Voices Shaping the



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Recommendations


Social ecology models aim at implementing ‘culturally acceptable’, ‘culturally compelling’ and


‘effective’ interventions (Panter‐Brick et al 2006) for sustainable and positive change. In this report we outline a number of recommendations that utilise the principles and strategies based on this social ecology model. The recommendations deal with ten areas identified as important from the research conducted. We also provide an indication of the various domains of social interaction of young Australian Muslims’ lives that these recommendations relate to (from the individual to the interpersonal; the community, national and global), as well as providing the evidence base for each. The ten program areas covered are:
1. Personal development
2. Family relationships
3. Leadership development
4. Community development
5. Sport and recreation
6. Arts and culture
7. Racism, prejudice and discrimination
8. Media and representation
9. Cyber media
10. Funding models


1. Introduction

This is the final report on the research project the ‘Voices Shaping the Perspectives of Young Muslim Australians Today’. This research was funded through the National Action Plan of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC). The research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team, comprised of academics from the UTS faculties of Business (Professor Collins), Arts and Social Sciences (Professor Jakubowicz, Ms Chafic, Drs Al‐momani and Cole, and Professors Pennycook and Ghosh) and Law (Ms Hussain) and led by the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre (hereafter CCS).

DIAC required the UTS ‘Voices team’ to provide a detailed empirical study and analysis of the social ecology of voices and voices of influence (including charismatic figures, heroes, opinion‐ makers, interpretative communities, governments etc) informing and shaping the political and theological perspectives of young Muslim Australians, and their experiences, attitudes, beliefs and opinions. The research set out to identify the plurality of voices of influence and the various ways in which young Muslim Australians mobilize religious and political symbols, and language around cultural, social and political issues. In this report we take social ecology to be the study of the relationship between individuals, groups and their social, cultural, political, theological and ideological environments. In social ecology these relationships are understood as multi‐ directional and constantly evolving. In addition DIAC required a review of the relevant literature in Australia and in comparable Western nations, and an assessment of current practical measures, which support and facilitate voices and to identify consistent gaps in government, non‐government and individual approaches in this regard.

In order to meet these research aims we have reviewed the relevant national and international literature and reviewed efforts to introduce programs and projects designed to respond to the needs of Muslim youth, and have provided recommendations for such. We also conducted quantitative and qualitative research in Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin with young Muslim Australians and key stakeholders from Australia’s Muslim communities and other relevant institutions and organizations.


The structure of this report is as follows. Section 2 provides a literature review of the relevant national and international academic literature and research on Muslim youth that has shaped the fieldwork conducted for this research project. Section 3 outlines the methodological approach and the quantitative and qualitative research instruments employed in this research project, and provides a more detailed analysis of social ecology. Section 4 provides an analysis of the quantitative data from the survey of young Muslim men and women conducted for this research project. Section 5 provides an analysis and discussion of the qualitative research, from the focus groups, one‐to‐one in depth interviews and case studies of key informants and of Muslim youth. Section 6 brings together the findings and draws conclusions from the research project. Section 7 provides a series of recommendations utilising a social ecology approach. A review of a range of successful programs and projects designed to promote positive voices for Muslim youth in Australia, the UK, US, France, and Canada is presented in Appendix A. Appendix B lists the questions included in the survey.


2. Literature Review

There is a vast body of literature about youth, ethnic diversity and youth, and Muslim youth for Australia and other countries. This literature spans the disciplines of sociology, politics, anthropology, religious studies, cultural studies, gender studies, media studies, criminology, human and social geography and economics. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) has commissioned a number of research projects on Australia’s Muslim communities under the National Action Plan. Reports on the results of this research have recently been published by DIAC on‐line (http://www.immi.gov.au/living‐in‐australia/a‐diverse‐australia/national‐action‐ plan/). Included in these publications is a review of the literature on, and outcomes of new research into, the hopes and aspirations of Muslim Australians (Akbarzadeh 2010a), and their employment and education outcomes and experiences (Akbarzadeh 2010b). Other reports look at issues of Muslim identities and perceptions of inclusion and exclusion (Yasmeen 2010), and the civil and social participation of Muslim women in Australian community life (McCue 2010). Finally, Wise and Ali (2010) review the range of local government strategies to build bridges between Muslim and non‐Muslim Australians.


