The Aussie Mossie

BLOG: Closed

2009-04-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

This blog is now closed. Material from this blog will be gradually transferred to the Madhab Irfy blog.

This Aussie Mossie not a pest ...

2007-06-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

Aussie Mossie is an emerging term to describe Australian Muslims, but what exactly does it mean?

One young Muslim woman described life as an Aussie Mossie as symbiotic.
"You can't wake up in the morning and say I'm going to be an Aussie today," Toltu Tufa, 21, says.

"It's like saying are you an Essendon supporter or are you an Australian?" the Melbourne girl laughs during her trip over to Adelaide for the Muslim Fashion Parades late last month (see separate story).

Sometime Crikey and freelance journalist Irfan Yusuf, who has named his blog Aussie Mossie, says the tag has created mix feelings in the Islamic community.
"Some people don't like it, some people think it's quite funny," Yusuf says.

"People that are brought up here, they understand what it is, why it is, and they don't mind it.

"Other people think it's just wrong because it's insulting, `How can they call Muslims mosquitoes?"'

Yusuf says Aussie Mossie actually began life as a newsletter, created by an Anglo Aussie who converted to Islam.

"The particular guy who put out the newsletter, he was a rather irreverent chap, the motto of the publication was `watch out it might bite'.

"The logo was a mosquito with an Aussie flag, wearing a turban and had a beard. "It was taking the piss out of stereotypical Islamic culture or symbols.

"Which is also very Australian, to laugh at yourself and to be quite satirical about one's self."

Yusuf says for many in the Islamic community, such as Toltu, an Aussie Mossie is simply who they are - it is impossible to define.

"There's 1.2 billion of us and we come from all different parts of the world, have all different cultures and backgrounds, so I really don't know how you define us.

"(Maybe an Aussie Mossie) is someone who's quite comfortable about being Western, they don't have a chip on their shoulder about that.

"I guess that's one essential ingredient." For Toltu's younger sister, Zulfiye, 17, to be an Aussie Mossie is to be proud of her Islamic and Australian roots.

"Maybe an Aussie Mossie would be to (wear) a scarf of the Australian flag?" she laughs.

Saffiah Elattar, 21, of Brighton, agrees it is impossible to distinguish between her Aussie and Mossie selves.

"I consider myself an Aussie Mossie I guess because I was born here and brought up in Australia.

"I do it every day of my life, I don't really separate the two.

"It's being honest, being a kind person, being respectful of other people's beliefs and cultures."

First published in the Adelaide Eastern Courier Messenger on 6 June 2007.

Daisy breaks her fast

2006-10-14T04:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight I went to an iftar party at Canberra. It is the month of Ramadan and it is traditional for Muslims to break their fasts together. Tonight it was the turn of the Indonesians to stuff our faces with rendang and chicken curry.

One of our guests was a lady named Daisy. She had wheatish brown hair and milky-white skin. She was from northern Queensland and had a broad Strayn accent. She was there with her daughter, a young mother who wore a headscarf.

I presumed the daughter was a convert and that Daisy was one of the token Catholics at the function. How wrong I was!

Daisy was one of a large number of Albanian Aussies living in Mareeba. Her dad migrated to Australia from Albania in 1927, her mum in 1935. Daisy was born in northern Queensland.

Albanians are among Australia’s oldest central European migrants. The bulk of Albanians are of nominally Muslim faith. They have built and continue to manage a number of mosques and centres in regional areas such as Mareeba and Shepparton (in Victoria) where they have large communities.

Daisy was telling me about the Bayram (Eid – the post-Ramadan feast) in Mareeba. She said the Albanians get together and have a barbecue in true Aussie style, just as they’ve been doing since they first migrated here. Their Eid is somewhat different to the Bosnians, who tend to roast a lamb on the spit.

If John Howard were to meet Daisy in the street, I doubt he would recognise her as Muslim. But Albanians are proud of their faith, even if many aren’t regarded as terribly observant.

Daisy is living proof that Islam is a truly Australian faith with root deep in the Australian soil. It is ironic that Daisy spent much of her time this evening chatting with another Canberra Muslim of Torres Strait Islander background. It was a truly Australian gathering to celebrate a truly Australian event.

In a fortnight or so, hundreds of thousands of Muslim will gather to celebrate the end of Ramadan. The Albanians of Mareeba will also be celebrating Bayram, just as they have been doing for the last 80 years. With steaks on the barbecue and perhaps even a few glasses of arak.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

What Aussie Muslims must do for Christian minorities

2006-09-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

In today's Daily Telegraph and Canberra Times, I challenged the tiny but loud minority of infantile Muslim protesters to siddown and shuddup or find another religion. Today, I’d like to make some suggestions to the more mature Muslims living on either side of the Tasman.

In January, the Australia-Indonesia Institute sent me with a group of 4 other Aussie Muslims to Indonesia. That trip included a visit to a private Protestant university in Yogyakarta, that gorgeous Javanese town recently rocked by earthquakes and living in the shadow of a rather nasty volcano.

The students and staff at this university were all members of a religious minority in the world’s largest Muslim country. I couldn’t help but notice these Indonesians expressing virtually the same concerns Muslims express in Australia and New Zealand.

If Muslims aren’t concerned about the plight of Christian minorities in nominally Muslim countries like Indonesia, they shouldn’t expect anyone to care about their problems in Australia. Further, Muslims have strong theological reasons to act in this case. The Prophet Muhammad promised that on the Day of Judgment he would personally testify against any Muslim who caused the slightest injury to a non-Muslim citizen of a Muslim state.

With that in mind, here are some practical suggestions for Muslims:

a. Imams and Presidents of all local mosques contact and offer support to their local Catholic clergy.

b. All peak Muslim bodies and the PM’s Muslim Reference Group should write letters to embassies of all member-states of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) demanding their governments take all necessary steps to protect Christian churches and other property and to bring to justice anyone who so much as threatens Christian civilians and property.

c. The Boards of Imams of each State and territory should write to their equivalent boards in each province or state of each OIC state and (unless Phillip Ruddock deems this in some cases to breach anti-terror laws) to each Islamic party and remind them of their religious and legal responsibilities toward Christian minorities.

d. Prominent and wealthy Australian Muslims should sponsor full-page advertisements in as many English-language dailies published in OIC states as possible. These advertisements should remind Muslim readers of the extensive religious and legal duties Muslims have toward their Christian brethren.

These are just some of the things that come to mind.

Christian minorities have played productive roles in Muslim communities across the world. Christians like Dr Hanan Ashrawi and Amin Maalouf (author of The Crusades Through Arab Eyes) have defended Muslim perspectives in historical and political matters.

In Pakistan, the late Justice AR Cornelius, Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court from 1960 to 68, defended the rights of Pakistanis to implement Muslim religious law.

In Australia, the Catholic Church is at the forefront of not only defending the rights of (mainly Muslim) asylum seekers but also providing them with essential welfare services. Indeed, Christian churches have been far more active than Muslim organizations, a matter of enormous shame for Australian Muslims.

Indeed, the Pope himself has been at the forefront of supporting peace efforts in the Middle East. He has been a staunch critic of the Israeli incursions into Lebanon and Gaza, and expressed his concerns on these issues just days before his address in Germany.

Anyway, enough blogging. We Muslims have some serious work to do!

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

On speaking English

2006-09-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

The Dooley’s Catholic Club at John Street Lidcombe was the seen of a generational clash on Friday night.

Tony Abbott was addressing an ethnically and religiously mixed audience. He told them it was simply impossible for someone to fully engage in Australian life unless they could speak English.

Some elderly members of the Lebanese community sitting at the front shouted “rubbish”. And the rest? Particularly the youngsters?

I was seated up the back of the room. Nearby were young Lebanese Aussies, including girls wearing traditional hijab. Seated directly in front of me was an Australian of Bosnian heritage. She joined many who cheered and clapped. The rest nodded in agreement.

I admit I applauded as well. But now I am having second thoughts.

Yes, it’s self-evident that inability to speak and communicate in English limits a migrant’s own personal ability to reach their full potential. I remember a sermon I heard at my childhood mosque in Surry Hills. The imam quoted the Prophet Muhammad who said: “When you settle in a land, learn the language of that land so that you are not deceived.”

Deception can take numerous forms. It can be as subtle as misunderstandings. It can also take more sinister forms. The common element in all forms of deception by language is being pushed to the margins.

Young people of non-English speaking background don’t want to be marginalised. They are tired of seeing their faith or heritage represented by people unable to communicate in the language most people at school or college or uni or work speak. It angers me when I see imams and Muslim leaders appear in media unable to speak proper English or needing interpreters.

Young people from non-English Speaking background are also tired of seeing their parents hampered and marginalised due to poor language skills. Many feel humiliated at watching their parents struggle in simple tasks and at having to constantly act as translators.

I learnt about my Indian heritage from my mother, a highly educated woman with postgraduate qualifications Indian literature and language. My mother completed her studies in some of the finest institutions of the sub-Continent.

But when she arrived in Canberra in 1965, my mother found her strong abilities in Hindi and Urdu dialects couldn’t assist her in even buying a loaf of bread at the O’Connor shops. Were it not for a kind Anglo-Indian Hindi-speaking Jewish woman, my mother would have been lost.

My mother had a policy that we only spoke Hindi and Urdu at home. She wanted to make sure her children could speak her first language. She was different to other Indian mothers who learnt English by encouraged their children to speak English at home. Now these mothers can speak English a little better than my mother. But their kids cannot speak a word of Hindi and Urdu, and hence miss out on enjoying their parents’ culture.

I am able to speak my mum’s first language quite fluently, but there are times when we unnecessarily end up in arguments because we have misunderstood something she has said.

My mother has always wanted to feel a sense of belonging. It hurts me when, despite her best efforts, she finds communicating in English so difficult. However, her inability to learn the language has its own background.

My mother’s situation was almost identical to the situation of the mother of an old school friend I’ll refer to as Igor. Both Igor and I were in the same class at a Sydney Anglican private school. Our mums were both educated in their own countries (in Igor’s case, Ukraine). Both performed manual labour jobs in factories. That was the only way our parents could afford to send us to our school.

Migrants who cannot find time to learn English are not necessarily lazy or unwilling to integrate. In my mother’s case, she had young children to look after. She, like Igor’s mum, wanted her children to have the best education money could buy. She sacrificed her time and energy to perform manual labour instead of taking time out to learn English to the degree of fluency her children have.

A few nights back, I was at a dinner of young professionals. An elderly Lebanese Muslim lady was seated at my table. She was the only person of her generation there. She spoke very little English and tried to express her resentment at the PM’s Muslim-baiting. The only item she conceded was of the need for migrants to learn English.

This woman found it hard to find time to learn English as she had to bring up 6 children. All her children have graduated from university and are working in a range of professions – law, accounting, engineering, medicine and education. Her children are participating in mainstream Australia in productive ways that make this non-English-speaking Australian proud.

Migrants who today refuse to take time out to learn English could regret their decision tomorrow. However, these migrants compensate for their language difficulties. They can still make a sterling contribution by bringing up their children to work hard and become model citizens. However, my own experience suggests this can only work in an environment where parents and children are able to communicate in a shared language.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Time For Jewish-Muslim Solidarity

2006-07-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

Israel may well gain its military objectives in Lebanon, just as it always has in the constructively occupied West Bank and Gaza. But Israel is fast losing the war of public opinion.

People across all sectors of Australian society, of all ethnicities and faiths are questioning what has clearly been a disproportionate response by Israel to the military incursions of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Australia’s Jewish community has been largely supportive of Israel. With a relatively higher proportion of Holocaust survivors compared to other Jewish communities in the Western world, many Australian Jews regard support for Israel as a kind of emotional life insurance policy.

But now even prominent Jewish writers and academics are beginning to make critical noises against Israel. This must prove unsettling for more hawkish pro-Israel lobbies. They now see Americans and Australians and New Zealanders and Europeans, people whose support they always took for granted, abandoning the blindly pro-Israel position.

Why is this happening?

Firstly, things haven’t been the same since Yasir Arafat shook hands with Yitzhak Rabin on the White House Lawn. Since then, the Palestinian cause gained respectability.

There was a time when Lebanese, palestinian or Muslim groups on Australian campuses faced a barrage of criticism when inviting speakers critical of Israel to speak. Today, on campuses across the country, Jewish, Muslim, Arab and other students are holding inter-faith gatherings and joint functions.

Secondly, the internet has opened up sources of information hitherto unavailable. Westerners now have access to Israeli and Palestinian newspapers and magazines online. Views and positions labelled anti-Semitic by rabid pro-Israel lobbies are now accessible on Israeli news websites. Previously, such views were only known to people in Israel.

Thirdly, Israel’s treatment of Christian minorities is also becoming known, thanks to the work of writers from various Christian denominations. Books such as William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain are exposing the excesses of Jewish extremists in Jerusalem as they engage in blatant and often violent takeovers of Church land under the watchful and supportive eye of Israeli authorities.

Fourthly, Palestinians have also gained many articulate spokespeople actively building bridges for peace. Attempts to paint Sydney Peace Prize recipient Dr Hanan Ashrawi as a bloodthirsty supporter of suicide bombers in 2003 failed dismally.

Attempts to discredit the recent study by two prominent American academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, on the power of the pro-Israel lobby seem to have backfired. In Australia, we see the paper profiled even on the pages of establishment papers such as the Australian Financial Review.

It also doesn’t help the more hawkish pro-Israel lobbies when their views are couched in the xenophobic and racist language of News Limited tabloid scribes. Today, many pro-Israel positions are represented by the most extreme, belligerent and imbecilic argument.

