Australia: A Vote For Bigotry
By Ghali Hassan
07 June,
2008
Countercurrents.org
Can you imagine the outcry if an Australian city council rejected a proposal to build a Jewish school? You don’t need to imagine. Anyone who dares to utter a single word against it will be labelled “anti-Semitic”. Australian politicians from the Prime Minister and his herd to the herd of the Opposition would be outraged by such an “Un-Australian” decision. However, when an application for an Islamic school was rejected, the support for bigotry was unanimous.
On May 27, 2008 the Camden Council, in South-west of Sydney, voted unanimously against a plan to build an Islamic school for 1,200 Muslim and non-Muslim students on “planning grounds”. Of course, it is a falsehood. The Council decision was politically motivated anti-Muslims bigotry. The councillors were coerced and forced to vote against the proposed Islamic school.
Local city councils in Australia are bought and sold. They are Mafia-like syndicates for wheeling and dealing at the expense of the Australian people. One only needs to take a look at the Wollongong Council, before opening a can of worms. Former Sydney lord Mayor Jeremy Bingham who is acting as a consultant for the Quranic Society (the developer of the Islamic school) rightly accused the Camden Council of playing divisive form of politics and using small group of ill-informed ignorant Anglo-Australians in a bid to get re-elected.
It is evident that the small group of Australians opposing the school on grounds different from those propagated by the Camden council. They are opposing the school because they see Muslims as different. “The ones [Muslims] that come here oppress our society, they take our welfare and they don’t want to accept our way of life”, said one of the 200 “locals” who attended the meeting. “There is no Christmas in Islamic schools”, said another. “My kids don’t speak Muslim”, shouted another ignorant. When asked why the Camden Council rejected the school, one demonstrator said: “Not one councillor could say the reason why. They [the residents] don’t like what their [Muslim] culture is about … it is about oppression and it’s just not democratic”. The “locals” do not seem to know about the Council’s alleged “planning grounds”, because it was simply a falsehood.
It is naïve to assume that the few demonstrators against the school were acting alone. The campaign against the school is part of a wider and well-orchestrated anti-Muslims Zionist campaign out of the U.S., Israel and Europe. The demonstrators were just tools used by this racist campaign of Islamophobia to demonise Muslims. The campaign against the Islamic school was organized by members of the Reverend Fred Nile's Christian Democratic Party, the anti-Muslims Christo-fascist alliance which has growing markedly in Australia in recent time. The 200 opponents of the school were riffraff collected from around Sydney. They were allegedly received $60 (the threshold before losing the dole) each for their efforts.
Just before the Camden vote, the Sydney Morning Herald, one of the three main Australian newspapers, sponsored a visit to Australia by Daniel Pipes, the Zion-fascist Islamophobe. The aim of the visit according to the Herald is to educate Australians about the place of Western “democracy” in Islam, and I might add, to build walls between Muslims and all non-Muslims Australians. Because of his propaganda to incite racial hatred against Muslims and Islam, Pipes has become a household name among Australia’s racist elites and the inherently racist media.
As Pipes ranted about Muslims and Islam, the Leichhardt Council, in Inner-west Sydney, decided to close a photographic exhibition about the plight of Palestinian refugees at the council public library. It is no secret why a well-known American Zion-fascist (with very little education in Islam) is often brought to Australia to incite prejudice and propagate an anti-Muslims fascist ideology.
There are some 300,000 Muslims in Australia, or 1.5 per cent of Australia’s population. They have come from diverse backgrounds. They are Australia’s most alienated and underprivileged in economic, social and political arenas. Like many small communities, Muslim Australians remain attached to their cultural origin and some of them (not all) show resistance to the West’s hostile Darwinian modernism and consumerism.
Since the election of John Howard as Prime Minister, racism against Muslims has increased steadily, and most Muslims feel they are under siege due to Australia’s full participation in the criminal U.S. “war on terrorism”. However, despite the demise of the divisive Howard’s government, the situation hasn’t changed. Muslims continues to face discrimination in employment, in the workplace, transport, housing and education. In addition, ongoing police harassment have alienated and repressed Muslim Australians.
Not long ago, a report Respect and Racism in Australia, prepared in June 2004 by Racism Monitor Group of the University of Technology in Sydney (UTS) reveals that; Australian Arabs Muslims community “has been and continues to be unfairly targeted” specifically, and that racism is so frequent that “it has become almost accepted” and Muslims do not feel 'entitled' to make complaints. Muslims have no effective counter-measure to silence their oppressors.
Racism against Muslims is systemic, openly promoted and continues to contribute to decrease in the process of integration. It is propagated by opportunist politicians as a tool to instil fear in the Australian community, justify draconian policies against Muslims and win elections. Kevin Rudd’s parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs, Laurie Ferguson, mouthed recently that refugees should be spread across many suburbs to avoid ‘white flight’ from public schools.
The Camden Council’s decision brought back bitter memories. In 2003, the Baulkham Hills Shire Council rejected an application for a Muslim prayer hall in Annangrove, in North-west Sydney, on “community characteristics” grounds. The fraudulent decision was later overturned by the Land of Environment Court. It is reported recently that residents of Annangrove agree the prayer hall has no impact on their lives and has become part of the quite close knit community.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s failure to strongly condemn a politically motivated decision based on bigotry shows that he is another John Howard in sheep’s clothing. All Australians are entitled and expect to be treated with equal rights, irrespective of religion and ethnicity.
Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.