We do not intend to restate this literature in the report. Rather we provide a brief survey of the most salient contributions of this recent literature to indicate the inter‐disciplinary vision that has guided the research project.
Muslim Australian communities are very diverse in terms of birthplace, ethnicity and time of arrival in Australia. The history of Muslims in Australia is a long one, pre‐dating white settlement, going back to at least 1650 with the Macassan fishermen visiting the northern coast of Australia (Isaacs 1981). However, most Muslims in Australia today are recent first or second generation immigrants, though, a significant minority is converts. Many have arrived under the humanitarian component of the permanent immigration intake as refugees, while others have arrived as permanent immigrants under the skilled and family reunion programs (Collins 1991; Jupp 2002; Jupp and Nieuwenhuysen, eds 2007; Burnley 2001). Australia’s Muslim communities include immigrants and their Australian‐born families from the Middle East – including Lebanon – Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia, the Indian sub‐continent and Africa. A growing number of Indigenous Australians are converting to the Muslim faith, as are Australians of Anglo‐Celtic background.
The international and national literature on Muslim youth in Australia is, however, relatively limited. Butcher and Thomas (2006, p.53‐71) acknowledge that many young people in western Sydney are Muslim, but frame the terms of their discussion along lines of ethnic rather than religious difference. They base much of their discussion on extracts from interviews with young people. They conclude that youth in western Sydney forge hybrid identities that incorporate their migrant background with elements of ‘being Australian’. This finding is consistent with the literature on minority immigrant youth in western societies (Nilan and Feixa 2006; Nilan, Jilian et al 2007) and is not specific to Muslim youth.
Another important theme in the Australian and international literature relates to how racism and discrimination shape the lives of immigrant minority youth in western societies (Nayak 2003; Spencer 2006). In Australia, Dunn and his colleagues have conducted a series of research projects that have explored dimensions of racism in Australia, including attitudes to Muslim Australians. Based on extensive telephone polling of Australian attitudes to immigrant minorities, they find that 44 % of Australians agree that there are ethnic or cultural groups who don’t fit in to Australian society while 85% think that there is racial prejudice in Australia. On the other hand, they conclude that 87% of Australians think that diversity is a good thing (Dunn and Forrest 2008; Forrest and Dunn 2006). Muslim Australians are particular targets of racist attitudes (Dunn, Klocker, et al. 2007) and racist actions in Australia (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 1991; 2004).
This is not surprising given the negative stereotyping of Muslims that persists in many aspects of the Australian print and electronic media (Manning 2004; 2006), particularly in discourses about Middle Eastern crime and Muslim terrorists (Poynting, Noble, Tabar, & Collins 2004). For example Dunn, Klocker, et al. (2007) argue that contemporary anti‐Muslim sentiment in Australia is reproduced through well rehearsed stereotypes of Islam and perceptions of threat and inferiority, as well as fantasies about the Other (in this case Muslim Australians). In Australia this theme has re‐emerged in the wake of the so called ‘Middle Eastern’ gang rapes in Sydney at the beginning of this century, which resulted in the conviction of Bilal Scaf, his brother and his cohorts (Poynting et al. 2004, p.17‐22; Yusuf 2005; Sheehan 2006). The result of these media discourses is that, according to journalist Peter Manning (2006, p.266), “we are in grave danger of seeing all Arabic and Muslim Australians as ‘the enemy’.” Media discourses have often pictured Muslim Australians in general, and Muslim youth in particular, as alien, criminal, violent and a threat to society (Poynting et al. 2004; Dunn 2005).
Jakubowicz et al (1994) analyse the misrepresentation of different cultures by the media. They argue that sections of the media often present a distorted, and at times racist, image of Australian society and how Australians see themselves and others. Abood (2005:3) looks at the role of the media in our lives and claims that “to qualify as Australian the ‘other/foreigner’ therefore must become less foreign; that is, lose the language, get rid of the accent, turf the cultural and assimilate into the white status quo”. In 2004 Manning conducted a survey of two newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph, in relation to anti‐Arab and anti‐Muslim prejudice before and after September 11. He found that many items in these newspapers that dealt with ‘Arabs’, ‘Muslims’, ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’ also mention the words ‘violent’,

‘death’, ‘terror’, and ‘bomb’ (Manning 2006:13).