Recently Australia’s Ambassador to Lebanon declared that it is almost inevitable that Australians will be amongst the dead and wounded among Lebanon’s civilian population as Israel’s campaign in Lebanon continues. When Australians see their fellow countrymen and women being incinerated and blown to pieces by Israeli fire power, when the effects of this war begin to affect ordinary Australian families, goodwill toward Israel in Australia will nose-dive.

And should Hezbollah and Lebanon’s armed forces join forces under a unified command, it will be impossible for Israel’s friends in Canberra to cry “terrorist” when young Australians leave in droves to join in the fighting on either side of the war.

Lebanon is being seen as the victim. Israel’s apparent policy of “an Israeli eye for 30 Lebanese and Palestinian heads” is being exposed in all its ugliness.

So what should Australian Muslims do? Should we raise our voices in anger toward those we presume to be Israel’s die-hard supporters? Should we be demanding Jewish Australians to prove their loyalty the way we are demanded to prove ours when Aussie are killed in terror attacks in Bali? Should we be complaining that Jewish leaders aren’t condemning Israeli aggression enough as many complained (and continue to complain) about ours?

Should we produce our own Muslim versions of Mark Steyn and Daniel Pipes? No. We should rise above such divisive strategies.

Now is the time for us to engage our brethren of Jewish faith. Now is the time for us to hold out the hand of friendship. Because the reality is that we are all victims in this war.

We know there are many Australian Jews who are openly questioning Israel’s military policies. We also know there are many decent people inside Israel (including inside Israel’s Defence Forces) questioning and rejecting Israel’s current campaign.

As Israel’s army commits more atrocities, Hezbollah replies by firing more rockets. Who is killed? Ordinary Lebanese. Ordinary Israelis. Ordinary Jews, Christians and Muslims.

As Muslims, we should be the first to hold out the hand of friendship. Yes, we are opposed to Israeli government policies. But that doesn’t mean we show venom and resentment to our Jewish neighbours and colleagues and workmates and classmates.

Extra efforts should be made by Muslim organisations, particularly those representing young people, to arrange meetings and joint functions with Jewish organisations. Imams should go out of their way to meet with rabbis. Principals of Muslim schools should arrange visits to Jewish schools.

It makes me so pleased to see the disciples of Turkish Islamic scholar Muhammad Fethullah Gulen arranging functions with groups associated with the congregation of Temple Emanuel in Northern Sydney. More such gatherings need to occur.

With so much tension in the air, surely now is the best time for Muslims and Jews to interact and to build friendships. Let the hawks and extremists on both sides talk war and blood and death. Let us ordinary Australians, Muslims and Jews, speak the language of friendship.

Rabbi Hillel is quoted as saying: “Judge not your neighbour till you've been in his place.”

The Prophet Muhammad (peace & blessings of God be upon him) is reported to have said: “You are not a true believer until you want for your brother what you want for yourself.”

Muslims and Jews in Australia are fellow citizens and neighbours. Now more than ever, both our communities need to show we will not allow conflicts overseas to colour our relations with each other. We are already friends. We now must be seen to becoming better friends.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Scattered Facts on Muslim Australia

2006-05-23T05:01:00.000-07:00

When talking about Aussie Muslims, it’s important that commentators have accurate information based on proper research. Sadly, Muslim institutions claiming to represent Muslim communities haven’t seen the task if researching Muslims as being a priority.

Hence, the task has been left to governments and individual researchers. One such research effort was carried out by a team of researchers from the University of Melbourne and led by Professor Abdullah Saeed.

The results of this research were published in a 2004 study entitled Muslim Australians: Their Beliefs, Practices & Institutions. The study was based largely on the 2001 Census.

It would, in my opinion, be the height of ignorance for anyone to write or comment on Muslim issues without having read this study. So many myths are shattered just on pages 5 and 6.

For instance, many people presume that Lakemba has the highest concentration of Muslims of any suburb in Australia. In fact, the highest concentration is found in Dallas, Melbourne (39%). In terms of Sydney, Auburn has a higher Muslim concentration than Lakemba or Bankstown.

Often Muslim loyalties to Australia are questioned. Yet an overwhelming majority of Muslim migrants (221,856 out of a total of 281,578, some 79%) have obtained Australian citizenship.

The terms “Muslim” and “Lebanese” are often used interchangeably. It is assumed that most Lebanese are Muslims and vice versa. Yet the most frequently cited country of birth for Australian Muslims is Australia (some 103,000). This is over three times the number of people born in Lebanon (29,321).

It is also assumed that most Muslims speak only Arabic. Yet the overwhelming majority of Muslims are proficient in English, both written and spoken.

Muslims are often accused of being hostile to mainstream Judeo-Christian Australian values. Yet Muslim rates of marriage are far higher than the national average. 51% of Aussie Muslim males are married by the age of 34. Some 41% of Muslim females are married by the age of 24. De facto relationships are uncommon.

The historical presence of Muslims in Australia is also not well-known. On page 7 of the Saeed study, mention is made of Saib Sultan, a settler who arrived in Australia in the early 19th century. After arriving at Norfolk Island, he later settled in Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania) in 1809 where he worked on 30 acres of land with his wife and family.

Muslims arrived in Australia as both convicts and settlers. Later, during the 1870’s Malay Muslim divers were recruited to work on Western Australian and Northern Territory pearling grounds. By 1875, some 1,800 Malay divers were working in Western Australia.

Australian troops are part of a Coalition force seeking to restore order in Afghanistan. Yet little of the Afghan contribution to Australia is taught in schools. Those complaining about the over-emphasis on Aboriginal culture and history are themselves almost always guilty of neglecting non-European contributions to Australia.

The Afghan (and in many cases, Baluchi and Pathan from what is now Pakistan) cameleers were recruited to assist in early European exploration of the inland Australia. During the late 19th century, they controlled the camel transport industry and played a vital role in the economic development of early Australia.

Afghans were largely responsible for the transport of goods through inland Australia, for laying telegraph and railway lines and for establishing many outback settlements. Cameleers transported goods and supplies to gold miners and to outback settlements.

The contributions of Muslim Australians to our economy and well-being are also not mentioned enough. Often this is caused by a reluctance of Muslims in senior positions to identify themselves by their faith. There is a perception that being open about one’s Islamic faith can be a career and social liability. Negative remarks made by a tiny minority of political and church leaders don’t help in this regard.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

No time to whinge ...

2006-02-24T07:53:00.000-08:00

My immediate response to the comments on Muslims and Australian values was shock, dismay and disgust. It made me sick in the stomach that 2 prominent political leaders could express such ignorance on fundamental Islamic concepts such as sharia and jihad.

Of course, we all know they are doing this as a diversion to other emerging issues and scandals. But I think Muslims need to also consider why they can get away with expressing such divisive views.

The fact is that probably most Australians agree with the views expressed by Messrs Howard and Costello. Aussie Muslims know that Costello’s remarks on sharia evidenced near-chronic ignorance on his part.

They also illustrate our near-chronic laziness and inability to communicate our values to the broader Australian community. If the broader community understood what sharia really is and what it means to Aussie Muslims, the Howards and Costellos of this world would never be able to use such issues as a successful diversion.

We know that Muslim mobs rioting and burning embassies were being manipulated by their leaders to divert attention away from more pressing issues. Costello and Howard are using the same device in Australia.

Or are they? When was the last time a group of Muslim Australians sat down and explained to Mr Howard what sharia actually means? When was the last time a Muslim group even bothered to invite Mr Costello to one of their functions?

Our disappointment with our political leaders is understandable. But what else can we expect when we allow our fellow Australians to be bombarded with only ignorant views about our faith and cultures?

The time has come for Muslims to come out of the spiritual closet and to be proactive about their religious responsibilities. Our primary religious responsibility in Australia is to inform people about who we are and what we believe.

The Arabic word “dawah” is often used to describe Muslim outreach and educational activities. We know dawah is a religious imperative upon all of us. It is now becoming an imperative for our national security and our social cohesion. We cannot afford to sit back and complain about the ignorance of wedge-creating politicians. Now is not the time to complain. Now is the time to talk and act.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Aussie Muslims learn Islam from Republic of Indonesia

2006-01-30T23:05:00.000-08:00

The following article appeared in the Jakarta Post on 22 January 2005 and coincided with the visit of 5 delegates (including yours truly) as part of the Australian Muslim Leadership Exchange Program organised by the Australia Indonesia Institute.

*********

A group of Australian Muslims are currently visiting Indonesia to take a closer look at Islam here, which is often, if not most of the time, seen as a radical religion in the neighboring country. Irfan Yusuf, an Australian newspaper columnist, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that many Australians were not aware of Indonesia's two moderate Muslim organizations Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah.

"Australians may only know Ba'asyir. Not many Australians, including Australian Muslims, know NU and Muhammadiyah," said Yusuf.

NU, which claims to have around 40 million members, is the country's largest Muslim organization, followed by Muhammadiyah, with around 25 million. Muslim cleric Abubakar Ba'asyir, who is currently serving time for immigration violations, was tried and acquitted for alleged links to regional terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).

JI, which is believed to be a regional group of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network al-Qaeda, has been blamed for a spate of terrorist attacks in the country since 2000, including the deadly Bali bombings in October 2002, the JW Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta in 2003 and the Australian Embassy bombing in September 2004.

Yusuf, along with four other Australian Muslims, arrived in Indonesia under the Australia-Indonesia Institute's Young Muslim Leaders Exchange Program. They are scheduled to spend a week in Jakarta, two days in Bandung and five days in Yogyakarta to meet with their counterparts.

The program was established in 2002 to help address misperceptions about the role of religion in both countries by bringing young Indonesian and Australian Muslims into direct contact, so that they may experience life in each nation and observe the practices and interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims in a broad range of contexts.

In Australia, Muslims are a minority, numbering about 300,000 people, and are exposed to radical Islam because of a lack of access to moderate sources.

Most Islamic books and brochures circulated are published in Saudi Arabia, which carry a more puritan version of Islam called Wahhabi, the official school of thought there. "Although there have been Islamic books in English published in the United Kingdom or the United States recently, books from Saudi Arabia are still the cheapest and easiest to get," said Rowan Gould, the secretary of the Islamic Council of Victoria.

Gould, whose mother is a native of Padang, West Sumatra, admitted that the demand for Islamic books among Australian Muslims was still very basic, such as books on how to observe prayers and simple fiqh (law).He said not many Australian Muslims -- who come from 70 different ethnic backgrounds -- studied books written by Indonesian Muslim scholars, although many Australians speak Bahasa Indonesia. "Only a few of us (Australian Muslims) speak Bahasa Indonesia. We should learn more about Islam in Indonesia," Gould said.

Several leading Indonesian Muslim scholars have written books and developed progressive thinking on Islam, using new interpretations of the Koran and Hadith (a collection of the Prophet Muhammad's deeds and sayings), which they believe are still relevant to contemporary challenges, such as democracy, human rights and gender issues. The problem is that these books are written in Bahasa Indonesia, which make them less accessible for other Muslims abroad.
The Young Muslim Leaders Exchange Program may be more effective if it went beyond visits and meetings among young Muslims, and an exchange of knowledge and ideas was held on Islam as a religion of peace.

Fair Dinkum Pilgrimage

2006-01-09T04:07:00.000-08:00

In the past few days, around 2.5 million Muslims from across the globe have converged on the ancient city of Mecca in central-west Saudi Arabia to perform the various rites that form part of the Muslim pilgrimage tradition known as the “Hadj”.

On Tuesday 10 & Wednesday 11 January millions more will attend prayer services and gatherings in their local areas for the feast of sacrifice (known in Arabic as “Eid al-Adha”), the most important religious and cultural festival of the Muslim calendar. The feast commemorates an event mentioned in both the Old Testament and the Koran.

The Old Testament recounts how God ordered Abraham to show his devotion by sacrificing his own son Isaac. The Qur’an is silent on the identity of the son, though Islamic tradition suggests the proposed sacrificial son was to be the elder Ishmael.

Just as Abraham places the blade on his son’s throat, the command is given to sacrifice a ram instead. The rites of the Hadj conclude with pilgrims sacrificing an animal, following the example of Abraham. Hadj also involves a variety of other acts commemorating the sacrifices made by Abraham and members of his family to establish monotheism in the region.

These acts include circling a cubic structure known as the Kaaba (believed to have been built by Abraham) which is draped in fresh black embroidered cloth each year. Near the Kaaba are two hills (named “Safa” and “Marwa”), between which it is believed Ishmael’s mother ran to fetch water for her infant child. Pilgrims run between these two hills following in Hagar’s footsteps.

The highlight of the Hadj is the assembly on Mount Arafat, regarded as a preliminary to the gathering of all humanity on Day of Judgment. In January 2005, TVNZ reported that over 20,000 buses were used to carry a portion of the millions of pilgrims who made the journey last year.

At one time, travel to Hadj was a difficult and dangerous journey. American Muslim writer Michael Wolfe recounts the pre-jet-age perils of pilgrims in his book “One Thousand Roads To Mecca”, an anthology of 10 centuries of Hadj travel writing.

Wolfe’s characters include Ibn Battuta (Islam’s very own Marco Polo) who travelled by land and sea during the 14th century over some 75,000 miles and over a period of 30 years. Also included are “fake” pilgrims who smuggled themselves into Mecca defying its ban on non-Muslims entering its gates, such as Englishman Joseph Pitts who managed to sneak into Mecca undetected in 1685.

The journeys recorded also include the diary entries of an Australian woman Winifred Stegar who married an Indian merchant in Singapore. Her pilgrimage was performed in 1927, with she and her Indian husband running out of money and having to leave some of their children behind along the way.

