Indigenous Australians and Islam: Spiritual, Cultural, and Political Alliances

David Edward Lawson

BSocSc (Hons) BScSc

A thesis submitted in the School of Social Work and Human Services, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

December 2010

Indigenous Australians and Islam

Acknowledgements

Whatever insights that emerge from this study, are owed to the many Indigenous, Muslim, and Indigenous/Muslim participants and associates who generously gave of their time and experiences. Special thanks and appreciation to Shahid Malik, Adam Bowden, and Beylal Racheha.

To my supervisors Dr. Hossein Adibi and Professor Carl Trocki go my sincere appreciation for their valued guidance, wisdom, and patience.

I am grateful to my fellow colleagues in the now defunct School of Humanities and Human Services, Carseldine Campus, for their invaluable support, encouragement, and collegial integrity.

Finally my appreciation and thanks to Dr Kerryann Cook who demonstrated by example and attitude what it takes to produce a successful Ph.D.

Abstract

Keywords : Indigenous Australians; Islam in Australia; Muslims; Religious conversion; discrimination; resistance politics; empowerment.

This thesis examines why and how Indigenous Australians convert to Islam in the New South Wales suburbs of Redfern and Lakemba. It is argued that conventional religious conversion theories inadequately account for religious change in the circumstances outlined in this study. The aim of the thesis is to apply a sociological-historical methodology to document and analyse both Indigenous and Islamic pathways eventuating in Indigenous Islamic alliances.

All of the Indigenous men interviewed for this research have had contact with Islam either while incarcerated or involved with the criminal justice system . The consequences of these alliances for the Indigenous men constitute the contribution the study makes to new knowledge.

The study employs a socio-historical and sociological focus to account for the underlying issues by a literature review followed by an ethnographic participant observation methodology. In-depth open-ended interviews with key informants provided the rich qualitative data to compliment literature review findings.

For the Indigenous people involved in this study, Islamic religious identity combined with resistance politics formed a significant empowering framework. For them it is a symbolic representation of anti-colonialism and the enduring scourge of social dysfunction in some Indigenous communities.

Indigenous Australians and Islam

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction 1

1.1 Context and orientation of the study 1 1.2 Outline of thesis aims, themes, and objectives 7 1.3 Thesis conceptual and theoretical rationale 9 1.4 Primary objectives described 13 1.5 Review of orienting literature 15 1.6 Outline of chapters 20

2.0 Underlying Issues: Context and Analysis 23

2.1 Introduction 23 2.2 A history of Indigenous marginalisation, dispossession and control 23 2.3 Identity and diversity issues and concepts 25 2.4 Social exclusion and identity 28 2.5 Cultural trauma and intergenerational disadvantage 31 2.5.1 Collective cultural trauma as a symptom of imperial, colonial, and contemporary exploitation 31 2.5.2 Explaining cultural trauma 32 2.5.3 Indigenous Australians and a case for a traumatised collective 33 2.5.4 Collective identity and trauma recognition 39 2.5.5 Key historical processes and era’s revealing potential and actual trauma producing conditions for Indigenous people 41 2.5.6 Cultural trauma and African Americans 44 2.5.7 African American example of resistance culture 45 2.5.8 Resistance culture and African American Islam 47 2.5.9 African Americans, Indigenous Australians and prison 50 2.6 Discussion 52 2.7 Conclusion 53

3.0 Methodology 55

3.1 Introduction 55 3.2 Methodology rationale 55 3.3 Participant population 56 3.4 Procedures 56 3.4.1 Data collection methodology 59 3.5 Ethnographic and case study methods 61 3.5.1 Defending against claims of representivity 64 3.5.2 Burawoy and the Manchester School 65 3.5.3 Mitchell’s elaboration of Gluckman 65 3.5.4 Limitations of ethnographic and case research 68 3.6 What of the researcher/analyst? 71 3.7 Ethical considerations 73 3.8 Contribution to Knowledge 73 3.9 Fieldwork and interview data 74 3.10 Researcher field observations 75 3.11 Explanation of fieldwork priorities 76 3.12 Main fieldwork events 77

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3.13 Timeline of Sydney fieldwork 77 3.13.1 Fieldwork overview 77 3.14 Overview of the search for respondents 79 3.15 Timeline and fieldwork activity 81 3.16 Timeline of process to apply for permission to conduct research within NSW Corrective Services institutions 94 3.16.1 Background 94 3.16.2 Procedure and timeline 95 3.17 Summary and conclusions 98

4.0 Interview Data Results 99

4.1 Introduction 99 4.2 Interview Transcript 1 of 2 99 4.3 Themes and issues arising from interview one 120 4.4 Interview Transcript 2 of 2 120 4.5 Themes and issues arising from interview two 139 4.6 Thematic analysis 140 4.7 Theme summary 160 4.8 Discussion 162

5.0 Theoretical and Conceptual Themes 167

5.1 Overview 167 5.2 An outline of global themes and influences 168 5.2.1 Globalisation and fundamentalisms 170 5.2.2 Globalisation and minorities 176 5.2.3 Globalisation and civil society 179 5.2.4 Global forces and Australian politics and culture 182 5.2.5 Neoliberalism and religious belief and practice 185 5.2.6 Contested multicultural definitions 187 5.2.7 Testing Australian multiculturalism 188 5.2.8 Issues of religious diversity and multiculturalism 190 5.2.9 Indigenous ‘rights’ literature and resistance politics 194 5.2.10 Secularisation and religious resurgence 195 5.2.11 Secularism and political Islam 197 5.2.12 Secularisation and civil religion 198 5.3 Underlying factors associated with Muslim discrimination 199 5.4 Re-grouping as labelled minorities 201 5.5 Religion and theoretical constructs 201 5.6 Conventional theoretical approaches to religious conversion 203 5.6.1. Psychological aspects of conversion 204 5.6.2 Sociological aspects of conversion 206 5.6.3 Religious conversion themes discussion 208 5.7 Religion and religious practices in Australia 210 5.7.1 Evangelical influences 212 5.8 Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical influences 217 5.8.1 Terminology, concepts and analysis 217 5.8.2 Social solidarity and social cohesion 221 5.9 Social movements 224 5.10 Collectivities and movements: joining the links 230

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5.11 Discussion and conclusions 232

6.0 Islam & Australian society: themes and perspectives 237

6.1 Introduction 237 6.2 Analytical and methodological overview 239 6.3 Islam in Australia: a sociological and historical overview 239 6.4 Phases of Islamic influence in Australia 240 6.4.1 Pre-1788 Muslim contact literature 242 6.4 2 The Macassan contact 242 6.4.3 Mythology, ritual, and Islam 244 6.4.4 Malay Muslim pearl divers 247 6.4.5 Cocos and Christmas Islander Muslims 250 6.4.6 The Afghan influence 251 6.4.7 Javanese indentured labourers 254 6.4.8 The Lebanese and Turkish Muslim influences in Australia 256 6.4.9 The Albanians in North Queensland 259 6.4.10 Islam and Australian ‘fear politics’ 260 6.4.11 Muslim experiences in times of national insecurity 262 6.4.12 The construction of ‘Lebanese crime gangs’ in Sydney 264 6.5 Discussion 265 6.6 Conclusion 268

7.0 Structures of power & Indigenous incarceration 271

7.1 Introduction 271 7.2 Royal Commissions and conflicting theories 272 7.2.1 Royal Commission outcomes 275 7.3 Definition of ‘underlying issues’ in relation to Indigenous disadvantage 276 7.4 Systemic and institutional racism in the criminal justice system 277 7.5 Underlying issues: the importance of context 280 7.6 Literature and analysis 281 7.6.1 The colonial era: regulation and governance of Indigenous Australians 282 7.6.2 The ‘Protection’ era: social Darwinism, segregation and control 286 7.6.3 The assimilation era: the rationalities of racial governance 290 7.6.4 The new culture of punishment: reversal and continuities 293 7.6.5 Redfern and political considerations: race and policing 295 7.6.6 Alcohol abuse and the criminal justice system 297 7.7 Discussion 298 7.8 Conclusion 301

8.0 Indigenous Australians, Islam, and Alliances 305

8.1 Introduction 305 8.2 Identity (re)formation and Islam in prison 306 8.3 Identity and self-esteem 307 8.4 Islam and the prison system 309 8.5 An explanation of the radicalisation process within a prison environment 311 8.6 Alliances and associations within the prison system 315 8.7 The extent to which Indigenous alignment with Islam has to do with identity politics 316 8.8 Is Jihadism the new threat to replace Indigenous statehood? 317 8.9 Conclusion 321

9.0 Discussion: Implications and outcomes 325

9.1 Introduction 325 9.2 Summary of themes 325 9.3 Implications for the research topic 328 9.4 The Nation of Islam example 332 9.5 Conclusion 335

10.0 Conclusions 337

10.1 Summary of thesis argument 337 10.2 Summary of the conceptual process 338 10.3 Future directions 346

Glossary and Terminology 349

Appendix A 353

Non-Indigenous Converts to Islam survey 353

Bibliography 367

Tables and Figure

Table 1 Muslim by Indigenous Status by Sex 80 Table 2 Major Religious Affiliations in Australia 212 Table 3 Religious Affiliation by Census Years by Percentage Change 213 Table 4 Australian Muslims - 2006 Census 238 Table 5 Religions in Australia 238 Table 6 Muslims in Australia by State and Territory 238 Table 7 Muslims in Australia by Capital Cities 238

Figure 1 Affiliation of Australians of all ages to major non-Christian religions 214

Indigenous Australians and Islam

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1.0 Introduction

1.1 Context and orientation of the study

The inspiration for this research project originated from a February

2003 broadcast of a Special Broadcasting Services (SBS) documentary entitled ‘Islam Dreaming’ (SBS, 2003). Reporter Julie Nimmo (2003) states in the transcript of the introduction to the documentary:

Reliable figures are hard to come by, but Indigenous Australians are converting to Islam in increasing numbers. Some are drawn by the powerful spirituality of what is regarded as one the world's fastest growing religion. Others see Islam as giving voice to the world's oppressed and their own more immediate frustrations…

The Aboriginal men interviewed for the documentary claimed Islam is providing them with a feeling of empowerment, to some extent counteracting their feelings of oppression and marginalisation in Australian society. When engaging with Islam, these men revealed the problems they faced, not only from authorities but from Indigenous community leaders, and the general public as demonstrated by Nimmo:

They are well aware of the impact of their words and that speaking publicly like this is risky. Interrogation and imprisonment are a real possibility. But equally unnerving is the threat of a public backlash (Nimmo, 2003).

The overall aim of this thesis is to test the claims made by Nimmo and to further examine the precedents and repercussions of Indigenous conversions to Islam. At the time of considering this topic as a suitable

Ph.D project it was unknown that conversion to Islam within the prison system is a dominant theme, yet it is within the context of the post-

September 11 socio-cultural and political environments that the topic of this thesis is embedded. This is related to the increasing occurrence of prison inmates aligning with Islam in overseas prisons. The issue for prison

1 authorities and Australian governments is also the fear of inmate radicalisation. This is another important aspect discussed in this thesis.

Although the cross-cultural and religious convergence of Indigenous and Islam is the analytical focus, it is necessary to expand the scope of investigation to include global and historical perspectives. This is to contextualise why the Indigenous struggle for economic and social parity over time is yet to be realised, and to locate Islam in an Australian sociological context. Furthermore, the concept and application of social exclusion is employed to locate both Indigenous and Muslim actors within theoretical and conceptual frameworks.

The tone of this study is as much cultural and political as it is religious, and the investigation necessarily includes a critique of Australian multiculturalism and national identity. This is to account for how Indigenous converts to Islam feel how they belong in Australian society in terms of historical and contemporary sociological circumstances. Social change influenced by prevailing social attitudes and government ideologies and policies act at a structural level to create uneven opportunities for social inclusion. Under these circumstances, minority populations invariably find it more difficult than others to maintain and improve their economic, social, cultural, religious and political ideals. The increasing inequality associated with unregulated capitalist expansion, the retraction of the welfare state, religious conflicts, global terrorism, and ongoing ‘culture wars’ impact on social relations and, therefore, impact on the well-being of marginalised ethno-religious communities. However, the deeply embedded social problems resulting form the effects of colonisation and Christian imperialism are compounded by contemporary discrimination and control.

An immediate concern, then, is to draw attention to the dimensions of inequality maintained over generations as is the case for many Indigenous

Australians, and to examine whether some Indigenous Australians align with Islam as a result of dissention and protest.

According to the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 1,011

Indigenous Australians identify as Muslims. Indigenous Australians number

517,200, and the total Muslim population is 340,392 or 1.7% of the total

Australian population (ABS, 2006 a ; ABS Census, 2007). Only a small sample of this population is the focus of this study. Overall, twenty three

Indigenous and non-Indigenous Muslim participants contributed to this research. The research investigation location centres on the Redfern 1 area in New South Wales, with networks extending to many other Indigenous communities. This particular geographic and demographic focus is for two reasons. First, the most easily identified Indigenous Muslim group, the

Koori Muslim Association, is based at Redfern. This is the group from whom a substantial amount of research data was obtained. Second, and perhaps more importantly, Redfern is an important symbolic location for

Indigenous activism and still serves as a hub for the ‘Koori grapevine’ 2. ‘The

Block’ as it is commonly known remains the property of the Aboriginal

Housing Company (AHC) and was established ’in direct response to the widespread discrimination Aborigines experienced in the private rental market’ (Aboriginal Housing Committee (Standing Committee, 2004: 38)).

The area known as The Block is bounded by Caroline, Everleigh, Hudson and Hugo streets and currently consists of Victorian era single fronted two story dwellings, many of which have been demolished leaving patches of open space. Today the block serves as both a living memorial to the vision of the Whitlam government, and as a symbol of the troubled history

1 Redfern is an inner Sydney suburb with historical significance for Indigenous Australians. 2 This term refers to the centrality of Redfern as a communication hub for Indigenous people. 3 between police and the Aboriginal community in Redfern (Donald, 2004). It is no coincidence that a significant portion of this study examines the inevitability of police intervention by way of the prison experiences of

Indigenous Muslims who recognise The Block as a cultural home and centre for political resistance and religious activities.

A common reaction when discussing the topic of this research and purpose of the project is one of surprise that, in fact, some Indigenous people convert to Islam. Of even more surprise is the fact that Indigenous peoples’ alliances with Muslims and Islam dates back to before the arrival of the British in 1788 (MacKnight, 1976). Particular interest and concern is expressed when discovering the fact that, now, Indigenous people are likely to experience Islam for the first time while serving sentences in Australian prisons, or being closely associated with someone who has.3

At the other end of the historical spectrum, between the seventeenth century Macassan era and the late twentieth to early twenty first centuries there is an almost unbroken connection between Indigenous people in Australia and immigrants from the Muslim countries north of

Australia. Some of this history is relatively well known: the ‘Afghan’ cameleers are one group leaving a substantial contribution to the development of modern Australia’s cultural and religious make-up. 4

Alliances between Afghans and Indigenous people are less well explained, yet their religious and spiritual differences have never been a major source

3 Studies in the US have found African-Americans have high conversion rates in prison. See Ammar, N., Weaver, R. and Saxan, S. (2004) Muslims in Prison: A Case Study from Ohio State Prisons. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 48(4): 414-428. 4 For a detailed account of Afghan influences in Australia see Christine Stevens, Tin Mosques and Ghantowns: A history of Afghan camel drivers in Australia (1989); Australia’s Muslim Cameleers: Pioneers of the Inland 1860s-1930s Philip Jones and Anna Kenny , (2007) ; Michael Cigler , The Afghans in Australia (1896); Peta Stephenson, The Outsiders Within: Telling Australia’s Indigenous –Asian Story. Sydney: UNSW Press. 4 of conflict. If anything, the alliances have been pragmatic and cooperative, and quite dissimilar to early Irish and Catholic relations in Australia notable for sectarian and political strife (O’Farrell, 2000).

‘Islam Dreaming’ (SBS, 2003) served to raise some interesting questions, some of which will attempt to be answered in the body of this research. For example, why are Indigenous people over-represented in

Australian prisons in the first instance? Does collective cultural trauma contribute to higher rates of incarceration? What are the circumstances of the religious conversion process? Could prison conversions and alignment with Islam be considered part of a new social movement network? These questions have emerged as part of the research process and indicate the complexity associated with Indigenous and Islamic issues. At a theoretical level, a critique of the exercise of power ranges from coercive frontier force and brutality, to the subtle manifestations of disciplinary and panoptic forms of power. When combined with traditional forms of disciplinary power, to those conceiving of individuals as already rationally calculating, social actors are considered as individualised atoms of self-interest. Many

Indigenous people do not easily fit into, nor wish to be ‘shaped’ in this manner (Foucault, 2008: 258). One of the aims of this thesis, then, is to identify and analyse the differences between domination and modern governmentality in the context of resistance politics. The relationship between power and resistance also requires an insight into Indigenous engagement with strategies that critique established forms of domination.

One of these is by choosing to ‘take care of the self’ by engaging in the self-transformative practice of an Islamic world view which effectively allow the acquisition of the ‘right’ to the truth (Hamann, 2009). This can also be theorized as critical resistance offering possibilities for an experience of de- subjectification, whereas neoliberal forms of governmentality continue to

5 reinforce and expand Homo economicus as a form of subjectification that can be directly linked to greater wealth disparity and increasing poverty, environmental degradation, and growing rates of incarceration. (Hamann,

2009: 58).

Since Islam Dreaming was aired in 2003, the matter of global terrorism has become entrenched in the public psyche and embedded in government national security legislation. The implicit message in Islam

Dreaming is that Aborigines who convert to Islam are at risk of attracting the attention of authorities because of possible radicalisation. This raises an important aspect of this study which is to try and understand why

Indigenous Australians are attracted to Islam in the first instance; and then to analyse how the conversion process might draw the attention of authorities under the guise of national security and Islamic radicalisation.

The fear of terror is being translated into increased national security measures in Australia, the U.S., Europe and the UK. Australia remains committed to troop deployments in Afghanistan ensuring a visible profile for those activists who associate ongoing terror threats with the United States

(US)-led western alliance in establishing democratic governance in Iraq and to a reduced Taliban influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the time of completing the final chapters of this research, most Australian Muslims were defending their stance of repulsion at the growing number and intensity of terror attacks world-wide. Simultaneously, Muslim communities are facing increased surveillance from security authorities, and increased fears of racial abuse and discrimination (Kabir, 2003).

For Indigenous Australians, the battle is still being waged for socio- economic standards comparable to non-Indigenous society. Both

Indigenous Australians and Muslims in Australia have legitimate claims against the state and Australian society for the removal of discrimination

6 and inequality and improved socio-economic conditions. These structural impediments and how they are negotiated form a background analysis as outlined in the following section.

1.2 Outline of thesis aims, themes, and objectives

The thesis is a socio-historical analysis of the circumstances of

Indigenous conversions to Islam. There are three aims of the thesis. The first is to document and investigate the socio-historic pathways of both

Indigenous Australians and Muslims in the context of government policies, legislation, discrimination, and socioeconomic well-being. Second, to investigate and explain the occurrence of Indigenous conversions to Islam and the function NSW prisons play in the process. Thirdly, to establish how

Islam in the form of a socio-religious movement has become embedded in the world-view of many Indigenous people. This focus is because Islam has historically been a religion embraced by black Americans with its links to slavery, emancipation, and self-empowerment. The three aims are supported by in-depth interviews with Indigenous Muslims who provided significant insights into local and global factors of influence. The hypothesis is that some Indigenous Australians understand the long association with

Islam in Australia and have internalised an Islamic habitus 5 within the field 6 of Indigenous activism and resistance movements.

5 Pierre Bourdieu (1977) argues that the structures that typify social spaces give rise to 'dispositions' in the members of a social space. Dispositions can be understood as inclinations towards certain responses, as the tendencies to make one choice over another and to privilege one action over another, that is, the tendencies to regularly engage in certain practices as compared with other practices. Bourdieu's habitus is a system of such dispositions that endure across space and time. An individual may inhabit more than one habitus, and various habituses may overlap to some extent. However, any particular habitus is circumscribed by a group's homogeneity. Bourdieu describes how neoliberalism establishes itself as a doxa - an unquestionable orthodoxy that operates as if it were the objective truth - across social space in its entirety, from the practices and perceptions of individuals (at the level of habitus) to the practices and perceptions of the state and social groups (at the level of fields). 7

To fully appreciate the plight of many Indigenous Australians is difficult without an extensive reappraisal of conventional Australian history, politics, and governance. Similarly, the history of Islam in Australia is indicative of the fixation with ‘whiteness’ rather than religion, and Australian nationalism rather than multicultural acceptance – at least in the early part of the nation’s history. The exploitation and discrimination of minority

‘coloured’ groups has coincided with national development, and xenophobia has been a hallmark of Australia’s economic and social development. Cultural ignorance and racial arrogance embedded in colonial and political ideologies have largely contributed to the cultural dislocation, dispossession, marginalisation and multigenerational grief that

Australian Aborigines have experienced (Shannon, Panaretto, Doumany,

Canuto and Coyle, 2008) .

The spiritual links between Aborigines and Muslims dates back to pre-European invasion. The Afghan cameleers and Indian hawkers established connections with Indigenous women when relationships formed, and marriages occurred (Stevens, 1989). Many Indigenous people understand these relationships in terms of common experiences of minority exclusion and discrimination. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that contemporary Indigenous alliances with Islam are often experienced as resurgent connections to somewhat familiar socio-religious frameworks.

6 Bourdieu employs the notion of the field to explain the functioning and composition of social space across a society, as opposed to his theorization of the habitus, which explains the functioning of social space in particular and homogeneous environments shared by groups of people. Social space can be understood as made up of different, and distinct (although often overlapping) fields, which correspond to different spheres of activity and practice, such as the cultural, economic, social, and political. 8

Generational precedence is supported by a global ‘black’ awareness of both a connection to African Muslim slaves transported to

America, and to the twentieth century event of the Nation of Islam and

Malcolm X (Essien-Udom, 1962). African Americans in the prison system often experience Islam in the form of resistance or radical group membership. Prisons in Europe (Smith, 2004) and the UK (Forde, 2008) are known by authorities as potential breeding grounds for Islamic radicalism. In Australia, the New South Wales Department of Corrective

Services claim prisoner radicalisation was a problem in the past but is no longer (Moore, 2007). Despite this claim, all of the Indigenous men interviewed for this research have had contact with Islam while in the criminal justice system or in prison. The consequences of these alliances for the Indigenous men and for prison authorities are examined in the context of overseas and local experiences.

1.3 Thesis conceptual and theoretical rationale

Although the primary aim of this thesis is to investigate the social circumstances of Indigenous conversions to Islam, this focus is only part of the overall project. To only engage with the circumstances of religious conversion, although important and relevant, is to misrepresent by omission the historical and sociological precursors leading to the conversion experience. Therefore, macro- sociological and socio-historical approaches are adopted to account for the numerous factors of influence leading to conversion. These theoretical and analytic considerations follow the in- depth interview content of the Indigenous Muslim participants of this study.

The aim is to add a sociological dimension to complement the topics discussed by the participants. These considerations are meant to add

9 theoretical and analytic depth rather than detract from the insights offered by the participants.

Comparisons will be made to conventional religious conversion literature to formulate a unique conversion perspective. This is achieved by documenting and analysing the sociological impacts of government intervention in the lives of Indigenous peoples. A broad conceptual perspective will locate the present socio-economic problems experienced by many Indigenous Australians within significant historical, political, and sociological contexts. This will partially account for the over-representation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system and serving prison terms. The logic behind this strategy is that if prisons are the primary location and impetus for conversions, it is legitimate to examine why

Indigenous people are increasingly over-represented in Australian prisons.

The concept of cultural and collective trauma (Eyerman 2004; Atkinson

2002) will be utilised to assist in this analysis.

The assumption that social exclusion is a significant underlying issue for many Indigenous Australians forms a conceptual benchmark from which to analyse the social conditions leading to Indigenous engagement with Islam. Social exclusion is a short–hand term for what can happen when people or areas have a combination of linked problems, such as unemployment, discrimination, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime and family breakdown. These problems are linked and mutually reinforcing. Social exclusion is an extreme consequence of what happens when people are unable to rise above their immediate struggles, often because of disadvantage they face at birth, and this disadvantage can be transmitted from one generation to the next (Social Exclusion Taskforce,

2007).

A similar conceptual strategy will be employed to map the sociological experiences of Muslims in Australian society dating from the earliest documented engagement of northern Australian coastal Aborigines with Macassan traders and trepang fishermen. 7 Contemporary experiences of Muslims in Australia will be compared and contrasted with the changing

Australian social, cultural, economic and political conditions dating from pre-invasion to the present time. 8 Particular attention will focus on discrimination and bigotry as continuing themes in historical and contemporary Indigenous Islamic relations with the wider non-Indigenous and non-Muslim populations.

Of the enduring social determinants, racism and discrimination are themes common to both Indigenous Australians and successive waves of

Muslim immigrants. Successive government policies concerning immigrants, labour, and the regulation of Indigenous affairs are also critical determinants in why and how Aborigines and Muslims are discursively defined. Political and legislative complexity continues to impede the ability of many Indigenous people to enjoy lifestyles comparable to other

Australians. An explanation of socially relevant themes examines in part some of the underlying issues for Indigenous and Muslim societies, and serves as a background to the main results chapters in the thesis.

This study employs a combination of ethnographic and case study methodology to capture the environmental and individual perceptions of the participants. Following the analysis of themes identified in the respondent’s stories, dedicated chapters provide theoretical and conceptual, and analytical depth to key issues. The stories of Indigenous Muslims, however,

7 See MacKnight, C.C., The Voyage to Marege': Macassan Trepangers in Northern Australia , Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1976. 8 See Cleland, B., A History of Islam in Australia. http://www.islamfortoday.com/australia03.htm Retrieved 25 August, 2003. 11 provide the rich qualitative core of data informing the central discussion themes relevant to this study. All of the twenty three male participants identified as Indigenous Australians and all were in various stages of

Islamic study and practice. A substantial body of ‘religious conversion’ literature deals with the personal, psychological, and psychoanalytic factors influencing conversion. The sociology of religious conversion incorporates what Snow and Machalek (1984: 167) describe as: a) the conceptualisation and nature of conversion; b) the analytic status of converts’ accounts; and c) the causes of conversion. This is a productive framework and is adopted as a guide to the methodology of the study.

The primary purpose of this research is to ask the ‘why’, ‘how’, and

‘where’ questions; but more specifically to explain and analyse how the circumstances and dynamics of Indigenous Australians’ relations with Islam are conditioned by historical and contemporary social influences. An examination of contemporary influences would be incomplete without considering the recent histories of colonial, federal and state influences on the well-being of Indigenous Australians. Such influences include, but are not limited to, combinations of psychological and sociological factors incorporating personal and social links between the generational effects of colonialism, and contemporary economic, political, cultural, and religious factors and influences.

These circumstances are complex and interrelated, but to gain an appreciation of current social conditions, it is necessary to consider all aspects of Indigenous socio-economic, cultural, political and religious relationships with and between other Australians and the state. Because this work is primarily a sociological study, it is also important to recognise the individual and collective aspects of agency, or the degrees to which individuals strive to achieve satisfactory states of well-being.

Religious belief and participation are a traditional institution from which adherents gain and nurture a sense of well-being. Yet there is a qualitative difference between the claimed emptiness of material acquisition and the self-sustaining holistic life-world of many Indigenous peoples.

Notwithstanding, the struggle for Indigenous well-being is socially located within an increasingly radicalising global capitalist network. It is from here that a sociological focus becomes the main theoretical and analytical tool.

As C.W. Mills (1959: 6) notes “The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society”. A macro analytical vision seeks to apprehend the local and global diversity of religious worldviews and practices and their social and political implications, and as Gorski (2003) points out, “situating the present more firmly within the past” provides for a richer theoretical and empirical understanding of present trends and cross-national variations in religion.

This macro socio-historical perspective adds depth and context to existing conventional approaches to religious conversion literature.

At the micro-level, the task of this research is to achieve a better understanding of religion as a lived experience in particular socio- biographical contexts and to explore how macro and structural and cultural changes shape the religious practices of individuals and of specific historical cohorts (Dillon, 2003: 14).

In summary, this thesis employs a sociological theoretical focus to contextualise the crucial factors identified by the Indigenous Muslim participants to become religiously active at particular life stages.

1.4 Primary objectives described

The principle objective of this study is to describe and contextualise historical and contemporary social, cultural, and political environments in

13 relation to Indigenous Australians and Muslims in Australia. This objective is achieved by using the Indigenous Muslim participants’ stories as a benchmark for sociological investigation. The resulting analysis provides a contextual benchmark for considering how and why religious conversion takes place. This objective provides a broad outline of the significant social, cultural, political, and religious factors of influence related to Indigenous involvement with Islam. The objective incorporates elements of the main research question: Why do Indigenous Australians align with Islam in

Australia?

A preliminary demographic investigation informed the main fieldwork study by providing probable or likely population areas containing both Indigenous Australians and Muslims for the purposes of preliminary sampling and for identifying geographic and social factors for ongoing research. This study involved a survey of all Australian States and

Territories to gain an overall demographic of Indigenous Australians identifying as Muslims in specific geographic locations in Sydney.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2006 Census data were utilised for the construction of demographic material.

A preliminary pilot study and analysis of internet-sourced stories of converts’ to Islam has also been conducted for the purpose of revealing themes, motives, and developing questions for the main survey instruments. The findings from this study were compared to religious conversion literature to establish a conversion process benchmark. This study is included in Appendix A. The design and execution of the principal data collection process followed from the initial orienting literature review and preliminary analysis of internet-sourced conversion stories.

The final component of the objective is to document, analyse and compare the initial responses with the existing analysis and hypothesis.

The discussion and conclusions will complete the objective.

1.5 Review of orienting literature

This thesis examines the unique occurrence of Indigenous

Australians converting to Islam either within the prison system or on release. The conversion experience is then transferred to addressing community issues such as the drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and crime experienced in many Indigenous communities. This form of religious conversion is a contemporary occurrence appearing in Australia since the increasing political and social emphasis on countering Islamic radicalism in a post-September 11 environment. Most notably, the terrorist attacks in the

United States (U.S.), the United Kingdom (U.K.) and Spain have influenced the introduction of anti-terrorism legislation in those countries and Australia.

One effect of this increased awareness is to draw attention to Islamic radicalisation within prisons. It is perhaps not coincidental that in U.S. federal, state prisons and local jails, the proportion of the prison population who are African American approaches 50 per cent (Bureau of Justice

Statistics, 2005). The Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that as of June 30,

2007, approximately 2.3 million persons were incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails. Black males are incarcerated at a per capita rate six times that of white males (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2007). In 2008, the number of black non-Hispanic jail inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents was 831. The ratio of Indigenous to non-Indigenous imprisonment has increased to 21.1

(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005a: 32). According to Snowball and

Weatherburn (2006) this ratio is much larger than the disparity between

African American and white imprisonment rates (Bureau of Justice

Statistics, 2006). Full-time inmates of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent in New South Wales (NSW) prisons during the 2007 inmate census was 2072 or 20.1 percent of the total full-time prison population of

10,318 (Corben, 2008: 70). The trend has risen from 5.8 percent of the total full-time male prison population (3719) in 1982 (Corben, 2008: 70).

The purpose of introducing these statistics is to establish a pattern of ‘black’ incarceration leading to the increased potential for Islamic radicalisation by other inmates. A link is also established with the resurgence of Islamic practice associated with resistance politics which is directly related to Indigenous Australian conversions to Islam. Although there is a long historical association of Indigenous Australians and Islam in

Australia there is virtually no research explaining prison conversions in an

Australian context during the last two decades. In the U.S. the conversion of African Americans to Islam has a longer history and is more comprehensively researched. Robert Dannin’s (2002) Black Pilgrimage to

Islam is considered the most comprehensive work on early African

American and immigrant encounters and tensions and Samory Rashid

(2000) informs us that Islam in America has deep roots, with Muslims being among the first and last slaves to be brought to the Americas (Diouf, 1988).

This is an important point because it links to an African American association with Islam based on the repressive attributes of slavery.

Parallel with this recognition is the issue of Islamic tribalism where Farha

Ternikar (1998) explains that “Muslim Americans must confront their own prejudices” and the “branching off in ethnic tribes” must be overcome before Muslims can effectively confront non-Muslim prejudices (Ternikar,

1998: 41-42). This is also an important consideration because it negates the popular notion that Muslims represent a unified political front. This

16 literature provides a benchmark with which to examine the links between

Indigenous histories of oppression and their association with Islam; it offers an alternate view of Indigenous Australians as authors of their own destinies by engaging with global Islam; and as with African Americans and

Islam, it negates the popular notion that Muslims and Indigenous

Australians represent a unified political front.

The most well-known organisation for having an enduring impact on

American Muslim identity is the Nation of Islam (NOI) (Karim, 20005)

Jamillah Karim notes that after Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975, his son and successor W.D. Muhammad “retained a sense of connection and homage” to the NOI’s legacy of political and cultural empowerment (Karim,

2005: 498). This legacy is distinctly African American, and inextricably linked to immigrant Muslim efforts to preserve and propagate the faith in a new homeland. For Indigenous Australians the experience is somewhat different. There has never been a historical and sociological association between Indigenous Australians and a single or global Islamic-based political and cultural empowerment movement.

Immigration in Australia during the 1980s witnessed an increase of

Muslims from the Middle East, so the current Islamic influence appears to have a relatively short history. The striving by Indigenous Australians to forge ‘first peoples’ identity and to achieve comparable socio-economic parity with non-Indigenous Australian society continues as a work in progress. Facing not only white hegemony, Muslim immigrants also encountered Indigenous Australians, who have engaged with a history of resistance and response to multiple forms of discrimination.

This literature enables a comparison with how Islam and Muslims are perceived in Australia, and how historical influences have conditioned certain groups to align with Islam. A further question to consider here is if

Indigenous Australians who convert to Islam associate histories of oppression and control into their motivations to align with Islam, whether the African American association with Islam informs, or acts as an case in point for Indigenous Islamic-based resistance politics. The provisional hypothesis is that Indigenous Australians do convert to Islam as a means to assert resistance strategies against the historical effects of colonialism,

Christian dominance, and the exercise of contemporary political forms of control. Just as African Americans have long associations with Islam in the context of discrimination, prejudice, inequality and social exclusion, so too

Indigenous Australians, it is argued, maintain enduring historical memories of exclusion and control. The literature will be examined further in chapter two to establish a uniquely Australian perspective regarding Indigenous conversions to Islam.

Australian scholars who have recently researched the cultural dynamics of Indigenous Australians and Islam include Peta Stephenson

(2008; 2007; 2004; 2003) Stephenson provides the most comprehensive contemporary Australian literature on Indigenous Australian and their alliances with Islam. In her unpublished PhD thesis, Stephenson (2003: 3) examines twentieth century cross-cultural partnerships and alliances between Indigenous Australians and Asian-Australians. Although this work examines Indigenous and Asian alliances and not Muslim partnerships specifically, it does highlight the pre-invasion contact of Indigenous people with those of Asian descent. Stephenson’s thesis employs a “cross or interdisciplinary approach that is partly a work of history combined with cultural studies and literary criticism in conjunction with an examination of the political and legislative arenas” (2003: 25).

In later literature, Stephenson (2008) explains how Islam and Islamic practice is congruent with Indigenous identity and locates Indigenous

18 engagement with Islam within Homi Bhabba’s notion of ‘vernacular cosmopolitanism (2008: 1). This is the task of identity formation, by

‘translating between cultures and negotiating traditions’ and implies a compromise between cultural translation and cultural survival. In effect, the dominant culture leaves little space for the emergence of specific and local histories. Peta Stephenson, therefore, examines these translations and renegotiations and also the practices of hybridisation resulting from such interactions. This places Stephenson’s work within the domain of cultural studies yet it is recognised that a cultural domain may not apply to the spiritual experiences of Islamic practice and belief (Stephenson, 2008: 8).

My research probes Indigenous connections with Islam to elicit the political and resistance aspects of engaging with ‘global Islam’. Global

Islam is considered to be the Islam practiced by 90% of the world’s Sunni

Muslims as opposed to the quasi Islam practiced by the African Americans during the period 1930 – 1975. Yet it is a ‘quasi Islam’ that is often espoused within the prison environment. This creates obvious difficulties for those who wish to embrace the Sunni majority interpretation of Islamic belief and practice mentioned above. The unique contribution this study makes is to concentrate on how Islam is experienced by a small group of

Aboriginal men whose commonality is recognising and understanding the empowering aspects of Islam. This socio-religious framework is then introduced to their respective Indigenous communities to help overcome hopelessness and despair.

A further area requiring explanation is the emerging literature concerning the Islamic radicalisation of prisoners in the jails of the United

States, Europe, France and the United Kingdom. There is a significant body of literature concerning the disproportionate imprisonment rate of

Indigenous Australians in Australian prisons. The Royal Enquiry into

Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, 1991 (RIADIC) provided ground-breaking research into the underlying issues associated with disproportionately high

Indigenous Australian imprisonment rates. There also exists a small body of literature concerning the role of religion and religious practice within prisons. This literature is subsumed under the heading of prison chaplaincy and concerns Christian religions. It is the aim of this research to examine the literature concerning the application of religious practices in prison related to Islamic practices. This includes the most prominent literature on radicalisation. There appears to be little if any literature on the enabling aspects of Islam in prison although the benefits of religious adherence are well recognised. Overall, prison-religion research is conspicuously limited, particularly that involving Indigenous Australians and Islam.

1.6 Outline of chapters

The introductory chapter has outlined the general orientation of the thesis in terms of context, concepts, aims and objectives. In particular it has emphasised the multiple factors of influence which determine the analysis of religious conversion in a socio-historical context. Although this orientation will be discussed fully in the following chapters it is suffice to say that historical and current socio-political, religious and cultural factors combine in what could be described as a complex network of interacting influences leading to Islamic conversion.

Chapter two is a review of the literature concerning underlying social, cultural political and religious issues impacting on Indigenous well-being, their involvement in the criminal justice system, and eventual conversion to

Islam. The aim of this chapter is to establish a historical sociological benchmark with which to analyse the current aspect of Indigenous conversions to Islam.

Chapter three describes the methodology and provides the rationale for adopting a participant observation case study approach . The chapter provides a brief ethnographical overview of the communities in which the converts inhabit. The in-depth interview data and the latter part of the chapter analyses the main themes from the perspective of conceptual orientation to the various sociological and socio-historical viewpoints. This provides an orientation to the background underlying social and political determinants influencing the lived experiences of Indigenous and Muslim

Australians. The chapter discusses and analyses the primary perspectives enabling a comprehensive outline of contextual influences. Chapter four continues with in-depth interview data and is followed with a summary of the main themes in the interview data and associated analysis. Chapter five is concerned with discussing the themes identified in the previous chapter with underlying issues analysis. The important aspect of trauma effects in relation to the over-representation of Indigenous imprisonment are considered and discussed. Chapter six documents the place of Islam in

Australian society dating from the Maccassan contact prior to, and after

1788. The analysis extends to the present day to consider how Islam is represented in Australian society. Chapter seven turns to explain the disproportionate levels of Indigenous involvement in the criminal justice system. The chapter outlines the continuity of control and governance of

Indigenous people that remains in various forms to the present. Chapter eight investigates the occurrence of Indigenous alignment with Islam. The analysis is supported by interview transcripts demonstrating the complexity of Indigenous engagement with Islam.

Chapter nine analyses and discusses various options as to where this research will lead, and what conclusions can be drawn from what is known about the status of contemporary social policy in relation to Indigenous

Australian Muslims. This concluding chapter summarises and contextualises the main themes within the scope of the overall research project.

2.0 Underlying Issues: Context and Analysis

2.1 Introduction

This chapter contextualises the effects of colonisation and Christian dominance in relation to current attempts by Indigenous Australians to seek empowerment through Islamic practice and belief. The aim is to document and analyse how the socio-historical treatment of Indigenous Australians has lead to communities of social disadvantage. One of the social outcomes of a history of dispossession is how communities and individuals suffer the legacy of the past and how intergenerational dysfunction manifests as collective trauma. One important and somewhat neglected aspect of a trauma framework is the connection between intergenerational trauma reproduction, and the overrepresentation of Indigenous Australian in Australian prisons. A review of American studies on the collective cultural trauma of African Americans is used as model from which to argue similarities exist for many Indigenous Australians as is the high imprisonment rates of black Americans vis-à-vis trauma backgrounds.

2.2 A history of Indigenous marginalisation, dispossession and control

The contemporary form of Australian national identity has grown from the influence of immigrant settlement, and from earliest times was not concerned with including Indigenous people and culture as significant contributors to national definition. Collard (2000: 23) writes that: “The country was colonised on the legal fiction of terra nullius, a Latin term meaning ‘a land belonging to no one’. From this early stage in the history of

23 this country, Aboriginal people were not acknowledged or recognised at all”. Yet Indigenous Australians continue in the political task of criticising and attempting to overthrow the received European conceptions of

Aboriginal identity, and to replace them with more appropriate ones

(Stokes, 1997: 159). One particular form of identity assertion is found in an

Indigenous alliance with Islam, for whom some Indigenous people have embraced as acts of empowerment (Jopson, 2003). Yet there remains a contemporary form of psychological terra nullius in the guise of paternalistic management practices contained within the bureaucracy of government departments and the legalism of regulation and legislation.

In 1971 Kevin Gilbert (1933–1993) describes his impression of the personal effects of Indigenous oppression and dispossession:

It is my thesis that Aboriginal Australia underwent a rape of the soul so profound that the blight continues in the minds of most blacks today. It is this psychological blight, more than anything else, that causes the conditions that we see on reserves and missions. And it is repeated down the generations (1977: 3).

Contemporary official recognition of past practices and the generational flow-on effect of the consequences of removal from family, community and culture are captured in the report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their

Families (‘Bringing Them Home’) (1997). “The laws, policies and practices which separated Indigenous children from their families have contributed directly to the alienation of Indigenous societies today.…The harm continues in later generations, affecting their children and grandchildren”

(Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, 1997: 3). “The present plight, in terms of health, employment, education, living conditions and self-esteem, of so many Aborigines must be acknowledged as largely flowing from what happened in the past” ( ibid.: 4).

The landmark Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody

(RCIADC) 1991 made reference to the underlying issues which explain the disproportionate detention rates of Aboriginal people (Johnstone, 1991) .

The continuing high rate of Indigenous incarceration contributes to the potential for increased contact with Islam within the prison system.

However, the reality of Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage is coupled with other more recent events such as the rise of the fear of terrorism in a post-September 11 environment, and the ubiquitous neoliberal economic and political policies of Australian governments over the last three decades.

The following section examines identity and diversity constructs in relation to government policies. The aim is to explicate how Indigenous identity is masked by the impact of policies based on assimilation. Instead of

Indigenous peoples emerging from earlier and overtly racist regimes with the ability and freedom to self-determine, it will be argued that, instead, no tangible process has been made. The increased neoliberal focus of the then Howard government, the ‘war on terror’, illegal immigrants, politics of fear, and a general easing up of attention to Indigenous issues is perpetuating low socio-economic condition of many Indigenous Australians.

The incumbent Rudd Labor government has made slight changes to immigration policy, and Indigenous issues with a focus on removing some of the harsher aspects of the former Howard Liberal Coalition government policies.

2.3 Identity and diversity issues and concepts

By setting restrictions on immigration and criteria for granting citizenship, the national governments of Australia have constantly shaped national identity (Jupp, 1997). The assumed existence or possibility of a single national identity provoked arguments over which aspects of national

25 heritage could legitimately be regarded as Australian (Stokes, 1997: 2). Not until quite recently has a model of national identity been integrated into what Jupp (1991) describes as a multiculturalism incorporating ‘loyalty to

Australia at all times and to her institutions and values and traditions’ (1991:

146). ‘Loyalty to Australia’ is a contested and debateable concept, particularly in a post September 11 environment, in that it re-focuses attention on a reconstructed identity based on previous policies of assimilation. The United Nations Special Rapporteur (Glèlè-Ahanhanzo,

2002) notes:

The calling into question of the rights acquired by Aboriginals, the reorientation of the reconciliation process and the conversion of the anti- racism programmes into ‘Living in Harmony’ programmes more geared to assimilation goals are perceived as encroachments on multiculturalism (2002: 23-4).

The definition of Australian society was measured against an Anglo-

Australian multiculturalism that did not follow American affirmative action principles or have the cultural emphasis of Canadian policy, and was primarily concerned with social justice and social harmony rather than with the preservation of ethnic differences (Jupp, 1997: 30).

Cleland (2001: 66) notes: “The Muslim experience in Australia demonstrates the impact social attitudes, and the policies they create can have upon peoples’ lives”. Since September 11, many Muslims in Australia have experienced increased instances of racism, discrimination, vilification, harassment, abuse and prejudice (Poynting and Noble, 2004). Maintaining or reinvesting in strong religious and ethnic identity when other forms of identity are defined by others is one avenue to demarcate and provide support as Baumann (1999) has noted. Given that religion maintains its position as a major social force, it follows that the characteristic form of religious belief and interpretation in a given society is significantly

26 conditioned by the type and complexity of existing social patterns and relationships (Johnstone, 2000: 33). On one hand, as van der Veer observes: “confronted by racism and social discrimination, religion is employed to reinforce one’s cultural particularity and identity” (1994: 119).

In the context of this literature review, Islam in Australia is an active religious and identity system and an example of how certain groups employ religion to reinforce their identities, or following Bourdieu (1991a: 22)

Religious power or religious capital “depends on the material and the symbolic force of the groups and classes the claimants can mobilize by offering them goods and services that satisfy their religious interests”. One way of conceptualising the diversity of experiences is to accept that they

“affect the well-being of religious groups themselves and of the larger society” (Wuthnow, 2004: 163). Religious traditions are not just theological systems but on-the-ground activities engaged in by religious practitioners and embedded in communities and social interaction” (Wuthnow 2004: 163,

1998, 1999). On the other hand, Indigenous Australians’ continually strive for recognition as cultural survivors and first peoples and for claims to ancestral land. Crossley (2005) raises the point of why individuals define themselves in the specific ways they do and for many Indigenous people identity is a contested issue. This is particularly so for those who have lost connections with country and associated kinship network and relatives.

Giddens (1994: 6) recognises that modernity produces difference, exclusion, and marginalisation . These conditions raise an existential issue such as the continuity of self-identity. The existential question of self- identity “is bound up with the fragile nature of the biography which the individual ‘supplies’ about herself” ( ibid. : 54) This implies, as Charles Taylor

(1989) notes, a knowledge of who we are, how we have become, and of where we are going. The traits from which biographies are constructed vary

27 socially and culturally, with naming a primary element in a biography. For

Indigenous people removed from country as children, re-naming was a common occurrence. This was a practice aimed at definitionally denying

Australian Aboriginal peoples their Aboriginality as described by Buti (ND:

29) as the:

most fundamental in the move to re-socialise indigenous children, was the practice of renaming children on their arrival at residential schools and Australian Aboriginal mission or other schools. The practice was common because it facilitated easier identification for teachers and superintendents and indigenous names were often held to be too difficult to pronounce, and transliteration of the names into English often produced ridiculous results. In the government operated 'native settlements' of Moore River and Carrolup in Western Australia, the practice of renaming arrivees was usual, as was the arbitrary allocation of birth dates.

To contextualise these comments, it is recognised that although

Indigenous Australians and Muslim Australians are numerical minorities in a multicultural environment, both groups exert considerable influence in debates defining Australian identity. This on-going debate connects with local definitions of multiculturalism, in which Indigenous Australians consistently argue for greater inclusion and recognition measurable by evidence-based improvements in all socioeconomic indicators. Hunter

(2000: vi) proposes that: “unless Indigenous people are included in the social and economic processes of Australian society, it becomes increasingly difficult to break the vicious circle of welfare dependency and unemployment”. Unemployment, however, is only one of the social factors indicating the socioeconomic condition of Indigenous society. Social exclusion is a further indicator of whether individuals and groups benefit from mainstream society engagement.

2.4 Social exclusion and identity

The multidimensional aspects of social exclusion include generational replications of poverty and low income encompassing a 28 broader concept of the wider causes and consequences of deprivation.

(Social Exclusion Unit, 2004). The United Kingdom government based

Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) definition describes social exclusion as:

a shorthand term for what can happen when people or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, unfair discrimination, poor housing, high crime, bad health, and family breakdown (Social Exclusion Unit, 2001: 11).

All of the above conditions apply, in a general sense, as being indicative of the contemporary experience of a sizeable Indigenous population, despite government claims of slightly improving socioeconomic indicators (see Social Justice Report, 2003; Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2008). Empirical data supports a realistic prediction that

(economic) equality “may never in fact be achievable in certain circumstances” (Altman, 2000: vi), and that “as a group, Indigenous people have the lowest economic status of all Australians” ( ibid : 1). Given this situation, it is not unreasonable to expect Indigenous actors to continually seek alternative avenues of social inclusion, and positive forms of social capital (Brough, Bond, Hunt, Jenkins, Shannon, Schubert, 2006). The aspects of social capital contributing to positive consequences include both sociability, and how “nonmonetary forms can be important sources of power and influence…” (Portes, 1998: 2). Pierre Bourdieu (1985: 248) describes social capital as:

[T]he aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintances or recognition.

The dynamic, relational aspect of these circumstances point to the ways in which more traditional religious expressions may be adapting to the present increase in Australian religious diversity; how traditional groups may be borrowing from newer groups; and how the newer groups may be

29 making adaptations of their own. For Indigenous Australians engaging with

Islam, this may afford a “second world of bridging capital” ( ibid. ).

To this end, it is hypothesised that Muslim communities in the more ethnically diverse suburbs of Australian cities have the potential to provide a religious and community framework able to support a more equitable and communal social environment for those actors willing to embrace religious and cultural diversity. However, the situation is quite complex given the global repercussions resulting from terror attacks generally and the events of September 11 and October 12 Bali bombings specifically. An important and relevant perspective is noted by Cahill (2003):

The tragedy in the USA encapsulates the central themes of globalization, not just of economic globalization which the global intelligentsia and opinion-makers focus upon, but also of social and cultural globalization in which religion, language and ethnicity are intertwined with economic, political and media processes (2003: 5).

With the combination of global events and local responses, a reconfiguration of national and religious profiles occurs in that: “increasingly people have sought security through identification with a group closer to their own experience and over which they have some control” ( ibid .: 8 – 9).

Yet recent examples illustrate that religion, insofar as it is related to how a people or culture define themselves, can be manipulated to become both the liberator and the object of conflict. The apparently simple act of an individual choosing a life-style change or a new religious framework is made more complicated by the undercurrent of both historical and contemporary circumstances. Generational family history and habitus

(Bourdieu, 1990) and stigma (Goffman, 1963; Falk, 2001) and current political and administrative influences combine to present a web of interlocking yet dialectic mechanisms of resistance and relationships .

The biographies of individuals are conditioned in a social environment, meaning it is relevant to discuss a range of socio-political concepts which both influence and are influenced by social actors. The global nature of social relations is therefore considered in the context of

Indigenous and Islamic issues. Broadly, these issues are examined in terms of changing government policies (mutual responsibility and retraction of state ownership of public assets); a more equitable and sustainable economic system (wealth and life-chances in view of financial market governance); increased cultural and religious diversity (identification issues); global spread of terrorism threats (radicalisation and stigma resulting from anti-Western sentiment); and building a more equitable and sustainable international order (economic and political equality).

2.5 Cultural trauma and intergenerational disadvantage

The aim of this section is to link the experiences of many

Indigenous people to that of trauma associated with generational disadvantage which in turn is a legacy of past and present oppression.

2.5.1 Collective cultural trauma as a symptom of overarching imperial, colonial, and contemporary oppression

An important and relevant aim of the thesis is to investigate the links between collective cultural trauma, increased incarceration rates and religious conversion. The collective nature of Indigenous identity remains an integral force uniting individuals in times of social upheaval. Therefore, it is necessary to establish the relevance of cultural and collective trauma as conceptual models able to explain intergenerational Indigenous disadvantage. Collective recognition of Indigenous identity expanded to collective recognition of trauma is a logical progression of examining cultural trauma. Burgmann (2003: 4) notes that social movements are

‘imagined communities’ of the oppressed, disadvantaged or threatened.

Alexander, Eyerman, Giesen, Smelser, and Sztompka (2004:1) take this one step further and propose that:

Cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways Smelser (2004:43) adds: “A collective trauma, affecting a group with a definable membership, will, of necessity, also be associated with that group’s collective identity. Put simply, a meaningful cultural membership implies a name or category of membership, and the social-psychological representation of that category produces a sense of psychological identity with varying degrees of salience, articulation, and elaboration…” The combination of social group or movement membership and the concept of collective cultural trauma is the focus of the following section.

2.5.2 Explaining cultural trauma

Sztompka (2000) notes that a possible use of the concept of trauma is to deal with the problem of “negative, dysfunctional, adverse effects that major social change may leave in its wake” (2000: 450). A formal definition of socio-cultural trauma is proposed by Smelser and Eyerman as: “a memory accepted and publicly given credence by a relevant membership group and evoking an event or situation which is a) laden with negative affect b) represented as indelible, and c) regarded as threatening a society’s existence or violating one or more of its fundamental cultural presuppositions or group’s identity” (Smelser, 2004: 44; Eyerman, 2004:

62). Alexander (2004: 1) describes cultural trauma occurring “when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental

32 and irrevocable ways.” Alexander suggests cultural trauma incorporates empirical concepts creating a space for “new meaningful and causal relationships…” ( ibid.) and illuminates an “emerging domain of social responsibility and political action” ( ibid .). At the core of these perspectives is the difference between collective and individual trauma, in that:

collective trauma impacts on the basic tissues of social life that damages the bonds attaching people together and impairs the prevailing sense of communality. The collective trauma works its way slowly and even insidiously into the awareness of those who suffer from it, so it does not have the quality of suddenness normally associated with ‘trauma’ (Erikson, 1976: 153 – 154).

For traumas to emerge at the level of the collectivity, social crises must become cultural crises. “Collective actors ‘decide’ to represent social pain as a fundamental threat to their sense of who they are, where they came from, and where they want to go.” (Alexander, 2004: 10).

2.5.3 Indigenous Australians and a case for a traumatised collective

The ‘trauma process’ necessitates claims and representations of what constitutes cultural trauma. Claims about the shape of social reality are explained as “a claim to some fundamental injury, an exclamation of the terrifying profanation of some sacred value, a narrative about a horribly destructive social process, and a demand for emotional, institutional, and symbolic reparation and reconstitution.” (Alexander: 11) This definition when linked to the history of Indigenous dispossession enables a conceptual insight into the continuing unsatisfactory state of Indigenous well-being.

Judy Atkinson in Trauma Trails, Recreating Song Lines (2002) makes reference to trauma in the context of violence within “an urban/rural coastal region of Central Queensland” (2002: 9), and the trauma trails of the Aboriginal people who were removed from the “locations of the pain

33 and the disorder they experienced . . . from the mid-nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century” (2002: 10).

The layered trauma that results from colonisation is likely to be expressed in dysfunctional, and sometimes violent, behaviour at both individual and large-scale levels of human interaction, and these are re-traumatising (2002: 24).

Physical violence as a trigger for intergenerational trauma, and the violence of colonisation are not necessarily inseparable, as one can condition the other. Borrowing from Atkinson in that “trauma, if unhealed, may compound” (2002: 24), a similar theme is continued in this thesis. The difference is to extend the concept of violence and trauma as a legacy of colonisation and to re-examine trauma as: 1) a contributing factor of influence leading to arrest and incarceration; 2) trauma re-experienced as a result of experiences in custody; and 3) trauma-inspired self-reflexivity,

‘crisis recognition’, and attempts to align with the tenets of Islam

Effectively, the pattern of violence and trauma is repetitive and intergenerational as recognised in the stories of Indigenous inmates, extended family members and friends. Trauma recognition constructs a particular identity and habitus by way of a slow and insidious seeping into the fabric and beliefs of people as community (Atkinson, 2002: 53).

Atkinson provides examples of the situations in which trauma is experienced such as Shkilnk’s (1985) story of Grassy Narrows regarding individual and collective trauma experienced as “anxiety, rage, and depression; subjective feelings of loss, a sense of helplessness in the face of conditions over which [people] felt they had no control; disorientation; apathy; a retreat into dependency; a general loss of ego functions; and a numbness of spirit” (Shkilnk,1985 cited in Atkinson, 2002: 55). Michael

Simpson (1993) argues the need for a broader and more holistic view of post trauma reactions including community and communal responses to

34 trauma; the nature and effects of continuing and recursive violence; and the recognition of the political context of trauma and its effects and the fact that structural violence, such as that inherent in oppressive systems, has potentially severe and continuing posttraumatic effects (Simpson 1993:

601). Simpson recognises that child abuse may be institutionalised in the form of societal child abuse and:

bureaucratically designed and organised trauma within a country where political and social systems are perverted by a devotion to principles requiring that racially defined groups must be treated differently and, in all senses of that word, with prejudice (ibid).

In 2007, in response to the Northern Territory Report into sexual abuse – called Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Makarle (Little Children are

Sacred) – the Howard Government announced a national emergency in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory (Reconciliaction,

2008). The Government’s ‘NT Intervention’ involved sending police and the army into remote communities, alcohol bans, winding back Aboriginal land rights under the NT Aboriginal Land Rights Act , health checks for Aboriginal children and the quarantining of welfare payments in 73 Aboriginal communities. With the exception of some prominent Aboriginal commentators, Aboriginal groups strongly condemned the NT Intervention.

The authors of the L ittle Children are Sacred Report also spoke out against the intervention, arguing that its heavy handed, top-down approach was inconsistent with the recommendations in the report ( ibid. ).

The ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ report and the subsequent

‘intervention’ in the Northern Territory are applicable examples of what

Simpson includes in his definition of trauma-recursive events. This is most apparent in the claimed intergenerational occurrence of child sex abuse and the bureaucratic imposition of the response. The trauma producing

35 symptoms of contemporary Aborigines can only be fully understood within a nineteenth-century legacy of the violence against the individual from proselytisation and predatory missions, the structural violence of British imperialism, and the physical violence of colonial warfare.

Empirical and statistical evidence is not always necessary to understand and acknowledge the relative disadvantage of certain ethnic, religious, or cultural groups, and for cultural trauma to be experienced. For example, the material conditions of many Indigenous people and communities remain largely unresolved, as have symbolic reparations in terms of reconciliation and self-determination. According to Hunter (1999:

16) “Indigenous people’s living standards are both qualitatively and quantitatively different to that of other poor and rich Australians”. The resultant social exclusion experienced by Indigenous people is evidenced by the increasing difficulty in breaking the vicious circle of welfare dependency and unemployment. Social indicators such as arrest rates, police harassment and being a victim of assault; being a member of the

‘stolen generation’; civic engagement; the loss of motivation; and ill-health all point to areas of social exclusion. “Social exclusion, unlike poverty, is an intrinsically dynamic concept, descriptive of a condition that develops over time after prolonged social isolation and deprivation” (Hunter, 2000:

3).These circumstances would constitute a major crisis within the dominant society if the conditions were experienced by the majority of non-

Indigenous Australians.’ ‘Crisis’ and ‘oppression’, then, become one with collective cultural trauma in forming a conceptual framework involving current lived conditions and indelible historical memories.

Although Sztompka (2004) explains crisis as a “chronic, permanent and endemic feature of modern society, putting a question mark under the whole project of modernity” (2004: 157), the socio-cultural context of

Indigenous oppression adds an extra dimension to this understanding.

