abdulhakeem
06-09-05, 12:46 AM
Issue 88
AAP
SPECIAL FEATURE, Issue 88: Muslims set foot in Australia long before Captain Cook. A few were among those transported in convict days.
Muslims played key roles in some of modern Australia’s major developments - inland exploration, the gold rush, the overland telegraph, railroads and the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme.
They now make up the nation’s largest non-Christian faith.
But Australia’s 350,000 Muslims are also among the most misunderstood.
Their leaders hoped the recent summit with the Prime Minister in Canberra would help change that.
John Howard made a point of excluding radical Islamic leaders from the meeting, arguing this would marginalise them.
But many ordinary Muslims already feel marginalised in Australian society, a by-product of the terrorist acts extremists have committed in the name of their faith.
Young Muslim men in particular feel “shunned and isolated” according to Iktimal Hage-Ali of the NSW Youth Advisory Council, at 21 the youngest participant in Monday’s summit.
“There are over 300,000 Muslims in Australia and they are not running to support the extremists,” said Ameer Ali, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.
“These radicals have maybe 100 supporters between them.”
One of the barriers to clearer understanding of Australia’s Muslims is that they hail from so many countries and continents, as well as over 60 different ethnic groupings.
Some are more moderate than others, and there are so many groups representing them that is virtually impossible for them to speak with one voice on every issue.
The 14 moderate leaders who gathered in Canberra have family backgrounds ranging from Sri Lanka, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan to Indonesia.
The vast majority of Australian Muslims hail from Lebanon and Turkey, with smaller numbers from the former Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, China, Russia and Africa.
An estimated 40 per cent are Australian-born, with the ratio increasing.
Almost half live in Sydney, where they settled in the working-class Canterbury district in the large migration waves of the 1970s and 80s.
There are significant groups in Melbourne and Brisbane and smaller numbers in other state and territory capitals.
But Australia’s first Muslim visitors arrived centuries ago, fishermen from the Indonesian island of Makassar in search of dugong and other delicacies.
To them the great southern land was not Terra Australis but Tanah Marege - land of the black people.
Makassar artefacts have been found in Aboriginal settlements along Australia’s north-west coastline.
Some inter-marriages took place; in the mid-19th century Makassar’s Dutch governor noted there were 17 Aboriginals living there.
The Makassar-Aboriginal relationship was recently celebrated at the Garma Festival in Nhulunbuy earlier this month, and at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, in Darwin a fortnight ago, with traditional dance performances from the Makassar people.
There once was a time when Australia actively sought Muslims, specifically those from Afghanistan, the country accused of harbouring Osama bin Laden.
Afghan camel drivers played a vital role in early European settlement; they were invited here in 1887 by the colonial secretary.
They were instrumental in opening up the WA goldfields; the “Ghan” train was so named to honour their part in building the rail link from Port Augusta to Alice Springs.
Afghans now comprise barely one per cent of Australia’s Muslim population.
But their mosques, once corrugated-iron novelties topped by minarets in the “Ghan” towns of the red centre, now number over 150 around Australia.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, ordinary Australian Muslims bore the unfair brunt of guilt by association.
A Brisbane mosque was firebombed; Molotov cocktails were thrown at another; Muslim children were pelted with stones on a school bus; racist graffiti appeared on buildings; Adelaide’s Islamic school was closed for two days after a bomb threat; teachers and students were verbally abused; so were workers at a Melbourne rail depot; the streets of Sydney’s Lakemba, their unofficial capital, were comparatively quiet as Muslim women easily identified by their hijabs stayed indoors following a spate of insults.
Such incidents have dissipated since then, but Australia’s commitment of troops to Afghanistan and Iraq remains a sore point for some Muslims.
“They see that as a sort of betrayal, that Australia has committed itself to fighting against Muslims in Afghanistan, in Iraq,” said Muslim Women’s National Network president Aziza Abdel Halim.
Islamic Women’s Association of Queensland president Yasmin Khan said: “The news overseas impacts very negatively upon them when they see their brothers being killed and bombed.”
Iraqi Islamic Council of Australia president Mohammed Taha Alsalami believes Australian troops should stay the distance in Iraq.
He also believes the “cancer” of hatred and violence should be excised before it can spread.