Wolfe’s own Hadj journey, described in his book 1993 “The Hadj – An American’s Pilgrimage to Mecca”, was a much safer affair. Like most modern pilgrims, he travelled by air. The grandson of an Orthodox Jewish religious scholar, Wolfe adopted Islam after spending time in Morocco.

In many Muslim cultures, Hadj represents the culmination of a lifetime of devotion with the “Hadjis” (as those making the journey are called) leaving the journey until later years. It is said that a person’s entire adult life of sins is erased by a successful Hadj.

On the other hand, the delayed Hadj is also the subject of wry humour. Hadjis are often jokingly regarded as veteran sinners seeking a “quick fix” to their perilous spiritual status. An Urdu saying goes: “After eating several thousand mice, the elderly cat finally decides to set off for Hadj!”

But with hundreds of elderly Hadjis dying each year, and with an increased sense of religiosity amongst young Muslims, the average age of pilgrims appears to be decreasing.

In Malay and Indonesian cultures, it is traditional for Hadj to be performed in one’s early adult years. And amongst Australian pilgrims, young adults are also heavily represented.

Sydney’s Sun-Herald reported on December 11 2005 of a group of young Muslims from the Sydney Muslim heartland of Lakemba making preparations for the journey. One of them was Omar Abas, a 26 year old software engineer and a personal friend of the writer.

Omar’s father first went to Hadj at age 65, and his own decision to go for Hadj relatively young is unusual in the context of his parents’ Lebanese heritage wherein leaving Hadj to the end of one’s life “was the traditional Lebanese mentality. You live your life and do what you want, and then go to Hajj.

“For my parents' and grandparents' generations, religion played a small part in their upbringing. Today it’s different. Religion is very important to young Muslims because it is a way of life.”

For those Muslims not at Hadj, the time is one for feasting with family and friends. Non-Muslim readers with Muslim work colleagues should remind them of this fact at next week’s work lunch. But sorry, most of us won’t buy you a ham sandwich or a schooner of VB!

iyusuf@sydneylawyers.com.au

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

Wanted: home-grown imams

2005-12-29T08:47:00.000-08:00

Radical sheiks have attracted a following because of their ability to relate to young people, writes Irfan Yusuf.

SOMETHING is rotten in the state of Australian Islam. Mainstream imams are preaching mainstream peaceful Islamic theology in a language young Muslims don't understand. More young Australian Muslims are attending classes given by locally born imams who are educated and radicalised overseas, mainly in Saudi Arabia. What is the solution?

The Prime Minister's Muslim Advisory Council wants a system for regulation and accreditation of imams which it hopes will weed out the radical imams, who are accused of misleading gullible youth to a version of Islamic theology which isolates them from broader Australian society.

What the council fails to mention is the reason mainstream imams are not able to attract more young people.

In Christian churches, the hierarchy is dominated by clerics who determine not only theological issues but also manage church affairs. Lay members have varying degrees of input. But imams are not priests or clerics but are more akin to legal counsel who can be consulted on matters of religious law.

Australian mosques are governed by societies whose members generally come from its congregation. These societies are generally divided on ethnic and linguistic lines. Membership is often limited to members of a single ethnic community.

The Lebanese Moslems Association, based in Lakemba, manages the Imam Ali ben Abi Taleb Mosque, one of Sydney's largest. Yet the association's constitution refuses full membership and voting rights to anyone ineligible to hold a Lebanese passport. The Muslim League of NSW manages the Green Valley Mosque. Its constitution allows only persons of Fijian-Indian origin to be members.

Mosque management committees are therefore run along ethnic lines. As such, the imam is generally someone who will toe the ethnic, cultural and linguistic line of whichever group runs the society.

Inevitably imams are brought from overseas. Often they are related to members of the societies' executive committees, many of which are run like family fiefdoms. The ability to speak English and relate to young people is not a prerequisite for employment.

Imams are expected to play roles consistent with Islam's status as a cultural artefact in most mosques. The sermon is rarely, if ever, in English. Women are excluded from many mosques. One Pakistani imam was dismissed in part for holding classes for women inside the mosque.

Yet for the majority of Australian Muslims, such cultures are irrelevant. The most recent study of Australian Muslims, conducted by Professor Abdullah Saeed of the University of Melbourne, shows that most were born in Australia and are aged under 40.

With few imams able to speak English, and with mosques unable to provide a culturally relevant version of Islam, it is little wonder many young people flock to the more radical sheiks. One of these, Feiz Mohamed, was brought up in Australia and speaks fluent English. He heads the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool.

Many will remember Feiz for his remarks attributing sexual assault to the manner in which some women dress. But for thousands of young Muslims, Feiz is the only person who stands between them and jail or drugs.

Feiz might have some unusual views on theology, but his ability to relate to young people has enabled him to attract a large following. His centre is welcoming to young people; its prayer hall doubles as an indoor sports arena, it has internet facilities, a gym, a cafeteria, and a multimedia and book store. All classes are conducted in English. Women are welcome.

Few mosques are willing to imitate this model. Mosque societies are not prepared to open their doors to women and young people.

Regulating imams is only part of the answer. But who will manage the regulation process? It isn't the role of government to tell religious congregations who should preach from their pulpits.

Unless Australian Muslims at a grassroots level take back control of their mosque societies from the governing ethnic cliques, the system will remain in the hands of the same people who have overseen the system of overseas and largely irrelevant imams.

This will lead young Australian Muslims to turn to the "thick sheiks" or leave their faith altogether.

(This article was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 29 December 2005.)

Why Christmas is an Islamic time of year ...

2005-12-05T23:59:00.000-08:00

Christmas is hardly a fortnight away, and already some people feel affronted. What puzzles me is that some of these people claim to feel this way because of their Muslim faith.

Yet anyone who understands what Christmas is about will see nothing in it offensive to Muslim sensibilities.

Muslims believe the Jesus Christ is the Messiah. They believe his birth occurred by immaculate conception to the Virgin Mary, an miraculous act of direct Divine intervention. Muslims do not dispute that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, presently a Palestinian town in the West Bank.

You cannot be regarded as a Muslim if you do not believe in these key events of Christmas. The nativity scene is as much part of the Qur’an (the Muslim scripture) as it is of the New Testament.

I have the benefit of being exposed to both Christian and Muslim religious traditions. I attended Sydney’s only Anglican Cathedral School. I studied the New Testament in Divinity classes and attended weekly chapel services. My Indian Muslim parents insisted I be part of all Christian activities of the school.

At the same time, as a child, I grew up with the Qur’an. I learnt about the chapter of the Qur’an named after Mary which describes the nativity scene in great detail. In that chapter, it states that Mary chosen above the women of all nations and ages for the sacred task of giving birth to God’s Messiah.

Today, Bethlehem is a city where Muslims and Christians celebrate Christ’s birth together. It is not uncommon to see Muslims seated in the pews of the Church of the Nativity. During the most recent Israeli incursion into Bethlehem, both Muslims and Christians sought refuge in the Church.

Both ancient and modern realities of Bethlehem bring the two communities of Christ together. It makes no sense for Muslims to oppose the celebration of Christmas. In this regard, comments attributed to the Forum of Australia’s Islamic Relations (FAIR) in the Sunday Mail on 4 December are cause for concern.

In a press release dated 5 September 2005, FAIR director Kuranda Seyit denied suggesting that Christmas should be phased out of Australian life. The comments attributed to FAIR are certainly not echoed by Muslim leaders in other parts of Australia.

Of course, some will argue against Christmas being used to sell products. Even some Christians feel that Christmas is becoming too commercial, with more emphasis being placed on storewide sales than church services.

I personally feel that the sales themselves are a reflection of a broader Christmas spirit. Christmas is about celebrating Christ’s mass, the birth of Christ. It is a time when God showed His divine generosity by sending His Messiah to spread a message of love and compassion.

The New Testament Christ is a man who made time for the most marginalised members of society – tax collectors, sex workers and lepers. The Christ of the Qur’an was a man who brought the message of God’s mercy and love. Both versions involve celebrating a man whose life was itself a celebration of human kindness and generosity.

It therefore makes sense that people exchange gifts during this time. Retailers who choose to cash in on people’s generosity by offering incentives and sales for people are hardly doing society a disservice.

Islamic teachings state that money should continue to circulate through the economy. Money grows when it is in motion. Like still water stagnates, hoarded wealth is a source of many diseases of the heart. The cure for such diseases is generosity.

So this year, as in every other year, I will be sending Christmas cards to all my clients, Muslim and non-Muslim. I will also be sending a package to a close Muslim female friend for Christmas consisting of books of poems by the Muslim mystic Rumi.

The message of the Muslim saint Rumi, like that of the Muslim Messiah Jesus, was one of Divine love. I hope my fellow Aussie Muslims show traces of that love to their fellow countrymen and women of all faiths and of no faith in particular.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

Flippant Thoughts on this Friday's Youth Summit

2005-11-29T06:51:00.000-08:00

This Friday, young Muslims from across Australia will be gathering in Sydney for the inaugural National Muslim Youth Summit. They will discuss a range of issues affecting young Aussie Muslims. These issues include drug & alcohol addiction, family crises, the Anti-Terrorism Bill and Muslim coverage in the media.

You’d think such a summit would be organised by a peak Muslim body such as the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. Think again. This talkfest is being financed by the Department of Immigration Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA). It is being organised by a non-Muslim NGO called the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

Around two-thirds of Australian Muslims are aged under 40 and were born in Australia. Many Muslim communities – Turks, Bosnians, Albanians, Afghans and Lebanese – are into their 3rd and 4th generation. They have high levels of education and employment and integrate well in mainstream Australian society.

Yet the very fact that AFIC and other Muslim bodies have never organised a Muslim youth summit is indicative of how out-of-touch these migrant-dominated peak bodies are. It also explains why they find it so hard to send the right signals to the broader community understandably seeking some kind of reassurance that the London bombings will not be replicated in Australia.

When asked if any single event changed his perceptions toward national security, Prime Minister John Howard spoke of the London terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005. What made the London attacks so different was that the alleged perpetrators were not foreign terrorists but local boys. The phrase “home grown terror” became part of our vocabulary.

And it wasn’t just in Australia that the shockwaves were felt. Across the Tasman, at least 4 mosques were vandalised in different parts of New Zealand.

Within hours, a small group of grassroots Muslim organisations led by the Islamic Council of Victoria condemned the attacks unconditionally. These organisations had one thing in common – they were managed by Australian-born Muslims who knew how to engage with the Australian mainstream and could address the legitimate concerns Australians of all faiths and no faith in particular held on national security issues.

However, other Muslim peak bodies were much slower in their condemnation. It took the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils around 3 weeks to issue an open letter signed by its president and its mufti (chief imam) to various Muslim groups and associations. The letter made mention not just of the terror attacks but also of the alleged grievances of those carrying out many attacks. A similar letter and with similar timing was issued by the Islamic Council of NSW.

The conditional nature of the condemnations and their delayed release led to suggestions that Australian Muslims would only condemn terrorism when embarrassed into doing so, and only on a conditional basis. The suggestions were, of course, unfair but understandable. What Muslim bodies did not realise was that their management of Muslim affairs was now regarded as a national security issue.

The most recent raids and arrests conducted by ASIO and police raised even more questions about Muslim community management. The majority of those arrested were young men born and brought up in Australia. A number of these men were known to attend youth groups managed by imams and volunteers deemed to be more “radical”.

This naturally led many commentators to ask certain questions. What attracts many local Muslim youth to attend such classes and become part of such groups? Why aren’t mainstream mosques attracting more young people? What facilities and programs are being run by mainstream imams? Are mainstream imams equipped to provide programs to younger home-grown Muslims?

One troubling aspect of Muslim community leadership is that it has not yet figured out exactly who or what it represents. Both AFIC and its New Zealand equivalent (the Federation of Islamic Associations of NZ or FIANZ) are umbrella bodies representing mainly societies responsible for the management of mosques.

At least in Australia, the majority of mosques are divided along ethnic and linguistic lines, and leadership is dominated firmly by first generation middle-aged migrant men with an interest in maintaining the ethnic divisions. The leadership tends to regard mosques and religious activities as cultural artefacts which run parallel to their cultural perception of Islam.

The mosque associations tend to employ imams who fulfil a cultural role. As such, the imams of different mosques will perform different cultural roles depending on the dominant cultural group of the association. Most Friday sermons and other lectures are given in Arabic and another language (usually not English).

Indeed, most sermons being given this Friday will also tend to be in a language most young Muslims will not understand. The inability of mainstream Muslim institutions will be just one of the topics to be addressed this Friday at the National Muslim Youth Summit in Sydney.

Delegates will be divided into 6 subgroups and will brainstorm a number of the issues selected. The summit is perhaps the first time young people across the ethnic and linguistic spectrum of Muslim Australia will be able to discuss and pass on their concerns to the Australian Government.

One would have expected the topics discussed at the summit would form part and parcel of the deliberations and decision making of these bodies. The inability of peak Muslim bodies to involve and engage the youthful Muslim majority will ensure these institutions will become irrelevant in the Australian Muslim landscape. The fact that a government agency and a non-Muslim NGO are taking this initiative is yet another indication of how hopelessly out-of-touch the migrant and middle aged male dominated Muslim leadership is with the community it claims to represent.

The author is a Sydney-based industrial lawyer and columnist for the Australian Islamic Review published in Adelaide. iyusuf@sydneylawyers.com.au

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

A Message To Imams Across Australia, New Zealand & The World

2005-11-23T22:43:00.000-08:00

25 November 2005 falls on a Friday, the day regarded as sacred to Muslims. On this day, Muslims gather at the mosque to pray in congregation. Part of that process includes the delivery of a sermon or “khutbah”.

