because they might look like they.”

“You
know what I would rather, is an education for people to understand that
we’re not people of the same group. That there is a difference
between Lebanese people and Palestinian people, Syrian people, Israel
people, Saudi Arabia people. That they are their own country; that they
are their own people. The Lebanese history is very complex but for people
to understand even a little bit, and will understand that it’s
not the same people doing the bombings or where they’re coming
from so at least not everyone is being labelled: it’s the individual
not really the nation. It’s not the Muslims around the world,
it’s the individual. Not that it’s a right thing to discriminate
but if they’re going to do it at least get it on the right person.”

“We
want the diversity of our background to be expressed. This diversity
will make them realise that you can’t discriminate against an
Arabic person in Australia for the actions of an extremist in the Middle
East. You can’t punish the entire group of people for the actions
of one.”

“You
know those ad campaigns like ‘Don’t drink and drive’,
‘Life be in it’? Why don’t they have a tolerance campaign?”

A lengthy discussion ensued about the concept of ‘tolerance’
and whether ‘acceptance’ is any different. Some argued that
acceptance implied an undertaking or an obligation to take on the cultural
and religious practices of others while others felt it is simply another
word to express tolerance.

“If
you’re accepting somebody then there’s already something
there that you have an issue with. Whereas, we shouldn’t have
an issue with them, everybody’s an individual. If you’re
tolerating that means you’re holding something against them or
you’re not doing something even though you think you’re
doing something. To tolerate a child is to put up with him even when
he’s making a mess.”

“For
example we have Australia Day. In Melbourne we have Moomba festival.
Maybe it’s a good excuse for a public holiday [to] have a day
where all different cultures get together and celebrate their individuality
en masse.”

Influencing government and
the media

There was a substantial discussion about the best way
to influence the media. The main points made were as follows.

“If
you want to change the media by actually taking actions: on the outside,
if you do something, it might not be as effective. Once you’re
on the inside, you can influence them a lot more readily. What’s
on television is not just what the public wants but because of what
some person decided what’s good for the public. And so if you’re
in there you can be one of the decision makers.”

“I
think if there is a strong body that you can join outside the mainstream
system and fight it, you fight it from in a supported structure of people
who believe in the cause. Whereas, if you go out on your own and join
the system you will either eventually surrender to the mainstream of
thought because you realise you can’t survive with your own thinking
or you’ll be pushed out.”

“When
you’re lobbying, you have to join in and be a part of it, be involved
to make changes. Now if I’m sitting on the outskirts doing nothing,
just screaming without trying to make waves, nothing’s going to
happen unless I get in there and do something about it and make people
notice.”

“But
you can lobby as part of a community organisation. You don’t have
to be part of the political system.”

Individual action

“The
only way to struggle against this is for each individual I guess Arab
Muslim to be educated about their culture and background. I mean when
people say to me where do you come from, I say ‘I’m Australian
and my background is Palestinian’. And I just wait for them to
say ‘Palestinian? Are you serious? You come from there. You ever
shot a gun?’ They ask stupid questions and that gives you the
opportunity to go in there and explain things to them. I guess what
we have to do is be knowledgeable in our own history so we can educate
others then we can start lobbying against the government.”

A lengthy discussion followed about the efficacy of individual
action.

“If
you can change the way your friends think about certain things, they
might get to change their friends’ way and their family…It
would be ideal if the federal government came out and said we want to
do this, this and this. But we know in reality that’s not going
to happen.”

“But
the problem is if they continue to be satisfied with this approach that
we change our family and friends, it’s going to be a constant
battle. You’re going to have our group and we can only influence
our group, influence our kids for example. We might influence people
younger, people older. Then you’re going to get primary school
kids that are growing up in the same school system, with the same media,
the prejudices still exist. So you’re constantly playing catch
up. So, what I’m saying is great let’s influence our circle
of friends but let’s work on an initiative - and it could be national
- so we can stop the problem from occurring. Let’s not stop influencing
our friends but we need something on a big scale to try to prevent it.”

“If
you educate yourself and your circle friends, and they’ve got
friends of friends, it’s going to happen to them. If your friends
have kids, their kids are going to have that thought of mind and their
kids’ kids are going to be instilled with that thought process.
So it doesn’t matter if it’s a small group of five people;
that five will come to five hundred. That is the big picture.”

School programs

“Part
of it is in schools. That’s where a lot of the action starts,
or the discrimination starts. Because kids are not really shy or realise
the consequences or effects they have when starting that young. If I
were to understand your upbringing, a Greek upbringing, an Italian upbringing
or their morals, not even a big part but even their morals, you can
slightly comprehend where they’re coming from. People say the
Lebanese are aggravated people. But if someone were to live in a war
for so many years and come to our country Australia, you’d think
the guy is not going to be normal. And people automatically generalise
that ‘ok this guy’s a terrorist’. You got to cut the
guy some slack, running from a bomb every other day, how would you be,
you know what I mean?”

“Something
like that would be good, like you know you have maths, you have science,
you have English, at school. Maybe there could be social studies; maybe
have social studies and multicultural studies.”

“If
we want to truly achieve change within Australia it’s got to be
targeted at the youth… and we’re going to need something
for the adults like a media campaign to educate the adults at home.”

“For
us to have a greater relationship between communities, I think you can’t
start from the top. It’s only going to happen from here down.
From us and the generation that follows. It’s true. Because if
we try to start it on a larger scale I don’t think it will ever
happen.”