OPINION: God help our kids in struggle to survive

The 2014 budget hasn't given young and future voters much to cheer. A swag of youth-related programs have been slashed, especially in regional areas. Often these are where businesses are shutting doors, where workers are being laid off and where the only jobs often involve flipping burgers in return for a few dollars.

And if you are unlucky or too depressed to do this kind of work, you may find yourself with no income source for six months. Apart from your parents, that is. Conservatives are all about family values, you know.

You might choose to study. No upfront fees! What a bargain! And enough debt to make getting married, having babies and putting a roof over their head almost impossible.

There was a time when the Liberal Party stood for the "forgotten people", those who didn't have a union or truckloads of cash and capital to back them up. Vulnerable individuals.

But that seems like ancient history today. There are plenty of vulnerable individuals today, especially with union membership falling. But instead of providing opportunity, modern Australian liberalism is all about kicking vulnerable individuals in the guts.

So to whom can they turn? What should they do? Should they jostle a few past and present female MPs? Hold placards upside down on national TV?

Hiding in the detail of Joe Hockey's 2014 budget is a clue. Young people could do with a dose of good old-fashioned religion. An injection of taxpayer funds to empower God is what's called for.

John Howard injected $90 million into a pastoral care scheme. Howard knew public school teachers were spending too much time sorting out the great unwashed kids whose parents were too selfish to invest in a decent grammar school education. Too much money for beer and cigarettes, and not enough for chapel, Latin classes and rugby.

Money for wealthy public schools also got shared among the poor, struggling private schools. The result was that all schools could claim funding under the National School Chaplaincy Program.

The scheme was a huge success. By July 2011, 28 per cent of state schools had taken the dosh. Writing in Inside Story on July 21, 2011, Monica Thielking and David MacKenzie noted: 

The initiative had its critics, but generally the education sector welcomed the additional resources.

Also happy were the chaplaincy providers, most of whom were faith-based. Here was a chance to spread the word.

One spokeswoman from ACCESS Ministries was quoted saying: 

[I]n Australia we have a God-given open door to children and young people with the Gospel. Our federal and state governments allow us to take the Christian faith into our schools and share it. We need to go and make disciples.

This missionary zeal was nothing new. Back in the 1980s my school was making us year 10 boys spend one hour each week for an entire term being indoctrinated by Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live?.

This series of videos presented the European Enlightenment as an atheistic tragedy, the French Revolution as a series of guillotines (OK, he got that one right) and modern "secular humanism" as responsible for everything from the Holocaust to the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Schaeffer's solution? Bring God back into public life, into the public square, into government. Spoon-fed theocracy. That's where my parents' school fees went.

Seriously, though, the chaplaincy scheme is a good idea so long as governments recognise that not everyone believes that the Son of God was sent to die for our sins. And that some youth problems are too tough even for prayer.

The very hint of the Commonwealth funding direct preaching in schools (even if this isn't generally the reality) doesn't sit well with voters - even if Chris Pyne and Tony Abbott scream until the Christ comes home that states and territories are funding less godly counsellors and psychologists.

With our kids' pastoral needs, at least God has the Commonwealth on His side. But not in other areas of school life.

Chris Pyne has already indicated he wants a reviewed curriculum which puts emphasis on Anzac Day and our Western civilisation. God's children mustn't be pacifist and certainly mustn't have a black-armband view of the past, even if His son was a Palestinian Jew.

The culture wars are alive and well in our schools.

God help our kids.

(Irfan Yusuf is an author and PhD candidate at the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. First published in the Canberra Times on 24 May 2014)

OPINION: Legacy of a whingeing bogan

Picture this: London, July or August. The new Prime Minister, the Conservative Party leader David Cameron, is seated in a chair once occupied by New Labour's Gordon Brown. Maiden speeches should hardly be the biggest headache for Mr Cameron. But then a maverick ex-Tory MP who lost her Conservative Party endorsement rises to give her maiden speech. In a shrill voice she declares: “We are in danger of being swamped by bogans.”