The Prophet Muhammad has provided guidelines for the delivery of sermons. One od these guidelines is that the khatib (the one who delivers the sermon) is to deal with current issues facing the Muslim community.

Although I am no scholar, I have a humble suggestion for our imams and khatibs for a topic which affects all Muslims, especially Muslim men. I also have a humble request for our imams and khatibs to wear a certain item with their clothing.

The United Nations has designated 25 November to be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. As part of this day, men wear white ribbons on their chests as a symbol that they will not commit, condone or tolerate any forms of violence against women carried out by other men.

I urge our imams and khatibs to wear a white ribbon on that day, and to encourage the male members of their congregation to also wear the white ribbon.

Islam gave dignity to women. It gave women rights and liberties. But some men, Muslim and non-Muslim, choose to take those rights away. Moreover, some men choose to act violently toward women.

Our greatest exemplar in conduct was the Prophet Muhammad. There is no instance of him ever behaving violently toward a woman. He never engaged in physical or sexual violence toward any women, be they his wives, his daughters or women outside his family.

The Prophet Muhammad brought a scripture which states that husbands and wives are like “garments unto each other”. Which man would rip up or punch or kick his garments?

The prophet is reported to have said: “The best of you is he who is best to his wife. And I am the best amongst you because of my behaviour with my wife.”

The measure of a man is how he treats his wife. Yet we all know that Muslim men do exist who beat and act violently toward their wives. Often such violence is carried out in the presence of children, or at least comes to the knowledge of the children.

When violence against women is perpetrated in the home, it isn’t just the women victims who suffer. The children are traumatised, and this can last even after they reach maturity. Other men who care for the woman victim – fathers, brothers etc – also suffer.

Indeed, even the perpetrator of the violence suffers. He loses respect of his children. He is increasingly unable to control the anger or other causes of the violence. Most importantly, he eventually loses the woman who could have offered him unconditional love.

Society as a whole loses. And we are losing. Our women are suffering physical and sexual violence at the hands of their husbands and other men. We know it is happening. But many of us come from cultures where domestic violence is hidden.

In Australia and other Western countries, there are laws which forbid domestic violence and which provide women with remedies against the perpetrators. Similar laws exist in Muslim countries.

Yet it troubles me that when I visit a court located in an area of Sydney with a substantial Muslim community, I see names like “Ali” and “Muhammad” and “Umar” and “Abdullah” figuring prominently on the court list as perpetrators of violence toward their female partners.

It also troubles me that I see so many women with names like “Aisha” and “Khadija” and “Yasmin” and “Fatima” as victims.

Women make up at least 50% of the Muslim population, and at least 50% of the human race. Violence against women is condemned across all faiths and schools of thought. So why is it on the increase?

This is not just an issue for Muslims. It is eating at the soul of mankind. We know that God is “ar-Rahman” (absolutely gracious) and “ar-Rahim” (absolutely merciful). We know that these two primary attributes of God come from the root word “Rahm” which means “the womb”.

God uses the example of the female womb to describe His own absolutely mercy. Yet instead of respecting the wombs that carried us, we see women being subject to the worst forms of physical, mental, sexual and emotional violence in our communities. We even see fathers and brothers perpetrating violence for the sake of protecting family honour.

Yet the most honourable and best of men is the one who is best to his wife. This is the standard set for us by our Prophet. It is the standard we have failed.

The Prophet said: “Help your brother, both when he is oppressed and when he oppresses.” Those hearing asked: “How do we help someone when he oppresses?” The Prophet responded: “By stopping him from his oppression.”

Muslim men need to stop their Muslim brothers who deem it acceptable to oppress their wives and other women. The violence against women will only stop when men take a stand. If Muslim men sit by and not stop the evil from occurring, we might as well be lending a hand to the violence.

I humbly call upon all imams and khatibs to deliver this message to the men in their congregations on 25 November 2005.

Irfan Yusuf

Welcoming Michelle home with an open heart ...

2005-11-18T07:12:00.000-08:00

Muslim peak body leaders need to make up their minds. Do they represent their version of orthodox Islam? Or do they represent Muslim reality, warts and all?

Muslim Aussies aren’t perfect exemplars of Islamic values. Muslims defraud, assault, murder and commit all the same crimes that bad followers of other faiths commit. All believers, good or bad, have their weaknesses and idiosyncrasies.

But in Islam, committing a sin doesn’t take you outside the fold. What takes you outside the fold is what you believe in your heart. And that is something only you and God know about.

For that reason, the absurd comments reported and attributed to Dr Ameer Ali concerning Australian model Michelle Leslie are yet another example of a narrow-minded infantile middle-aged migrant man shooting from the hip and then wondering why most Aussies (Muslims included) think he is a drop-kick.

According to the November 19 edition of the Daily Telegraph, Dr Ali remarked the following words: “If she is a Muslim I don't think she should go back to her job as an underwear model because Islam is about modesty. Taking off her clothes and being half-naked on the catwalk will raise a lot of eyebrows in the community. She can't have it both ways. Either practice Islam and do something decent or don't practice it at all.”

With respect, Dr Ali, who on earth are you to judge? Yes, you may be right that Islam teaches modesty of dress. But what individual Muslims do with their lives is between them and God.

And when was the last time you lectured Sri Lankan and Indian Muslim women who wear sari’s that show nothing except, to use the phrase of American Muslim stand-up comic Azhar Usman, “their back and their fat gut”?

For any Muslim to suggest that Michelle Leslie comply with the dress code set by the President of a peak Muslim body to maintain her relationship with God and the Muslim communities is medieval and absurd.

In fact, it’s just as absurd as politicians seeking to regulate what schoolgirls at state schools wear on their heads.

Australia is a free country. Women of all faiths have the right to dress as they wish, regardless of what Dr Ali or Mrs Bishop think.

Dr Ali’s suggestion that Ms Leslie should “do something decent” or not try to practise her religion at all is also grossly offensive. Islam accepts humans as they are. It seeks to improve them gradually, not write them off before they have had a chance to make an effort.

Ms Leslie has taken an enormous step. She has changed her faith. It will take her some time to change her lifestyle. Human beings are not robots or computers that can be programmed into a new set of habits and behaviour.

I have a Muslim friend who works behind a bar. She serves alcohol, and she enjoys drinking white wine or champagne mixed with orange juice. But woe be tied anyone who says something nasty about her father’s religion. She may not be the most observant Muslim on the planet, but in terms of passion for her faith I have known few people better and stronger.

Most important than her job and her drinking habits is the goodness of my friend’s heart. She is one of the most compassionate people I have met. She is extraordinarily sensitive to other people’s feelings. I have never heard her speak ill of anyone. And when she rebukes her lawyer-friend Irfan on his eating habits, she does it ever-so mildly.

Islam teaches that what matters more than appearances is a good heart and noble intentions. Some rednecks claim that Muslims believe all martyrs go to heaven into the arms of 72 martyrs. But the Prophet Muhammad taught that a martyr who dies with the intention of being glorified will in fact be sent to hell. Same with the cleric and the philanthropist.

The same Prophet also spoke of a sex worker who finished her shift and went to the well to drink some water. She saw a dog dying of thirst and gave the dog water first. For that good deed and for the purity of her intention, God made this woman destined for heaven.

Like all mainstream faiths, Islam teaches that what counts at the end of the day is the goodness of your heart. Whether you’re a barmaid or a swimsuit model or a sex worker, what counts isn’t what people think of you. What counts is the goodness of your heart.

I hope Australians of all faiths will welcome Michelle home with open hearts.

The author is a Sydney lawyer.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

Why some young people get pushed toward extremists

2005-11-10T07:16:00.000-08:00

Dr Ameer Ali, President of the migrant-dominated Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, is worried about the spectre of rednecks hating Muslims.

He should be more worried about young Muslims who may be tempted to blow themselves up and take a whole heap of innocent people with them.

Rednecks are a problem. They do bin Ladin’s work by making ordinary law-abiding mainstream Aussie Mossies feel isolated and marginalised. Bin Ladin wants Muslims to feel isolated in the hope they will join his mad pseudo-jihad.

But why should young well-adjusted educated Australian-born youth be attracted to the message of hate? Is it a few government foreign policy blunders or paranoid tabloid columnists that push young people toward extremism?

The fact is that the leaders complaining about the backlash are themselves largely responsible for the radicalisation of some young Muslims. These leaders have a lot to answer for.

On 2 March 2000, the Supreme Court of NSW delivered its judgment in a marathon case between two peak Muslim bodies. The Islamic Council of NSW took on Dr Ameer Ali’s body, spending thousands of dollars arguing over a range of matters.

Who knows how many thousands of dollars were spent in legal fees. Both sides hired big-city law firms, and both had senior barristers appearing for them at the hearing.

These two bodies consist of member societies which are dominated by first generation migrants. Virtually all mosques have imams trained overseas with poor command of English. Most imams have very little understanding of the problems faced by young people growing up suspended between parental cultural pressures and mainstream Australian life. These imams practise a cultural form of Islam with little relevance to Australian conditions.

The imams are employed often on short-term contracts and are poorly paid. They must support the existing executive committees managing the mosque. The imams deliver their sermons in Arabic and the language most commonly spoken by the ethnic committee members managing the mosque.

Many mosques bar or discourage women from attending. Young people are often discouraged from participating in the executive committee.

These societies join together to form State councils which come together to form the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC). But in recent times, AFIC has spent much of its time and resources trying to remove councils it doesn’t like.

In New State Wales, AFIC had formed 2 Islamic councils in a space of 5 years. It created the Supreme Islamic Council (often jokingly referred to as “the Supreme Pizza Council”) to replace the original Islamic Council. It then kicked out the Supreme Pizza Council and replaced it with the Muslim Council of NSW (often jokingly referred to as the “Super-Supreme Council”).

A bit like John Howard having a fight with Morris Iemma and then kicking out New South Wales from the Commonwealth to be replaced by New Zealand.

While all these silly political games are being played, young Muslims are searching for answers and meaning to their lives. Most mainstream imams cannot help them, and many are forced to learn themselves by reading books. And so many books freely distributed in Australia by peak bodies and others teach an isolationist theology that encourages Muslim youth to emphasise their differences from their fellow Australians.

And because the imams cannot speak English and the mosques are dominated by migrants disinterested in the problems of young people, many youth are attracted to those whom Sydney Radio personality Mike Carlton describes as the “thick-Sheiks”.

Whatever we think of these thick-Sheiks, one thing most have is the ability to speak English. Also, the thick-Sheiks have established centres where activities and support services for young people and Muslim converts are provided.

The thick-Sheiks make use of modern technology and means of communication to get their message across. Because they actually listen to young people, the thick-Sheiks are able to provide services young people want – sporting and fitness activities, multimedia products, internet access and other facilities you would find in any local youth centre.

But most important, the thick-Sheiks are able to communicate their fringe ideas in a language young people can understand. And because the thick-Sheiks have a simplistic and volatile theology, their charisma often wins over young people with little exposure to mainstream Islamic ideas.

You rarely see thick-Sheiks preaching in mainstream mosques. They know that Muslim migrants brought up on mainstream Islam can recognise a fringe sect when they see one. In fact, many thick-Sheiks have been banned from local mosques.

The migrant parents may recognise the thick-Sheiks as representing a fringe cult. But what would young people know? They can’t understand the sermon down at the local mosque. And the elders at the mosque arrange things in a manner local kids simply cannot relate to.

So you have young people reading isolationist literature distributed free by peak bodies. They are often made to feel unwelcome at the mosque, and the imam can’t help them with the normal problems most young Aussie face. Yet a few suburbs away is a centre where the imam speaks English and where you can play some sport and meet other young people in the same predicament.

And so you have very Australian kids being pushed by migrant Muslim leaders into the waiting arms of fringe extremists. Yet some peak bodies continue to complain about being marginalised by rednecks. But so many peak body leaders have been part of community structures that isolate and alienate Aussie Muslims, both the young and converts.

Methinks the only rednecks out there (apart from some Liberal backbenchers) are those migrant leaders who divide their faith-community along ethnic lines and push young Aussie Muslims toward fringe groups.

iyusuf@sydneylawyers.com.au

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

Mooning and Terrorising

2005-11-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

Some months ago, a Melbourne tabloid made a huge deal about how imams in Melbourne still couldn’t figure out whether Usama bin Ladin had something to do with 9-11. It was somehow inferred that imams were some deep dark force of extremism within the Muslim communities south of the Murray River.

(Of course, what the tabloid didn’t mention was that many imams probably think the Russians are still occupying Afghanistan, and regard Usama as still one of Ronald Reagan’s political love-children!)

Some neo-Conservative commentators published in the Opinion pages of that American newspaper known as The Australian claim that the biggest threat of terror to Western countries comes from Muslim minorities. It is said that Muslim cultures forbid their adherents from properly integrating with their host societies. Some even suggest that mosques and imams are at the forefront of hiding terrorists and plotting terrorist attacks.

That’s what the paranoid neo-Cons claim. But let’s be serious here. Pulling off a terrorist act requires meticulous planning and execution. The September 11 attacks were timed to perfection. It was all coordinated, the hijackers were trained and the level of damage was almost predetermined.

I am not for one moment suggesting that the people responsible for 9-11 were not from Muslim countries or backgrounds. But seriously, I find it really hard to believe that imams and Muslim organisational leaders could pull off a stunt like that.

How do I know this? Because these guys (and no, I’m not being sexist) couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. Consider this.

The Islamic religious festivals are determined by the Islamic calendar which is a lunar calendar. This means that, in terms of our solar calendar, Ramadan and other Islamic months begin and end on different days each year.