Digital media plays an increasingly important role in the lives of contemporary youth, including Muslim youth. The relationship between race, ethnicity, youth and digital media, post 9/11 politics, online hate‐speech practices, and digital youth and media cultures is critical to an understanding of Muslim youth in western societies today.


Another major theme in the Australian and international literature relates to national identity of immigrant minority youth in general, and Muslim youth in particular (see Turner 2003; Kerbaj 2006; Khan 2006; Kabir 2008a). Kabir (2008) studied fourteen Muslim youths from one state school in Melbourne – six males and eight females aged between fifteen and eighteen years

– in 2007. Seven were Australian born of Turkish, Iranian, and Lebanese descent and seven were born in Iraq, Somalia, and Turkey. This study found that the overseas born still identified principally with their country of origin but were conscious of developing a dual national identity. The conclusion was that the overseas born were slowly integrating into the wider community but that this process would slow down if they faced resistance from the wider community for their visibility. Factors such as language difficulties, parental control and gender roles (in restricting girls’ activities) were identified as barriers to acculturation for Muslim youth. For those Muslim youth who arrived as refugees, the traumatic experience of their flight to Australia impacted on the adaptation to Australian life.


Another important theme in the international literature relates to the role and importance of religion in the lives of minority immigrant youth in western societies. For example, Eid (2007) explores the experiences and views of second generation Arab youth in Canada in detail. Eid argues that while they generally feel accepted by mainstream society, they also downplay difference and their Arab background to avoid the prejudice that they anticipate will come as a result. Eid finds that religiosity is “in general less salient” (p.103) than ethnicity in their identities and that religion “plays a relatively marginal role in the sociocultural practices” (p.109) of Arab Canadian youth when compared to ethnicity. Further, he finds that their religiosity is constructed mostly outside of formal, institutionalized rituals and is thus individually imagined.
Education plays a critical role in young people’s lives, their hopes and aspirations, social relationships, sense of belonging and working life chances. This is as true for Muslim and ethnic minority youth as it is for all other youth in western societies today. Education sites are thus important for understanding young Muslim Australians and for policy initiatives designed to increase equal opportunity for all, and to foster social cohesion. A key issue here is whether Islamic schools, of which there are many in Australia, particularly in Sydney, are ghettoes fostering isolated attitudes and practices or whether they are an essential part of the process of weaving a cohesive, multicultural society. Haddad, Senzai et al. (2009), who explored issues related to educating American Muslims, argued that Muslims made it clear that they wanted their children to have the best education possible at the same time that they are learning the essentials of their faith. Zine (2007) examines the narratives of stakeholders in Islamic schools in Canada, in an exploration of conflicting claims about the ‘ghettoizing’ versus the ‘protective’ influences of Islamic schools. Students in public schools can and do suffer from religious and racial discrimination, while Islamic schools offer a safe “culturally congruent space and a more seamless transition between the values, beliefs, and practices of the home and school environment” (p.71). Muslim parents who themselves have suffered the trauma of immigration may seek spaces that not only protect their children but also their culture and religion in Islamic schools. Stakeholders, including students, parents, and teachers from Islamic schools in the Greater Toronto area in Canada rejected the idea that such institutions had a ‘ghettoizing’ influence. Rather, they argue that they offered protection from negative outside influences such as drugs, gangs, violence and sexual harassment. However, some teachers did acknowledge that this ‘safe’ space might mean that students were not as well integrated into wider society after they left school.
Another theme in the international and Australian literature is the role of minority immigrant youth in social conflicts (e.g. riots). Inter‐ethnic conflict in western societies has appeared regularly on our television screens in the past few decades. In most European and North American countries with varying histories of international migration (Castles and Miller 2009), social conflict involving immigrant minorities has occurred. Britain experienced “race riots” in the Brixton of the early 1980s (Solomos 1989) with Afro Caribbean immigrants at the centre of the conflict. Decades later, ethnic conflict ignited in Burnley, in Lancashire and Oldham in Greater Manchester in 2001 (Ascherson 2002) with Asian immigrants at the centre of the conflicts. In November 2005 riots involving Muslim youth who lived in the public housing estates in the North‐western suburbs of Paris spread to many other Paris suburbs, with thousands of cars burnt and confrontation with police and authorities a nightly occurrence for nearly a month. While the causes of these conflicts are complex, the Stephen Lawrence affair in the UK identified racist policing as one key underlying element. The 1999 Macpherson report into the death of Stephen Lawrence exposed the extent of police racism in Britain and proposed a series of police reforms (Collins 2003). In 2002 young black men were five times more likely to be stopped by police than white people (Ahmed and Hinsliff