And whoever she is, she might just have a point. Because Pauline Hanson, an MP who made a name for herself whingeing about the privileges of the underprivileged and whingeing about Aborigines and immigrants, has announced that she is heading for the land of the biggest whingers of them all. The whingeing bogan will soon be transformed into a whingeing Pom.

Hanson is eligible to hold a British passport because her grandfather migrated to Australia from England. She is proud of her mixed English-Irish heritage. However, if her past form is any indication, Hanson is certainly not too thrilled about having at least 9 per cent Arab/Middle Eastern heritage. Still, we cannot be sure if her ancestors were Christian Muslims or Muslim Christians. 

And Hanson is clear about what she's looking for in mother England. “I've really had enough. I want peace in my life. I want contentment, and that's what I'm aiming for.” England is, of course, a place full of monocultural peace and contentment. You don't see uncontrolled immigration or nasty Muslim (as opposed to Christian Muslim) terrorists running riot there.

If you don't believe me, just ask Hanson's rough equivalent in the UK, the allegedly conservative blogger and columnist Melanie Phillips. In her 2006 book Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating A Terror State Within, Phillips selects chapter headings that show just how wonderful things are up there:

Chapter 1 - The Growth of Londonistan
Chapter 3 - The Security Debacle
Chapter 4 - Multicultural Paralysis
Chapter 8 - On Their Knees before Terror
Chapter 9 - The Appeasement of Clerical Fascism

Back in 2002, Phillips wrote these telling words:

Britain is now receiving around 200,000 migrants a year from outside the EU, of whom around 100,000 are asylum seekers (of whom only 10,000 are currently removed), 60,000 are dependants of those already here and the rest (on a low estimate) are illegal immigrants. If this trend continues, there will be at a conservative estimate an extra two million people every decade - almost another Birmingham every five years.

Which makes you wonder why Ms Hanson would want to consider opening a fish and chip shop in Londonistan.

Hanson may not remain in Australia in body, but her spirit will stay with us for decades to come. Our politics, media and public discourse have been infected by Hansonite thinking. I saw this myself in action in the November 2001 Federal Election. At the time, I was the endorsed Liberal candidate in the safe Labor seat of Reid. I was required to run all media and public comment past the Campaign HQ in East Sydney.

Someone introduced me to a man who lived in John Howard's seat of Bennelong and whose two nieces had drowned with 350 other asylum seekers in the SIEV-X incident. I wanted to say something about it in public and contacted Campaign HQ. The reply came - do not talk about the issue or face disendorsement.

Listen, I know how much you hate Pauline Hanson. You've got to understand that we have a deliberate strategy here. We want to destroy Hanson by sounding like her and attracting her voter base away from her. It's part of a deliberate strategy, and it's temporary.

It was supposed to be temporary. But over seven years have gone by and we are still happily demonising those we deem to be different enough to be a threat to our collective cultural ego.

But is this just the fault of Hanson and those who opportunistically use her reasoning to get elected or stay in power? Why has the politics of marginalisation been allowed to become and remain mainstream? Why don't we have a consistent thread of resistance to racism running in our political and popular culture?

Why are we rightly intolerant of certain kinds of intolerance toward Jews and yet tolerant of virtually identical kinds of intolerance directed at other groups? Why are the prejudicial themes used against Catholics in Australia for more than a century now used by some allegedly devout Catholics against other groups?

Could someone please explain?

(First published in New Matilda on 17 February 2010)

OPINION: On Pakistan and Israel

 

We often forget that Israel isn't the only state founded on the basis of ethno-religious identity.

Israel, the world's only modern Jewish state, declared its independence on 14 May 1948. Exactly nine months earlier, another ethno-religious state was carved out of the Partition of India.

The new nation of Pakistan, founded as a homeland for Indian Muslims (or "Mussalmanoh" in Urdu/Hindi) declared its independence on 14 August 1947.

It is interesting to compare the circumstances in which both nations were founded.

The parallels are not exact, and we cannot do justice to them in this column. However, the exercise can suggest interesting conclusions.