Back in the days of the Prophet Muhammad some 14 centuries ago, people used to sight the new moon with their naked eye. Those were the days before telescopes, and well before men landed on the moon.

At that time, the Prophet gave instructions about what to look out for when using their naked eye to see the new moon. Then again, he also gave instructions on how to calculate the times for prayer using the length of a stick’s shadow.

Today, of course, we don’t need sticks and shadows. Instead, we have watches and prayer timetables to determine when to face Mecca. But when it comes to determining when the months begin and end, each year sees a fresh controversy. And Aussie imams are at the thick of it.

Australian mosques are largely organised along ethnic lines. For instance, the Imam Ali Mosque in Lakemba is known to be a Lebanese Mosque. In fact, you cannot be a member of its managing association, the Lebanese Moslems Association, unless you are eligible for a Lebanese passport.

The ethnic group with the largest number of mosques and imams are the Turks. And in Turkey, imams, astronomers and mathematicians have calculated the lunar months well in advance. That means each year, Turkish Muslims in Australia and across the world know exactly when Ramadan begins and when the feast of Eid (to celebrate the end of Ramadan) will be.

The other ex-Ottoman Muslim groups (Bosnians, Cypriots and Albanians) tend to follow the Turks. The Lebanese and other Arabs also fall into line. So do the Indonesians, Malaysians and Central Asians.

But a sizeable number of imams and ethnic groups insist that pre-determined dates are not valid. They insist on sighting the moon with their naked eye. This inevitably means they start fasting a day later and have their Eid feast 1 or 2 days after everyone else.

Those who follow the naked-eyes method claim their way is closer to the way of the Prophet Muhammad who insisted on using the naked eye. The rest of the people say that insisting on actual sightings is a silly as throwing our watches and prayer timetables away and grabbing sticks and calculating their shadows. Or like throwing out the cars and investing in some camels.

Who is correct? Which method is right? Well, for the average Muslim, it really doesn’t matter. They just wish all the imams and mosques could agree. I mean, think about it. You employ 3 Muslims. Each wants to take a day off for Eid so they can spend time with their family. But each has Eid on separate days. What would you do?

Or imagine trying to explain to your boss why your imam says Eid is on Thursday while your colleague’s imam says Eid is on Friday.

This is exactly what happened this year. And to make matters worse, Muslims are still arguing about it. On the forum pages of IslamicSydney.com, they are now into their 5th page of argument on the issue.

With Muslims too busy mooning each other over whether to sight with the naked eye, it’s highly their imams could have the time to plot a terrorist attack. But this isn’t the most mundane thing Muslims argue about. Some Muslims actually argue about … wait for it … where to place their hands in prayer! Some claim wahhabi Muslims are the real terrorists. But most wahhabis I know are too busy objecting to the way I pray because I place my hands just below my belly button and not on my chest as they do.

It gets better. There are verses in the Qur’an talking about God’s hands and eyes. Now some Muslims actually will argue until they are black and blue in the face. And what about? About whether you take these references literally or metaphorically.

Imams and their followers can hardly be expected to pull off a terrorist attack when they cannot even agree on basic matters. To expect them to do otherwise is giving them more credit than is due to them.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

Islam and Australian Politics: Can a Muslim get elected to Parliament During the War on Terror

2005-10-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

by Ed Husic

I would like to thank Gerard, Anne and the Sydney Institute for the chance to speak with you tonight.

A few years ago I would never have imagined myself talking to The Sydney Institute about Islamic issues and contemporary Australian politics.

But a lot has changed in four years.

It’s well established now that September 11 re-directed our lives both individually and collectively.

Even the phrase 9/11 invokes a reaction, perhaps silent, but undeniably evident.

Since 9/11 secular, predominantly Christian, Western societies are actively contemplating their relations with Muslims.

My address to you tonight is part of this contemplation.

Tonight will not deliver an in-depth lecture on the cornerstones of Islam.

As a former party political candidate in a Federal election – who is Muslim – I don’t intend to burden this talk with partisan points.

My arguments tonight are not framed upon a sense of victimhood or belief in denied opportunity. And I don’t come here to unload sour grapes.

I certainly won’t be pointing fingers at people within my party. I don’t seek to make myself stand out by trampling the reputations of others.

I have received great party support, spearheaded by the former NSW ALP Secretary Eric Roozendaal, maintained strongly by his successor Mark Arbib and buttressed by the goodwill and hard work of volunteers from local ALP branch members – and non ALP supporters who wanted to lend a hand on my campaign.

Right upfront I should tell you: neither I nor anyone else who was part of my campaign team believes I lost the election solely because of my religion.

A scare campaign about interest rates and the capabilities and limitations of our former Federal Labor Leader helped weigh down Labor’s vote in Greenway.

I would like to build tonight’s address on positive foundations – so as to look forward, so that we can strengthen relations at a critical juncture in home affairs.

Islam in Australia

It’s estimated that 1.5 per cent of all Australians identify themselves as ‘Muslim’.

Muslims immigrated to this country from all corners of the globe, over the course of nearly 150 years.

Islam first came to our shores with the arrival of around 2,000 to 4,000 Afghans in the late 19th century.

At around this time – in the 1870s to 1880s –many Lebanese Muslims started migrating to Australia, although, according to Fethi Mansouri, they identified themselves as Syrians – only to be later classified as Asians under the then Immigration Restriction Act 1901.

Noticeable growth in our local Muslim communities only occurred after 1970. This was driven largely through the migration of Lebanese and Turkish Muslims.

Lebanese born Muslims make up around ten per cent of Australia’s Muslim population, Turkish born around eight per cent.

Many Muslims who migrate to Australia are eager to forge a close bond with their new country.

In research by Michael Humphrey, we know that very high numbers of overseas born Muslims take enthusiastic steps down the path of naturalisation, which Humphrey argues reflects Muslim identification with Australia.

Within Middle East immigrants, the take up of citizenship is 74 per cent – nearly 92 per cent among Lebanese-born migrants.

Humphrey argues that liberalised citizenship laws helps cement stronger identification with Australia, as opposed to the situation in Europe. This is an important point to reflect upon.

However as I said earlier Muslim immigrants arrived from all over the world – from nearly 60 different countries.

Given this, it is not accurate to lump Islam as a monolith. Just as world outlooks might vary between Catholics, Protestants and Anglicans, the same can be said within communities of Sunni, Shite and Ahmadiyya Muslims.

A sizeable section of the world’s total Muslim population lives within the lands of the continent that is one of our greatest trading partners – Asia. Within Asia there are 400 million people who call themselves Muslim.

And within this region, Malaysia and Indonesia are strong examples of how democracy, market economies and Islam can co-exist. Malaysia – in the memorable words of Bob Carr – is punching above its weight, transforming itself into a model of pluralistic Islam.

The reason I’ve listed these facts is to highlight two important points:

·The ethnic diversity of Muslims means you cannot apply a ‘one size fits all’ interpretation to their motivations and political outlook.
·Secondly, there are compelling reasons for us as a nation to build a greater understanding of Islam, and to appreciate the various world outlooks of the different people who call themselves Muslim.

My own upbringing – importance of education

I mentioned earlier that Muslims were drawn here from 60 different countries across the world. One of them was the former Yugoslavia, chiefly Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Both of my parents migrated from the former Yugoslavia in the late 1960s.

Dad worked, as a welder. He travelled away from home regularly to follow work.

Mum stayed at home to mind my brother, sister and I.

We grew up in Western Sydney.

Getting educated was a big deal in my family.

We attended local public schools in Blacktown, Blacktown South Public School and Mitchell High School.

Dad didn’t want us to take blue-collar jobs. He lived through recessions and redundancies. He said blue-collar workers suffered worse through downturns. He said he never wanted his kids to have to go through that.

So he pushed us to learn. He wanted us to become doctors or lawyers – a dream job of ethnic parents.

Conveniently overlooking their advice I took up an Arts degree at the University of Western Sydney, my brother became a mechanic and my sister took up Arts at Sydney Uni, then transferred to UWS.

While their children’s education choices denied them the chance at gaining free medical and legal services in their later years, my parents were happy to see that we took on further education.

Besides emphasising education, my parents were big on tolerance. And this wasn’t a surreal concept to be learnt through book or lecture – our family breathed the value.

We maintained close friendships with people from different backgrounds -- Catholics from Mauritius, Croatia, Albania, Eastern Orthodox Serbs, Church of England Aussies.

And some of the funniest things I saw growing up was coming home to see Dad talking theology in our lounge room with Jehovahs’ Witnesses or Mormons.

I don’t think they knew what they were getting themselves into when they knocked on our door.

But they received traditional Bosnian hospitality with cake and coffee strong enough to keep you awake for days.

Religion as a political issue 2004

I knew religion was going to be an issue during the federal election. I knew people would raise my religion whenever I stood for public office. I wasn’t naïve.

I could put myself in the shoes of others who wonder “Can a Muslim represent me in Parliament, if he or she has no connection with my take on the world?” Muslims aren’t the only people to confront this.

The test for anyone running for Parliament should not focus on their religion. It should focus on the potential contribution they might make to elected office – chiefly, how will they help their local community?

I always saw myself as just a regular Australian, who happened to be Muslim. I never saw myself as a Muslim candidate. I ran because I wanted to get things done for the area I grew up in.

The first time that many people knew I was Muslim was during the campaign. And many of these people had known me for 10 years.

When people are asked to list their religion on their census form they put down their answer, while probably only going to church one or twice a year. I can relate in my own terms to the way people refer to themselves as ‘cultural Catholics’.

In July 2003 I was endorsed unopposed as the ALP candidate for Greenway.

Coming as it did after the strain of One Nation and September 11, I interpreted my preselection as proof positive that religion was not seen as a disqualifier for preselection in the ALP or contemporary Australia.

Then, one year out from the 2004 election, pollsters were calling homes across Greenway, probing voters thoughts on a variety of federal matters. One question stood out.

·“Of the following people who would you be more likely to vote for: a married man, three children, regular church goer, a woman with two children, or a single 33 year old man (the last description was about me)?”

I knew 2004 was going to be a religious year.

By June 2004 I had to deal with a stream of media inquiries that were along the lines of – “you’re a candidate in a tightly contested marginal and we just want to do a profile on you and your campaign.”

This wasn’t just from Sydney media – this was national and interstate interest, from Victoria to Western Australia.

However these enquiries only occurred after a wave of interest in my opponent’s religious background.

Fortunately, there was one media outlet in the country to shine a spotlight on what was actually going on here.

In July 2004 Christian Kerr from Crikey wrote an in-depth piece focussed largely on the media’s discovery of God in the seat of Greenway.

In a broad ranging, well researched article, Kerr asked why so much interest in one western Sydney seat? And he asked whether the Liberal Party had “found a nasty way of picking up Greenway”.

Only after the Kerr piece did the media interest subside –temporarily.

I took a decision that if the media wanted to talk about issues involving the things that mattered to local people, I would be more than happy to talk.

While I can appreciate the news value of having candidates of different religions face off in a marginal electorate, I declined media requests for interviews that wanted to focus on religious issues. Was that a mistake?

I was certain then that my focus be on the issues that mattered to locals.

The local media responded.

Flick though the Blacktown Sun, the Advocate or Western Weekender and you would find balanced coverage of local political debate.

For fourteen months, I could show how I had raised issues through the local media and was responsive to them.

The local media really set an admirable benchmark for balanced coverage, which I thought deserved commendation.

The name game

Another thing I noticed during the election was interest shown by sections of the Liberal Party in my name.

For example, Labor campaign workers at pre-poll booths would come and ask me what my real name was. When I would ask why, they would inform me that Liberal Party workers would ask them – while handing out how-to-votes to people walking in to vote – and ask why I wouldn’t go by my real name on a daily basis.

Also imagine my surprise to see a prominent Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan kick off his column on me by referring to me as “Edham” Husic in his lead paragraph.

By election day, there wasn’t even a hint of subtlety.

At a polling booth at Riverstone, with voters lined up waiting to cast their ballot, a Liberal Party worker on the top of his voice called out: “Ask Ed Husic what his real name is and ask him why he doesn’t go by it every day.”

I remember when I was growing up, asking my dad why he and mum gave me the name I have.

My Bosnian name is Edham Nurredin Husic.

Dad explained that part of my name was supposed to mean “the flame of God”.

Actually, when I was very young I nearly burned down my bedroom wall playing with matches – but unhelpfully dad never bought my defence based on ancient name interpretation!

Like many other children of ethnic parents, it’s jarring to spell out your real name. But names are not only tied to our culture and history – they are a daily, ever present, link back to your parents.

Many people from ethnic backgrounds will – in our country’s case – Anglo-cise their names. Overseas ethnic names might be reformed into a local variant. It’s a cohesive gesture. We do it to fit in.

So everyone from school days knew me as Eddie or Ed.

But sometimes people think it’s important to reveal the ethnic names of others in the interests of ‘transparency’.

Interestingly, Paul Johnson in his work “Modern Times” comments that during 1948-49 the growing anti-Western feeling in Soviet Russia transformed into anti-Semitism.

According to Johnson, Stalin hated Jews and loved telling anti-Semitic jokes. Yiddish publications were banned. Prominent Jews vanished. Even Khrushchev, then one of the bullies, encouraged factory workers to beat up their Jewish colleagues -- and those with Russified names had their ‘real’ Jewish names printed in the press, “an old Nazi technique,” Johnson says.

From a broader perspective, I hope we can agree that this practice doesn’t have to become a feature of marginal seats campaigning.

Under the radar

There were other incidents that occurred during 2004.