People put value on security, predictability, continuity, routines, and rituals of their life-world, even more so in the ambivalent social atmosphere of late modernity ( ibid .) The speed, scope, content, and social-psychological framework of social change delivers destructive effects on the body social

(Sztompka, 2000: 452). Yet the anticipation of improved conditions combined with the direct experience of disadvantage provides fertile ground for the condition of cultural trauma. Cultural trauma is realised when people start to be aware of the common plight, perceive the similarity of their situation with that of others, and define it as shared. History and cultural relevance provides a discursive space within which to construct and nurture major cultural attributes, disasters, celebrations, and national identity. This process could apply to any group within Australia and illuminates the dual tendencies of ‘remembrance’ and selective ‘forgetfulness’. Two examples are the ubiquitous Anzac memorials and remembrance celebrations, and the scarcity of civil markers acknowledging Indigenous loss of life, land and culture opposing colonial invasion. The contested nature of the relative importance of these events underscores the contested and contextual nature of remembering and forgetting. Memory is located not inside the heads of individual actors, but rather “within the discourse of people talking together about the past” (Radley, 1990: 46).

Collective cultural trauma, then, could be seen as being dependent on the socio-cultural context of the affected society at the time the historical event or situation arises (Smelser, 2004: 36). Furthermore, cultural trauma must be remembered or made to be remembered; it must be culturally relevant, and be associated with a strong negative affect ( ibid .). The gradual revelation of alternative histories, however, is placing greater scrutiny on the benevolent and benign process of settlement, and in making

37 claims against authorities for reparation and due recognition of social and cultural damage. In terms of collective cultural trauma, this should be seen as an evolving process, or a traumatic sequence (ibid .: 453), and that

“cultural traumas are for the most part historically made, not born”

(Smelser, 2004: 37). Eyerman (2004: 60) uses the example of slavery as a focus for collective memory in the formation of African American identity. As a cultural process, trauma is linked to the formation of collective identity and the construction of collective memory. Eyerman explains that slavery became central in attempts to “forge a collective identity out of its remembrance, forming a ‘primal scene’ that could, potentially unite all

‘African Americans in the United States, whether or not they had themselves been slaves or had any knowledge of or feeling for Africa”

(ibid.). African American collective identity recognition and the link with cultural trauma are important concepts to consider in relation to Indigenous

Australians, terra nullius, and dispossession.

Hoare (in Burgmann) describes the feeling of being ‘inside’ a social movement:

Sharing common cause with others in response to the crises that affect us all brings forth incredible feelings of solidarity, camaraderie, empowerment and joy. The shared conviction that arises from standing up against what is plainly wrong is a tremendously positive and sustaining experience, and is without doubt the most effective remedy to feelings of hopelessness, despair and surrender (Hoare 1998: 22 quoted in Burgmann, p. 5).

It is recognised that an awareness of relationships emphasizing grievances and discontent are not necessarily causal relationships. The underlying assumption is that grievances are generated by socio-structural, economic, and political strains and crises which produce psychological distress and prompt individuals to participate in collective action

(Wiktorowicz 2004: 3). According to Alexander (2004) the collective nature of cultural trauma occurs when members collectively feel they have been

38 subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking heir memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways” (Alexander 2004: 1).

Trauma should be conceptualised as a socially mediated attribution, rather than a naturalistic phenomenon ( ibid.: 8). This notion of an ‘imagined’ traumatic event seems to suggest the kind of process that Benedict

Anderson describes in Imagined Communities (Anderson 1991).

Anderson’s concern is not with trauma, but with the kinds of self- consciously ideological narratives of nationalistic history. Yet these collective beliefs often assert the existence of some national trauma

(Alexander 2004: 8). But it is imagination that informs trauma construction even when the reference is to something that has actually occurred as to something that has not ( ibid .: 9). While every argument about trauma claims ontological reality the concern is not so much with the accuracy of social actors’ claims, and much less with evaluating their moral justification.

We are concerned only with how and under what conditions the claims are made, and with what results. It is neither ontology nor morality, but epistemology, with which we are concerned ( ibid .: 9). Traumatic status is attributed to real or imagined phenomena, not because of their actual harmfulness or their objective abruptness, but because these phenomena are believed to have abruptly, and harmfully, affected collective identity

(ibid .: 9-10). However, in the case of Indigenous Australians, the effects of generational dispossession are a lived reality, and continued actual harm is evidence of this process.

2.5.4 Collective identity and trauma recognition

Identity involves a cultural reference, and only if the patterned meanings of the collectivity are abruptly dislodged is traumatic status

39 attributed to an event. It is the meanings that provide the sense of shock and fear, not the events in themselves. Whether or not the structures of meaning are destabilized and shocked is not the result of an event but the effect of a socio-cultural process. It is the result of an exercise of human agency, of the successful imposition of a new system of cultural classification. This cultural process is deeply affected by power structures and by the contingent skills of reflexive social agents (Alexander 2004: 10).

Resistance and protest movements are integral to Indigenous experiences of dispossession. This has become more apparent since the emergence of

‘Indigenous rights’ discourse to the extent of a coherent and sustainable acceptance of Indigenous disadvantage associated with European invasions.

For traumas to emerge at the level of the collectivity, social crises must become cultural crises (ibid .: 10), and the gap between event and representation can be conceived as the ‘trauma process’ ( ibid .: 11). The predisposing influences or underlying social fabric which conditions collective cultural trauma could also relate to habitus formation, setting in motion a particular life-world orientation or perspective amenable to social movement participation and a politics of resistance. This perspective is acknowledged by Burgmann (2003: 49) in that although Indigenous protest and resistance movements are both necessary and effective their support base is extremely limited and “official policies towards Indigenous

Australians have long contributed to the fragmentation of their communities and rendered political mobilisation difficult.” However, even if collective grievance and protest linked activities are limited, established and reformed habitus oriented to continual critique of social inequality drives many

Indigenous individuals to assert agency. Put differently, the sociological theme of collective cultural trauma or simply, cultural trauma, as an

40 overriding cultural experience although manifesting as various personal and social instances of negative, dysfunctional, adverse effects, also provides the impetus for social change. (Sztompka, 2000: 450).

2.5.5 Key historical processes and era’s revealing potential and actual trauma producing conditions for Indigenous people

• Terra nullius - Initial invasion and colonising period signified by

wholesale social, community, and economic disintegration.

(dispossession)

• Protection policies - Missionary and ‘philanthropic’ influences.

These include ‘reservations’ or mission areas destroying tribal

organisation and culture.

• ‘Scientific administration’ includes the gradual intrusion of

bureaucratic management

• Assimilation or integrationist policies – From the 1930s ‘assimilation’

became the declared goal of Commonwealth and State government

policies.

• Welfare – little or no effective case management of welfare

payments.

• Self-determination policy – (Whitlam government) Aboriginal

communities deciding the pace and nature of their future

development.

• Land rights – (political resistance and public perceptions)

• Self-management policy – (Fraser government) Indigenous

communities managing government projects and funding.

• Native title – Rejection of the long-standing doctrine of terra nullius

(Mabo 1992)

• Multiculturalism – (Fraser government onwards Reaffirmed the ‘right

of all Australians…to express and share their individual cultural

heritage, including their language and religion’.

• Reconciliation movement – Triggered by the Report of the Royal

Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody tabled in federal

Parliament in May 1991.

The ‘Stolen Generations Inquiry’ culminated in the HREOC report,

Bringing Them Home, tabled in the Australian federal parliament on May 26

1997. This was an example where landmark historical issues relating to questions of race, dispossession and assimilation evaded the reconciliation process by becoming overtly politicised. The Bringing Them Home report re-told stories of cultural and spiritual genocide, yet sections of popular media and some politicians rejected the findings of the report. Lowitja

O’Donoghue reminded us in her speech marking the 10th anniversary of the report, 35 of the 54 recommendations in the Bringing them home report were ignored by the Howard government p.71 – “people build their own prison and become simultaneously prisoner and warden (Baker, 1983: 40 cited in Atkinson, 2002: 72).

• Practical reconciliation – (Howard government) Practical measures

to overcome disadvantage in areas of health, education,

employment, and housing but with what evidence of substantial

improvements?

• The hyper-competitive logic of global neo-liberalism - A continuation

of assimilationist ideology where Indigenous people are expected to

rely on their own effort to realise individual and social

improvements, while being held responsible for their current

predicaments. This is a process of re-victimising by the legal,

welfare, medical, and political responses to existing trauma

(Atkinson, 2002: 77)

These policies, ideologies, and inquiries mask the trauma associated with forced removals, actual physical and domestic violence that is rife within some Indigenous communities. An intergenerational experience quite often generated by unresolved social inequality is often repeated as generational or acquired habitus. Nevertheless, the above mentioned policies and concepts do not necessarily cause a trauma effect. The effects of trauma most likely emanate from the sum of everyday experiences likened to a trickledown effect. There would be a differentiation from policy influences but linkages to long term habitus reproduction. This is best explained by Pat O’Shane describing how trauma becomes entrenched in societies and becomes a cultural norm, or the doxic condition according to

Bourdieu (1977).

Throughout Aboriginal society in this country are seen what can only be described by anyone’s measure as dysfunctional families and communities, whose relationships with each other are very often marked by anger, depression and despair, dissention and divisiveness. The effects are generational….I recognised al the things that had happened to me through my grandparents, and their parents; their brothers and sisters whom I had known as a child; through my mother and her siblings; through my cousins and my siblings. I recognised the things that happened to the thousands of other Aboriginal families like our family, and I marvelled that we weren’t all stark, raving mad (O’Shane, 1995: 151-3).

These reflections although couched in psychological terms do indeed indicate enduring underling social structures of influence. Gagné

(1998) names four tiers which directly affect future generations as colonialism; political and socio-economic dependency; the cultural genocide of residential schools and the alcoholism and substance abuse which has direct relationship to the residential school experience, and to interference by federal governments with introduced social programmes such as housing projects and welfare; and cultural bereavement, family

43 violence, accidental deaths, child abuse and sexual abuse (1998: 357 –

69). The multiple violations of the experiences of Indigenous Australians interlinked with the institutional destruction of families have resulted in violent behaviours across generations. Communities with low levels of social cohesion contribute to the potential for increased participation in the criminal justice system, and from the perspective of the high Indigenous imprisonment rates, indicate this is the rule rather than the exception. This is the important link between underlying conditions, intergenerational reproduction of trauma and anti-social behaviour, and consistently high

Indigenous imprisonment rates.

The following section briefly outlines African American Muslim experiences of trauma and considers how the conditions of slavery have created similar patterns of trauma recognition and similarly high rates of imprisonment.

2.5.6 Cultural trauma and African Americans

Slavery in the form of collective memory is grounded in the identity formation of many African Americans (Eyerman, 2004: 60). The distinction is made between trauma as it affects individuals, and as a cultural process, and this is understood as collective identity originating from the remembrance of slavery ( ibid. ). Just as the remembrance of the Australian

Anzac experience has forged a nationalistic form of Australian identity, so too has the memory of slavery been institutionalised. Organisations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded in 1909 – 10 was in part a product of the “memory of slavery and its representation through speech and art works…” (Eyerman, 2004:61).

Cultural trauma, therefore, refers to a dramatic loss of identity and meaning, a tear in the social fabric, affecting a group of people that has

44 achieved some degree of cohesion ( ibid. ). The cultural reproduction of trauma remembrance embodied in the social body forms a context in which individual biographies and thus memories can be connected with others.

Social movements reconnect individuals by and through collective representations, and they present the collective and represent the individual in a double sense by forging the individual into collective memory and representing the individual as part of the collective. The difference between reconstructing a traumatic past, and directly experiencing transgenerational effects of trauma is the difference between Eyerman’s model and that of Indigenous Australians. For the subjects of this study at least, involvement in the criminal justice system was a symptom of trauma reproduction in real time. Yet their ability to effect resistance strategies was not prevented even when in prison. An example of resistance concepts is demonstrated in the following section.

2.5.7 African American example of resistance culture

The earliest black American Muslim communities were established as a reaction to racist practices, evasive actions, and exploitative relationships fostered by segregation during the Jim Crow era (Gardell,

1996 cited in A. Akom, 2003: 307). Lipitz (1988) referred to this as a

‘culture of opposition’ and a dialectical relationship between ‘underclass’ status and resistance and ‘white power’ (Akom, 2003: 307).

For black Americans, racism and exploitation promoted an oppositional culture, and the argument could be made that similar ‘motivating’ social conditions influence an Indigenous culture of opposition and resistance.

Within the Nation of Islam (NOI), the black achievement ideology often coexists with an oppositional social identity (Akom, 2003: 307). The dual response to conditions of racism and group discrimination and rigid

45 morals, self-determination, non-traditional Islam, and Black Nationalism are the key elements to the NOI’s black achievement ideology ( ibid .)

The terms black achievement ideology and mainstream achievement ideology …as processes of inclusion and exclusion, as well as mobility processes, are integral to identity formation and defining cultural boundaries ( ibid .: 308). The oppositional –culture explanation has three main components 1) institutional treatment system ; 2) the response to institutional treatment; 3) how the group became a minority in the first place

(ibid.: 321). The oppositional culture explanation draws from within the minority/family itself; and as a function of social structural conditions

(Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey, 1998 : 536). Propositions for an oppositional culture model drawn from an educational framework consist of the following elements:

1) Involuntary minority (African American) students perceive fewer returns than do dominant white students. This proposition is not supported suggesting an understanding of the importance of schooling.

2) Involuntary minority students exhibit greater resistance to school than do dominant white students. This hypothesis returned mixed results suggesting differing contextual variations.

3) High achieving involuntary minority students are negatively sanctioned by their peers for their achievement. This position is not supported because peers understand and support effort and achievement.

4) Resistance to school accounts for the racial gap in school performance between involuntary students and dominant white students.

The oppositional culture model explained above is based on the concepts of societal forces and community and individual level forces

(Harris, 2008). The effect of social and community forces relate specifically to members of subordinate minority groups who have been specific targets

46 of exclusionary policies ( ibid. ). Carrol and Ratner (2005: 607) extend this model to state that:

…only through the construction of alternative forms of identity and community, alternative modes of living, and alternative forms of political action, within the context of social movements implanted in the everyday world, that people might be weaned from hegemonic constructions of their interests and identities.

Oppositional culture, therefore, takes in the senses of identity and community that unify a group, the practices through which group members meet each other’s needs and develop new needs that inform an agenda change, and the specifically political organization which forms a practical basis for visible collective action ( ibid. : 608). This evolved model is useful for conceptualizing both Indigenous alliances within specific circumstances such as the prison, and the Indigenous oppositional culture residing at the level of Indigenous resistance politics and activism generally.

2.5.8 Resistance culture and African American Islam

Remaining within an African American context, Edward Curtis

(2007) adopts black Muslim perspectives on the history of Islamism, the twentieth-century transnational ideology that sees Islam as both a political system and a religion. In addition to creating the famous Nation of Islam and well-known Moorish Science Temple, African American Muslims by this date had either established or come to dominate the leadership of many

Ahmadi Muslim mosques, the Islamic Brotherhood (or the State Street

Mosque of Brooklyn), the Addeynu Allahe Universal Arabic Association, the

Fahamme Temple of Islam and Culture, and the First Mosque of Pittsburgh, which reportedly had sub-charters in Kirkwood and St. Louis, Missouri;

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Cleveland, Ohio; and Jacksonville, Florida

(Curtis, 2007: 683 – 4).

Curtis (2007) identifies three strains of African American Muslim interpretive frameworks exemplified respectively by Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam, and Shaikh Daoud Ahmed Faisal, the founder of the State Street

Mosque. Curtis (2007) shows how Shaikh Daoud Ahmed Faisal aligned his community of believers with Islamist ideology; how Malcolm X became the student and ally of new foreign and immigrant missionaries, though he resisted their politicized interpretation of Islam; and finally, how members of

Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam rejected the missionaries’ claims to ultimate religious authority and instead defended Elijah Muhammad’s prophetic voice ( ibid. ). These differing reactions are important, if for no other reason than they disprove the notion, at least implied in the arguments of many Islamophobes, that foreign Islamist missionaries have been pied pipers leading all indigenous U.S. Muslims toward the deadly ideology of violent jihad. A similar argument could be made for the methods of inculcating prison inmates: firstly by other inmates; and secondly, the interpretation by prison management.

After the Second World War, religious and cultural exchange between African American Muslims and foreign Muslims, especially from the Middle East, expanded dramatically. In one sense, this expansion of ties was an acceleration of trends that began decades before, during the flowering of Islam as a twentieth-century African American religious tradition. As the modern anti-colonial struggle among persons of African descent became an international black freedom discourse, more and more

African Americans and English-speaking people of colour began to link the self-determination of African-descended people to the fate of Muslim persons and Muslim-majority lands ( ibid. :685). More recently, Indigenous

Australians have engaged with the later work of Malcom X and Ahmed

Deedat 9 of South Africa. From the time of its origins as a topic in international black English language discourse, Islam was associated if not with an explicit black political nationalism then at least with ideas of black self-determination and shared historical destiny. Shared historical identity is an important topic in the discourse for some Indigenous Muslims who believe in a direct genetic link to Africans who are claimed as the antecedents of ‘modern’ Muslims (Davis, 2006). This may be linked to what

Curtis recounts when an African American leader, Timothy Drew proclaimed himself a Muslim prophet, and established the Moorish Science

Temple in 1920s Chicago. Noble Drew Ali insisted that black Americans were Muslim in religion, Asiatic in race, and Moorish in nationality, and called on “Moors” to return to their original religion of Islam and their true national identity (Curtis, 2007: 685).

Furthermore, African American Muslims in the NOI located the story of black Muslim people in many epochs and locales, including ancient

Egypt, Muslim West Africa, Asia, a mythical Arabia, and the classical period of Islam during and immediately after the time of Prophet Muhammad of

Arabia. These black Muslims “moved across” time and space, constructing their contemporary identities by imagining who they had been in the past.

The broader African American interest in things Islamic and Muslim and the heightened profile of black Muslims such as Elijah Muhammad and

Malcolm X also attracted the gaze of Muslims overseas (Curtis, 2007: 687).

One African American pioneer who had already articulated Islamist ideas in print by 1950 was Caribbean immigrant Shaikh Daoud Ahmed Faisal (d.

1980). ( ibid. : 689). Shaikh Daoud taught Islam from the Great Depression until the seventies as a religion that was the true light of the Civil Rights

9 Shiek Ahmed Hussein Deedat (July 1, 1918 – August 8, 2005) aimed at providing Muslims with theological tools for defending themselves against the intense missionary strivings of many Christian denominations. 49

Movement. This father of American Islam paved the road for the Dar-ul-

Islam, Jamil al-Amin, the Fuqara, Imam Isa and the Nuwabians, and

Brooklyn’s Masjid Farooq through his Islamic Mission to America. Before most Muslim missionaries had arrived from Afro-Eurasia, Shaikh Daoud’s intellectual life bore the influence of Islamic reform and renewal movements. Ibid. : 690)

2.5.9 African Americans, Indigenous Australians and prison

African Americans are over-represented in American prisons.

During the 12 months ending June 30, 2006, the number of inmates in the custody of State and Federal prisons and local jails increased 2.8% to reach 2,245,189 (Sabol, Minton & Harrison, 2007). In June 2006 more black men (836,800) were in custody in State or Federal prison or local jail than white men (718,100) or Hispanic men (426,900). Black men comprised 41% of the more than 2 million men in custody, and black men age 20 to 29 comprised 15.5% of all men in custody on June 30, 2006

(ibid. ). Relative to their numbers in the general population, about 4.8% of all black men were in custody at midyear 2006, compared to about 0.7% of white men and 1.9% of Hispanic men. Overall, black men were incarcerated at 6.5 times the rate of white men. The incarceration rate for black men was highest among black men age 25 to 29. About between 5.7 and 8.5 times 11.7% of black males in this age group were incarcerated on

June 30, 2006. Across age groups black men were more likely than white men to be incarcerated ( ibid. ).

These data range at the extreme end of a continuum identifying incarceration rates per 100.000 of the general population. The question as to why African American males are over-represented in American prisons could also be asked of Indigenous Australians. If sentencing bias is

50 discounted as a factor in higher incarceration rates does it mean that

African Americans commit more crime and therefore experience more frequent periods of incarceration? Does it also mean that African

Americans are less law abiding and less socially integrated as represented by their high rate of imprisonment? These explanations are often raised by right wing commentators and politicians as forms of simplistic and populist appeasement. An alternative explanation considers the type of crimes committed by this group that differ significantly from other offenders. The explanation becomes more complex when considering the different rates of incarceration between state jurisdictions. In most cases the crimes committed are visible public disorder offences and those relating to alcohol and drug abuse (Weatherburn, 2006).

Similar circumstances can be attributed to Indigenous Australians who find themselves in prison. On June 30, 2002 the Indigenous imprisonment rate was twelve times higher than the rate for non-

Indigenous prisoners, 1,488 per 100,000 Indigenous adult population compared to 121 for non-Indigenous adult population.

(ABS, 2006). On a national level, the total prisoner population rose 6 per cent from 25,790 last year to 27,224 this year, with the number of

Indigenous prisoners up 9 per cent (ibid. ). The WA Parole Board’s former

Aboriginal community member, Craig Somerville, said the figures were the continuation of a worrying trend. “I think it’s a symptom of the dysfunction in the Aboriginal community … physically, socially and emotionally’

(Somerville cited in Perry 2007).

2.6 Discussion

The socio-historical treatment of Indigenous Australians has often contributed to communal breakdown. One of the social outcomes of a history of dispossession is that communities and individuals suffer intergenerational dysfunction manifesting as collective trauma. It is argued that the connection between intergenerational trauma reproduction, and the overrepresentation of Indigenous Australian in Australian prisons is worthy of consideration. A review of American studies on the collective cultural trauma of African Americans is used as model from which to argue similarities exist for many Indigenous Australians as is the high imprisonment rates of black Americans vis-à-vis trauma backgrounds.

However, whether cultural trauma has an influence in Indigenous affiliation with Islam as opposed to any other factors is a matter of debate, however, the claim that collective cultural trauma in the form of identity formation as in a pan ‘black resistance’ movement stands. The condition of collective cultural trauma is something that has required reflection, remembrance, ‘nurturing’ and general acceptance. Does this acceptance of a trauma frame engender a ‘crisis of identity’ or enable strategy specific

Indigenous actions to ‘heal’ trauma? (see Atkinson, 2001).

Given that an oppositional culture exists in Indigenous contemporary societies one the networks enabling an expression of this sentiment is aligning with Islam. Historically and sociologically, this has been the case for many African Americans with their long connections to Islam dating back to the slavery period. Contemporary African American Islam is associated with black militant groups, which emerged in the early part of the twentieth century as the social movement Nation of Islam (NOI). The

NOI is a specific type of social movement because it not only is designed to for winning black converts but also focuses on black socio-economic

52 issues. The other role of the NOI as a Black Nationalist movement encouraged the creation of a collective consciousness and to sustain racial and cultural pride. This was in the context of rapid social change during the

1930’s Depression and aftermath of World War I combined to create social conditions provoking discontent among blacks. The fact that the early NOI practiced an almost ‘cultish’ version of Islam, such as the idea of black racial superiority and whites as evil contradicted the teachings of racial equality found in orthodox Islam. The NOIs divergence from orthodox Islam made them more inclusive and politically radical in their insistence on black separation and their belief in the manifest destiny of the Black Nation to inherit the earth (Marsh, 1996).

From the evidence provided it could be suggested that despite the socio-economic issues facing African Americans, they were able to collectively organise a political response based on a divergent form of

Islamic practice. The issue of interest in this study are the similarities and differences between the broader aims, purposes and doctrine of socio- religious groups such as the NOI and the more recent uptake of Islam by

Indigenous Australians. Indeed, some of the doctrine espoused by NOI appears in the discourse of certain Indigenous Muslims.

2.7 Conclusion

The themes of pan Islamism and transnational saturation of orthodox Sunni Islam came after the era of early African American ‘cultish’ versions of the Islamic thought and practice of the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam. It is clear, however, that Islam had become a potent signifier of black identity for some African Americans and that other

African Americans resisted this remaking of black identity in Islamic terms.

Rather than evaluating Indigenous Australians’ “Muslim-ness” by juxtaposing their religious practices with some ahistorical model of the

“real” Islam (usually seen to be embedded in authoritative readings of

Islamic sacred texts), Indigenous Muslims have constructed what is ultimately an imagined communal identity following the pattern of African

American Islam. Following Benedict Anderson, all human communities are imagined and that communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/ genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined. For Indigenous

Australian Muslims a particular identity has emerged in which Indigeniety and Islam provides powerful representational and symbolic capital as members of the Pan-Islamic ‘black’ collective. Further, Indigenous

Australian Muslim identities, like all human identities, are dynamic and negotiated, and not the rigidly defined and understood version of Islamic practice claimed by prison management. Yet Indigenous Muslim tensions over the meaning of their symbols, texts, rituals, doctrines, and narratives are the discursive arenas in which to further trace the development of Islam and Indigenous alliances in chapter seven.

3.0 Methodology

3.1 Introduction

This chapter provides a detailed explanation of the methodology rationale, subject population, procedures, timelines, objectives, limitations, instruments, data collection, and ethical considerations. The latter part of the chapter includes an explanation of data and the methods by which data was obtained including internet-based stories of converts to Islam, interviews and case studies.

3.2 Methodology rationale

The logic of the research process is as follows. Firstly, a preliminary internet based investigative study of converts to Islam was conducted to provide a benchmark with which to compare the conversion process of

Indigenous Muslims. This initial study provided an orienting focus on aspects of religious conversion in general, and conversion to Islam specifically. Key points to emerge from this study were that religious conversion is a gradual process whereby the convert moves along a conversion process continuum over time. Often a crisis in the convert’s life precipitated the motivation to seek religious engagement. The term ‘revert’ is often used in place of convert based on the premise that everyone was born a Muslim. The details of this study are included in appendix A.

The main research methodology involved field observations in the

Sydney suburbs of Redfern and Lakemba, selecting Indigenous Muslim interview participants, and analysing the data. To complement the data analysis, separate chapters analyse and discuss underlying conceptual themes, Islam and Australian society, governmentality and Indigenous incarceration, and Indigenous Australians, Islam, and alliances. The aim is

55 to construct an understanding of Indigenous Australian conversions to

Islam based on fieldwork research supplemented by literature analysis. The following sections examine the fieldwork process in detail.

3.3 Participant population

Twenty three Indigenous males self-identifying as Muslims from the suburbs of Redfern and Lakemba were the principle data source. This is because Redfern is an established centre of Indigenous activism, and

Lakemba is a Muslim majority suburb. These geographic areas were the most likely places to find suitable participants. The New South Wales

Department of Correctional Services was approached seeking permission to interview Indigenous Muslim inmates and correctional authorities. A lengthy and detailed application process was eventually refused. A complete timeline and explanation of the application to conduct research within NSW Corrective Services facilities is included beginning on page 84.

This is a study of Indigenous men. This was not intentional and the difficulty finding suitable male participants is acknowledged. There are two issues worthy of comment here. Firstly, the patriarchal nature of Islam and the particular circumstances of prison activity tended to emphasise male participant significance. Secondly, female Indigenous Muslims are often the partners of Indigenous Muslim male participants and wished to remain in the background. Anecdotal evidence suggests female Indigenous Muslim activity emphasised more of a spiritual dimension and less of activist role as was the case for the males.

3.4 Procedures

The fieldwork for this research involved an in-depth study within an

Indigenous majority community – ‘The Block’ at Redfern – and the Muslim majority community of Lakemba. An historical/comparative analysis

56 theoretical focus coupled with a fieldwork participant observation approach is used as data collection methodologies. As some of the data came to light during the investigation, an iterative theory building process was applied to supplement literature review analysis. Understanding the historical nature of phenomena, events, people, agencies, and even institutions is important. In many ways, it may be as important as understanding the items themselves. Knowledge of the past provides necessary information to be used in the present in order to determine how things may be in the future. It is important to consider a development or process such as Indigenous conversion to Islam and the possibility that the contributing factors assumed to be critical in the process apply in national and global contexts.

The oral testimonies of the Indigenous participants provided the primary data for this research. The analytical task was to establish plausible connections between the presumed cause (of Indigenous overrepresentation in prison, and conversions to Islam) and the effect

(Institutional suspicion and control). The voices of the participants are synthesised into the historical analysis of the factors determining the lived experiences of Indigenous Australians. The aim is to reclaim the racialised past because as Cowlishaw (2000: 101) states: “… the deletion of race from analysis has contributed to the concealment of the painful consequences of free movement in this space”. The underlying premise is that racial discrimination is the basis for historical and current Indigenous disadvantage, and incorporates the blurred boundaries between Aboriginal identity and the national Australian identity.

The researcher’s position as a non-Indigenous person requires clarification. Initial contacts with Indigenous primary respondents were by way of introduction through a third person. It was by chance that this

57 person became central to the fieldwork project. This is what Lofland and

Lofland (1995: 61) call ‘insider understanding’. A chance meeting took place at a Lakemba bookshop selling Islamic material with the owner/manager well known and respected in the Lebanese community.

Contact with officials from the Lebanese Muslims Association (LMA) which manages the Imam Ali ben Abi Taleb mosque in Lakemba (Lakemba

Mosque) provided helpful information and contributed to the success of the fieldwork endeavour.

A further important aspect of the methodology concerns the issue of

‘neutrality’. This research is motivated by a desire to resurrect and reconstruct the experiences of Indigenous Muslims in order to recognise past injustices as an underlying trigger for religious conversion. The interrogation of what Pierre Bourdieu (1977) calls the doxic condition of the overall social habitus is integral to this analysis. The process of researching and contextualising the experiences of the respondents has presented an inherently political and emotional research task. Therefore, it should be considered in the context of a transformative research agenda dedicated to the exposure of injustice, systems of domination and violations of human rights associated with the ideological state apparatus of power (Althuser,

2006). Pickering (2001) examined how the experience of violence is underpinned by experiences of emotionality. The barrier between subjective experience and objective knowledge is usually stressed in academic research. Several authors cited in Pickering (2001: 486) have argued:

[T]he researcher is obliged to do ‘emotional work’, to understand the ways emotion assumes importance and to disrupt the taboo status of emotion in the research process. To reveal emotionality about one’s self, is not only to reject the neutral observer and knowledge maker role, it is also to take responsibility for the power relations inherent in the research process.

The practice of researching Indigenous trauma raises a powerful potential for academic research and writing as a ‘site of resistance’; as a means to write ‘against’ violence and trauma rather than write ‘about’ it

(Scheper-Hughes cited in Sim 2003: 244-6). Overall this research performs the political task of reading and writing ‘against the grain’ ( ibid. : 245) because to engage in ‘rational’ discussions about the political and social meanings of traumatic events can only serve to overshadow, trivialise, and compound the struggles, harms and suffering experienced by victims of injustice (Davis, 2005).

3.4.1 Data collection methodology

Semi-structured interviews coupled with informal focus groups combined with note-taking and video recording of participant responses were the physical components of the research endeavour. Data was collected during the fieldwork employing a field research or participant observation framework. The extent of actual ‘participation’ varied according to the circumstances as Babbie (2004: 283) notes: “…the field researcher frequently chooses a different role from that of a complete participant”. This research project required a reflexive analytical methodology meaning some degree of “insider understandings” (Lofland and Lofland, 1995: 61). This applied in the case of investigating Islamic and Indigenous issues. For the

Islamic perspective a key informant provided valuable insights and access to Muslim community members in Lakemba; and an Indigenous key informant was equally valuable in many aspects of Indigenous socio- cultural and political issues. This methodology assisted in becoming familiar with the unique socio-cultural, religious, and political aspects of the communities in which the investigation took place. Three aspects of participant observation apply in the methodological investigation process of this study.

Participant observation is defined as a process in which a researcher establishes a many-sided and long-term relationship with individuals and groups in their natural setting, for the purposes of developing a scientific understanding of those individuals and groups.

Participant observation makes no firm assumptions about what is important. This method encourages researchers to immerse themselves in the day-to-day activities of the people whom they are attempting to understand. In contrast to testing ideas (deductive), they may be developed from observations (inductive) (O’Reilly, 2005). The methodology requires researchers spend time with relatively small groups of people in order to understand fully the social milieu that they inhabit. In the role of ‘participant as observer’ the researcher adopts an overt (open) role, and makes their presence and intentions known to the group. This is an important consideration for contextualising the meanings of various respondents in

Redfern and Lakemba – two very different communities. Despite methodological concerns with ‘establishing rapport’ or ‘going native’, for many researchers, this view of scientific inquiry has been subjected to scrutiny and criticisms. The researcher often becomes a ‘fan’ or supporter, though this does not mean attempting to act as one of the group.

On the other hand, engagement is used to an advantage. In this case as the researcher, I explicitly drew upon my own biography in the research process; e.g., having been personally and politically engaged as part of the Muslim community before deciding to analysing it. This is an example of reflexivity . It implies that the orientations of researcher will be shaped by socio-historical locations including the values and interests (e.g., religious and cultural norms) that these locations confer upon them. What this represents is a rejection of the idea that social research is, or can be,

60 carried out in some autonomous realm that is insulated from the wider society, and from the particular biography of the researcher.

An ethnographic focus for field research leads to an empathic understanding of social science – it leads to researchers abandoning their preconceptions as they are exposed to a new social milieu that demands their full engagement. Berg (2004) cautions about placing theory before research and to be open-minded about what it is we are researching, and

Ezzy (2002: 10) advises that “the researcher should enter into an ongoing simultaneous process of deduction and induction, of theory building, testing and rebuilding”. The research methodology, therefore, is aimed at exposing underlying socio-historical issues supported by the stories of the participants.

3.5 Ethnographic and Case Study Methods

This study has employed both case study and ethnographic methodology. Walters (2007) claims a lack of clarity about the terms ethnography and case study because they can be used to describe a research strategy, a research focus, the research methods, or the results of a research study (Walters, 2007: 89). Walters discusses the “process [she] went through to find a way of talking about and representing [her] research in order to decide which words to use when the words on offer could potentially mean many different things” (Walters, 2007: 89).

Cresswell defines ethnography as “a description and interpretation of a cultural or social group or system” in which the researcher studies the meaning of behaviour, language and interactions of the culture sharing group (Cresswell, 1998: 58) case study as an “exploration of a bounded system…over time” (Cresswell, 1998: 61) and understands them as trying to accomplish different things. Cresswell admits to a certain overlap yet

61 differentiates the terms by stating that in an ‘ethnography’ the entire cultural or social system is the focus of attention, whereas in ‘case study’ a system of people “is typically not the case” (Cresswell, 1998: 66).

Hammersley (1992: 183; 1998: 1) although acknowledging overlap in the meaning of the two terms uses ‘ethnography’ to mean the much broader ‘qualitative method’ and ‘case study’ to mean ‘a selection strategy’ alongside ‘experiment’ and ‘survey’. A ‘case’ is therefore “the phenomenon

(located in space/time) about which data are collected and/or analysed and that correspond to the type of phenomena to which the main claims of a study relate” (Hammersley, 1992: 184).

On the other hand, Silverman (2005: 126) claims the term ‘case study’ refers simply to the particular topic of the phenomenon the research sets out to study. In this respect, every research study is the study of a case.

For Brewer (2000: 77), while writing about qualitative research, states that “While not all case studies are qualitative, all ethnographic research involves case study”, while Stake (1995: 86) takes the line that case study is a choice of what is to be studied rather than being a methodological choice and, like Cresswell, that what distinguishes case study is its focus on a bounded system.

Merriam follows this by defining ‘case study’ as “an examination of a specific phenomenon, such as a programme, an event, a person, a process, an institution or a social group using both qualitative and quantitative methods” (Merriam, 1988: 9). Merriam defines ‘ethnography’ as a set of methods used to collect data, and as a written record, but not as an object of study (Merriam, 1988: 23), while Travers claims ‘case study’ as referring to research studies that are used as an ‘example’ to illuminate a particular research approach (Travers, 2001: viii).

Finally, Yin, while also acknowledging that ‘case study’ is often confused with ‘ethnography’ (Yin, 2003: 12), defines ‘case study’ as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin, 2003: 13).

In this thesis I took as the choice of object to be studied in

‘ethnography’ as understanding the way a group or social system works, the meanings it gives to actions, artefacts and so on. ‘Ethnography’, thus, investigates people in interaction in ordinary settings, and it looks for patterns of daily living (culture), what people do, say and use in order to find out what a stranger would have to know in order to be able to take part in the group or society in a meaningful way. This results in a holistic cultural portrait of the social group (Cresswell, 1998: 58 – 60).

’Case study’ on the other hand, following Stake, takes as the focus of its study a bounded system of some kind (in this case religious conversion to Islam in broad terms). The difference between the terms can be stated thus: ‘case study’ does not ignore context but it focuses on the case situated within a context. The emphasis of the investigation is on the case. In this view, ‘ethnography’ provides a holistic view of a social group or culture, and ‘case study’ an in-depth study of a bounded system or case or set of cases. ‘Case study’ is able to explore a range of topics, while

(traditionally) ‘ethnography’ focuses on cultural behaviour, practices and artefacts. In this way ‘case study’ differs from ‘ethnography’ in that it is not seeking to understand a social group or system (unless a group is taken as a case), it is seeking to understand a case within an acknowledged social system. An important consideration, therefore, is to apply an ethnographical perspective to describe the environments and social location of the participants. The symbolism and social make-up of Redfern and Lakemba

63 are considered as bounded social systems which overlap with non-

Indigenous and non-Islamic social systems. Each has their own unique identifiable characteristics setting them apart while remaining interconnected with mainstream society.

3.5.1 Defending against claims of lack of representivity

Mario Luis Small (2009) raises the important issue of defending ethnographic and qualitative studies against claims by quantitative methodologists that the study findings are not representative. Ethnographic and qualitative studies which are expected to generate theory, and empirical conditions in other cases are claimed to be problematic in terms of generalisability, representativeness, and validity (Small, 2009: 5). This focus sheds light on the debate over the relative methods of quantitative versus qualitative research and substantiates the claim that small number

(n) studies return valuable new knowledge. Rather than claim ‘small-n’ case study analysis is not statistically representative, Small (2009) argues for solutions involving the development of alternative languages and clarifying their separate objectives, rather than imitating the language of classical statistics for problems to which it is not suited (2009: 10).

Small (2009: 19) offers two major alternatives which are based on a further advancement to a case study being a revised extended case method “by which researchers analyse a particular social situation in relation to the broader social forces shaping it”. The extended case method is most often associated with Burawoy (Burawoy, 1998; Burawoy et al.,

1991); and Gluckman and the Manchester School (Gluckman, 1961).

Mitchell (1983) and van Velsen (1978 [1967]) describe the core of the extended case method somewhat differently however; the formulations of

Burawoy and Mitchell will be examined below regarding their suitability for applying to this study.

3.5.2 Burawoy and the Manchester School

For Burawoy et al. (1991) the extended case method is one of two ways to relate conditions in a given case to the society at large in which it is embedded. In the interpretive method, Burawoy argues, the case reveals the essential nature of society at large. In the extended case method, the case is understood by investigating the larger forces shaping conditions in the case. (Geertz’s (1973) work on Balinese cockfighting would be understood as a “ritual of resistance to colonial and then Javanese domination”, and the economic and political forces shaping it would be the subject of analysis (Burawoy et al., 1991: 278; Burawoy, 1998). The

‘extending’ is what the analyst does to understand the case: the analyst investigates society at large to determine its impacts on the case at hand.

The relevance for this study becomes apparent when considering the case of Indigenous people converting to Islam in prison as opposed to any other social or institutional location. Both context and socio-historical pre-cursors are accounted for. The extended case method searches for “societal significance. The importance of the single case lies in what it tells us about society as a whole rather than about the population of similar cases”

(Burawoy et al., 1991: 281).

3.5.3 Mitchell’s elaboration of Gluckman

An earlier proponent of the extended case method, Clyde Mitchell, provides a clearer answer to the problems inherent in Burawoy’s work.

Whereas Burawoy believes the key to the method is explaining local conditions in light of external forces, Mitchell believes the key to the method is its ability to uncover process:

The particular significance of the extended case study is that since it traces the events in which the same set of main actors in the case study are involved over a relatively long period, the processual aspect is given particular emphasis. The extended case study enables the analyst to trace how events chain onto one another and how therefore events are necessarily linked to one another through time (Mitchell, 1983: 194).

This focus is generally consistent with the idea that fieldwork should devote itself to uncovering mechanisms and tracing process, yet the

Mitchell’s method also overcomes issues of validity and statistical representativeness. Considering this study has 23 informants, and with a gender bias of males only, the question of inference is an important one to resolve. Mitchell believes that statistical representativeness is an irrelevant criterion, which implies that trying to find representative cases is a mistake.

Thus, he argues, “extrapolation is in fact based on the validity of the analysis rather than the representativeness of the events” (Mitchell, 1983:

190). Determining whether the analysis is valid is the next step covered by

Mitchell and this is achieved by contrasting ‘statistical inference’ from what he calls ‘logical’, ‘causal’, or more controversially ‘scientific inference’. The former is:

the process by which the analyst draws conclusions about the existence of two or more characteristics in some wider population from some sample of that population . . .; the later, the process by which the analyst draws conclusions about the essential linkage between two or more characteristics in terms of some explanatory schema (Mitchell, 1983: 199 – 200).

The principle aim of this thesis is, therefore, to explore the experiences of a small group of Indigenous Australians in order to understand what was helping and hindering them in their conversion to

Islam. Previous media commentary (SBS, 2003) has claimed Indigenous people are converting to Islam in increasing numbers, yet little is known about the context, process, and individual circumstances of Indigenous

Muslims in Australia. As an example, a growing literature describes

66 increasing radicalisation of prison inmates in the UK, U.S.A., and Europe, yet these claims need to be considered in light of post September 11 fears of terrorist activity. In Australia the ‘politicisation of fear’ and the institutional reliance on maximum security accommodation for suspected terrorists are factors leading to increased surveillance and the justification for harsher anti-terrorism legislation. I could therefore have chosen to conduct what I have defined above as an ‘ethnography’ of the locations in which

Indigenous to conversion is occurring. This would involve looking at the complex interactions, behaviours and meaning making of other religious converts, social attitudes, prison administration and Corrective Service officers and so on. This would reveal an understanding of the ways in which

Indigenous converts were ‘enrolled’ into an Islamic framework. The other methodological option was to conduct a number of what I have defined as

‘case studies’ of individual indigenous converts with the same ends in sight.

A choice of study that focussed on a number of individual’s rather than the social group or the social system (of Australian society or the prison) seemed a more appropriate focus for understanding what the experiences of being an Indigenous convert were like. However, it was my intention to understand the experiences of specific Indigenous converts in the context of a socio-historical perspective. This stance aligns with the hypothesis that past and contemporary social conditions have indeed contributed to the final decision of individual Indigenous people to convert to Islam. Existing research discusses the occurrence of prison conversions yet this was yet to be tested in an Australian context. Furthermore, Islamic conversion within prisons is problematised as an issue having national security implications and when combined with gang formation within prisons, leads to correctional management and political repercussions.

The final decision was to use a combination of ethnography and case study for the following reasons. A number of case studies allowed a range of perspectives to illustrate a range of experiences of Indigenous

Muslims. This accounted for the possibility of ascribing similar experiences to members of one group (Indigenous). A number of case studies also allowed a ‘within-case analysis’ (a detailed description of each case and themes within the case) followed by a cross-case analysis (a thematic analysis across the cases) Cresswell, 1998: 63) and a discussion of

‘lessons learnt’ (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). In this respect a cross-case analysis could also be made of non-Indigenous converts to Islam to further establish any similarities and differences between conversion experiences and particular circumstances. An ethnographic perspective was important regarding the physical location of the research fieldwork which was conducted on location in Redfern and Lakemba. Partly this was to compensate for not being able to access NSW Corrective Services establishments. It also provided the opportunity to expand the context of understanding the local environments of both Indigenous and Muslim actors.

3.5.4 Limitations of ethnographic and case research

Luis Small (2009) questions the extent to which an empathetic understanding of his informants, on the level of reflexivity in the work, or on the extent to which the history of the neighbourhood informed the analysis.

Instead, Small (2009) focused on one of demography’s central concerns; whether the neighbourhood was representative (Small, 2009: 8). (The issue of whether the Redfern neighbourhood was considered representative of other Indigenous communities is discussed in the interview data analysis chapter). Many researchers doing ethnographic work in urban poverty,

68 social inequality, and immigration are to ensure that their small samples are

‘unbiased’ or that their single-case studies are ‘representative’ or ‘not selected on the dependent variable’. 10 I will examine one issue, that of

‘generalisability’, as one of the most central concerns that quantitative researchers raise about ethnographic research in the aforementioned fields.

According to one of the most common practices in qualitative sociology today is to conduct in-depth, open-ended interviews. Sometimes, these are fielded on hundreds of respondents (Lamont, 1992; Newman,

1999); more typically, they involve a small number of interviewees (30 or

40). It is in this latter case that the problems are more salient, since the questions of generalisability are more obvious and the answers to these less clear. However, rarely will researchers enrol enough well-selected in- depth interview respondents that their findings about subtle causal relationships involving multiple variables will be statistically generalisable to a large national population (Lamont, 1992; Newman, 1999). For that a survey is the appropriate instrument.

Standard alternatives in light of these questions are sampling for range and the snow-ball sampling. One consequence of snow-balling is that the final interviewees are more likely to know one another than would be the case had they been selected at random. Thus, they are more likely to constitute a social network. For this reason, snowball samples in a small study would be ‘more biased’ than a ‘random’ sample. (This type of critique is often applied to interview-based studies of social networks.)

10 Qualitative case studies consistently sample on the dependent variable , that is, they document in detail the characteristics of for example immigrants involved in transnational activities but say little about those who are not. (Portes et al., 2002: 279; italics added) 69

What proponents of the random selection approach to small-n in- depth interviewing rarely mention is that many people who are cold-called will not agree to long, in-depth interviews on personal topics with a stranger. This often buried detail – how many people refused, hung up, or were not home? – is critical. This was the case with the small group who responded to interview requests for this research. Many more potential participants were contacted than actually participated. Some were willing to participate but personal or other circumstances intervened. These problems suggest we should not assess either method by the standards of classical statistics. In a deeper and more important sense, ‘bias’ is perhaps the wrong term. What an in-depth interviewer with three dozen respondents faces is not a ‘bias’ problem but a set of cases with particular characteristics that, rather than being ‘controlled away’, should be understood, developed, and incorporated into her understanding of the cases at hand. Consequently, the sample employed in this research is not representative and is biased in the classical statistical sense. There is a place for a small interview study to make meaningful contributions to knowledge, provided the language and assumptions through which it is interpreted differ. As a suggestion, we might benefit from not calling interviewees a ‘sample of n = 23’, but, instead, a ‘set of 23 cases’.

An underlying question asked of this study is to what extent socio- historical, and by implication, geographic and spatial locations and conditions influence conversion to Islam? By this I mean the immediate area called The Block in Redfern, and the suburban location of Lakemba.

Both of these locales are described in the following chapter . According to

Small (2009), however, describing either the locations or obtaining more data from the informants will make no difference to the lack of variation and therefore generalisability. The small number of cases is part of the issue.

As mentioned above, it was very difficult to get suitable informants to spend the time necessary to gain meaningful data. In part this was because of the transient nature of people moving through the area and the time necessary to build up trust relationships.

3.6 What of the researcher/analyst?

Following Bourdieu (2003) ‘participant objectivation’ as a technique, a method, or, more modestly, a ‘device’ has helped Bourdieu immensely throughout his experience as a researcher. Participant objectivation means the objectivation of the subject of objectivation , of the analysing subject – in short, of the researcher herself.

Participant observation, on the other hand , is the practice which consists in observing oneself observing, observing the observer in his work of observing or of transcribing his observations, through a return on fieldwork, on the relationship with his informants and, last but not least, on the narrative of all these experiences which lead, more often than not, to the rather disheartening conclusion that all is in the final analysis nothing but discourse, text, or, worse yet, pretext for text (Bourdieu, 2003: 281).

This technique is offered as a critique of participant observation.

Participant observation, as Bourdieu understands it, designates the conduct of an ethnologist who immerses her - or himself in a foreign social universe so as to observe an activity, a ritual, or a ceremony while, ideally, taking part in it. The inherent difficulty of such a posture has often been noted, which presupposes a kind of doubling of consciousness that is arduous to sustain. Bourdieu asks how can one be subject and object, the one who acts and the one who, as it were, watches himself acting? (Bourdieu, 2003:

281).

Reflexivity as Bourdieu conceives it does not have much in common with ‘textual reflexivity’ and with all the falsely sophisticated considerations on the ‘hermeneutic process of cultural interpretation’ and the construction of reality through ethnographic recording. Bourdieu adds: What is certain is that one is right to cast doubt on the possibility of truly participating in foreign practices, embedded as they are in the tradition of another society and, as such, presupposing a learning process different from the one of which the observer and her dispositions are the product; and therefore a quite different manner of being and living through the experiences in which she purports to participate (Bourdieu, 2003: 281 – 82). Here, the issue of

‘foreign’ needs to be explained in more detail. When the society is familiar to the researcher or the society or subjects are already somewhat similar, does this familiarity contribute or detract from the reflexive participation in

‘foreign’ practices? This question is considered because the researcher identifies as a Muslim and is familiar with Islamic practices and beliefs. This background which also includes an academic focus on the sociology of

Islam in Australian and global contexts assisted in making an otherwise complex socio-religious life-world more easily comprehendible.

Bourdieu claims the most difficult thing, then, is not so much to understand another society or group (which in itself is not simple) as it is to avoid forgetting what is already known but only in a practical mode , namely, that those being researched do not have the project of understanding and explaining which is attributed to the researcher; and, consequently, “to avoid putting into their heads, as it were, the problematic that I construct about them and the theory that I elaborate to answer it” (Bourdieu, 2003:

288). Bourdieu claims the researcher must refer continuously to his or her experience, but not, “as is too often the case, even among the best researchers, in a guilty, unconscious, or uncontrolled manner” (Bourdieu,

2003: 287 - 88). There is a reciprocal relationship between experts and their surrounding social orders, that is, while experts shape public knowledge and national culture, they are themselves constituted and limited by the national knowledge they help produce (Boyer 2000; Masco

2004; Verdery 1991).

3.7 Ethical considerations

This research project required a (Full) level three ethics approval considering the need to interview Indigenous (and Islamic) participants. The

University Human Research Ethics Committee (UHREC) considered the application at its meeting held 14 June 2005. The project was granted conditional ethical approval subject to minor clarifications and corrections.

The ethics approval number is 4089H.

3.8 Contribution to Knowledge

Generally, this study claims discriminatory practices as fundamental to the situations in which many Indigenous people find themselves.

Indigenous discrimination has a history stemming from the initial contact with the first wave of British colonialists in 1788. The contribution this thesis makes is to separate out the various ways discrimination, and particularly methods of control, has affected Indigenous people to the extent they have become conditioned to aligned with Islam.

This study is exploratory and explanatory rather than definitive and generalisable. The thesis presents a socio-historical analysis of the rise of

Islamic conversions amongst Indigenous males in the Redfern and

Lakemba suburbs of Sydney. A significant area of analysis focuses on

Islamic conversions within NSW prisons. This area of investigation is a new focus combining aspects of Indigenous empowerment and resistance strategies, and the contemporary alignment with Islam. Another important 73 area of investigation is the process by which Indigenous people find themselves in prison. The concept of collective cultural trauma is applied as a construct to link socio-historical events with the prison experience. A final area where this research might be considered unique is the analysis of prison conversions using Pierre Boudieu’s theoretical concepts of habitus and field within an overall “theory-of-practice” scheme (Bourdieu, 1977,

1990). The outcomes and conclusions will modestly contribute to an emerging but scarce cross-cultural minority religious convergence literature. At the boundaries of this literature, concerns are raised about increasing conversions to Islam and the possibility of radicalisation. This is mainly in the context of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. Indonesia, U.K. and

Spain, and the concern of many counties about national security related issues. The findings, however, indicate that the Indigenous respondents to this project held strong feelings critiquing imperial, colonial, and contemporary structures which have contributed to the overall poor state of

Indigenous affairs in Australia.

3.9 Fieldwork and interview data

The aim of the following sections is to describe and discuss the fieldwork process in terms of a participant observation case study methodology. A brief summary of the participant observation process will precede a discussion of the fieldwork process and identify one of the issues impeding the research within the NSW Department of Corrective Services.

The data collection stage took place after a familiarisation phase in which I attempted to contextualise and understand some of the important social, cultural and religious dimensions of Redfern and Lakemba.

3.10 Researcher field observations

To become part of a social scene and participate in it requires that the researcher be accepted to some degree. This period of ‘moving into’ a setting is both analytically and personally important. For the researcher, it is important to regard the normal as unfamiliar – i.e., to make familiar strange; e.g., people’s shopping habits, religious obligations and routines should be seen as strange and challenged. Further, in negotiating access into a social setting (for example a Muslim community), it is necessary to be aware of local protocols, etiquette, power relations, and ethno-cultural differences within the setting. Ongoing university studies of Islam and Islamic communities and academic involvement with indigenous issues in Australia has familiarised me to the point of not feeling a complete outsider when approaching Muslims and Indigenous people.

However, initial reactions to the presence of the researcher can cause a sense of personal discomfort, but this tells the researcher a great deal about relations and concerns of people, and should be recorded and not regarded as personal problems or weaknesses. For instance,

Indigenous people may challenge a researcher in order to protect or promote their cultural interests, and ensuring their point of view and ownership of knowledge in the final research project. Similarly, the Muslims of Lakemba presumed certain etiquette and protocols would be observed while engaging in community events and day-to-day social exchanges.

One of the main advantages of participant observation is its flexibility. Fieldwork is a continual process of reflection and alteration of the focus of observations in accordance with analytic developments. It permits researchers to witness people’s actions in different settings and routinely ask themselves in myriad of questions concerning motivations, beliefs and actions. In addition, participant observation often employs the unstructured

75 interview as a routine part of its practice. These two methods are compatible: observation guides researchers to some of the important questions they want to ask the respondent, and interviewing helps to interpret the significance of what researchers are observing. The quality of the project relies not only upon emotional commitment but also on the quality of the researcher’s observations, field notes and analytical abilities.

An ethnographic approach or participant observation within a social context incorporates three positive aspects : it is least likely to lead researchers to impose their own reality on the social world;

1. it seeks to understand action: as to how and why practices and

relations change;

2. observers record their own experiences in order to understand the

cultural universe which their researched subjects occupy (subjective

experiences), and convey these observations to a wide audience

(from field-notes) within the (theoretical) context of explaining their

data.

3.11 Explanation of fieldwork priorities

The core issue or problem of the thesis investigation is stated thus:

To what extent, at which levels of analysis and subject to what influencing factors do Indigenous people convert to Islam in a post- September 11 socio-political environment? - limited to two geographic areas in Sydney

Procedures followed

The procedure followed was a diachronic 11 , qualitative, fieldwork-based analysis grounded by literature reviews concerning colonial and

11 A diachronic analysis one that examines changes in key characteristics or variables over time. Another description is a socio-historical analysis which takes into account changing social norms during the span of European settlement in 76 contemporary interventions in the lives of Indigenous Australians. Principal research tools were:

• Semi-structured, formal and informal group and individual

interviews.

• Digital videorecording of main interviews.

• Analysis of literature related to religious conversion.

• Participant observation using ethnographic fieldwork techniques.

3.12 Main fieldwork events

1. Getting the ‘lay of the land’ in Redfern and Lakemba. Observations

and impressions of two distinct communities provide a framework

for understanding the inherent tensions of researcher and

researched.

2. Finding the key informants and determining the scope of their

involvement in the research process. Developing trust during a

period of informal meetings and socialising

3. Moving about in the communities to document social relationships,

protocols, and forming general impressions of the socio-cultural

milieu. What was learned from this process helped to reformulate

research questions based on the initial research problem but were

unknown when the study was designed.

4. Recording interviews from selected respondents, taking field notes

and documenting observations

3.13 Timeline of Sydney fieldwork

3.13.1 Fieldwork overview

Australia influencing perceptions of identity framed by nation-building and economic imperatives. 77

A total of twenty three respondents participated in open-ended interviews. Although all respondents self-identified as Indigenous and as

Muslims, the particular circumstances required a ‘dialogue approach’ to identifying important themes. The themes were then re-incorporated as an unstructured script and employed as a basis for the main interview questions. This methodology was most useful in trying to relay the importance of underlying issues possibly contributing to involvement with the criminal justices system.

The interviews and meetings took place in Redfern, Lakemba, and

Bankstown from 7 January 2006 to 30 January 2007 during two, three week and two, two week block sessions of living and participating in the various communities. Information and permission sheets were returned before interviews proceeded. Participants were sought using the snowball method after interviewing the key interviewees Rajab and Abbas. The interviews were digitally videorecorded. Captured data ‘beyond the spoken word’ was not necessary for interviews as they were conducted inside in a controlled environment. The audio aspect was the prime concern because of its digital clarity. Consequently, the video interviews were transcribed manually relying on audio reproduction only. In terms of record-keeping the digital video camera was a convenient medium for storing photo’s, video and audio because of its automatic logging of times and dates.

Names have been changed and other personal information has been de-identified. Confidentiality and trust were issues for some of the respondents and considerable time was needed to organise the interviews and obtain the trust of the interviewees.

Summary of open-ended interview themes:

• All the respondents were males with an average age of 28

• All of the respondents had experienced contact with the criminal justice

system sometime during their lifetime.

• Most had served periods of incarceration for a variety of offences

ranging from public order offences to major assault and robbery. All of

the respondents described fractured and dysfunctional family

backgrounds.

• All of the respondents spoke powerfully about the effects of

colonisation, dispossession, separation, and the ‘reserve’ or mission

systems. The effects of Christian imperialism and its association with

colonial oppression was also a strong theme.

• On further investigation, 20 of the 23 respondents described one or

more family members as being removed from their original family.

• All of the respondents understood the compatibility of Islam with an

Indigenous world-view.

• Most identified with an African American concept of rights, and the

relevance of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam (NOI). This was most

strongly demonstrated by the recognition of the ‘black brotherhood’ of

African Americans.

• Strong anti-Christian and anti-capitalism themes emerged.

• All of the respondents perceived their Islamic conversions as liberating

and a response or critique of the society that oppressed them i.e. white

society.

3.14 Overview of the search for participants

The research investigation entailed traveling to Sydney from

Brisbane. This was accomplished during the Christmas periods of 2005-06 and 2006-07, with three shorter visits during 2006. Essentially, the researcher had no prior first-hand empirical data on Indigenous

conversions to Islam. Secondary sources of information by way of media

and academic journal publications provided useful background information.

A limited amount of research fieldwork planning could be done from

Brisbane except to collate geographic and demographic data to assist with

locating the respondent sample. New South Wales has the highest number

of those identifying as Indigenous Australian Muslims (see Table 1 below).

The Sydney – Redfern location was chosen because of its profile as a

centre for Indigenous activism. ‘The Block’ in Redfern is also symptomatic

of the social decay of inner suburban Indigenous communities because of

development pressures, the condition of many of the houses, and the cost

of maintenance. More importantly, the ‘politics of the Block’ has ensured its

notoriety as a problem area for law enforcement compliance, and as a

symbol of black oppression and resistance. Drug and alcohol problems

have provoked constant police surveillance, yet despite these social

problems, the block remains an emblematic icon of Indigenous struggle for

land rights, self-determination, and political activism.

Table 1 Muslim by Indigenous Status by Sex (Australian States)

MUSLIM by INDIGENOUS STATUS by SEX (Australian States) Adapted from Cat. No. 2068.0 - 2006 Census Tables 2006 Census of Population and Housing

Indigenous Status Indigenous by Muslim Non-Indigenous by Muslim not stated

Males Females Persons Males Females Persons Females Persons Males

NSW 200 154 354 85,450 78,381 163,831 2,520 2,080 4,600 ACT 3 8 11 2,272 2,034 4,306 30 26 56 QLD 115 68 183 10,412 9,224 19,636 267 234 501 NT 27 14 41 531 502 1,033 11 6 17 WA 87 61 148 12,116 11,195 23,311 400 326 726 SA 25 24 49 5,568 4,615 10,183 156 130 286 VIC 108 89 197 54,700 50,925 105,625 1,857 1,691 3,548 TAS 12 9 21 518 470 988 25 16 41

Total 580 431 1,011 171,887 157,685 329,572 5,289 4,521 9,810

The aim of this research issue is not to quantify how many

Indigenous people are aligning with Islam but to ask why and how.

