September 3, 2008

CNN: Dangerous Ground

CNN Int'l showed an excerpt of a longer documentary last night, entitled Dangerous Ground, about the tense relations between Australia's Muslim community vs. the non-Muslim population. Much of the excerpt focused on the feeling of alienation Muslims felt, especially the youth, when faced with the Islamophobic behavior of many Australians.

Sure, we have racists. If you call it racist, not accepting a community that also happens to... they, they've got terrorists amongst them. OK? We can't say they haven't. They have! If we let 'em in here, they want to be here because they can go on hiding in their country-little farmhouses.

The documentary highlighted a number of recent incidents, such as the Cronulla riots of December 2005 and the controversial decision last year to deny construction of the Islamic school in the Sydney suburb of Camden. Some of the more level heads presented in the documentary were the Australian police, who are starting to reject the "you're either with us or against us" rhetoric in favor of community policing, and the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University, who are recognizing the need for Australian Muslims to remain involved with the greater Australian society.

The problem is that there have been a number of cases where Australian Muslims have faced various barriers, not just by ordinary Australians who may spout Islamophobic and racist speech toward individual Muslims, but by various government bodies who have rejected various Muslim groups' requests: a youth center application being denied, a boxing gymnasium run by a Muslim being told to vacate their premises, and two school applications (one being the Camden school) being denied. The irony and disgust about the last is that one school's application was denied by a town council that, on the same night, also approved the expansion of a local brothel.

Based on my watching of the excerpt, I don't have high hopes for an improvement between non-Muslim Australians and the Muslim community there. The larger problem, IMO, is the racist and xenophobic attitude of the Australian community. I've seen a lot of people argue that Muslims need to become more integrated into the local community, but when the larger community continues to build walls and shut doors in the faces of Muslims, I don't see how integration can be achieved. Non-Muslims need to realize that we're not going away, and that the problem is also theirs.

From the documentary's reporter, Sally Neighbour:

We set out to do this story after hearing anecdotal accounts of a rising sense of alienation and resentment among young Australian Muslim men, a result of the fallout from September 11 and the Bali bombings, and the subsequent "war on terror."

Their typical experience is being yelled at in the street: "Go back to where you came from. We don't want you here."

But the fact is 40 percent of Australian Muslims were born here. They have nowhere else to go.

I felt this story was important, not just because everyone deserves to feel at home in the country of their birth, but because I know from my own research on terrorism that alienation is a key factor in the evolution of disillusioned individuals toward terrorism.

The first obstacle we faced in making the program was getting anyone to talk to us. Muslim groups and communities are deeply suspicious and resentful toward the media, which they feel has stigmatised them.

Many groups and individuals we approached refused to co-operate, out of (an often legitimate) fear that they would be typecast as "the bad guys" or potential terrorists.

Thankfully some of them decided it was worth taking the risk, in order to have their say.

Another difficulty was distilling the historic and political complexities of the current global Islamist insurgency into a 45-minute television program. We think the results are revealing and disturbing.

The following two video clips are from the documentary. The first is from CNN; there's a second part, but I was unable to get the proper embedding code from their website.



This video clip was taken from Youtube, which has just this ten-minute excerpt. Hopefully, both of these will give an indication of what the documentary is like.



The entire video can be watched (for a £1 price) here.

2 comments:

aidtab said...

Dangerous Ground/Moslem-Australians

A
The content of this documentary was lacking:

A Comparison of the Moslem-Australian community to other communities such as the Hindu and Buddhist communities who live in peace with fellow Australians is primordial for viewers and to understand the situation

Interviewing mainstream Moslem-Australians was also lacking and hence the discussion was lap-sided.

The Moslem community was asking the Australian Government to approve and finance a Moslem School, at a time when the Moslem community could have financed the school themselves through grants from the affluent oil countries, who are predominantly Moslem. The Australian Government does not finance Christian/Hindu/Buddhist public schools.

B
The documentary was inciting hatred and tarnishing the image of Australians as Moslem haters while in fact most of the Moslem community in Australia, which has grown into an a big force, refuses to get involved as peaceful Australians but rather as pure religious entity trying to change the surroundings.