After finishing a round of doorknocking I received a worried call from my campaign office telling me about a brochure that was being distributed. It focussed in potentially negative ways on my opponent’s religious background.
The leaflet was being distributed in Kings Langely, a strong, Liberal leaning section of the electorate.

I took that pamphlet straight to my opponent’s campaign office. I spoke directly with her campaign manager and told him on the spot that I did not fight politics on this basis, neither did my campaign team, and I wanted him to know we would take strong action against people spreading this material.

He certainly accepted those assurances, adding that he had spoken with his ALP contacts, who told him that underhanded campaigning was not my style.

Just before election-day, I learned about the distribution of another pamphlet, this one claiming that I was a devout Muslim fighting for a better deal for Islam in Greenway.

The sheet was a dummied version of one of my campaign ads, designed to mislead a reader into believing it was put out by me.

I was also told there was a phone banking campaign that repeatedly rang voters with identified strong religious beliefs to let them know that I was Muslim.

Even Mark Latham, while at a community forum in South Australia, was asked by a supposed ALP member about the wisdom of preselecting Muslim in a bible belt seat. It turned out later the person was not an ALP member.

These events just reaffirmed in my mind a thought that had travelled with me through the campaign – the way that continual, sometimes supposedly neutral, references to religion were conveniently helping to underscore what people believed to be my big negative.

Remember, in October 2003 pollsters were asking people if they would vote for a church-goer.

Fast forward to election-day, I heard voters being told they should support my opponent because she is a “good Christian”.

Obviously there was a big, organised effort to keep this issue alive. Was Ed a real dinkum Aussie? Could he be relied on? Would he be fighting for you or for Islam?

We can debate for ages whether this was a deliberate, constant tactic – of making religion an issue of active consideration during this campaign, either through media or under the-radar channels. In one sense, of course, you’ll never absolutely know. Then again, you’re never meant to.

Election as a turning point

As I said earlier, I always considered myself as a regular Aussie, who happened to be Muslim.

But when I woke up the day after the election I didn’t completely feel like a regular Aussie any more.

I actually felt – for the first time in my 34 years – that I had this brand stuck on my forehead.

I might not have understood or appreciated what it was like to feel part of a sub-group that was treated differently – but I got a good sense of what it was like.

I have no evidence to believe that my opponent was involved in any of the grubby stuff. I lost largely because of the wider issues – particularly unease in aspirational Sydney about Labor’s leader.

Whatever your politics, I believe that this use of religion as a campaign tactic was unbelievable in our country. It was worse than galling.

It was unAustralian. And its ramifications are significant for Aussies of all backgrounds. That’s not as it should be.

While my own future and where I will end up is unclear, I know I still want to be involved in politics.

I want to speak out against the things that took place last year. Being quiet doesn’t help.

The use of religion in that election as a political tactic was wrong.

Not because it stopped me from being elected. A different scare campaign tripped me up, one about interest rates.

It was wrong because it weakens our community. It diminishes. It divides to conquer – at a time when we should be drawing together a united front, with all faiths working together to promote a secure, safer community.

Know also that these tactics rippled through the minds of many Muslims. The proof? In the age of the Internet, word travels in moments and remains cast in cyberspace. Websites as far as Bosnia, or the United States or even Iraq carry copies of articles detailing these election stunts.

But I get another sense of that ripple when I meet another Muslim who learns who I am. The minute they say “You’re the guy …” I know what they’re recalling.

The Liberal Party – re-elected in Federal Parliament, tasked with the critical role of making people comfortable with new national security measures – is now trying to convince Muslims that they have nothing to worry about.

That Muslims are recognised citizens. Their religion isn’t an issue. But at this point in time, trust is much more valuable when it is earned not demanded.

Muslim responsibility

There’s no denying that Muslims in Australia would like to see someone of their faith elected to an Australian Parliament. It’s not an isolated ambition – it spans faiths.

And there is a disappointment – laced with deep concern – when a view forms that religion or ethnicity is a potential hindrance on the path to elected office.

Examples of this type of situation can be found overseas. The 2004 Californian state legislature elections are a case in point.

In that race Democrat Ferial Masry, a Saudi-born Arab American woman, faced a late minute under the radar manoeuvre that some believed denied her success. If she had been successful she would have been the first Saudi American elected to public office in the US.

In the last days leading up to that election a taped telephone message was broadcast to registered Republican and independent voters with mentions linking 9/11, terrorism and Ferial Masry's name, purportedly in the context of discussing illegal immigration.

Masry’s son was a registered Republican who was stationed with his U.S. Army Reserve unit in Iraq. His mother publicly defended him and his fellow soldiers from war opponents. She lost to her Republican opponent.

From what I have been able to learn the US, with its 250 million population, four successful candidates of Muslim background were voted in by a minimum of 60 per cent in their electorates.

In New Zealand and the UK MPs have been elected with Muslim backgrounds. In Australia, there is one MP who is Muslim, sitting in the Victorian Parliament.

I spoke recently with the head of the Forum on Australian Islamic Relations Kuranda Seyit, who said that at this point in time, it was critical Muslims are elected to democratic parliaments.

The reason was simple: it would send a signal to both moderate and extremist.

Not only because it reflected a determination by the broader community to allow opportunity for engagement with people from all walks of life -- but it was reaffirmation that Muslims were choosing a better path than that offered by extremists.

Bringing together the cross, star and crescent under the one roof of our national Parliament would be a great step forward, but there is another pressing priority.

How do we ease the fear that divides people of different faiths and backgrounds at this point in time?

I think it was Bill Clinton who said, “people vote for a future, not for the past.”

We need to have a clear view about the future we want. That future is one of acceptance and inclusion, earned through an investment in a number of important measures now.

The biggest step Muslims can take is to recognise people are scared. They see so-called Muslims doing terrible things to others in the name of religion. People wonder if they too will be a victim.

Suggestions that there is some subterranean theological struggle between faiths over the minds and souls of Australians are overblown and serve only the purposes of extreme religious recruiters.

Australia is not ‘heart on your sleeve’ religious.
A Pew Research Centre study found Americans are the most religious in the OECD world – 59 per cent there say religion plays a “very important role in their lives.”

But, as Australia’s history demonstrates time and again, we’re big on security, on feeling safe.

We have to acknowledge fear.

Muslims fear too. They include the moderate Muslims not interested in politics, but getting a job, paying the bills, making sure the kids finish homework before dinner.

The ones who are scared of going out in the street wearing a hijab.

The ones who worry if they will get a job with their Muslim name.

The ones anxious about how they went in job interview when quizzed about their views on Al-Qa’ida -- for non security related employment.

Or the parents that worry about nominating Islam as their child’s religion on official paperwork.

Every one of those last four instances is real, passed on to me by Muslims who felt these concerns, lived those experiences.

Let me state clearly – the fear about security is particularly strong. I don’t seek to balance out these fears or underplay the security concerns people have.

But we have to acknowledge fear.

And we need to know that fear and misunderstanding is stunting the natural flow of relationships between people.

Again it’s important to think about the future, not the past.

If Muslims want a better climate in which to be received they can actually do things themselves to foster this climate:

·They should say loud and clear that violence and terrorism are not valid means of political expression – terrorism is murder. Say it without caveat. Muslims cannot afford to be defensive – and they should never justify murder dressed up as religious activity. You can never point to events in Iraq and think that offsets terror somewhere else.

·Muslims should join with others in highlighting the valuable role of tolerance in building a cohesive society that gives little room for people to feel alienated or excluded – or humiliated. The interfaith dialogue that is happening every week is exceptionally important.

·Muslims will need to expect that thoughtful, critical analysis is a function of a healthy liberal democracy. The consequence of accepting this proposition is that there may be some that criticise Islam – just like they do of Christianity or other religions.

·To receive understanding and tolerance, you need to extend it to others. You can’t call for tolerance and be anti-Semitic.

The other point worth bearing in mind is that not all Muslims dislike the United States.

While recent US foreign policy may have caused great concern for people here and abroad, I still believe the US can be a positive force, as occurred in my parents’ homeland, as occurred with the US pushing to include Turkey in the EU.

The US has a far better track record on democracy and human rights than a lot of other countries in the world.

Let’s face it, if it wasn’t for their intervention in Bosnia, we would never have had the Dayton Peace Accords. How many other Srebrenica’s would have occurred without the US standing up and telling Europe ‘enough is enough’?

The good news is – most Muslims accept these points.

The problem is that doesn’t quite make news like a cleric arguing the September 11 never happened, or that sending Muslims to university is bad.

Some media commentators invest huge belief in the notion that religious leaders will miraculously transform the opinion of their followers with a few sermons.

Personally, I think Imams should heed the Prime Minister’s calls to stamp out any sympathies that might exist for those people carrying out murder in the name of religion.

Having said that I think the Prime Minister could do more to denounce fear mongering and vilification of Muslims.

To keep saying that people from all faiths, loyal to this country and its dreams, have a place and should be embraced.

To say it’s not right for Muslim women to have to wipe someone else’s spit off their attire.

And the Prime Minister should say loud and clear that fear campaigns against Muslims in this country are un-Australian – especially those conducted during election campaigns.

And if I could be so bold to suggest that any Prime Ministerial address to the nation that talks about improving security in Australia could be strengthened by an including reference to these points.

From a wider perspective other pointers can be found on what should be done.

You need look no further than the incisive work released recently by Anthony Bubalo and Greg Fealy of the Lowy Institute here in Sydney. One of the things that stood out was their advice:

·To think about education and the war of ideas in broad terms – to fight the ideas that underpin terrorism. Adapting a Blairite proposition for current times, I think it’s important we are “Tough on terrorism – but also tough on the causes of Terrorism”.

Conclusion

As I said at the start there were a number of reasons why I decided it was important to speak today.

I mentioned the thoughts I dealt with the day after the election. But one more incident stands out – it’s one of the reasons I’m here today.

The day after the election my family came over to run through the events of the last 24 hours. As they were leaving my dad said “I’m sorry about the result”.

I thanked him but then he clarified: “No, I mean, I am sorry if who we are stopped you from winning.”

I told him straight away never to drop his face in shame for who he is. I don’t and I never will.

Elections come and go. There are winners. There are losers. Life moves on.

In the meantime, you hope that regardless of political opinion we can recognise the value of people from all walks of life who do good in the place they call home.

Law abiding citizens, who work hard, bringing up their children in a loving environment, silent but solid members of their communities.

They should never feel that have to apologise for who they are, where they come from or the fact they believe in God. In this day and age, faith in the face of cynicism is to be admired.

I could have made one of two choices after October 9 last year. I could have been resentful, nurtured humiliation, retreated into a simple ‘black/white’ view of Muslim relations in Australia.

But I chose a better way. The way that recognises that Australia is a great country.

A country that provides opportunity for self-improvement.

A country whose people are recognised as warm, friendly.

A place where if you’re loyal to your country, and want to do good things for it, your efforts and commitment will be welcomed. And they are.

I strongly believe that understanding can shine a powerful light into dark corners.

Right into those places where intolerance and fear drives people to do things that – in better, calmer times – they know cause nothing but pain and hurt.

I’m standing up for tolerance and understanding. I’m standing up because I can see I better future.

And that future does not hinge upon whether or not we elect Muslims to Australian Parliaments.

I thank you for your time.

(This is the full address of Ed Husic to the Sydney Institute on 19 October 2005. Ed Husic was the ALP Candidate for the Federal Seat of Greenway in Western Sydney for the 2004 Federal Election.)

Guess what! I’m an Australian …

2005-10-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

I have a message for Aunty Bronwyn and all the others of her generation. And that message is this.

I am an Australian. So is Walid Aly. So is Susan Carland.

There is no clash of civilisations going on with me or between me and others in this wide brown land. In reality, as my friend and colleague Walid Aly pointed out on the Compass program on ABC on Sunday night October 16, what we see is a clash of ignorance.

Terrorism thrives on hate. Hate thrives on ignorance. Just as a flame needs fuel from oxygen or coal or some other substance, hate also needs fuel. And the fastest fuel to light the flames of hate is ignorance.

I have known Walid and his wife Susan since 2002, the year they married. I’ve known other members of Walid’s family since 1995. These thoroughly Australian people were introduced to me by a movement called Young Muslims of Australia (YMA).

Walid and Susan are typical young Aussie Mossies. There is nothing un-Australian about Susan. In fact, probably the most un-Australian thing about Susan is the fact that her mum is a Kiwi.

Then again, so are the Finn brothers. So is one of Australia’s best Rugby League players, Nigel Vagana. And so is half the population of Byron Bay, including Russell Crowe.

Walid first introduced me to the world of media in any significant way. I always had friends at uni who were studying Media and Mass Communications. I’d done some community radio work. But it was Walid who encouraged me to write for the papers. Australian papers.

I am from Sydney. I’ve lived here all my life. Why shouldn’t I be writing for a Sydney audience? Why shouldn’t newspaper readers in Australia (and now New Zealand) be reading what I have to write?

And why should I allow fear and terrorism to dictate what I have to say? I was just as Australian before September 11 (New York), October 12 (Bali) and July 7 (London). The world may have changed, but I haven’t.

My best friend from St Andrews Cathedral School is still singing in the choir. His wife still speaks fluent English and Japanese. I still have friends (and a few enemies, it seems) in the Liberal Party. I still go out with friends to pubs and clubs (though in my case, intoxication is caused by fumes, not the real thing!).

And each time I go to Sydney’s CBD, I get scared some crazy terrorist will do something stupid. I get scared that Aussies will be victims. I get scared that I will land 6 feet under the ground, or perhaps in a hospital.

And if the new anti-terror laws are passed, I get scared that I might be subject to a “control order” jut because my skin is a little browner and I have a weird name few people can pronounce properly.