Pakistan was created out of those regions of India which had Muslim majorities. The only exception to this rule was Kashmir, which has been the cause of virtually all underlying conflict between Pakistan and India.

One could argue that the political mythology underlying Pakistan's creation almost exactly matches that of Israel. Pakistan's founders campaigned only in terms of what could be described as Indian Muslim Zionism, claiming Indian Muslims were a nation separate from the rest of India. Millions died in communal rioting leading up to the partition.

The political mythology of Pakistan runs deep in the psyche of most Pakistani migrants. Just as the political mythology of the Indian independence movement runs deep in the psyche of Indian migrants.

The result for the children of both sets of migrants is often boring Sunday afternoon lunches where kids are forced to watch their parents trying to reinvent history.

The discussion at these South Asian gatherings tends to revolve around three topics: religion, politics and "kirkit" (which is how my chronically South Asian mum pronounces "cricket"). In relation to politics, a gathering of Indian and Pakistani Muslims almost always involves a heated discussion on whether Pakistan should have been created.

To this day, relatives of my Pakistani-Australian father speak about the sacrifices of Pakistan's pioneers.

Ironically, today more Muslims live in India than Pakistan. Relatives and friends of my Indian-Australian mother frequently refer to this fact when arguing their case against Pakistan's creation at dinner parties.

Indian Muslim expats question Pakistan's political mythologies, while Pakistani expats express outrage at Muslims expressing such virtual sacrilege. Strangely enough, such sacrilege manages to find its way into newspaper columns and TV talkshows inside Pakistan.

It seems the expats have greater resistance to such debates than the relatives left behind.

Like Israel, Pakistan is now into its second and third generations of citizens.

For these children and grandchildren of independence, the political mythology used to justify the creation and continued existence of their nation is no longer so sacred as to be beyond question.

Still, I can (at least try to) understand why so many Jews feel strongly about Israel.

The fact is that Israel has become central to Jewish identity, especially in Australia, which has the highest proportion of Holocaust survivors outside Israel. For many such survivors, Israel represents a kind of emotional insurance policy.

Yet, just as more Muslims live in India than Pakistan, more Jews live in New York than in all of Israel.

The views of younger Jews, like Antony Loewenstein, may be uncomfortable for many Jews. Yet such arguments are happening inside Israel itself. Eventually they will filter into the diaspora communities.

In the years leading up to 1947, many prominent Indian Muslims opposed partition. They argued Indian Muslims were not a separate nation needing a homeland separate from India and believed the idea of Pakistan was an attempt to impose ethno-religious nationalism on the region.

Similar arguments were used by Jewish opponents of Israel.

Indeed Australia's first Australian-born Governor-General, Sir Isaac Isaacs, was opposed to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.

He argued that such a state could not be created without displacement of hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples and would cause unnecessary tension between the Jewish and Islamic worlds.

In mentioning this, my purpose is not to re-visit the issue of Israel's right to exist.

Muslims who insist Israel has no right to exist are deluding themselves. Such claims enter the realm of hypocrisy when expressed by Pakistani Muslims.

If real and lasting peace is to occur in the Middle East, both Jews and Muslims need to re-assess their respective political theologies.

Jewish spokespeople insistent on defending each and every Israeli action in Gaza and other areas where the Israeli Defence Forces have been occupied are beginning to increasingly resemble my irrational Pakistani uncles who refuse to acknowledge the excesses of the Pakistani Army in East Bengal.

At the same time, it baffles me why so many Muslim countries refuse to recognise Israel's existence. Many use the issue of Palestinian human rights and sovereignty to justify their position.

Muslim religious rhetoric often makes reference to Salahuddin Ayyubi (or Saladdin, as he his known in the West), the Kurdish general who liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders.

What they never seem to remember is that even Saladdin recognised the Crusader kingdoms with whom he made war, and sent emissaries and ambassadors to them. Saladin's brilliance wasn't limited to military tactics. He was a master negotiator with moderate views who sought to avoid war at all costs.

At the same time, it makes little sense fighting against an enemy whose existence you refuse to recognise.

