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| There
are fifteen young women at the Muslim Women’s Association office.
It’s a bit before noon and it’s pretty cold. Our weekly
‘Reflections’ meeting is about to take place when Omeima
Sukkarieh and Susanna Iuliano walk in. After a short introduction,
they join our meeting. The topic of conversation goes from the ‘Reflections’
Magazine to racial and religious discrimination acts we come across
in our personal lives. We start discussing uni, work, school and shopping
with friends – and no, we’re not talking about how much
fun it is or what great learning experiences we engaged in. It’s
about how we were being treated because of our religious beliefs.
We are only a few of the Arab and Muslim population that are discriminated
against. What is discrimination? The Collins Gem Australian English Dictionary defines discriminate as to “single out a particular person or group for special disfavour or favour”. This is what a lot of Arab and Muslims are faced with in their day-to-day lives – being singled out. Anecdotes of our discrimination experiences were told to Ms Sukkarieh and Ms Iuliano. Being a part of this project was an interesting learning experience. We discovered that discrimination we face affects our personal life and the choices we make, thus emphasizing how serious this problem is.
One story shared was of a University student continually having to justify herself and her beliefs to her lecturer who kept making ignorant remarks about Islam. This would happen in almost all of her lectures, as a result, she felt upset and frustrated for being singled out from the rest of her class just because of her religious beliefs. This shouldn’t be happening. When a person enrolls for university they expect to learn and experience exciting things, having their mind expand to different levels. One should not be ridiculed by their teachers or lecturers in front of all their classmates. Another story was of how a year 12 high-school student was not allowed to hold up her national flag in her school muck-up photo. Her principal not only disallowed it, he refused to give an explanation as to why it was prohibited. On the other hand, the previous year muck-up photo had a group of girls posing semi-nude holding up the name of a pornographic website. The principal had nothing to say about that, in fact, some teachers found it amusing. The media has played a large role in the discrimination of Arabs and Muslims by constantly mentioning the nationality of a criminal suspect when they meet the Muslim or Middle-Eastern standard but not stating the nationality or religion of a when someone is not Muslim or of Arab descent. Muslims constantly ask themselves, how come when a Muslim commits a crime it has something to do with the religion but with anyone else it’s a matter of insanity, up-bringing or atmosphere? The fact that the media has got away with discriminative remarks is an issue in itself. Basically, my point is that media has played a large role in Arab and Muslim prejudice., The mentioned anecdotes are obvious acts of discrimination towards young women who are clearly visible as Muslims. Whether discrimination and prejudice against Arabs and Muslims is direct or indirect is not the matter, the fact is that it’s happening and something needs to be done about it. The majority of Arabs and Muslims feel as though they have no right or obligation to report acts of racism and prejudice. This may be because after the September 11 tragedy, prejudice against Muslims has become the norm. Muslims should not have to feel responsible for a tragedy they had nothing to do with. The fact that the supposed perpetrator, Osama Bin Laden is allegedly using Islam as an excuse for the terrorist acts that occurred is not an indication for non-Muslims to point the finger at all Muslims. The whole Muslim nation is not responsible for the minds of the terrorists responsible for the Bali or September 11 tragedies. We should not have to put up with the discrimination against us.
This is one of the reasons why Omeima Sukkarieh and Susanna Iuliano spoke with the ‘Reflections’ team and many other Arab and Muslim organisations. They listen to, and report incidents such of discriminatory acts that occur almost everyday. Omeima Sukkarieh and Susanna Iuliano wanted to clarify that Arabs and Muslims DO have the right to live their lives free from discrimination. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), Australia’s national human rights agency, have launched the Isma? project to arrange “National consultations on eliminating prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australians”, which began on March 2003. The aim of this project is “to find out what is, what isn’t, and what could be done to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice in Australia”. I encourage Arabs, Muslims and other groups that are being discriminated against to take this project as an example and inspiration to let people know that something can be and should be done to help this country remain just and keep it’s reputation of a multi-cultural society. by Shadia Lozi |
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