Prepared by: Kais Al‐Momani Nour Dados Marion Maddox Amanda Wise C
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WHAT OPPORTUNITIES OR ENABLING FACTORS WERE MANIFEST AMONG THE POLITICALLY ACTIVE?Most stressed the importance of mentoring. Hutch Hussein had been involved with the Labor women’s organisation EMILY’s List, which had been a vital part of her own development, including mentoring by former Victorian premier Joan Kirner. Hutch Hussein strenuously opposed the idea of a Muslim EMILY’s List‐style organisation, however, because that would isolate people and make them appear to be representing a sectional interest. She was emphatic that Muslims should take advantage of the mentoring opportunities available through mainstream channels. Many mentioned strong family role models—particularly women, who had often been inspired by strong female relatives in leadership positions or with successful professional careers. Several of Lebanese background mentioned coming from a community where politics was discussed regularly. For some, the important step was making the leap from talking about homeland politics to engaging with Australian issues in Australia. One interviewee pointed out that, in order for people to become politically engaged, they need first to believe that they can make a difference. He echoed many participants’ argument that education about democratic processes, and how to effect change, is therefore crucial. Programs specifically developed to increase political involvement had mixed results. Ahmed Kilani co‐ convened the Australian Muslim Political Lobby in the lead‐up to the 2004 election, which we discussed in Chapter Two. The Lobby wrote to parties and candidates asking for their policies on issues it identified as of particular concern to Muslim voters. Results were disappointing: the Liberal Party did not reply; the ALP acknowledged receipt but never followed up with answers; only the Greens and Australian Democrats gave meaningful responses. The group nevertheless distributed “How To Vote” cards, pointing out areas on which one party or another was closer to Muslim concerns—for example, highlighting the Liberal Party’s greater support for private (including Muslim) schools and the Labor Party’s more pro‐Palestinian stance. Voter education forums run through the Auburn mosque in the lead‐up to the 2004 federal election had also achieved disappointing turnouts, although the program itself was successfully transferred elsewhere, including beyond the Muslim community. On the other hand, a respondent who did not wish to be named had run successful leadership courses for Muslim women in Queensland, NSW, Tasmania and South Australia. The courses covered financial management, how to conduct a meeting and get people to air their grievances, and how to resolve problems. Some women were wary of participating. Some husbands did not want their wives away for a whole weekend, or feared them becoming feminists. ‘But we stress that it’s run on Islamic guidelines’, the convenor explained, and that the women’s skills would be useful to the whole community, not just women. The program used a train‐the‐trainer model, equipping participants to then run it for others. Victoria Arab Social Services runs TAFE‐accredited leadership programs which emphasise the importance of self‐understanding before one can lead others. Lawyers and debaters volunteer to teach skills in mounting an argument and making a case. Its graduates have come back as volunteers, to help others gain the same experience. Leila Alloush attributed the program’s success partly to the fact that, where some other programs encourage participants to suppress their own feelings, Victorian Arab Social Services acknowledges that experiencing racism and unfair discrimination leaves people hurt and angry, and so participants learn how to understand and deal positively with those feelings. Emotions are also acknowledged in the programs that one participant, a lawyer and community worker, runs for Muslim children in state schools through her independent educational organisation: The media is one of the most difficult areas to deal with ... For example, ... with Camden [protests against the Quranic Society’s proposed school], we showed these videos to the children and asked them to suggest responses: ‘What would you do if you had the chance to respond?’ This really helps those kids because, when you show the video for the first time, immediately there’s a response, ... I don’t know if you remember this woman wearing the hat, the Australian flag ... she lashed out ... and the kids were like, ‘Oh, I want to kill her! ... I hate her!’ Well, how do you deal with this? This is not good enough. You’re actually proving her point. You’re being angry. She says that you people are all dangerous and angry, and that’s exactly what you’re doing. What would you do? And it really helps them to pretend they’re on camera, giving a response to her ... they come up with interesting answers. For example, if there is a ... Muslim soccer club they will offer to have a match with a Camden school and show them that, ‘Hey, we’re just normal people like you’. ... So they will come up, eventually, with ideas, but there’s a lot of anger there and you have to go through it first, before you can come up with the positive responses. The La Trobe Muslim Leadership Program was universally praised, and a number of its participants had gone on to leadership positions, including as board members of the Islamic Council of Victoria. The three‐month part‐time program, whose participants are chosen by application and interview, includes week‐long visits to Sydney and Canberra, and opportunities to meet politicians, judges and religious leaders. Tasneem Chopra, one of its organisers, assessed its achievements: After the graduation of the program every year, we look back at the twenty participants—ten male and ten female—and we see how many are actually actively involved developing their own spin‐off projects. And there’s quite a number ... it’s fantastic. Sam Almaliki had already been active in the Muslim community before he attended the Australian Multicultural Foundation Leadership Australia program when he was nineteen. To him, the program’s biggest success was that it ‘didn’t finish when the seminars finished, it’s still going.’ Sessions on the media, for example, had concluded with the assignment of discussing the leadership program in the media. Now, I don’t think many of us would have done that if the program didn’t ask us to. ... I took it upon myself to go and get an interview with Alan Jones. ... From that experience I’ve been given the confidence that I can create my own opportunities, rather than say ... ‘I’m always denied the opportunity to speak, I’m always denied the opportunity to put the case forward’. The reality is if you investigate you’ll likely get a go. And that’s what it proved for me. ... Alan ... was only too happy to give me the opportunity to speak on his program, prime time, 7:15 am on 18 March ... the important thing was Alan’s own comments and views. He’s renowned for being kind of critical of the Muslim community ... But ... he gave me a very good acknowledgment and credit and also acknowledged the fact ... that forty per cent of young Muslims are born in this country. So we need to regard them as young Australians who are facing issues not so different to what other young people are facing from other cultural backgrounds. The Federation of Muslim Students and Youth runs a program called ‘Believe, Achieve and Inspire’, offered in conjunction with Victoria University, leading to a Graduate Certificate of Management. It is open to Muslims and non‐Muslims, but its website promises ‘rich Islamic content’ and federation president Umar Batchelor explained that: Just like any other organisation we have a target market, and our market is the Muslims, but we do not restrict it to the Muslims ... We want individuals to not only have ... knowledge of management and leadership, but Islamic values are required to become an effective community worker within the Muslim community ... and there’s no other program out there that provides that. However, one leader speculated that: There’s probably, if anything, an excess of leadership programs at the moment. The number of Muslim organisations who are running leadership initiatives is probably numbering into like nine or ten in a given year, which is saturation point. This leader reported that some young people would think ‘Oh, no, not another leadership program!’ while others were put off by the term ‘leadership’ which, they said, ‘sounds daggy’, or ‘sounds uppity’. Some respondents emphasised that the first step to political engagement is engaging in civil society, and so the most effective programs were those that overcame people’s alienation, even if politics was not the topic. A standout example was Victoria Arab Social Services’ Anti‐Racism Action Band, which, at the time of our research, had been running for six years and involved over 150 young people from forty ethnic groups in Melbourne’s northern region. Two of our respondents had been founders, and reported how previously disengaged young people had, through their involvement, learned skills in performance, dance and drama, and had, in turn, undertaken to mentor newcomers. Other successful programs for overcoming disengagement included sport, visual arts, poetry, music and community radio. Tasneem Chopra advocated participating on a school board or equivalent, and emphasised it should be in the state school, not just at the Islamic school: There is that political awareness, making friends with your neighbours—it sounds very simplistic, but when you start building that kind of rapport from the grassroots up, it has a ripple effect. So, she emphasised: Encouraging families with children to participate in ventures that aren’t going to just localise them within their own little communities ... like Little Athletics or swimming at the pool or joining the local library and not just being content to keep within a pretty closed network. These contrasted with some more directly political activities, such as advocacy and consultative groups, which some respondents felt can be tokenistic, though they were more successful when run by and for young people, rather than just existing to advise a board of adults. Victoria’s Ethnic Youth Council was a successful example, its relevance to participants indicated in part by its low drop‐out rate, with members staying in touch even after moving too far to participate in person. Ahmed Kilani, co‐convenor of the website muslimvillage.com, identified a number of federal seats in which the proportion of Muslim voters reached ten per cent, so a block vote could have had a significant impact. However, the literature on religious block voting and the interviewees’ remarks about diversity in the Muslim community suggest a Muslim block vote would be extremely difficult to co‐ordinate. Compounding the difficulty, some Australian Muslims consider voting haram, so either do not vote, donkey vote or deliberately vote informally. Kilani reported working on a polling booth with a high Muslim population for a NSW state election, and being taken aback by the high informal vote and low Muslim turnout. Directory: sites -> default -> files -> documents -> 01 2014 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> The south australian government gazette documents -> All public acts appearing in this gazette are to be considered official, and obeyed as such documents -> Union interparlementaire inter-parliamentary union 01 2014 -> Voices Shaping the 01 2014 -> Muslim Voices – Hopes and aspirations of Muslim Australians Centre for Muslim Minorities & Islam Policy Studies 01 2014 -> Editors: Kerry Download 16.24 Mb. Share with your friends:
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