Of all Muslim countries, Pakistan should be at the forefront of encouraging dialogue with Israel and its diaspora supporters. Pakistanis understand at least some of the insecurities that lead a community to insist on separate nationhood based upon ethno-religious identity.

I hope it doesn't sound too simplistic to suggest that support for Palestinian nationhood and human rights need not involve refusing to recognise the reality of Israel's existence. If anything, dialogue should be founded on mutual recognition.

(First published on ABC on 20 March 2008)

REFLECTION: My Jewish Aunty

My parents arrived in Australia during the mid-1960s. My father had just won a scholarship to do his PhD at the Australian National University located in Canberra, Australia’s “bush capital”.

My mother was also offered a scholarship to complete further studies in Urdu. She already held degrees in Urdu Literature from Aligarh and Punjab Universities, and at least one university was prepared to foot the bill to turn her into possibly Australia's first Urdu scholar.

My mum had other ideas. She had a baby daughter and another on the way. She preferred to look after her new family at home so her husband could pursue his studies and a career in academia.

My mother’s Urdu was superb. Her English was another story. She struggled in Canberra, a small city with hardly anyone who spoke anything resembling Urdu. She struggled even to buy bread from the corner store. Until, that is, she met Anne.

Anne was my mother’s age. Anne was not from the Indian sub-continent. Anne was Jewish. And Anne was perhaps the first person to play a pivotal role in my mother’s life in Australia.

Anne regarded my mother’s weakness (lack of English fluency) as a strength. Anne spoke a smattering of Hindi, having lived in India for a number of years. And she saw my mother wearing her sari and struggling to communicate.

“Assalamu alaykum!” shouted this light brown haired, white skinned woman. My mother turned around, and saw this “gori awrat” (white woman) speaking in some kind of Hindi and greeting her with a traditional Muslim greeting. They clicked.

Anne and mum made a deal. If mum helped Anne with Urdu, Anne would assist mum with English and with getting around Canberra (my mum could not drive). They would also swap recipes, and make sure all the food was kosher. Or was that halal? Who cares ... it's all pretty much the same!

Anne’s friendship with mum flourished. They were like sisters. Anne convinced mum to learn how to drive. And mum convinced Anne to learn how to put on a sari properly.

More importantly, their friendship taught them that Jew and Muslim need not hate one another. Events overseas can and should stay overseas. Real friendship can survive war and politics.

For mum, Anne’s religious identity was not a big deal. And in India, it usually is not. Muslim and Jewish communities in Bombay and Poona lived side-by-side for centuries. Just as Muslims and Jews joined hands to defend Jerusalem from the crusading invaders centuries before that. Try telling some Palestinian extremists that their hero Saladdin appointed the Chief Rabbi of Cairo, Shaykh Musa bin Maymum (Moses Maimonides) to lead his medical team. Or that one of the first scholars in the community of the Prophet Mohammed was the former Chief Rabbi of Madina named Abdullah bin Salam.

But that is perhaps ancient history. Returning to the 1960s, Anne was present at Canberra Hospital when mum gave birth to her second daughter. Anne was one of the first to hold the new baby. Anne helped mum adjust to the second baby who was hardly 12 months older than the first one. I can just imagine the scene of these two women holding a crying baby each and trying to rock them to sleep, or feed them, or change their nappies.

Some months later, my Dad finished his PhD. They returned to Pakistan (the Islamic world's answer to Israel). Anne was at the airport to see them off. My mother kept Anne’s address and phone number and promised to write.

I had not yet arrived on planet Earth at that time. So how did I find out about Anne? My second sister, the one who had been held by Anne a few minutes after birth, was preparing for her wedding. Some two weeks before, I was at home when the phone rang. A lady spoke to me in Urdu. She told me her name was Anne and that she had just arrived from Israel where her son was working in a kibbutz. She said she was a friend of mum’s and insisted that I pass on her name and telephone number to mum.

"Yeah, right", thought the young campus Muslim activist. As if mum would keep Jewish friends.

Mum arrived home after a few hours. I gave her the message. She read it and was ready to burst into tears.