Nevertheless, as indicated in Table 1 (previous page), the overall number of Indigenous people identifying as Muslim is 1,011 according to ABS statistics. Of all Australian states, New South Wales has 354 people who identity as Indigenous Muslims.

The ‘where to begin fieldwork’ question was central in deciding on

Redfern as a starting point. Redfern is known by Indigenous people as ‘the

Koori grapevine’: a central hub where many Indigenous people have lived, met, socialised, and passed through. From this perspective it was hypothesised that Redfern was the ‘right environment’ for alternative forms of Indigenous social organisation.

From an Islamic perspective it was necessary to engage with those

Muslims who in any likelihood would know of Indigenous Muslims within their communities. For this, Lakemba was chosen to begin the first phase of the exploratory exercise. Living in the Lakemba environs, even for the relatively short periods of the fieldwork, provided valuable insights as to how these diverse communities went about their daily lives. The extent to which Islamic principles regulated the rhythm of the local residents was unmistakable in terms of dress, food, behaviour, attitudes, and religious observance.

3.15 Timeline and fieldwork activity

Initial Sydney visit 3rd to 27th Jan 2006

First impressions and ‘blending in’

On arriving in Lakemba it became obvious very quickly that an ethnographic participant observation methodology would be the most beneficial in terms of understanding the community. The decision to blend

81 in with the local Muslim communities and engage an ethnographic participant observation perspective paid dividends. This methodology was made easier because of my involvement with a university Islamic teaching unit and understanding the requirement to dress conservatively and comply with the ‘street etiquette’ of the society. For a Muslim society this means offering Salaams (greetings) where appropriate, and avoiding conversation with unaccompanied women. As more time was spent in the community, and engaging with cultural and ethnic Muslims, and ‘learning’ how to look, act, and converse with them, the more I felt comfortable and accepted. This was a valuable insight for a white Anglo male to experience because it

‘decentred’ my place as ‘taken-for-granted’ in my own social environment in

Brisbane. Haldon St. Lakemba could easily have been mistaken for a

Muslim majority environment overseas rather than a suburb of metropolitan

Sydney.

Overview of perceptions – Lakemba and main street activity

Lakemba is a well established Muslim majority suburb in the south west of Sydney . Within the length of the two main streets of Haldon St and

Wangee Rd, there are many Musalahs (prayer rooms). In fact, prayer rooms could be found above many of the street-level shops, or in spaces set aside for religious obligations. These places of ‘convenient worship’ are invisible to the passing public and those unfamiliar with Islamic practice.

The number of Musalahs indicated a religiously observant society of

Muslims from Lebanon, Bangladesh, Philippines and India. The Lebanese community appeared to maintain a dominant presence yet examples of smaller ethically specific shops appeared north of the intersecting railway line. The northern end of Haldon St. is the main shopping area and the street architecture is devoid of the contemporary modernism more

82 commonly associated with new shopping malls. There is a pervasive smell of Middle-Eastern and South Asian cuisine and spices. Many women wear the hijab and quite a few the full burqua in the streets of Lakemba. The area has a high population of family units and young children. Burqua -clad women pushing prams and conversing in groups on the busy footpaths were a noticeable feature of the streetscape. The main Lakemba mosque

(Ali Ben Abi Talib Mosque managed by the Lebanese Muslim Association) situated at the northern end of Wangee Rd has expanded its mosque complex to include a new multi-story youth centre and administrative offices. The mosque is the dominating structure and the main centre for the religious observance of the Lebanese Muslim population.

Some of the shops engaged in orthodox cash-only monetary exchange. A tenet of Islam forbids charging interest on loaned money or

Reba . Payment by credit cards is therefore not an option in theses circumstances. Many of the shops and businesses cater for the specific needs and requirements of the local population by way of food and clothing.

Social services such as welfare, health, education, and sporting organisations are community-based. A lone hotel stands out of place in the alcohol-free environment of this community of Muslims. The consumption of alcohol is prohibited in Islam.

Overview of perceptions – The Block and community activity.

The comparative social order and activities of Haldon and Wangee

St Lakemba contrast somewhat to the observable social interactions on the

Block. The Block, in Redfern, Sydney was a small grant of urban land made by the Labor Government in 1971. It was the first of its kind and was made in recognition of the traditional cultural needs of Aboriginal people to live in close community groups. The current physical layout, the social groups,

83 and the surrounding and encroaching gentrification were points of difference. The area including the Block was originally a collection of single fronted terrace dwellings housing workers employed in the Everleigh railway workshops circa 1900s. The Block is now owned by the Aboriginal

Housing Corporation (AHC).

In the early 1990s heroin began to infiltrate the block community and the area gradually became so violent it was a dangerous place to enter. Police rarely ventured into the community except in large numbers.

In 1997, the AHC started demolishing some of the houses that had become derelict and were frequented by drug dealers. This has resulted in a patchwork of run-down dwellings and open space, and a fractured impoverished community. Today the Block is identifiable by a large

Aboriginal flag painted on the side of a building and visible when coming into the Block from the railway station. During the day assorted groups of

Indigenous residents and visitors congregate in the open spaces to socialise. After dark there is often more activity, particularly among the younger members of the community.

Saturday 7 Jan, 2006

Bilal Racheha and the Andalus Bookshop

Bilal was the first main contact in Lakemba; The Andalus Bookstore,

168-176 Haldon Street, Lakemba was a well-known gathering place for local Sunni Muslims; It served as a Musalah (prayer room), bookshop, communication and drop-in centre; Bilal is a well-known Australian

Lebanese Muslim and is heavily committed to charity work in Africa and within the local community. Bilal was very interested in the project and provided much assistance with local knowledge and contacts. He introduced me to Rajab, a key informant from whom other interviewees

84 were sourced. A meeting was arranged to meet Rajab for approx 6pm 10

Jan at a location in Haldon Street. The meeting appointment occurred during a telephone conversation with Rajab. Bilal arranged the telephone contact from his bookshop. Bilal’s assistance in providing contacts or people of interest continued over the duration of subsequent visits.

Tuesday 10 Jan

The meeting with Rajab and Abbas in Haldon Street café occurred at approximately 6-30pm. Abbas acted as Rajab’s advisor and co-worker in an Indigenous community organisation. The meeting purpose was to explain the research project and ask for further cooperation regarding access to other participants. It was explained that I wished to interview

Indigenous Muslim converts as to why and how they embraced Islam.

Rajab and Abbas were keen to establish my bonafides and how I intended framing the thesis. There was a noticeable air of caution in the demeanor of the two men. Over time, this cautious attitude changed to a cooperative and beneficial understanding. The meeting lasted for about 2 hrs and covered a wide range of issues. During the discussions, both men seemed interested that someone was investigating this topic, while also remaining quite guarded about any commitment to divulge sensitive or personal information. The impression was that the meeting was very much an exercise in establishing a trust relationship. Eventually it was agreed for me to formulate the questions to be asked of Rajab and Abbas and to email them for perusal before an official interview. The questions were emailed on Thurs 12 Jan.

Saturday 14 Jan

On the afternoon of Saturday 14 th I attended the Eid al- Adha

Festival (Festival of Sacrifice), Gordon St, Lakemba. This is the festival

85 celebrating the end of the Muslim Hajj or annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The festival attracted a large crowd and had a carnival atmosphere. This was an opportunity to take photographs and meet people to explain my research.

The festival reinforced an impression of social cohesion based on a common Islamic identity.

Sunday 15 Jan

The Qurban Eid Festival (Feza Foundation) was held at the Fairfield

Showground. This is a multicultural festival showcasing Islamic culture and is organised by the Feza Foundation, a non-profit organisation engaging in educational, social and charitable activities in Australia. Rajab, Abbas and families attended. Abbas introduced me to Kuranda Seyit. We spoke briefly about my project and he offered some valuable comments. This was an informal introductory conversation but the theme of Indigenous dispossession and the non-racist aspect of Islam were mentioned as a reason for Indigenous people easily engaging with Islam. As it happened, this was a recurring theme raised frequently during the later interviews. The rest of the conversation concerned local Muslim issues and the extent to which they engaged in Muslim community issues.

Monday 16 Jan

Contact with sister Maryam (pseudonym) as pre-arranged by telephone conversation was to seek assistance in finding contacts and information. Sister Maryam knew of my research via other sources and agreed to introduce me to a person or persons from the Lebanese Muslim community who could help. We met at the front of the Lakemba Mosque 65

-67 Wangee Rd after Dhuhr prayers (1-30pm approx).

Maryam made introductions to Sheik Amjad (pseudonym) in the offices of the Lakemba Mosque. Sheik inquired of the research, offered his well-wishes, and asked me to wait until prayers were finished so he could

86 introduce me to a brother with knowledge of the topic. Consequently I met brother Fawaz (pseudonym) who invited me to his place of work in

Lakemba. Fawaz’ office was nearby and a fruitful and welcoming conversation ensued. Fawaz explained some of the dynamics within the

Lakemba Muslim community and the religious and social engagement of some Indigenous brothers. He also recommended I speak to Rajib as the authority on the topic and I explained the previous encounters at the

Andalus Bookstore with Bilal. We arranged for another meeting (16Jan) for an evening meal at a local Lebanese restaurant in Haldon St.

This meeting consolidated and affirmed a reasonable trust relationship due to the involvement of Fawaz, and some headway was gained in terms of beginning to understand some of the dynamics and relationships. For example, why was there an Indigenous involvement with the Lebanese community? The meeting lasted for about 2 hours, after which arrangements were made with Fawaz to meet again. In hindsight,

Fawaz intended to promote Da’wah and to encourage me to understand

Islam from a religious perspective as well as from a researcher’s perspective. The potential for Da’wah work was also exhibited by Bilal and to a lesser extent Abbas and Rajib. As it happened, I did not resist these approaches and in fact most likely encouraged it because of my interest in purchasing Islamic literature available in Bilal’s shop.

Thursday 19 Jan

It was decided to video record a session with Rajab at his drop-in centre, Caroline St, Redfern (the Block). The recording commenced at about 10-30pm after a meal with four other brothers staying at the centre.

Two sessions of one hour duration each were recorded on digital video.

Thursday 26 Jan

January 26 is Invasion Day for Indigenous people and celebrated in parallel with mainstream Australia Day. On this occasion a BBQ was held on the Block for local Indigenous people and Muslims and organised by

Rajab and several other brothers. The event attracted about 30 attendees, some who drifted in and out, but others who remained and cooked, conversed and socialised. Parts of this event were also video-recorded, still photographs were shot, and informal interviews undertaken. Much rich data eventuated from this day.

One interesting event is worthy of mention. The Block has a history of police intervention and this day was no different. There was no animosity on this occasion despite the surveillance aspect of the two visits by the police. In fact, they were invited to stay for a meal which they did. The police were interested and grateful that no alcohol was available as it is not consumed by devout Muslims.

The overall aim of the community BBQ was to demonstrate the social nature of Islam and how it could provide an alternative social organisation in an environment such as the Block. It was important the local residents experienced Islam in general and Indigenous Muslims in particular, as a social good. Many of the local children and youth are aware of Indigenous Islam within the community and readily relate to its message.

The community BBQ concluded the research aspect of this visit.

Second Sydney visit 2 – 19 th to 24 th February 2006

This second visit involved consolidating and reinforcing established networks and contacts.

Monday 20 Feb

Established contact with Fawaz, Bilal and Rajab. Dinner with Fawaz at his house.

Tuesday 21 Feb

Lunch meeting with Bilal and Rajab at a Wangee St restaurant. The session was not officially recorded but further information regarding

Indigenous conversion to Islam was discussed. Notes were made immediately after the meeting finished.

Thursday 23 February

Meeting with Bilal at the bookshop before interviews with more respondents.

Late lunch with Rajab and a request for me to take him to Central Station early the next day. Spent the rest of the afternoon in Lakemba in discussion with Rajab, and brothers Jawad and Hamza (pseudonyms). This was a valuable time in terms of understanding some of the complex issues involved in Indigenous and Islamic alliances.

Late on Thursday evening I arranged with Rajab to take him to

Central Station for his departure early Friday. This involved several more hours of informal discussion and background information. One of the themes was Islam in NSW prisons and this signaled a new area to investigate of future visits to Sydney.

Third Sydney visit 13 th to 21 April 2006

This was a follow-up visit to further research the prison aspect of

Indigenous conversions to Islam and to survey and interview respondents.

Friday 14 April

Met Imran (pseudonym) at Bankstown Centro and arranged for other brothers to meet later that day. Imran would wait until others could join us for focus group discussion.

Last minute change of plans for Interview with Imran – met again Saturday

Saturday 15 April

Finally spoke to Imran at length about prison experiences but he wanted assurances for confidentiality. Discussion ended with an agreement to try and arrange to speak with other three brothers. Haaroon

(pseudonym) confirmed for Sunday 3-00pm at Paul Keating Park

Bankstown.

Sunday 16 April

Met Haaroon after a mix-up about the location and then went for refreshments. Haaroon was keen to talk about how Islam had changed his life once released from prison and was disappointed the prison experience of Islam was used as a political tool. Some of the information mentioned by

Haaroon revealed the extent to which Islam is so well known among

Indigenous prisoners.

Tuesday 18 April

Confirmed with Rajib that Muhammad and Omran (pseudonyms) and possibly one more might be willing to speak later in the week.

Mentioned to Bilal that time was running out to do interviews. It seemed difficult to arrange interview times with some of these people but this is understandable considering what they have been through i.e. trust and confidentiality issues.

Wednesday 19 April

A meeting with Muhammad, Omran, and Ahmad (pseudonym) has been arranged for mid-morning at Bankstown. We arranged to meet together at the railway line entrance to shopping centre. I waited some time for Ahmad to arrive and he explained he had some issues with parole but did not elaborate.

We found a relatively quiet spot to talk and the discussion revealed similar themes elaborated by other respondents. These conversations convinced me to investigate the institutional side of prison conversions to

Islam. Spoke to Bilal before I returned to Brisbane about getting access to the brothers in prison and he suggested I go with someone on a family visit.

This did not eventuate because of a lack of time. Perhaps it could be arranged on the next visit over the Christmas break in 2007.

Final Sydney visit 4: 2 nd to 30 th January 2007

Final visit to seek permission from Corrective Services to interview

Indigenous prison inmates and prison authorities.

Tuesday 2 Jan, 2007

Met with Bilal at bookshop and discussed plans for this visit. The focus this time was to ask NSW Corrective Services for permission to interview Indigenous Muslims.

Wednesday 3 Jan

Visited Sydney University library to formulate questions for prison chaplains.

Thursday 4 Jan

Visited NSW Corrective Services main office (20 Lee St Sydney) and asked to speak to someone about Indigenous Prison conversions to

Islam. Spoke to Patricia Green (pseudonym) for 40 minutes and explained my project. Patricia did not volunteer any information about conversions but explained it might be better to discuss this with the prison chaplains. The meeting ended optimistically with Patricia agreeing to contact other prison chaplains. Sister Robin from chaplaincy phoned later that morning and provided a brief outline of the circumstances of Islamic conversions. She

91 volunteered to email Sister Helen to contact me about other contacts. At this stage all of these enquiries were exploratory and unofficial.

Tuesday 9 Jan

Meeting in Lakemba (Bilal’s new shop at same address) with Bilal and Abbas.

Wednesday 10 Jan

Sister Beverly from the John Moroney centre contacted me in response to the email sent by Sister Robin. Sister Robin informed me that there would be the first Chaplaincy meeting for the year on 13 February and she would speak to Patricia about placing my enquiries on the agenda.

Thursday 18 Jan

The morning was spent at Sydney University library finalising questions and survey questionnaire for prison chaplains in anticipation of further contact.

Wednesday 24 Jan

Appointment with one more Indigenous Muslim brother at

Bankstown. Contacted by phone – could not make it today (Wednesday). I would try again Thursday.

Thursday 25 Jan

Meeting with Kahlid (pseudonym) confirmed for today adjacent to

Centrelink office Bankstown. (2 – 14 Meredith St) Introduced and sat at outside café nearby and spoke for approx 50 minutes. This was an open interview but Kahlid spoke of important background family issues leading to his criminal activity. He appeared very calm and reflective. Later that day

Patricia Green phoned confirming contact with Fr Jeff Manning

(pseudonym), a senior Chaplaincy official from the NSW Department of

Corrective Services.

Friday 26 Jan

Friday 26 th January is Invasion Day for Indigenous Australians as mentioned above and this time I attended the Yabun Festival, Victoria Park and shot video footage and images.

Monday 29 Jan

Confirmed meeting with Fr Jeff Manning for interview Tuesday morning.

Tuesday 30 Jan

Introductions were made to Jeff Manning from NSW Department of

Correctional Services and walked to a nearby café for the meeting. Jeff explained briefly how there had been problems with radicalisation in NSW prisons, but it was now under control. This is because the trouble-makers

(Lebanese prisoners) had been separated from the Indigenous prisoners.

He mentioned a degree of Indigenous dependency on the Lebanese

(financial and physical protection) Jeff only spoke about issues that were already publicly available and did not seem keen to elaborate. This was because of the sensitive nature of the research and its implications for prison management and a previous NSW Parliamentary enquiry into certain

Muslim prisoners. However, the impression gained at the meeting with Jeff

Manning was that it would be difficult to obtain information from the chaplaincy, the institution, and Indigenous Muslim prisoners. I spoke with

Dr Hossein Adibi (Ph.D supervisor) about this aspect and where the research was leading to and he confirmed my suspicion that the authorities would engage in institutional stalling. The process of the application for permission to conduct research is discussed in the following section.

3.16 Timeline of process to apply for permission to conduct research within NSW Corrective Services institutions

3.16.1 Background

The research focus originally intended to examine the circumstances of Indigenous conversions to Islam within the general location of the Block, Redfern, and Lakemba. As the research evolved, it became apparent that prisons were a key factor in Islamic conversions for

Indigenous males. As the research proceeded, it transpired that every respondent had experienced contact with the criminal justice system. The decision was made to expand the enquiry to include the view of prison chaplains, correctional officers, prison management, and a sample of

Indigenous inmates who had converted in prison or were aligned with Islam in some way. This revised methodology would have provided, if successful, a triangulation effect, offering all stakeholders a speaking voice. Instead, the research relies on the responses of released prisoners and those closely involved with Indigenous conversions to Islam. Only anecdotal evidence is used to explain the prison institutional perspective. This is supported by literature on overseas prison conversions but it provides an incomplete account of Australian specific conditions. This is despite

Australia following Britain and the US in how it has reacted to the threat of terrorism in general and prison Islam in particular. It can only be hypothesized that the NSW Department of Corrective Services has taken extreme measures to contain what it perceives to be a threat. This is not to suggest a threat exists, or has ever existed, rather, the case of Indigenous inmates converting to prison Islam is too sensitive to allow rigorous investigation. The fact that evidence suggests religious ministry within prison has beneficial effects for the whole prison community is not emphasised by the authorities. To do so would lend credibility to the

94 reformative aspects of Islam rather than its populist definition of promoting radicalism. From management, institutional, political, and chaplaincy perspectives it is perhaps easier to maintain a strong impression of control rather than concede and incorporate a functional Islamic ministry.

3.16.2 Procedure and timeline

The meeting with Patricia Green from NSW Department of

Corrective Services main office in Lee Street Sydney, and the resulting meeting with the Chaplaincy official Jeff Manning, is where this timeline begins. The aim is to explain the process taken by the researcher to obtain permission to investigate the institutional and prisoner aspects of prison conversion to Islam.

A concise explanation of the research project was discussed with

Patricia Green and a request was made for information on how best to proceed with the project considering its sensitivity. It was suggested that prison Chaplains be asked to cooperate in the research project. Over the next few days contact was made with Sister Beverly and Sister Robin, both of whom were employed as chaplains. A recommendation was made to contact the Chaplaincy official, Fr Jeff Manning and consequently a meeting was arranged for January 30, 2007 at the Lee Street head office.

Neither of the two chaplaincy sisters diverted from the standard ‘public knowledge’ aspects of religious conversions in prison.

Fr Jeff Manning meeting – Jan 30 2007

The meeting lasted for approximately 40 minutes but little was gained in terms of process or actual information except for the following. Fr

Manning indicated a familiarity with Indigenous conversions to Islam within the NSW Corrective facilities but stated previous issues with conversions

95 and gang violence were no longer a problem for the department. Jeff indicated that during 2003-4 the problem of conversions, radicalism, and

Indigenous alliances with Lebanese prisoners was indeed a concern for authorities. Because of the sensitive nature of the research it was suggested a formal request for instructions on how to proceed be addressed to the NSW Department of Corrective Services Commissioner,

Mr. Ron Woodham.

Formal request letter submitted

The email reply suggested an ethics application be submitted for consideration by the NSW Department of Corrective Services, Research and Statistics Division Research Ethics Committee. However,

Commissioner Woodham would have the final say.

The formal application process:

• The email correspondence between Fr Manning and David Lawson

• The formal letter of request to the Commissioner asking for procedural

clarification

• The return letter from Judith advising of the requirement for a full ethics

application

• The submission of the ethics application

• The time taken for the committee recommendation

• The formal letter advising the application was unsuccessful

The formal response letter was dated 29 June and received 6 months after the initial inquiries were initiated. The letter advised “there may be questions of interest in relation to aboriginal communities and Islam” but the

“Corrective Services Ethics Committee decided that they could not

96 recommend the approval of this research application, at this time, owing to the following:

1. No contact has been made with the Imams or aboriginal

representatives in NSW;

2. No justification has been given as to why NSW inmates should be

the subject of this research.

A final comment in the response letter recommended contacting

Simon Eyland, Director, Corporate Research, Evaluation and Statistics for

“any further queries in relation to this matter.” An email sent immediately to

Simon Eyland requesting further instructions on how to proceed with the research remains unanswered and all attempts to clarify the matter have proved unsuccessful up to the end of October 2007.

In relation to the two reasons provided by the Department in not recommending the application the following observations are noted.

1. From the initial inquiry through to the final response it was felt that

the Department did not wish to encourage research in this area

although it went through the motions of the formal application

process.

2. The Department staff contacted were polite but generally evasive

regarding articulating a clear process for expediting the research

project. This is evidenced by the 6 month waiting period to make a

decision not to approve the project.

3. One reason raised by the Ethics Committee was that “no contact

had been made with the Imams or Aboriginal representatives in

NSW”. This reason is rather confusing considering the ethics

application placed strict sanctions on contacting anyone concerned

with any substantial prior contact with interview participants. It was

assumed the community and individual contacts would be

contacted if and when the project was approved. In any case,

preliminary informal inquiries had commenced both within

Indigenous and Muslim communities independent of Corrective

Services permission. It is therefore considered that the first

justification is unreasonable in light of proper process and

protocols.

4. The overall impression gained from the comments of Department

employees, previous employees, and Indigenous ex inmates was

that it would be very difficult to gain full access to the interviewees

and data requested.

5. This is in fact turned out to be true, as requests for further dialogue

were ignored.

3.17 Summary and conclusions

This chapter has outlined a detailed explanation of the methodology rationale, subject population, procedures, timelines, objectives, limitations, instruments, data collection, and ethical considerations. The latter part of the chapter included an explanation of data and the methods by which data was obtained, and the failed attempt to enrol the NSW Department of

Corrective Services into the research project.

The initial participant observation framework enabled a familiarisation process to coincide with awareness that the two geographic areas of the Block and Lakemba were distinctly different in terms of social order and symbolism. The Indigenous owned Block struggles to remain viable as a community while the Muslim majority Lakemba is dominated by the regular routines of Islamic belief and practice. Both communities, however, represent the diversity of Australian society while camouflaging underlying histories of tension, optimism, despair, and stoicism.

4.0 Interview Data Results

4.1 Introduction

This chapter provides the interview transcripts followed by a thematic analysis and discussion. It is usual to merge the theme analysis with the interview data, however, in this case it was decided to leave the transcripts in their original unbroken form. This was because of the narrative continuity of the transcripts, and to allow the speakers an uninterrupted voice. The objective of the interviews were to elicit background and first-hand experiences of Indigenous involvement with

Islam.

4.2 Interview transcript 1 of 2

This transcript is the complete transcribed digitally video recorded interview session at 51 Caroline Street, Redfern, Sydney January 19, 2006,

9-30pm. This was the address of the Koori Muslim Association. It was at the time the only formal organisation of Indigenous Muslims anywhere in

Australia. The various speakers were all associated with the organisation and came from local and regional communities. The interviews took place after a communal meal and Islamic prayers.

Reproduction of speech has been kept as original as possible to maintain the meaning, emphasis and mannerisms of the speaker. A prominent Indigenous Muslim leader and numerous other Indigenous

Muslims participated in this interview. Following this transcript is an analysis of the major themes, and a glossary of Islamic terms used in the transcript appears in Appendix A.

[The original data remains as a digital video recording and names of the participants have been changed to protect anonymity]

Question 1: Islam and Muslims have been in this country for a long time, what is it you are telling young Indigenous men converting to Islam?

Reply : Well basically, that my people are perceptive, and we understand imperialism and we understand that what my people are saying is that Muslims are saying Muslims are the best of creation what are they doing to prove it, they know that it’s hypocritical that they say they’re the best and they don’t prove/it’s like some people that I’m training to be a boxer and I’m weight trainin’ and I’m a hundred kilo’s of muscle but I never enter the ring I’m not the best of fighters if I’m telling people I’m only potentially – they know now that there’s a difference between Islam and Muslims and they understand rhetoric- they don’t want to be told about Islam they want to be shown about Islam and the simple fact that Muslims completely contradict the fact that if you come to a non-Muslim country and you don’t intend to propagate and defend Islam you are not allowed to stay here but I don’t see Muslims packin’ their bags and leavin’ ‘cause you have to validate the truth and fight the oppressor but basically Muslims are the oppressor when Islam assumes the role again of a liberating force that intends to liberate and/and free the exploited and the oppressed, then and only then will the Muslims and the non-Muslims see Islam for what it truly is a liberating force and my people are the most oppressed and the most oppressed are the most receptive to Islam but the one’s representing Islam are not representing it properly- so that’s basically our message and because we believe Islam will rid us from atheism, communism, capitalism and basically westernism because we’re hostile to communism, we’re hostile to capitalism, and we’re hostile to Christianity and Islam is the only answer and not just in the next world but we need to be freed from this world because what Bob Marley said you think you’re livin’ in heaven but you’re livin’ in hell - well my people are livin’ in jahanam which is hell now and we can’t survive in Christianity – that’s why Islam will lift us up-that’s why.

Question 2: You said that the Muslims are the oppressor- from what perspective do you think they are the oppressor?

Reply : OK- I give a 40 minute speech to a group of Palestinians – they said he was a scholar alim I said to them after the 40 minutes they come and approached me and I said – why won’t your people become Muslims and

100 the sheikh said and I said imagine if a thousand of my men said we were Muslim and went to your country and I planted an Aboriginal flag and I called myself your leader how arrogant and racist would that be but then some of my followers opened night clubs sold drugs exploited your women but then sided with the Jew against you and I said to the sheikh – I accepted that he was a scholar – I said would your people want to be Muslim he said of course not and I said ask me again why won’t Indigenous people of Australia accept Islam and he said it’s because of the Muslim – that’s why they- they oppress – because they sided with the English against the most receptive to Islam – but when you side with the oppressed/side with the oppressor over the oppressed we find you as the oppressor also – that’s why we won’t accept Islam it’s because of the Muslims – but hopefully God willing the Muslims now will see that to/to bury deeper spiritual roots in Australia you have to unite with the Indigenous people – you never you never unite with the oppressor.

Question 3: That’s a Koori person’s perspective about Muslims on a political level – what’s their perspective of Muslims on a day-to-day social interaction level, and what kind of environment do they come into contact with these Muslims?

Reply : Well - I’ll give you an example – we had the Koori Muslim Association of Redfern before we were an establishment – we were an ideal just like Islam was an ideal in peoples’ subconscious they new we were Muslims we represented Islam – but when we brought Muslims that were Lebanese my people in Redfern automatically umm guessed that they were drug dealers because Muslims sell drugs to my people – it doesn’t matter if you’re practicing or you’re not practicing – people – that are Muslim don’t fit stereotypes because, basically they don’t know the difference between practicing and non-practicing Muslims – they saw Muslims sell drugs and assumed Islam is a religion of drug dealers. So basically in the interaction in prison we come into contact with thugs and gangsters and/and basically the only people that my people – the only Muslims that my people that my people have been in contact with are drug dealers and thugs – Islam is not a gang – it’s not a bunch of drug dealin’ thugs Islam according to Allah he made us the best of creation we have to prove it – but the interaction between Aboriginal people and Lebanese in

101 general are very/very contradictory and very, very discredits Islam so – we hope now to give a different message of Islam not just to Aboriginal people but to Muslims in general – accept Islam for what it truly is –

Question 4: Brother, you said-so there’s a lot of contact between Lebanese Muslims and Kooris in jail – how do the – Lebanese in jail – justify or explain their criminality to the Aboriginal people in jail – who are starting to become aware of Islam and understand the principles of Islam – how do they explain that to those Aboriginal men – what kind of reason do they give for their current circumstances?

Reply : OK – I can’t really speak for how they explain it but I’ll tell you how they explain it to me I visit prisons very regularly – and - what happened was one of the Aboriginal men in prison – very big leader in there he’s Muslim – Aboriginal - he said to me that Lebanese people told him he can eat meat and say Bismillah and that makes it halal so I called this Lebanese man out on a visit and I asked ‘im – what Islamic understanding did you use to tell my people that you made the meat halal because you can’t make halal what Allah made haram – and he said you say bismillah – and it’s halal – that’s the ignorance of the Muslims not just in prison but in general in Australia – I can theologically - overpower ‘em and I’m ignorant and that means they’re less than ignorant so they justify it , the fact they grew up in Australia that’s their that’s their understanding basically they say they came to Australia – they left -they run from every war they’re in - and they say we run from Lebanon we run from Iraq we run from Iran and they want to teach us about Islam while they’re runnin’ from the same oppressor we have – they justify it in the fact that – ignorance is a valid justification that’s basically what they put it down to – I don’t say that they say that if they’re ignorant of Islam they should not represent/I tell them – number one you can tell people that you’re not Muslim - and they think that’s – heretic or something/I say OK do you love Allah?/yes do you love Islam?/yes are you willing to die for Islam?/they say of course – so if you’re willing to die – why won’t you tell people you’re so pathetically weak that you’re willing to practice Islam but there are people that love Islam more than you if you come into contact with Aboriginal people say look there are Muslims in Redfern that want to teach you about Islam that love Islam that don’t take drugs don’t sell drugs – they might not –supposedly have knowledge but

102 they have more knowledge than me but they love Islam more than me and I’m too weak to practice it but I still believe it and they said they’re willing to accept – that they’re too weak to practice it but they love it – that’s what they’re willing to do otherwise I told them to tell people they’re not Muslims because that betrays the essence of Islam and you betray Allah and Allah will betray you so basically they have a duty now to practice Islam or get out of Australia – I’m not Phillip Ruddock I’m not John Howard I’m the Indigenous people of Australia – if you don’t want to follow Islam get out of my country go back to Lebanon and exploit someone else - but don’t exploit what I believe is Islam or Allah will destroy you because Allah took the power from you and I believe God willing he’ll give it to the people that deserve Islam the most – the Lebanese had a chance – a big chance in history for Islam – they betrayed the essence of Islam , now Islam came here – it came here through oppression – the reason why I believe that Allah allowed us to suffer unbelievable unimaginable crimes and, and basic punishment – is so then we can be given the message and the glory of Islam-no-one loves Islam like the most oppressed just like in America but Australia will be more dramatic in terms of conversion than America. There’s no such thing as reactionary Islam Stephallah who tells me that that means you defy divine decree that Allah wills whatever he wills – they say that I’m a reactionary Muslim – I say that you’re not even a Muslim then because if you tell me I was a reaction to oppression the first Muslims it says in the Qur’an that they were a small weak band and hostile to any attack and Allah rose them up well I believe God willing Allah will raise us up now again – because we were oppressed destroyed and, and had unbelievable crimes committed against us so that our blessing is Islam if we were locked in a hole in the ground we’re in the darkness in Islam that’s the age of ignorance when Allah lifted the lid and let the noor in then we must be the noor of Islam and I want Muslims to tell me we’re not the light of Islam – if we’re not then you tell me that you are if you can lead me to Islam I’ll follow you but if you can’t you have to let us lead you to Islam you’ve had Islam for 1200 years 1400 years we’ve had Islam for a few months.

Question 5: How can Islam give dignity, respect, and emancipation to Aboriginal people - when its not from them? This is from an outsider’s

103 perspective. Aren’t you just trading one cultural colonisation for another cultural colonisation?

Reply : We don’t believe that we don’t believe that we became Muslim we believe that this is the re-emergence of Islam for Aboriginal people not the fact that I received Islam from my Indian descendants or other people of Aboriginal decent received it from Afghans or the 900 year link to umm the Indonesians but we believe that we were Muslims before – long before but basically this is not an alien concept because people tell me what do you have to be Muslim/and I go no you can be drunk and you can be on drugs or you can be killing your wife or in prison – and you can be an exploiter or you can join Islam and become a liberator because what it is/is my natural predisposition is to become Muslim because revolution is my natural instinct it’s part of my identity like psychology. In psychology they say your predisposition well my predisposition is revolution and Islam – according to the German saying revolution it means to change a structure to better Islam was the greatest revolution that existed so it’s not an alien concept to become Muslim from Aboriginal because there’s no distinction there’s no [nothing] contradictory between Aboriginal and Islam.

Question 6: You say you said your people were Muslim before – can you elaborate on that?

Reply : Well basically – the majority of the Gamilaroi people from Moree - whether they acknowledge it or not – historically we are the descendents of Abraham and Mohammad Ali we are the most people except for a few people that are not from Moree everyone knows in the Aboriginal community of Moree that we’re genetically descendant of Muslims but then – like Indigenous times said a few months ago it said black Australia’s 900 year old link to Islam – that’s just 900 years but we believe we were Muslim before that we believe we were Muslims before the Arabs were Muslims basically and we believe we can prove that categorically in any context.

Question 6a : Can you just elaborate a little bit more on that?

Reply : OK then basically theologically it says in the Qur’an that 124,000 prophets and 33,000 messengers and Allah sent one more came to every

104 tribe and nation and we believe that we were Muslim and the fact that every human is born Muslim with the submission to God and then over time you become Hindu Jew Christian whatever but we believe in the same context that Muslims say that Abraham, and Noah Adam and Jesus Pease Be On Them All – they say they’re Muslim – because they believed in one divine god – we believe Aboriginal people like Pemulwuy it says in his book he said he believed in a transcendental creator Allah is the only transcendental creator even though ahh Viamy called him – sorry Pemulwuy called him Viamy his language was different to ours the word for creator in English is God in Islam it’s Allah in the Bible in the Old Testament It’s Yarweh – there’s only one god – we believe we worship one monotheistic God which means we believe we were the first Muslims. We were the direct descendants of Adam and everyone else is related to Adam - but – everyone else moved to a continent where they mixed over hundreds of thousands of years – Aboriginal people were isolated – and we believe we’re the closest genetical [sic] descendants, ‘cause Adam was an African, Eve was an Indian when you get an African and an Indian and mix they are full blood Aboriginal not like myself darker than myself obviously but I have in my veins the blood of the direct descents of Adam and Eve and I believe scientifically that we can prove that beyond a doubt Islamically - we believe everyone’s from Adam but we believe genetically we’re closer to Adam than anyone else because of the mixture of the rest of the world we believe we weren’t mixed for a hundred thousand years. We know that Australia was never ever mixed until 200 years ago but basically within my veins are the closet genetical [sic] descendants of Adam that’s our-that’s our belief and if anyone wants to argue then use Islamic logic or use scientific logic and we’re willing to challenge.

Reply : I’d like to add what sheikh has said – that Islam has been there for all the creation of the human beings – and I quite agree that Islam has come to all the people for a long, long, time. It is the unfortunate thing that we have politicised and sectionalised and you cannot say that Islam is new to the Aboriginal people and the fact that migrants have come here the Muslim migrants – unfortunately there are many weak people in Islam who have come to Australia and what we really lack is a true knowledge and an understanding of the principles of Islam. And if we had the true knowledge of Islam we would be able to – practice – and apply and present Islam to

105 everybody in its true perspective and this has been the unfortunate thing because of true lack of knowledge the true Islam hasn’t come and we carry a lot of baggage of culture from different counties around But it is high time now that we resort to the resurgence of getting true knowledge and try to make ourselves true Muslims and strong Muslims so we can spread the good religion to all good people for Islam has many good principles and these principles are to be practiced in your daily life to improve your situation to elevate yourself from those mundane things of this world which we suffer from a lot of weaknesses in our practices – and in human practices in many ways.

Question 7: Would you like to add anything to that sheikh?

Reply : No Hamdillilah that is very, very good – I couldn’t have expressed it better myself.

Question 8: So what’s the plan from here? Now then like obviously Islam has the potential to do things to - bring back all the dignity, hope, and triumphs to the Aboriginal people across Australia what would be your do you think ah the most practical – form – of spreading the message and implementing the meaning of the message?

Reply : Well basically my people don’t want to be told about Islam they want to be shown about Islam by their own people. Now we’ve had many, many requests in Moree, Boggabilla, Walgett, and Mungindi by elders umm and there was a large gathering um at the Aboriginal [rugby] league knockout – some of their elders saw us in action and dialogued with us and they said this is what we need and I, I made it quite clear that we were Muslim and the reason why we didn’t drink and take drugs and sell drugs is not accidental that fact that we were Muslim and we were revolutionary type Muslims we weren’t backward Muslims we weren’t ignorant we weren’t drug dealers we defied drug dealers we openly confront drug dealers and tell them you have a certain amount of time to sell drugs in our community then you’ll have to face us in combat and that’s not a threat that’s a promise from Allah that Allah will rise us up and basically now in Moree we have one brother he’s Muslim Aboriginal and he’s from the Gamilaroi we have one brother Wirradjuri one from Dunghutti one from Bundjulung one from

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Gambaangeri so our main intention and effort now is to train these men and send them back to their own communities so even myself I won’t be their leader I we are not creating followers – we’re creating leaders so we’re not creating sheep we’re creating shepherds we’ve had enough sheep in wolves clothing now my people now we’re receptive to Islam because they know it will uplift them um so basically –it’s like the Christians they’re theologically retarded I tell them they’re spiritually dead they’re intellectually retarded but they have something over the Muslims well not the Muslims the Muslims have millions and millions in Australia but we have nothing no material culture in Islam so when I went to Tinga not long ago I told them about Islam and when I left - just before we left fourteen young Aboriginal boys and girls prayed behind us and they accepted Islam they said Shahada there’s no God apart from Allah Mohammed sal Allahu alayhi wasalam is the last and the greatest of all the messengers but we need an Islamic culture because the first Muslims the Arabs the first thing they did was set up a masjid a mosque – and now – if the Muslims can’t understand or perceive that Islam is for everyone they have to say that Islam is just for them but Islam is for all mankind but the most oppressed and the most exploited need Allah’s blessing more than everyone we have Islam my people don’t so it’s our duty now to love – if you love something so much love for your brothers is an Islamic principle the Muslims need to practice what they preach and because they can’t spread Islam they need to assist us to spread Islam if they’re not interested in Islam they need to openly publicly tell people they don’t love Islam enough to spread it they want to keep it within themselves but my people want Islam, they need Islam and we can give them Islam, and the Muslims can assist us and Insha’allah they can get more rewards than I can ever get by the simple fact that if they give for the sake of Allah (which is an Islamic principle of course) they don’t need anyone to pat them on the back and get a photo with me as long as them and Allah new on the day of judgement Allah will say what did you do for my deen what did you do for mankind oh Allah you know what I did more than I did but the Muslims don’t think like that anymore if the Muslims can’t practice Islam why would they expect my people be able to practice Islam that’s basically my logic

Reply : Sheikh you rightfully say that you need a centre like the mosque and mosque is not just for prayer but is the educational centre where we would

107 receive true education – I’d like to make a comment on – the weakness of societies because lack of true knowledge of Islam you can see the big scourge today not only in the Aboriginal but the general community. I would comment that in the large broad society we are suffering from the difficulties of being involved in alcohol, drugs, promiscuity, gambling. Islam frowns upon these things and we were to truly understand the problems of being involved in these habits you would easily, want to give up these ah weak habits for they today are destroying the nations and if you look at every aspect of these four features that I mentioned you will see that they in every corner and in every way in the every way of life that they are detrimental causes which are degenerating the population at large in Australia…[slight pause]

Question 9: Sheikh could you please tell us a bit more of your own personal journey and experience and development in the way of Islam? How did you first come across Islam and what has progressed your journey in Islam?

Reply : Basically um - I was incarcerated for many, many years more than a decade Alhamdulillah people can’t work out why I’m so happy that I was in prison um, I was a violent criminal I was a dangerous criminal that – I’m embarrassed to say - but - I’m not saying society propelled me and basically it’s, it’s not just a matter of generation after generation of genocide cultural destruction, racism, lack of unemployment [sic] um, hostility to Indigenous people, exclusion from the mainstream population, no jobs no education um basically no future, that’s why Islam is for us, because Islam offers us an answer to everything of all of our problems in terms of education in terms of, of in terms of, knowledge in terms of alcoholism, drugs Islam is the answer when Christianity has been the actual evil in terms of that like for example – in Moree I, I spoke to a lady – and I asked her why she had within in her such Islamic principles, an Aboriginal lady from Moree this is when I was a teenager and she told me that when the Christians came they said thou shall not steal and they stole our land, she said the priests they said thou shall not kill and they killed, she said the priest told them they shall not rape and they raped all our women thou shall not commit adultery and they did but when the Muslims came in particular the Indians came and this brother may God bless him Mohammad Ali and Ibrahim Ali when they said thou shall not kill they didn’t kill, thou shall not

108 steal and they never stole and thou should not commit adultery or rape and they didn’t that wasn’t the big impact of Aboriginal people in Moree- what impacted them the most about Islam is when the Christian missionaries came to steal their children the Muslims defended them and not only did they defend ‘em Moree people can bear witness that their graves are in the cemeteries they died defending people for the sake of God. That’s why Aboriginal people embraced Islam – that’s why every single Aboriginal person man woman and child are descendants of Muslims and if they don’t want to admit it all they have to do is look in their ancestry – we accepted Islam because the Muslims accepted the Khalifah – when the Khalifah said defend then we defended and even when Australia went to war against Turkey – these Muslims sided with the Khalifah over Australia they even fired shots at Christians even killed Christians to defend my people – not because my people were Aboriginal or whatever because that was their Islamic duty to defend the oppressed In Islam there’s three rules – when you see a tyrant you use your hands to chase-change it like the Indians did – if you can’t use your hand you speak out against for the oppressed against the oppressor – If you can’t – use your heart to detest it the Muslims can’t do the last one – that’s the weakest form of faith – the Muslims never speak against the oppressor against-for my people – why would my people want to be Muslim? Woe to the Muslims for being like that- but praise be to Allah for, for bringing Mohammad Ali and Ibrahim Ali for Islam because that’s what made me Muslim and then I was in prison – many, many years I was in prison – I, I, I um I was charged for killing someone in prison I was in solitary confinement they call it the high security unit everyone knows that’s in prison they will know this they see this people will know this is not a boast this is not like er I want to be famous the fact that I was like the lowest form of animal I was locked in a cell – they didn’t give me a toilet they never fed me I was like an animal, and then I looked out the peephole and I saw these men, black men, and I called out to ‘em - can I get some books? I didn’t mean religious books I meant women books I wasn’t a Muslim I knew the Muslims in prison they were cowards – they sold drugs – I wanted to kill ‘em all I wanted to tell people that they’re not Muslims – Malcolm X was a Muslim – he was the first Muslim I loved in the world before I knew about my hero Prophet Mohammad Peace be Upon Him and they said we got some books and I said ah OK – I come back from my yard, sometimes they’d let me out into a little yard sometimes they

109 wouldn’t and I read Malcolm X, Malcolm X, I started readin’ Malcolm X, then one brother Sheikh Ahmet Deedat from South Africa I read his book – and – then I, they started talking to me through the wall they told me about Islam. They said Islam is for you and I said but I’m Aboriginal – and they said can you be a drug dealer and Aboriginal and I said of course, they said can you be a Christian I said of course, they said can you be a child molester and Aboriginal I said of course. Can you be a drunk, - a drug addict I said of course and they said why not Muslim – What could I say to them, how could I argue – Islam and Aboriginal is not contradictory they’re actually in essence they’re equally in essence with Islam because being Aboriginal makes you a better Muslim and being Muslim makes you a better Aboriginal It actually makes you a better human being – forget about Aboriginals you’re a human being first but Islam makes you a better human being the majesty that was Islam I saw in these men. I saw in these man that were killers, and drug dealers and ex violent, you know, murderers and they changed their lives through Islam and when I met them they changed my life and I never saw ‘em again. I, I searched for ‘em and never saw ‘em I don’t know who they were-I know who they were by name- but by nature they were Islam – that’s what I knew Islam was and, and when I think about the Muslims I never think about the Arabs – I always think about these Aboriginal men that spent so many hours every day through the door talkin’ to me about Islam giving me books giving me food – that’s what I knew Islam was and I knew I kept saying to myself for many years one day when I become Muslim I’m going to do this – but I didn’t use drugs, everyone in prison knew I didn’t smoke drugs or sell drugs , or take any type of drugs or drink alcohol so they told me that I’m the closest to Islam, so I started reading I read the Qur’an, I listened to ‘em, then I embraced Islam [29 30 24] and - that was the beginning – basically – of my journey…[slight pause]

Reply : You’ve – had a great opportunity of ah – of learning and ah it is the opportune time that this learning process - has to be - broadened - in the greater community – not only the Aboriginal community – but – by and large to a lot of Muslims – themselves – to improve their knowledge of Islam and to become better Muslims and then further, to get this message to the non-Muslims for Islam is - a religion of which is truly understood, and properly practiced will transform us from our lowly stature into a powerful

110 nation, an all good Australian nation Insha’allah God be willing…[slight pause]

Question 10 : You mentioned um Mohammad Ali and Ibrahim going to Moree now this strikes me that um when you conjure up – say the word Moree it conjures up a lot of imagery a lot of thoughts about social justice activity in the seventies and – and really Moree had a big effect in NSW and of things that were instigated from Moree and a lot of things from Australia in general were instigated from NSW. Can you see some type of connection there, or, does that mean anything to you or conjure up any imagery to you, that I or when you had brought up the topic of Mohammad Ali and Ibrahim their effect on Moree in general?

Reply : Well basically in the subconscious of Moree people they are the most militant Aboriginals I’ve known more than Northern Territory more than anywhere in-that I’ve ever known – they’re the most militant – not the most political! I’ve met – the most political Aboriginal people are from another complete area, but the most militant Aboriginal people I know are from Moree. Now – they’re more culturally aware they’re more proud, they’re more dignified um people say they’re the best fighters they’re the most violent um but they’ve only reacted to oppression and reacted to racism and murder and rape and they’ve become violent because society is violent, and they say society is democratic, they say Australia is tolerant and fair – but I don’t feel very – lucky – Australia is a lucky country but it’s not lucky because in Moree – just thirty years ago sixteen people, a family - a whole family would live in a tin shack with no running water, no electricity, no sewerage, while these farmers lived on their land but within their subconscious I believe that Islam was in their memory because they still talk about this Mohammad Ali Mohammad Ali, and Ibrahim Ali so it’s still within their structural power and in their culture that Islam existed and it’s a simple, simple logical fact now – that – they-I believe they’ll be the first large mass community of Muslims in NSW in Moree because they’re the most receptive to Islam because they were Muslim before – and the fact that they’re the most defined and they’re the most hostile to capitalism the most hostile to assimilation the most hostile to communism and the most hostile to Christianity because they were Muslim before that’s, that’s my basic understanding on why they were the most militant what they call

111 black activists in the sixties because their, their grandfather before me - not my great, great grandfather but their actual grandparents were these descendents of Muslims so they grew up with these people in their living memory so because we’re basically oral people and we didn’t have a written language like Prophet Mohammad Pease be Upon Him he was, he was an unlettered man - in the Bible he said the prophet will come among for all humanity and he will be unlettered – my people are unlettered too so we passed down we have unbelievable memories which means if my people were Muslims they could memorise the Qur’an better than easily better than anyone because we have to pass oral traditions for thousands of years and we have to make sure they’re intact – just like the Qur’an was memorised and written my people have in their living memory Islam – and that’s what made them the most militant people they were-and that’s what will make the best of all Muslims again Insha’allah God willing…[pause]

Question 11 : On a family level now - how does your family fit in amongst other Aboriginal families who aren’t Muslim? What do other Aboriginal people who are non-Muslim react to your family?

Reply : Well in the community in general just like I can explain it from like – from a personal point of view – everything I do in Redfern – everyone in the Aboriginal community relates to Islam so that, that everyone that is a member of the Koori Muslim Association – with other people I can’t control I can’t convince I can’t talk to they can do their own thing Muslims do whatever they want they can sell drugs and kill and rape they can be in prison but I have no control over them but the men in our organisation God willing I have some type of control so - with, with stereotypes they don’t fit Muslims they don’t fit Aboriginal people – say Martin Bryant he killed sixteen people and they never related that with their Christianity because – for whatever reason he said he was a practicing Christian but they didn’t relate that to Christianity but if I kick a dog – God forbid me I wouldn’t but they’ll say that’s Islam - and within that context I’m tellin’ my people that are Muslims to be exemplary figures and it’s a big task because whatever we do it’s related to Islam. Now within the Aboriginal broader community - they know we’re Muslim - they expect certain things from us – they expect us to be like saints and – and we now know this is our duty we have a duty to uphold an Islamic ideal we don’t care what other Muslims do they can do

112 whatever they want. In America no one relates drugs or drug dealing to the Nation of Islam to the black Muslims – African Americans – they relate to drugs – Arabs, even Muslims so-called practicing Muslims, they relate to drugs but not the Nation-with us they don’t relate drug dealing to us in this community and in any community they do not relate promiscuity, adultery, sex outside of marriage, alcohol or drugs and I’m not saying that there’s no Muslims that don’t drink – but – very few people will- we are the largest teetotallers in the world-meaning we consume the least amount of alcohol in the world and my people are accepting that principle from the very beginning and praise be to God that we accept it from the very beginning when the Muslims were lacking in that context so aboriginal people have seen us know as, as a sign of dignity, and strength and solidarity, and unity and they’re all the attributes of Aboriginal tribal people. Now – the attribute of Aboriginal people now are lust and greed and violence and they’re not the attributes of tribal people they’re the attributes of the invader – so as a Muslim I’ve gained the attributes of a true tribal person and not the attributes of the invader, so basically – our tribal allegiances destroyed by alcohol, drugs, and sexual assault and rape and paedophilia and Christianity which is the worst form of Imperialism, but Islam promises us to extricate or free us from atheism. Atheism is not just our main problem but Christianity is our main problem because we say categorically that Christianity is atheist- it’s a religion of drug dealers of alcoholics, of rapists, and murderers and if the Muslims are like that it’s because of the Christians

Question 12 : Some people say, some Muslims say - that the Christians are in fact people of the book and Christianity from someone outside the perspective – it seems to have a lot more in common with Islam than traditional Aboriginal beliefs. What would be your comment or answer to that hypothetical assertion?

Reply : well basically to the Muslims I say categorically that Christians are not people of the book – I challenge ‘em to say that Christians are people of the book show me where it says you can marry someone they say a Muslim man can marry a Christian woman Stephallah but I’ll never let my son marry a Christian woman. Just on the surface they believe in God – OK – But if I was to tell you your beautiful Muslim son wanted to marry a Christian woman – but she told your son that God Allah and Jesus and his

113 holy spirit holy ghost are one that means not much. But if Allah is Jesus and Mary the Mother of Jesus gave birth to Allah – gave birth to Jesus it means Mary gave birth to our God. That is blasphemy. You would never accept that if I told you like that. Christians are not people of any book. Look -the dictionary is a book but just say you’re a priest of the dictionary you’re not going to let your son marry a priest with a dictionary. Christianity and the Bible is not the word of God. The Qur’an is the word of God and Christians now, even many modern-day Christians-50% of the Anglicans in England-the Anglicans are saying you don’t have to accept Jesus as God…Islam says that God is one he begets not nor has he begotten and there is none under Him. He had no beginning and no end-if Jesus is Allah kike the Christians then that means Allah had a beginning – and that’s shirk – that is blasphemy. Basically Aboriginal people have more in common with Islam than Christianity because Christianity says that a man is God – Islam says Allah is God and he had no beginning and end – and the Muslims that say that the Christians are people of the book I deny that openly to any of them – tell me where in the Qur’an it says you can say God is more than one. See Allah loves the number one because he’s one. Any number that’s odd he loves because you divide it and it becomes one. Allah is not three…Jesus is not the son of God he’s not God, and he’s not the holy ghost if you say they’re people of the book I want to know what book you’re reading. Islam condemns that categorically – they are blasphemies [sic] they are atheists and I will not let my son marry an atheist – or I’ll, I’ll be an atheist myself.

Question 13 : Do you think um do you think perhaps Muslims interpret that particular part of the Qur’an to include the modern-day Trinitarian Christians because it eases their conscience to collaborate with the oppressors?

Reply : Yeah – exactly – well basically when, when Jesus walked the earth Peace be on Him – he said – He has come only for the lost sheep of Israel not, not for the pigs and dogs he said – he said that – that’s what Christians tell me - I accept whatever they tell me but basically Mohammad Peace Be Upon Him came for all mankind, that’s, that’s basically what it is and when Jesus was on this earth Christianity was monotheistic. When the Qur’an says that they accept people of the book they accept people that are Unitarian Christians. There are Unitarian Christians and Aboriginal people

114 in the North Coast – they don’t accept Jesus as God – they don’t say Jesus is the son of God – they say he is a prophet of God – that’s what is meant by their people of the book. These blasphemies, these atheists saying that Jesus is God they’re not the people of the book. Surely the one’s that believe in God that has no beginning and end they basically are people of the book and surely you can marry them…

Question 14 : Sheikh could you briefly explain your genealogy if you can? How far back can you go as a Koori?

Reply : Um as far as Aboriginal people go basically. We say that, we say that we’re the oldest living humans on earth – we say that we were in Australia before – my belief is that Allah gave Australia to us and no one else. And no one has any legal or moral rights to use force which is Christianity, or subjugation to take Australia from us – but basically I have European blood of course, Indian, Chinese, and Aboriginal but I identify as an Aboriginal man, but basically I identify as a Muslim first. People say – what are you first, but I say I’m Muslim first – I’ll tell you why because, I come down to Redfern – this is the understanding of identity that is distorted – why white men that tell Aboriginal people who we should be – I come down there a few years ago and they said brother do you want to score. I say I don’t use drugs, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t want the white man’s’ poisons, and they said you can’t be a real Koori because you don’t drink – I said to ‘em do you have to be like a mongrel dog and drunk and in the gutter to be considered Aboriginal? And they said of course not. And I said but you stated that because I didn’t drink I wasn’t a true Koori – why is it because you’re darker than me – what about my darker people are they Koori too? And he said of course but they’re not drunk. So what’s your perception of Aboriginal and what it is – is basically 90% of identity is made up of language the language you speak directly influences your thought processes – if you don’t have a language that’s uniquely yours you have no identity. Aboriginal people have no identity. They say that it’s Koori culture but I deny that it’s Koori – It’s English, it’s Christian, it’s communism, it’s capitalism, and it’s atheism all mixed up with Koori, so we had to redefine who we really were as Muslims and as Aboriginal people and someone can tell me that this is not Aboriginal but tell someone in our congregation that’s a full-blood Aboriginal that he’s not Muslim and he’s not Aboriginal then I’ll,

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I’ll be silent. But if you can tell him that you’re more Aboriginal than him in terms of genetics in terms of language - he speaks his own language – in terms of him being tribal initiated tell him he’s not Aboriginal – he might be able to tell me but tell him! Because he’s uniquely Aboriginal he has no European blood but the fact that he’s Muslim completely contradicts your theory that you can’t be Aboriginal and Muslim. We never had to give up anything as Aboriginals to become Muslim actually we gained much more than we lost – we lost nothing. We inherited something – that was uniquely ours in the beginning but Christians took this from us, and, and they say that, basically I, I say to them like I said to the black Christians – they said Christianity was a religion of giving, I said OK, let’s, we’ll go to Moree. Ask the Christians, these white Christians that are farmers go onto their land in the middle of the night and say – hey, I’m a black Christian - you’re a white Christian give me my land back - what will they do they said they’ll shoot at us. If it’s a religion of giving ask yourself what they gave you – and they said to me they gave us poisons, they gave us diseases, gave us Christianity, they gave us alcohol and drugs but what did they take? And they thought for a minute – they’re smart men – they, they took our land, they took our women, they raped our children, they took our language and they took our children to Cootamundra and Bomaderry is that a fair exchange? So they admitted after a short period of time that Christianity is a religion of giving but they gave all the crap things to us and they took all the good things so it really is a religion for the oppressor. Islam is a religion for the oppressed and Aboriginal people are the oppressed. Christianity – the white men are the oppressors so Christianity is not a religion for you – that’s my, that’s my opinion.

Question 15 : It seems that the message you give to other Koori’s is that they’re already Islamic – they’re already Muslims. How easy do you think it is for them to accept that? Do they accept it readily or do you have to convince them very much of that or not?

Reply : no they believe… [the people who haven’t been exposed] OK now basically in context – I meet people from university – lecturers like yourself - - Aboriginal people that are doctors, Aboriginal people that are football players, and mothers and fathers and children, so obviously every context and every dialogue I have to work out quickly just in a series of questions

116 where to come from and then I’ll know who they are, where they grew up, what their culture is, what their name is and that’s how we interact and when we mention our last name and we automatically know each other and if we are related to each other so in terms of interaction, just like the Christian priests – they said – in conversation with them I said if you can prove Jesus is God I’ll accept it. If you prove he’s a European man with a straight nose not a hooked nose like a Jew I’ll accept it. But if I can prove to you that God is God and Jesus is a man you accept it - they say of course and after a 40 – 30 minute period they say we believe but we can’t accept – and I say why and they because we’ve been brainwashed…and Islam doesn’t have a sword – If my people or Australia doesn’t accept Islam the Saudi’s aren’t going to cut your oil supply off – I don’t have this big massive sword like these, like these heretics, like these fanatic land mass murdering stealers would say that Islam is spread by the sword Christianity was also spread by the sword Islam was never spread by the sword – we never had an army, we never had soldiers, we had the majesty that was Islam that’s all we had - when Christians ruled – they murdered, when the Crusaders invaded Jerusalem they killed one hundred thousand women and children – and men – not-they didn’t just kill Muslims they killed Jews and Christians – Palestinian Christians they murdered and when Salah el-Din may God Bless Him recaptured Jerusalem for Islam they let the Muslims and the Christians, and the Jews – go – they never ever destroyed – Christian historians will tell you that even George Bernard Shaw said the only religion he would ever accept is Islam and that is from the greatest Western writer that you accept or I accept or the world accepts. But basically they say they believe, some say they will never accept because they’ve been brainwashed and programmed by an evil Christian cult – and Muslims had nothing to do with that. Christians did everything in the name of God they say they were God’s chosen people but basically – what they did in the world completely disgraces the fact that there could ever, ever could be any believers in God because my basic belief is if that God of theirs – Jesus – was so compassionate and merciful he would never forgive you for the crimes you committed against my people – he would never forgive you and if he come back today he would side with us over you because in the day he sided with the oppressed over the Romans – now he would side with the Koori’s over the English, over the Australians, over this John Howard coward who says that - this is another crusade – just like George Bush

117 said – the crusades are still going, like General Allenby when he conquered Jerusalem he said the crusades are finally over in 1914 but Bush said they’re still going so basically we have-we’re up against propaganda and my people are used to propaganda – we’re used to lies, we’re used to distortions and now we have to prepare ourselves for another psychological battle. And as a Muslim, I’m prepared for that battle and prepared to sacrifice the ultimate for that for the sake of Islam and for the sake of my people so that they can receive Islam and if they don’t accept they don’t accept but I have no power to make them I’m not in the Christian missionary – I’m not a priest – I didn’t force my mother to become Christian – Muslim whatever but all I have is the truth – you accept – you don’t accept that’s the will of God.

