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Down Under

Australian Muslims under siege

2007-01-20

Australia’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 Australia’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.

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Down Under

Jews are pigs, says Muslim cleric

2007-01-17

SYDNEY'S most influential radical Muslim cleric has been caught on film calling Jews pigs and urging children to die for Allah. Firebrand Sheik Feiz Mohammed, head of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, delivered the hateful rants on a collection of DVDs called the Death Series being sold in Australia and overseas. "Today many parents, they prevent their children from attending lessons. Why? They fear that they might create a place in the their hearts, the love, just a bit of the love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah," Sheik Feiz says in the video. "We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid (holy warrior). Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom." An Australian citizen born in Sydney who has spent the past year living in Lebanon, Sheik Feiz was exposed this week in a British documentary Undercover Mosque. Investigators found Sheik Feiz's DVDs being sold by children in the carpark of the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham and other Islamic bookshops. The entire set can be bought online for $150. "The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the highest point, the pivot, the summit of Islam is jihad," he declares in the film, before denouncing "kaffirs" (non-Muslims). "Kaffir is the worst word ever written, a sign of infidelity, disbelief, filth, a sign of dirt." In an excerpt from a video lecture series called Signs of the Hour, Sheik Feiz then ridicules Jews as pigs. Sheik Feiz - who just two weeks ago said he felt like an "alien" in his own country - leads about 4000 followers through his Global Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney's southwest. He also accused Australian authorities of being over-zealous in their approach to clerics like him. "There are no sheiks preaching chaos there. No one is telling people to raise arms against the Australian community," he said. Sheik Feiz left for Lebanon just before the arrest of 23 men in Sydney and Melbourne in November 2005.

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Down Under

Australian clerics to train at university

2006-03-15

ISLAMIC clerics will be trained in Australian universities under a proposal by Muslim leaders to prevent students being radicalised by fundamentalist teaching in the Middle East. Home-grown imams will be able to study in Melbourne and Sydney, using a curriculum that emphasises spiritual rather than political Islam, under the plans being drawn up by an arm of John Howard's Muslim Community Reference Group. Joumanah El-Matrah, who co-chairs one of seven sub-groups in the Prime Minister's Muslim advisory body, said the clergy courses would offer a mainstream alternative for religious training outside the hothouse environment of training centres in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where many aspiring imams travel. "The course will offer a meaningful alternative within Australia for young Muslims who are interested in developing some training in Islam, or their interest in becoming imams," she said. "In time we think the graduates of the course would create a vision of what it means to be a Muslim here, in a way that is conducive to this community." It is understood preliminary approaches have been made through the federal Department of Education to established universities in NSW and Victoria with a view to starting courses as early as next year. The plan comes after The Australian revealed in December that Muslim clerics would be subject to a strict code of behaviour under a proposal being devised by Islamic leaders to rein in inflammatory language. The Muslim community's image has suffered greatly in recent years because of the extremist ideology preached by some imams. Firebrand Melbourne sheik Mohammed Omran was criticised by Mr Howard and moderate Muslim leaders for calling Osama bin Laden a "good man" and labelling as a US-government conspiracy the attacks of September 11. And in a lecture delivered to more than 1000 people last year, Faiz Mohammed, from the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney, said rape victims had only themselves to blame. Ms El-Matrah, who manages the Islamic Women's Welfare Council of Victoria, said the proposed clerical training would range from undergraduate to PhD levels and be carried out by local and visiting imams. "What we're looking at is a standard course, one to operate out of Victoria and one to operate out of NSW," she said. "(While) there are already Islamic courses in both states ... they are not courses that are designed for imams. "You can have brilliant people from overseas, but the cultural context in which they've done their training is radically different from Australia. "I think it's important to note that all other religions in Australia have similar sorts of degrees already." Melbourne's most prominent Muslim cleric, Fehmi Naji El-Imam, who co-chairs the clergy training sub-group with Ms El-Matrah, said he would ensure only moderate theologians were hired to lecture students. But Ms El-Matrah warned that the proposal should not be seen as a means of eradicating or undermining Islamic extremism. "We don't want people to think this is going to fix all of the community's problems," she said. "The course won't be set up to undermine these (extremist) people. But what I imagine is that the more people there are that are fluent in Islam, the less power people like, say, Benbrika, are going to have." Muslim cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika is among 19 Melbourne and Sydney men awaiting trial on terrorism-related charges following federal police raids in November. The Australian revealed last year that Mr Benbrika was self-taught and had no formal qualifications.