“Thumhe pata hai ke ye kon hay? Yeh mery saheli hay Canberra se. Meri bahan ki tara hai. Thumhare liye yeh khala ki thara han. Jis waqt thum payda bhi na huwe the!” [Trans: Do you know who this person is? She is my close friend from Canberra. She is like a sister to me. And for you, she is like your aunt. Even if at the time, you were not even born!]

Mum rang Anne, and they agreed to meet the very next day for lunch at a kosher café named Aviva’s located at Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. I drove mum there. And the first thing Anne said, standing outside this kosher restaurant in this very Jewish part of Sydney was “Assalamu alaykum!”

I waited for mum, who claimed she would only be an hour or so. Four hours later, they both emerged, in accordance with the principles of IST (Indian Standard Time). Mum called me over and said: “Anne khala ko salam karo!” [Trans: give salams to your aunty Anne!]

Mum had also made an executive decision to invite Anne to the wedding. Seating was limited, and I was forced to withdraw an invitation given to a friend. My protests were of no avail. "Thumhari yeh khala hay!” [Trans: She is your aunty!]

Anne attended the wedding and gave her blessing to my sister and her husband. She had tears in her eyes. The last time she had seen my sister was as a baby hardly six-months-old.

My mother is deeply religious. Apparently some religious Muslims have a problem with Jewish people. Funny that.

When I was at university, I used to often pray my Friday prayers at the Surry Hills Mosque. I'd then catch a movie. Afterwards, we would walk around the city and inevitably end up at Elizabeth Street or Castlereagh Street near Piccadilly. And in rubbing shoulders with all our Jewish "cousins" (as we'd call them) with their caps and beards and beads, we'd feel like we were back among the crowd at the mosque! Well, they certainly looked similar.

I've heard some pretty crazy things about the children of Israel over the years from some of Ishmael's kids. But I have never heard my mother say anything bad about Jewish people. After hearing how Anne helped my mum, I could see why.

Through her conduct, her assistance and her love, Anne won a permanent place in my mother’s heart. She behaved like a true Jew, and won the heart of a vulnerable Muslim woman travelling in a strange land.

Imagine if more Jews and Muslims behaved like Anne. Imagine if we Muslims welcomed and befriended our Jewish neighbours. Imagine if we assisted people we saw in need. Imagine if we showed good conduct to all people.

When will we learn to stop fighting? When will we realise that the things we share in common are more important than the things that divide us?

Or, to adopt the words of one of the Talmudic elders: “If we are not for ourselves, who is for us? If we care only for ourselves, what are we? If we don't love now, when will we start?”

The Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) had a Jewish neighbour who always hurled a constant stream of abuse at him. One day, the Prophet noticed that the neighbour was not hurling abuse over their common wall. He made inquiries and found out the neighbour was ill. The Prophet visited the neighbour and inquired as to his health. In doing so, the Prophet won the heart of his Jewish neighbour.

It’s all about winning hearts. Anne behaved more like the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) than many Muslims do. May Allah (or G-d) bless her and bring her even closer to Him.

(First published in Online Opinion on 5 July 2005)

OPINION: So what was Julie Bishop doing in terrible Tehran?

What a crazy few weeks leading up to Anzac Day period it's been. We've had Reclaim Australia holding rallies in most major cities calling for jihad against halal vegemite. We've had hundreds of police swoop on a bunch of kids accused of plotting to kill more police, giving The Daily Telegraph an opportunity to report of "a devastating new terror threat planned for its most revered day", with one columnist reminding us: 

Oh, Islam. How the left so cravenly folds when that particular grievance card hits the table.

By now we should be convinced the Diggers went to Gallipoli to fight 100 per cent halal-certified terrorists and their leftist allies, who are now threatening our Prime Minister's right to down a pint of beer in one go. Surely it's time to ban the burqa.

Which raises the question. What on earth was our Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, doing dressed in what looked like an Emirates uniform? Why did she have to wear that thing on her head? And why, of all places, in the home of beady-eyed mad mullahs and ayatollahs that is Tehran? Couldn't she have appeared bare-headed, in solidarity with millions of Iranian women who hate being forced to wear it? True, our Julie would prefer not to be labelled a feminist, but what about human rights?