Question 16 : So Sheikh, as Koori’s take up Islam where do you see this evolving to? What do you see happening say in a few years time? How do you see the situation evolving?

Reply : Well basically number one we want to see Redfern as a drug free community – the government supposedly says it wants to get rid of drugs but when they raid here the only people that get raided are the drug addicts and not drug dealers – they blatantly openly defy the police. As Muslims it’s our duty now to make them go. We’ll use force. If the police want to stop us, let them stop us, but we will tell them categorically that you cannot sell drugs in our community unless you front us because we are not going to run and basically we’re not violent people but we’re in a situation now where we’re basically where we’ve been pushed too far – Aboriginal people – they want us to be drunk, they want us to be on drugs, they want us to be killin’ our women, they want us to be in prison, and through Islam we’ve accepted the principles of social justice and solidarity and humanity and for the first time that I’ve ever seen Aboriginal people – look at us with pride and they say when will you hurry up and come and-an Aboriginal woman came up to me the other day and said we see you taking these young boys to the gym, they come to your house – I’m Christian she said – but I don’t want to be Christian I want my children my teenage son and daughter to be Muslim – I didn’t make them say that – I don’t have the power to make them, and, and basically it is our hope and our will if God wills, that all our people become Muslim and the fact that some people in the government

118 say that there’ll never be an Islamic state – that’s very debatable because if, if um if the people, the Indigenous people of Australia ever get any sovereignty - and we’re Muslim obviously we will follow Islamic principles and we’ll follow Islamic law – we followed Christian law when we were forced to so we should be able to accept Islam and follow it – once we accept that we should follow it of course – when you force someone to believe in something, they don’t want to believe in it, there’s no compulsion in Islam – there’s no compulsion in religion – I can’t make no one believe in anything – what it is, is they have to accept it and whatever they, their logical and rationale, whatever their conscience will allow them to believe in, they’ll accept it-that’s why they’ve so readily accepted Islam because it’s rational and It’s logical and Aboriginal people are very rational and logical and they know Christianity is hypocritical, we know it’s, we know it’s hypocritical. We know that they lie, we know that they steal, we know that they rape, we know that they murder, all in the name of democracy – they do it across the Muslim world, so we’re very, very used to imperialism but Islam is not imperialistic – it is a missionary religion – just like Christianity – but – we’re not conquerors – we’re not the invaders – we’re not the oppressors - we’re the oppressed and we accepted Islam readily – no one forced us to be Muslims – no Muslim scholar came over and said I’m going to make you Muslim, I’m going to steal your children you have to believe in God, and all this garbage. We accepted Islam because our conscience allowed us to accept it because it’s rational and logical, and we’ve come to the conclusion now that Islam is our only hope – we have a small window of opportunity – like I was telling brothers before when I visit prisons – they have a chance, one small chance – of redemption – one small chance of saviour – and if you’ve been saved you tell me you’re Christian I accept that – if you’re on drugs-you’re a drug dealer, or bashed you wife just like – I’m ashamed to say this, but this is the biggest killer of Aboriginal women, is Aboriginal men – and they were Christian, but when we’re Muslim it’s like one Christian priest told me the other day when you are Christian you are a slave but when you’re a Muslim you’re free. I didn’t make him say that, but he understood that when you’re a Christian you’re drunk, you’re on drugs, you’re in prison. When you’re Muslim you’ve redeemed you’re resurrected – you don’t have to follow it – or you don’t even have to accept it, but when you do it seems to me that in many cases they make the best Muslims. Because we accepted it not from a cult or a genetically or a family point of

119 view – we’ve accepted it because we know that it will save us. So basically my message is now that Islam is for the oppressed it’s for the Indigenous people and Christianity is for the oppressor, and Allah knows best.

4.3 Themes and issues arising from first interview of participants (1 st visit 02/01/06 – 27/01/06)

Issues concerning Indigenous Muslims specifically related to religious conversion a) the prison experience

• Receptiveness to Islam while incarcerated

• Influence by Lebanese inmates (Arab culturalist expression and radicalisation)

• The impression (public and govt) of militancy attached to criminality and Islam

• What or who is resisting Islamic chaplaincy in NSW prisons

• Influence by Rajab and other prison chaplains

• Prison politics and regulations regarding who acts as chaplain

• The role of AFIC in determining Muslim Chaplaincy (control, politics & theology)

• Underlying sociocultural issues explaining extent of Koori incarceration

• Degree of lower Koori recidivism and social rehabilitation due to accepting Islam

These influences and themes will be analysed further in the section following interview transcript 2

4.4 Interview Transcript 2 of 2 – Redfern Da’wah Project and other Islamic issues 51 Caroline Street, Redfern 19/01/06

The same respondents returned for this interview as for the previous one except for the addition of one more Indigenous Muslim towards the end. Although the majority of the views in this interview are articulated by one speaker, there was consensus among the other

120 participants. The speaker is considered a leader or Amir and is qualified to speak on the topic of Indigenous Muslims.

Question 17: Why is [Redfern] important or significant to what you want to achieve? What importance does Redfern have within the Australian and particularly the New South Wales Aboriginal community?

Reply: Well basically Redfern was used as a political base for so-called black militants in the sixties, where they launched their land rights and social justice struggles and because it’s strategically known in Aboriginal Australia, and this is our base because the majority of Aboriginal men, or Koori men that, that are Muslim, they, they ring here, they come here, the community know that this is a safe haven – and the kids come here. They eat before breakfast if they’ve had no breakfast – they come in, they can get on the internet or they can just talk where they feel, they feel they’re safe, and strategically everyone that gets out here, from prison, or comes here for the Aboriginal knockout 12 they take the message, whether it be, whether it be productive, or, or destructive, or negative or positive they take that message back to the Aboriginal communities, and we believe that through that Koori grapevine, people have already and will again take the message of Islam back to their community so, that’s why we think Redfern is strategically important.

Question 18: You said that they can also have the opportunity to take a negative message back to their community, what negative messages? Can you give us some examples of these negative messages?

Reply: Well, the negative things are basically the drug trade. The drug dealers and the drug trade have infiltrated the Koori grapevine just like we believe Islam will be a positive effect on the Aboriginal community – so basically, the drug network distribution that’s run from prison, and from here, these so called too black, too strong drug dealers, that sell poison to our kids, they use that same Koori network that I’m usin’ to go to Moree and Walgett, and to Boggabilla and Dubbo and using that same network to spread the venom of heroin into our black communities. So, to counteract that, we have the message of Islam, and, and we hope that people will

12 Aboriginal knockout refers to an Annual Football competition – see interview one 121 accept it just like they’ve accepted heroin and drugs, and, and alcohol and Christianity, that’s been destructive, and the physical proof that it’s destructive of all our men – our strong black warriors are dead – from heroin overdoses because black power never saved us from white powder because spiritual power transcends material, it has no colour – Islam is the spiritual truth to our redemption, and, and the proof that Christians are the worst drunks that there are; the worst paedophiles; and basically they sided and aligned themselves with Christian invaders, tells you that Christianity’s not for us. So that the venom of heroin will be spread, by these same network of these predators that are suckin’ the blood of our, of our community and sellin’ and allowin’ our women to sell their bodies, for heroin – they’re Christian, they openly say they’re Christian, as, as Muslims we condemn them. And we, we defy them.

Question 19: You mention something called the Koori grapevine, can you umm, just expand about…what exactly is this Koori grapevine?

Reply: Well, well what it is the network of commonalities where, say for instance, somebody comes – and they might not commonly, be known to us by sight, but soon as they mention our name or I mention my name my name is Davis, or someone’s name is Roberts, or someone’s name is Ballengary, or, or Suie, or, or Duncan, or Moran or whatever as soon as you mention a name that’s commonly known, automatically someone will know where you’re from, as that’s a Koori grapevine where we’re all related or we’re culturally linked, and that’s how the, the venom of heroin, and same as the venom of Christianity, were spread through our cultural kinship networks, and we believe Islam is a positive force can also be spread like that too.

Question 20: Why is Redfern so significant to that Koori grapevine? Why

Redfern in particular?

Reply: Because Redfern’s commonly known in Aboriginal Australia as the quintessence, or the, or the basic pre-requisite for all authentic Aboriginal struggles in the sixties – it’s like the Black Panthers, or the Nation of Islam the black Muslims are commonly known in America, Redfern is commonly known as the black rights struggle. And we, we link with the struggles of the past, but, the people that had the struggle in the sixties, are no longer, able

122 to resist the venom of heroin and, and imperialism and they’ve become from liberators to exploiters but Islam will uplift us and make us the generation of warriors of the of the future.

Question 21: Do you think one of the problems with Redfern in particular, is that because there’s so many people here from so many different tribes no- one has complete authority power? So therefore, with that lack of a definite authority figure, that negative things have been able to slip in through that?

Reply: Yeh, yeh that’s true, I believe that, umm, that dissention and negativity, and disunity, have uprooted our Aboriginal allegiances and solidarity and people can come in and - there’s no real power within Redfern, umm, and people with vested interests in controlling us and basically sellin’ us drugs, and because we have within, within our society now a very, very weak constitution and very weak morals and, and very weak disregard for elders – where Aboriginal men swear at our elders, we treat our children bad, and basically but, within all that, you know, drug abuse and alcohol abuse, and domestic violence, there’s still hope, there’s still dignity, there’s still pride but it’s just waiting to surface. And sure, people have used, with a vested interest to distort it, umm, we hope to counteract that in the Redfern community.

Question 22: Sheikh, do you see the Redfern community as symptomatic of a lot of other Koori communities in NSW and probably Australia as well?

Reply: I do, superficially, from the outsider’s point of view I live here in Redfern, I’m known in Redfern. A lot of people know me – some may not like me, umm, a lot do like me, but even the ones that don’t like me know that I’m here for the community. I’m not paid to do this – I’m full-time cook, umm, I take the kids to the gym, even the critics of the Muslim, can’t deny me my rightful place in Redfern, but symptomatic it is some, some in terms of scale that’s worse. The Northern Territory there’s petrol sniffin’, Boggabilla, Brewarrina there’s, there’s one I every three girls, have been molested by their uncles – and that’s a Christian concept, that’s a Christian culture – it’s not in Islam, umm, so Redfern is kinda like a small, a small, small scale of what Australia is but the venom that’s the heroin, and I’m not focussin’ on that - intentionally but, the thing is when I was a kid there was no heroin in Redfern or Boggabilla or Kempsey or nowhere, heroin is

123 comin’ through, through Aboriginal drug dealers, to make money, to exploit and – so their attributes now are, are greed and lust and violence and exploitation, when basically, when basically my message of Islam is unity and solidarity and brotherhood, and basically black defiance.

Question 23: What part does law and order or law enforcement have in the social equation that is Redfern? How are the police…what kind of emphasis do they have on law enforcement?

Reply: Well I can understand from the police point of view, they’re used as scapegoats. They’re young, fresh umm, inexperienced police and they’re placed in a hostile environment where Aboriginal people have always been seen as negative, and basically like animals, so they place the white police here in a hostile environment with low pay – their lack of knowledge of and understanding of Aboriginal people have been very, very ignorant and that’s like a powder keg and then what I’d say really annoys me is when these police do these raids, I see drug addicts going to prison but the main drug dealers – they’ve been given a green light. Let’s say I might be a little bit believing in conspiracy theories, they had a Royal Commission into police corruption, before that, the average common, so-called Australian wouldn’t believe that there was police corruption but Justice Wood, the Royal Commissioner said the police corruption goes all the way to the top, and the fact that these drug dealers deal drugs with impunity, I’d have to admit that, or have to accept, that, there are certain police that are on the drug take, that accepted money from drug dealers, I don’t know how they deal drugs with impunity and I don’t understand.

Question 24: You say impunity but I mean obviously umm, from an outsider’s perspective I would assume that drugs are dealt very covertly has this been your experience?

Reply: No, drug dealers deal openly in front of people, they, they tell me and this is what I’m told, that there are cameras everywhere in Redfern. I walk down there, I first started coming here you know, back in 2001 – 2002, I come to go down to the gym and I used to bring a lot of young Aboriginal boys with me, and girls to the gym, and drug would openly say what do you want to score and I’d say I’m a Muslim and don’t ask me again. I’d come back the next day the same people would say do you want to score I’d say

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I’m a Muslim and don’t ask me again. I watch them openly sell drugs, and the police are always here so, it’s not overtly, if it’s overtly then I must be unbelievable perceptive or intuitively – have intuitive perception to work out, if I’m the only one that can see these drug dealers, which I don’t believe well – I believe everyone can see ‘em because they do it in the open so, they’ve been given another Neddy Smith 13 , the green light to sell drugs. I believe they have a vested interest in, in sellin’ our community drugs to keep us down, to kill us, to buy us off, or, or pollute our morality, basically.

Question 25: Do you see any evidence of collusion with the Aboriginal drug dealers in Redfern with people of other ethnicities?

Reply : Oh definitely, I know for a fact in 2001 -2002 the Koori Muslim Association before we were even established a group of Koori Muslims had a BBQ on Invasion day that Australia calls Australia… we call it Invasion Day – we had a BBQ and we invited about 25 -30 Muslims. Very large, non-white lookin’ Muslims from different nationalities, and when we brought them here, my people knew straight away or thought they perceived straight away that they were drug dealers. When I asked my people why you thought Muslims were drug dealers and they said that because Muslims deal drugs to us they’re the major distributors of drugs in large quantities to the Aboriginal drug dealers so we know Muslims sell drugs. They might say that, oh we never heard of it but, look, there are drugs, and drug dealers and addicts in Lakemba and the fact that they have reached a stage of understanding with Islam, they’re Muslim basically and my people are not Muslim, but on a level my people are equally affected by drugs when Muslim, that means my people are better than the Muslims because if the Muslims have Islam they should be higher in status socially and economically and religiously and culturally than my people who don’t have Islam, that means the Muslims are backward. They’re categorically backward because, my people do not have Islam yet but when we do receive Islam you’d have to concede we’re goin’ to be better in social status and religiosity than the Muslims because we’re almost, or equally as bad as them, and they have Islam and we don’t, so when we receive Islam, God knows how good we’ll become.

13 Arthur Stanley “Neddy” Smith is a murderer serving a prison sentence in Long Bay Jail New South Wales 125

Question 26: The instance, or the general amount of Aboriginal people converting in jail - how prevalent is it?

Reply: Well from what I’m told from people that I visit, I visit umm, Koori men in prison that are Muslim, I’ve been in prison with them umm, a lot of ‘em ring me, weekly, some ring daily I receive letters from them I correspond with them, eighty per cent of Aboriginal people in prison now are Muslim. Eighty per cent of Koori’s are Muslim. That’s what they tell me and that I can’t deny because I know the majority of them that accepted Islam, and a brother told me today that just got out of prison – he said only very few Koori men now aren’t Muslim. I was the first Koori Muslim in prison, I was the first Koori Muslim I ever knew, and, and it’s not the fact that I predate all of them, the reason why, I know all of them that are Muslim is because I was a Muslim before them, and I brought, according to them, I brought them the Islamic message. Basically that’s what they say.

Question 27: Can you tell us a little more of how Islam evolved within the prison system? Reply: How it evolved?

Question: Yeh.

Reply: Well, well, just besides myself, that was in prison, that articulated a culture of Islam, theology of Islam, they come into contact with Lebanese – in prison. And it’s now like a gang, they’re like thugs, umm, I’m not say’in all of ‘em but basically some of ‘em have accepted Islam from, from a Lebanese non-practicing perception. So basically, if, Koori people are accepting Islam on, on the word or the Da’wah of, of Lebanese Muslims that do sell drugs, that are heroin addicts in prison – they don’t practice Islam then if the Muslims are weak, then my people are going to be weaker than the Muslims. So, but it’s my hope now to interact with all these brothers and sisters that are in the prison system, that I personally know, that I have credibility with them, and, and authenticity with them also I wouldn’t say over them, but with them and It’s my hope now to bring them to orthodox Islam not Salafi not Wahhabi none of all, none of that and the majority of them are acceptin’ a distorted version – I wouldn’t even say interpretation – a distorted version of Islam. But they’re, they’re the only Muslims that they come into contact with are in prison. It’s sad, but

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Hamdillillah it’s good also, because, God wills whatever he wills, we believe, so if they come into contact just like the Nation of Islam then orthodox Islam would never have produced the likes of Malcolm X and Dr. Mohammad Iqbal. So in this case, orthodox Islam would never have produced these men that will become I believe the greatest of creation. So God works like that and that’s my belief.

Question 28: From, a strategic, you could say political, perspective, how does Islam influence people in the prison system?

Reply: Politically, it made ‘em aware of their social rights, it made ‘em aware that, the socially destructive nature of their behaviour was wrong. Basically, it made ‘em aware that – socially disadvantaged people have been exploited with vested interests by other groups including Muslims. It made ‘em socially responsible and politically active and religiously active in the Muslim community so Islam basically awakened their subconscious and their conscious values of a system outside their own little gang, or their own little family, or their own little umm, understanding, so it made ‘em think on a on a universal picture, umm, and now they know that Islam is not just for the Arab.

Question 29: How did Islam affect you personally how you did your time?

Reply: Well – I had many offers – to be involved in, drug dealin’ - I never, I never was involved in it. I never sold drugs. I never used drugs in prison and anyone that, sees this, or knows me personally – no matter if they don’t like me or they do like me they can categorically say that no Rock never used drugs, he never smoked drugs, he never drank, he never did nothing while he was incarcerated and there was lots of evils and vices like sodomy, homosexual activity an’ and the fact that, I was Muslim and survived, and that all the dreamtime warriors bar five are dead. Only five that are alive are Muslim.

Question 30: Can you tell us about the dreamtime warriors?

Reply: Well – well, there was basically, a period of time when, when, when, whites in prison were becoming superior. They can kill us with impunity and get away with it…

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Question 30a: When was this?

Reply: This was in the seventies and eighties – we’re a group of Aboriginal men – tough, brave, umm, vigilant, and unbelievably credible with scruples and decided, to create a pay-back system. And basically over time, the pay-back system was distorted, through drugs, so basically the people that were affected in the prison system – their allegiances became aligned – with people that would do them harm like say, say for instance, if, a biker, a white man, a Leb whatever you raped an Aboriginal woman and you come into jail, people would getcha you wouldn’t get away from us. You would not escape. And then over time, the pay-back system was distorted by greed and lust and heroin and heroin sold us off. Or we sold ourselves to heroin basically, we sold our souls and our pay-back system, that these men that fought for us, before I even came to prison, when I came in, the system was gone, like it was almost just like a relic. So umm, we sat down and discussed to re-enact this pay-back system. And a group of men, decided to bring it on themselves, that, if you do anything to a Koori man in prison – doesn’t matter whether you liked him – I don’t care if he was a child molester a killer or a rapist I don’t give a we didn’t give a shit. But if you did something to one of us and we didn’t like you – sorry - if someone did something to us and we didn’t like that Koori person it didn’t matter we’d getcha. And that’s what stopped us from getting’ attacked in prison, and now that power, and that unity and that solidarity, we’ve basically reverted into Islam and outside here [Redfern] we need that power in the Aboriginal community now – not in the terms of violence an’ but to react against violence, to defend against violence and racism like, like the Cronulla riot. I’ve been tellin’ Muslims for five years that Australia was contradictory and hypocritical and racist and degenerate – but they wouldn’t believe me ‘til it happened to them, now they’re sayin’ oh yeah brother now we know you’re tellin’ the truth. Why, wasn’t my word good enough for you? It had to happen to them for them to understand that my oppressor is your oppressor so we have a common enemy.

Question 31: Can you tell us a bit, like the affect of the pay-back system in prison? Like how did the power actually, like a step-by-step description to the outside uninitiated person?

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Reply: Well basically, for example, someone came in they raped a Koori woman. They were dangerous. They were what they call hard-core – they were killers. So, no one did nothin’ to ‘em. So basically, we knew that, that was the end of it, if nothing happened it makes them violent but what it is, is, it stops violence because in prison, if somebody had the intention of attacking one of our young men, in say Cessnock, or Maitland, where gangs of white rednecks, of Klu Klux Klan, of all these so-called, kings, of the prison system - if they had the intention to harm one of us, they knew, categorically that soon as they got to another prison like Goulburn or Lithgow, that was the end of ‘em. That stopped a lot of violence, the fact that we unified under one banner and that banner’s been destroyed – we can unite that banner again.

Question 32: Could you briefly explain how the Redfern Aboriginal Da’wah Project is important for inmates coming out of jail?

Reply: Well we have a centre now at 51 Caroline Street Redfern it’s a two bedroom unit and two brothers that come from prison now, they came to me and, I spent many years as many would probably know that knows me, I got out with no social skills no job no qualifications nothing I was never rehabilitated in prison Islam is a rehabilitative process, so when they come here, I’ve given them accommodation, they have a shower, they can go to the gym, I’ve got ‘em employment, just little things with no assistance from any Muslims, or any government department, just through our own earnings, umm, we tried to provide food when young people come here, even though they’re not Muslim, even though they’re not Aboriginal they come here, they can eat, somewhere of like a safe haven, if someone wants to come they get out of prison, initially for that first six months I visit ‘em contact ‘em send ‘em literature, umm, keep in contact tell ‘em about our programme and basically they know me they know who I am, ahh, I’m not just introducing myself in the prison system I’m, I’m commonly known and, even by the guards and by the white inmates they commonly know who I am and, and I’ve got credibility so when they come here they know they got somewhere to come, to shower, to eat, to sleep, to get employment, and if they wanna, do their thing, whatever do their thing but at least they know there’s an alternative to the drug, and alcohol lifestyle. It’s, it’s, it’s destructive, but at least they know there’s something for them

129 that’s positive and powerful and, and constructive that they can have here in the community. So it’s not just, that, we’re, we’re basically, ahh, we believe Islam, Islam is a missionary religion, but in terms of social justice it’s more than that for us. It’s just a place for these men to come and to know, you know that it’s an alternative to the lifestyle that they’re already livin’. And they, they express to me now that when I visit ‘em, they said they’re very happy now that there is a centre but we want our own mosque. We want our own bigger centre where people can sleep, and pray, and eat, and train, so hopefully something like umm, Murawina preschool, the old settlement there we could set up a prayer hall, a gym, a maybe ten bed hostel with a shared shower, kitchen, and sleeping headquarters, something like that but, this here’s [Caroline St] expensive, and umm, we’d like to think that the Muslims have a vested, have a vested interest in helpin’ propagate Islam because there’s eight rules, for givin’ charity. And one of the rules or one’s that do Da’wah, and another rule is the one’s that assist people in comin’ to Islam, and to defend the oppressed. I don’t know what the Muslims are thinkin’ the rules are, but there’s eight rules for financial assistance for Da’wah. One of ‘em’s for a traveler, one of ‘em’s for the main umm, basically financial assistance for someone who’s doin’ Da’wah, so it’s my belief, God willing the Muslim would, would, or should assist us in Da’wah because it’ll help the Muslims spread deep spiritual roots within Australia with allegiances between Indigenous people, and, the, the so-called foreigner, but we don’t consider them foreigners.

Question 33: How much help have you had so far with say, financial help from the Islamic associations to expand your organisation?

Reply: None at all – not a cent umm, they know the programme. People like AFIC, umm, I approached the Islamic Council of New South Wales and the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils umm, they said they, their lookin’ into it I approached the Lebanese Muslim Association and they gave us a box of books. My people don’t want to be told about Islam from a book, they want to be shown about Islam. So I approached the Lebanese Muslim Association they said Hamdilillah praise be to you may, may God praise you, look after you in your glorious work and they gave me a box of books. I said Hamdilillah that’s great, but what could I do with a box of books that for people that are not Muslim? We need financial assistance, and, and, it’s in

130 your Islamic principles to assist the people that do this work, if you can’t do it, humble yourself enough to assist the one’s that can. So, not a cent yet.

Question 34: And what about from Koori organisations or even the state parliament representatives. Have any of those people shown any interest to date?

Reply: Umm, probably for the fact that I haven’t approached them. Umm, I think if I was, say a Catholic priest or an Anglican priest or some other type of priest or whatever I think they’d give me assistance but I couldn’t, you know, discount them too quickly, maybe the Koori organisations would do it because, we’re doin’ it predominately for Koori’s but I haven’t approached the government yet at all I, I don’t think they’d give me any money anyway – I’m not being pessimistic but, they’re hostile to Islam. They openly say that they’re not - they openly say it’s not a war on Islam – but we as Aboriginal people have felt the brunt, of, of their white hypocrisy, and we are very, very perceptive, and very umm, very used to imperialism, so, we’re not really intending to approach the government about it know they say in prison there’s recidivism, but according to prison officials that I’ve spoken to, the largest and the best recidivists are the Aboriginal men that become Muslim – that’s from their own words – so why would they not assist me? I can only believe that they’re not interested in, recidivism. They’re not interested in stoppin’ Aboriginal people from, or anyone from becomin’ prison, but a, but a governor from Ivanhoe prison told me that, she told me that she wanted Aboriginal men, to stop getting’ dirty urines from marijuana – I said well let me tell them about Islam. Because the prison chaplain Waris Sharif, he has a non-conversion policy so if a Koori man – a prisoner comes up and says tell me about Islam, he’s not allowed to but if a Catholic priest or a Buddhist, or a, or a Jewish priest, they can propagate their religion to ‘em. But she told me the men I’ve been in contact with, umm, that come into contact with Islam they all had clean urines. And she said she can’t understand why people are hostile to Muslims because she watched their gradual change – she was trying to get ‘em on a bush gang, so that they could go out and work and earn money for the prison, but because they had marijuana in their [someone knocks on front door and answer is terminated] Question 35: What are the goals and aspirations of the organisation within Redfern?

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Reply: Well the Koori Muslim Association now – we’ve established a base of Islamic principles and Islamic goals and people know we’re Muslim. So basically we’re a small [organisation] here in the centre but something like Murawina pre-school, or something like that – I wouldn’t be, you know, fixated on that particular centre itself but something like that where we can have a multifunctional, place where one, one place could be a hall. We want to purchase gym equipment so that umm, myself and some other very dedicated members of the community could, could teach kick boxin’ and boxin’ for the youth umm, a gym and basically, set one of the levels up as a ten or fifteen, ahh room, hall for brothers that get out of prison, that are interested in the programme - that are interested in liberating our people through Islam – umm, culturally, they can have their own room, umm, shower, kitchen, we want to set it up as a full-time soup kitchen for the poor, umm, and basically give re-empowerment to our community, umm, through the only way, or the only, only understanding that we have will, that will have and be successful in the future and that’s through Islam – nothing else has been successful in our community, everything including ATSIC 14 has failed.

Question 36: In terms of the strategic position of The Block how do you perceive this project development in relation to any prospective redevelopment of The Block?

Reply: Well I think the re-development of The Block’s goin’ ahead slowly but – whatever will always be here now, and we need to remain here now because everyone expects us to be here and a lady said to me the other day, you know I’d like my son to come down, and I’d like my daughter to come down, so in terms of strategic placements we could never go now because they’d be disillusioned and basically once you’ve been pushed so far, and this is your greatest hope and we’ve failed, then, that’s our responsibility because we are not just responsible for our individual selves or our family, we’re responsible for a whole generation now, so Redfern is strategically important for us because number one, it’s commonly known as Aboriginal, even though there is a lot of Aboriginals at Mt Druitt, and now the Koori Muslim Association is, is linked to Redfern. In prison, in Moree, in

14 ATSIC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission disbanded in 2005 132

North Coast, in everywhere you can imagine everyone knows that we exist, and they’ll verge on hear soon – and we need to set up a bigger and better structure for them to come here so that, it’s like, we understand that if everyone had the same coloured car same make you don’t have a choice, just the same as this promiscuous, this drug affected and alcohol affected culture, violent culture, if we have no alternative then the kids have nothing to choose so we have every family that’s affected by drugs and alcohol if we have not one sober family, our children can’t say, well I know such and such who, who is sober. So the only people that are now sober are Muslims. Not Arab, not African, not Lebanese – us, so we, we know the responsibilities that we have in the community now in the broader sense too. And we accept that – we accept that challenge and we hope, we hope we can live up to that. We hope we can live up to everything we already are.

Question 37: And if you had the financial means and the infrastructure, would you perceive that this organisation could expand interstate?

Reply: Well, basically in terms of dialogue, what I perceive, and I categorically say this that Christians are theologically retarded and spiritually dead but they have material culture that I can’t match but the Muslims, they can match. The fact that they’ve got money and don’t spread Islam, it’s not a financial thing for ‘em, it’s an intention and a cultural issue. They can’t spread Islam because they don’t understand the complexities of Aboriginal people. Prophet Mohammad PBUH 15 he said when you go to a tribe learn their language I ask the Muslims do you know my language? Do you even know who I am? Do you even care? The first thing you learn about a human being is, who they are so that you can give them the message of Islam. The Muslims never cared who we were, they lived off the fruits of colonialism. They sided with the enemy. It’s like me going to Palestine and siding with the Jew over the Palestinian. What I wanted to tell the Muslims is, your enemy in Palestine is my enemy, but when you come to Australia, you don’t perceive that my enemy is your enemy – actually my enemy is your friend. And that’s why we don’t want to be Muslims like you. We want to be Muslims like Islam says. That’s why it’s better we never accepted Islam from the Muslims – we accepted it purely

15 PBUH Peace Be Upon Him 133 from Islam, and because the most oppressed are the most receptive, we accepted that, but the people practicing Islam weren’t, liberators – they were actually aligned with the exploiters, so, now in terms of financial, we believe that a bigger centre, and the fact that we’ve got Kamilaroi people, Wiradjuri people, Dunghetti , Kumbaingiri, Anaiwan – members of our organisation – the simple fact that it takes training and knowledge, and all these men are learning to come here and study and in a year or two they can go back to their community, we can finance them and open their own centre just like Redfern – it’s just a matter of logistics – it’s a matter of money, it’s not a matter of theology or understanding Islam, or intention or ability we’re just limit- we’re financially retarded. We’re financially limited, but the Muslims have unbelievable finance, but the build five million dollar Masjids 16 . But they can’t assist us in Da’wah. So if you come to a non- Muslim country and you don’t intend to propagate and defend Islam you can’t stay here. That’s an Islamic principle – I never made that up – Allah made that up and I accept that because it’s logical and rational and my conscience will only allow me to accept what’s logical and rational. I want the Muslims to uphold their legal, their actual Islamic legal duty, just their minimum of validating the truth and fighting the oppressor. If you see a tyrant you use your hand to change it. If you can’t use your hand you use your voice meaning you speak out against the tyrant for the oppressed. If you can’t use your voice, despise it in your heart, but Muslims don’t despise the oppressor, because they align themselves with the oppressor. Why would Indigenous people that are oppressed, see Islam for what it truly is when the Muslims are not practicin’ properly. It doesn’t matter if you fast and pray, the Arab, they held Spain for eight hundred years - they had the most powerful army the world had ever known – they destroyed the Byzantinian Empire – they destroyed all the empires – the Roman Empire, but, they held Spain for eight hundred years and not one pork eatin’, wine drinkin’ Spanish man or woman says La iIaha illa Allah wa-Muhammad rasul Allah there is no God but Allah and Mohammad is the Messenger, so what did the Arab do? They’re did what they’re doin’ here, nothing. They can’t perceive Islam like I perceive Islam. And I’m not smart, I’m not a learned man. I’m ignorant, but if I’m ignorant then some people must be less [sic] than ignorant.

16 Masjid Islamic term for mosque or prayer room. 134

Question 38: You’re alluding to perhaps to the difference between Islam and Muslims can you just briefly expand on that?

Reply: Well there’s a big disparity between Islam and Muslims, and my people for lots of reasons they’re unbelievably intuitively perceptive - they have intuitive insight. So in Islam they have knowledge that only the heart sees. And through oppression and colonization and dispossession and, and genocide, we’ve become unbelievably resilient and receptive-and perceptive. Now we know that Muslims are not Islam, but the thing that took me so long to become a practicin’ Muslim is the fact that I could not see Muslims for what they truly were. And if they’re the best or they’re the representatives of Islam, and they’ve failed, then according to logic then Islam failed. But Islam is perfect and pure and the Qur’an remained intact for all mankind. Allah perfected it. Not one dot according to Christian scholars and Christian theologians has been changed of the Qur’an. So the Muslims have no excuse for not givin’ the spiritual medicine of Islam. And we believe that if you go to the doctor and you receive a script and you get medicine [sic] and you take that to the chemist, and you get the medicine then that medicine should cure you but if you’ve got the wrong medicine, or you’ve taken too much then you become ill. Well e believe that Allah is the doctor, the script is the Qur’an, and the medicine is Islam, and the Muslims are not givin’ us the medicine, so we have to administer the medicine because the Muslims have become sick also. So the ones that are sick can never give the medicine. So the ones that have the medicine are the best givers or administrators of the medicine and the fact that Koori people have whole-heartedly accepted Islam – they embarrass the Muslims. They actually literally embarrass the Muslims. There are brothers in prison now – Koori Muslims – that refuse to eat meat that’s not halal . Then Lebanese, tell them that’s halal because they said Bismallah – they made halal what Allah made haram. And I tell them you can eat that meat, but don’t tell people that’s halal and don’t distort my people because they don’t want to eat meat that’s not halal. So the worst of the creation have become the best. Allah created us the worst, but for Sahabah , may Allah reward them, they were the worst drunkards – they buried their female children into the dirt, now, they became Islam’s holiest warriors, the greatest scholars of Islam come from them, and they were taught by a woman. But the fact that my people

135 are the worst of creation- you have to be the worst to become the best. So the first must become the last, because Prophet Mohammed PBUH he said, that he didn’t know which was better, the first shower of the Muslims, or the last. And I ask the Muslims are they a shower, because an individual man is not a shower, a tribe is a shower ‘cause a shower means more than one, more than a thousand, more than a hundred thousand and the fact that my people now are a shower, we believe we’re the last, of the great, basically re-emergence of Muslims in the world now, everyone has had Islam except us. And, it’s our opportunity to ahh, except Islam now.

Question 39: Since the inception of the Koori Muslim Association, have you been offered any other avenues to help our people?

Reply: In terms of what avenues?

Question 39a: Ahhm, materialistic goods that’ve been out of range or, anything else that you’ve been offered?

Reply: Yes ahhm, I’ve been offered by certain very pious Muslims Hamdilillah and I thank Allah for them that in terms of say one Aboriginal girl in Redfern she needed some material and some Muslims donated to me but I had to make her wait for weeks and weeks and weeks while I got a truck, because number one, Aboriginal people want us to take Islam we don’t even have a vehicle so, we understand we’re spiritual people as Muslims but, we live in a material culture so to go to Moree and Boggabilla and North Coast and Goulburn prison and Lithgow prison we need a vehicle so that’s why we’re financially, umm, basically, held back, but some Muslims, and Hamdilillah for them they’ve offered us, some material assistance but what we really need is a vehicle, a bus, ahh, meat, so we can engage in Islamic charity work like in the guise of a soup kitchen so that we can actually present Islam not from an Islamic terminology point because non-Muslims can’t understand Islamic terminology they can understand cultural Islam but what it is, it’s not theological it’s – in terms of Zakat – charity is a Muslim’s fundamental so in terms of givin’ food out like on the 26 th January, Australia calls that Australia Day, we call that Invasion Day – we have a free BBQ, the Koori Muslim Association have a free BBQ for the people at Redfern so they can experience Islam instead of being told about Islam, we’re showin’ them about Islam. And the fact that they see

136 us prayin’, they know it’s Islamic. The fact that we give food, that’s Islamic. So we don’t have to tell ‘em one thing about Islam, we show them Islam, so it’s the Muslims’ opportunity now to assist us. And it doesn’t matter if one single person doesn’t know you assist us you and Allah know. So, it’s like out of humility and love for Allah we ask you for assistance basically. We ask the Muslims in general for assistance, but not only that you’ll assist yourself, by, by helpin’ us assist the non-Muslims to bringin’ them to Islam, and this is the basic fundamental principle of Islam is Da’wah , and I don’t mean goin’ from mosque to mosque, I mean goin’ into the heartland of a, of a hostile country to Muslims but they’re not hostile to us. They’re hostile to Muslims they tell me they don’t like Muslims, for good reason, but they like Koori Muslims because we’re them and they’re us. We’re basically, we’re basically like pioneers. I wouldn’t say pioneers like in the terms of land stealin’ mass murderers, but I’d say what we consider ourselves is farmers but not land-not white land, like exploitive land stealin’ farmers, but we consider ourselves revolutionary Islamic farmers, where we plant the seed of Islam, the idea of Islam in someone’s head by our principles and our conduct, we plant that seed but we don’t just leave that seed to whither and die we water that seed. Now how we water that seed is we take people food, we pray, we look after their children and we do the things that people can’t do. See, kids say to me, uncle can I stay at your house, a couple of years ago – I said, I knew I wasn’t their uncle, genetically, but culturally I was their uncle and I said you know, I was thinkin’ to myself and I said to brothers, like Adam and other good brothers, I said if I didn’t have, If I didn’t you know, if I used drugs and drunk, where would these kids go? And I said I don’t have a place so I set up a centre for these young kids that want to come as a safe haven. And, the fact that, no-one can perceive this it seems like I’m unusually smart, which I’m not, or everyone’s ignorant. Or if they’re not ignorant they don’t care then, I don’t know what the reason is, but the fact that their children are cryin’ out for us to help ‘em – that means we’re accepted and authentic and we’re credible in the community of hostility against Muslims. We’re loved by the, by the non-Muslims.

Question 40: So a soup kitchen and a vehicle will allow us to spread our message – whilst we’re out in the public rather than just talking we give assistance and in that assistance they can see that we are there to help, and with a vehicle we can go to more places and various other prisons, and

137 do you think that’ll get our message out quicker, or no so much quicker but more evenly spread so those that aren’t Muslim, come to the soup kitchen, learn, or even just being there knowing that there’s a Koori Muslim Association has provided that gives a positive influence to take back, to their homes, to their people?

Reply: Yes the fact that we have a presence, umm, in the community for example, Lyle Munro senior – very well known leader and elder and activist has personally asked us to come to Moree and Boggabilla and Walgett and Mungindi, and through long consultations with the elders of the community, they knew at the knock-out, that our group were Muslim, they knew we weren’t Christian, they knew we weren’t Buddhist, they knew we weren’t atheist, the fact that they knew we didn’t drink, we didn’t take drugs and we’re opposed to the things that are affected by them in the community, they tell me, that policemen are havin’ children - police males are havin’ sex with twelve year old Aboriginal girls in Boggabilla and havin’ children with them – they are fed up with, with Christianity. They’re fed up with capitalism, they’re fed up with atheism and communism, and they’re fed up with westernism, and now, the most oppressed are being pushed so much that they’ve accepted Islam but I don’t have the vehicle or the means, or I have the intentions to go to these communities but, If I had a magic wand if I had a bus I’d be in it tomorrow and I’d be in Moree. And the fact that, that community is basically on their knees beggin’ they’re not beggin’ some blonde-headed blue eyed white God called Jesus, they’re beggin’ the Muslims to come to their community. I didn’t force them – they watched us at the knock-out we interacted with the community, Lyle Munro senior spoke to me at the grand final and he said that would you like to come to Moree to tell us about Islam, because he knew that we had Muslim descendants, and it’s in his living memory, that, he a sub-conscious of Islamic understandings. But the fact that we’re cultural Muslims and we’re theological Muslims and we’re practical Muslims and we’re sub-conscious Muslims and we’re everything about Muslim, the fact that the Moree community and Boggabilla, Walgett and Mungindi are really beggin’ literally for us to come – now the Muslims say, well what can we do? What you can do is give us a bus and help us go to Moree and help us spread Allah’s deen . And we ask you out of humility, and love for Allah and compassion for Prophet Mohammad PBUH to assist us, and, and we believe that you’ll

138 be assisting yourselves. That’s what our main goal is to propagate and defend Islam, and the fact that my people are 60 per cent Christian, the one’s that I met don’t like Christianity, and the fact that they – when I tell them about Islamic, Islamic law, and Islamic principles, they are so receptive to it. It’s just that no-one’s ever approached ‘em. They’ve had Muslims culturally, [yelling outside] in prison and in other communities – that’s been very negative but in terms of dialogue they’re very receptive to an Islamic principle and an Islamic way of life. And, and the fact that I can’t deny these people, the fact if they told me they didn’t want to be Muslim I’d still be their brother. But the fact that they want Islam, as a culture, not the majesty that was Islam, the majesty that is Islam they want it as a living breathing culture they want to be practicin’ Muslims – the Muslims have an opportunity to assist me, and even come along – give us spiritual and moral support and material support and financial support - this is the re- emergence of Islam in the world. And that’s basically our main, our main concept is charity work, social work but all in an Islamic guise we’re fully Islamic, umm, and without Islam we’d be corrupt like everybody else, it’s only Islam that has kept us this strong for this long.

4.5 Themes and issues arising from interview 2

Islamic propagation within the Redfern community and in other Indigenous communities in NSW b) Koori reversion other than from within the criminal justice system

Redfern Aboriginal Dawah Project

• Koori alignment with Islam seen as complimentary (Malcolm X example)

• Liberation politics – the ‘right path’ of Islam (no drugs etc.)

• Example by demonstration of practice – visible benefits to all

• The Block as the Koori grapevine – central hub of information network to other communities

• Reclaiming the block from drug dealers and returning it to the community via Islam

• Re-establishing the block as a strong viable Koori community and halt the social decay

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• Addressing the ‘policing’ of the block in terms of arresting dealers rather than users (police corruption?)

• The importance of a Redfern-based drop-in centre/halfway house for Aboriginal

• Muslims on parole and drug-affected community members etc.

• Assessing the role of the Aboriginal Housing Company

• Assessing the role of welfare agencies in how drug administration policies are regulated

• Addressing the ethnic and cultural sensitivities associated with Redfern Koori’s (overcoming suspicion within the community of ‘helping agendas’ • Islam as the core spiritual opportunity for authentic Koori resurgence and empowerment

• Material and financial obstacles (gaining sponsorship funding, physical infrastructure etc.)

• The issue of Muslim organisations and lack of funding

• The availability of the abandoned former pre-school on the block

• The ‘message’ of the Dawah Project

• Christianity and capitalism corrupting influences on Indigenous people

4.6 Thematic analysis

The reparative nature of Islamic practice

The interview participants considered Islam is a liberating force for the most oppressed and claim historical and contemporary forces of control and power will be replaced by a liberating Islam demonstrated by example and by Koori’s themselves. ‘Liberating force’ could be understood as restoring or healing individuals and communities. There are deep underlying social issues influencing the need for this speaker to associate

‘his people’ with a liberating force which is Islam. W.D. Fard (Muhammad) in July 1930 in Detroit began his mission to empower African Americans, telling people he was an Arab from Mecca sent by God to redeem his chosen people (C. Eric Lincoln cited in Karim, 2005). Indigenous

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Australians have resisted the imperial expansion of European invaders, and the message of Rajab is a liberating discourse expounded in a similar fashion to W.D. Fard. W.D. Muhammad remarked about his father’s teacher: “He came in the heart of the African American ghetto, peddling fabric, and he would tell African Americans ‘You were not always what you are now. You came from the Muslim land. Your people were Muslim.’” The similarity to Fard’s message is apparent Rajab’s claim of returning his community back to the people from the drug dealers through the message of Islam.

The religious conversion aspect of an Indigenous alliance with Islam reaches beyond an individual seeking religious change, and expands into a collective recognition that Islam would be beneficial to many Indigenous people. Individuality in the Western sense is inconceivable within Islam.

This is because an absolutely transcendental God leave no room at all for the individual. The individual acquires from God whatever appearance of individuality she might have, but has no autonomy, in sharp contrast to the

Western notion. The entire edifice of individual rights derived from the natural state of the individual through a secular or ethical or political theory is alien to the structure of Islamic reasoning. The individual has a reality, but this is contingent upon a greater reality. Moreover, the backlash expressed through the increasing religiosity of Muslim societies and the rise of political Islam is reflected in the experiences of some Indigenous

Australian Muslims. This perception is no doubt influenced by the pain and suffering acknowledged within many Indigenous communities, the underlying issues of which have contributed in a broad sense to the decay of Islamic and Indigenous civilisations. The division of Indigenous societies into Western-defined political compartments is similar to the division of the

Muslim world into nation-states, republics and monarchies, democracies

141 and autocracies. Just as it is too late to consider Islam regrouping as a single empire or super-state inspired by religion it is unrealistic to entertain an Indigenous state within the Australian nation. To some, both Islam and

Indigenous societies have lost their way, yet the message inherent in the participants’ comments is that a re-empowered Islam sits very comfortably with re-empowered Indigenous societies.

Siding with the oppressor along with their unwelcome social attributes detracts from establishing relationships with Indigenous people, even when the oppressors are other Muslims. There is a resistance to accepting any theology or doctrine which has aligned, or is aligning with the forces of oppression. The forces of oppression are the structural remnants of colonisation and dominant forms of political control in contemporary

Australian society. In effect, Australian society has lost its soul and the corrupting effects of alcohol and drugs are involving other Muslims in criminal activity. [Some Lebanese Muslims are seen as aligning with the oppressor] In Indigenous memory this is as an anti-colonial critique in the broadest sense, and these feelings have been internalized over generations and manifest as collective cultural trauma. The example employed by Rajab is that of invading another country and disregarding the established social norms of that country. This indicates recognition of wider global forces and indicates the sensitivity felt by Indigenous Australians regarding unequal relations of power.

Islam is posed as an ideal for Indigenous Australians yet it is offset in the knowledge that Islam is also corrupting Redfern via the Lebanese drug dealers and pushers. The oppressors (Muslims) are a bad example both in historical terms and in the present – a history of Islamic oppression due to corrupted versions of Islam. The other Muslims are identified as

Lebanese drug dealers and the Aborigines of Redfern identify them with

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Islam. It is not claimed that all the drug-sellers in the Redfern area are

Lebanese Muslims; in fact some are Aborigines as we discovered later in the interview. Yet the link between Lebanese prison inmates, and

Lebanese contact with Redfern residents is established. The main insights to emerge at this point are an Indigenous empathetic understanding of how power relations condition the Indigenous Muslim relationship to Islam in terms of its potential to liberate. On the other hand, the deleterious aspects of drugs within the Redfern Indigenous community are associated with an inferior form of Islam inherent in the actions of Lebanese drug-dealers.

Effectively, these Muslims have lost their way and the true essence of

Islam, and the individual responsibility for dedicating one’s life to the foundation of the religion is lacking. Only living in harmony within the community, mutual respect and modesty, staying in touch with one’s environment and actively seeking knowledge that will lead to a closer relationship with God will raise Islam to the status it once was.

Rajab’s experience in jail has formed his opinion that some

Lebanese preach corrupted and/or ill-informed version of Islamic principles.

Rajab thinks the Lebanese are ‘runners’ but they are running from the same oppressor as the Aborigines are. The Lebanese also seem to Rajab as having developed an attitude largely free of an Islamic guiding framework partly due to being in secular Australian society. This can be understood as these Muslims having missed the most important ingredient of the spiritual dimension of Islam ( tasawwuf ). However, the resultant behaviour is seen as exploitative and un-Islamic, and demonstrates Rajab’s animosity towards these Lebanese. This attitude is also reflected in the

Redfern Indigenous community who recognised the drug-dealers as

Muslims. This ethno-religious tension is also recognised from a Lebanese perspective. Bilal, a Lebanese bookshop proprietor in Lakemba formed the

143 impression that Rajab and some other Indigenous Muslims did not blend all that well into the Lebanese community of Lakemba. The reason given was that some Indigenous Muslims “were out to get all they could” from the

Lebanese community without contributing anything back. The relationship between Lebanese Muslims and Indigenous Muslims therefore appears to maintain a tension based on Islamic principles of mutual obligation to community. The lesser complaint raised by Bilal was that of a certain ignorance of Islamic protocol when communicating with other Muslims. Yet the tension also demonstrates how the power of Islam can unite the

Aborigines of Redfern to resist what they perceive as being bad for their community (“They (the Lebanese) say that I’m a reactionary Muslim – I say that you’re not even a Muslim”).

Cultural colonisation and identity

This theme is based on the question: Does Islam colonise

Indigenous culture, and if so, to what extent is indigenous culture lost to

Islam?

It is claimed by many of the indigenous Muslim participants that

Aborigines were always Muslim and that Islam is re-emerging as a belief and practice. There is a revolutionary aspect or dimension about this new emergence and it is part of the essence of being Aboriginal. “You can be drunk and you can be on drugs or you can be killing your wife or in prison – and you can be an exploiter, or you can join Islam and become a liberator” .

The long-term connection with Islam is also reinvested with a revolutionary framework. This indicates willingness and a desire to invest in Islam because it has no exploitative history. Rather it has a re-generational aspect both in its long association with indigenous Australians and for religio-cultural renewal.

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The Gamilaroi people of Moree are the single biggest genetic group of Islamic descendents. How this ‘recognition’ came about is of interest and is worthy of further investigation. One possibility is that Moree was associated with the Freedom Ride of the sixties as part of the Aboriginal resistance struggle. Another is found in the comment at question and reply number 9. “[W]hen the Christian missionaries came to steal their children the Muslims defended them and not only did they defend ‘em Moree people can bear witness that their graves are in the cemeteries - they died defending people for the sake of God”.

This response seems to implicate a more distinct lineage to ‘original black Muslims’ despite the Islamic belief all people are born Muslim. The response also indicates genetic and religious dimensions. There is also a recognised similarity in the transcendental nature of Islam and Aboriginal creation. Clearly this framework is more easily accepted than an imposed

Christian religiousity, at least for the Indigenous Muslims. Again, the claim that many ‘weak’ Muslims have come to Australia requires a need to re- invigorate sound Islamic teaching in this country.

The respondent claims a politicised and sectionalized Islam in recent times, with gained cultural influences is present in Australia. (In fact this could apply to many countries). Islam is not new to Aboriginal people.

The importance of an Islamic resurgence to elevate people from the mundane things in life is apparent in this speaker. This is punctuated by a form of Islamic practice and belief recognised by pious Muslims as an

‘authentic Islam’ – a form with resurgent and empowering properties, and quite different from the stereotyped conservative forms of Islam such as

Wahhabism .

The Indigenous Muslims promote an anti-alcohol and anti-drug message which is directly related to what is happening at Redfern. Islam is

145 the message, and Indigenous Muslims are driving the improvement of their own future attaching to an Islamic framework. This is indeed reaching out through the Koori grapevine into regional areas and is readily accepted.

The networking ability of Indigenous Australians is congruent with Islamic

Dah’wah. On the other hand, Christianity’s link to colonialism and imperialism by reference to it being spiritually dead, is rejected.

Non-Indigenous Muslims are thought of as not helping the

Aboriginal Muslims enough because they have lost their Islamic way. This indicates a sound knowledge of Islamic values which embrace community- building and communitarian values. Yet it should not be surprising

Indigenous people find a comfortable alliance with Islamic values. They are quite similar to an Indigenous outlook in that, community-kinship and sharing among relatives are the social glue holding many Indigenous communities together.

The issues of the vices of modern secular western democracies are contrasted with the sober and conservative aspects of Islamic practice. In this case the speaker alludes to problems in society that Islam prohibits.

Yet this raises an interesting issue. The more oppressed a group is, the more they are likely to accept a guiding framework with firm social boundaries. On the other hand, the more a group in society experiences freedoms associated with the west, the less they feel the need to embrace old or traditional forms of social organisation. For example, new secular social movements are replacing traditional religious frameworks, while

Islamic orthodoxy is experiencing resurgence in some Muslim-majority countries. These are both national and global tensions, mutually reinforcing, and inseparable from the process of cultural and religious globalisation.

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Islam is seen as a ‘cure-all’ for the problems experienced by

Indigenous Australians while ‘Christianity’ is blamed for those ills.

Christianity ‘stole’ the children, while Islam literally defended Indigenous people against the wrongs associated with Christianity. This claim may appear as a relatively un-nuanced position to take yet understandable given the individual and collective conscious histories of Indigenous

Australians. Nevertheless, Rajab does not attribute all Indigenous problems to the conventional underlying social issues. “I’m not saying society propelled me and basically it’s not just a matter of generation after generation of genocide cultural destruction, racism, lack of employment, hostility to Indigenous people, exclusion from the mainstream population, no jobs no education and basically no future ”. This is perhaps because

Islam is immediately available as an antidote, thus mediating the pain of alienation and disadvantage in tangible ways. Islam defends the oppressed and at the lowest point of Rajab’s prison career in solitary confinement (“I was like the lowest form of animal I was locked in a cell – they didn’t give me a toilet they never fed me I was like an animal ”), he seized the chance to gain knowledge of Islam by reading Malcolm X and Ahmed Deedat.

This example of ‘crisis-driven’ acceptance that life-changes are indeed required for psychological survival in the harsh isolating conditions of prison is sometimes the trigger for beginning the religious conversion process. In fact, many people search for deeper meaning during or after a personal crisis.

Militancy is an attribute of Moree Aborigines according to Rajab.

This is possibly directly related to first-hand experiences of oppression, exclusion, and poverty suffered on their country. The double experience of historical Islamic recognition and hostility to the symbolic forces representing their oppression is manifested in strong and sustained

147 militancy and activism. The living memory of Islam coupled with oppression-related resistance and militancy is potentially a sound basis for a successful Islamic transition.

The social formation of the Koori Muslim Association is such that the patriarchal nature of the group emerges. The important issue of identity is raised in that the combination of Indigenous and Islamic does not fit the general stereotype of either group. Yet the stereotype is seen as negative because of the Islamic association and it places a huge burden on the

Indigenous Muslims to counter the negativity surrounding Indigenous behaviour. This is a very responsible outlook considering the bad publicity attached to Redfern Aborigines. To uphold an Islamic ideal as an example to Block residents and other Aborigines demonstrates the empowering social potential of Islam in this context. This form of Islamic practice is qualitatively different to media images and political portrayals of indigenous community life. The anti-Christian crusade continues however, and is used as a motivating force to overturn and expunge the perceptions and effects attributed to Christianity and its associated imperial and colonial trappings.

Rajab is in theological disagreement regarding Christians being people of the book and it touches on an established disagreement between

Muslims and Christians. This is an argument best left alone in the context of this study but the comment that “ Aboriginal people have more in common with Islam than Christianity because Christianity says that a man is God ” is notable. From the perspective of the respondent, an Islamic theology is removed from the ‘man-God’ argument. The response to the question does however, demonstrate a theological and socio-political tension between Islam and Christianity in the context of Indigenous alignment. It is perhaps no coincidence that the work of Ahmed Deedat

(2002) critiques the distortions Christian missionaries attributed to Islam

148 during the British subjugation and rule of India. It is the technique of

Deedat’s debate and da’wah style, rather than the actual content of the message that is of interest here. Rocky appears to have developed and adopted a similar strategy in his method of da’wah. The passages of comment about Christianity are evidence of this similarity. Rocky is practicing Islam by way of defending the faith against other religions. He has taken on the role of leader within the Koori Muslim Association and is referred to as ‘ Sheikh’ reflecting the status and knowledge associated with that title.

The belief that Muhammad came for all mankind is a more inclusive framework which appears to better suit an Indigenous world-view. The resistance exhibited in the above reply indicates a firm polarization within the theology and doctrines of Islam and Christianity. It is seemingly an attempt to discount all aspects of Christianity as a legitimate religion for

Indigenous people to practice. Although many Muslims agree the Holy

Trinity is incompatible with an Islamic theology, Indigenous Muslims and many new Islamic converts who have converted from a Christian faith are more inclined to stress this fundamental difference to support their conversion to Islam. Evidence for this claim can be found in the responses in the preliminary study of converts to Islam.

The issue of Indigenous identity is raised in this response and a strong lack of indigenous identity emerges. The implication is that Islam is an original attribute of Indigenous identity and that Christianity helped to eradicate Indigenous identity. The Redfern drug problem is raised in the context of Indigenous identity. The stereotypical ‘drunken or drug-taking

Aborigine’ is the dominant identifying feature. This is again associated with

Christianity and the negative aspects of colonial oppression. Islam is framed as the religion for the oppressed. It is possible this interpretation is

149 reinforced through the readings of Malcolm X, the work of the Nation of

Islam, and the Black Panther movement in the United States. In those social movements Islamic practice and belief was appropriated by African

Americans to drive resistance movements and black activism.

The Indigenous way of understanding where people come from –

‘what is their country’? The anti-Christian critique remains in the form of violence which is contrasted to the non-violence of Islam. “[W]e had the majesty that was Islam that’s all we had.” The actions of ‘Christians’ were done in the name of God, but if that god was “ compassionate and merciful he would never forgive you for the crimes you committed against my people .” Rightly or wrongly, there is an underlying blaming mentality associated with Christianity. And this is carried on to current political circumstances where the war on terror is construed as propaganda. This taps into the traumatic events of the past and forms a strong defence for

Islam as the liberating force.

(The concept of collective cultural trauma is discussed in a later chapter. It is hypothesized that underlying trauma influences and strengthens the desire of many Indigenous people to maintain their resistance against the historical dominant forces of oppression which continue to this day.)

We want to see Redfern as a drug free community but only drug users are arrested – not the drug dealers. The Indigenous Muslims are the front line in the fight against drugs in Redfern in recognition that the damage has reached crisis point. “Through Islam we’ve accepted the principles of social justice and solidarity and humanity.” This group of

Indigenous Muslims have taken the responsibility to right the wrongs of their communities based on Islamic principles. This is extended to a national level in the statement: “ Basically it is our hope and our will if God

150 wills, that all our people become Muslim and the fact that some people in the government say that there’ll never be an Islamic state – that’s very debatable because if the people, the Indigenous people of Australia ever get any sovereignty – and we’re Muslim, obviously we will follow Islamic principles and we’ll follow Islamic law .” This comment could be construed by some as supporting a sharia-based Indigenous state. It also demonstrates the extent to which Indigenous Muslims are prepared to accept Islamic values as a correction to past and current injustices.

The freedom for Indigenous people to choose or not to choose

Islam is contrasted with the forced imposition of Christianity. The freedom to choose Islam is supported by emphasizing its benefits, and this is done in the jail as well as in Redfern and other communities. The jail however, is where conflicting messages of Islamic propagation occur. As mentioned above at question 4, certain Lebanese inmates espouse a corrupted version of Islam, and the connection between Lebanese drug dealers in

Redfern is also relevant. The Indigenous Muslims have set themselves a difficult task of countering the negative religious and social behaviors of those abusing Islam. Yet this project is supported in the knowledge that:

“When you’re Muslim you’ve redeemed you’re resurrected – you don’t have to follow it – or you don’t even have to accept it, but when you do it seems to me that in many cases they make the best Muslims .”

The Redfern Da’wah Project

Redfern in general, and the Koori Muslim Association in particular, serves as a collection and meeting point for various Indigenous activities.

Redfern is a strategic political and social hub for information distribution and community care. A Koori grapevine is where we’re all related or we’re culturally linked. Know throughout Australia as the central hub of

Indigenous activity. Whitlam era history now different yet the strength, 151 resilience and vision of Indigenous communities determined to move towards a better future despite having endured tremendous suffering at the hands of historical forces and entrenched racism.

The drug trade and the koori grapevine used as a conduit supply heroin but Islam can potentially reverse the damage if taken up. “Islam is the spiritual truth to our redemption. ” The link is again made with

Christianity. The anti-Christian critique is perhaps a simplistic form of symbolic resistance against all the other attributes of colonial and modern forms of Indigenous control.