All this has the ability to make me incredibly depressed. Even more depressed than I am already. But after watching so many of my friends on the Compass program, I know I am not alone.

The largest single ethnic block in the Australian Muslim community are people under 40 and born in Australia. I missed out being born in Australia by around 5 months.

Like the First Fleeters, I came here on a boat (though mine was a bit more luxurious). But I have lived almost all my life in John Howard’s electorate of Bennelong. So if they want to send Muslims home, they’ll have to send me back to East Ryde.

I guess the most heartening thing is to watch young Aisha, daughter to Susan and Walid. She was shown on the Compass program giving thanks to her parents. And what were the words of this sweet 2-year old?

“Thank you maaate!”

After the most recent episode of the ABC Compass program, I wonder how people like Sophie Panopoulos and Bronwyn Bishop will have the face to appear in public and lecture us all about Australian values and a clash of cultures.

And if they don’t have the face, perhaps a generous Aussie Muslim woman can lend them a hijab. Or perhaps even a face veil!

iyusuf@sydneylawyers.com.au

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

Aussie Sheiks and Byron Bay Gurus

2005-10-09T07:02:00.000-07:00

I know this sounds a little weird, but I really feel sorry for John Howard and Phillip Ruddock. They are trying their best to consult the Islamic communities. And all they have to work with is a bunch of incompetents.

The government has, in good faith, set up a consultative body so that it can gain an understanding of what Muslims at the grassroots think. It thinks it can rely on these people because they are, after all, the heads of peak leadership organisations.

If the government had to consult Catholics, it would be easy. Just ring up the Church. There is a hierarchy, a priesthood, a system of accrediting spiritual and lay leaders. Same in the Anglican and every other Church.

But in the Muslim community, there is no priesthood, no hierarchy. And if you believe what you saw on the Sunday program last weekend, no real systrem of accrediting religious figures.

That allows shonks and crooks to make all sorts of bombastic claims and then gain the confidence of a generation of young Muslim Aussies with no exposure to mainstream Islamic ideas.

Send Khalid Yasin to Indonesia and see if he lasts even 5 minutes. Genuine religious authorities will pull him apart and expose him in no time. Send him to Turkey, and authorities there will do the same. The story will be repeated in just about every Muslim country.

But in Australia, where there is no central authority, shonky sheiks can make more money than Byron Bay gurus.

Some years back, some of my friends tried an experiment. We wanted to see just how gullible some young Muslim kids are. I drafted and sent out an announcement about this famous Sheik who was visiting from Mali and who had done his PhD at the University of Khartoum in Sudan. I gave him the grand name of Sheik Muhiyuddin Abdul Majid El-Sumbluq. I said he would be visiting Australia, and that people needed to book in advance for a place in his classes.

I had inquiries from across the country from starry-eyed kids wanting to attend the Sheik’s classes. Sydney was abuzz with talk of the famous Sheik el-Sumbluq. Until I sent out an announcement about the Sheik’s scholarly wife.

Her name was Aishah Umm-Yasmin El-Sumsheila. By the time people realised what we were upto, my friends and I were rolling around on the floor.

Why do some young Aussie Mossies believe this nonsense? Muslim Australians don’t seem to have a good record when it comes to religious instruction. We have a range of people describing themselves as imams or sheiks or maulanas or using some other title.

Yet we have no system of accreditation for imams. It seems anyone can stand up and claim the mantle of Islamic scholarship. And if they speak even half-decent English and have some charisma, they can be believed and followed.

The Australian Muslim community is like the Byron Bay of the Islamic world. I could go to Byron Bay, set myself up in some cottage, wear a sari or some other funky dress and call myself “Sheik el-Sumbluq”. I could set up the Sumbluqiyya Sufi order, and thousands of Kiwi backpackers and hippies would pay $200 a session to be part of it all.

So why does this problem exist? Why do we have so many weirdos and wackos masquerading as sheiks? Are young Aussie Mossies all as high as a bunch of Byron Bay backpackers?

Recently, American Muslim Gary Edwards told a Muslim audience that we should insist people claiming scholarship showing and proving their qualifications when asked.

“If just having a beard and wearing a cap makes you a sheik, I know plenty of billygoats who could qualify!” Mr Edwards said.

This situation exists because most real and qualified imams cannot speak English and cannot communicate effectively with young people. Our most senior cleric, Sheik Hilaly, is still struggling with basic English. I could count the number of imams proficient in English on 2 hands.

So 300,000-plus Aussie Muslims, most of whom speak English as their first language, are having their spiritual needs officially serviced by imams who cannot speak their language. The result is the growth of an entire “black market” of preachers and charlatans setting up “centres” and “societies” led by charismatic English-speaking frauds.

I know one fellow who claims to be a Sheik and to have completed a degree from Saudi Arabia and to have authorities from prominent Yemeni scholars. He is allegedly the chaplain of 2 university campuses. But to this day, despite numerous requests, he has never shown anyone his qualifications.

If the Khalid Yasin fiasco proves anything, it is that Aussie Mossies need to get their act together. They need to urgently fund local kids to study religious sciences in reputable institutions overseas.

And by overseas, I don’t mean some crackpot seminary in Saudi Arabia. I mean a real institution in the UK or the United States or Malaysia. In an English-speaking environment with people who don’t carry irrelevant cultural baggage.

We need an accreditation system for Imams and Sheiks so that we get real scholars and not Byron Bay billygoats teaching and preaching in Aussie mosques.

The author is a Sydney lawyer who has acted for at least one Imam and four independent Muslim schools.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

Bullying Australian communities out of their civil liberties

2005-10-07T21:21:00.000-07:00

Recently, the Government-appointed Muslim Community Reference Group (MCRG) held a joint press conference with Attorney General Phillip Ruddock.

Following a briefing by Mr Ruddock on the new laws, Group spokesman Dr Ameer Ali was quoted as stating that the Group unanimously supported the laws and would sell them to the Muslim community.

Within hours, the Islamic Council of Victoria issued a press release directly contradicting Dr Ali’s statements. The ICV Chair, Malcolm Thomas, also sits on the MCRG.

Further, a representative of the Alawi Muslim community, Ms Iktimal Hage-Ali, also contradicted Dr Ali by stating that the onus was on the government, not the Group, to sell the laws to the broader Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

Muslim online discussion groups have been running hot with condemnation of the position apparently adopted by the MCRG. Yet who is on this Group? Who do they represent? On what basis were they chosen? How representative are they of Aussie Muslim reality?

The government has an unenviable task in dealing with Muslim communities. Islam knows no priesthood or central hierarchy. One American Muslim stand-up comic, Azhar Usman, summed up the reality of Muslim communities across the western world.

“I was telling a friend about Islam. He asked me to stop talking. He said he is against organised religion. I told him that was fine and he could become a Muslim. We are the most disorganised religion in the world!”

Australia has at least 2 competing peak Muslim bodies. The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils is an umbrella body of state and territory Islamic councils, themselves umbrella bodies representing the management societies of various mosques.

Not all mosques have an Islamic society. Indeed, most people attending the mosque are not members of the governing mosque societies. Further, AFIC has a history of replacing and creating societies it does not like.

In New South Wales, the state with the largest number of Muslims, AFIC has created 2 dummy councils in the last 5 years.

Competing with AFIC is the mostly-Lebanese Darul Fatwa Islamic High Council of Australia. This council claims to speak authoritatively on behalf of Muslims. Yet its own religious ideology declares the majority of Muslim scholars to be “kafir” (infidels).

Further, the Darul Fatwa Council members have openly expressed their opposition of any assistance provided by Muslims to non-Muslim faiths. Members of the Council have attacked the writer for his role in lobbying on behalf of a Vietnamese Buddhist community having trouble with Bankstown Council in approving extensions to their temple. The reason for the opposition was the notion that Muslims should not help “idolaters”.

Now let’s look at the reality of Australian Muslims. The most recent study profiling Muslim Australians was carried out by Professor Abdullah Saeed and his team at the University of Melbourne in 2004.

The study was based on figures in the 2001 Census, showing almost half of Australia’s Muslims were born in Australia. The suburb with the highest concentration of Muslims in Australia was Auburn (37%), not Lakemba or Bankstown. The overwhelming majority of Muslims speak, read and write English fluently.

More than half of Australia’s Muslim community are aged below 40. Muslim Australians have been at the heart of mainstream Australia for over 150 years. Muslim involvement in Australia pre-dated European exploration and settlement.

Yet this Muslim reality is not reflected in the Government’s choice of people to sit on its reference group. Most were born outside of Australia. Most are aged over 40. Very few are women.

If the government were serious about consulting with Muslim Australians, it would have included those Australians making major contributions in business, politics, sport, academia, the arts and the professions. These are the real Aussie Mossies.

Yet the government is committed to treating this very indigenous faith community as just another “ethnic” or “migrant” phenomenon. For this reason, it has attempted to create a reference group that is unrepresentative and that will tow the line.

And as is often the case in national security issues, the Government is getting it all wrong. Whatever their public statements, prominent Reference Group members are telling Muslims that the current anti-terror laws are being forced upon the community.

In short, the Government is bullying Muslim Australians to sit down and shut up as their civil liberties are stripped away from them. The government is expecting the Reference Group to endorse laws that have not even been drafted. The Group members did not consist of a single lawyer, nor did they have the benefit of advice during and following Mr Ruddock’s briefing. Yet this is precisely the community the Government needs to have on side if it is to effectively fight the war against Islamist extremism.

The author is a Sydney lawyer who has advised peak Islamic bodies and Muslim independent schools. He is also an occasional lecturer in the School of Politics & International Relations at Macquarie University.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

For the love of Islam, fight the terrorists

2005-10-04T23:29:00.000-07:00

(Published in The New Zealand Herald, 04 October 2005)

Different reasons are given for the Bali terrorist attacks. Australian Prime Minister John Howard describes it as an attack on democratic Indonesia, an attempt to destabilise the country and punish it for adopting a more democratic model.

South Australian magistrate Brian Deegan, who lost his 22-year-old son Josh in the 2002 Bali bombing, says it was an attack on Australian foreign policy.

I have my own theory which does involve a short history lesson. I believe the Bali bombing was an attack on Indonesian Islam.

Some 700 years ago, Yemeni traders brought Islam to this part of the world, the centre of Southeast Asian trade.

The various indigenous merchants had no system of accounting and the Yemenis introduced the systems still in use today including resolving commercial disputes based upon sharia law. In Indonesia, when people think of sharia, they don't think of chopping hands and stoning adulterers. They think of banking and finance and trade law.

Most Yemeni traders came from a tribe known as the Bani Alawi, direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. In the towns and villages around Penang and Aceh, you will find more direct descendants of the Prophet than in Saudi Arabia.

And the People of the House (as Muslims refer to the Prophet's descendants) are known for certain qualities. They are scholarly. They are soft-hearted and compassionate. They are calm. They are spiritual. They inspire love, not hatred.

The Yemeni traders were Sufis who brought a kind of Islam that focuses on spiritual purification and social reform. Sufis work with people of all faiths in an effort to bring peace and prosperity to the world.

In New York, a Sufi imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf regularly hosts dinners with Jewish and Christian New Yorkers. In India, the poor and depressed of all faiths and no faith find refuge at the tombs of Sufi saints. Sufism is a grassroots religion in just about every Islamic country, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

The terrorists' version of Islam has no room for Sufis. The terrorist religion is about war, not peace. It is about hatred, not love. Sufis teach that you bring people closer to you and your faith through love and service to others. Terrorists teach that you convert people by killing them, by bringing tears to the eyes of their families and loved ones, by driving fear into their communities.

The terrorist vision of Islam is winning no friends in the world's largest Islamic community.

The latest bombing has taken place in the final week of the sacred Islamic month of Sha'ban. Orthodox Sunni Indonesians see this month as a time to prepare for the beginning of the sacred month of Ramadan.

Traditionally, the shedding of blood during Ramadan and its two preceding months is strictly forbidden. The terrorists have flouted this taboo which finds its source in the Koran, the scriptures regarded by millions of Indonesians as the literal word of God.

Terrorists bring out the worst in themselves and others. Orthodox Sufi Islam brought peace to this region of the world. Today, the terrorist ideology masquerading as Islam is bringing war and violence and tears to the region. Those who care about Islam should be at the forefront of fighting terror.

* Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney-based industrial lawyer and occasional lecturer in the Department of Politics at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Sufism Libs

2005-09-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

The other day, I visited the Dergahi Kotku, a small sufi hospice e located in Auburn. The hospice is a converted mansion which used to house x-ray, pathology and medical rooms. The local Naqshbandi Turks have converted the mansion into a small sufi centre, bookshop and classrooms.

I was accompanying Gary Edwards, an American sufi teacher who studied in Turkey for some 10 years. Also with us was one of the hospice instructors, Abdurrahman (I’ll refer to him simply as “Abdul” from now on).

Gary was quite tired, having just finished a weekend-long workshop teaching some 30 students about the various meanings and nuances of the most frequently-recited chapter of the Qur’an known as Sirat al-Fatiha. We have just finished dinner, and Gary was keen to pray and get some much-needed sleep.

We received a guided tour of the new hospice. The old hospice was located some 3 streets away, and had since been demolished to make way for a large shopping centre and unit development.

Gary’s host for the evening was Alf, a young Turkish Aussie who lived on a farm out in the sticks somewhere between Campbelltown and Penrith. Alf had spent much of his youth as a Buddhist, before being brought back to Islam by his Aussie Sri Lankan wife (who happened to have converted from Buddhism to Islam). When he is not project-managing huge multi-million dollar IT roll-outs, Alf can be found sitting with sufis and engaging in some internal cleansing.

