AustraliaÂ’s Muslims gathered on Friday for prayers at mosques around the country under a suspicious spotlight yet again after another radical cleric inflamed tensions with his extremist views. The widening gulf between AustraliaÂ’s small, mainly Sunni, Muslim community of some 280,000 people, and the rest of the country is leaving many Muslims feeling under siege and young Muslims trapped between two cultures - Islam and Australia. "Oh, hold me, Mahmoud! I feel so... so... so under siege!"
"Oh, Achmed! Me, too! Whatever shall we do?"
"Mind the caltrops..."
Friday newspaper headlines read “Jihad sheik” and “Crazy sheik’s DVD of hate” after news that Sheik Feiz Mohammed, head of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney, had called for child martyrs for Islam in a series of DVDs called the “Death Series”. Muslims arriving on foot under a blazing hot sun at Sydney’s Lakemba mosque look nervously at a television crew, scared by previous encounters with local media they believe portray Islam and Muslims as evil.
It's a total misconception, of course. Just because they spew hatred and call for child martyrs, where's the problem?
“I’m Australian, I was born here, this is the only country I know. We will defend this country against anyone,” one angry Muslim says in publicly declaring his patriotism for Australia.
Good idea. Hunt the shiekh down and kill him.
Suspicion, misunderstanding and ignorance lie at the heart of the widening gulf between Muslim and non-Muslim Australians.
What's not to understand about child martyrs?
“There is still an element of fear out there,” says Keysar Trad, spokesman for the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, and one of the faces of Islam in Australia. “I have had people put the head of a pig on my car and pigs’ trotters (feet) in the letterbox. I have had hate mail,” says Trad, who came to Australia with his family from Lebanon in 1976.
Gee. Golly. Gosh. That's terrible. I mean, it's not like Muslims were blowing people up or cutting their heads off or anything...
Trad says that when he arrived as a boy, Australia was a very conservative and Christian nation, and he was forced to hide his Islamic faith. Religious prejudice then was based on ignorance, unlike today when Muslims live under the shadow of terrorism. “A lot of people do not view Islam as modern or civilised. Today, Australia is less Christian, but less tolerant of Islam. Buddhism is more readily accepted because people see it as a force for peace and spirituality.”
Whereas they see Islam as a force for warfare and bloodshed. I wonder why that is? After all, it's the Religion of Beslan.
Like many migrants in Sydney, Muslims have grouped together for support, living in a handful of southwestern suburbs. One is nicknamed “Little Lebanon” due to the proliferation of Arabic signs and Muslim women shoppers in hijabs and scarfs. But this limited interaction between a small community and the rest of Australia has seen them categorised simply as Muslims, no matter where they were born.
They keep telling us what they want, and then they keep getting upset when we take them at their word.