It is claimed by Rajab that by using the koori grapevine to spread

Islam in the same way the drug trade has distributed heroin the message will extend to other Indigenous communities, yet the decay of Redfern is allowing drugs to dominate. Why has Redfern degenerated in this way, particularly since it is in such a strategic location? The drugs would not likely to have been such a problem in a functional well-regulated socially cohesive community. Is this something specific to other Indigenous communities and if so what are the social determinants contributing to the breakdown of societies? What social changes are occurring that contribute to the breakdown of Indigenous societies? Is Redfern any different to other urban communities such as Kempsey for example? Poor socio-economic conditions, social isolation, racism, negative political and media interference, poor education, poor health and youth aimlessness all contribute to feelings of alienation, and hopelessness. These conditions foster alcohol and drug abuse including petrol sniffing and other variations of illicit drug and substance abuse. These societies have reached crisis point as do individuals when they recognise drastic life changes are essential for survival. Rocky sees the redemptive power in Islam to bring his communities back from the brink of destruction.

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“Dissention and negativity, and disunity, have uprooted our

Aboriginal allegiances and solidarity and people can come in and - there’s no real power within Redfern. We have within our society now a very weak constitution and very weak morals and very weak disregard for elders”.

Why has this happened? Is it an individual issue or a social problem? The socio-economic issues discussed in the above analysis are the underlying issues. No one single factor is responsible, yet the unresolved issues of the past combined with changing societies have formed entrenched barriers and problems. Despite these conditions, there is optimism that Islam has the power to help restore these communities.

Heroin is the main problem for the Block Aborigines and it attracts other junkies into the area. This problem did not exist previously but

Aboriginal drug dealers are driven by “greed and lust and violence and exploitation.” The message of Islam is unity and solidarity and brotherhood, and black defiance. The power of Islam is in its proven track record in the

U.S. Ever since Black Americans embraced Islam – even when it was a corrupted version such as found in the nation of Islam – the religion supported the foundation for self-respect and community-building, and a platform for resistance politics and activism.

Rajab claims inexperienced police act on stereotypes which could be reframed as institutional racism. Police are considered scapegoats because they are only doing what most police do under these circumstances, which is to deal with the immediate presenting issue which is the drug users, not the pushers and dealers. This is a problem of government not the police yet claims of police corruption complicate the issue somewhat. Could the police solve the drug problem if the same thing was happening anywhere else? What would be different? The issue here is the continuing control and surveillance of Indigenous communities. The

153 police presence at Redfern has always been disproportionate and in earlier times created considerable tensions. Now the claim might be ‘selective policing’ which is open to accusations of abuse of police powers.

If drugs are being dealt openly why is there no apparent control? A possibility is that a blind eye is being turned for institutional and political reasons as claimed by Rajab. No evidence is provided to support this claim yet there is considerable redevelopment pressure because of the problems associated with the Block. Yet the issue of Indigenous autonomy remains in the balance because of the location of the strategic position Block. It is a very valuable piece of real estate and developers are keen to move in but the land is owned by the Aboriginal Housing Corporation. How has the problem been allowed to continue without any real evidence of improvement? One answer might be the decades of neglect in terms of employment opportunities, poor standard of housing, large number of transient people staying with friends and family. As noted by the interviewees, Indigenous community problems are not limited to the Block.

For example, the Alice Springs town camps in the Northern Territory have many of the problems associated with the Block.

Muslims are also selling drugs in Redfern and Lakemba making the

Islamic connection. The tension is between Muslims who sell drugs, and

Muslims who want to reform society. Caught in the middle are ordinary

Indigenous people who are witnessing the hypocrisy of Muslims associated with drugs when other Muslims are trying to prevent it.

Eighty per cent of Indigenous people incarcerated in NSW prisons are Muslim and 22 per cent of the prison population are Indigenous

Australians. Rajab claims he was the first to convert to Islam in prison and instigated other conversions. The issue of prison Islam is relevant here because this is where Islam takes divergent paths. It can either be

154 reformative and beneficial, or radical and destructive. A later chapter will discuss this tension in more detail.

The prison environment of gangs, drugs and violence has contributed to a corrupted version of Islam propagated by some Lebanese.

This is termed prison Islam or ‘prislam’ in overseas literature. This highlights the need for the preaching and practice of moderate Islam in prison yet the question of why Islam is so problematic in prison remains for prison inmates and authorities. The difficulty with authorities not understanding the difference between strands of Islam is coupled to negative attitudes to Islam in general. In terms of this research the

‘department’ denied access to investigate this matter.

The issue of maintaining control within the prison system is the aim of prison authorities. Certain groups cause more trouble than others, and

Islamic radicalism is seen as a serious problem at the levels of prison management and state politics. The problem exists in the case of in-prison conversions by inmates versed only with minor knowledge espousing a ‘cut and paste’ version of Islam. The other area of concern is those Muslims who have been recently convicted or are on remand and are placed in with the general prison population. Those charged with terrorism-related offences are usually isolated in high security wings. The High Risk

Management Unit (HRMU) within Goulburn prison is the main location for containing these prisoners.

Only moderate Islam, it is claimed, can help reconstruct individuals and communities but there is a constant tension between opposing theologies within and outside of prison. The difficulty is in allowing the ‘right’ message to emerge. What prevents this from happening? Prison management, political interference, media pressure, and fear of Islam

(moral panics) all contribute to a negative view of Islamic practice within

155 prison. Any form of Islamic practice in prison is heavily supervised and treated with suspicion. It would be much easier for prison management to deny Islamic worship all together, or combine it with the less controversial

Christian faiths. Discretion cannot even be delegated to Muslim prison chaplains because there have been problems employing the right candidates. The supply of Islamic material is limited for the same reason – the fear of radicalising material being allowed to circulate. The fear of radicalisation of Muslim prisoners does not just apply to threats of terrorism, but in the case of Indigenous Muslims, the fear that militancy and political activism will unite under the banner of Islam. This has been alluded to in a previous reply.

Staying drug free in prison is difficult because of peer pressure and the general oppressive conditions. Rajab did not engage in drug use within prison but many other Indigenous inmates succumbed to heroin. Is this because Rajab was influence by orthodox Islamic principles? How did

Malcolm X influence him? Why and how was Rajab able to survive in prison? Was it due to his status and ability to defend himself? The answers to these questions are complex and multifaceted yet there is little doubt that

Rajab and other Indigenous Muslims have internalised a durable and robust ability to address their own and their community’s problems

Within the prison, Indigenous gangs once asserted authority but were gradually undermined by drugs. There was a need to restructure a defence and this was done by attaching to Islam within and outside of prison. Rajab had the vision and conviction to espouse Islam as an antidote to the problems experienced in prison and mainstream society. Effectively this was a reaction to prison violence and to mainstream racism. One of the aims was to restore the power balance and this would be achieved by adhering to Islamic values and belief. Islam in this context is associated

156 with spiritual power, rather than physical force, which adds an empowering dimension within the difficult circumstances of prison confinement.

There was a perceived need for an Indigenous force within prison to exact pay-back and assert dominance. Unfortunately, this is the way of life within prison. The constantly shifting positions of power and dominance within the prisoner population is divided by ethnicity and types of offences committed. Physical and psychological survival are driving forces for forming alliances and attaining gang membership status.

An Indigenous Muslim drop-in centre

Providing a halfway house for people coming out of jail based on

Islamic principles is core aim for Rajab. Islam is a rehabilitative process,

“so when they come here, I’ve given them accommodation, they have a shower, they can go to the gym, I’ve got ‘em employment.” Other Muslims are criticised for not helping with materials and finance. It is vitally important to keep the centre viable, and appeals to the wider Muslim community fall on deaf ears. This raises two important issues. First is the need for more support for Indigenous prison releasees. The second is to gain wide-spread

Islamic community support for rehabilitative facilities based on Islamic principles.

The Koori Muslim Association in Redfern would appear to be a model organisation attracting the support of the wider Islamic community.

The fact that it found financial assistance difficult to achieve again raises the issue of Islamic priorities regarding Indigenous involvement with Islam within and out of prison. This in turn points to the potential for Islamic politicisation or radicalisation. The reluctance to approach state and federal governments for funding is understandable given the level of suspicion directed towards Islam. Furthermore, the autonomy of the organisation would likely be compromised due to the conditional nature of the funding if 157 it was made available. However, support for an Islamic presence in jails is noted by a “governor from Ivanhoe prison [who] told me that she wanted

Aboriginal men to stop getting’ dirty urines from marijuana – I said well let me tell them about Islam.” This is an acknowledgement that an Indigenous- focussed rehabilitative process based on Islamic principles is accepted by some prison authorities. The [governor] “can’t understand why people are hostile to Muslims because she watched their gradual change. ” The question remains as to why this would not work in the larger metropolitan prisons.

Community funding and the Block

The Elouera Tony Mundine gymnasium on the corner of Everleigh and Vine Streets Redfern is successful in providing recreational facilities including circuit classes, yoga and dance as well as the main focus of boxing. The gym is open to everyone and not just Indigenous people. This is why government funding ceased in 2004. According to Alex Tui, the gym manager “We have people who come up, they might be drug users or they might be alcoholics, but they come up to the gym because they remember this was a place where they found some kind of energy that was good for them .” The difference between the Mundine gym and the Koori Muslim

Association is that the gym is open to one and all and focuses on physical aspects of recreation but specialises in boxing training. The Koori Muslim

Association on the other hand aims to provide assistance underpinned by

Islamic principles.

The theme of Islam as a religion of the oppressed and Christianity as a religion of the oppressor continues throughout the interview. In so doing, the claim that Islam is reparative and empowering is also argued, yet the form of Islam espoused by some Lebanese prisoners is disparaged. In

Islam Indigenous people have knowledge that only the heart sees, and

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“through oppression and colonisation and dispossession and genocide we’ve become unbelievably resilient and receptive and perceptive . Islam is perfect and pure and the Qur’an remained intact for all mankind. Allah perfected it. So the Muslims have no excuse for not giving the spiritual medicine of Islam. Indigenous Muslims have to administer the word of

Islam because other Muslims have become sick also. There are brothers in prison now – Koori Muslims – that refuse to eat meat that’s not halal. The

Lebanese tell them that’s halal because they said Bismallah – they made halal what Allah made haram.”

The Koori Muslim Association holds a free BBQ every year on

Invasion Day for the people of Redfern. This is so they can experience

Islam instead of being told about Islam - we’re showing them about Islam.

And the fact that they see us praying, they know it’s Islamic. The fact that we give food, that’s Islamic. So we don’t have to tell them one thing about

Islam, we show them Islam. So now it is the other Muslims’ opportunity to assist us . Again, these comments reinforce the reparative power of Islam in the Redfern community. Rajab, however, wants to take the Islamic message to other Indigenous communities. “To go to Moree and Boggabilla and North Coast and Goulburn prison and Lithgow prison we need a vehicle . We ask the Muslims in general for assistance, but not only that you’ll assist yourself, by, helpin’ us assist the non-Muslims to bringin’ them to Islam, and the basic fundamental principle of Islam is Da’wah”. Da’wah, according to Rajab, does not mean “going from mosque to mosque, it means going into the heartland of a hostile country to Muslims. But in the case of other Indigenous people they’re not hostile to us. They’re hostile to

Muslims and they tell me they don’t like Muslims, for good reason, but they like Koori Muslims because we’re them and they’re us.” Rajab and others are appealing for financial and material assistance based on Islamic

159 principles. “ We consider ourselves revolutionary Islamic farmers, where we plant the seed of Islam, the idea of Islam in someone’s head by our principles and our conduct, we plant that seed but we don’t just leave that seed to whither and die we water that seed. Now how we water that seed is we take people food, we pray, we look after their children and we do the things that people can’t do.”

The theme is one of propagating Islam for the betterment of

Indigenous communities. The main goal is to propagate and defend Islam, and the fact that 60 per cent of Indigenous Australians are Christian is not a deterrent. The people that Rajab speaks with “ don’t like Christianity ”, and

“when I tell them about Islamic, Islamic law, and Islamic principles, they are so receptive to it. ” Yet the message has to be taken to the people and demonstrated how Islam can bring about changed conditions and individual spiritual renewal. Rajab claims the communities of Moree Boggabilla,

Walgett and Mungindi “are really begging literally for us to come – now the

Muslims say, well what can we do” ? A functional working building and transport, plus financial and moral support from Islamic organisations and other Muslims is what is required.

4.7 Theme summary

1. Issues concerning Indigenous Muslims specifically related to religious conversion a) the prison experience

• Receptiveness to Islam while incarcerated (crisis-driven situational opportunity )

• Influence by Lebanese inmates (Arab culturalist expression and radicalisation) (opportunism and exploitation )

• The impression (public and govt) of militancy attached to criminality and Islam ( community and political prejudice )

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• What or who is resisting Islamic chaplaincy in NSW prisons (administrative and managerial power )

• Influence by Rajab and other prison chaplains (positive agency )

• Prison politics and regulations regarding who acts as chaplain (administrative and managerial power )

• The role of AFIC in determining Muslim Chaplaincy ( control, politics & theology )

• Underlying sociocultural issues explaining extent of Koori incarceration (ineffective government and community policies )

• Degree of lower Koori recidivism and social rehabilitation due to accepting Islam ( reparative )

2. Issues concerning Islamic propagation within the Redfern community and in other Indigenous communities in NSW b) Koori reversion other than from within the criminal justice system

Redfern Aboriginal Da’wah Project

• Koori alignment with Islam seen as complementary (to an Indigenous world-view) (Malcolm X example)

• Liberation politics – the ‘right path’ of Islam (no drugs etc.) (reparative )

• Example by demonstration of practice – visible benefits to all (demonstrable )

• What is said is what is felt – this is how the disadvantaged feel (debilitating experience/self-concept )

• The Block as the Koori grapevine – central hub of information network to other communities (nucleus of communication )

• Reclaiming the block from drug dealers and returning it to the community via Islam ( reparative )

• Re-establishing the block as a strong viable Koori community and halt the social decay (reparative )

• Addressing the ‘policing’ of the block in terms of arresting dealers rather than users (police corruption?) (law and order )

• The importance of a Redfern-based drop-in centre/halfway house for Aboriginal for Muslims on parole and drug-affected community members etc. (reparative )

• Assessing the role of the Aboriginal Housing Company (development pressure )

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• Addressing the ethnic and cultural sensitivities associated with Redfern Koori’s (overcoming suspicion within the community of ‘helping agendas’) ( discrimination )

• Islam as the core spiritual opportunity for authentic Koori resurgence and empowerment (reparative )

• Material and financial obstacles (gaining sponsorship funding, physical infrastructure etc.) (fundraising/support )

• The ‘message’ of the Da’wah Project (Islamic principles )

• Christianity and capitalism corrupting influences on Indigenous people (the imperialism of the Christian West) (marginalisation/dispossession )

One dominating theme is the reparative nature of Islamic practice for those suffering the effects of historical and contemporary disadvantage.

4.8 Discussion

Through daily exposure to a threatening environment, where signs of disorder are common, community members begin to accept that other people cannot be trusted (Ross et al., 2001). Communities with high levels of disorder present residents with observable signs and cues that social control is weak (Skogan, 1986; 1990). In these communities residents report noise, litter, crime, vandalism, graffiti, people hanging out on the streets, public drinking, run-down and abandoned buildings, drug use, danger, trouble with neighbours and other incivilities associated with a breakdown of social control. These social and community activities and conditions are emblematic of some Indigenous communities.

Community or neighbourhood disadvantage is associated with mistrust because of the disorder common in these areas. Residents of disadvantaged neighbourhoods have significantly lower levels of trust because those communities often have high levels of disorder (Ross et al. ,

2001).

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Indigenous community disorder identified by the participants reinforces a sense of powerlessness that makes the effect of disorder on distrust even worse. Perceived powerlessness is the sense that one’s own life is shaped by forces outside ones control. The opposite is the sense of personal control which is the belief in the mastery and control to shape your own life. Exposure to uncontrollable, negative events and conditions either in the neighbourhood, or stemming from deep-seated historical damage, promote and reinforce perceptions of powerlessness. In communities where social order has broken down, residents often feel powerless to achieve a goal most people desire – to live in a clean, safe environment free from threat, harassment and danger (Gies and Ross, 1998).

Individuals who feel powerless may feel unable to fend off attempts at exploitation, unable to distinguish dangerous persons and situations from benign ones, and unable to recover from mistaken complacency. In contrast, those with a sense of personal control may feel they can avoid victimisation and harm and effectively cope with any consequences of errors in judgement. Thus mistrust emerges in disadvantaged communities with high levels of disorder, among individuals with few resources who feel powerless to avoid harm (Ross, Mirowsky and Pribesh, 2001). Community disorder destroys the sense of control that would otherwise insulate residents from the consequences of disorder. Thus, the very thing needed to protect disadvantaged residents from the negative effects of their environment – a sense of personal control – is eroded by that environment.

This is an instance of what is named structural amplification (Ross et al.,

2001). Structural amplification exists when conditions undermine the personal attributes that otherwise would moderate their undesirable consequences. The situation erodes resistance to its own ill effect. More generally, it exists when a mediator of the association between an objective

163 condition and a subjective belief or feeling also amplifies the association.

The mediator of an undesirable effect is also a magnifier of that effect

(Ross et al., 2001). However, structural amplification may also work in the reverse order. If the association between community disorder and mistrust is mediated and moderated by a sense of powerlessness, then an empowering mediator has the potential to restore community trust and disorder.

How are the themes connected?

Islamic practice and belief has the potential to restore individuals and communities. In the case of the Indigenous Muslim participants this can be achieved by eliminating alcohol, drugs, and violence. Although this would not address the underlying socio-economic conditions such as employment and education, nor health and general well-being, Islamic practice and belief has the ability to restore trust. Firstly the concept of trust is elevated to a spiritual dimension where the most important trust in Islam is believing in God because it is impossible to become a Muslim without believing in God. This has the effect of delegating trust to a higher being.

Moreover, Islam is also a source for political mobilisation and skills, practices, and values which could be considered social capital. The nature of political and religious trust is that it is both a source of social cohesion and a potential source of conflict between other groups in society (Jelen and Kuenzi, 2005). This is a significant problem for Islam given its negative media and political coverage over the past decade. This also raises the difficulty for those who wish to promote Islamic practice and belief as a social good. Yet Rajab in particular has managed to impart the positive role of Islam within other Indigenous communities.

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How do the themes relate to Indigenous conversions?

There are potential benefits once converted. The conditions many

Indigenous people face are the same conditions influencing the motivation to convert to Islam. The Islamic world-view is the liberating force by raising

Indigenous individual and community self-respect. Islam creates a sense of normalcy where daily routine is organised around spiritual and practical activities. Belonging to the world-wide brotherhood of Muslims makes adherents feel accepted and part of the group. If enough community members adhere to the same or similar principles it is reasonable to assume a whole-of-community change will occur. Rajab notes on more than one occasion in the interviews that his people are receptive to Islam.

They are receptive to Islam because Islam represents a better future. Even if the representation is idealised or imagined, it still carries a powerful message of potential empowerment. Islam is a socio-politico-religious system that challenges Western societies and governments as well as other religions. The conditioned mistrust of many Indigenous people of governments and their policies, combined with the legacies of historical disadvantage, inequality, and dislocation are discussed in the next chapter.

This broadens the analysis to include the underlying conditions influencing the conditions many Indigenous Australians find themselves in today.

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Indigenous Australians and Islam

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5.0 Theoretical and conceptual themes

5.1 Overview

The literature reviewed in this section critically examines background and underlying macro social conceptual issues beginning with colonisation and working through to issues associated with globalisation and multiculturalism. The aim is to make connections between global and local influences and provide a benchmark from which to better understanding how Indigenous Australians and Muslims in Australia are located in the social milieu. Specifically, the impacts of the evolving social, cultural, and political influences since European invasion are critical in examining the comparatively high Indigenous incarceration rates. The continuing tensions between impressions of an increasing Muslim population in Australia and conservatively held views of what constitutes the ethno-religious make-up of Australian society remain as difficult social and political debates. An examination of socio-historical underlying issues also assists in clarifying how social and political change influences and is influenced by the discursive functions of government policy.

Indigenous Australians have historically been subjected to political, cultural, and social control based predominantly on theories of white superiority, paternalism, and government policy mismatches (Gilbert,

1977). Immigrants to this country have periodically been subjected to selective entry conditions based around labour supply issues and racial discrimination. These conditional circumstances have substantially prescribed identity formation leading to somewhat polarised divisions in society. This was most apparent during the nineteenth and early twentieth century’s, as exemplified in the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and other acts regulating the movement of Indigenous Australians and non-Anglo

167 immigrants and workers. (National Archive of Australia. http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?dID=16). The result was the experience of unease with cultural difference, and general indifference to the plight of Aborigines. The following analysis of the literature discusses the relationships between the Anglo-Saxon majority, Indigenous

Australians, and non-white immigrants in the context of globalisation and the changing political landscape. The chapter discusses the conceptual orientations of the various sociological and socio-historical viewpoints.

5.2 An outline of global themes and influences

The purpose of this section is threefold. The first is to contextualise the current status of Indigenous well-being within a larger global context.

This will connect Indigenous resistance strategies and social movement activism to those of African Americans as is the case with the Redfern

Indigenous converts to Islam. Secondly it will allow a socio-historical analysis to emerge by examining how attitudes and government policies have changed over time. Thirdly, it will account for how current economic and political ideologies have contributed to the way Indigenous affairs administration are managed. The aim is to provide a comprehensive analysis of background influences impacting on current perceptions and government policies concerning Indigenous Australians and Muslims

Australians.

The increasing rate of globalisation over the past three decades has witnessed socio-political, cultural and religious change in terms of how nation-states mange economies and populations. Although earlier British

Imperialism and colonialism fall into a globalisation framework, the rates of economic and cultural flows around the globe have intensified (Robertson,

1992; Giddens, 1994). The recent rise of international terrorism is

168 contextualised in relation to global geopolitical relations yet Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage remains in the realm of state and federal governments. The exceptions are United Nations pronouncements and reports highlighting Australia’s negligence toward Indigenous Australians in terms of socio-economic improvements. Indigenous activism maintains pressure at a global level yet the Australian state argues for national autonomy regarding its treatment of Indigenous Australians. Arguably, there is a greater threat to the long-term well-being of Indigenous

Australians than the event of a terrorist attack in Australia. Yet cultural globalisation has raised anxieties about national identity, and new popular resistance movements are formed to contest a range of social issues.

Immigration has changed the make-up of Australian society from predominantly Anglo-Celtic, to one of many ethnicities, nationalities, cultures and religions. In today’s conditions the attribution of a single ethnicity to one place, region or nation becomes difficult to sustain (Holmes,

Hughes and Julian, 2007: 477). However, many Indigenous Australians are yet to fully realise the socio-economic benefits flowing to other Australians.

This major issue is the crux of the problem underpinning the focus of the thesis, which is to investigate how and why rapid social change encourages new alliances between oppressed and marginalised groups.

Within a globalisation context, the continuing spread of Islam through immigration is a challenge to established notions of Australian national identity. Yet an Islamic presence in Australia attracts little attention except for claims that some ethnic groups are associated with criminal activities. For example, recent media coverage has linked Lebanese youth to criminal gangs, yet it is no coincidence that higher rates of Lebanese offenders are found in NSW prisons (ABS, 2007 b)

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5.2.1 Globalisation and fundamentalisms

Definitions of globalisation range from a “minimalist economism, through broad political-economy, to an expansive and, at times, undisciplined sociology. The problem of conceptual borders is a real one”

(Rudd, 2001: 18). Robertson narrows the conceptual focus by referring to an objective intensification in global interactions and an emerging consciousness of the world as a single place (Robertson, 1992: 6).

Furthermore, Quiggin (2001: 249) argues that:

[G]lobalisation is simply the international manifestation of the general shift towards market-oriented neoliberalism, and away from social-democratic intervention, which has taken place since the early 1970s. According to this view, the growth of unregulated international capital markets is closely intertwined with the shift to free-market domestic policies including privatisation, capital market deregulation and the abandonment of Keynesian macroeconomic management.

Economics has arguably become the dominant discourse in debates about globalisation (Delanty, 2000: 87), although the “seriousness of the consequences of economic globalisation for worldwide inequalities, cultural globalisation is an important variant” (Pickering, 2001: 49). As an economic theory, neoliberalism can be viewed as a selective reworking of the tenets of classical political economy (Peters, 2001: 14). Neoliberalism stresses the emphasis on individual rights as opposed to collective representation. This ideological and political shift has serious implications for marginalised groups and Indigenous Australians. Nonetheless, neoliberalism preserves the central idea of classical economics that the free market is an essential prerequisite for the free society. Invoking a definition of freedom as individual freedom from state interference and freedom for the market, the commitment to neoliberalism is predicated, by definition, on a marked opposition to the idea of the welfare or protectionist state (2001: 14 -15). Neoliberalism assumes that economic behaviour can

170 be understood in terms of the human attributes of 'rationality, individuality, and self-interest' (2001: vii).

However, neoliberalism also posits that all aspects of human social behaviour are motivated by these very characteristics. A model in which

“the social is re-described in terms of the economic” (2001: 15), neoliberalism operates as a theory of the social founded on a narrowly economistic notion of human behaviour, which it deems identical to human nature itself. The neoliberal redefinition of the social in terms of the economic is primarily in terms of the language of quantifiability, calculability, cost-benefit rationalisation and business management techniques

(Bourdieu, 1998a: 31) and as the 'scientific description of reality' (1998b:

94). Importantly, historically or socially-constituted logic or rationality is not recognised by the neoliberal worldview as valid, with neoliberal discourse embarking on a program of methodical destruction of collectives (l998h: 95-

6, original emphasis).

Neoliberalism is, hence, a political agenda predicated on a certain vision of the social world; one that legitimates a certain scientistic view of that world and deems as illegitimate opposing views about the world.

Neoliberalism is founded on a particular principle of vision, but, if one takes its self-definition seriously, one must believe that it does not privilege any one point of view but merely presents the truth about things as they are.

This is why Bourdieu terms neoliberalism as doxa: the self-definition and presentation of neoliberalism as a self-evident truth about the human and social, which is beyond question (Bourdieu, 1998a).

The negative effects of the establishment of neoliberalism as a paradigm both for governance and for understanding the social are experienced in a plethora of ways in different societies. From a global perspective the state has begun to abdicate its role as a guarantor and

171 protector of social benefits in the spheres of education, health and welfare

(Bourdieu, 1998a: 34). Increased working hours driven by competition between states, economic insecurity affects not just the working class but a middle class as well, with options for permanent jobs with benefits being replaced by temporary and underpaid jobs (1998a: 37). According to the tenets of conservative thought, individuals have to bear responsibility for the situations in which they find themselves. Neoliberalism is an all- pervasive paradigm and method for shaping habitus-producing structures and Bourdieu posits that the state is the agency that grants the paradigm its all-pervasiveness, through the economic, cultural, or social policies that it advocates. Commentators who observe global forces agree that they affect national governments, communities and individuals. Robertson (1990) and

Giddens (1990; 1991) consider subjectivity and culture as central factors in the current acceleration of globalisation process.

The multi-causal or multidimensional aspect of the globalising process leads to the claim that globalisation disenfranchises national communities by compromising governments' ability to control domestic economic, political and social conditions (Reich, 1992; Hall, 1992; Arnason,

1990; Hirst and Thompson, 1992). In reality, national governments strive for more control by retracting previously established benefits in the name of efficiency and rationalisation.

Globalisation breaks down the nexus between nation, state, societal community and territory by the differentiating as well as homogenising process. The issue at hand for Waters (1994) is; if due to the processes of globalisation, the nation-state is dissolving, what happens to citizenship and welfare rights and liberal democracy? On the other hand, the process of globalisation offers possibilities such as “the revival of previously oppressed nationalisms [and] genuine religious freedom based on genuine religious

172 choice” (Waters, 1994: 234). Socially, increased population movements and the rapidity of communication of information have been held responsible for eroding established national identities, yet others who feel economically disadvantaged and politically disenfranchised by globalisation have migrated to escape their oppression ( ibid.). For Australia, this has meant an increase in Iraqi, Afghan, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Pakistani immigrants, many of whom are Muslim.

At the global level, the varying kinds of interrelationships between religion, culture and nationalism imply that the emerging new order will see greater levels of ethnic and religious conflict (Cahill, 2003: 11). Yet religions

“have both moral and institutional assets that, if mobilised and equipped, could provide uniquely important contributions to solving conflicts”

(Vendley, 1999: 1). At the local level of communities, religious institutions have the potential to replace that which has been eroded by globalisation.

Traditional institutions promoting human welfare are under pressure to cope with family breakdown, market inequality, and state bureaucratic confusion. At another level the globalisation process increases the tendency of social and cultural arrangements to recede and for people to become increasingly aware that they are receding (Waters, 1995: 3) . Two areas where tensions occur are within religion and secularism, and capitalism and economic equality.

Two of the most serious threats to modern Western democracies are fundamentalisms; one of a religious nature and the other of an economic character. In this context it is important to consider globalisation and resurgent fundamentalisms because many nation states including

Australia have introduced public awareness campaigns to the dangers of potential terrorism-related risks. The contemporary examples of al-Qa'ida as a radical political offshoot of Islam; and the ubiquitous dominance of

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‘market fundamentalism’ exhibit the hallmarks of the effects of globalisation and of reversions to fundamentalisms. Islamic fundamentalism is a term commonly used to encapsulate the al-Qa’ida universal jihad against what is described as a “dry, miserable, and spiritless materialistic life” (bin Laden,

2002). Market fundamentalism is a term described by Joseph E. Stiglitz

(1942-), as another name for economic neoliberalism (Stiglitz, 2002). Taken individually, both fundamentalisms serve different masters but interact with severe repercussions for global peace, justice and equality. They have the ability to re-align allegiances, form coalitions and demolish others. Beeson and Bellamy (2003: 340) alternatively state:

The fundamental disconnect between the rhetoric of liberalism, democracy, human rights and security, on the one hand, and the reality of marginalisation and disadvantage on the other, fuels a growing chorus of opposition to an array of processes subsumed under the rubric of ‘globalisation’.

Socioeconomic inequality has as its corollary, the energy to motivate actors toward seeking solace from the conditions of marginalisation and isolation. To some extent religious fundamentalisms and the less extreme instances of religious revival and resurgence indicate a generic dissatisfaction with the effects of the omnipresent nature of

Western capital expansion. Yet as Bellamy and Beeson note:

One of the most striking qualities about globalisation is the persistence of difference and the continuing centrality of notions of “we and they” in the construction of identity, values, interests, norms and hence appropriate action (ibid: 344).

For fundamentalisms such as al-Qa’ida, the ‘dissenting’ voice is visible and demonstrably destructive as evidenced by terror attacks and the threats of global insecurity, albeit as understood from a modern Western perspective. However, the lived reality of powerlessness and alienation felt by many in the West is problematic when considering fundamentalism as a

174 driving force for social change. The nominal understanding of a fundamentalist world-view implies a reversion to substantive core statements of established authority, therefore excluding alternative and perhaps more liberal expressions of accommodating viewpoints. For some

Indigenous and Muslim Australians who feel marginalised and socially excluded, there is an increased propensity for political activism and social protest. Yet global media coverage of Middle East conflicts including individual suicide bombings also raises levels of discrimination and prejudice.

A specific issue related to this study is the ability for alternate, moderate and competing voices to be heard within the over-riding discourse of fundamentalist rhetoric and without being classified as a social threat at best, or fundamentalist at worst. This is an important consideration because of the implicit stereotyping of Indigenous converts to Islam as potential Islamic fundamentalists or jihadists . This is not so much about freedom of religious expression, but the degree to which religious expression is considered subversive. Similarly, so-called radical Imams are claimed to influence Muslim youth by the particular strand of Islam they espouse. Unfortunately, Islam in general is often stigmatised as a result of a few outspoken clerics. Just as important, however, is why some in society are attracted to both the oppositional aspects of Islam than its more generally accepted and recognised benefits. The implications of wearing a fundamentalist label vary according to how it ‘fits’ within acceptable liberal definitions. For example, the rise of modern fundamentalism and fundamentalist-like movements in all the major religions has a long pre- history according to Marty (2003); and that “in the United States, the New

Christian Right was a key interest group with which political candidates from both major parties had to contend” ( ibid. : 44). The comparative

175 acceptability of a Christian based ‘fundamentalism’ is in stark contrast to relatively moderate Islamic movements who distance themselves from militant and destructive regimes like al-Qa’ida. The contingent nature of circumstance, therefore, dictates to some degree how a chain of events are re-packaged into different meanings and interpretations. The concern and the problem is that by association, certain groups will be less able to exert claims for inclusion, religious freedom, and cultural expression because of mounting public fear attributed to a single unifying event; that of the radical fundamentalist attack on American soil on September 11. Within these contexts the issue of Indigenous alignment with Islam is further analysed in relation to globalisation and minorities.

5.2.2 Globalisation and minorities

Important questions underpinning an examination of the processes of globalisation ask: What are the key attributes of global neoliberal paradigms, including neoconservatism, that impact directly or indirectly and result in Indigenous alignment with Islam? Would Islamic conversion occur irrespective of the socio-political landscape or does the current neoliberal situation create conducive environments for social change? How do the social effects of neoliberalism provide an impetus for the search for alternative meanings, and how strong is the connection with the globalisation/neoconservative debate? What are the links between hegemonic contemporary American neo-conservatism and the economic and social policies of Australian governments?

These questions underpin the assumption that colonialism was a global phenomenon, yet post-colonial Australia has continued to disadvantage many Indigenous Australians. Frontier violence and dispossession have been replaced with successive government ideologies,

176 policies, techniques of power, and iterations of capitalist exploitation. The sensitivity felt by those communities who have suffered as a result of authoritarian religious persecution or colonial imposition of Western culture may also be sensitive to the authoritarian overtones of neoconservative economic and political rhetoric.

Neo-conservatism has influenced the conservative agenda in the United States, through its calls to significantly increase defence spending, its agenda of challenging regimes hostile to US interests and values, desires to push free-market reforms abroad, and the general support for a policy of militarism to ensure the United States remains the world’s sole superpower www.encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/neoconservative.

The heart of the matter is very much the intersection of American

Foreign Policy with the politics of the Middle East, West Asia generally, and

Israel in particular. The current Australian – US alliance suggests an accommodation of beliefs and attitudes in sympathy for those of the current

Bush administration in the United States. A concern is the ‘flow-on’ effect of neoconservative beliefs and practices infiltrating Australian domestic politics and policy decisions; a combination of market economics and social conservatism. As with the neo-conservatives in the US, the Howard government (1996 – 2007) assumed a moral right to impose its values on the rest of the world as well as within Australia. This served to further marginalise refugees and Aborigines. At the domestic level of Australian politics this is reflected in re-defining attitudes toward domestic security adding to the discomfort of Middle East ethnicities in general and Australian

Muslims in particular. Engendering this sentiment is the propensity to

“compartmentalise communities and reify the boundaries between them”

(Beeson and Bellamy, 2003: 341). Beeson and Bellamy add that: “attacks on the symbolic centres of American power reflect a [….] process of identity construction: American hegemony is associated with a morally corrosive

177 world order that actively works against the interests of the third world generally and the Arab world in particular” ( ibid .).

The globalising effect of terror and its neoconservative political response has the effect of prioritising national defence and anti-terrorism measures as dominant discourses. Domestic Australian legislation in the form of the ASIO Act Amendment Bill 2002 and the Security Legislation

Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 are two legislative instruments to deal with international terrorism. These legislative attempts to curb domestic terrorism reflect the rushed introduction of the USA Patriot Act in response to September 11. As part of the ‘new organising principle’ attached to a resurgence of national security rhetoric, Hocking (2003: 356) notes that:

“civil and political rights must bend to accommodate the overarching needs of national security.”

It is within the current discourse of intensified focus toward national security and the consequent over-ruling of civil and political rights that faith communities reclaim their importance and significance as moderating social institutions. Religious or faith communities create social capital for the social and economic well-being; and maintain and develop the group’s cultural and linguistic heritage down the generations and assist in maintaining its image, identity and reputation (Cahill, 2003). These two aspects of social capital indicate a positive contribution

which is built around bonds, bridges, links and acceptance of the other indicates the processes that facilitates individual and social well-being and positive communal and societal outcomes within a nation or group (Cahill, 2003: 20).

Faith communities also have the potential and obligation to challenge the wrong, misguided actions and false values of government, institutions and of individuals. Cahill adds: “Civil societies need to give to

178 religion the social and political space to play this role since, because of their grassroots contact, faith communities are often the first to detect an emerging issue ( ibid. : 21). When reflecting on the present resurgence of neoconservative influence in the United States, and in Australia during the

Howard government era, the social and cultural dimensions of faith community influence become highly charged.

Australian Muslim communities face the double responsibility for positive cultural and counter-cultural roles expected of any faith community, yet the ability to do so is contingent and precarious given the direction and intensity of neoconservative influence. This complexity is encapsulated by

Carroll (2003) who asks “what kind of religion, in which tradition, promotes peace instead of war, tolerance instead of contempt, and self-criticism instead of smug superiority”? (Carroll. 2003: 12). The role of religion is indeed contingent on ‘which religion’ and how it is publicly perceived as being either benign or malevolent. The unfortunate and inaccurate Islamic association with terrorism often precludes the reality of other meaningful alliances to emerge in a social setting conducive within civil society.

5.2.3 Globalisation and civil society

The cultural organisation of a global civil society assumes “the growing number and influence of political interactions by actors other than states or corporations” (Thomas, 2001: 516). Thomas notes that civil society is organised culturally, and is therefore a rational, moral and

‘modern’ project of value attainment over which there is much conflict

(ibid .). This project is not neutral vis-à-vis religions even as religions are practised within it and must engage with civil society. Yet a civil society offers meaning and purpose where political and economic structures do not.

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Political systems have become procedural and managerial. The

‘common good’ is difficult to define and subject to the pressures of competing voices. The economic system is at once local and global with markets being transactional and devoid of a morality commonly associated with immediate and proximate acts of exchange. The system of economic distribution has opened up extremes of poverty and wealth. Global corporations now maintain greater economic and political influence than some nation-states, with their main motive for existence being profit for shareholders. These institutional and civil systems have the effect of a form of neo-colonialism in the way inequality is individualised, power is exercised, and minority groups forced to the margins of society. However, markets and states depend on virtues not created by either the economy or the nation. The hope that in the liberal imagination politics could be superseded by economics is yet to be proven, while neither politics or economics answer the larger questions of ‘who’ and ‘why’ (Sacks, 2002:

40).

From the perspective of the globalising thesis, “people, cultures, societies, and civilisations previously more or less isolated from one another are now in regular and almost unavoidable contact” (Beyer, 1994:

2). Contested identities within a given space are as old as civilisation itself yet the core problematic issue of “mutability of character” remains as a legacy of the globalising process. The term raises the paradoxical situation of the “corrosion of inherited or constructed cultural and personal identities, yet also encourages the creation and revitalization of particular identities as a way of gaining control over systemic power” (Beyer, 1994: 3).

According to Sacks and many other commentators, we live in an era of a ‘politics of uncertainty’ (Sacks 2002: 68). The pace of technological, cultural and economic transformation in the twenty first century is quite

180 different from that of the nineteenth century although both periods are similar in the immensity of change. Social change and its effects are briefly noted below.

Contemporary change is rapid and dramatic . William Ogburn uses the term

‘cultural lag’, where material culture is being transformed faster than non- material culture such as modes of governance and social norms (Ogburn

1964).

The breakdown of the institutions of social life . Aspects of life that did not experience dramatic change such as a job for life, a marriage for life, and a place for life now exhibit the economic, personal and geographic upheaval that has become systemic. Relationships once stood outside the world of contracts and economic exchange and were constitutive of personal identity.

Loss of sense of control. The forces of financial markets, currency movements, technological change, the economic climate, international politics and the natural environment exhibit volatility, complexity and unpredictability. In what Giddens claims as “high” or “late modernity” the self, as the above social phenomena, has to be reflexively made (Giddens

1994: 3). Referential points become blurred and unstable and personal meaningless becomes a fundamental psychic problem in circumstances of late modernity (Giddens, 1994: 9). These effects and consequences of rapid social change are more disempowering for those already marginalised and suffering historical disadvantage.

Considering advanced consumer cultures are built on a rapid succession of artificially produced and temporarily satisfied desires, substantive meaning systems are reduced to transient and multiple interpretations. Faced with meaninglessness and superficiality, there is a danger of individual despair and social disintegration. The refusal to accept

181 meaninglessness leads to a search for a framework of meanings and values, providing an overall sense of the world. Weber (1922) maintained that religion is concerned with those ‘irrational’ aspects of life that are insoluble by science. This is a cognitive need explanation that accounts for a general need for answers, but not for the unique style and the unique content of religious answers. Nor does it account for the replacement of

‘religious’ answers by secular activities. In Australia religious participation and belief has not given way to secularism, and currently there are 135 religions practiced (ABS, 2006 b)

Yet this overview and explanation does point to two common factors.

1. Religion does have the capacity to provide meaning and purpose, although meaning and purpose can vary from benign to malignant. For example, many Indigenous Australians claim the rationale for Christian imperialism was control and oppression.

2. Those who feel threatened by change have the option of turning to religion as a source of stability and as an expression of things that do not change, or even as an avenue of liberation from oppressive social conditions. This is the case with the Indigenous Muslims who have aligned with Islam as a resistance strategy to counter the effects of drugs, alcohol and violence.

5.2.4 Global forces and Australian politics and culture

Australia is a country whose cultural identity has, from the very beginnings of white settlement, been formed in the midst of global forces

(Holton, 1998: 198). Reynolds (1989: 11) states that: “Ever since the beginning of settlement there has been people who have argued that

Australia was conquered by the British and that superiority in arms was in itself justification for everything that followed”. The ‘global’ forces that

182 determined Australia as an Imperial outpost have proved devastating for

Indigenous Australian cultures, with the genocide of whole peoples and the repression of traditional ways of living (Reynolds, 1987). Pickering (2001) makes the point that

it easy to suppress the fact that mainstream Australian culture owes its existence to what is arguably a far more destructive programme of imperialism, and to divert attention from the pressing need for reconciliation at many levels between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians” (2001: 54).

Concerns remain in the Australian community about the economic, political and social effects of globalisation. The entrenchment of economic rationalism in government as a result of international financial pressures is one example of global economic influence.

Globalisation has been characterised as a threat to Australia’s political culture on a number of fronts. The ability of the Australian polity to uphold its own fundamental values and determine its collective identity is influenced by incursions of international organisations upon national sovereignty and the effects of large-scale migration on social cohesion

(Strachan, 1998). While extreme reactions to increased population movements may assume a tone of racial or, more commonly, cultural superiority, more moderate responses claim that new arrivals ought to forgo the practices and beliefs of their mother cultures and adopt those prevailing in their new place of residence. This social shift is becoming more apparent with the rise of fringe right wing political parties in Germany, Britain, and in

Australia. However, (Rudd, 2000: 19) writes that the entrenched neoliberal orthodoxy has delivered a “considerable growth in national and average personal incomes …and unleashed vast quantities of investment capital into capital-hungry emerging markets”. Whilst globalisation has generated considerable economic growth in the expanding western economies, the

183 level of income disparity within and between the developed and developing world has increased. This pattern of inequality is replicated in Australia where the living standards of Indigenous Australians “are qualitatively and quantitatively different to other poor and rich Australians in the nature and extent of destitution experienced in much of their community” (Hunter,

1999: 1).

The situation also points to a failing ability of the state to adequately provide the conditions whereby Indigenous actors can claim social, economic, and cultural security. Since the days of policies based on racial characteristics, it is argued the contemporary forms of political and economic governance are only marginally raising the health, education and economic conditions of many indigenous Australians. The final report of the

Reference Group on Welfare Reform (McClure Report, 2000) identifies the need for fundamental reform because “the current social support system may be failing many of those it was designed to help” (2000: 2). The report recognises Australia “is in the midst of a profound economic and social transformation” (McClure Report, 2000). Other groups such as those following a conservative political agenda feel similar sentiments; except it is quite often they who seem to believe Indigenous people take an unreasonable share of the welfare dollar (Hanson, 1996). That form of response indicates dissatisfaction with the political policy of multiculturalism incorporating positive discrimination or affirmative action, yet fails to engage with the legacy of negative historical circumstances and current economic and social circumstances of Indigenous disadvantage.

Effectively, global neoliberal economic movements and regimes tend to isolate whole communities at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, not least because of the individualistic nature of how socioeconomic disadvantage is addressed as public policy.

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5.2.5 Neoliberalism and religious belief and practice

In the present era of globalisation, neoliberalism depends upon the persistence of tradition for its legitimacy and its attachment to conservatism

– in the areas of the nation, religion, gender, and the family. Giddens

(1994) argues that neoliberalism is hostile to tradition, being one of the main forces sweeping away tradition as a result of the promotion of market forces and an aggressive individualism (Giddens, 1994: 9). It follows then, that religious tradition is caught in the contradictory aspects of neoliberalism as explained by Rose (1996). For Rose, the strategy of advanced liberalism or neoliberalism is to govern through the regulated and accountable choices of autonomous agents – and to govern through intensifying and acting upon their allegiance to particular communities

(Rose, 1996: 61).

The techniques of power alluded to here are political in that they are inscribed within forms of political rationality, but are not ‘means for acquiring power’ but the very material form of power itself (Dean, 1994:

147). This concept recognises that central to the means of governance and administration of the state […] is the objective of promoting, shaping, and regulating the conduct of individuals and groups ( ibid. : 149). This framework has consequences for minorities who wish to assert claims not coinciding with the general utilitarian nature of the modern neoliberal state .

Instances of cultural heritage claims against economic development are one area where Indigenous religious and cultural beliefs become the focus of legal and ideological challenges. The Hindmarsh Island Bridge in South

Australia is a case in point. The bridge (now constructed) is the development that led to the controversial Royal Commission into

Ngarrindjeri spiritual beliefs, in particular the so-called "secret womens' business". The High Court case of Kartinyeri v The Commonwealth,

185 arguments were put regarding the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act, concerning heritage protection legislation. The Act sought to remove the protection of the federal heritage legislation with respect to Narrandjeri women's claims over 'Kumarangk' or Hindmarsh Island. The Narrandjeri women argued in the High Court that the federal government did not have the power under section 51(26) of the Constitution to legislate in a manner detrimental to the people of a particular race, and that only beneficial legislation was possible.

The case was decided on the basis that the legislation in question merely constituted an amendment to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth) and that as a general rule, a power to make law must also include the power to amend it. The position with respect to legislation that seeks to take away or infringe a common law right, such as native title, remains open (Strelein, 2007) Possible

Constitutional Challenge 17 http://www.mabonativetitle.com/info/possibleConstChallenge.htm see also

(see Brunton, 1996; Mathews, 1996; Maddox, 1999; Nettheim, 1996,

Weiner, 2002).

Beyer (2003: 337) notes that:

groups that are or see themselves as excluded from the dominant structures of power and influence can use their religious identity as the basis for claiming inclusion on the basis of the exclusivity or uniqueness of that identity. To deny these claims would constitute the denial of their freedom of religion, more broadly, their human rights.

Rose, 1989: 266) identifies this as “[t]he practice of articulating oneself in terms of one’s victimhood, of identifying oneself in terms of one’s survival, of forming an identity by discovering oneself to be part of a group of those likewise excluded, demeaned, damaged by others…” (Brown cited

17 For a full timeline of the events concerning the Hindmarsh Island Bridge see Aboriginal law Bulletin http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ILB/1999/95.html ‘Unfinished Business: A History of Flawed Decision-Making’ (1999) 4 (25) ILB 19

186 in Rose, 1989: 269). The act of ‘speaking out’ or making visible an internal belief is at once empowering and disempowering. Foucault’s project could equally be understood “as giving voice to subjugated traditions within the

West, to giving expression to the ‘Other of Reason’ as was argued in

Madness and Civilization (Bendle, 2002: 15).

From the perspective of detraditionalisation and the resultant loss of social cohesion by the individualistic influences of neoliberalism, a reduced ability exists within the power imbalance for marginalised groups to reclaim positions of influence. This is not always successful as in the Hindmarsh

Island Bridge case, and it highlighted the unequal power of definition attributed to the dominant structures of the law and why Indigenous socioeconomic wellbeing is not substantially improving compared to other

Australians.

5.2.6 Contested multicultural definitions

The form and description of ‘multiculturalism’ in Australia is continuing as a social and ideological problem. Australian multiculturalism evolved not regarding Indigenous Australians as relevant until 1989, or considering religious minorities as relevant (Jupp, 2002).The current

Federal government states that; “The freedom of all Australians to express and share their cultural values is dependent on their abiding by mutual civic obligations” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2003).

On the other hand, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Social Justice

Commissioner argues that the government “opposes recognising a right of

Indigenous peoples to self-determination in domestic policy formation as well as in international instruments” (Social Justice Commission, 2002:

46).The 2002 Social Justice Report notes: “Ultimately, when we scratch beneath the surface of the Government’s rhetoric their approach is exposed

187 as a reductive, minimalist one that is not prepared to accommodate

Indigenous aspirations or recognize any distinct status of Indigenous peoples in any meaningful way” ( ibid ., 2002: 47). Jupp (2002: 2) adds that

“while agreeing Australian immigration and multicultural policy has been a success, it is also a much more of a contested area than was previously supposed”. Although multiculturalism replaced assimilation as policy, it could be argued that some contemporary aspects of multicultural critique avoid, rather than confront, the reality of diversity and difference in the global community. By association, religious practice and ethnic identification will remain a contingent and provisional commodity as long as the ideals of multiculturalism are contested in the realm of politics.

5.2.7 Testing Australian multiculturalism

Critical multiculturalism as described by (McLaren 1994: 47) interrogates the construction of difference and identity in relation to a radical politics. It is positioned against the neo-imperial romance with a single language speaking ethnicity grounded in a shared or ‘common’ experience of ‘Australia’ that is associated with conservative and liberal strands of multiculturalism ( ibid .: 53). Although they would like officially to distance themselves from racist ideologies, conservative multiculturalists pay only lip service to the cognitive equality of all races and charge unsuccessful minorities with having ‘culturally deprived backgrounds’ and a

‘lack of strong family-oriented values’. This ‘environmentalist’ position still accepts black cognitive inferiority to whites as a general premise and provides conservative multiculturalists with a means of rationalizing why some minority groups are successful while other groups are not. This also gives the white cultural elite the excuse they need for unreflectively and disproportionately occupying positions of power ( ibid .: 48). One particular

188 invidious project of conservative or corporate multiculturalism is to construct a common culture which refuses to treat whiteness as a form of ethnicity, and in doing so posits whiteness as an invisible norm by which other ethnicities are judged ( ibid .: 49)

This form of multiculturalism uses the term diversity to cover up the ideology of assimilation that undergirds its position. (Ravitch, Schlesinger,

Cheney & Finn 1995). This is reinforced by adopting the position that

English should be the only official language. The cultural capital of the

Anglo middle class is the standard of achievement, yet it fails to interrogate the high status knowledge or the dominant regimes of discourse and social and cultural practices that are implicated in global dominance and are inscribed in racist, classist, sexist and homophobic assumptions.

Recent popular conservative texts appeal to national unity and a harmonious citizenry and can be readily traced to earlier currents of

Christianity and social Darwinism. Reference is made here of the ‘Stolen

Generations’. Segregation, the dominant policy in the early 1900s, sought to separate the Aboriginal population from the non-Aboriginal population.

This was often accomplished by placing Aboriginal people in reserves or missions. However, the 'half-caste' children and the fairer skin children were considered 'saveable' and were removed from their Aboriginal families and absorbed into non-Aboriginal culture. The policy of biological absorption, developed during the 1930s, sought the 'complete mergence of the Aboriginal mixed raced population with white Australia'. Haebich writes:

'Strict state regulations of Aboriginal reproduction to produce progeny with progressively less Aboriginal features, together with social engineering programs involving the wholesale removal of mixed race children, would ensure the breeding out of Aboriginal physical characteristics and cultural practices.' (Haebich, 1996).

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In contrast to biological absorption, the policy of assimilation sought a social rather than a racial explanation for indigenous disadvantage. The focus shifted from biological racial explanations to social factors. Although the focus was on the 'light skinned' so-called 'half-castes', Aboriginal children of 'darker complexion' were also removed. (Buti, 2000). The power of conservative multiculturalism lays claim to its constituents by conferring a space for the reception of its discourses that is safe and sovereignly secure. It does this by sanctioning empiricism as the fulcrum for weighing the “truth” of culture. For example, intelligence quotients and test scores become the primary source of “evidence” in what constitutes successful school citizenship. Yet as Foucault points out, subjectivity is not simply constituted through discourses and social practices of subjugation. It could be argued that conservative or corporate multiculturalism are sub-sets of the larger ideology of neoliberalism which in turn reflects to the direction of global capital and cultural flows while remaining within the definitional power of the nation state.

5.2.8 Issues of religious diversity and multiculturalism

Contemporary notions of Australian multiculturalism as in North

America, includes the presumption that a religious marketplace exists, driven by consumers who make decisions about faith products based on rational choices about their needs, and the relative benefits and costs

(Beaman, 2003) Australia has no state-endorsed religions making such a marketplace possible. Yet in Australia, as in America and Canada, the assumption of free choice should not be confused with diversity ( ibid. ).

Specialization and market differentiation are undoubtedly important but what is the nature of religious pluralism in Australia? Does diversity only extend to providing descriptions and demographic details of dominant and

190 marginalised religions? And can it be assumed that all religions in the multicultural mosaic are equally legally protected and socially accepted, as the ‘illusion’ of multicultural policy is designed to do. Leading from these questions is the requirement to critically examine the relation between the following conceptual themes:

1 The acceptance of the numerical and cultural dominance of mainline

Christian religions and religious affiliation (Bouma, 1995).

2 The challengeable notion that an Anglo-Catholic hegemony is constructed as the normal against which the “other” is established.

3 Persecution and systemic disadvantages faced by religious groups who fall outside the mainstream (Beaman, 2003).

From the work of Gramsci (1971), religious hegemony relies on a sense of what is ‘normal’ religion and works to construct borders and boundaries around the ‘normal’ religion. For Gramsci the concept of hegemony relates to a form of domination by the means of the organization of consent through the manipulation of ideas. It is the cultural domination of one class by another ( ibid. ). (Adding to this critical theoretical perspective,

Alexander and Smelser (1999) note that “radical critics celebrate the end of common cultural values” (1999: 3) and this perspective accounts for diversity and the need to explore the domination and hegemonic processes

(Beaman, 2003: 314).

A multicultural society is one characterised by religious plurality, a willingness to live and let live among religious organisations, a spirit of respect for religion, and of willing cooperation from governments and their agencies at all levels with religions (Bouma, 1995: 296).

Australian society and its religious landscape described by Bouma

(1995, 2000, 2002, 2003), and Bouma and Hughes (2000) is one of the most multicultural and plural in the world. Australia is not only a nominally

191 religious country; it is a nominally Christian country (Bouma, 1995: 287).

Moreover, given the Catholic and Anglican dominance, the religious aspects of that plurality manifest as a “very strong, historically prominent

Anglo-Celtic Christian religious community” (ibid: 288).

Australian nation-state identity remains cast in the long shadow of

Anglo-Catholic dominance, both religiously and institutionally. The subtle yet ubiquitous presence of a unique Australian-Christian nationalism contradicts the fact that its apparent domination has failed in its fundamental sociological aim to remake Indigenous Australians. Indigenous people in Australia have not only survived, but are also demonstrating a resurgence of vitality in a variety of arenas and communities around the country (Armitage, 1995).

An important area of contested interest is the continuing challenge for Indigenous Australians to ‘prove’ the validity of religious and spiritual beliefs in relation to land claims or sites of spiritual significance. The linkage between the contested terrains of Indigenous identity and definition by others is significant and reflects a history of poorly understood constructs of

Indigeneity. As mentioned briefly above, the Hindmarsh Island Bridge issue is evidence of the inability to accept a non-empirical construct; in this case

“when a group of Ngarrindjeri women were accused by the State of South

Australia of deliberately fabricating a claim for a sacred site in order to halt the construction of a bridge between the South Australian mainland and an island in the mouth of the Murray River” (Weiner 2002: 52). A subsequent

Royal Commission was established to inquire into:

Whether the ‘women’s business’ or any aspect of the ‘women’s business’ was a fabrication and if so:

(a) the circumstances relating to such a fabrication;

(b) the extent of such a fabrication; and

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Maddox (1999) suggests “four ways in which a deeply secularised culture, with little to sensitise it to the needs of religious minorities, is likely to react to Indigenous communities’ religiously-based claims. It may:

1) ignore the religious elements of a tradition, subsuming them

under a category such as ‘culture’ or ‘custom’

2) cherish unfamiliar religious forms for their perceived strangeness

3) decry unfamiliar religious forms for their perceived irrationality

4) interpret unfamiliar religious forms through the framework of

possibly inappropriate familiar forms” (Maddox 1999: 2).

At one level it is suggested that Indigenous religious traditions are now being used as strategic resources in native title claims (Kolig 2003:

209). This achieves a “useful and politically highly active ideological corpus”

(ibid .: 210). Kolig adds: “It is then, especially the juxtaposition of rediscovering the past and establishing a kind of continuity, often seemingly tenuous, with the assertion of authenticity despite the glaring hegemonic influences…which makes this phenomenon so conspicuous and raises so much suspicion” ( ibid .:210). It also reflects the increasing predominance on instrumental rationality, in Max Weber’s sense of achieving utility effects through a rational appraisal of culture and belief (Weber 1947: 115).

However, another important feature of the ‘contested belief’ framework is its use by neoliberal and economic rationalists to plant the seed of doubt in the minds of the general public. Very often these commentators, right-wing think-tanks, and journals speak on behalf of the

Howard government and its political agenda. This is a subtle but effective format with which the government uses to create wedge politics.

To some extent, Muslims in Australia face similar conflicting issues of multicultural and religious definition within the framework of the

193 overriding civil religion of Australian nationalism. At a local community level, with the Mosque as a focal point for religious concentration, ethnicity and culture blend into a common religious purpose. Beyond the immediate confines of the mosque, religious and cultural difference is relegated to the dress, appearance, beliefs, food and festivals of the adherents. The degree of discrimination or acceptance is dependent on the multicultural intelligence of the surrounding community and the history of relations between and within a specific community.

The relational aspect of these circumstances are reflected in a dominant White imaginary, more recently absorbed into the process and condition of multiculturalism. Yet the field of struggle and the intricacies of negotiating multiculturalism and Anglo-white hegemony remains an unfinished project. Social tension exists within the contested arena of expanded visions of Australia as a global citizen and what this means in terms of national identity. The degree of legitimacy extended to particular groups, cultures or religions is contingent on global events. Indigenous and immigration policy reflects both a continuity of previous political regimes and discursive practices centred on established relations of power but incorporated into a new discourse of national security.

5.2.9 Indigenous ‘rights’ literature and resistance politics

The Australian example of the slow evolution of Indigenous land rights and cultural heritage protection and legislation is partially a result of the misinterpretations and inflexibility of the legal-juridical system in understanding Indigenous constructs of spirituality and belief systems and practices. This points to the dominance or bias of an Anglo-Christian oriented legal-juridical system and its inability to accommodate religious deviance that complicates established economic and cultural codes. These

194 observations reflect a resistance to cultural and religious difference and indicate a discriminatory aspect of legal and bureaucratic processes. This is not to suggest discrimination is intentional, only to raise it to the level of obvious existence.

Indigenous Australians experience the difficulty of the dominant juridical-legal process in recognising spiritual and cultural sites in relation to pro-development pressure. Examples include the difficulties associated with native title and land rights negotiation, and cultural heritage sites such as the case of the Ngarrindjeri ‘women’s business’ on Hindmarsh Island,

South Australia, 1994-1996 (Weiner, 2002). Both of these examples highlight Indigenous resistance to cultural and religious difference when compared to the considered norm of social organisation. This is despite the socio-historical extent of oppression of Indigenous Australians and the more recent discrimination of Muslim populations in Australia (Kabir 2003).