Those young Moslem-Australians were born some 20-30 years ago from non-English speaking parents. The Australian Government offered those parents monthly salaries, English courses, education and health benefits. But those parents were not interested in learning English for they were living in a large community thriving as if in their home land. From Lakimba westward, Arabic was predominant, slowly the Australian identity of those suburbs was disappearing. Non-Moslem Australians in those suburbs became a minute minority and were living there as-if a Moslem country. Against this background and the events of September 11, came the incident at Cronola.

Those kids never spoke English at home. They don’t see the need to be an Aussie. They feel at home in their thriving communities and don’t see the need to get engaged. After September 11, they saw an opportunity to act alienated while going to Mosques to get instructions. They thought those naive Australians would do anything not to be labeled as Moslem bashers and they zeroed on to express their alienation.

All this was not discussed in the documentary. The documentary’s aim, appeared to me, was to show the plight of Moslem Youth, wile the Mosques are disseminating hatred only because Australia opened its doors and generosity to them. No other community was so ungrateful. But the real issue lies beyond those incidents it is in the Moslem psyche, which in my opinion has to get out from the Caliphate mentality in order to embrace the present day.

I feel the documentary is just a fag to make people tune-in. CNN may wish to be cautious as this is dangerous ground .

JDsg said...

A Comparison of the Moslem-Australian community to other communities such as the Hindu and Buddhist communities who live in peace with fellow Australians is primordial for viewers and to understand the situation

Maybe, but it's obvious that the filmmakers were trying to maintain a tight focus on their documentary. Considering that the whole film is a mere 44 minutes long, doing comparisons to other communities doesn't seem like a worthwhile endeavor.

Interviewing mainstream Moslem-Australians was also lacking and hence the discussion was lap-sided.

Every Muslim interviewed with the exception of the young kid who got arrested struck both my wife and I as "mainstream." The young kid didn't strike us as an "extremist," just stupid and irresponsible. The fact that he was acquitted by the court would seem to show that the authorities agreed with us.

The Moslem community was asking the Australian Government to approve and finance a Moslem School...

Which school was this? The Camden school or the other, unnamed school mentioned in the documentary? I've read around a dozen articles that span through last year on the Camden school decision and not one mentions that the Muslim community was asking for government financing. I find your statement very hard to believe, not only because I've seen no proof of it (any links you can share?), but also because Muslim financing for mosques, schools, community centers, and so on don't normally rely upon outside financing (due to the prohibition on interest).

The documentary was inciting hatred and tarnishing the image of Australians as Moslem haters...

If the shoe fits... The words and actions of the non-Muslim Australians damn themselves as Islamophobes.

...while in fact most of the Moslem community in Australia, which has grown into an a big force...

A mere 1.5% of the country's population. Yes, that's a "big" force.

...refuses to get involved as peaceful Australians but rather as pure religious entity trying to change the surroundings.

I think you missed the point of the film: non-Muslim Australians are making it difficult for young Muslim Australians to integrate as "Australian." The Australian Muslim community isn't trying to "change the surroundings" in a macro sense, but only to provide social outlets and educational facilities for the Muslim community. What do you expect, for the Australian Muslims to become completely invisible? You need to face reality: Muslims aren't going away. In fact, if you really wanted to encourage Muslim engagement with the larger Australian society, you'd be supporting the Muslim efforts to build the schools and social centers.

Those kids never spoke English at home.

Instead, they became bilingual, speaking their parents' language at home and English in Australian society. The same thing happens in other countries. It's not a problem unless you're paranoid about people who speak another language you don't understand.

They don’t see the need to be an Aussie.

That's not what the documentary showed.

They feel at home in their thriving communities and don’t see the need to get engaged.

Isn't that the point of social interaction, to create thriving communities? If people are involved in a "thriving" community, they're being engaged. Even with sub-communities, for example, neighborhoods, there's still a tremendous amount of interaction between the smaller and larger communities.

After September 11, they saw an opportunity to act alienated while going to Mosques to get instructions.

I think your paranoia's starting to show.

They thought those naive Australians would do anything not to be labeled as Moslem bashers and they zeroed on to express their alienation.

No, obviously the "naive" Australians don't need the help of the Muslim community to show their true Islamophobic colors. They can do that very well all by themselves.