2002). These instances of ethnic or racial conflict had a number of things in common. The young male immigrant minorities at the centre of the conflict generally came from socially disadvantaged families and neighborhoods. For these, and other reasons related to the different dynamics of the racialisation of immigrant minorities in each country, they all had problems identifying themselves with their new society. In each case, relations between immigrant minorities and police before and during the events of ethnic conflict were a catalyst to that conflict, with subsequent inquiries in many cases recommending substantial changes to methods of policing, and attitudes and practices of police.


In Australia the riots on Sunday 11th December, 2005, at Sydney’s Cronulla Beach sent a tremor through Australian community relations. Images of thousands of mainly drunk white males chasing and bashing isolated men and women of “Middle Eastern appearance” were compelling viewing for media audiences in Sydney, the rest of Australia, and internationally (Poynting 2006). Days later a retaliatory car‐gang of males of “Middle Eastern appearance” sought revenge in a smash, bash and flee raid on the suburbs surrounding Cronulla. For months following this, an unprecedented large police presence dominated Sydney’s famous beaches, preventing further reverberations and escalation of racial conflict (Collins 2007; Collins and Reid 2009).
While the predominant media discourse in Australia has been that of Muslims (often Muslim youth) being the perpetrators of violence and criminal acts, there has been some research into Muslims as victims of crime and violence. Following the first Gulf war, Australians of a Muslim and/or Arab background were subject to extensive racial vilification, abuse and physical attacks (HREOC 1991). A report by the Committee on Discrimination Against Arab Australians (1992) documented racist incidents against Arabs and Muslims for the period November 1990 to July 1991. Some families reported experiencing harassment at their homes and in the streets, shopping centres, schools and communities. Also documented are some incidents of women wearing the hijab, who were subjected to harassment from passing cars and in parking lots. Physical violence was also widespread, with reports of Arabs being spat at or incurring physical injury, including women who had their hijab pulled or torn. In one incident, a car was deliberately run into and damaged, while in another an Arab man died of a heart attack after being racially harassed by a group of teenagers. Widespread property damage was also reported. A Muslim school and restaurant in Perth, Western Australia were subject to arson attacks after threatening phone calls and in other homes and restaurants broken windows and graffiti were reported. Mosques and offices of some Arab and Muslim organizations were attacked repeatedly while staff received threatening phone calls and mail threats. One Islamic centre in an outer Sydney suburb was fire‐bombed in January 1991.
A hotline established by the Community Relations Commission for a Multicultural NSW from September to November 2001 provides evidence that there were a significant number of incidents of verbal abuse and physical attacks on members of the Sydney cosmopolitan community. While this was mostly directed at Australians appearing to be of a Muslim or Arab background, it was not confined to these groups, with Australians of the Sikh religion also reporting abuse and violence. Three in ten victims were youth, while two in three were Muslims, the majority were from an Arabic background, while half of all incidents occurred in a public space, including in or near shops and shopping centres and on the road or while driving.
Another insight into the impact post 9/11 on Arab and Muslim Australians and the extent to which many were victims of racial violence and abuse comes from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) now known as the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHCR). HREOC undertook a large national consultation on the impact on Muslim Australians arising out of the events of September 11 and the bombing in Bali in October 2002. The consultations included group discussions with 1423 Arab and Muslim Australians and an audit of