5.2.10 Secularisation and religious resurgence

Following Marx, religion serves the dual purposes of diversion and legitimation (Marx, 1977: 159-191). When ‘legitimation’ becomes extreme the focus becomes the expression of radical discontent, and mobilises commitment among its members in violent causes. It is this propensity for religious dualism that affords examination in the context of a post

September 11 environment.

The intellectual swing away from religion and toward secularism as a social movement is raised by Bauman (1999) who challenges the claim that religion is thought of as a private affair only, “not as a driving force for entire groups or a significant symbol system of identification, demarcation and support” (Baumann, 1999: 2). This literature re-engages with the idea that religious identity is important for minority groups, even if mainstream

195 religions are losing strength in the face of an increasingly secular society.

This is in line with the existing body of knowledge in that the general consensus is that “religion is intimately connected with both the problem of social order and the meaningful nature of social relations” (Turner, 1991: xi). Berger (1999: 2) makes the point that: “the assumption that we live in a secularized world is false. The world today…is as furiously religious as it ever was, and in some places more so than ever.”

The arguments supporting the secularisation thesis will not be rehearsed here although the basic tenets of the theory will be outlined. The secularisation thesis posits that religion no longer has the moral and communal binding ability as it once did, and that the nation-state has greater claims in this regard due to its secularising nationalist ideology

(Anderson, 1983). Bellah (1996, 1988) calls this newer secular sentiment

‘civil religion’ that incorporates a reinvented function of ceremony and ritual reflecting the ‘ambitions’ of the imagined community encompassing the nation.

The association of the terms civil religion and secular society denies, however, the resurgent religious nature of society as proposed by

Berger (1999). Berger raises three pertinent questions regarding the resurgence of religion:

1 What are the origins of the worldwide resurgence of religion?

2 What is the likely future course of this religious resurgence?

3 Do the resurgent religions differ in their critique of the secular order?

(ibid. :11-13). These questions raise the issue of “how civil religion relates to the political society, on the one hand, and to private religious organisation, on the other” (Bellah, 1988: 99). Additionally, the question of state neutrality in relation to both religion and ethnicity requires

196 examination. The role of the Western nation-state is, after all, to “square free competition within limiting boundaries” Baumann, 1999: 45).

An alternative set of reasons explaining the alleged global resurgence of political religion is made by Sahliyeh (1990). 1) The destabilising impact of modernisation; 2) As a response to a generalised ‘crisis atmosphere’; 3) explainable by allusion to a ‘resource mobilization model.’

5.2.11 Secularism and political Islam

Secularisation is said to have been a period in the world’s political history when the influence and authority of religion and the church was subsumed by the authority known as the Westphalian synthesis. The norms of authority entailed in the four main strands of the synthesis “amount to a political theology, a doctrine of religion’s role in society” (Phillpot, 2002: 76).

Four strands define the essential features of the Westphalia synthesis: 1) states are the legitimate polity in the international system; 2) states refrain from seeking to alter the relationship between religion and politics in other states; 3) religious authorities exercise few if any functions, still less any on a transnational level; 4) states seek far less vigorously to promote the welfare of religion than they did prior to Westphalia ( ibid. ). The most recent challenge to this orthodoxy came in the form of al-Qa’ida.

Political Islam can be broadly defined as consisting of two broad movements, “those operating in countries where the Muslims are a minority and therefore a subject community, and those operating in countries where

Muslims are a ruling community” (Ameer, 2000: 11). Political Islam is potentially affirming and regressive, depending on competing perceptions of Islamic identity. Examples of affirming political Islam are manifested in the mobilization of Islamic identity towards such goals as the legitimate right to self-determination ( ibid. : 14). Manifestations of political Islam as

197 regressive or antagonistic refer primarily to the policies and practices of fundamentalist regimes in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Sudan. The phenomenon of political Islam is divisible, then into three broad areas; legitimate attempts to self-determination; authoritarian “traditional” regimes; and the existence of fundamentalist movements seen as an outgrowth of deeper societal crises ( ibid. : 104).

Given that global civil (or secular) society is organised culturally

(Thomas, 2001: 516) it does not follow that civil society is essentially both

Western and national, yet it bears the marks of the West but is thoroughly global and in many ways anti-Western. Contemporary global civil society and the place of religion within it are intrinsic to current global discourse due to its embodiment of a universal humanity.

5.2.12 Secularisation and civil religion

The idea that social change influences religious change and vice versa is a theme consistent with contemporary discussions of how religion is embedded in the fabric of society. On one hand, the political doctrine of secularism describes how citizens, even devout citizens, agree to live and try to flourish in a polity that is not governed by religious principles and practices (Bilgrami, 2003: 89). On the other hand, Bellah (1988) describes civil religion in a way that implicates a dominant yet neutral religious influence embedded in the ceremony and rituals of the state and nation.

This influence raises the issue of how civil religion relates to the political society, on the one hand, and to private religious organisation, on the other

(ibid. : 99). This has relevance to the relationships between Australian civil religion and the particular social, cultural, and religious circumstances of

Indigenous Australian Muslims. The over-riding theme of Australian civil religion may encourage Indigenous Australians to seek a resurgent interest

198 in alternative religious and spiritual directions as it has with other

Australians. The secular nature of contemporary society and the destruction or gradual loss of the strong religious/spiritual components of

Indigenous society due to frontier and colonial processes leaves open the option of religious revival but without the paternalism of early Christian missionaries.

Yet secularism has come under attack over the last two decades because fundamentalisms have spearheaded the resurgence of religious values, institutions and organisations (Nasr, 2003: 67). Nowhere is the scope of change produced by fundamentalism more evident than in the

Muslim world ( ibid. ). Islamic fundamentalism indicates a link between religion and politics on a world scale (Robertson, 1992) and it has the potential to both empower and create social problems. For the Australian state, quite different circumstances prevail in relation to secularisation and the influence of civil religion and fundamentalisms. The constitutional separation of religion and state is unambiguous, yet the influence of civil religion and its relation to the state is not quite so readily separated.

5.3 Underlying factors associated with Muslim discrimination

Muslims have been in Australia for nearly 150 years yet they have invariably been treated differently to other Australians with the exception of

Aborigines. During the late 19 th century there were fears of non-white ethnically different populations destroying white Anglo Christian society.

Government legislation introduced in 1901 ensured continuous selective immigration policies maintaining a majority of ‘white’ Anglo-Protestant society based on the ‘White Australia’ policy.

Security issues related to national interests during the world wars placed Muslims in Australia under surveillance including the Ottoman Turks

199 during the World War 1. During the Second World War, the Australian

Government perceived that some Malays who arrived in Australia as university students could have been affiliated with the Malayan Communist

Party and therefore might pose a security threat to Australia. Anecdotal evidence reveals that some Indians suspected of disloyalty were also placed under surveillance, and when Italy invaded Albania and declared war on the Allies, Albanians were classified as ‘enemy aliens’ (Kabir, 2006).

Colour, not religion was the area of concern during the colonial and White

Australia periods, however, religion has become the new focus.

Contemporary political emphasis on national security in a post

September 11 environment has promoted Islamic issues to policy priority in terms of surveillance and control. Localised instances of recurring discrimination based on appearance and association evidenced by a hardening attitude against Muslims and historical antipathies and long-lived antipathies have grown in the specific context of the current geopolitical climate (Kabir, 2006). Since September 11 2001, with Australia’s engagement in the ‘War on Terror’ there has been a rapid shift of opinion against the Muslim population among some members of the wider community. Muslim Australians are viewed as the ‘enemy’ by some

Australians. Visible Muslims in their Islamic attire or loose clothing, such as women who wear hijabs (headscarves), chaddor (garment or shawl wrapped around the head and body) or abaya (a loose black robe from head to toe) or bearded men in their traditional shalwar-kurta (trouser shirt), jilbab (long loose outer garment) and topi (cap), have sometimes been verbally and physically abused and called ‘terrorists’. Arguably, the

Australian Government’s new anti-terrorism legislation and the surveillance hotline ‘Be alert not alarmed’, which asks Australians to monitor their

200 surroundings, have further marginalised some Muslims. Occasionally politicians have also linked Muslim asylum seekers with terrorists.

5.4 Re-grouping as labelled minorities

Marginalisation leads to outsider status and eventual reclaiming of

‘social citizenship’ by forming into alternative social identities. Rather seen as powerless, regrouping is an active process of re-empowerment based on a common anti-social outlook. Non-representation in mainstream society is replaced by membership in an ‘other’ group falling outside of an Anglo-

Australian archetype.

[Aboriginal] Redfern became a sphere of Indigenous protest, and a heroic site of resistance to European culture and colonialist control (Shaw, 2000).

The Block is presented simultaneously as a place of successful Aboriginal political struggle and as an example of failed (urban) Indigenous self- determination. In the recent rush of renovation, restoration and redevelopment in the surrounding areas of Darlington, Redfern and

Chippendale, the impoverished ‘blackness’ of the inner Sydney Aboriginal community has become bounded by a sea of increasingly affluent

‘whiteness’.

5.5 Religion and theoretical constructs

The first part of the following section examines religious conversion theories and concepts, followed by a brief overview of religion in Australia.

The status of religious belief and practice in Australian society and religious conversion literature reveals a latent political field of interlocking individual, social, cultural, and institutional factors of influence. The analysis of religion in Australia will indicate the changes in both the shift in belief and practice, and an increasing religious diversity. It is argued that a latent

Anglo-centric bias exists at the levels of political and media coverage of

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Islamic issues despite the cultural and religious diversity of Australian society, yet the discursive construction of Islam is a challenge to the orthodoxy.

The application of Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, and doxa, and religion and the state, will provide theoretical frameworks with which to analyse the various components of political and religious involvement. This will construct the framework for further analysis using

Bourdieu’s concepts including the production of religious capital. The work of Michel Foucault, (power, discipline, and governmentality); Nick Crossley

(social movements); Anthony Oberschall (collective action); and Alfred

Schutz (social formation and solidarity) contribute to the theoretical component of the chapter. These perspectives contribute to forming a theoretical understanding of social relations and alliance formation .

The final section of the chapter draws together the religious aspects of Australian society and conversion literature and establishes the field in which Indigenous conversion to Islam functions. Religious and cultural difference is examined in relation to the state, and how collective movements respond with a politics of resistance. The aim is to suggest religion in Australia is a politicised entity in the context of globalisation and neoconservative political governance.

Within a globalised neoliberal environment, and particularly since

September 11, Islam has become a form of religious capital able to be produced depending “on the state of the structure of objective relations between religious demands and religious supply” (Bourdieu, 1991: 22). This appears to be happening with the resurgent Evangelical mega-churches such as Hill-song in Australia, but much less so for traditional institutions such as Anglicanism. However, religious engagement begins with religious conversion which is a significant aspect of this research.

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The progression from religious conversion, to religion in Australia is linked to the political economy of religious supply and demand how alliances of resistance are formed during collective action. The first section in this chapter begins with a review of the various theoretical approaches to religious conversion.

5.6 Conventional theoretical approaches to religious conversion

The three broad categories of religious conversion are considered in this section are theological, psychological, and sociological. Theological and psychological aspects are discussed as background concepts while the sociological focus is given more prominence due to the focus of the study.

A summary of a theological model is presented by Bernard

Lonergan (1972). Lonergan’s way of conversion describes the experience of de-centering that enables us to re-centre in our centre that is God. He presents conversion as a complex process of transformation involving various judgments, decisions and actions that move us from an established horizon, usually formed through the desires and addictions of the false self, into a new horizon of knowing, valuing and acting, informed by our true self that has its ground in the being of God. In Method in Theology , Lonergan distinguishes three phases in this process of transformation - intellectual, moral and religious conversion - that create a dialectic (Lonergan, 1972). In summary, intellectual conversion clarifies the horizon of our knowing. It questions and eliminates deeply held, distorted myths about reality, to enable divine wisdom to be the only source of our knowing. Moral conversion shifts our criteria for decision making from the satisfaction of the self as the basis of choice, to the discovery and pursuit of truth and value.

Religious conversion integrates the history of our conversions and establishes us firmly in our centre in God (ibid. ). A theological perspective

203 clearly establishes a ‘moral centre’, and although Lonergan bases his method on Christian theology, the outcome of conversion is to make decisions based on “a radical change in our consciousness at the highest level of its expansion” (Buzzelli, 1973) . A theological methodod of religious conversion is very different to a sociological understanding and this is recognised as a shortcoming if viewed from a religious believer’s perspective. The academic perspective or progression of religious conversion, then, might be considered as spiritual (theological); individual or personal (psychological); and social (sociological). Religion for sociologists is generally seen a symbolic system with interpretive and cultural dimensions.

5.6.1. Psychological aspects of conversion

Psychological literature concerning religious conversion attributes personal or individual factors in determining motivations for conversion.

Psychological research has established that religiosity has a buffering effect in relation to alcohol and other substance abuse in a sample of urban adolescents (Wills, Yaeger and Sandy 2003).

Buffering is discussed by John Bowlby (1907 – 1990) and John

Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (1913 – 1999) (attachment theory); Motifs and religious conversion are considered by Alfred Adler (1870 – 1937)

(compensation for personal inferiorities and lack of power); Gordon Allport

(1897 – 1967) analyses the differences between mature and immature religion; The concern of Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970) is the hierarchy of needs pyramid; and Erik H. Erikson (1902 – 1994) examines stage theory and identity conflict.

Other studies have indicated that religiosity is a protective factor with regard to health status. Of these, Levin 1996; McCullough, Hoyt,

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Larson, Koenig, and Thoresen 2000 demonstrated ‘religiosity is inversely related to adult mortality…” (cited in Wills et al .). Wills et al. suggest buffering occurs because religiosity affects attitudes and values and may be related to perceived meaning and purpose in life. The example of buffering occurring because of relations to coping processes, social networks, or both, is an important point and Wills et al . further note: “In the domain of social processes, religiosity could be associated with the characteristics of an adolescent’s network of adults and peers and may be related to integration in the larger community through participation in social and service activities (Brook, Balka, Win and Gursen 1998; Umberson

1987; Wallace and Williams 1997), a factor that also could work to produce buffering effects (Cohen, S. and Wills 1985)” (cited in Wills et al. 2003).

With little alteration, the concept of buffering and religiosity could be adapted to suit the situation of Indigenous Australians and their alignment with Islam. This is not to imply a substance abuse connection specifically, rather, to suggest the utility of this approach when examining other negative social aspects deemed by Indigenous people as detracting from their overall well-being. As mentioned above, the precursors to Indigenous inequality and disadvantage are socially embedded and intransigent.

Buffering then, in relation to religiosity and the alignment of Indigenous

Australians with Islam could be seen as an ameliorating effect when considering long-term social inequity.

The aspect of revealing and analysing the social influences impacting on the motives for Indigenous alignment with Islam is a critical component of this thesis. Without it, the analysis would tend toward a conventional religious conversion framework, leaving out a substantial sociological dynamic. However, the concept of buffering is a worthy inclusion to consider in the final analysis.

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5.6.2 Sociological aspects of conversion

Ali Köse (1996: 253) contends the possibility of religious conversion likely at certain times in the life cycle, and Lewis Rambo (1993) presents a

‘systemic’ stage model of religious conversion, in contrast to a sequential

(stepwise) stage model and claims there is no one way to define conversion (1993). Rambo’s stages (or phases) of conversion are called context, crisis, quest, encounter, interaction, commitment, and consequences. John Loffland and Rodney Stark: Social networks – presented a seven point scale or sequential “funnel” (Lofland and Stark,

1965: 863) and a four-level typology of religious “commitment”. However, social networks during conversion and prior to conversion are significant aspects of the Lofland and Stark model. Prior socialisation is one aspect missing from the analysis (Greil, 1977). (This is why the histories of

Indigenous oppression are important considerations for recognising underlying foundations for religious conversion). However, within sociology, it has become:

conventional to treat demographic characteristics, structural or personal frustrations, and the like, as completely responsible for “pushing” persons into collectivities dedicated to protest against the social order (Lofland and Stark, 1965: 864).

The factors in this model although important, are considered incomplete by

Lofland and Stark (1965). The complete (summarised) model of conversion according to Lofland and Starke a person must:

1. Experience enduring, acutely felt tensions

2. Within a religious problem-solving perspective,

3. Which leads the person to define themselves as a religious seeker;

4. Encountering the deviant perspective (D.P.) at a turning point in the

person’s life,

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5. Wherein an affective bond is formed (or pre-exists) with one or more

converts;

6. Where extra-cult attachments are absent or neutralised;

7. And, where if the person is to become a deployable agent, is

exposed to intensive interaction (Lofland and Stark, 1965: 874).

This model applies to cult membership and although parts of the model could be applied to conversion to Islam in the case of this study, the circumstances and contingencies are quite different. Nevertheless, the argument made in previous chapters is that histories of oppression and social-dysfunction influence the high rate of Indigenous incarceration.

Therefore the “situational contingencies” ( ibid. ) of the prison appear to create the tension which in turn creates some disposition to act.

David Snow and Richard Machalek (1984) propose a model of religious conversion within the context of “new” religious movements. Three fundamental issues in the study of conversion are: ( a) the conceptualization and nature of conversion; ( b) the analytic status of converts’ accounts; and

Both sociologists and psychologists agree, according to Rambo (1998), is that almost without exception, changing to a new religious orientation takes place through kinship and friendship networks of one sort or another.

Rambo names three more important things that happen in a conversion process: ( a) virtually all religious groups emphasise the importance of relationships with the leader of the group, and with members of the group;

(b) the way in which the convert’s life interpretation or rhetoric changes; and ( c) the notion of role changes. Role is very powerful in shaping peoples’ perceptions and behaviours (Rambo, 1998). For example, people converting within a prison environment feel they have a new perception of

207 themselves that can empower them to do things, to believe things, and to feel things that they have not been able to prior to that time.

Waddington (1992: 13-20) proposed a model not of religious conversion but of a ‘flashpoint model’ of public disorder. The flashpoint model asserts that riots occur when certain events (flashpoints) prompt an outburst of anger amongst a group of people who: (a) are frustrated and/or resentful about the conditions in which they live (or some set of government policies deemed immoral); and ( b) have lost their stake in the existing political and moral order. Waddington argues that inequalities of power, material resources and life chances are the main contributing factors to ( a).

The New South Wales Department of Corrective Services

(NSWDCS) authorities claimed the type of Islam practiced in prison was often one lacking commitment but containing a rebellious and radical content. From the perspective of prison management, Waddington’s model closely represents how Corrective Services authorities view prison conversions to Islam. How NSWDCS manages Islam within the institution is an important aspect of this research and will be discussed further below.

5.6.3 Religious conversion themes discussion

Religious conversion in a broad sense is a complex process entailing personal choices and sociological factors and influences, but as discussed above it is not solely due to a lineal cause and effect relationship. From a sociological perspective it is of interest to examine the problem of the relationship between the religiosity of the individual and the religiosity of the system of which the individual is a member. The sociology of religion poses the questions of the role and significance of religion in general, as well as that of understanding the beliefs and practices of particular groups and societies (Hamilton, 2001). The idea that human

208 beings are individuals embedded in immediate social contexts as well as larger cultures and religious traditions means that any attempt to explain conversion must be interdisciplinary (Paloutzian, 1996).

The religiosity of the system of which the individual is a member is something that is both conditioned by individuals and influences individuals.

An important additional consideration is the social structural and general characteristics of the system as a whole. The degree of differentiation and autonomy of religious influences in relation to other social sectors, and the strategic location of, and relation between groups is what is meant here.

But by religiousness of the overall system referral is made to the religious culture of the environment, and it could be assumed that within a prison the religious culture would be devoid of conventional visible cultural influences such as religious signification, symbols, architecture or language. Prison conversions are conditioned by a high sense of social isolation and concern for safety and status (prison environment) and a desire to belong, reconnect, communicate, and differentiate (from prison authority and routine). This is not to deny individual motivations to seek religious commitment similar to a theological model; however, European, British, and

U.S. studies reflect similar patterns of marginalised ‘black’ and Hispanic prison inmates converting to Islam. This aspect of prison conversion will be discussed in more detail in a later chapter .

The following section explains how religion and religious belief in

Australia have changed over time from predominantly Anglo-Christian, to a multi-faith society. It will be argued that although Australia is a secular nation, religion and politics are often fields of alliance and resistance, and that certain religious affiliations have the power to redefine Australian identity and to create multiple identities.

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5.7 Religion and religious practices in Australia

Religion in Australia is unremarkable in terms of individual choice and practice, and in the context of mainstream churches. The secular democracy of Australia clearly separates the formal link between religion and the state. Fewer people are affiliating with mainstream Christian religions yet late modern democracies are experiencing a religious resurgence of sorts. This is despite an increase since 1966 of people stating ‘no religion’ (ABS, 2006). In Australia, there is a trend away from traditional religious observance and practice to non-traditional such as

Buddhism. Some see this as a shift away from traditional older mainstream religious organisations rather than decreasing religiosity. Conceptually, a socio-cultural shift from modernity to post-modernity has witnessed a breakdown of traditional social structures and identities, and an uptake of multiple identities, which from the perspective of the sociology of religion, incorporates spirituality in any of its many dimensions. New age religions and a resurgence of older practices such as Paganism, Wicca, and

Satanism are evidence of a resurgent spiritual awareness, and a religious reformation on a worldwide scale (Clarke, 2006).

Often people will ‘shop around’ for relevant religious and spiritual experiences and even take selected parts of different religions in combination to comply with specific individual outlooks and values. This pattern of religious engagement is a move away from a traditional ‘one religion for life’ practice, to a postmodern perspective where “one discovers multiple positions or positionalities” (Hopkins, 1997: 206).

Sociologist Robert Merton has said all institutions tend, over time, to be degenerative. No church, denomination, or Christian movement has ever been automatically self-renewing: they all lose their founders' fervour from the second generation onwards. On the other hand, new religious 210 movements (NRM) emerge and societies become more multicultural as is the case in Australia. Furthermore, new religious observance patterns and strengths of belonging to religious communities are difficult to separate from a global society. New religious movements and non-traditional religions are attracting new and different adherents as a result of increased globalisation, immigration, and humanitarian refugee programmes, and by the ‘commercialisation’ of religion in the case of Evangelical churches.

Australian census statistics reveals that while millions identify as

Catholics, Anglican, or other Protestant denominations, fewer are actually claiming religious affiliation (Table 2 following page). The percentage of

Anglicans has reduced from 34.9 in 1961, to 18.7 in 2006, while Catholic affiliation has increased slightly during the same time. New religious movements in the Christian tradition such as Evangelical and

Pentecostal/Charismatic are becoming more popular religions in contemporary Australia (Table 3 p. 213). Pentecostalism has become the largest and fastest growing segment of Christianity in the world, while Islam is also one of the fastest growing non-Christian religions in the world. The

Muslim population in Australia nearly 350,000 (ABS, 2006), with the largest concentrations in Sydney's western and southern, and Melbourne’s north eastern suburbs.

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Table 2. Major Religious Affiliations in Australia

MAJOR RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS

Christianity Anglican Catholic Other Total Other No Not stated/ Total religions religion inadequately described Census % % % % % % % '000 year

1901 39.7 22.7 33.7 96.1 1.4 0.4 (a)2.0 3 773.8 1911 38.4 22.4 35.1 95.9 0.8 0.4 (a)2.9 4 455.0 1921 43.7 21.7 31.6 96.9 0.7 0.5 (a)1.9 5 435.7 1933 38.7 19.6 28.1 86.4 0.4 0.2 12.9 6 629.8 1947 39.0 20.9 28.1 88.0 0.5 0.3 11.1 7 579.4 1954 37.9 22.9 28.5 89.4 0.6 0.3 9.7 8 986.5 1961 34.9 24.9 28.4 88.3 0.7 0.4 10.710 508.2 1966 33.5 26.2 28.5 88.2 0.7 0.8 10.311 599.5 1971 31.0 27.0 28.2 86.2 0.8 6.7 6.212 755.6 1976 27.7 25.7 25.2 78.6 1.0 8.3 11.413 548.4 1981 26.1 26.0 24.3 76.4 1.4 10.8 11.414 576.3 1986 23.9 26.0 23.0 73.0 2.0 12.7 12.415 602.2 1991 23.8 27.3 22.9 74.0 2.6 12.9 10.516 850.3 1996 22.0 27.0 21.9 70.9 3.5 16.6 9.017 752.8 2001 20.7 26.6 20.7 68.0 4.9 15.5 11.718 769.2 2006 18.7 25.8 19.3 63.9 5.6 18.7 11.919 855.3

(a) Includes 'object to state'. Source: ABS data available on request, Census of Population and Housing.

5.7.1 Evangelical influences

Connell (2005) identifies the rise of mega-churches in Australia, and religious establishments such as Hillsong in Sydney, and Paradise in

Adelaide are part of the revitalisation of this form of religious practice

(Bouma, 2006: 149). The Sydney branch of Hillsong Church operates from

Baulkam Hills and Waterloo. The church attracts a total attendance of over

20,000 on any given weekend, and the reputation of the church continues to expand, having a dynamic influence and impact in Australia and many other nations. Hillsong also has churches in London, Kiev and more recently Cape Town, South Africa and Stockholm, Sweden (Hillsong cited in Bouma, 2006: 150-51). Bouma notes the theological rhetoric is often patriarchal, promoting traditional family values, and “maintain a well-

212 articulated critique of high divorce rates, , abortion rates and non-marital sex ( ibid. : 152).

Table 3. Religious Affiliation by Census Years by Percentage Change

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION

2001 2006 Change '000 % '000 % %

Christianity Anglican 3 881.2 20.7 3 718.2 18.7 -4.2 Baptist 309.2 1.6 316.7 1.6 2.4 Catholic 5 001.6 26.6 5 126.9 25.8 2.5 Churches of Christ 61.3 0.3 54.8 0.3 -10.6 Jehovah's Witness 81.1 0.4 80.9 0.4 -0.2 Lutheran 250.4 1.3 251.1 1.3 0.3 Orthodox 529.4 2.8 576.9 2.9 9.0 Pentecostal 194.6 1.0 219.7 1.1 12.9 Presbyterian and Reformed 637.5 3.4 596.7 3.0 -6.4 Salvation Army 71.4 0.4 64.2 0.3 -10.1 Uniting Church 1 248.7 6.7 1 135.4 5.7 -9.1 Other Christian 497.9 2.7 544.3 2.7 9.3 Buddhism 357.8 1.9 418.8 2.1 17.0 Hinduism 95.5 0.5 148.1 0.8 55.1 Islam 281.6 1.5 340.4 1.7 20.9 Judaism 84.0 0.4 88.8 0.5 5.8 Other religions 92.4 0.5 109.0 0.6 18.0 No religion 2 906.0 15.5 3 706.6 18.7 27.5 Not stated/inadequately described 2 187.7 11.7 2 357.8 11.9 7.8 Total 18 769.2 100.0 19 855.3 100.0 5.8

Source: ABS data available on request, Census of Population and Housing.

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Figure 1 Affiliation of Australians of all ages to major non-Christian religions

Such core notions as liberation and enlightenment are increasingly being interpreted as a means to an end, the end being the profound transformation of society rather than as an individual goal. As with the

Christian lobby in America, and to a lesser extent in Australia, Christian groups exercise political power of influence in electoral politics. In fact

NRMs are integral to a new politics where governments frequently engage with multiple social and religious movements vying for funding and applying lobbying pressure. Indeed, the Pentecostal movement could be considered compatible with conservative neoliberalism in terms of its compatibility with consumer capitalism and conservative social values. Perhaps this is unsurprising considering max Weber’s analysis of the role of Protestantism in the rise of industrial capitalism.

In Australia, some conservative politicians identify with groups such as the Hillsong mega-church. In a post-modern age where religious collectivities can openly believe in creationism, it is interesting that this form of Christian fundamentalism is acceptable from a political perspective. The

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Australian treasurer Peter Costello is a regular attendee of Hillsong gatherings (Costello, 2005), and Hillsong as Australia’s newest, wealthiest and largest single church was opened by Prime Minister Howard on his return from visiting the scene of the Bali bombings in October 2002 (SMH,

2003)

There is now a direct formal link between conservative politics and conservative religion with the Families First Party (FFP) political party becoming a national political party in August 2004. The FFP promotes a strong Religious Right platform, including opposition to school sex education, euthanasia and prostitution, and outspoken support for censorship. At another level the influence of the religious right is felt by the addition of the Exclusive Brethren into political lobbying and donation assistance. Marion Maddox (2005) explains:

With conservative politicians, business and Christian leaders finding common ground, and heartened by electoral success in America and elsewhere, a loose coalition is now pushing New Zealand down a worryingly rightwing path. The eruption of the Exclusive Brethren is just the latest in a series of increasingly prominent religious presences.

John Howard relied for his 1995 return to the Liberal leadership on the support of a secretive conservative Christian grouping within the Liberal

Party called the Lyons Forum. The religious right has become increasingly outspoken within the party, with Treasurer Peter Costello arguing that

Australia’s problems will be solved not by legislation but a return to the Ten

Commandments, and former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson declaring that, without Jesus, ‘we’re a mob of dirty rotten sinners and we’re on the path to hell’ (Maddox, 2005).

The point of this short excursion into Pentecostal Christian religious alliances with conservative politicians and politics is to reveal an explanatory framework which separates Christian conservatism into right-

215 wing alliances, and by default, a coalition emphasising the Christian heritage of Australian political institutions. It is also indicative of the increasing influence of neoconservatism inherent in Australian politics. This contrasts with the place of Islam in Australian society, where nominal tolerance is exercised so long as Muslims assimilate into Australian society and engage with Australian values. This is noted by Johns and Saeed

(2002: 209) regarding the order in the popular assessment of religions in

Australia:

Buddhism is intellectually chic, and there is a broad appreciation in educated circles of the sacred sites and spirits and reverence for land and nature of Aboriginal spirituality. Islam, on the other hand, is widely viewed through stereotypical lenses, and conversion to Islam (as opposed to Buddhism, for example) is regarded as an aberration.

It is argued, then, that new forms of religious membership, affiliation and participation are taking over (or have taken over) from the conventional

Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian/Methodist/Uniting cleavages dating back to

1996 (Bean, 1999: 555). The degree to which conservative Christianity influences contemporary Australian politics is difficult measure, but in any likelihood the congregations of these churches provide ambiguous financial and moral support in return for conservative social values entrenched in policy. This reinforces the place of Christianity in Australian political institutions, and while perfectly legal, it negates the value of non-Christian religions as contributors to the still Anglo-centric power bases of Australian politics. This is noticeable in the subtle political and media bias when topics of national significance are raised. The terrorist attacks of September 11 galvanised perceptions of Muslims and the threat of radicalisation and was reinforced in Western Europe by the Madrid train bombing (11 March,

2004); the London tube and bus bombings (7 July, 2005) and in Australia with the Bali bombing (12 October, 2002). Muslim minorities in Western

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Europe, the U.S., and Australia face a myriad of issues in relation to ethno- national identity, the adaptation of religio-cultural norms and values, and matters of everyday social and legal citizenship. Nevertheless, Islam in

Australia poses a challenge to orthodox constructions of identity politics and represents a new force in the secular field of Australian society.

The following section outlines a theoretical synthesis by applying

Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, and doxa, and his theory of the state. This will provide an explanatory framework with which to contextualise the narrowing focus on power relations and resistance strategies.

5.8 Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical influences

5.8.1 Terminology, concepts and analysis

To effect a synthesis of objectivism and subjectivism Bourdieu has constructed the concepts of habitus, capital, field, and doxa. 18 These concepts are useful for analysing and explaining the nature of relationships involved in religious conversion in the specific context of this study, which is the prison. The decision-making process can only be understood in terms of the life histories of those who make them, wherein identity has evolved through interaction with significant others . For Bourdieu, individual action and belief must always be culturally and socially situated, for we are all born into a social setting. The dispositions of ‘individual beliefs and perceptions are located within ‘positions’ or social structures. Within these social structures Bourdieu gives primacy to social class, but ethnicity is also a useable concept. Bourdieu sees a ‘reflexive’ relationship between

‘dispositions’ and social structures This concept encapsulates the ways in

18 These terms are fully explicated in Bourdieu’s Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action (1998c); Pascalian Meditations (1997); Language and Symbolic Power (1991); and Outline of Theory of Practice (1977). 217 which a person’s beliefs, ideas and preferences are individually subjective but also influenced by the objective social networks and cultural traditions in which that person lives (Bourdieu, 1977: 72).

The system of dispositions acts as a mediation between structures and practice ( ibid. : 487). Habitus influences not only the types of decisions made, but also the ways in which they are made.

The system of dispositions people acquire depends on the

(successive) position(s) they occupy in society, that is, on their particular endowment in capital. Capital is any resource able to be appropriated for either economic, cultural, social, or symbolic gain or profit. The position of any individual, group, or institution, in social space may thus be charted by two coordinates, the overall volume and the composition of the capital they hold or represent. A third coordinate, variation over time of this volume and composition, record their trajectory through social space and provides invaluable clues as to their habitus. This is done by revealing the manner and path through which they reached the position they presently occupy

(Hodkinson & Sparkes, 1997).

The undifferentiated social space inherent in late modernity

(Giddens, 1991) tends to form distinct microcosms endowed with their own rules, regularities, and forms of authority. This is what Bourdieu calls fields.

A field is in the first instance, a structured space of positions or force field that imposes its specific determinations upon all those who enter it.

Therefore a field is an arena of struggle through which agents and institutions seek to preserve or overturn the existing distribution of capital. A further property of field is its degree of autonomy to exercise or insulate itself from external influences (Bourdieu, 1977).

Just as habitus informs practice from within, a field structures action and representation from without, offering the individual a range of possible

218 stances and options. Those agents who occupy the dominant positions in a particular field tend to pursue strategies to conserve the existing distribution of capital, while those relegated to subordinate locations are more likely to deploy strategies of subversion or resistance (Chopra, 2003).

The concepts of habitus, capital, and field are therefore internally linked to one another as each achieves its full analytical potential only when combined with each other. Combined they enable the concept of doxa to emerge within a specific field. Doxa is considered as an unquestionable orthodoxy that operates as if it were the objective truth. This occurs across social space in its entirety, from the practices and perceptions of individuals to the practices and perceptions of the state and social groups (at the level of fields) (Chopra, 2003). Bourdieu (1998a) terms neoliberalism as doxa, represented as a self-evident truth about the human and social which is beyond question. The status of neoliberalism as doxa is “what gives the dominant discourse its strength” (1998a: 29). Bourdieu considers neoliberalism an all pervasive paradigm and method for shaping habitus- producing structures, and what occurs at the level of the habitus

(‘practices’) also occurs at the level of the state ( ibid. ).

Bourdieu’s habitus and field are useful analytical tools and a

‘practical’ theory. The prison habitus as field determined by authoritarian and regulated conditions of existence expanded out to systems of institutional governance (frontier conditions, colonialism, white Australia), and contemporary neoliberal economic and conservative governance are examples of this concept. Each of these fields embodies overlapping micro- fields of social space and conceptualised over time. ‘Practice’ defined as those embodied activities and competencies that are ‘learned’ and carried out by individuals in a social space. An example relevant to this study is the practice(s) of prison existence acquired as a result of being integrated,

219 acclimatised and shaped in a particular type of environment. By extension, this applies to social space as distinct and overlapping fields corresponding to different spheres of activity and practice, such as the cultural, economic, social and political (Bourdieu, 1991). These learned practices in turn enable individuals to negotiate interactions with other individuals in that social space.

The structures that typify the social spaces such as a prison tend to modify the habitus to make one choice over another and to privilege one action over another, that is, the tendencies to regularly engage in certain practices as compared with other practices. Bourdieu claims there is a limit to the possibilities ‘allowed by the perceptual framework corresponding to any habitus. What sets this limit and lies beyond it is Bourdieu’s doxa. To question the doxa is an act essentially in the order of heresy, for it is to question the very basis on which not just particular practices or dispositions ultimately rest, but on which the very system that is the basis of all practices in a habitus ultimately rests (Chopra, 2003: 426). Essentially, this is what happens in a prison environment – on a daily basis as part of prison routine, and particularly in the case of ‘radical’ Islamic alliances.

Importantly, the doxa is habitus-specific, thus implying that what is doxa for inhabitants of one habitus need not necessarily be doxa for the inhabitants of another. Again, this mirrors the relationship between prison management and detainees.

As mentioned above, the habitus inherent in (Islamic) religious practice in Australia generally, and within prisons specifically, indicates an unequal distribution of power and resources. The performance of Islamic rituals, or the relations that structure a field, operate as a non-negotiable currency of exchange in relation to the institutional rituals of the dominant

220 society and the prison. On the other hand, Islamic practice embodied in prisoner habitus does translate as valid capital for the field.

The prison (field) as an autonomous institution and structure with specific fields and prison Islam as a field within a field, yet inmates come into the prison environment with their individual habitus conditioning the functioning of social space shared by other groups of people. Bourdieu argues that social practices are generated through the interaction of agents, who are both differently disposed and unequally resourced, within the bounds of specific networks which have a game-like structure and which impose definite restraints upon them. (Crossley, 2002: 171). Further theoretical analysis will continue in the next section examining social solidarity.

5.8.2 Social solidarity and social cohesion

Social solidarity and cohesion are concepts relevant to further explore relationships between community members in relation to the position of outsiders to that of whole societies, towns and villages, families and clubs. The different worlds of meaning that manifest within them, and the sense of identity, belonging and orientation that members variously have and feel towards them (Crossley 1996: 92) refers to the manner, for example, in which one group ‘constructs’ the other and then institutes and enforces an identity upon that group and a partitioning and differential treatment of them. Crossley (1996) examines an example of racist ideology

(see also Gilroy 1992; Goldberg 1993) ( There Ain’t No Black in the Union

Jack and Racist Culture respectively). These are what Crossley names as

‘hatred ideologies’, but the converse is the feeling of belonging to a community, especially when one is away from it. This result is the community members’ sense of self is bound to a sense of the group: the

221 group’s central myths and symbols tend to be interwoven with the personal narratives of its members because their personal history coincides with that of the group (Crossley 1996: 93). The group members ‘thinking as usual’ is the style of thinking which is accepted, valued and which works in those groups, since it is from those groups that this thinking (largely) derives.

They thus find that they ‘fit’ in this group more easily than in others ( ibid .:

94), and the members have an identified place in the group meaning they are recognised and have status.

These perspectives inform a general insight into the intricacies of social formation which can then be applied to social movements and social movement theory. For example Schutz demonstrated that a community is more than a mere population of people in a space; that it is constituted through interlocking systems of roles and taken-for-granted assumptions, which are activated in and through interactive praxes (in Crossley 1996:

95). But this is where the parochial intimacies observed by Schutz are negated to a large degree by prolonged periods of ‘rationalisation’ which has effectively routinised and instrumentalised many social spheres, not to mention globalized and standardised most cultural forms (ibid .: 96). “The social world, according to this view, is regulated by large impersonal bureaucracies whose modus operandi negates the significance of particularistic cultural norms and values” (ibid .). It is the loss of certain

‘interdependencies’ that Elias (1978b) ( What is Sociology ) identifies as emotional, physical, and financial dependencies, all of which have been shown to be central to the construction of solidarity and dynamism of social life. It is such interdependencies which ensure that no one person in a group can act without affecting all of the others ( ibid .). At one level the degree of adaptability of people to conform to certain proscribed social norms is evidenced by the degree of conflict in society. For Indigenous

222 collectivities, the trauma associated with continued socioeconomic inequality does not appear to have spread to reparative or conciliatory outcomes.

The theoretical value of incorporating this schema is to enable a comparison of the strength or weakness of social ties as they affect

Indigenous people before and after ‘conversion’ or alignment with a Muslim community. Statistical and empirical evidence suggests various socially disrupting breaks in the continuity of Indigenous citizenship, hence the preconditions and presence of Indigenous social movements. Yet the option exists for alternative religious, spiritual, community, and political expression and practice. A ‘common-sense’ viewpoint would be to conclude

Indigenous people would try to maintain the “interlocking systems of roles…” within their own family, kinship, and language groups. But this outlook does not account for the loss of ‘interlocking systems’ due to the influences of past bureaucratic, political practices and ‘regimes of truth’

(Foucault, 1980). Even when these links are reinstated, they are not always complete or satisfactory. However, this does not exclude the cultural connection as Indigenous nor rule out a parallel process of

‘belonging’ in multiple communities. As discussed briefly above, the analytical task is to identify and examine the social factors influencing the motivations of individual actors to engage collectively. This involves examining Indigenous perceptions of ‘belonging’ to community and how this influences further decisions. Further to this angle of enquiry are the way structures of dominance effect underlying conditions influencing empowerment and solidarity potential. An unqualified hypothesis suggests proximity to, and acceptance of, cultural difference are important preliminary conditional states prior to engagement with Islam. Tarrow

(1998: 20) describes a similar process as “political opportunity structures”.

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5.9 Social movements

The following definitions and conceptual variations regarding social movements are presented as a cross-section of different authoritative perspectives. The aim is to construct a) a conceptual and theoretical benchmark for analysing the social process of religious conversion as a new social movement; and b) to locate the particular variation of Islamic conversion in a political context. The hypothesis informing these aims is to suggest that Indigenous conversion to Islam understanding the process is based on an awareness of a politicised Islamic movement.

Crossley (2002: 8) claims social movements as “key agents for bringing about change within societies” Social movements are…”natural experiments in power, legitimation and democracy. Their existence, successes, failures and more generally their dynamics, though all incredibly difficult to read and interpret, allow us to gauge the workings of the broader political structures of our society” ( ibid.: 9).

Burgmann (2003: 4) describes social movements as social and distinguished by movement and operates at the level of civil society unlike a purely political movement. “The possibilities for opposition and protest in the global era are enhanced if a social movement has a trans-national framework”: this links to signs of an emerging alternative civil society

(Cohen and Rai 2000: 16 cited in Burgmann 2003: 4).

For Indigenous peoples, a persistent dilemma arises regarding the need and advisability of forming alliances with those other peoples and organisations with similar yet distinct purposes and objectives (Morris 1996:

215).

The ability to confront, through electoral politics, the structural obstacles posed by the settler state to Indigenous self-determination presents not only a formidable practical problem, but also an inherent contradiction

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between expressions of independent Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous participation in the system of the colonizing settler state (ibid.).

According to Burgmann (2003) official policies toward Indigenous

Australians have long contributed to the fragmentation of their communities and rendered political mobilisation difficult. Indigenous Australians do not represent a large enough segment in Australian society to feel they can be an effective participant in mainstream politics (Fleming 1996). This is not to deny significant and enduring agency on the part of numerous Indigenous organisations and groups to collectively unite for political purposes. The

Tent Embassy 19 began as a response to the then Coalition Government's refusal to recognise land rights. The ‘embassy’ is only one of many historical and contemporary resistance and activism movements demonstrated by Indigenous individuals and groups. Fleming notes that in relation to Native American people and other minority groups in the United

States,

Indian people, in the main, do not feel they are part of the mainstream, nor do they necessarily wish to be. This is, in part, because American Indians were for the most part, unwillingly consumed by American society” (Fleming 1996: 234).

Comparisons could be made here to the similarities of the forcible attempts to incorporate Indians into American society and Indigenous

Australians into Australian society. For American Indians it was the reservation system, and in Australia a similar system existed to firstly isolate, and then assimilate Indigenous Australians. A common response to this treatment continues in the form of belief that government and other paternalistic organisations and individuals were acting in the best interests

19 The Aboriginal Tent Embassy has become part of Canberra's physical and political landscape. It has intermittently existed on the lawns of Old Parliament House since Australia Day 1972 and permanently since Australia Day 1992. http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/chron/1999-2000/2000chr03.htm 225 of Indigenous peoples. For both American Indians and Indigenous

Australians “it is no wonder that with histories of oppression and cultural genocide, the first peoples’ of North America and Australia view their federal governments’ political processes with suspicion” (Fleming 1996:

236). The underlying issue is one of the suppression of Indigenous identity due to assimilation and integration policies, and unwillingness through increasing awareness that historical wrong-doings have never been satisfactorily resolved for Indigenous Australians. This became obvious during the process of data gathering, with questions asked for the

Indigenous respondents’ understanding of these historical events. A later chapter will examine and discuss the impacts of socio-political processes and Indigenous affairs. .

Communities can be communities of affection and shared material life, like families; they can be communities of interest, like political lobby groups; they can be communities of shared commitment or history, such as religious or ethnic groups (Maddox 2001). The ‘Aboriginal community’ and the Islamic community are terms of identity often functioning on multifarious levels, while also containing numerous local and descent-based communities within them. Communities exist within a wider society but not all communities are fixed. At times people move, or find that they have been moved, beyond the affective or organisational ties of a community to which they once belonged, and to which they may still feel a kind of

(changed) belonging. Indigenous actors may join with Muslims but remain attached or detached to any number of social, cultural, and political combinations of community. Moreover, the picture needs to include not only intersections or conflicts between communities at the same level, but also among or between higher and lower level communities, from the family to the state and at all levels in between.

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These instances do not exhaust the range of ways in which a person fits into the web-like network of the state, society and community.

As communities of resistance demonstrate repeatedly, people often rely on ties – affective, organisational and more loosely associative – to protect them against the efforts of the dominant society to impose itself upon them, or to shape it in a particular form (Maddox, 2001). An important and somewhat influential social movement is that of the anti-globalisation network. One of its platforms critiques the spread of neoliberal economic reform (Burgmann, 2003). At a local level the implication of reform instituted social change is demonstrated by increasing gradients of inequality in society. When individuals engage in collective protest action or solo acts of resistance which are supported by webs of association, they assert their membership in particular communities against the wider society. In the case of Indigenous and Muslim alignment, it is not difficult to suppose that this engagement would elicit differing responses from other members of the wider society. When the location of individuals and their various communities within a competitive market economy is taken into account, the situation becomes more complex. Barber (1996: 30-1) points out that cultural, sexual, and ethnic identities may be intersected by market and civic identities which pull individuals in a number of different directions.

For the purposes of this study it is hypothesised that Indigenous actors align with existing communities of like-minded people who are both potential emancipators and empowering agents. Historically this has included liberal-minded settlers and administrators, trade unions, communists, green movements and environmentalists, and various sections of academia and the political left. However, it is useful to differentiate between cooperative, collaborative and consensual alliances and those where Indigenous knowledge is used to empower or promote

227 non-Indigenous interests. Indigenous relations with the Communist Party of

Australia have been explained by Geoff McDonald (1982) in Red Over

Black: Behind the Aboriginal Land Rights. One of the main concerns raised by McDonald is that Aboriginal land rights and a possible treaty would be used to establish a separate Aboriginal nation under Communist domination (1982: 13). There is an interesting parallel between the fear of

Communism in post WW11 Australia, and the fear of global political Islam in a post September 11 environment. In both cases, the association of

Aborigines firstly as dupes of communists and then Islamic radicals will require further investigation. That Indigenous prison inmates are taken advantage of by opportunistic (radicalised) Muslims is a common perception, yet this viewpoint overlooks the idea of mutual recognition. Both

Indigenous and Muslims ‘know’ repression and discrimination as applied mechanisms of the dominant society. However, the inequitable collective advantage of mainstream society is neutralised to some extent by minority groups creating new, and strengthening old, affiliations and associations.

The combination of ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Islamic’ is one instance where the numeric, religious, cultural, political and social frameworks of established power and advantage is able to be reassessed. However, from the perspective of mainstream society and sections of the media and government, these alliances were seen as a threat to the order and make- up of Australian society. This is just one example of how power and authority define the continuing disputes over Indigenous well-being and entitlements by engaging in divisive and unproductive debates. Invariably it involves contested notions of identity framed within ideological definitions of nation, culture and religion. Contested or oppositional ideologies such as the communist atheist east and the democratic Christian west have moved out of academic favour, yet as one trend disappears another emerges. The

228 authoritarian Muslim east and the democratic secular west are descriptions loaded with meaning and portent. The galvanising effect of September 11 and the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have ensured media prominence of speculative Islamic radicalism. Similarly in the early stages of Indigenous resistance and protest activity which gained national attention with the ‘freedom rides’ in 1965, Indigenous activism was seen as threatening to the legal deception of terra nullius and the lie of peaceful colonial settlement. These are emotive and powerful images to incorporate into previous histories notable for what they did not discuss. The

Indigenous protest movement was, and remains, by any of the definitions outlined, a social movement. As a social movement it makes demands against the nation-state but nevertheless exists in a global environment linking it to other groups with common interests.

Two other relevant examples are the ‘imagined communities’ of black Americans contesting their oppression and disadvantage originating from slavery. Another is the collective solidarity of Indigenous responses to deaths in custody and the stolen generations. Maddox (2001: 17) defines a collective or individual protest or acts of resistance which are supported by webs of association, assert their membership in particular communities against the wider society. Both of these geographically distinct and diverse groups ‘recognise’ each other as resisting discourses of colonialism and oppression. For some Indigenous Australians, their alignment with Islam provides an opportunity to apply social movement theory, or collective action theory (Oberschall 2004) as a method of understanding these relationships.

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5.10 Collectivities and movements: joining the links

Categorising Indigenous social movements is uncontroversial in that numerous movements past and present represent a social “process of confrontation characterised by capacity for protest” (Burgmann 2003: 4). In this sense, these movements are ‘imagined communities’ of the oppressed, disadvantaged or threatened (ibid.). The solidarity of Aboriginal communities against ‘deaths in custody’ is an ongoing assertion of identity membership. In the case of Indigenous actors aligning with Islam, ‘identity politics’ is reconstructed into ‘new collective identities’, but combining identity politics with a reflexive monitoring within the new Muslim dominated group or community. Bagguley (1999: 75-76) states that: “Social movements are centrally an expression of collective reflexivity and not just an aggregation of, nor merely an arena for, self-reflexivity”.

In reality, and based on the tenets of Islam, the demographic within any Muslim community is diverse. Yet within the Muslim collective, socially shared activities and beliefs directed toward the demand for change or the maintenance of order are difficult to analytically separate. This is partly due to the internal order and construct of the community as an Islamic community, with its intrinsic socio-religious configuration, and its variable reflexive attitude and propensity to engage or not engage with the dominant non-Muslim society. Civil engagement may be driven by positive (welfare, pastoral or social justice) or negative issues such as anti-discrimination campaigns. Day-to-day social interaction is likely to be no different to any other in an ethnically diverse society. Differences may occur, however, within ethnically concentrated communities, leading to more specific cultural practices as a result of individual and community influenced habitus. Discernable markers of difference (or distinction) such as clothing become less ‘visible’ within discreet communities. On the other hand, for

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Muslims, especially women, the issue of unconditional social acceptance of the hijab and burqa is contingent and area specific. Clothing carries certain visible clues as to the ethnicity and religious orientation of the wearer.

Unfortunately, media and political comments regarding Islamic dress tend to polarize the population and maintain attitudes based on ‘us’ and ‘them’.

From a sociological perspective it is hazardous to assume collective action as “a unified datum” (Melucci 2000: 25). Rather, it is more productive to “discover the plurality of perspectives, meanings and relationships which crystallize in any given collective action” (ibid.). Maddox (2001) provides a slightly different perspective to Melucci, in that different groups at different times move between and within certain social movements. This perspective allows a certain analytical space to investigate the dualities of Indigenous issues and those of the Muslim collective. Theoretically, Indigenous actors could maintain existing cultural and social relations within discreet kinship and community networks while simultaneously engaging with Muslims and

Islamic life-world criteria. The underlying hypothesis in advancing this perspective is the knowledge of broad Indigenous discontent with the normal channels of political communication. Burgmann (2003: 7) makes the point:

When people make what they perceive to be eminently reasonable demands upon relevant authorities and find these authorities either resistant or incapable of offering redress, direct action is a common resort, and the formation of a social movement a logical outcome.

Burgmann’s (2003) comment could be extended to conclude that if not the formation of a social movement, then disappointment, resentment, disempowerment, and misrecognition are likely to simmer and foment.

These feelings are more pronounced when long-term grievances continue to be inadequately addressed as is the case for many Indigenous people.

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5.11 Discussion and conclusion

In this section the analyses of the sociological themes of globalisation, neoliberalism, secularism and nationalism have outlined conceptual and theoretical insights into various socio-cultural influences at global and local levels. The groups in society most likely to benefit least from neoliberal policies are those who have been historically marginalised.

The increasing social problems of uneven wealth distribution can be linked to the excesses of neoliberal ideologies. For many Indigenous Australians inter-generational disadvantage continues.

The contemporary paradigm for the democratic West presents the paradox of competing fundamentalisms. The reality for the West generally, and the United States specifically is revenge driven by righteousness, intolerance and long term historical resentment. Cordesman (2004) writes:

“The US is not the political, economic, and social model for every culture and every political system” 20 (2004: iii). The difficult question arises as to how Australian Muslims are responding to the predicament of those whose normal daily routines are being absorbed into the discourses of insecurity and fear. Anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiment exists in some sections of the Australian community, and this is historically linked to conservative ideas resisting cultural and religious differences.

The secular nature of Australian society belies the fact that previous and present governments benefit from Christian-based financial and voter support. As the number of Muslims increases, the long-held tensions regarding Australian identity are also challenged. Australian nationalism was borne out of an alliance with Anglo-Christian values and social

20 This statement carries further credence following the US then global financial meltdown in late 2008. 232 constructs, yet mainstream Christian religions are now in decline while

Buddhism and Islam are on the increase (ABS, 2006).

The socioeconomic conditions of many Indigenous Australians remain below that of other Australians. The inequality divide appears to be widening rather than closing. Unresolved symbolic issues complicate and intensify a quest for resolution. The degree to which Indigenous people engage with Islam because of long term unresolved social exclusion is yet to be determined, yet a ‘common bond’ exists at some levels of society.

Islam in Australia is placed in an invidious position of defending against implied connections with events not of its making. Global political and religious conservative influence assisted by market fundamentalism suggests a confluence of ideology and reactive forces. One part of the reactive force is the struggle of Indigenous and Islam to gain legitimacy where propriety is in short supply.

Research continues to analyse the disadvantages of globalisation , particularly in the areas of neoliberal economic and political practices as dominant regimes. Since the events of September 11, a resurgent literature has emerged explaining the fundamentalist aspect of Islam and the threat to global and internal nation-state security. And literature abounds with histories of oppression and consequent efforts to seek the freedom to exert cultural, religious, and political autonomy. This literature points to both positive and negative influences determining the retraction of some religious faiths in the advance of secularism, and the resurgence of other faiths in response to secularisation and anomie associated with late modern societies.

For Indigenous Australians increased depersonalisation and alienation exists in an increasingly stratified society. With the retraction of the welfare state and advances of neoliberal policies many Indigenous

233 peoples continue to be made dependent on the state. Economic management and policy outcomes driven by neoliberal ideology does not appear to have substantially benefited those who are least able to effect social change.

This section has linked historical and contemporary issues probing tensions and relationships between globalisation and inequality, neoliberal political and economic ideology, secularisation and religious resurgence, and multiculturalism and social exclusion. Within these analyses the religious community dimension is included to gain an understanding of the specific dynamics associated with an Islamic oriented Indigenous participative relationship. An Australian focus positions Indigenous actors as choosing their destiny in a sensitive political climate tempered by global events and a resurgence of social conservatism and economic fundamentalism. The section outlined and discussed major macro- sociological frameworks which established the context for considering the influences conditioning the decision by Indigenous Australians to convert to

Islam. The conclusions demonstrated the complexity of social relations concerning political ideology, multiculturalism, national identity, and religious belief and practice. The analysis was concerned to identify how

Indigenous inequality is trapped in sets of hierarchical social relations . It is argued that hierarchical power relations remain as a feature of contemporary society and although subtle in there appearance they are pervasive in their application.

This chapter has contextualised and drawn together the theoretical and conceptual issues discussed in the literature review by developing and applying an overall theoretical and analytical model. Conventional approaches to religious conversion were discussed first and later compared with the experiences of Indigenous converts to Islam. The application of

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Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’ has assisted in understanding the situation of

Indigenous peoples by examining the generative processes giving rise to a certain habituses and the individual sets of dispositions and schemas and/or the collective interpretive resources and lifeworlds of specific social groups and communities (Crossley, 2002 173).

The behaviour of groups and communities is governed by their subjective interests, which favours a sociological question asking why members of one particular group might share a particular disposition to collectively align in with other groups. The particular dispositions, schemas, styles, and know-how common among groups and individuals with similar social problems are likely to form common alliance for collective gain. This is relevant for groups perceived as ‘outsiders’ in relation to ‘mainstream’ groups. These questions are significant in the case of Indigenous alignment with Islam particularly considering the ethnic, cultural and social differences. Yet the issue is not so much with the internal dynamics of the

Indigenous/Islamic relationship, but with the combined Indigenous and

Islamic alignment and the reactions, attitudes, and discourses emanating from mainstream sources. However, there are compelling analytical reasons for understanding the rhetorical resources and the discursive work done by differing constructions of the social relationships both before and after engaging with Islam (in the case of Indigenous adherents) see

Augoustinos et al . 1999.

The theoretical application of Bourdieu’s enables a comprehensive coverage of influences from macro global effects to micro social psychological analysis. This involves a need to understand historical and contemporary influences as they relate to various sociological theories and concepts, such as the structural ‘contradictions’ or tensions which generate potential grievances embedded in lived experiences.

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These perspectives provide a benchmark for examining the complex relationships between capitalist societies; the historical and sociological factors influencing Indigenous societies; and how social injustice manifests in personal and intergenerational dysfunction. Fraser

(1995: 68) claims that ‘cultural domination supplants exploitation as the fundamental injustice’. The corollary of cultural domination is cultural recognition, and struggles for recognition occur in a world of exacerbated material and socioeconomic inequality. The basic argument made in this chapter is that Islam defends a cultural politics of difference and compliments a politics of equality. The actual religious conversion process, therefore, becomes enmeshed in history, culture, politics, and religion.

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6.0 Islam & Australian society: themes and perspectives

6.1 Introduction

The previous chapter discussed and analysed the underlying conditions ultimately leading to the over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system generally, and prisons in particular.

This was found to be strongly related to regimes of continuous historical control and governance leading to fractured and displaced communities and individual alienation.

To contextualise the place of Islam in Australian society a historical overview of Muslim contact is discussed in the following section beginning with the Macassan influence in Northern Australia dating back to the late

16 th century. In the 1850s Muslims arrived as ‘Afghan’ cameleers during the exploration and pastoral development of inland Australia. Muslim Malays followed in the 1870s during the lead up to the 1901 introduction of the

Immigration Restriction Act. Since the arrival of the Afghans, Ottoman

Turks, Albanians and Javanese have settled in Australia. The era of the

White Australia policy meant that only white European immigrants were able to settle in the country. The most recent and populous phase of

Muslim immigration began during the 1970s and has continued in varying degrees to the present day. During this period Turkish Muslims, Lebanese- born Muslims, and Bangladeshi-born Muslims also established communities in Australia (Kabir, 2003). The following Tables adapted from the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics identify relevant quantitative aspects of Islam and Australian society.