Alf and I go back perhaps 10 years. Back in those days, we used to gather at Bonnyrigg Mosque with one of our good mates, a Naqshbandi imam now living in Melbourne. Some years back, Alf and I met up for coffee and decided that one of us should run for Parliament. It was the post-September 11 period, and we were sick of getting all jittery and nervous and defensive.

I was already thinking of throwing my hat into the ring for the Liberals in Reid, a federal seat that took in the Turkish heartland of Auburn. Alf encouraged me and promised to assist “whenever I could”.

In Alf’s case “whenever I could” basically meant full-time around-the-clock assistance. I have never seen anyone work so single-mindedly on a project. Alf was as convinced as I was that it was good for both of us for me to run. He insisted that we make a serious go of it.

At the time, I was living and practising behind the Naqshbandi bookshop located then at 59 Queen Street. My campaign treasurer was the travel agent next door, Ahmet. And Alf was the king of the campaign.

So where do the Naqshis fit into this? Well, their bookshop ended up being on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. My opponent was sitting member Laurie Ferguson, then Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs. My old mate Ross Cameron (then Federal MP for Parramatta) warned me about Laurie.

“Irfan, Laurie may look like a dill, but seriously he is no dill. Watch your back. Laurie likes to play hard. He’s a lovely guy socially, but politically he is an animal!” Rosco warned.

And within a few days, I found out what he meant. I got a call from a Sydney Morning Herald journalist Pilita Clark who said Laurie had made a complaint about my not living in the electorate and telling fibs to the electoral commission about where I lived. She asked me whether Laurie was telling the truth. My response to the journo was simple.

“Come and have a look for yourself.”

45 minutes later, she rang me again to tell me she was on her way. Alf and I quickly got the place as tidied up as we could without having a vacuum cleaner or even a broom.

Pilita was accompanied by a cameraman who seemed to enjoy the exotic surrounds of a very European bookshop. I posed for the camera in a variety of spots, including lounging like a beached whale on my mattress.

The next day, 24 October 2001, that image greeted readers of the Sydney Morning Herald. Months later, Senator Bill Heffernan was to describe the event as one of the highlights of the campaign.

“F#cking marvellous, Yusuf! You really showed the c#nts, didn’t you! Absolutely f#cking marvellous.”

Here are some classic excerpts from the article that put the sufi hospice on the front page of the election campaign …

“There is a thin rubber mattress on the floor. A red sleeping bag. A phone cord trailing across the drab carpet. A gym bag half-full of clothes, an outside toilet, no fridge, no chair and no table.

But this murky space at the back of a tiny Islamic bookshop in downtown Auburn is home, insists Irfan Yusuf, the Liberal Party's somewhat unconventional candidate for the western Sydney seat of Reid.

“Here it is,” he says, gesturing about the gloom. “I live here.”

Mr Yusuf's Labor opponent, the long-time member for Reid, Laurie Ferguson, is not so sure, however, and neither is the Australian Electoral Commission …

Lounging on his mattress, he challenged Mr Ferguson to come down and check things out for himself. “Laurie can come here any time, day or night. Just get him to ring me on the mobile first, because I'm usually at Mustafa's [the nearby kebab shop]. I'd be happy to introduce him to the Yusuf residence. And after that, we'll go over and have a look at his bedroom.”

Acknowledging his rudimentary surroundings, Mr Yusuf said: “I'm a bachelor.”
“Obviously when the better half comes along, she will be insisting on some improvements.” And the name of this other half? “There's a few options,” he said. “I still haven't figured out which one I'm going to take. That's what happens when you're not married.”

… Mr Yusuf said: “At the end of the day, what counts is how you relate to the people you are claiming to represent.”

“The guy's obviously desperate,” he said of Mr Ferguson, who won just under 72 per cent of the vote in the last federal election in 1998, making Reid one of the safest Labor seats in the country.”

Later, my old friend Emine, a waitress at Mustafas, told me how proud she was of me after reading the article.

“It shows you are just an ordinary guy, just like all the other ordinary people in Auburn.”

But the proudest people of all were my Naqshi brethren. They felt their 5 seconds of fame for many weeks as the incident was widely reported in the local and overseas Turkish press.

For the next few weeks, my poster was up across the wire fence that covered at least 5 blocks of Queen Street. It was later dubbed “The Great Wall of Irfan”.

But on this night, some 4 years later, Shaykh Gary Edwards and the rest of us were on our guided tour. Abdul showed Gaz an example of the technique being used to teach Arabic letters to the sufi novices.

Gary seemed more interested in what was on the back of the white plastic sheets. He turned one around and then looked in my general direction. He then showed me what he was looking at.

There was my mugshot surrounded by green and black lettering.

“We put these to good use. There is a whole pallet of them in the other room,” Abdul said after we completed the night prayers. Gary looked at me and Alf. We looked back and him and at Abdul. Within a few seconds, we were rolling on the floor in hysterics, laughing till our sides nearly split.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

FAIR Go

2005-09-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Forum of Australia’s Islamic Relations is a grassroots advocacy network. It consists largely of 2nd generation kids of migrants, mostly born in Australia. There are also a fair few Anglo-Australian Muslims involved in the network.

I have been a member of FAIR for some time now. The body was formed after its executive director, Kurandar Seyfi Seyit, finished work as media adviser to the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils Inc (AFIC). Seyfi (as he is known to most of us) was employed pursuant to a Living in Harmony grant furnished to AFIC by the Department of Immigration Multicultural & Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA).

FAIR’s major project is the newspaper Australia FAIR. Initially, the paper was of quite good quality, modelling itself on the Australian Muslim News (AMN) which Seyfi edited during his term at AFIC. The AMN was a quality paper with a leftish focus but with a good variety of articles and issues covered.

Australia FAIR is generally published on time each month. Its quality has diminished quite substantially, to the extent that it now resembles Green Left Weekly more than a serious community paper. It certainly cannot compare in quality and content to the Catholic Weekly or the Australian Jewish News.

Australia FAIR has lost many of its key writers, often due to unnecessary mistakes and blunders on the part of some of its editorial team. On a number of occasions, I have noticed my own work being lifted from other sources without any recognition of its source. Often my pieces have been edited without my approval, and on at least one occasion an offensive headline was placed on my article.

I have ceased writing for Australia FAIR after discovering that the paper still does not have standard defamation insurance. Given the editor’s propensity to lift pieces and edit them without my approval, I have also requested that he not reproduce anything of mine (including this article, though I doubt he would do that anyway).

In recent times, FAIR has done some excellent interfaith work. The “Goodness & Kindness Project” in which Seyfi is accompanied by a Jewish and Christian speaker in visits to schools across NSW has been a resounding success. Seyfi’s work has also been recognised in an award he received from the Daily Telegraph.

FAIR has also received positive media coverage, despite occasional stuff-ups and blunders (such as the phenomenally awful performance on ABC morning talkback some months back). FAIR has played a positive role in the current debate on internal Muslim reform, though it is questionable whether the FAIR director has consulted with executive members in this regard (in one e-mail sent to a number of yahoogroups, he acknowledged that FAIR did not operate on a consultative and democratic model).

FAIR has now chosen to enter the debate on the education of Imams. FAIR has come up with a proposal for a Fatiha Institute to be headed by American Imam Gary Edwards (also known as Naeem Abdul Wali) of the al-Kawthar Institute in Arizona. The Institute aims to educate imams and generate locally-trained imams using traditional methods of ijaza and sanad found in the Dars-i-Nizami system.

The Institute proposal was made public in a gathering at the Gazi Husrev Beg Mosque in Penshurst. Proposal notes were handed out to people attending the mosque for isha prayers. It appeared that neither the imam nor members of the mosque executive were aware of the proposal.

Imam Salih Mujalla is a respect scholar who completed his studies in Sarajevo and al-Azhar upto at least masters level. He has been an imam of the Bosnian community in Sydney for over 2 decades, and is respected by people across all Muslim communities. He appears regularly in local newspapers, and is an outspoken critic of all forms of religious extremism (including of the Muslim variety).

In Ottoman mosques, it is traditional for the Imam to control not just the service but all events taking place in the mosque. When the FAIR representatives appeared to take over the show following isha prayers, the imam could sense his executive members becoming tense. He therefore asked that the FAIR executive members cut short discussion of the Institute and allow their visiting guest Naeem Abdul Wali speak.

It is impossible to underestimate the damage done to FAIR’s image within the Bosnian community when FAIR’s director was seen behaving with the imam in a manner that could only be described as abrupt. In my opinion, his behaviour reflected poorly on FAIR, its membership and its projects.

There is no point leading a project to educate imams whilst behaving rudely toward a senior and respected imam in the process.

Members and others concerned about FAIR and community advocacy need to take control of their organisation. They need to ensure greater accountability. FAIR is an excellent organisation that does excellent work. Everyone makes mistakes, and I am no exception. But when mistakes are made, it is best to apologise.

In that respect, I think FAIR should send a letter to Imam Salih and apologise for any offence they may have caused. In doing so, FAIR will gain the respect and support of Imam Salih and the other Bosnian imams.

FAIR should and must play a role in contemporary debates on national security and community management. However, it is important that activists and hard workers like Seyfi are given a fair go by FAIR members and are not left to do all the work themselves. Seyfi deserves the support of his executive, and they should be consulted at all stages. Otherwise, FAIR will become just another typical Islamic association run like a personal fiefdom.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

PROFILE - Yasmin Khan - One of the PM's Mossies

2005-09-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

One of the many criticisms labelled at the PM’s recent summit with Muslim leaders in Canberra was the near-absence of Aussie Mossies – Muslim Australians born and brought up in Australia.

Indeed, the summit appeared to be dominated by middle aged migrant men, many of whom had few English language skills. Most of these men had held positions in various Muslim organisations, positions which enabled them to provide jobs to themselves and their family members.

It seems the PM’s favourite Muslims are the ethnic ones. But appearances can be deceiving. And quite a number of people at the summit did not fit into this category.

Amongst them is Yasmin Khan, a Muslim woman from Queensland. Yasmin’s family have lived in Queensland for over 120 years, and are now into their 5th generation. Ms Khan was born in a small town in Northern Queensland named Babinda, and grew up in and schooled in Innisfail, one hour south of Cairns.

I spoke to Yasmin Khan some days back, and asked her about her upbringing, the summit and Muslim community leadership in Brisbane and Australia.

Yasmin grew up in what was the only Muslim family in her small town. Like many Muslim Australian parents, Yasmin’s parents ensured she and her siblings had the best of both worlds.

“We kept our fasts whilst we attended school - local state school - wore traditional clothes - shalwar kameez - on traditional holidays - Eid etc. We lived a great existence experiencing the best of both worlds - we joined the guides and scouts, CWA, had jobs after school, played sport, but prayed our namaz, went outside to see if we can see the moon, celebrated Eid, enjoyed Christmas, grew up on Rafi songs as well as Abba and Sherbet.”

After completing Year 12, Yasmin worked for Australia Post and completed a number of technical and other courses at TAFE. She has also managed her own small business which she recently sold. She has also been involved in a variety of community activities including working as a volunteer announcer in community radio. Yasmin is definitely a graduate from the University of Life.

Ms Khan remembers being first informed of her invitation to the PM’s summit when she received a phone call from someone in the Department of Immigration. The initial phone call was a mere 5 days before the summit.

She did not have a chance to speak to the PM at any great length during the summit. And Ms Khan has some strong views about organisations represented at the summit. In relation to AFIC, Ms Khan had this to say.

“[L]ike some Islamic organisations, you have to wait until someone dies, before you get some fresh blood on there - and they are very protective of the organisation, very insular, very cliquey and very power hungry … they have no female representation - they have no representation from the majority of the Muslim population. I understand the need for a peak body - I'm just not sure that they are doing it right or have the right people involved.”

Yasmin used to sit on the school board of the Islamic School of Brisbane. She also is heavily involved in a new social work initiative called “I-Care". When asked about I-Care and its relation to the Sydney-based Mission of Hope, Ms Khan described the body as one which aimed to provide support services for Muslim families in crisis.

“[W]e can see the problems for families and we are offering solutions for them. There is no Muslim social worker in Brisbane working with the community, there is no where for women experiencing domestic violence to call - who understands her culture, her religion or her language. It is only a new organisation - newly formed and still going through submission stages for funding - but all indications at this stage are looking good.”

Yasmin’s views on representation come straight out of a textbook on representative liberal democracy. She says that the PM’s summit could not have representation of all Muslim Australians, and that hosting a truly representative summit would have required hiring out Bruce Stadium in Canberra.

“Anyone who is not invited is going to feel left out - but that seems to be half the problem in this country with the Muslims - it seems that if I am not telling my own story then no one else can tell it either. That is ludicrous - we are all Muslims - we should have similar issues - but we tend to think that the Iraqi, is going to be different to the Bosnian, or the Turk or the Pakistani, and that leads to half the problems we are having where everyone thinks ethnicity and not religion.”

And what role will the summit and the subsequent reference group play?

“Think of it as Parliament - all your ideas, thoughts, social attitudes etc are not going to be owned by the person representing your electorate in Parliament - but somebody in Parliament will have those ideas, thoughts, attitudes - it just means that you have to connect with who does and use them to the best advantage. That is what democracy is about - and that group at the summit is only a small representation - and I think the reference group is another small representation - but it is up to us to utilise the collective representation to get things done.”

Yasmin is critical of mainstream Muslim institutions and their lack of female representation. She describes Muslim organisational leadership in strong terms, saying “[t]hey are ultra conservative, ultra hypocritical and ultra stupid to say the least.”

To be continued …

© Irfan Yusuf 2005