100 local and state government groups and community organizations was also conducted. The
report of the consultations, Isma‐Listen (HREOC 2004) documents that the majority of Muslims
consulted had experienced escalating prejudice because of their race or religion as a result of the events in New York and Bali. They report experiences that ranged from “offensive remarks about race or religion to physical violence” (HREOC 2004, p.2). The Isma‐Listen report summarises some dimensions of the extent of discrimination, vilification and prejudice in the aftermath of September 11:
The Australian Arabic Council recorded a twenty‐fold rise in reports of discrimination and vilification of Arab Australians in the month after 11 September 2001. The Muslim Women’s Association of South Australia recorded a “significant number of reported incidents, specifically of discrimination and harassment against Muslims”, most involving offensive verbal abuse of women. The Al Zahra Muslim Women’s Association in Sydney also reported a “phenomenal” increase in both discrimination and vilification reports (HREOC 2004, p.43).
The report notes that “people readily identifiable as Muslim because of their dress or appearance were particular targets of racist violence and abuse” and that “Muslim women who wear the hijab, niqab or chador have been especially at risk” (HREOC 2004, p.45). Physical attacks, threats of violence and attempted assaults were widely reported to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. In addition, there were a number of incidents of vandalism on what was identifiably the property of Muslim organizations or individuals, with one mosque in Queensland fire bombed and burnt to the ground (HREOC 2004, p.49). These incidents were reported as having occurred on the street, at home, in private and public transport, in shops and shopping malls, at school, college and university and at work, similar in pattern to those described in the above mentioned reports.

According to a United Nations Special Report (Diène 2003, p. 2, 4), hostility against Arabs and Muslims post 9/11 took different forms in different countries. It took the form of attacks against individuals in the UK and Germany, particularly against women wearing the hijab. In Denmark, there was an escalation of conflicts on various issues between ‘Muslims’ and the rest of the population, and there were attacks against places of worship in the Netherlands and in Australia, acts of malice in France, and verbal harassment and physical attacks against Muslim individuals in the United States.


In seeking influences on Muslim youth there is a potential danger of overlooking the flows of popular culture – television, music, film, and a range of online media, from Facebook to YouTube

– as with any other youth of a similar age, and that popular culture may also come with an Islamic orientation. In many ways Muslim youth are attentive to the same flows of popular culture as their non‐Muslim counterparts. It would be a serious mistake to assume that the central influences on young Muslims should only be sought in the mosque, school, community or peer groups. Muslim youth tune in to global flows of popular culture in ways similar to any other young people, though they also have forms of popular culture available with specific Islamic orientations. Looking at rap and hip hop by British and French musicians of Islamic background, for example, Swedenburg (2001) argues for “the importance of paying close attention to popular cultural manifestations of ‘Islam’ in Europe” (p.76). British band Fun‐Da‐Mental’s engagement with Islam is “central to its multipronged intervention: Islam instils religioethnic pride among Asian youth, serves as an image of antiracist mobilization, creates links between Asians and Afro‐Caribbeans, and shocks and educates white leftists and alternative youth” (Swedenburg 2001, p.62). Similarly, Swedenburg argues that French group IAM’s Islamic engagement is part of their “effort to widen the space of tolerance for Arabo‐Islamic culture in France, through its lyrical subject matter, its deployment of Arabic words and expressions, and its musical mixes, splattered with Middle Eastern rhythms and samples of Arabic songs” (p.71).


