Alienating Terror Laws Worry Aussie Muslims
“It sends the message, we don’t want you, which could push disaffected young people into the hands of radical groups,” Kuranda Seyit, secretary of the Islamic Council of Victoria and a leading voice in Victoria state’s Muslim community, told Anadolu Agency on Thursday, July 23.
“From that perspective, it’s counter-productive. It’s also counter-productive in that it doesn’t give people any option for rehabilitation or reintegration.”
Seyit is one of the Australian Muslim leaders who voiced opposition to the government’s controversial de-radicalization program as a way to contribute to the negative stereotypes about Islam.
Deeming it a “punitive” policy, Seyit warned that the new laws could potentially alienate disenchanted youth.
Seyit's comments came a few days after the president of the Sydney-based Lebanese Muslim Association, Samier Dandan, penned the new anti-radicalization policy as “outdated” and “pointless”.
“[They are] opportunities for these departments to feel satisfied that they have ‘consulted’ with the Muslim community, without actually having done anything constructive,” Dandan wrote in an op-ed on the association’s website, The Guardian reported.
“It boggles the mind, then, that it would continue to exclude legitimate Muslim voices and widely accepted research from the discussions about how to tackle radicalization.”
Dandan’s views on the language used in the recent "Countering Violent Extremism" summit discussion paper were echoed by Seyit.
“It perpetuates stereotypes and the assumption that Islam is intrinsically linked to some sort of extremist ideology,” Seyit said.
“It didn’t mention the generic problem of extremism which exists in white supremacist and Neo Nazi groups and other religious ideologies.”
Seyit, who is also a teacher at an Islamic school, slammed the language used by the government, saying that it feeds divisions in the society.
The language used by the Abbott government feeds into the narrative of a division in society, which “leads to the emergence of [anti-Islamic] groups like Reclaim Australia.”
“Everybody now thinks there is an epidemic of terrorists threatening every Australian, which presents a huge danger for social cohesion,” he warned.
Reassuring Muslims
Facing fierce criticism over the new counter-terrorism measures, the Australian Justice Minister tried to play down Muslim worries.
Reassuring Australia’s Muslim community, the Justice Minister Michael Keenan said on Friday, July 24, that police and the federal government “are not the enemies” of Islam.
Speaking about the “significant ongoing threat of terrorism”, Minister Keenan stressed that the counter-terrorism measures were not aimed “solely” at Muslims.
“Critics have attacked the police for targeting the Islamic community. But as I have said many times, we are not the enemies of Islam nor the enemies of any other religion,” Keenan said during an address to the Lowy Institute in Sydney, the Guardian reported.
“This is not about targeting Muslims.”
The Justice Minister went on saying: “We should all be smart enough not to confuse the act of a violent extremist minority with the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Australian Muslims.
“However, our law enforcement agencies have a job to do. They must protect the community and they will apply our laws equally and without discrimination in order to do so.”
The Justice Minister also claimed that the new strategy aims at promoting the social cohesion in the society.
“If we can prevent vulnerable people from feeling further alienated by ensuring they have a sense of belonging or are part of a strong and supportive community, then we can stop some from becoming susceptible to violent extremism in the first place,” he said.
“We manage our diversity in a way that should be the model for the rest of the world and we have avoided the mistakes that I think are evident elsewhere.
“We have done this in the face of many challenges and we should reaffirm our commitment to it undeterred by the new security threat.”
Muslims, who have been in Australia for more than 200 years, make up 1.7% of its 20-million population.
In post 9/11-era, Australian Muslims have been haunted with suspicion and have had their patriotism questioned.
A new survey has found that the majority Australian Muslims feel under siege by the country's anti-terror laws, accusing them of “unfairly” targeting the religious minority.
Source: On Islam