Yes? What about it? Julie's mission wasn't to lecture the bearded, turbaned President Rouhani about human rights. Or about trade or halal meat. The mission, as far as the Abbott government was concerned, was dealing with nasty not-so-white Iranian asylum seekers and quite-often-white foreign fighters. Ms Bishop was in Tehran - almost completely covered - to talk about Iran taking back refugee fish that her colleague Peter Dutton rejects.

The Iranians must be scratching their heads wondering what took her so long. It has been three months since a man Tehran insisted was a fraudulent travel agent posing as a Shiite cleric walked into the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place and murdered two Australians in cold blood. Iranian prosecutors wanted Monis on charges of defrauding his customers. Australia granted Monis asylum.

Liberal pollsters will be disappointed Iran refuses to be involved in forced repatriation of failed asylum seekers, many of whom are found to be economic refugees. Perhaps they might be less hesitant to return if sanctions are lifted and Iran's economy opens up to the world. We can then sell Tehran 100 per cent halal-certified coal.

What surely must surprise anyone born around 1970 or earlier is how quickly all this has happened. Not long ago Iran was regarded by many as the Great Satan.

It wasn't long ago that Israel's embarrassingly hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. Pro-Israel lobby groups worked overtime to convince politicians (including our own) that Iran is evil. Iran's holocaust cartoon competitions weren't helping the cause. And a few days before Bishop's arrival, an Army Day military parade in Tehran featured a truck with a huge sign loudly proclaiming "Death to Israel".

But thanks to the moronic antics of the "Coalition of the Willing" (which included Australia) in invading Iraq and overthrowing the brutal Saddam Hussein, and thanks to an incompetent sectarian government we are propping up, Iran is now the most powerful non-Arab player in Iraq. We need Iran more than Iran needs us. It is surely George W. Bush's greatest nightmare that the United States' Deputy Sheriff is now looking to one part of the Axis of Evil for help.

So what's in it for Iran? Increased international respectability. And for Australia? A willing partner in solving our asylum woes. Intelligence to fight IS of better quality than the intelligence used to invade Iraq in the first place. Even more Iranian students.

Iran has been a trading partner but not exactly our best friend. Perhaps that can be gained by Abbott turning up to Tehran sporting a turban. Either way, both Iran and Australia can be well pleased with diplomacy well done.

(Irfan Yusuf is a PhD candidate at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, at Deakin University. First published with the Canberra Times on 22 April 2015)

OPINION: Adapting to avert a Muslim Holocaust

OVER the weekend, 360 Australians of all ages and faiths from across the country gathered at Old Parliament House for a deliberative poll on relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Australia. They heard from a panel of speakers, including Cardinal George Pell, columnist Janet Albrechtsen, lawyer Waleed Aly and journalist Nadia Jamal. 

Twenty years ago, such a conference would have been unthinkable. Muslims weren't regarded then as a monolithic entity. Today's dangerous jihadists were bankrolled by the US to fight communism. Saddam Hussein was provided with WMD, including chemical and biological weapons, by the West to use on Iran. 

Now, Muslims are no longer regarded a complex phenomenon but a giant blob of monolithic cancer ready to engulf the planet. The weekend's deliberative poll saw Australia First Party representative Denis McCormack cast aspersions on the Jewish heritage of another speaker, claiming she was part of a multiculturalist cabal.

He was rightly condemned by the audience. The same audience was almost silent when Pastor Daniel Scott told delegates that all Muslims represented a threat to Australia and that Muslim spokespeople were deliberately sugar-coating their message to hide the violent reality of their intentions. 

This kind of conspiratorial thinking can also be found in the latest book of British tabloid columnist Melanie Phillips entitled Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within. Phillips recently concluded a short Australian tour to promote the book she describes as an attempt to piece together this complex jigsaw puzzle, the deadly fusion of an aggressive ideology and a society that has lost its way. 