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Table 4 Australian Muslims - 2006 Census

Religion by Count of Persons 1996 2001 2006 Christianity 12,582,764 12,764,342 12,685,836 Buddhism 199,812 357,813 418,756 Islam 200,885 281,578 340,392 Hinduism 67,279 95,473 148,119 Judaism 79,805 83,993 88,831 No religion 2,948,888 2,905,993 3,706,555 Not stated 1,550,585 1,835,598 2,223,957 Total 17,752,829 18,769,249 19,855,288

Table 5 Religions in Australia

Religion by Percentage 1996 2001 2006 Christianity 70.9% 68.0% 63.9% Buddhism 1.1% 1.9% 2.1% Islam 1.1% 1.5% 1.7% Hinduism 0.4% 0.5% 0.7% Judaism 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% No religion 16.6% 15.5% 18.7% Not stated 8.7% 9.8% 11.2%

Table 6 Muslims in Australia by State and Territory

Muslims by State/Territory: 2006 Census Data: State % of Population Calculated No. NSW 2.6% 170,279 VIC 2.2% 108,512 QLD 0.5% 19,522 SA 0.7% 10,600 WA 1.2% 23,509 TAS 0.2% 953 NT 0.6% 1,157 ACT 1.3% 4,212

Table 7 Muslims in Australia by Capital Cities

Muslims by Capital City: 2006 Census Data: City % of Population Calculated No. Sydney 3.9% 160,648 Melbourne 2.9% 104,185 Brisbane 0.8% 14,104 Adelaide 0.9% 9,952 Perth 1.5% 21,676 Hobart 0.3% 601 Darwin 0.9% 654 Canberra 1.4% 4,523

• In 2006, Islam was the third largest religion after Christianity and Buddhism, representing 1.7% of the population (340,392 Muslims). • Hinduism was the fastest growing religion with a 55% increase from 2001 to 2006. The next fastest group was “No religion” (Agnosticism, Atheism, Humanism, Rationalism) with a 28% increase.

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• The rate of Muslim increase dropped from 40% in 2001 to 21% in 2006. The total population increased by 5.8% in 2006. • In 2006, 48.7% (almost half) of Muslims were less than 25 years old, compared with 33% for the total population. • In 2006, 47% (almost half - 160,000) of Muslims were Sydneysiders. • Tables 1 – 4 adapted from 2006 ABS census

6.2 Analytical and methodological overview

The analysis in this chapter will focus on the various stages of

Islamic presence and migration to Australia . It will be argued that racial and

economic discrimination experiences by Muslims in Australia became

institutionalised since the arrival of the Afghans and varying degrees of

discrimination and racism have continued to impact on present generations

of Muslims. Summary comparisons will be made of how Indigenous people

and Muslims find collective solidarity because of enduring and collective

histories of discrimination. This discussion will lead to the prison experience

of both groups and how alliances are formed based on similar themes of

marginalisation. The importance of employing a broad socio-historical

critical methodology is restated because of the strong linkage between past

events influencing the present. The following review outlines Islamic

influences and social relations in Australia since the sixteenth century, with

a focus on comparing social interactions between the dominant settler

society, Muslims, and Aborigines.

6.3 Islam in Australia: a sociological and historical overview

The aim of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of Islamic

influences and social relations in Australia since the 16 th century, and to

compare social interactions between the dominant settler society, Muslims,

and Aborigines. The purpose is to develop a background context for

understanding current relationships based on successive waves of Islamic

influence in Australia. The argument is made that from the earliest contact

239 with Aborigines, Muslim explorers, traders, labourers, and immigrants have imparted experiences significantly different to those of the dominant settler society. These differences are accentuated by contemporary retrospectivity linked to Indigenous struggles for equality. On one hand there is continuity of generational mutual recognition and links to early Muslim contacts, while on the other hand, the birth of Australian nationalism has forged outcomes rooted in discrimination, inequality, and non-recognition. The various phases of Islamic influence in Australia began with the Macassan Muslim contact in the 16 th century, to the 21 st century multicultural influence of

Muslims numbering more than 350,000 of whom 128 904 were born in

Australia and the balance born overseas (ABS, 2006).

6.4 Phases of Islamic influence in Australia

Several different phases of Islamic influence have occurred in

Australia. The first pre-European settlement phase concerns the visits to the north coast of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland as early as the 17 th century by Macassan fishermen (Worsley, 1955;

MacKnight, 1976). The second phase dates from 1788 onward with the arrival in Australia of Indian and Arab Muslim convicts, Afghan camel drivers and Indian hawkers and pedlars (1867 – 1910), Malay divers (circa

1870), and Turkish and Lebanese migrants from the late 1900’s (Jupp,

2001; Mathews, 2005; Kabir, 2003; Humphrey, 1989). The most recent and populous wave of Muslim immigration began during the late 1960s and early 1970s with the arrival of settlers from Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina,

South Africa, and Albania. During the 1990s Muslims arrived from Somalia,

Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iraq and Fiji (ABS, 2006).

The occurrence and influences of Islam in Australia which stretches back to early 15 th century pre-European occupation, beginning with the

240 claim that Chinese Muslim Admiral Cheng Ho 21 visited the northern coastline of Australia in 1404-1433 in a fleet of open-sea ships (Menzies,

2002). The first maps of Australia were produced by the Persian Muslims

Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi and Abu Isak Al-Farisi Istakhari in 820

CE and 934CE respectively (Cooper, 2007). The map of the Sea of Java by al-Khwarizmi shows Cape York Peninsular, as a "V" shaped Gulf of

Carpentaria and a curved Arnhem Land. The later map of Abu Isak Al-

Farisi Istakhari also includes an outline of the northern coast of Australia from the Kimberly to the Townsville area (Underwood, 2005). Although it is claimed Muslim Chinese explorers mapped sections of the northern and eastern coasts of Australia in the fifteenth century (Fitzgerald, 1953;

Menzies, 2002), Macassan fishermen and traders from the east-Indonesian archipelago sought trepang 22 (bêche-de-mer or sea slugs) from the shallow waters of the northern Australian coastline. The Macassan fishing and trading activities forms a basis for contrasting contemporary Muslim and

Indigenous alliances by tracing the historical and sociological aspects of political, social, and cultural changes. The following section explains the

Maccassan and Indigenous relationships and how they established a benchmark from which successive Indigenous and Muslim experiences are measured.

21 According to Menzies, Admiral Zheng He and his fleet circumnavigated the world in the fifteenth century and visited Australia long before any European explorers. Menzies claims that the great European explorers such as Columbus, Magellan and Cook used maps that were based on those drawn by Zheng’s crew in their own exploration of the world (Menzies, 2002). Menzies’ claims have been contested by other scholars.

22 When dried, trepang, (sea cucumber or sea slug) is used as a delicacy in soup, particularly in China, and reached Chinese markets via Timor Laut, Koepang, and Macassar (Worsley, 1955).

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6.4.1 Pre-1788 Muslim contact literature

The literature concerning Muslim contact in Australia before

European invasion falls mainly into the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, and history. See Berndt & Berndt, 1954; Tindale, 1926;

Cleland, 2002; Worsley, 1955; McIntosh, 1995; MacKnight, 1976; Mitchell,

1995; Mulvaney, 1989; Russell, 2004; Thompson, 1949. Archaeological work was conducted by MacKnight at Anuru Bay near Millingimbi in

Arnhem Land in 1966-7, and an extensive study of the literature available at that time was examined (MacKnight, 1972, 1976, 1981; MacKnight and

Gray, 1970). McIntosh (1996) investigated the links between Macassan and

Indigenous relations and how they are represented in ritual dance in a 1996 cultural festival in Macassar. The methodology in this chapter is to apply a sociological focus to further investigate and analyse the historical and anthropological literature. It is noted that the extant scholarship on early non-European contact with northern Australia is too extensive to allow a comprehensive review. Instead, the literature dealing specifically with

Muslim and Indigenous aspects will be discussed and analysed.

6.4 2 The Macassan contact

The Macassan fishermen came from Macassar (or Makassar) in the

Southern Celebes (Sulawesi), and visited the northern coast between the

Coburg Peninsular and the Edward Pellew Group from 1720 to 1906, although the activity may have begun much earlier (Dodson, 2007). Some islands were visited more than others, with Groote Eylandt commonly visited but according to Macknight, Melville, Bathurst and the Wellesley

Islands only occasionally (Macknight, 1972: 284; 1976: 36). The seasonal south easterly trade winds brought the sailors to the Australian coastline, and the north westerly winds took them back to Macassar several months

242 later. Importantly, it is the contact with Aboriginal communities that makes the Macassan visits significant. The ‘Macassan era’ provides insights into how non-European Muslim cultures have negotiated social, cultural, religious, and economic relations differently to those of the imperial Britain.

The Macassans established seasonal camps and processing factories for curing trepang (Worsley, 1955; Macknight, 1972), and

Aborigines participated in trepang collection and bartered goods such as turtle shell (Mitchell, 1996). Inter-cultural exchanges between Aboriginal communities and the Macassans encroached little on the Aboriginal way of life. Macassan influence in Aboriginal culture and history is represented in varied ways. For example, cave paintings depicting traditional Macassan sailing vessels or ‘prau’ demonstrate the enduring socio-cultural importance of the Macassan and Indigenous relations (Mathews, 2005). Macassar artefacts have been found by numerous archaeological studies in

Aboriginal settlements along Australia’s north-west coastline (MacKnight,

1976). The Macassan and Indigenous cross-cultural interactions were precursors to an almost unbroken Muslim presence and association with

Aborigines in modern Australian history.

MacKnight (1976) describes the process of contact between the

Macassans and numerous Indigenous tribes as one based on a maritime, commodity-based economy, with the Aboriginal people maintaining a coastal economy. The work which Aborigines performed ranged from diving for trepang, and constructing smoke houses for curing the sea slug.

Aborigines engaged in fishing, firewood cutting and well-digging.

Effectively, Indigenous peoples engaged in viable and productive labour exchanges underpinned by aspects of mutual benefit and trust. Yet there appeared to be no ‘equivalent value’ concept in terms of labour exchange.

This is perhaps due to the political function associated with the primacy of

243 ceremonial or ritual practices over purely economic considerations. Kinship was the underpinning social organisation, and the Macassarese were considered as ‘brothers’ (Worsley, 1955). The exchanges were also significant because they were free of the exploitation commonly associated with the class dominance and modern capitalism since the arrival of

Europeans – a system surviving for several decades after colonialism was established in Australia.

However, in 1907, the Commonwealth Government ended the trepang trade with Macassar after a lengthy period of harassing the Malays with customs demands. This was a consequence of increasing control by the government of the day and by the dictates of the White Australia policy.

Consequently, the productive and mutually beneficial exchanges between

Aborigines and Macassans was abruptly halted. Although the cultural and trade relations ceased, strong connections were maintained through the reproduction of rituals, and the influence of Islam remained as the distinguishing legacy of this period.

6.4.3 Mythology, ritual, and Islam

Anthropologists and researchers have established strong connections between the Indigenous rituals and some aspects of Islamic faith. McIntosh (1996) investigated Islamic references in Yolngu mythology and ritual with the aim of understanding the ways in which aspects of Islam have been creatively adapted by Aborigines. The extent to which Aboriginal people reoriented and expanded their existing cosmological, religious, and social world view to incorporate Macassan influences is a significant issue given the social and cultural disruption experienced since 1788. Of the numerous researcher’s examining Macassan and Indigenous contact, it was Worsley (1955) who concluded that Aboriginal people “transformed

244 their history of contact with Macassans into a mythical and ‘Golden Age’”

(1955: 8-10). In Worsley’s opinion this was because of the comparative difference in the problematic dealings with white society that Indigenous history of Macassan contact had become an idealised past. This is significant, because similar idealisations have occurred in other Muslim and minority group alliances in more recent times. Specifically, Indigenous

Muslim and African American converts have often employed romanticised versions of past treatment with which to contextualise current relationships with the dominant society. For example, the slavery era in America has been ascribed an Islamic focus due to its African origins. Similarly, contemporary ‘black’ and Indigenous Muslims acknowledge the influence of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan. 23 ) (This aspect of Indigenous connections to an Islamic framework is discussed in more detail in a later chapter). Aborigines came to an understanding that there were other people in the world and that these people followed different rules (McIntosh, 1996). This understanding was complimented by the performance of the Wurramu ceremony allowing Aborigines to see themselves as being part of a network of peoples united by a single law

(i.e. that of Walitha’ walitha also known as Allah) (MacIntosh, 1996). At the same time it was also a conceptual weapon in struggles against domination by outsiders (ibid.). There was a significant power imbalance between the visiting Macassans and Aborigines both in number and material

23 The mission of Eijah Muhammad was to restore and to resurrect His lost and found people, who were identified as the original members of the Tribe of Shabazz from the Lost Nation of Asia. The lost people of the original nation of African descent, were captured, exploited, and dehumanized to serve as servitude slaves of America for over three centuries. His mission was to teach the downtrodden and defenseless Black people a thorough Knowledge of God and of themselves, and to put them on the road to Self-Independence with a superior culture and higher civilization than they had previously experienced. http://www.noi.org/history_of_noi.htm This issue will be discussed further in a later chapter. 245 possessions. Canoes, cloth knives, metal axes, and significantly, alcohol and tobacco, prompted Aborigines to question why they needed to work for the Macassans in order to get the things they wanted. They were also beginning to see themselves as being impoverished in relation to, and even dependent on, the Macassans. Gradually, Aborigines perceived of having done something wrong ‘at the beginning of time’. The end result was that a particular series of historical events came to be seen as having their foundation in the Dreaming or creational era. Berndt and Berndt (1954) describe the Macassan mortuary ritual from which they say the Aboriginal variation was based:

When a Macassan dies, a djira grave-yard is made, and a hole dug in the ground. After the burial, the officiating Macassan sings; the others wait quietly, and when he has finished they all reply djialji! Djilalji! Then the wurramu post is placed on the grave; it is carved to represent the dead man, and symbolises his spirit. Al the Macassans dance for him in a special way, bending forward in a ring with their [backs] to the post, eyes closed and heads bowed. They then open their eyes and sing; and this continues for several hours (Berndt and Berndt, 1954: 61).

The ceremony as interpreted by McIntosh is about an idealized unity between all peoples through their joint association with a particular body of law, that is, Birrinydji and Walitha’ walitha, but it is also concerned with salvation (McIntosh, 1995). The ceremony is symbolic of a historical association with the ‘Other’. The songs and stories are about a partnership in ‘law’ between Aborigines and Macassans, but they also functioned to affirm Aboriginal identity and rights in relation to the ‘Other’ (ibid). This paradoxical situation indicates high levels of intellectual sophistication able to interpret, symbolise, and make sense of complex social relations.

Considering that relations between the Macassans and Aborigines deteriorated significantly in the late nineteenth century both groups recognised their interdependent histories: “[T]hey are a part of our history, and we are in theirs. There are laws that bind the groups as one” (David

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Burramurra cited by McIntosh, 1996). However, it is not accurate to say

Aborigines in north east Arnhem Land were or are followers of Islam.

Rather, they absorbed and creatively adapted aspects of Islam suited to their own needs. The strength of the relationship is indicated by contemporary native title sea claims by the tradition owners of Croker

Island based on the complex relations between Aborigines and Macassan fishers (Russell, 2004). The following sections discuss more recent Muslim arrivals following the establishment of the colonial presence after 1788. The

Muslim groups in this analysis are considered in relation to the socio- economic pressures of industrialisation and colonial expansion.

6.4.4 Malay Muslim pearl divers

From the early 1870s Malay Muslim divers were employed in the pearl, pearl shell, and bêche-de-mere (trepang) harvesting industries (Jupp,

2002; Kabir, 2004). Malay Muslims were also crucial to the development of the sugar industry in North Queensland. In the late 19th century, so-called

'Malays' from South-East Asia were brought to Australia to work as indentured labourers in the shell-rich waters around Thursday Island,

Darwin and Broome. Employed as divers, cooks, pump hands, and crewmen, Malays provided shellers with a source of cheap labour. The work was dangerous, and exploitation was common (Cleland 2002).

Mostly Muslim Malay men without families were recruited through an agreement with the Dutch to work on Western Australian and Northern

Territory pearling grounds. By 1875, there were 1800 Malay divers working in Western Australia. Jupp (2002) notes the word ‘Malay’ is used loosely in

Australian historical records, sometimes referring to Macassarese and

Buginese. It was the Buginese and Macassarese who were the first Malay people to be based temporarily in Australia. The Malay presence was

247 seasonal, their camps temporarily established on the mainland coast and nearby islands, with smoke houses to dry and cure trepang as discussed above (Macknight, 1976). Because of loose definitions, ‘Malays’ and

Macassarese are sometimes considered the same group, but from a sociological perspective there is an important distinction. While the

Macassans interacted with Indigenous tribes on the northern shores of the

Australian coastline, the Malays came later to be employed in the pearling industry. The difference is the relatively peaceful and mutually beneficial trade and cultural relationships of the Macassans and Aborigines, compared to the exploitative economic relationship between Malay divers and their employers.

The dangers of deep diving, the unattractive living conditions, and low wages effectively discouraged white divers. Malay employees were concentrated in Broome, which had emerged as a major centre of pearling, producing 80 per cent of the world’s pearl shell by 1898 (Manderson, 2002:

579). Malays continued to be employed in the pearling industry until the

1960s but some were employed to work on sugar cane and pineapple estates. The exploitation of immigrant labour to carry out the work ‘white’ labour found physically difficult and intellectually demeaning became a point of contention in Australian society. Dark skinned workers were thought to be more suited to the hot humid climate of northern Australia.

Labour shortages encouraged the use of Kanakas 24 to cut sugar cane.

These trends indicate a ‘racial’ hierarchy linked to the preference for

Australian labour except for dangerous or unpleasant working conditions.

Following the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, exemptions were given for Asian workers because the work was

24 Workers from the South Pacific were brought to Australia, often against their will, to work for British farmers in appalling conditions. After Federation, this practice was eventually stopped and the "Kanakas" deported, as they were seen as unfair competition to the white workforce. 248 considered unsuitable for white men. This created a paradox: the cheaper labour of non-whites became unavailable due to the insistence of controlling the entry of dark-skinned immigrants.

By the turn of the century, Broome was the world's major pearlshelling centre. It was home to a varied and sometimes explosive mix of cultures, that included Malays as well as Japanese, Chinese,

'Koepangers' (usually from Timor), and Aboriginal people. Living conditions were basic, but in the 1930s the Muslims in Broome established a small mosque. With the implementation of the White Australia Policy, non-

European indentured labourers were excluded from most industries.

However, the shellers successfully lobbied for an exemption on economic and racial grounds. A Royal Commission agreed in 1916 that white workers were unsuited to the physical demands of pearlshelling. Malays continued to be employed in the industry until the 1970s.

In the postwar years, Malays were at the centre of controversies that highlighted difficulties in both the White Australia Policy and the indentured labour system. In 1947, the Chifley government attempted to deport a group of Malay seamen who had been admitted during the war as refugees. The plight of these men, many of whom had married Australian and Indigenous women, won considerable public sympathy. At about the same time, leaders of the Malay community in Broome came into conflict with the pearl-shellers when the Malays sought to improve their working conditions. At the urging of employers these 'troublemakers' were deported

(National Library of Australia, N.D.). Further deportations were thwarted in

1961, when students, unionists and others protested against the treatment of two Malay pearl divers. Public concern over such cases reflected growing unease with the operations of the White Australia Policy.

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In the 1950s and 60s another group of Malays were treated very differently, often invited into the lives and homes of ordinary Australians.

Under a co-operative development scheme known as the Colombo Plan, thousands of students from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan and

India came to Australia to attend local tertiary institutions. The early Malay experience was one of labour exploitation which turned to racial discrimination, yet the work done by indentured labour was not considered

‘white man’s work’. This contradictory situation only served to reinforce the social hierarchy and cement the claims by white Australians that the dominant culture remains Anglo-centric and ‘non-white’ labour be marginalised and exploited.

6.4.5 Cocos and Christmas Islander Muslims

The Australian-administered territories of the Cocos (Keeling)

Islands and Christmas Island are home to several hundred Malays. The

Cocos-Malays are descended from workers brought to the Cocos Islands in the 19th century to harvest copha. They are Muslim, and have maintained much of their own culture and traditions. Australia took control of the islands in 1955.

Chinese and Malay indentured labourers were introduced to

Christmas Island when British interests undertook phosphate mining there in the 1890s. The industry expanded significantly in the 1950s, attracting many workers from the Cocos Islands. Christmas Island became an

Australian territory in 1958, but indentured labour arrangements continued until the 1970s. In recent decades, the Muslim population of Western

Australia has been boosted by arrivals from the two territories. By 1981, there were more Cocos Islanders on mainland Australia than in the islands themselves. Communities in Port Hedland and Katanning have built their

250 own mosques. In Katanning, Malay participation in the halal meat industry has increased the town's economic prosperity.

The common themes of exploitation and discrimination continued with the arrival of the Afghans who as a group contributed significantly to the exploration and development of inland Australia.

6.4.6 The Afghan influence

The Afghan experience in Australia stretches back over 160 years, and the outback is littered with small legacies of their giant contribution as contract labourers brought in with their camels to help build overland telegraph and rail links in the 19th century. They ferried food to remote pastoral stations, married Aboriginal women, and built mosques in Broken

Hill, Adelaide, Marree and Perth. To this day, groves of date palms mark the trails they forged carrying supplies and explorers.

Although vital to Australian development, the cameleers lived on the margins of society in what became known as "Ghan towns". The White

Australia, an organised labour movement resentful of competition, and the motor car, signalled the decline of Australia's first Muslim community

(National Library of Australia, N.D.)

Between 1850 and 1900 a sizeable number of Muslims from the

North-West of the Indian sub-continent, popularly known as the ‘Afghans’, were brought to Australia to work in the private and public sectors (Hassan,

1991). The Afghans became members of camel teams used for exploration and the cartage of goods and supplies in the outback of Australia. While the cameleers were called ‘Afghans’, only a minority were from Afghanistan.

The men also came from present-day Pakistan, Iran and Egypt.

The camel teams were more efficient than horses and bullocks in the drier and sandier remote regions. The construction of the overland

251 telegraph line between Adelaide and Port Darwin in 1872 would have been almost impossible without the expertise of the Afghan cameleers. The exploration of inland Australia and the establishment of the wool and industry depended on the camel trains and their Afghan leaders (Kenny and Jones, 2006). Over a period of sixty years some 2,000-4,000 Afghan camel drivers came to Australia (Stevens, 1989). As the Afghans were not allowed to bring their wives to Australia, some married local Aboriginal women, yet their occupation forced them to live lonely and isolated lives

(Hassan, 1991). In part, this was due to discrimination based on their colour and ethnicity rather than their Islamic practices (Kabir, 2003). Afghans and their assistants along with many Indigenous people lived in fringe camps on the outskirts of some inland centres. 25 Furthermore, the Afghan camel drivers were considered racially inferior which justified their exploitation and the wider ‘white’ community denigrated the Afghans because they were perceived to be an economic and racial threat (Kabir, 2003).

The predominant social condition experienced by Aborigines,

Afghans and other minority groups was the impact of race theories based on Social Darwinism. This was formalised by the enactment of the exclusionist and discriminatory Immigration Restriction Act 1901 or the

‘White Australia Policy’. However, by the late 19 th century, representatives of all the colonies had discussed the exclusionist immigration policies on three occasions, in 1880, 1888 and 1896. Under the Immigration

Restriction Act, 1901, all aliens who attempted to enter Australia had to submit to a medical examination at their first port of call and a dictation test of fifty words, in any prescribed language specified by the immigration

25 The Ghantown at Marree (Hergott Springs) in South Australia, one of the country's most important camel and railway junctions, remained segregated as late as the 1950s and in its heyday it was called Little Asia or Little Afghanistan. The remains of the oldest mosque in Australia are also near Marree (Stevens, 1989).

252 officer (Willard, 1967). Resident ‘coloureds’ also had to apply for a special certificate to enter another state. After 1901, this restriction prevented the camel men from making their customary migration across borders to follow work opportunities. For about thirty years previously, the Afghans and their camel trains played a significant role in the exploration and economic development of the drier regions of the continent. Yet it was mainly economic discrimination that eventually forced the efficient and better suited camel trains out of business. Markus (1979: 180) discussed an important aspect of labour relations in the 1890s:

The arrival of the camel adversely affected the European carriers who were already suffering losses because of a drought and increased competition after the opening of the Nyngan to Cobar railway. A further complication was the standing dispute between the carriers and the pastoralists at the time of the arrival of the camels: it was feared that the new element in the situation would tip the scales in favour of the pastoralists… In the context of the increasingly depressed conditions of European carriers and their battles with the European pastoralists, the Afghans and their camels were especially unwelcome.

Organised white labour unions objected to the practice of Afghans working for considerably less than Australian workers so the nature of the conflict was economic, but racial ideas reinforced prejudices and contributed to discrimination. Despite the racial and economic hurdles, the

Afghans and their camels were crucial to the economic development and exploration of semi-arid regions. It is with some irony the Afghan cameleers are now commemorated by that which made them redundant - The Ghan train in central Australia, which travels on the railway line they helped create.

The second group of Afghani immigrants arrived in Australia following the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. Over two million Afghanis fled Soviet attacks on hospitals, schools and mosques.

Australia accepted a small number as refugees which increased the

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Afghanistan-born population to almost 1,000 during the early 1990s. The majority settled in Victoria and New South Wales. Following the Soviet withdrawal, factional fighting led to the emergence of the Taliban, which imposed strict Islamic religious controls on the population. On-going civil war supported by external countries caused more Afghanis to flee. Some were accepted by Australia as refugees. A severe drought in 2000 saw several hundred more Afghani asylum-seekers arrive in Australia by boat

(Museum Victoria N.D.).

While most of the early Afghans had returned to their homeland by

1901, another group of Muslim labourers arrived in Australia during the latter part of the nineteenth century. These were the Javanese who differed from the Afghans, both in the nature of their work and relations with their employers.

6.4.7 Javanese indentured labourers

Javanese Muslim indentured labourers arrived in the north

Queensland town of Mackay in the 1880s to work on the sugar plantations.

The working conditions of this group were conditioned by the dictates of white plantation owners, and unlike the Afghans who came to Australia as free labourers, the bonded Javanese, Melanesian, Cingalese and Malay labourers were often forced to live in prison-like conditions whilst their labour was exploited by white employers (Kabir, 2004). Following previously established patterns of exploitation based on definitions of racial inferiority, the Javanese and other Asiatic indentured labourers filled the lowest ranks of the economic structure and performed the most menial and tedious tasks (Kabir, 2003). The similarity between bonded labour and slavery is made by Schermerhorn (1978) and it is this observation that cements the doctrine of racism inherent in British colonialism and American

254 slave ownership. 26 The abolition of slavery by the British but cheap labour was necessary for the profitable operation of Queensland sugar mills. The

Javanese were ‘suitable’ because “they appeared to be submissive and skilled in sugar cane plantation work” (Kabir, 2003: 122). The Javanese were preferable to Melanesians because they could be used continuously in wet weather, and did not have the same high death-rates as the

Islanders (McGrath, 1976). Hassan observed that the main reason behind the exploitation of the Javanese was their inability to speak and understand

English (Hassan cited in McGrath, 1976). Over time, there was a generational relaxation of Islamic practice among the Javanese in Australia

– the Abangan and Santri Javanese Muslims. The Santris were the practicing Muslims and were very pure in their religion. The Abangans were only concerned with the ‘customs in their lives’. The first generation was very religious but successive generations learned about Islam from outside contacts such as Imam Rane in Brisbane (McGrath cited in Kabir, 2003).

However, the first three generations tended to retain their cultural practices due to their limited knowledge of English. Prejudice in schools and public and media discrimination as part of an established pattern. William Lane in

The Worker (1890s):

Are the white men of Australia willing to permit their women and children to be inoculated with loathsome diseases and polluted by the presence of the swarming hordes of Asia? Will the white people who are engaged in business pursuits without a protest suffer themselves to be ousted by Javanese, Syrians, Chinese or Japanese? Should all white people unite to save their race and civilisation from going down before the black, brown and yellow invaders? (Lane cited in Markus, 1979).

26 Slavery in the United States began soon after English colonists first settled Virginia in 1607 and lasted as a legal institution until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865 (Bennett, 1966).

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Lane’s commentary is typical of the race-based patriotism of the mid to late nineteenth century. Contemporary Australian nationalists and nationalist movements regard the late nineteenth century with nostalgia in terms of its adherence to the ideology of white racial superiority. Nationalist movements make direct links to both cheap coloured labour and its polluting effect in an ‘imagined’ white society. See: National Republicans:

The Movement of Australian Nativism http://home.alphalink.com.au/~eureka/index.html and William Lane, 1861 –

1917. Nationalism and the labour struggle : The Roots of Australian

Nationalism http://home.alphalink.com.au/~eureka/lane.htm.

Like the Afghans, the Javanese were considered racially inferior, and as a consequence this group was readily exploited and stereotyped.

The Javanese did not pose a direct economic threat to the white working class, rather, in the case of plantation sugar production the Javanese were considered an economic good to be exploited in line with the dominant ideology of the day.

6.4.8 The Lebanese and Turkish Muslim influences in Australia

Lebanese immigration to Australia began in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the community which now numbers more than

180,000 people has made a profound contribution to the development of

Australia as a nation (ABS, 2006). As for the Turkish-born immigrants, the multicultural era of the late 1960s and early 1970s led to the arrival of large numbers of Lebanese-born Muslims. According to ABS figures, the number of Lebanese-born Muslims has increased from 3,407 in 1971, to 181,751 in

2006. The Lebanese constitute the largest Muslim group in Australia with the first Lebanese-Muslim Association founded in 1956. The Imam Ali

Mosque in Lakemba was completed in 1976 and is now one of the largest

256 mosques in Australia. Australians of Lebanese ancestry live all over

Australia with concentrations of more recently arrived settlers in Sydney and Melbourne. During the 15 years of war in Lebanon beginning in 1975,

750,000 people fled Lebanon as refugees to Europe, the USA or Australia

(ABS, 2006). Lebanese migration and settlement in Australia has been one of the three main waves, with the first two mainly Christian 27 and the third, mainly Muslim. The immigration and settlement experience for each group has been quite different. The first wave commenced around 1880, although there were some earlier arrivals. These early immigrants were known as

Syrians but they were classified as Turks by the colonial governments of the day. The area now known as Lebanon was still under Ottoman control.

Many of these people intended to join relatives in New York but, exploited by unscrupulous shipping agents, found themselves in Australia instead.

Life was not easy without English or contacts. Undaunted, immigrants with capital became small businessmen opening warehouses and drapery, hairdressing and grocery shops. Others quickly helped fill a need for itinerant hawkers selling their wares all over the country, often supplied by the newly established shopkeepers and warehousemen. When the hawkers amassed enough money they opened their own stores, often in country towns. Once the decision to stay in Australia was made they sent for the rest of their extended families. The second generation spoke English, were well educated and entered most professions (Batrouney, 1985).

The great majority of these first migrants were Christians including

Maronites, Orthodox and Melkites. A small number of Druze settled in

South Australia. In Australia many Lebanese Christians supported the existing Orthodox and Catholic communities. The first Melkite church was

27 The Lebanese Christians are Maronite Catholics, Melkite Catholics and Antiochian Orthodox (M. Humphrey, “Lebanese” in Jupp, ed.. The Australian People, pp. 562-3. 257 established in 1895, the first Maronite in 1897 and the first Orthodox in

1901 (Jupp, 2001).

Significant numbers of these migrants or their Australian born children served in Australia's forces during both world wars. During WWI when some young men or their parents were still classed as Turks many enlisted and fought on all fronts. Many became military interpreters in the

Middle East. Many lost their lives. In World War II young men and women from most families enlisted. They served with distinction in all three armed forces in overseas conflicts and in Australia (ibid. ). Many were imprisoned and many were killed in the service of their country.

The second wave came between 1947 and 1976 when about 43,000

Lebanese settlers, very few of whom were assisted immigrants, arrived in

Australia (Batrouney, 1985). Nearly all were educated to at least primary level and many already spoke two languages, Arabic and French, and quickly learned English. Like the first wave the decision to migrate had usually been made for economic reasons. Many of these migrants were

"chain migrants" who had come to join other family members or acquaintances, already settled in Australia, who could offer support. There were also church and community organisations established by the first wave ready to help them. In the prevailing climate of high employment jobs were soon found in factories or businesses owned by community members.

Other newcomers started small businesses of their own, manufacturing clothing or furniture, opening milk bars and garages or driving taxis. They worked hard and, in the main, quickly improved their situations.

The outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1976 brought about the third wave of Lebanese settlers. More than 16,000 Lebanese moved to Australia between 1976 and1981. Many came under the Australian Government's

Special Humanitarian Program. This allowed people who had close

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Australian connections and whose lives and safety were threatened by the war, entry to Australia. They were not classed as refugees and had to rely on their own, often very limited, resources and those of their Australian

"connection." They then became part of a chain sponsoring further immigrants putting an even greater strain on their resources. Many of these migrants, having experienced war and loss, had few possessions. Most spoke only Arabic and many had limited or disrupted education. Many were from rural areas with few skills which could be adapted easily to work in

Australia where there was no longer full employment. As most of these new arrivals were Muslims, Islamic societies became their focal points. Sunni mosques were established in both Melbourne and Sydney.

Lebanese community groups in Australia are usually based on religious affiliations or village associations rather than national identity. These groups help to meet the differing cultural, settlement and welfare needs of the people from particular faiths or villages and towns. There are also

Lebanese associations which help bring the different groups together.

Lebanese settlers and their descendents have made a valuable contribution to the development of the professional, business, political and cultural life of Australia.

6.4.9 The Albanians in North Queensland

The first wave of Albanian Muslims arrived in Australia between

1900 to the 1920s with more arriving after the second European war.

During the decade 1930-1940 Albanian ‘Jugo-Slav’ and Russian (Tatars or

‘white’ Russian Muslims) migrated to Queensland, congregating around the sugar cane areas of Cairns and Mareeba, and the cotton and tobacco regions on Brisbane (Underwood, 2001). The following decade saw the arrival of Muslims from Bosnian, Albanian, Bulgarian and Russian

259 backgrounds. Gaining entry to Australia was only the first of many trials that faced Albanian immigrants. Their lack of English made it difficult to secure employment, even though most were young and single, eager for opportunity, and accustomed to hard labour (National Library of Australia,

N.D.) Some moved from Queensland to establish orchards and market gardens around Shepparton in Victoria. In the 1960s, the Victorian Albanian community worked to found mosques in both Shepparton and Melbourne.

In Western Australia, Albanians settled as farmers in the wheat and sheep areas of York and Northam (Kabir, 2006).

When World War 11 came, Albanians in Australia were declared to be 'enemy aliens'. Their details were registered, and their movements and activities were monitored. in 1942 the heightened fear of invasion, as well as reports of fascist sympathisers amongst some Italian and Albanian settlers, led to widespread internments in Queensland. Eighty-four

Albanians were interned, although most were released after seven or eight months in camps at Enoggera and Cowra. Some were later called up to work on construction projects with the Civil Aliens Corps (ibid. ).

6.4.10 Islam and Australian ‘fear politics’

Many Muslims in Australia suffer from discrimination and animosity resulting from media and political propaganda. Indigenous Muslims are subjected to discrimination based on their Aboriginality and their status as practicing Muslims. This is not a new development in a post September 11 environment although the problem has become more acute during the previous decade. Islam and Muslims in Australia have been subjected to the same nationalistic preference for a dominant white Anglo-Saxon society. The main difference is the association of Muslims with terrorism, yet the political response has remained remarkably similar in its ability to

260 exploit a politics of fear (Jamrozik, 2002; Lawrence, 2006). Australian history is limited when it conforms to a ‘white blindfold’ perspective. The unresolved ‘white Australian issue of the lies associated with British invasion continue in the form of ‘dog whistle’ politics associating refugees,

‘illegal immigrants’ ‘queue jumpers’ and other ‘threats’ to social cohesion with the contemporary social and political resurgence of conservative politics. The social outcomes of a decade of political and economic conservatism in the U.S. and Australia during the Geoge W. Bush (2001 –

2008) and John Howard (1996 – 2007) regimes has witnessed a retraction of civil liberties and Indigenous rights in the name of ‘national interest’.

The ability of Islam to offer an ‘alternative’ religious and community framework in addition to traditional Anglo-Catholic orientations is also a central theme. The purely ‘religious’ aspect of Indigenous alignment with

Islam is, however, only one aspect of a more holistic and inclusive life- world. Yet an active and vibrant Islamic presence in Australia in the present political circumstances raises the perennial issues of national identity and tests multicultural tolerance. In a post-September 11 environment, public anxiety, racism and discrimination has increased regarding the presence of

Islam and Muslims in Australia (Wise and Ali, 2008). The importance of historical and current practices, policies and laws are germane to this enquiry, in that social circumstances change but the notion of ‘governance of populations’ only changes in its application, not its intent. To this end, the search by Indigenous people for alternative and additional means of identity within Islam affords the opportunity for examining this alliance within the framework of power relations extending from the global to the local.

6.4.11 Muslim experiences in times of national insecurity

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What has been established so far? Racial discrimination the result of white superiority, economic expansion, and Australian nationalism - an ideology rooted in the flawed rationality of British Imperialism and colonial expansion. Aborigines have always suffered the worst yet ‘coloured’ immigrants have been scapegoats for the belief in a ‘white Australia. The

Afghans discriminated against because of their ethnicity rather than their religion. Only relatively recently (since 9/11) has the religious dimension of

Islam been a major point of concern. Muslims have become the new source of social fear. The new social panic is conflated with weak Australian nationalism, global insecurity, and religious fundamentalism within the secular Australian society. Yet the flawed rationality associated with a ‘fear of the other’ is easily tapped by populist media commentators and politicians. So the current ‘fear of Muslims’ is a continuation of the historical unease associated with difference in relation to common norms and values.

The historical link with an ‘enemy’, ‘enemy aliens’, and potential danger to Australia during times of war or perceived threats to national security is a continuing theme in the socio-cultural landscape of Australian society. The terminologies of ‘acceptable’, registration, censorship, surveillance, internment, deportation, ‘security’ classification, and security threat are employed to discriminate and identify. Members of ethnic groups who had once conformed to Australian nationalist standards, such as the

Germans and Ottoman Turks, were no longer desirable because their country of origin was at war with the Empire (Kabir, 2003: 140). Hastings

(1997: 32) makes the observation:

During wartime nationalism flares up extremely quickly against some real or imagined threats and can become “overwhelmingly and irrationally strong” against those threats. It mainly occurs irrationally when a particular ethnicity or nation feels itself threatened and thereby it resorts to defence of its particularist values at any cost.

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The surveillance, discrimination and internment experienced by

Muslims in Australia during both world wars was not because of their

Islamic faith but because they were considered to pose a threat to the

Allied cause. They became the victims of restrictive policies just like other non-Muslim enemy aliens. The groups most affected were the Ottoman

Turks 28 and Indians in Australia 29 during World War I, and Javanese

Muslims, Indians and Albanians during WW II. During World War II, surveillance was confined only to people suspected of ‘disloyalty’ to

Australia. In times of war and/or national security crises questions of colour and ethnicity were overridden by security factors either to be overlooked in favour of national service (Javanese Muslims) or stereotyped as threats to the national security i.e. the Albanians. The Indians, although British subjects, were also kept under close surveillance, partly due to their

‘potential threat’ to the British Empire. Their demands for the end of British rule in India in the 1940s coincided with World War II (Kabir, 2003: 184).

The Albanians of North Queensland experienced the most negative impact during World War II. This was because the Albanian-client government declared war on the allies in June 1940 (Carne, 1978).

National security and the war with Turkey prompted a skirmish in

Broken Hill otherwise known as “The New Year’s Day Massacre”, according to a headline in Barrier Daily Truth, 2 January 1915, p. 12. The two unemployed Afghans from Broken Hill who resorted to violence as “a mark of loyalty to the Sultan” (Stevens, 1989: 161) Australia being at war with Turkey assisted the authorities to link the two men with the ‘Turks’ although one was an Afghan and the other an Indian. Their actions were a

28 Ottoman Turks as a group were people who spoke and wrote only the Turkish language, and who worshipped only according to the Muslim faith. 29 The number of Ottoman Turks residing in Australia during the time of WW1 was “only a handful” (Kabir, 2003: 144). 263 result of frustration at being unemployed and because of anti-British sentiment, yet their suicide notes made reference to Islam and the Qur’an.

The affair was politicised by William Morris Hughes, Federal Attorney-

General and Acting Prime Minister. “I see it is alleged to have been an act of the Turks. If so it shows the necessity for rigid supervision of all enemy subjects.” The Broken Hill incident had clearly shown the danger of allowing enemy nationals to be at large (“Marihuana-inspired Patriotism Led to

Battle of Broken Hill”, Daily Mirror, 14 May, 1962, p. 20).

6.4.12 The construction of ‘Lebanese crime gangs’ in Sydney

Lebanese youth in Sydney have become the new ‘moral panic’ as a collective who are supposedly committing serious crimes in the outer western suburbs of Sydney ‘Moral panic’ is now a term regularly used by journalists to describe a process which politicians, commercial promoters and media habitually attempt to incite (McRobbie and Thornton, 1995).

Ethnic gang rapes, the Cronulla riots, Lebanese drug merchants, and

Lebanese motorcycle members of the motorcycle gang ‘Notorious’ have attracted heavy media and political commentary.

Sydney is the main centre of Middle Eastern immigration, with seven out of every ten (107,405 or 72.2 %) of Australia’s Lebanese immigrants settling in Sydney (Collins 2005: 190-2). Sydney is thus a good site to explore contemporary issues of immigrant criminality and immigrant victimology in Australia.

Collins, (2005) uses the framework of moral panic about ethnic crime in Sydney that has exaggerated the criminality of ethnic minorities.

This moral panic has caused distress for many Australians of minority immigrant background who are now tarred with the brush of criminality and, for some, terrorism, particularly in the aftermath of September 11 and the

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Bali and London bombings. This moral panic has reinforced negative stereotypes about minority communities, is reinvigorating racism and prejudice and, as a consequence, is threatening the social cohesion in one of the world’s most successful multicultural societies. Moreover, the moral panic about ethnic crime has diverted attention away from the meaningful policy responses that are needed to address matters of crime in particular, and cosmopolitan societies in general. (Collins, 2005: 192).

The great danger of the current moral panic about ethnic criminal gangs in Sydney is that the criminality of a few begins to be portrayed as a criminality of a culture. This leads to the negative stereotyping of many of

Sydney’s diverse immigrant cultures. It also leads to the possibility that responses and analyses portray ethnic youth crime in Sydney in a very different way to than response to crime committed by gangs of youth of the majority Anglo-Celtic background.

6.5 Discussion

The sociological implications of the relations between the northern

Australian coastal Aborigines and the Macassans are significant. The archaeological and anthropological study approaches when examining cross-cultural interaction often place Indigenous people as passive receivers of alternative technological cultures. This position overlooks the significant and sustained Indigenous agency to resist the social and cultural problems associated with changed social relations resulting from colonisation. According to Rubertone (1989), when discussing Native

American experiences: “Without political histories, we are denying the politics of the past that concern Indian people today including their struggles to preserve their traditional religious beliefs and graves of their ancestors” (1989: 33). These observations set the tone for two important

265 aspects of Indigenous and Muslim relations in Australia. Firstly, the Muslim life-world of Macassan engagement with Indigenous peoples left an indelible impression of productive cooperation and inter-cultural exchange.

The alliances indicate aspects of Indigenous agency imbued with functional mutual recognition of difference. Secondly the later colonising period by the

British was antagonistic to the established relations of both Indigenous and

Muslim. The non-recognition of systematic and beneficial trade and social relations between Macassans and Northern coastal Aborigines was symptomatic of the tenets of terra incognito and terra nullius. The concept of terra nullius relied on the belief that ‘Australia’ belonged to no one.

Claiming the land as terra nullius — 'empty land' or 'land belonging to nobody' — Europeans set out the foundation of land law that was to last more than 200 years and have devastating effects on the original inhabitants of the land. By using the principle of terra nullius , the British

Government claimed sovereignty over Australia, ignoring the rights of

Indigenous people who had lived there for at least 60 000 years (Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/orgs/car/index.htm). Furthermore, from the

1850s and before the introduction of the ‘White Australia’ policy

(Immigration Restriction Act 1901 ) in 1901, Australian governments and labour unions became increasingly concerned about the presence of non- white economic immigrants and ‘undesirables’. The intention was to promote a homogenous population similar to that in Britain. Under “White

Australia” only Europeans, and then mainly northern Europeans, could immigrate to Australia. The underlying notion of (white) racial superiority is qualitatively different to that of ‘brotherhood’ which is based more on kinship, social inclusion, and mutual recognition. The Maccassan and

Indigenous experiences set a precedent for the Muslim individuals and

266 groups who found themselves in Australia either as ‘forced labour’ or free citizens. The pattern of relations was one based on colour discrimination in favour of ‘white’ Anglo or European settlers and workers. ‘Coloured’ workers were exploited for their cheaper labour cost, and their ability to work in hot humid climates and in industries unsuited to ‘white’ labour. The groups in the following sections presented a paradox: they were recognized for their ability to work in dangerous and low-paid occupations, yet their presence disturbed the notion of a ‘white’ Australia.

Racial discrimination and social control gained legitimacy from the deterministic theory of Social Darwinism embedded in the underlying doctrine of British colonialism. From 1901 onwards, discrimination based on racial superiority was exercised through the ‘White Australia’ policy. The

Afghans and the Asiatic later arrivals were considered racially inferior people who could be easily exploited. The Afghans were considered an economic threat, however, while the other groups were simply exploited.

The underlying desire for retaining racial homogeneity through government policies drove the economic discrimination directed at Afghans until they could no longer continue as cameleers. Some Afghans and many

Indigenous people became fringe dwellers who set up shanty town-like housing on the outskirts of many outback towns. They were segregated and banished to the periphery of society, having encountered economic failure and little or no recognition for their invaluable contribution to the expansion of trade and exploration.

Similar conditions were applied to other non-white immigrants who were initially valued for their ability to work in conditions unsuited to white

Europeans. The combined fear of racial impurity and employment insecurity culminated in the White Australia policy. For Muslims in Australia it was rarely their religious beliefs and practices that attracted discriminatory

267 practices but their ethnicity and ‘colour’. For Indigenous Australians conditions were much worse and they were sometimes shunned even by the Afghans, who judged them by Islamic values. This did not prevent them, however, from cohabiting and often marrying Indigenous women to help cope with their loneliness, isolation and discrimination. Toward the end of the Afghan era many returned to their home country, while others remained, serving as forebears to numerous Afghan Indigenous family groups. Others became economically successful businessmen yet Afghans who were married to Indigenous Australian or European women were not entitled to Australian citizenship during their life-time. These relations are perhaps the most enduring in terms of generational Muslim and Indigenous alliances yet little is known about many of these genealogies. Partly this could be due to the social stigma attached to claimed Indigeneity and

Afghan inheritance in times past. However, in many cases there is a resurgent interest and considerable recognition of belonging as less attention is focussed on the divisive issues of race and religion. See

Historians Blainey and Windschuttle; Politicians Deakin and Howard; and

‘white labour movement activism.

6.6 Conclusion

The treatment and acceptance of Muslim migrants in Australia with the exception of the Maccasans was seen to be conditional on their skin colour, language, and national security rather than their religion. This changed in the 1990s and after September 11 when Islam became the focus of concern. The Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, the Madrid bombing in 2004, the Beslan tragedy of 2004, the Australian Embassy bombing at Jakarta in 2004 and the 7 July 2005 London bombing have

268 made Muslim extremists the ‘new enemy’ of the West. These tragedies have also impacted on the daily lives of moderate Muslims residing in the

West.

The comparison between the relatively harmonious and beneficial relationship between the Macassans and Northern Australian coastal

Aborigines stand in contrast to the racial discrimination of the frontier and

White Australia periods. During this time, Indigenous Australians established relationships with Afghan cameleers and hawkers and these unions continue the long link between Aborigines and Islam in Australia.

However, although some mainstream Australians and politicians now vilify

Muslim Australians as ‘terrorists’, Indigenous Australians still suffer the legacies of a racialised past. For Indigenous Australian Muslims one can conclude that religion and Indigeneity have become a criterion of discrimination in contemporary multicultural Australia.

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Indigenous Australians and Islam

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7.0 Governmentality & Indigenous incarceration

7.1 Introduction

Seeking to explain what may cause the disproportionate levels of involvement of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system is of direct relevance to this study. Explanations are complex; most identify a number of factors responsible, but differ as to the combinations of factors thought to be at work. Some interpretations attribute over-representation to discriminatory treatment at various stages within the criminal justice system, including sentencing. Intentional or unintentional bias is often asserted but difficult to evaluate in a systematic way. Other explanations look to the incidence and patterns of offending, while many concentrate on the “underlying issues”, that is, those factors which bring Aboriginal people into conflict with the criminal justice system in the first place.

The present socio-economic status of many Indigenous Australians indicates the discourses of social exclusion continue in Australia , and both

Muslim and Indigenous groups share a common marginalised status within

Australian society. While Indigenous Australians suffer the consequences of a colonial past, both groups are subject to the consequences of a globalised present, and both are historical and contemporary victims of political posturing and social suspicion . The aim of this chapter is to examine and analyse the underlying social conditions and sociological factors contributing to the over-representation Indigenous people in NSW prisons. This is relevant because a high Indigenous prison population relative to non-Indigenous prisoners indicates an enduring social problem.

If high rates of Indigenous incarceration are linked to higher rates of criminal activity the question of why this is occurring is also relevant.

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7.2 Royal Commissions and conflicting theories

Two significant reports: The Royal Commission Into Aboriginal

Deaths In Custody (RCIADIC) 1991and the Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from

Their Families (‘ Bringing them home ’) 1997 have thoroughly investigated and made recommendations into Aboriginal deaths in custody and the stolen generations. The RCIADIC is widely acknowledged as the most thorough legal enquiry ever conducted into the lives of Aboriginal people

(Marchetti, 2005). The National Report , consisting of five volumes, was tabled on April 15, 1991 and made 339 recommendations regarding the underlying issues surrounding the Aboriginal deaths in custody.

The RCIADIC Report argued that the most significant contributing factor to over-representation was the socially, economically and culturally disadvantaged position of many Aboriginal people. They belong to a substantially alienated, marginalised, disempowered segment of Australian society. Indigenous people are frequently extremely disadvantaged in almost every aspect of society, especially in terms of life expectancy, health, housing, education, employment and income. High levels of violence and substance abuse are often experienced in many Aboriginal communities.

One of the central findings of the RCIADIC “is that a multitude of factors, both historical and contemporary, interact to cause Aboriginal people to be seriously over-represented in custody and, tragically to die there”( RCIADIC, 1991). Weatherburn (2006) commenting on the ability of the Commission to analyse the connections between the numerous factors of influence noted: “the Commission found itself confronted with an avalanche of evidence implicating a multitude of factors any or all of which could, directly or indirectly, contribute to Indigenous over-representation in

272 prison” (2006: 3). The Commission argued that Indigenous imprisonment is simply a manifestation of Indigenous cultural, social and economic disadvantage, in all their manifold forms ( ibid. ). Marchetti (2005) notes that the Redfern and Palm Island Riots are evidence that little has changed regarding relationships with the police and Indigenous people in some parts of Australia.

The Bringing them home report was established in response to increasing concern that the general public’s ignorance of the history of forcible removal was adversely affecting both the recognition of the needs of its victims and their families, and the provision of services. The report therefore aimed to raise public awareness of the facts and issues surrounding past policies of forcible removal, and in doing so address the continuing impact of those policies on the lives of Indigenous Australians.

The Ministerial Council of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs

(MCATSIA) is tasked to evaluate and monitor the implementation of the

Bringing them home recommendations. The purpose is to show whether there are significant differences in the economic and social characteristics of those impacted on by the forcible removal of children, in comparison with those Indigenous Australians who were not removed from their families.

Evidence from the analysis suggests that those who were removed from their families suffered poorer outcomes over a range of discrete socio- economic indicators. A summary of the results indicates:

• Higher rates of people with a disability or long-term health condition

(68.8 per cent (for those removed) compared to 55.3 percent (who

were not removed));

• Lower rates of completion of Year 10 – 12 schooling (28.5 per cent

compared to 38.5 per cent);

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• Lower rates of living in owner occupied housing (16.9 per cent

compared to 28.3 percent);

• Higher rates of being a victim of physical or threatened violence

(33.5 per cent compared to 18.1 per cent);

• Lower rates of retention to Year 10 (28.5 per cent compared to 38.5

per cent);

• Lower rates of participation in sport or physical recreation activities

(35.4 per cent compared to 47.0 per cent);

• Higher rates of smoking (70.5 per cent compared to 51.2 per cent);

• Higher rates of being arrested more than once in a five year period

(14.6 per cent compared to 8.8 per cent); and

• Lower rates of full-time employment (17.8 per cent compared to

24.8 per cent) (MCATSIA, 2006: 8).

The MCATSIA report indicated that in 2006 no headline indicator was better for those removed from their families. Weatherburn (2006) notes that although the Indigenous imprisonment rate has increased, Government responses to the Royal Commission have had no effect. As of March 2008, the national average daily Indigenous imprisonment rate was 2,157 per

100,000 adult Indigenous population (Corrective Services, 2008). The highest Indigenous imprisonment rate was recorded in Western Australia

(3,554 per 100,000adult Indigenous population), followed by South

Australia (2,407) and New South Wales (2,363) ( ibid. ). The average daily number of full-time Indigenous adult prisoners in Australia in the March quarter 2008 was 6,507, comprising 5,938 (91 per cent) males and 569 (9 per cent) females. Almost 78 per cent of the total Indigenous prisoner population was located in New South Wales (2,028). Indigenous people are

13 time more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous persons.

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7.2.1 Royal Commission outcomes

The Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council (AJAC) considered that, among other things, the recommendations focused on procedure rather than intended outcomes, leaving unaddressed broader questions concerning the underlying causes of Aboriginal contact with the criminal justice system, and the structural deficiencies in the way in which the system deals with

Aboriginal offenders. In other respects, AJAC argued, the recommendations are so broad as to be meaningless (AJAC, 2000).

Marchetti (2005) argues that the RCIADIC privileged orthodox (legal) perspectives and excluded non-orthodox (non-legal) perspectives. This is an example of what Bourdieu would call the heresy of challenging the doxic condition (Bourdieu, 1977). Royal Commissions such as the RCIADIC are

“oriented to the quite limited highly pragmatic and, indeed, reformist goal of producing specific recommendations for policy”, which will ultimately constrain their potential for radicalism (Salter, 1990 cited in Marchetti,

2005).

The struggle between criminological and sociological perspectives with a focus on underlying issues, such as institutional racism, and lawyers wanting to investigate the deaths in custody was the field of socio-legal practice. A particular field in a society can be viewed as an embodiment of the valuation of, exchange of, and struggle over the resources of the field, between different groups of inhabitants in the society (Chopra, 2003: 427).

Status and social capital tensions arose between senior lawyers during the report writing process and ideology and particular interests intervened. The outcomes of commissions, according to Simeon (1987) are attributable to the political and disciplinary predispositions of those involved in conducting the investigation. In other words the habitus embodied in the different professions of law and social science determined the practices of each

275 group. There is a range of practices and dispositions for any particular habitus, which corresponds to what is thinkable within that habitus. There is thus a limit to the possibilities ‘allowed’ by the perceptual framework corresponding to any habitus, and what sets the limit and lies beyond it is doxa.

Public disorder and violence offences appear as the major causes of Indigenous prison sentences (ABS, Prisoners in Australia, 2007). Yet it is insufficient to rely on a statistical representation without examining the underlying social conditions influencing the actions and behaviour leading to eventual imprisonment. Indigenous incarceration needs to be understood against a backdrop of life experiences such as removal and separation of children, community breakdown, loss of human rights, and attempted eradication of Indigenous cultures and languages (Rintoul,1993). The increasing higher rates of Indigenous imprisonment also require contextualization within the debates of globalisation, racism and social movements.

7.3 Definition of ‘underlying issues’ in relation to Indigenous disadvantage

In determining what constitutes an 'underlying issue', Elliot

Johnstone, Commissioner of the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADC) examined all social, cultural, legal and economic matters as they directly and indirectly affect the constantly high rate of imprisonment of Aboriginal people in this State. In sum, an 'underlying issue' can be defined as understanding the 'why' and 'how' of high rates of

Aboriginal incarceration. Examining the 'why' and 'how' has meant attempting to cover a broad range of complex and wide-ranging issues impinging on the lives of Aboriginal people in Australia. Some of the major

'underlying issues' which form the foundation of Aboriginal powerlessness

276 include: the ongoing marginalisation of Aboriginal matters in areas of government policy and practice at Federal, State, and Local levels; the power of vested interests which, often in association with government instrumentalities seek to deny Aboriginal aspirations; misinformed beliefs and practices toward Aboriginal people among many sectors of non-

Aboriginal society, that impact on the day by day lives of Aboriginal people; the ongoing effect of missions and other forms of institutionalisation on the socio-cultural and economic lives of Aboriginal people; and some of the adverse effects of contemporary Aboriginal social life brought about by

Aborigines themselves, as well as those from outside of Aboriginal society.

Underlying issues are therefore those phenomena that arise in considering the legal, cultural, social and economic factors as they occur independently of the other society or through their inter-relatedness to it (RCIADIC, 1992).

7.4 Systemic and institutional racism in the criminal justice system

Systemic and institutional racism in the criminal justice system are recurring themes in the literature of Indigenous imprisonment (Cunnen,

1992, 2006; Craigie, 1992; Gale, 1990). According to Blagg et al . (2005)

Systemic racism is not about whether individuals hold racist views but about the uneven impact of laws, policies or practices. Put another way, systemic racism can to some extent be measured by outcomes and results rather than intentions. Racial discrimination in sentencing is indirect rather than direct (Snowball and Weatherburn, 2006). Because no one has yet shown that racial bias in the way in which police and/or prosecuting authorities choose to exercise their discretion is a significant contributor to

Indigenous overrepresentation in prison does not mean it does not occur.

This form of discrimination is extremely difficult to detect and measure empirically (Blagg, 2005)

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There is a positive correlation between offence seriousness and penalty seriousness. Violence in previous offences is likely to influence the penalty when next appearing in court. Offenders who breach community service orders are highly likely to be sent to prison. The prior record of an offender is of fundamental importance in sentencing because the history of an offender can operate to deprive him or her of any leniency. It can also provide justification for giving more weight to factors such as retribution, deterrence or community protection. “Past failures lead inexorably to more severe penalties….as a further step in the search for a measure that will have some effect in bringing about law abiding behaviour” (Fox and

Freiberg, 1999: 270). Age is also a relevant consideration because rehabilitation has been held to play a more important role and general deterrence a lesser role in the case of young offenders (Weatherburn and

Snowball, 2006). The apparent difference between adult Indigenous and non-Indigenous adult offenders in the likelihood of imprisonment appears to be due to the fact that, by comparison with non-Indigenous offenders,

Indigenous offenders:

• Have much longer criminal records;

• Are more likely to be convicted of a serious violent offence;

• Are more likely at any particular court appearance to be convicted of

multiple offences;

• Are more likely to have breached a previous court order; and

• Are much more likely to have re-offended after being given an

alternative to full-time imprisonment, such as periodic detention and/or

a suspended sentence.

Indigenous respondents to the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) were far more likely to have been

278 charged with, or imprisoned for, an offence if they abused drugs or alcohol, failed to complete Year 12 or were unemployed. Other factors that increase the risk of being charged or imprisoned include: experiencing financial stress, living in a crowded household and being a member of the ‘stolen generation’ (Weatherburn, Snowball and Hunter, 2006).

Per head of population, Indigenous residents of NSW appear in court on criminal charges about nine times more often than non-Indigenous residents. The gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous rates of appearance is especially notable where violent crime is concerned, with

Indigenous rates of appearance being approximately 11 times higher for sexual assault, 19 times higher for aggravated assault and 17 times higher for robbery (ibid.: 14). According to Weatherburn and Snowball (2006), policy to reduce Indigenous over-representation in prison, then, should focus on:

• Reducing levels of Indigenous involvement in crime, particularly violent

crime; and

• Reducing rates of recidivism among Indigenous offenders, particularly

following placement on community based sentencing orders.

It is here that addressing underlying socioeconomic conditions will play a crucial role in reducing the high rate of Indigenous involvement with the criminal justice system. Another factor is whether reverting to Islam while in the system has reduced involvement in crime and recidivism. The conditions of child neglect and abuse; parental psychiatric problems

(particularly maternal depression); family dissolution and violence; poor school performance; early school leaving; drug and alcohol abuse; and youth unemployment are conditions associated with poverty, social and family breakdown. Cunneen (2006) challenges Weatherburn and Snowball

(2006) about systemic bias versus crime reduction strategies which do not 279 address the important structural underlying issues. As mentioned above, underlying issues present a problem for investigators for numerous reasons yet their importance in understanding social problems should not be understated. The following section advances the argument for considering underlying issues within the context of the enduring difficulties facing many indigenous people.