In a very different context, Malaysian rappers Too Phat saw both a spiritual and commercial opportunity in developing rap with lyrics from the Koran in Arabic. “Alhamdulillah” (360°), as Pietro Felix from their record label explains, was originally conceived as “an R and B ‘thankyou, praise Allah’ kind of thing,” which they felt “sounded very Arabic, it sounded very Malay, more prayer, religious kind of sound” (Interview, 12/12/03; see Pennycook 2007). In order to get the right sound they collaborated with Yasin, an Arabic singer, to do the lyrics. The song is largely a critique of materialist values with thanks to Allah for the gifts they have received – “I thank Allah for blessing me to be creative/ So here’s a diss for me for bein’ unappreciative/ Wanted a perfect life, yeah smile then die old/ Fame, money, women, phat cribos and white gold/” ‐ and a warning for not saying “alhamdulillah.”. As Pietro Felix goes on, “suddenly we thought ‘this is great marketing’. A lot of Malay kids will love this, plus we can check this out to… all the way East kind of thing” (Interview 12/12/03).
Across the world, rap artists collaborate and draw on each others’ work, producing complex mixes of contemporary and traditional cultures (Alim, Ibrahim and Pennycook 2009). Rappers of Turkish background in Germany, such as Islamic Force (see Kaya 2001; 2002; 2003), for example, draw not only on their own social and cultural context as disadvantaged working class youth in Berlin, but also look to “their homeland, religion and ethnicity” as “their main cultural sources” (Kaya 2001, p.155). Kaya goes on to draw a direct link between the medieval Turkish minstrels (halk ozani) who “enlightened the masses with their lyrics” and who later “used to write and sing poems against the supremacy of the Ottoman rule over the peasantry” (p.181). Thus “using the traditional Turkish musical genre as the source of their samples and having been guided by the traditional Turkish minstrels in terms of lyrical structure, these contemporary minstrels, or storytellers, tend to be the spokespersons of the Turkish Diaspora” (Kaya 2001, p.203). Here, then, contemporary rap invokes cultural and religious traditions not only by sampling and reference to musical styles but by taking up particular social and political functions as storytellers and critics of the current regime. Muslim youth in Australia are equally influenced by such movements (Alim, Ibrahim and Pennycook 2009).
Gender is critical to an understanding of young Muslim Australians (ABC 2005; McCue 2010). Chafic (2008 & 2010) explores the experiences of younger and older Muslim men who are from refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds living in Sydney, focusing on settlement and adaptation in the light of the Howard Governments “values” and “citizenship” debates. Earlier work by Chafic (1994) explored the family relationships, identity and aspirations of male and female high school students living in south western Sydney, of Lebanese Muslim background. More recent work on Muslim women reflects a key theme in this literature related to the hijab. Over the past five years, the issue of the hijab in the Australian and international context has become controversial, particularly after the hijab was banned in schools in France. Western critics see the hijab as a manifestation of the repression of women, a rejection of Western values and authority, and a purported security risk. There have been attempts to ban the hijab in state schools and other public places, in Australian state parliaments (eg Rev Fred Nile, NSW parliament November 2002) and federal parliaments (e.g. Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Panopoulos, Federal parliament August

2005) including shopping centres (Retailers Association on January 2009) and sporting fields


(McCue 2010).

A number of important issues facing young Muslim women in Australia are explored by Jamal and Chandab (2005). These include: conflicting ideas about dress, including wearing the hijab, cousin marriage and family pressure to marry a cousin, preferably from the same area in Lebanon; the unequal treatment of daughters and sons in a Lebanese family, with males allowed a lot of