Phillips argues the British elite have wrongfully abandoned the dominant Judeo-Christian monocultural heritage in favour of a rampant multiculturalism that bends over backwards for ethnic, religious and even sexual minorities. This has allowed jihadi Islamism and Muslim clerical fascism to infiltrate British society, manifesting itself in the London bombings of July 7, 2005. 

Phillips suggests jihadi Islamism has become today the dominant strain within the Muslim world, as well as in Western Muslim communities. This absurd claim contrasts with the enormous variety of religion practised by nominal Muslims across the planet. 

Hence, Javanese Muslims have culturally and linguistically more in common with Balinese Hindus than with Bosnian Muslims, who have more in common with Serbian Orthodox or Croatian Catholics. 

Indeed, Phillips' insistence of minorities accepting the terms on which minorities must relate to the majority culture in a liberal democracy would have little application in the new European states, many of which are comprised completely of minorities. 

In 1992, the people of the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina voted in favour of independence. Bosnia was to be a multi-ethnic and multireligious state consisting of a number of religious minorities, including Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Jews. 

Within months of independence, the country was plunged into a war characterised by genocide, concentration camps, ethnic cleansing and mass rape. Some 100,000 Bosnians (mainly Muslims) were killed and more than a million were displaced. The International Court of Justice recently ruled that genocide occurred in Bosnia. 

Today, Canberra plays host to two senior religious figures who witnessed much of the carnage. Dr Mustafa Ceric is Reis al-Ulama (chairman of the Council of Religious Scholars) for Bosnia- Herzegovina. He is also mufti of Croatia, Slovenia and the Sanjak region bordering Serbia and Montenegro. Ceric is accompanied by the mufti of the Bosnian city of Mostar. 

Ceric also sees a crisis of values engulfing Europe. He warns Europeans not to become complacent about sectarian hatred. He told BBC at the weekend that Europe promised never again after the Holocaust, only to sit back and watch as genocide was perpetrated against Muslims in his nation. 

I wish that Islamaphobia that is now (in place) in Europe and in the West will not result in a Muslim Holocaust. Europe must start speaking with Muslims and hear what they have to say and help them to make their place in society that is responsible, respectable and future-looking. 

Ceric says Muslims in Europe also have a role to play, that Muslim migrants must stop behaving like tribal entities and adopt European values like democracy and pluralism. 

If the Muslims do not accept the fact that they have to learn about democracy not only within the larger context of the European community but within their own community... then I think the Muslims will be in a position to fear what will happen in their future.

Ceric singles out the United States and Australia for praise as nations more accepting of migrants than Europe. Ceric speaks from experience, having completed his PhD and acted as imam of a major Chicago mosque. Ceric personifies indigenous European Islam whose culture and values have sat comfortably (apart from the occasional externally imposed genocide) within Europe for centuries. 

Melanie Phillips, on the other hand, personifies the type of sectarian paranoia and hysteria that for centuries poisoned relations between European Christians and Jews and now threatens to use the pretext of cultic jihadi extremism to poison relations between the West and the rest. 

(Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and writer. First published in the Canberra Times on 07 March 2007)

OPINION: Inconsistency in the treatment of foreign fighters

The scenes from Ukraine we see on our screens are highly sanitised, the written reports less so. We read about but don’t see bodies and body parts of Ukrainian civilians strewn across fields and streets, of exploded Russian tanks containing the charred remains of young Russian conscripts. We are tempted to believe that the Russians and Ukrainians are two easily identifiable monolithic sides divided by race, language, history and perhaps even religion. One wishes to be free, the other to conquer. It couldn’t be simpler.

But it isn’t. The Ukrainian President is from the Russian speaking community. He is from a Jewish family. He is a firm supporter of Israel, a country which, according a 9 July 2018 report in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, was arming groups ‘that espouse a neo-Nazi ideology’. One such group is the Azov militia ‘whose members are part of Ukraine’s armed forces and are supported by the country’s ministry of internal affairs’. The same newspaper on 19 February 2022 reported Azov had its own political party and paramilitary force ‘with ties to Western neo-Nazi groups’.