And he underlined an appreciation of the tolerance the summit was designed to promote when he acknowledged: “If I were to say these things in Iran, I would be shot and killed.”
http://www.nit.com.au/News/story.aspx?id=5585
AAP
SPECIAL FEATURE, Issue 88: Muslims set foot in Australia long before Captain Cook. A few were among those transported in convict days.
Muslims played key roles in some of modern Australia’s major developments - inland exploration, the gold rush, the overland telegraph, railroads and the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme.
They now make up the nation’s largest non-Christian faith.
But Australia’s 350,000 Muslims are also among the most misunderstood.
Their leaders hoped the recent summit with the Prime Minister in Canberra would help change that.
John Howard made a point of excluding radical Islamic leaders from the meeting, arguing this would marginalise them.
But many ordinary Muslims already feel marginalised in Australian society, a by-product of the terrorist acts extremists have committed in the name of their faith.
Young Muslim men in particular feel “shunned and isolated” according to Iktimal Hage-Ali of the NSW Youth Advisory Council, at 21 the youngest participant in Monday’s summit.
“There are over 300,000 Muslims in Australia and they are not running to support the extremists,” said Ameer Ali, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.
“These radicals have maybe 100 supporters between them.”
One of the barriers to clearer understanding of Australia’s Muslims is that they hail from so many countries and continents, as well as over 60 different ethnic groupings.
Some are more moderate than others, and there are so many groups representing them that is virtually impossible for them to speak with one voice on every issue.
The 14 moderate leaders who gathered in Canberra have family backgrounds ranging from Sri Lanka, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan to Indonesia.
The vast majority of Australian Muslims hail from Lebanon and Turkey, with smaller numbers from the former Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, China, Russia and Africa.
An estimated 40 per cent are Australian-born, with the ratio increasing.
Almost half live in Sydney, where they settled in the working-class Canterbury district in the large migration waves of the 1970s and 80s.
There are significant groups in Melbourne and Brisbane and smaller numbers in other state and territory capitals.
But Australia’s first Muslim visitors arrived centuries ago, fishermen from the Indonesian island of Makassar in search of dugong and other delicacies.
To them the great southern land was not Terra Australis but Tanah Marege - land of the black people.
Makassar artefacts have been found in Aboriginal settlements along Australia’s north-west coastline.
Some inter-marriages took place; in the mid-19th century Makassar’s Dutch governor noted there were 17 Aboriginals living there.
The Makassar-Aboriginal relationship was recently celebrated at the Garma Festival in Nhulunbuy earlier this month, and at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, in Darwin a fortnight ago, with traditional dance performances from the Makassar people.
There once was a time when Australia actively sought Muslims, specifically those from Afghanistan, the country accused of harbouring Osama bin Laden.
Afghan camel drivers played a vital role in early European settlement; they were invited here in 1887 by the colonial secretary.
They were instrumental in opening up the WA goldfields; the “Ghan” train was so named to honour their part in building the rail link from Port Augusta to Alice Springs.
Afghans now comprise barely one per cent of Australia’s Muslim population.
But their mosques, once corrugated-iron novelties topped by minarets in the “Ghan” towns of the red centre, now number over 150 around Australia.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, ordinary Australian Muslims bore the unfair brunt of guilt by association.
A Brisbane mosque was firebombed; Molotov cocktails were thrown at another; Muslim children were pelted with stones on a school bus; racist graffiti appeared on buildings; Adelaide’s Islamic school was closed for two days after a bomb threat; teachers and students were verbally abused; so were workers at a Melbourne rail depot; the streets of Sydney’s Lakemba, their unofficial capital, were comparatively quiet as Muslim women easily identified by their hijabs stayed indoors following a spate of insults.
Such incidents have dissipated since then, but Australia’s commitment of troops to Afghanistan and Iraq remains a sore point for some Muslims.
“They see that as a sort of betrayal, that Australia has committed itself to fighting against Muslims in Afghanistan, in Iraq,” said Muslim Women’s National Network president Aziza Abdel Halim.
Islamic Women’s Association of Queensland president Yasmin Khan said: “The news overseas impacts very negatively upon them when they see their brothers being killed and bombed.”
Iraqi Islamic Council of Australia president Mohammed Taha Alsalami believes Australian troops should stay the distance in Iraq.
He also believes the “cancer” of hatred and violence should be excised before it can spread.
And he underlined an appreciation of the tolerance the summit was designed to promote when he acknowledged: “If I were to say these things in Iran, I would be shot and killed.”
http://www.nit.com.au/News/story.aspx?id=5585