latitude and females closely supervised and not allowed to go out, play sport or leave home before marriage; sex, and the importance of females being virgins until marriage; patriarchy extending to brothers monitoring sisters’ activities but also protecting them; dress rules for sport; relations with the non‐Muslim community; pressure from school and work sometimes to change an Arabic name to an anglicized one; and the difficulty of performing religious obligations, especially prayer and the Ramadan fast, in the workplace.
In one important contribution to the understanding of female Muslim youth in Australia McCue (2010) explores the civil and social participation of Muslim women in Australian community life. The majority of her female Muslim youth informants reported overall they had worthwhile experiences at school, though some had experienced racism and religious intolerance. A number of barriers to participation of female Muslim youth in non‐Muslim schools were also identified, including discrimination on the basis of dress, teacher prejudice, and prevailing non‐ Muslim youth culture. Other barriers included the attitudes of their parents, family commitments, and for some, language difficulties. McCue (2010) also presents anecdotal evidence that anti‐hijab discrimination is lessening as more girls take to wearing the hijab. Young women indicated that a desire to express their religiosity and Muslim Australian identity was a reason for wearing the hijab, and also that it acts as a barrier to the strong peer pressure in youth culture. The report notes that prevailing Australian youth culture places strong peer pressure on young Muslim Australians to participate in activities such as drinking alcohol, taking drugs and engaging in pre‐marital sex, that are contrary to Islamic teachings. The report also identifies barriers that constrained the participation of young Muslim women in sport, including dress, mixed sport activities, public display during physical activity, religious observances, and lack of parental and community encouragement.
Another key issue is Muslim youth identity. Yasmeen (2008) looked at Muslim identity in Australia using the notion of multiple framing to understand how the identity of Muslims may be represented in Australia. Yasmeen (2010, p.16‐17) surveyed 329 Australians (331 Muslim and

108 non‐Muslim) to explore issues about identities. Most of those surveyed were adults aged
over 25. The majority (84%) of respondents strongly believed they “can be a good Muslim and a good Australian”. Most respondents believed that it was important to maintain an Australian identity (with over 60% believing it to be very or extremely important) and most respondents believed it was important to maintain an ethnic identity (with over 60% believing it to be very or extremely important). No respondents believed it was not important to maintain a Muslim identity (with over 85% believing it to be extremely important). There were no major differences between Australian‐born Muslims and Muslim migrants on the question of maintaining identities, though the issue of dual or hybrid identities was not investigated.
A number of policies, programs and projects with the potential to engage young Muslim Australians, to identify with and be an active participant in, Australian society and Australian life have been developed. Areas related to sport and to youth culture are promising sites for these programs and projects to be further expanded. For example, Palmer (2009) explores the role of soccer and the politics of identity for young Muslim refugee women in South Australia. Palmer’s study examines the ways in which a group of young Muslim refugee women in Adelaide draw upon their experiences of playing in a soccer team, as a way of establishing and embellishing a particular cultural identity that both affirms and challenges many of the traditions of Islam. Similarly Stephenson (2008) argues that a growing number of younger Muslims are seeking to create spaces where young Muslim Australians can be heard. They are using strategies, which work against the almost universally negative characterisation of Islam. They are using rap music (the Brothahood), comedy (Nazeem Hussain and Aamer Rahman with ‘Fear of a Brown Planet’) and a TV panel show (Salam Café) to dismantle stereotypes and encourage young Muslims to be proud of their identity and religion. They are skilled in using the media for their own ends and are skilled in using modern technology. Their productions are humorous, sometimes with self‐deprecating humour, entertaining and at the same time, informative, although they do not set out to lecture.
Wise and Ali (2010) reviewed local government initiatives to improve Muslim and non‐Muslim social relations in Australia. They concluded that little was being done at the local level to build bridges between Muslim and non‐Muslim Australians and suggested that there was great scope for more participation by councils in this area. The best initiatives were those that provided ongoing personal contact and informal interaction between Muslim and non‐Muslim women, with few successful initiatives involving working class Muslim and non‐Muslim men identified. Inter‐faith activities were most common, but these tended to involve males over 55 years of age. They argue that activities in public spaces such as beaches parks, malls, town squares and shopping centres are very important because they have the potential to capture the widest audience. Moreover, programs that were based on reciprocity and hospitality ‐ and involved volunteers from both sides ‐ were most likely to succeed. Sport and media were key areas that held great potential for further program and project development. This study did not look specifically at programs to build bridges between young Muslim Australians and non‐Muslim youth in Australia.



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