Around the same time as this report, the BBC reported that UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss openly supported individuals who wished to join the international forces in Ukraine to fight Russian forces, claiming they would be fighting ‘not just for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe’.

The Ukrainian government has set up a website to recruit foreign fighters. Already there are reports of thousands of Westerners from places such as Australia, Scotland, Canada and the United States heeding the call. Some have seen war before, having served in the armed forces of their countries. Who knows what unresolved trauma they carry already? Others are idealistic young men and women keen to fight for what they see as a just cause — the defence of innocent civilians and a democratic nation. Still others may be heeding the call of groups like Azov.

I doubt most volunteers espouse neo-Nazi ideology. I also doubt many will be familiar with Ukrainian language, culture, history, religion and nationalism to tell the difference between various groups wearing the Ukrainian armed forces uniform. In the fog of war, nuance goes out the window. The Ukrainians are out-gunned and outnumbered by a much stronger Russian army and its own band of mercenaries and volunteers.

I grew up in the 1980s at the height of the Cold War, a time before many of today’s volunteers in Ukraine were even born. It was a time when the Russians (or rather, the Soviets) had invaded another small neighbour and were committing atrocities against civilians. The Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan wasn’t only seen as a symptom of the nefarious spread of communism. It was also a human rights issue. Western athletes boycotted the Moscow Olympics. Western governments openly supported the Afghan Mujahideen and were happy to support, finance and even arm foreign fighters joining the various mujahideen factions (including the faction controlled by a devout Saudi named Usama bin Ladin) to fight the Soviet occupation.

The West and its allies from Muslim-majority countries were happy to allow their citizens to fight the Russians on that occasion. Some went not to fight but to provide aid. Some went as doctors and paramedics. Many stayed home but lobbied and raised funds to support the Afghan resistance. For me, as a young Australian kid who didn’t speak a word of Pushto or Dari or any other indigenous Afghan language, who had never set foot in the country but who shared a religious affiliation with the people of that nation, the call to arms was quite tempting.

Had I gone to Afghanistan to fight, I would not have been seen as a terrorist. In those days, jihad was not a dirty word. The mujahideen (a word literally meaning ‘those undertaking jihad’) were hailed as freedom fighters. In my young mind, the mujahideen were one united force. All Afghans were opposed to communism. The West was backing my team. What could possibly go wrong?

But as we know, much did go wrong. Twenty years later, the remnants of the Afghan mujahideen formed the Taliban. The forces loyal to Usama bin Ladin set up a base there. We all know what happened next. Had I gone to Afghanistan in any capacity shortly before 9/11, it’s possible I may have joined David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib in Guantanamo Bay prison.

Until the pandemic hit us in March 2020, the threat of terrorism dominated much of our domestic politics and foreign policy. Rafts of legislation have created a parallel criminal justice system to investigate, prosecute and punish those with even the most tenuous links to terrorist groups seeking to attract funds and support from Australians. Passports are cancelled. Citizenships are revoked.

This was the War on Terror, a war in which Russia was an ally. Western nations sat back and watched as Russia committed atrocities in cities like Grozny. The Chechens were regarded as terrorists. We weren’t surprised when the two young men who carried out the Boston Marathon bombing turned out to be Chechens.

Russia was also an ally in the war on ISIS. We watched as Russian forces joined forces with the Syrian regime and Iran to fight the brutal ISIS militia. Iranian forces also fought ISIS in Iraq, arguably in tandem with US and Australian forces. It was all very murky and confusing.

In a space of 40 years, Russia has been our enemy, then our friend and now is an enemy again. Russia is again attacking Ukraine. We are convinced the Ukrainian cause is just. But we also know that we face a domestic far-Right terrorism threat at home. What if young impressionable foreign fighters with little knowledge of Ukrainian history, politics and internal conflicts find themselves fighting with and influenced by anti-Semitic and Islamophobic neo-Nazi groups? What will these foreign fighters do when they bring these ideas (and the associated trauma of war) with them back to Western nations including Australia? 

(Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney based lawyer and blogger. First published in Eureka Street on 12 April 2022)