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Code to censor radical imams

2005-12-27

MUSLIM clerics would be subject to a strict new code of behaviour under a plan being devised by Islamic leaders in Australia to rein in the inflammatory language of some extremist imams. The head of John Howard's Muslim Advisory Council, Ameer Ali, told The Australian yesterday that guidelines to control religious leaders would be thrashed out at a special meeting next month. "At the moment, we have no control over these imams, we don't know what the credentials of these imams are, what their qualifications are -- everybody gives sermons," said Dr Ali, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. "So we want to have some sort of order in this chaos." Like I've said on a number of occasions, any idiot can issue a fatwah, and many do... Under the proposal, first discussed at a meeting of Muslim leaders in August, a new national board of imams would set guidelines for religious figures and monitor their sermons. Dr Ali said the board of imams would set "rules and regulations about sermons and who gives the sermons". The idea is believed to have the backing of many moderate Muslim leaders, but it has infuriated firebrand Melbourne cleric Sheik Mohammed Omran. "They don't have authority, they don't have the power, they don't have any licence to talk about that," he said last night. No more license than the guys giving the jihad sermons, in fact... Dr Ali's comments come a day after the defiant Sheik Omran told The Australian the Howard Government should be held partly responsible for demonising Muslims and promoting terrorism. Keep in mind that as Moose limbs they're incapable of controlling their own actions... Allan helps those who can't help themselves. Sheik Omran, who was not invited to the Prime Minister's summit of moderate Islamic leaders earlier this year, said he was no more radical than many other imams in Australia, but accused other clerics of being too afraid to speak their mind. That tells me only that he's not the only turban in Australia who needs to be examined and... ummm... dealt with. But Dr Ali, spokesman for the Muslim Reference Group set up by the Howard Government to act as a go-between for the community and Canberra, said some clerics, including Sheik Omran, required "re-education" about their religion and advice on how to deliver sermons without encouraging "violence" or inciting young Muslims to extremism. "These (clerics) need some re-education about their own religion," Dr Ali said. "Not only in their subject matter, but how to communicate with youngsters; the language they use. In these sermons, these imams are not questioned. They have the monopoly, they say whatever they like and they get out of it." I'm sure the stemwinder sermons are a lot more fun than the guys who drone on and on, just like in churches. The Paks are quite enamored of "fiery" preachers. But I somehow doubt that reeducation is going to work. Now, a plane ticket for Sheikh Omran, that might work. While not singling out Sheik Omran, head of the Melbourne-based Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jamaah Association, Dr Ali yesterday raised the prospect of censoring clerics. "If, in the interest of the wider community, certain language and the way of speaking should be censored, you should do that," he said. But Dr Ali said of Sheik Omran: "I don't think he directly promotes terrorism in this country." Not directly, of course. Indirectly is a different matter... He said Sheik Omran and other clerics should be more "guarded" in their language. "Young people are gullible. They are ready to listen to people who have radical views and I suppose Sheik Omran in his sermons has used that language and wants that support." I suppose he has and he does. It's part and parcel with the practice of moving in and setting up your own local caliphate. Once it's in existence and doing business, nobody can seem to figure how to get rid of it. Dr Ali also criticised Sheik Faiz Mohamad, from Global Islamic Youth Centre in Sydney, for a lecture he delivered to a crowd of more than 1000 people in March, in which he said female rape victims had only themselves to "blame". It's fairly common theme in sermons among the Faithful™, I believe. "There's an imam in Sydney ... who made a statement that there are girls in this country that deserve to be raped -- that's all rubbish," Dr Ali said. Sheik Faiz reportedly told public followers at a public meeting in Bankstown: "A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world. Strapless, backless, sleeveless, nothing but satanic skirts, slit skirts, translucent blouses, miniskirts, tight jeans: all this to tease man and appeal to his carnal nature." "Milk-white bosoms and smooth, trembling thighs! Rounded buttocks! Pouty red lips and... and... I must shoot off! My gun! I must shoot off my gun! That's it... The interpretation of certain aspects of Islam will also be discussed during a meeting of Muslim leaders, where the registration plan will be formalised. Mr Howard and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock will be invited to the meeting, scheduled to take place early in the new year. "How we interpret some of the concepts in Islam -- these are (also) the issues that the imams are going to discuss," Dr Ali said.

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