7.5 Underlying issues: the importance of context

Questions posed to this point ask why Indigenous Australians are over-represented in the criminal justice system, and to determine if

Indigenous incarceration is symptomatic of wider social forces and influences. It is important to provide the contextual sociological background to the rates of Indigenous incarceration because it provides context, clarity and validity to the research endeavour. For example, without considering the history of the relationships of Indigenous peoples with the dominant society since European invasion circa 1788, the present occurrence of

Indigenous involvement with the criminal justice system would be relatively meaningless. The question of why Indigenous people are over-represented in the criminal justice system is therefore a critical methodological consideration to overcome, which once resolved, will enable the next incremental investigation to proceed in a logical progression. The investigative progression also applies to Islam, both in its uptake in

Australia from historical-sociological perspectives, to the present debates on global Islam. This perspective will be addressed in detail in a later chapter. The methodological aim of this section is to analyse the social, political, economic, and cultural factors and influences relevant to

Indigenous Australian involvement with the criminal justice system. A socio- historical background analysis is necessary to fully encapsulate factors of

280 influence and to provide a relevant social context. The argument is that many Indigenous people readily associate the history of dispossession and exclusion with present-day social problems. The first section deals with the historical control of Indigenous Australian beginning with the first contact with Europeans and ending with contemporary Indigenous engagement with institutional management and control resulting in over-representation in the prison system. It will be argued that in post 1788 Australia,

Indigenous Australians have been, and continue to be, subject to techniques of control not exercised on non-Indigenous members of society.

During the frontier period of early European occupation of country, scientific racism justified the removal and dispossession of Indigenous societies.

Colonialism as a globalising force succeeded because racism was a fundamental element of the social structure of the time. Yet the underlying historical and structural forces that created and sustained racism in colonial

Australia are still debated as ‘culture wars’ by some conservative commentators 30 . The current rate of Indigenous representation in the criminal justice system is a reflection and symptom of a continuous history of repression and control. These issues discussed and analysed in the following sections.

7.6 Literature and analysis

The purpose of this review is twofold. The first is to analyse the condition of present-day incarceration rated by tracing the history of control exercised over Indigenous peoples by government policies . The analysis will conclude by discussing possible sociological reasons for Indigenous over-representation in Australian prisons. The overall aim of this review is to document, discuss and analyse a range of themes framed within a

30 See Keith Windschuttle, 2003. The Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Vol 1, Van Dieman’s Land 1803 – 1847. Sydney: Macleay Press. 281 sociological perspective. The first section of the review covers theoretical overviews contributing to context and orientation to the theme of the chapter. Section two documents and analyses the debilitating occurrence of alcohol abuse and criminal activity and how this results in early incarceration.

7.6.1 The colonial era: regulation and governance of Indigenous Australians

The Indigenous peoples of Australia were incorporated by conquest and labour exploitation by state controlled racial hierarchies and racialised citizenship through processes that were often contradictory and inconsistent (Mullings, 2005: 673). Indigenous claims for sovereign status as autonomous nations have been strongly resisted and contested by the dominant society. Instead, ‘accumulation by dispossession’ has remained the feature of the Australian state, with the relational aspect of racism enabling the dispossession of the Indigenous people producing accumulation and advantage for others (Harvey, 2005: 45). Dispossession of land, labour, resources, and rights in the early stages of European expansion has led to new forms of dispossession by gentrification in metropolitan and suburban areas of the major cities. A key factor in understanding high contemporary Indigenous incarceration rates in

Australian prisons has its origins in the control and management regimes of colonial settler society (Hogg, 2001). Racist policies and attitudes played a significant part in underpinning how Indigenous people would be treated and managed. Racism is associated with modernity and it is linked to

European expansion and consequent enslavement of Africans, colonialism, and imperialism (Mullings, 2005). It is no coincidence that African

Americans have suffered similar debilitating conditions as those of

Indigenous Australians. The historical emergence of nation states such as

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Australia has ‘whiteness’ as an uncontested attribute of social and cultural composition. No other modern nation-state formation has relied so heavily on a monocultural ethnic composition to express its national identity.

It will be argued that rather than a recent occurrence, Indigenous peoples have been subject to extraordinary regimes of control since

Europeans first arrived in Australia. This has not been a linear process, but a series of interconnected phases of governance and policing. This concept is borrowed from Foucault’s work on the governance of populations, particularly the contingent nature of policies as reactions to certain social problems. Given the ample literature examining the oppression of

Indigenous peoples, and the recency of collective memories, the narratives of oppression and dispossession remain vivid and alive for Indigenous peoples. 31 These narratives are reflected in the Indigenous over- representation in prisons and in other major socioeconomic indicators such as poorer health, lower education, inadequate housing, and lower income, than other Australians. It is because of this indisputable evidence of the current poor state of Indigenous well-being that the collective memories of the historical precursors are merged with the present.

From the foundation of the British penal colony in New South Wales in 1788 the official position of the imperial government was that Aboriginal people were British subjects protected and bound by British laws then applicable in the new colony (Hogg, 2001) Phases include frontier expansion and rapid appropriation of Indigenous country with little or no regard for the original users of the land. This was a period that reduced the numbers of Indigenous people due to disease (smallpox) and settler violence. Justification for the violence against indigenous people was

31 In a similar manner, the resurgent interest in Gallipoli and the Kakoda experiences of the world wars are being encouraged and cultivated as ‘re- remembering’ by younger generations with no living memories of the actual events. 283 rooted in the principles of racial superiority symbolised in the conclusion of terra nullius. 32 There could be no meaningful protection against settler violence where the law sanctioned dispossession and punished Aboriginal resistance and retaliation, especially when settler occupation ran well ahead of effective civil authority in many parts of the country (Hogg, 2001).

Intermittent warfare, ‘punitive expeditions’ and other forms of extra-judicial violence were the more common currency of ‘justice’ on the frontier, persisting into the twentieth century in northern Australia ( ibid .). Despite

Indigenous resistance to their dispossession from country, varying degrees of dislocation, marginalisation and criminalisation continued. With the close of the transportation era, punishment in the Australian colonies underwent a slow and uneven transition from a reliance on corporal and capital punishment and the use of places of secondary transportation, to a commitment to the penitentiary principle and cellular confinement (Kerr,

1988; Finnane, 1997). Contrary to the familiar historiography of western punishment in which predominantly corporal punishments gave way to a system of carceral penalty in the nineteenth century, bodily punishment and restraints remained a crucial instrument of power and control within the local colonial settler order.

Over time, the prison became a mechanism of punitive control over colonised peoples from the centrality of colonialism and race to forms of penal and legal repression (Purdy, 1996). From the mid-nineteenth century doubts emerged as to the appropriateness of imprisonment as a measure of punishment for Aboriginal people. South Australian governor George

Gray noted in 1841 that: ‘To a civilised man imprisonment presents but a slight terror. To an aborigine the loss of liberty is an almost inconceivable idea’ (cited in Kerr, 1988: 99-100). (The loss of liberty is an important factor

32 The term terra nullius means ‘land belonging to no one’. 284 today, and when combined with separation from family, isolation coupled with vulnerability contributes to the suffering of Indigenous inmates in prison). Yet bodily punishments and restraints continued to be inflicted on

Aboriginal people in many places as an alternative to confinement, and justification was based on racial inequality and subordination. There is sufficient evidence that flogging, use of neck chains and tying or chaining to trees were commonplace methods of control and punishment and they prevailed well into the second quarter of the twentieth century in central and northern Australia (McGrath, 1995: 34-37). There is also evidence that juries had always been reluctant to convict settlers charged with violent crimes against Aboriginal victims, including homicide (Markus, 1990: 108).

The effects of these practices was to delineate and preserve a sharp boundary between colonialists and Aborigines in frontier environments characterised by moral ambiguity, social instability and the uncertain status and presence of civic authority (Hogg, 2001). The dehumanised Indigenous subject of punishment and control provided a necessary support for colonial settler modes of life, for practices of dispossession and for modes of governance administered at considerable distance from the central organs of state power. They are not without some resonance within contemporary penal culture in Australia. This point will be revisited in the discussion of the relevance of Islam in prisons in which alternate oppositional power structures are made available to Indigenous inmates via engagement with the structure and discipline of Islamic principles.

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7.6.2 The ‘Protection’ era: social Darwinism, segregation and control

The protection era was ostensibly a period when a more humane approach towards the treatment of Indigenous people took place. The general consensus was that Indigenous people were a ‘dying breed’ and the aim was to ‘smooth the dying pillow’ (Loos, 1976). The aim was a policy of containment to separate and isolate Indigenous peoples from the rest of society, and was embodied by the Aborigines Protection Act 1909. The purpose of this section is to argue that the ‘protection’ period was one of increased administration, control, and surveillance and less of a reliance on physical bodily punishment as a form of coercion.

The protection era of Indigenous management by the state incorporated other practices of a segregative and tutelary nature in line with the increasing institutional uptake of monitoring, surveillance, supervision, and what Foucault has named the ‘carceral archipelago’ (Foucault, 1975:

298). It created a whole society of docile bodies submitting to the will of the state. “We have seen that, in penal justice, the prison transformed the punitive procedure into a penitentiary technique; the carceral archipelago transported this technique from penal institutions to the entire social body”

(ibid. ) Whether in the form of missions, government reserves, reform schools or children’s homes they sought to establish an on-going supervisory relationship between white authority (church or bureaucratic official) and Aboriginal people and necessitated forms of administration and infrastructure that were quite alien to frontier conditions (Hogg, 2001). Civil authority became more active in reflecting the control techniques of British imperialism such as the moral and civilising missions to bring the benefits of Christian, European and British civilisation to the non-European races of the world (James, 1998: xiv). The influence of ‘imperial humanitarianism’ on policy, attitudes and sentiments in the Australian colonies was limited but

286 significant according to Reynolds (1989: 183-93, 1998). This administrative era was an important ideological shift towards the ‘management of perceived social problems: that of lawlessness attributed to racial discrimination.

Protection policies were in part a response to settler violence and exploitation of Aboriginal people, but the regimes established throughout the mainland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries generally embodied more positive aspirations and objectives, albeit based on the hegemonic assumptions of social Darwinism. The ‘doomed race’ theory meant that Aborigines, condemned by their inferiority would die out, and the theory served to erase Aboriginal culture and selectively train Aboriginal people in the values and habits of European civilisation (Hogg, 2001). The theory transformed into policies conferred enormous powers on white officials to control the lives of Aboriginal and communities, to which there was little objection among white citizens or government officials. Of those who exercised the power to define were Christian missionaries who by default reshaped the fabric of Indigenous spiritual, social, cultural and linguistic world views to reflect a European value system. Since the

European colonisation of Australia, Indigenous Australians have had contact with missionaries and their missions. This relationship has been a difficult one. In some instances missions became instruments of government policy, engaging in practices such as forcibly separating

Aboriginal children from their families in order to maximise control over the child's education into Christian ways and beliefs. In this way, missions contributed to the suppression of Aboriginal cultural practices and languages. However, not all missions were agents of government policies.

Some respected Aboriginal ways of life and the importance of ceremonies and cultural practices.

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(http://www.dreamtime.net.au/indigenous/spirituality.cfm#a) Accessed 19

Feb 2006

Despite the acceptance of Indigenous culture as important, many examples can be found of the complicity of the Christian missionaries, who became agents of government policies to disenfranchise the Indigenous population of their cultural and spiritual heritage and to supplant it with the religion of the colonisers Kidd (1997). Pearson (1998) and Attwood (1986) amongst others have written about the role of the missionaries and their part in furthering the dispossession of Aboriginal people from both their physical and spiritual worlds. A critical tool that aided this process was the bible, especially in those communities in which language was still being used, for its translation provided the missionaries with leverage over the now weakened communities for whom they were asked to administer . The appropriation of language had also become a sinister tool with which to use against its owners in the fight to civilise and to possess the hearts and minds of the colonised. The irony for Aboriginal communities is that these very same people who sought to distance their ‘charges' from the excesses of colonial exploitation, were themselves part of the spiritual destruction of

Aboriginal communities (Lowe, nd: http://www.fatsil.org/papers/research/lowe-1.htm Accessed 19 Feb, 2007)

Indigenous reactions to this form of ‘forced’ or coercive assimilation helped to fuel the desire of many Indigenous people to later re-establish social, cultural, and spiritual contact; to reform and repair the lost contacts with relatives and country during the separation era. It was only in recent times that a visible and meaningful institutional response to the segregation and separation policies appeared in the Royal Commission into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families

288 established in May 1995 in response to efforts made by key Indigenous agencies and communities.

Policies and institutions established under legislative regimes dating from the late nineteenth century, when laws were passed throughout mainland Australia permitted segregation on racial grounds (Attwood, 1989;

Haebich, 1992; Goodall, 1996; Kidd, 1997). These regimes separated

Aboriginal people from white communities onto reserves, missions and stations and subjected them to special regimes of control, tutelage and conversion to Christianity. These coercive practices extended to denying basic rights of citizenship, controlling personal movement and freedom to associate, child rearing and education, household management, employment, and the erasure of language and culture. The extent to which legislative and administrative control impinged on the lives of Aboriginal people is demonstrated by the ‘total’ administrative control in Queensland and Western Australia. In these states a system of disciplinary offences, courts and imprisonment was provided for as part of the administrative regime established under the legislation (Nettheim, 1981; Kidd, 1997;

Evans, 1999; Haebich, 1992).

Institutional surveillance and control operated beyond the boundaries of reserves, missions and camps in a variety of other ways. The scope of executive power and discretion meant that those not placed on reserves or stations commonly lived under the threat of being removed.

Those formally exempted from legislation were required to carry ‘dog tag’ or

‘passport’ exemption certificates, which entitled them to exercise certain rights, denied others under the control of protection acts. The exemptions, however, could be summarily rescinded and were subject to conditions requiring their holders to pursue non-Aboriginal life-styles, and avoid contact with families and communities. Even with provisional admission to

289 civic citizenship, people were still vulnerable to heightened surveillance and intervention by police and other government authorities (Hogg, 2001).

The legacy of the comprehensive normalising and assimilationist visions of legislators and administrators was a mix of neglect, exploitation, social invisibility and administrative surveillance and control (Kidd, 1997).

These circumstances were akin to reserves as de-facto prisons devoted to total control not dissimilar to contemporary state institutional prisons. This point is an important reminder of the similarity in the historical imagery of many Indigenous people. For many Indigenous people there is a blurred distinction between memories of fractured generational ‘incarceration’ and dispossession, and that of actual involvement in the criminal justice system.

For these people there is not a definable boundary separating the regulatory regimes of everyday life, to that of imprisonment.

7.6.3 The assimilation era: the rationalities of racial governance

New South Wales acted on popular sentiment concerning the ideology of assimilation in 1937 and reconstituted the Aborigines’

Protection Board around the policy of assimilation and renamed it the

Aborigines Welfare Board. Legislation introduced in 1940 provided administrative powers to address the ‘problem’ of Aborigines “living in close proximity to towns in much the same way as the unemployed lived during the worst years of the depression, and in that regard they are a great annoyance to the community” (Parliamentary debates on the 1940 Act quoted by NSW Government submission on pages 37-8).

Norbert Elias (1978, 1982) described the ways in which refined feeling, human sympathy, mutual identification and sensitivity to the suffering of others characterised civic life in the modern nation state. These sentiments were differentially cultivated, channelled and aroused according

290 to race in the case of Indigenous Australians. Assimilation policies refined the separation process of removing whole communities away from the sensitivities of white civilisation as noted above. While these policies belong to the rationalities of racial and colonial power, they also drew for their moral support on extensive popular sentiment and feeling. The practices assumed a subject bereft of the ‘normal’ white European structure of psychological affects and refined sensibilities, one governed only by the instant, and by fleeting passions and immediate pleasures and pains. This made it necessary to remove children in order to ‘civilise’ and assimilate them. But it also made it possible, culturally and emotionally, to execute a policy that was otherwise unspeakably cruel and callous (Hogg, 2001). As discussed above, there is continuity in the institutional requirement for control and regulation of Indigenous lives that is rooted in racialised notions of civilisational superiority. This reproduction is embodied in the distinctive modes of governance characteristic of the liberal states of the West since the nineteenth century and employs social measures and norms enabling government from a distance (Donzelot, 1972; Rose, 1989; Foucault, 1991)

The overwhelming desire for a uniform and assimilated population in the image of white society has prompted many Indigenous people to either become antagonistic to white society or to succumb to the anomie and aimlessness associated with cultural dislocation and social separation.

This is clearly demonstrated by continued resistance to assimilation policies and a striving for recognition as first peoples with certain defined rights and status, but it is also tempered by the damage of past policies. It would be difficult to imagine that the history of Indigenous control by the state has been forgotten or forgiven. As increasing research lays bare the rationalities and methodologies of Indigenous governance the more it acknowledges the relationship between past events and current

291 circumstances. This is not to imply a direct causal relationship or a simple answer to increasing Indigenous incarceration rates. It does, however, demonstrate the extent of social damage done to the structure of

Indigenous communities and their sensitivity regarding authoritarian control.

In a previous chapter the concept of cultural trauma was discussed, and it is from this perspective that many Indigenous victims of assimilation policies suffer from.

Regulation and governance of populations became more nuanced as the deviances and pathologies of various kinds were scientifically categorised and allocated to their appropriate domains of technical expertise. The increasingly differentiated institutional and discursive complex modulated to some degree the conditions of penal severity. The increasing concern for correction, normalisation, integration and optimal social functioning placed penal incarceration at the end of a continuum of measures of social government, most of which functioned to shepherd and regulate individuals within the domains of socialisation, the most important of which were the family and those institutions revolving around the family such as the school, medicine, public health, welfare, and other socially organised activities. Within the same institutions that traversed the

Aboriginal family and communities from the end of the 19 th century, the same logic of social governance was in significant respects inverted.

Indigenous people were to be integrated, socialised, and merged into

Australian society not by policing, supporting and augmenting the

Aboriginal family, but only by destroying it (Hogg, 2001). Prevailing social attitudes labelled Indigenous families and communities as antithetical to social order and ‘civilised’ values. Aboriginal families and communities were the sites of reproduction of Aboriginality and culture, and thus had to be ameliorated and even eliminated. Far from being cultivated and supported,

292 and governed at some distance from the political and bureaucratic authority of the state, Aboriginal lives were brought under the most direct administrative authority, and people were denied the rights and means of participation in the social institutions of civil society (ibid .).

While the existence of protection and segregation policies insulated

Indigenous people to a degree against criminalisation and penal incarceration, surveillance, control, and forms of institutional treatment often amounted to the same thing. This is a recurring theme in the history of Indigenous affairs in that the double jeopardy of prosecuting Aboriginal offenders left them to return to regimes of administrative segregation. Child removal policies revealed by the ‘Stolen Generations’ Royal Commission was instrumental in launching both directly and indirectly, the criminal and carceral ‘careers’ of large numbers of people.

7.6.4 The new culture of punishment: reversal and continuities

From a Foucaultian governmentality perspective, modern forms of power are seen to occur less through the formal structures of the nation- state and more through a complex network of localised power relations.

These relations cannot be reduced to any one-way domination of one class by another, but are made up of shifting alliances between individuals and groups, which fracture and re-form according to different issues and interests (Foucault, 1978: 96). At the most micro and apparently non- political level is the construction of the active or self-governing citizen

(Dean, 1999: 168; Rose, 1996: 40).

Several points about power, governance and religion are pertinent to this study. Firstly, the issue of power in relation to the historical

Indigenous experience vis-à-vis invasion, dispossession, assimilation, and multiculturalism is one of an unequal relationship with the state. Secondly,

293 neoliberal governance works in conjunction with tacit understandings and discursive practices associated with fields of knowledge. Thirdly, as

Carrette (2000: 146) acknowledges: “religious discourses are always framed and positioned in and through the human process of power/knowledge” and “religion is a sphere of force relations in the wider cultural network – it inescapably exists as a manifestation of power”.

Fulkerson and Dunlap (1997: 117) maintain that a Foucaultian inquiry

“concerns the relation of practices and languages and institutions that produce ‘truth’ about reality while ‘subjugating’ other possibilities. These points provide an insight into the multidimensional aspect of power relations and to advance the following propositions:

1) the over-riding regime of neoliberal governance determines the agenda for relationships of power due to its ubiquitous nature and global spread.

2) Indigenous cultural, spiritual, religious, and political discourses mount a challenge for neoliberal governance in that they present alternative options and priorities that somehow have to be accommodated by the state. The

‘truth claims’ of the dominant discourse usually maintains the status-quo at the expense of truth claims posing as threatening the smooth running of the neoliberal economic state.

3) Religious discourse has the ability to provide its own form of discursive function in that it challenges the discourses of competitive individualism and economic policy. An extreme example of this model are global Islamic organisations such as Hizb-ut Tahir who promote an anti-Western, anti- capitalist doctrine based on a conservative and orthodox perspective of

Islamic governance. At a local level, it is not difficult to imagine why

Indigenous alliances with Islam create concerns and tensions for both State authorities and prison management.

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7.6.5 Redfern and political considerations: race and policing

The relationship between the overtly racial practices of the past and the present is demonstrated by comparing the proximity of surrounding white sensibilities and Indigenous interests. One such case is the area in

Redfern known locally as ‘the Block’. Situated close to centre of Sydney it is much sought after as a prime development site. The area is owned by the

Aboriginal Housing Corporation Ltd, and is the subject of concern for white sensibilities that overlook the significance of the Block as an Indigenous social hub. This area was also the location where Indigenous respondents were interviewed for this research. The reason for discussing this issue is to demonstrate the difficulties Indigenous residents of the Block have in constructing a continuous socio-cultural narrative without it being fractured, and in this case, colonised. For some years the Block has become rundown, unsafe, and a problem area for drug use and distribution. Many of its residents have experienced contact with the criminal justice system and it is this connection that is important to examine. The long history of dispossession has culminated in the prospect of further relocation because of developer interest in this prime piece of real estate.

A redevelopment scheme for the Block named the Pemulwuy project, and designed with the history and culture of Indigenous connection to the area in mind, is being contested by the Redfern Waterloo Authority, a body formed to redevelop a more expansive area of nearby properties. The

NSW government withdrew its support for the Pemulwuy Project despite the recommendations to the contrary by the Social Issues Parliamentary

Inquiry into the Redfern riots. In 2004 the NSW government put in place a statutory Authority that over-rides the City of Sydney as the planning authority, declared the AHC's land 'state significant', and is proposing to

295 reduce the residential density on the Block effectively limiting the number of

Aboriginal families who could live there.

The New South Wales Minister for Planning through the Redfern

Waterloo Authority (RWA) has expressed publicly his intention to reduce the number of Aboriginal houses proposed on the Block and disperse at least half the community (Sartor, 2006). However this type of dispersal policy has had a devastating effect on Aboriginal communities. The RWA's policy toward Aboriginal housing on the Block would simultaneously isolate

Aboriginal people from their community and family support networks and create cultural conflict in neighbourhoods that were previously peaceable.

The forced assimilation of the Redfern Aboriginal community would be catastrophic and would create the need to provide additional social and human services to substitute for the natural cultural and social supports found in a community setting that would be lost. This is not to suggest that

Aboriginal people cannot integrate or interact with the rest of society, but that interaction should be natural and above all voluntary and the terms dictated by Indigenous people.

The consequences of reducing the number of Aboriginal houses on the Block will produce socially undesirable outcomes. Reducing the number of homes on the Block will also reduce the number of eyes on the streets, invariably resulting in the surrounding area becoming unsafe, especially at night. No community safety strategies have been proposed by NSW

Government to counter-balance the loss of natural surveillance. It is no coincidence that high numbers of Indigenous people from the Block have contact with the criminal justice system. Effectively, this area and its social problems are symptomatic of many Indigenous societies in other parts of

Australia. There is a strong relationship between depressed and dysfunctional societies, and the high incidence of Indigenous incarceration.

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Yet there are fewer Indigenous communities which have been subjected to the degree of politicisation than the Block.

Redfern is the birthplace of the civil rights movement and Aboriginal communities from around Australia will retaliate to any attempt to forcibly remove the Aboriginal community or undermine self-determination and autonomy over Aboriginal land.

(http://www.ahc.org.au/redevelop/R&D%20Project%20History.html

Accessed 19 Feb, 2007).The actions and intent of government and developers mirrors the attitude and practices of previous policies. Removal, dispersal, and forced assimilation are terms used in this contemporary politicisation of Indigenous affairs. Attempts to relocate Indigenous residents out of Redfern have continued in one form or another since 1968, when the South Sydney Council and the NSW state government, through the Department of Housing, began a resettlement project moving

Aborigines from the inner city to Green Valley, Mt Druitt, and Campbelltown

(Price, 2003).

7.6.6 Alcohol abuse and the criminal justice system

Several scholars in this field have examined alcohol abuse and imprisonment frequencies. Hall, Hunter and Spargo (1994) found that the risk of an Indigenous person ever having being held in a police lockup, increased with the frequency of drinking and the amount of alcohol consumed, even after controlling for respondent age and sex variables.

Hunter (2001) found that the marginal effect of alcohol use on the risk of arrest was as large as that of unemployment. In 2002, Butler, Levy, Dolan and Kaldor showed that 28 per cent of all prisoners in NSW were intoxicated at the time of the offence that led to their imprisonment. This compares to the corresponding figure of 11 percent for non-Indigenous

297 inmates. Research by Weatherburn, Snowball and Hunter (2002) analysed the odds ratio risk of having ever been charged, against variables measuring drug and alcohol abuse and a number of other risk conditions that placed people into an involvement in crime situation. Their findings indicated the only factor in the model reducing the risk of being charged was completing year 12. The most important predictors of criminal charges are alcohol and illicit drug use, rating higher than unemployment, financial stress, or living in a crime-prone area.

Similar results appeared for the odds ratio for imprisonment, although economic variables played a bigger role but drug abuse remained the strongest independent predictor of Indigenous imprisonment with alcohol abuse coming third (Weatherburn, Snowball and Hunter, 2006).

The combinations of high rates of drug and alcohol abuse, child maltreatment and juvenile involvement in crime are therefore inextricably intertwined, and provide a base from which to examine strategies for supply control, rather than treatment and harm mitigation. (Weatherburn, 2006).

7.7 Discussion

Royal commissions raise the hopes of those whose very existence rely on tangible outcomes, yet governments are able to evade facing difficult solutions to enduring social problems because of the way society accepts the doxic structure. This points to the extraordinary effort required to alleviate the enduring underlying socio-economic conditions of many

Indigenous people.

Some of the factors named by the RCIADIC as contributing to the disproportionate incarceration rates of Indigenous Australians included drug and alcohol abuse, poor school performance, poor parenting, poverty, unemployment, low wages, poor housing, geographic mobility, peer group

298 pressure, welfare dependence, the age structure of the Indigenous population and institutional racism (Weatherburn, 2006). Because of the

‘information overload’ the Commission argued that Indigenous imprisonment is simply a manifestation of Indigenous cultural, social and economic disadvantage in all their manifold forms .

Noel Pearson named this approach as the symptom theory of

Indigenous incarceration meaning that Indigenous over-representation in prison is nothing more or less than a symptom of Indigenous disadvantages

(2001). Following this argument, by reducing disadvantage the number of

Indigenous people in prison will also be reduced. The origins of this argument reside in the notion that crime is a product of economic and social disadvantage, and that by reducing poverty, the crime rate will also reduce. Precedents for this argument are found in the policy ‘U.S. War

Against Poverty’ (Cohen & Felson, 1979: 588), but rather than a reduction, crime rates actually increased.

In Australia, poverty became a political issue during the 1987 federal election campaign when Prime Minister Hawke made his pledge that by 1990 no child will need to live in poverty. The later Keating government's programs of Priority One and Working Nation failed our youth according to Baldwin (1996). Six years on from Hawke’s statement and, “for all Labor's intended good, Labor's dream has become Paterson's curse”

(Baldwin, 1996). Yet for all the criticism Hawke's commitment to no child living in poverty, the Hawke/Keating government actually reduced child poverty by one third.

Three key issues that can help alleviate poverty are affordable housing, employment and education yet Tebbutt (2003) claims little progress has been made by the Howard government in assisting those most in need (Tebbutt, 2003). Clearly this includes Indigenous people, as

299 their socio-economic disadvantage remains considerably lower than that of non-Indigenous Australians. In addressing why Indigenous disadvantage remains high, the progressive side of politics blame inadequate Federal

Government funding or failure to properly implement the Royal

Commissions recommendations (Cunneen & McDonald, 1997 cited in

Weatherburn 2006). Conservatives, on the other hand, argue the quantity of money or the recommendation implementations are not the problems, rather the way the money was spent (Weatherburn, 2006). This polarisation of political policy debate is demonstrated further by the comments of

Senator Rachel Siewart from the Australian Greens, and Helen Hughes and Jenness Warin from the Centre for Independent Studies: two ideologically opposed policy and political bodies. The Greens proposed an increase of $2.1 billion dollars to improve Aboriginal housing, and another

$250-$500 million per year to raise Indigenous health standards. Hughes and Warin, on the other hand, claim over-generous welfare policies, communal land ownership, and language and culture preservation policies are to blame for Indigenous disadvantage (Weatherburn, 2006; Hughes,

2005). Underscoring this perspective is the absence of the liberal concept of private property rights in conjunction with native title legislation. When this is coupled to uneconomic remote homelands, this is at the core of

Indigenous deprivation according to the Centre of Independent Studies researchers. Three points arise from this discussion of the politicisation of

Indigenous disadvantage. First, increased funding has not reduced

Indigenous socio-economic conditions, rather it has worsened. Second, urban Indigenous people suffer disadvantage just as their counterparts in rural and remote do, thus negating the claim by Hughes and Warin that language and culture preservation policies are the cause of Indigenous

300 disadvantage (Hunter, 2006). Third, the rate of Indigenous incarceration is rising steadily.

A more productive methodology to analyse Indigenous disadvantage is to examine contingency events within certain historical periods, rather than conceptualising cause and effect in linear terms. Brady

(2004) examines alcohol abuse as arising from the relaxation of the discriminatory restrictions of alcohol provisions current in the nineteenth century. By the 1960s, liquor had become a potent symbol of emancipation, and the drinking of alcohol had become inextricably associated with equality and status. A linear causal methodology would attribute widespread alcohol abuse to the effects of colonisation and dispossession rendering Aboriginal people, or anyone else for that matter, highly susceptible to alcohol abuse (Saggers and Gray, 1997; Brady, 2004).

When the social aspects of parental modelling, peer influences, and alcohol availability are taken into account, the number of Indigenous children initiated into alcohol abuse rose as role models became abusers. Once this endless vicious cycle became socially entrenched, communities and individuals easily turned to other drugs such as heroin, cocaine, cannabis, and petrol and solvent abuse in remote communities.

7.8 Conclusion

This chapter examined why Indigenous people are imprisoned at rates much higher than other Australians. This is important because imprisonment is a concrete example of violence and hopelessness and a living reminder of concentrated oppressive and confining habitus reinforcing the trauma of individual experiences resulting from intergenerational social dysfunction.

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The chapter has attempted to outline and explain the continuity of control and governance exercised over Indigenous people that continues to this day. The aim was to demonstrate why Indigenous people are over- represented prison because of their fractured and dislocated life histories.

Government policies have created a situation whereby many Indigenous people suffer the effect of these policies as collective cultural trauma, evidenced by high rates of incarceration.

The precarious nature of identity in late modernity is held in place through a temporary unification of different elements (or networks) of the social world in which they are embedded. Yet for many Indigenous people, fractured social, cultural, and economic networks have remained constant since European invasion. The insecure nature of their very existence has depended on uncertain and contingent networks that have disconnected rather than attached. Country, kin, tribe, community, and family have invariably been reduced in terms of attachment to each other as a unified network. Indigenous people have at once become a hidden, but nonetheless constituent part of the construction of the nation by the fact of their described identity by others. In reality, the social conditions of

Indigenous peoples are always contested, historically and socially situated, and depend on the state. But despite the fracturing of societies, reintegration is a common theme in contemporary Indigenous affairs. Much is being done at the community level to reconnect and link up disconnected individuals to lost families. But for those who remain disconnected, daily life often involves interacting with the criminal justice system and the experience of incarceration.

The perception of being a prison inmate is linked to a negation of the identity incorporating all of the socio-cultural elements of being

Aboriginal. Yet the prison is also a locus of change for some. Following the

302 terminology of Bourdieu (1977) it is a ‘field’ on which Indigenous inmates learn the ‘game’ determined by interactions, power struggles, alliances and negotiations together with formal regulations. The prison as a locus of change is the theme of the next chapter and the central focus of this research project. What takes place within the prison walls that determines how and why Indigenous Australians align with Islam.

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Indigenous Australians and Islam

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8.0 Indigenous Australians, Islam, and Alliances

8.1 Introduction

The working hypothesis of this thesis is that some Indigenous actors look to Islam partly as a reflection of their frustration in not achieving meaningful recognition within mainstream society. For the participants in this study, there was a positive correlation between seeking Islam, and involvement in the criminal justice system. The argument made in previous chapters is that the legacy of history has contributed to much of Indigenous peoples’ current circumstances and is a direct consequence of their experiences of colonialism and the recent past. These historical and contemporary experiences contribute to the disproportionate rates of

Indigenous incarceration in Australia. Indigenous imprisonment cannot be understood in the absence of wider power relations that have shaped the nature of the colonial response to Indigenous communities, both historically and as a matter of contemporary reality in Australia (Cuneen, 2001: 1-9).

This aim of this chapter is to document and analyse the local occurrence of

Indigenous alignment with Islam. Identity formation and its relationship to

Islam is the first area of discussion. Identity and self-esteem issues form the next area of investigation. Within the context of Islam and the prison system, an explanation of the radicalisation process within a prison environment incorporates the alliances and associations within the prison system. The extent to which Indigenous alignment with Islam has to do with identity politics is then discussed followed by the question of whether

Jihadism the new threat to replace Indigenous statehood.

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8.2 Identity (re)formation and Islam in prison

Indigenous imprisonment is part of the political process that has direct historical continuity with the processes of colonization and dispossession (Reynolds, 1989) and the establishment of colonial Australia as a penal colony (Hughes, 1986). The theoretical interest lies in examining the role of identities in preserving prisoners' sense of self, ontological security, and social cohesion among prisoners. It draws on two sociological models of prison life. The 'indigenous model' assumes the constraints imposed by the degradation and rituals of imprisonment promote inmate solidarity above all else, whilst the 'importation model' prioritises external societal roles (such as racial group) and cultural influences in structuring prison hierarchies and group relations. The role religion plays in re-forming the imposed prison identity is also considered. This is of considerable policy relevance because of the significant minority ethnic disproportionality in prison populations (Phillips, 2008). An argument made by Edney (2001) suggests “the principle and practice of Indigenous self-determination cannot be separated from the nature of Indigenous imprisonment” (Edney,

2001: 3). Self-determination for Indigenous Australians is a fundamental construct embodied in the RCIADIC report. The absence of any form of autonomy in prison represents “perhaps the antithesis of what is required by self-determination” (Edney, 2001: 7), and contributes to undermining the social capital of Indigenous communities. Established identity constructs in these situations collapse and then remade within the polarising environment of the prison. Prison inmates are accustomed to dividing the world into separate groups and cementing their identity by rhetorically dissociating themselves from other groups of inmates.

Gabriele Marranci’s (2006) argument claims identity allows people to make sense of their autobiographical selves; and enables people to

306 express their autobiographical selves through symbols. What we ‘feel to be’ determines our personal identity and this is conditioned by socialization

(family of origin, life experience, socio-cultural environment). For many

Indigenous inmates, identity confusion exists as an existential threat and ontological insecurity (Giddens, 1994). Yet these feelings are quite likely fed by the remnants of deeper underlying identity confusion attributable to policies of removal, social alienation and powerlessness.

8.3 Identity and self-esteem

Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1979) identifies that self-esteem has a paramount relevance for identity formation and that people categorise social and non-social stimuli in order to self-identify with others and to form

‘in groups’ which differentiate themselves from ‘out groups’. According to

Tajfel, personal esteem can only be achieved through in group membership. Personal identities, therefore, depend upon the social identity of the in group, and the self-esteem of each member of the group depends upon the self-esteem of the others involved within such an in group. Tajfel understands social identity as contributing to individual identity as the result of social group dynamics. To enhance their self-esteem, individuals undertake a process of depersonalisation in order to become part of a group. Regarding the form of Islamic group often termed prison Islam, it provides prototypes through the stereotype of the other, which in this case is the modern and secular, in other words the West. This would somewhat explain why fundamentalist groups decide to adopt the most anti-modern tool available: a strong belief in an infallible and divine scripture.

Previous chapters reviewed and analysed the underlying conditions leading to the over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system generally and prisons in particular. This was found to be

307 strongly related to regimes of continuous historical control and governance leading to fractured and displaced communities and individuals.

Chapter six examined the Islamic presence in Australia and concluded with an overview of the social and religious circumstances as they apply in a post September 11 environment. It was found that Islam and

Indigeneity have degrees of compatibility not experienced between non-

Indigenous Australians and Christianity. A reason for this is the ease in which Islam accepts ‘marginalisation’ and inequality as an intrinsic attribute of Islam as a way of life. Islam is recognised globally and serves to collectively identify adherents as part of the ummah (community of believers).

Previous results from this investigation indicated a statistically significant number of Indigenous prison inmates reverting to Islam while incarcerated in NSW prisons. According to prison authorities, a small percentage of Indigenous and non-Indigenous prisoners are said to have been ‘radicalised’ while in detention. The issue of prisoner radicalisation relates to globalisation, and nation-state interests of national security and local terrorist group formation. It also relates to the use of radicalisation discourse by prison authorities as a political tool to justify increasing surveillance, monitoring, housing, and isolating potentially difficult prisoners.

The following section examines the prison as an institution, its role in society, and the reshaping of individuals within its confines. The section discusses and analyses the dynamics within the prison, and the socio- historical legacies of the inmates.

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8.4 Islam and the prison system

The prison system effectively incarcerates, isolates, and economically controls the most dynamic members of the lower class.

Steady increases in prison populations worldwide place demands on authorities to build more prisons but in Australia, as in America, prison populations are over-represented by Indigenous Australian and African

American inmates respectively. These groups are marginalized citizens in terms of suffering consistently lower socioeconomic conditions including health, education, housing and employment. This is not to claim any particular biases in the criminal justice system, nor to deflect from the fact that the high rate of Indigenous contact with the criminal justice system is in large part a reflection on the high rate of Indigenous involvement in crime

(Weatherburn, Fitzgerald & Hua, 2003).

The point relevant to this section is to examine the prevalence of

African American conversions to Islam within U.S. prison systems. The review will discuss literature dealing with other overseas experiences of conversions to Islam in prisons. The aim is to demonstrate the wide-spread occurrence of Islam in prisons and to discuss why Islam is attractive to

‘black’ and marginalised prisoners.

The U.S. versions of Islam practiced in prison are variously named

‘Prislam’, ‘Prison Islam’ or ‘Jailhouse Islam’, indicating that a particular “cut and paste” version of Qur’anic interpretation forms the basis for a radical and corrupted version of Islam . This development has important security and radicalisation repercussions for U.S. prison authorities, but these concerns are extended to, and linked with, the overall discourse of national security in a post 9/11 environment. The radicalisation of Indigenous

Australian Muslims within NSW Corrective Services facilities is an issue which has a set precedent. According to verifiable sources prisoner

309 radicalisation was reported in some NSW prisons in 2003, and as late as

July and August 2006 in a national Australian broadsheet newspaper

(O’Brien, 2006: Kerbaj, 2006). Although the issue of (Indigenous) inmate radicalisation is of significant interest, it is not the priority of this research to determine if in fact this is occurring and to what extent. Rather, as explained previously, a more beneficial approach is to examine the sociological aspects of prison activity which leads to certain individuals and groups aligning for particular purposes. For Indigenous inmates, the underlying conditions influencing their involvement with the criminal justice system and prison career is of considerable importance. The extensive background information relayed to the researcher coincides with the disrupted lives due to historical events. Without exception, every interviewee described a background of social trauma. However, brief excursions into the aspects of radicalisation are helpful in explaining the underlying conditions for potential recruitment by radical influences. On a macro sociological scale, the wider national and global aspects of Islam and the West are considered to incorporate theoretical and empirical benchmarks.

A logical conclusion able to be drawn from this outline is that prisons serve to reproduce criminals rather than rehabilitate them. The shift from bodily punishment at the behest of a sovereign head, to the more

‘humane’ socially isolated environment of the modern prison is the dominant mode of legally separating those who break social rules, from the rest of society.

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8.5 An explanation of the radicalisation process within a prison environment

Identifying the factors which may lead to radicalisation, and some of the arguments used to justify it, are important considerations when examining not just observable or perceived radicalisation, but also the tendency for coercive behaviour of any kind. As an example, we could imagine that (Islamic) radicalisation is on the extreme end of the continuum with many other forms of recruitment and coercive forces in between. A simple example is to describe the distinction between Islamic radicalism as understood by the Wahhabi/Salafi ideology of groups such as Bin Laden, and the strict following of the Wahhabi/Salafi creed of the Saudi state. One is the enemy of the United States and the other is a long-term ally. The point is that the Wahhabi doctrine is often stereotyped as an austere and uncompromising form of Islamic doctrine. Yet there is a considerable difference between a fundamentalist interpretation and a radical interpretation as demonstrated by various terrorist groups.

It is also important to understand prison radicalisation as a two- stage process. Alienated individuals or groups who have become highly radicalised are not necessarily a threat within the prison system. It is only upon release that further steps may be taken to either seek out radical influences, or instead, become moderate and observant Muslims. From

European and American examples only a small minority of radicalised individuals actually cross over to become terrorists: by financing, lending facilities to, or encouraging active terrorists, or by actively participating in terrorist attacks. This is a large step, evolving over time with increasing indoctrination, reinforcement and training. Following the ‘career’ path of a potentially radicalised individual should not be difficult for intelligence operatives if cooperation with prison authorities is part of their modus

311 operandi . The NSW Department of Corrective Services cooperate with not only the state and federal police, but other security agencies such as ASIO.

There are a range of potential factors in radicalisation and no single factor predominates. It is likely the catalyst for any given group or individual becoming radicalised will be a combination of different factors particular to that group or person. Potentially radicalising factors include the development of a sense of grievance and injustice. As has already been noted, the terrorists' version of history and recent events is highly negative and partial in its interpretation of past interactions between Islam and the

West.

• The process of globalisation , in particular over the past two

decades, has had ramifications right across the world and in many

countries the effect has been not just economic, but also political,

social and cultural change on a significant scale. Given the impact

on local ways of life, those already predisposed to be suspicious of

the West can seek to portray these changes as a deliberate attempt

to replace traditional structures with Western models, rather than as

the consequence, for good and ill, of modernisation. This applies

particularly to a great many Indigenous Australians who feel

disenfranchised due to the historical legacy of oppression and

dispossession.

• Alongside this is often a simplistic, but virulent anti-Westernism .

The presence of Western interests, and sometimes military forces,

in Muslim countries - even though this is at the request and with the

permission of a country's government - is seen by some as an

affront and a source of shame. Indigenous inmates within the prison

system easily relate to the frustration, anger, and powerlessness

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associated with colonialism, the White Australia policy, and

numerous policies designed to afford privileges to some sections of

society at the expense of others. It would be a mistake to expect

these underlying and deeply-rooted sentiments to remain dormant

in the volatile social environment of the prison.

• Also some argue that the West does not apply consistent

standards in its international behaviour. Conflicts such as Bosnia

and Chechnya are cited, where Muslims have been the victims of

violence, and it is argued that the Western nations have failed to act

quickly or effectively enough to protect them, ignoring many positive

interventions. In particular, this applies to perceptions of relations

with Israel and the approach to the Middle-East Peace Process,

where the UK is actively committed to a two-state solution, with a

viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

• Specific events - for example, the Coalition action to restore

sovereignty in Kuwait, the UN authorised actions in Afghanistan to

remove the Al Qa'ida terrorist organisation and the Taliban

government sponsoring it and then restore stability there, and US

and UK action in Iraq to remove a serious threat to international

security and subsequently to promote a democratic and pluralist

government - are sometimes portrayed as attacks on Islam itself,

regardless of the actual rationale for the action. Media coverage of

isolated and unacceptable incidents involving Western forces in

Muslim countries, where individuals fail to live up to the standards

we have set ourselves in the treatment of prisoners and civilians,

may also be used to convince susceptible individuals that the West

is antipathetic to Islam.

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For some Muslims and Indigenous Australians alike, a potential factor is a sense of personal alienation or community disadvantage, arising from socioeconomic factors such as discrimination, social exclusion, and lack of opportunity. While an individual may not be relatively disadvantaged, he or she may identify with others seen as less privileged; also different generations within the same family may have significantly different views about these issues. An important factor is exposure to radical ideas. This may come from reading radical literature on Islamic and other subjects or surfing the Internet (where many types of radical views are strongly promoted), but more often radicalisation seems to arise from local contacts and from peers. Exposure to a forceful and inspiring figure, already committed to extremism, can be important here. This person may be associated with a particular place (e.g. a mosque) or can be a national or international figure, seen on video or heard on audio tapes. Inspiration from a distance is important and there is evidence that the rise of the

Internet, with its ability to connect people, to pass ideas between them, and then pass those ideas on to others has had a significant impact on the accessibility and flow of radical ideas. Yet it should also be considered that the tension between Islam and the West is easily and cynically inflamed by certain media outlets, politicians, right-wing nationalists, and by those whose interests lay in maintaining high levels of public fear to ensure continuing support for the ‘war on terror.’

None of these factors are conclusive and they are probably best viewed as considerations which may influence radicalisation. The examples are of a general nature indicating some similarities for both Muslims and

Indigenous Australians and why radicalisation is based on sociological, rather than psychological factors. Re-empowerment and group solidarity

314 are key missing determinants in the causal relationship of radicalisation based on a somewhat disingenuous interpretation of Islam.

8.6 Alliances and associations within the prison system

The social process of engaging with Islam by Indigenous

Australians involves a variable combination of influencing factors. Prior recognition by NSW prison authorities of radicalisation in prisons provides a benchmark for examining the relationships between Indigenous inmates and other groups. The main influences appear to be Lebanese Muslim inmates who have historically aligned themselves to Indigenous detainees.

The following dialogue is part of an extended transcript describing the conditions and environment of Goulburn ‘Supermax’ prison.

Christopher Binse, (Former Goulburn Gaol Inmate): There's a friendship, there's alliances with certain groups within the, within the prison system. You know, the Aussies, the Islanders, and the Asians, they hang out together there. You know, they're cool, you know? The Lebanese and the Aboriginals, they hang out together, and the Chinese, they're cool, you know.

Brian Kelly, (Commander, Security NSW Corrective Services): If there's an assault by an Asian inmate on an Aboriginal inmate, that Aboriginal inmate will go back to his people and they will number up and then try and square off with the Asian inmates. It's just a cycle which just increases, it snowballs. (Masters, 2005)

The reasons for this are for proselytising their particular ‘cut and paste’ version of Islam, and for instrumental purposes as well. This alliance is founded on relations of power, with the Lebanese providing physical protection and economic security. Both groups are familiar with the daily contingencies of conflict and violence but Lebanese inmates enjoy a greater degree of social support than many Indigenous inmates. From the personal observations of the researcher, Lebanese inmates might be

315 classified as ‘entrepreneurial’ in the methods they employ to establish and maintain prison hierarchy.

8.7 The extent to which Indigenous alignment with Islam has to do with identity politics

Charles Taylor (1989) observes modern identity is inherently political, because it ultimately demands recognition. Is the practice (and therefore demonstration) of Islam by (relatively powerless Indigenous individuals) within a closed society such as a prison, a demonstration of identity politics? According to Olivier Roy (2004, 35) “the religious community is increasingly seen as an identity group, emphasising the ‘us and them’ approach.” This could signify the process of drawing lines between true believers and the rest of the world as well as denoting a situation in which the believer thinks of himself as being in a minority identity group. “The feeling of being part of a minority is an issue not of demography but of alienation from a dominant culture that is totally secular or that refers to religion in a neurotic way.” ( ibid.: 36). In the case of

Indigenous inmates the issue of belonging has credence in relation to the dominant ‘outside’ community and the dominant nature of prison life. Both of these circumstances entail degrees of alienation and the concomitant desire for personal authenticity gained through group identification. The shift from an alienated and universal aimlessness of outside existence, to one of a reconstructed member of a faith community demands demonstrations of faith membership within the confines of available religious guidance. But as Roy (2004, 38) explains: “…through the weakening of prior social ties, identities are recast by a reference to codes of comportment, values and beliefs, and not on a ‘substantial’, even reconstructed new identity.” These concepts align somewhat with the impressions of some prison chaplains, who understand the utility of group

316 identity, specifically for Indigenous ‘conversions’ to Islam. This is not to discount the religious benefits associated with Islam, and in all reality, it is likely that combinations of motivating factors occur simultaneously. Muslim identity is recast as according to what are seen as purely religious behavioural patterns, and not on the basis of a given culture. This points to the universal nature of Islam having the ability to cross ethnic and cultural divides and to identify the adherents as a religious community. The corollary is that if radicalisation occurs, it is more likely to separate the believer from the collective Islamic community. Most radical militants are engaged in action as individuals, cutting links with their ‘natural’ community to fight beyond the sphere of any real collective identity. Although this condition is far removed from the regulated environment of the prison, the link between associating conflict with Muslims is apparent by the interest shown by the West. Similarly, the Indigenous struggle for self-determination is usually cast in conflictual terms because its claims reside outside of the normalised boundaries of liberal democratic constructs of individualism.

8.8 Is Jihadism the new threat to replace Indigenous statehood?

There is an underlying assumption by some that global Islam will replace western democracy as a system of government. Others have feared Indigenous land rights and treaty activism would eventuate in

Indigenous groups claiming the ‘back yards’ of ordinary Australians. It will be argued here that comparisons can be drawn between earlier fears in

Australia that Indigenous owners would reclaim their land, and those of contemporary Islamists advocating the re-establishment of the Khilafah.

Both of these themes imply a radical shift in the way Australian identity and political governance might be altered. The Indigenous issue is unresolved as far as a satisfactory reconciliation is concerned, particularly when

317 separate Indigenous government departments have been replaced with mainstream provision of services. This makes the implicit statement that

Indigenous people ‘belong’ with the rest of mainstream Australians and other ethnic groups, and no longer have the ‘visibility of receiving ‘special’ treatment. This is despite the fact that on all social indicators, Indigenous people lag behind other Australians. The shift in government policy follows the ideology of cultural assimilation and economic neoliberalism, and overlooks the complex issues associated with Aboriginal rights as first peoples. The Australian economy is embedded in broader, historically specific socio-cultural regimes, each with distinct structures and processes, dominant and subordinate strata, hegemonic and counter-hegemonic blocs, and patterns of struggle (Antonio and Bonanno, 2000). Broadly, materialism and consumption drive an economic agenda with a priority on maintaining the capitalist thrust of western liberal democracies. Moreover, recent Australian government policy has meant that ‘citizenship’ and refugee policy 33 has replaced multiculturalism both in name and in practice.

This new reality of emphasising citizenship instead of multiculturalism raises two important issues. First, there is an assumption that a progressive tolerance for minorities means antipathy for the dominant culture or conventional view. An allied assumption concerns what constitutes a ‘dominant’ or conventional view. The second issue concerns the political manipulation of ideas that are designed to foster a sense of community based on a common identity (as a nation of Australians). The problem arises when ethnic, cultural, and religious difference ‘disturbs’ the public’s concept of what constitutes ‘acceptable’ demonstrations of

33 According to Galligan and Roberts (2003: 2) “the multicultural account of Australia as a nation of diverse cultural groups has been taken over by the Australian Citizenship for a New Century. The Citizenship Council eschews any notions of common national identity or shared culture in favour of ‘public acceptance of diversity’ and abstract civic values”. 318

Australian life. The imagined identity of mainstream Australians will always be contested, and instead of bringing individuals and groups together the opposite is often the case. Social polarisation occurs because of the imposed political ideology of an idealised citizenry based on the normalised or conventional dominant mainstream liberal principles of individual equality. For example, most European countries have right-wing populist parties opposed to immigration and increased mobilisation around the issue of Muslim minorities (Fukuyama, 2006). What is required, according to

Fukuyama, is that national identity must be clearly defined and expressed, and a failure to be clear on national identity leaves a society vulnerable to being overwhelmed by those with a much better sense of community identity. Fukuyama bases this premise on the challenge facing liberal democracies in relation to the integration of Muslim immigrants ( ibid. ) but blurs the distinction between ‘moderate’ law-abiding Muslims and radical

Islamists. The point is that either ‘too many’ or ‘too radical’ is harmful to pluralistic democracies. The effect is to disrupt the social psyche by implanting notions of radicalism and loss of imagined community

(Anderson, 1991).

For the relatively limited and insular cultural history of Australia, it is the unresolved Indigenous issue that acts as a socio-cultural reminder of how the country was acquired. The imposition of an imagined idealised identity at the expense of Indigenous Australians is embedded in the history of Australia since 1788. For the original Indigenous inhabitants and their antecedents who were successively removed, ignored, separated, assimilated, integrated, and then overlooked in the wake of September 11, the Australian national identity has only posthumously included Indigenous

Australians, albeit in paternalistic and patronising terms.

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It could be argued that the period of affirmative action in the late 1960s to the mid 1970s has been completely replaced by a resurgent nationalism which requires the citizens of the nation state to identify as one coherent body. This is odd considering the effect of cultural globalisation is to practically demonstrate the multicultural nature of not only the nation state but the ‘global state.’ On one hand the political and economic ideologies of neoliberalism encourages a ‘melting pot’ of cultures based on the free exchange of people and goods in an increasing globalised world. On the other hand, there appears to be a reactive resurgent fear of immigration with its associated connotations of different cultures, religions and laws. An obvious example to demonstrate the potential for the politics of fear is the application of sharia law as a part of Islamic social practice. Although this is not applicable in Australia, it is frequently used as a case study for adhering to liberal democratic values. The logical progression to include Fukuyama’s view that jihadism is aided by the quest for identity spawned by migration to

Muslim minority countries such as Australia is particularly so if it fails to offer meaningful economic and cultural integration.

Disaffection and disaffiliation within a Muslim community can provoke terrorism, just as the Cronulla riots in 2006 were a predictable response to a growing sense that the dominant Australian-Anglo culture was being undermined. These instances, if left unchecked, result in resurgent demonstrations of imagined identity, but it is only those with a reinforced sense of belonging that reject the option of multicultural tolerance, such as right-wing groups.

A simple response to this occurrence is to claim that Indigenous inmates convert as a form of protest, or to recast and make sense of the experiences of previous exclusion (Roy, 2004: 47). This may or may not be

320 the case but it provides a benchmark from which to examine prison conversions in more detail

Within prisons and in Indigenous communities Islam serves a discursive function: that of a powerful oppositional force to institutional authority, and as the promise of empowerment, status, and identity for a life outside of prison. Its power resides in both the global ummah and the strong links with ‘black’ minorities. The power of Islam lies more in symbolism than in actual threats to the social cohesion of mainstream society. The common denominator is a recognition that both Islam and

Indigenous Australians suffer from domination by Western powers.

Recognition of domination is the ‘hook’ attracting Indigenous attention, whether intentional or by chance. Islam is therefore a discourse specifically constructed by Indigenous people for the purpose of regaining individual and collective power in an otherwise oppressive environment.

8.9 Conclusion

The collective identity aspect of Indigenous involvement is conditional and contingent. For example Indigenous ‘converts’ align with other Indigenous converts more strongly than with the general Muslim population, as their major alliance is with Indigenous ‘brothers’ or Muslim

‘brothers’. Indigenous people are over-represented in the criminal justice system because they commit more public disorder types of crimes.

Influencing factors are poverty, social dislocation, poor education, unemployment, drug and alcohol problems, aimlessness and hopelessness. A significant contributing factor is the unresolved social and political resolution of the destruction created by previous administrative and political decisions which have left a legacy of dysfunction and powerlessness.

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The majority of Indigenous respondents in this project had served prison time. Many experienced Islam for the first time while in prison. All experienced Islam with the knowledge of colonialism and oppression, and how groups such as the Nation of Islam (NOI) and Malcolm X captured oppressed African Americans. The imagined power of NOI to mobilise a collective to re-empower a significant bloc of marginalised blacks is a familiar metaphor for Indigenous Australians. And just as the NOI doctrine was based on an unorthodox version of Islam, its message was overtly and powerfully political.

Indigenous people who have reverted to Islam and many who have not, reflect on the hypocrisy of the Christian message by referring to colonialism and the resulting treatment they received. Christianity appeared to be a significant influence in re-making the identities of Indigenous people and therefore excluding them from access to traditional land, culture and language. As one respondent claimed “Christianity is the religion of the oppressor – Islam is the religion of the oppressed” (M, 2006).

Other significant themes concerning how Islam was perceived by some

Indigenous respondents:

• Islam is the natural religion of Indigenous people because of their

genetic connection and lineage to early African peoples 34

• There is no contradiction between Indigenous cosmology and Islamic

theology in that the belief in one transcendent being or God is common

to both.

• Many Indigenous people can re-tell stories of the attitudes to and

treatment of ‘Mohammedans’ who were mostly people from what is now

34 The Nation of Islam in the U.S. also made reference to this point in claiming their close association with Islam. In this case it was black Africans who were transported to America and the oppression of slavery that galvanised this group. 322

known as Afghanistan. Many Indigenous Islamic connection go back to

this period.

The main points considered in this, and previous chapters will be summarised in the following discussion chapter.

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9.0 Discussion: Implications and outcomes

9.1 Introduction

This chapter analyses and discusses various options as to where this research will lead, and what conclusions can be drawn from what is known about the status of contemporary social policy in relation to

Indigenous Australian Muslims. In particular the interest is how an Islamic influence realigns an Indigenous perception of society, and how both

Indigenous Australians and Muslims in Australia express desires for equality and positive social recognition.

9.2 Summary of themes

By way of review, what follows is a summary of the key themes discussed in this thesis. The longevity of minority cultural groups being portrayed as deviant, or as a threat to a stable cultural order can be traced back to the arrival of the British in 1788. Ethnic minorities are presented as threats, with overt positionings of ‘us’ and ‘them’, in which the former is an assumed mainstream audience, and the latter is the cultural minority. In general terms, Muslims, Asian-Australians and Indigenous Australians suffer greater negativity in the media than do other ethnic groups.

Individuals who affiliate with, or who are associated with, these specific cultural groups endure greater degrees of vilification than do others. In its most simplified form, this situation is the context and explanatory framework for the over-representation of Indigenous people in prison; the continued discrimination of Muslims; and the attempts by Indigenous

Australians to regain empowerment and self-respect. Put another way, incarceration is the definitive representation for many Indigenous people of the circular and intergenerational debilitating social effects of dispossession

325 and discrimination. If this were not the case, Indigenous people would not be over-represented in the criminal justice system to the extent they are. To accurately rank the order of underlying and current influences is almost impossible, yet it has been claimed in this thesis that disproportionate involvement with the criminal justice system is one symptom of collective cultural trauma. The trauma discussed here is widespread and deeply embedded in the habitus of many Indigenous people. The corollary is the inability of the state to effectively address the underlying issues influencing

Indigenous disadvantage because policy focus is to apply reactive practical solutions without addressing the difficult and complex histories of oppression. Since the increasing rate of globalisation and resurgent neoliberal principles, the doxic social condition has slowly reverted to social conservatism and economic fundamentalism. The discursive orthodoxy is a creation of the lack of ethical and moral dimensions embedded in neoliberal ideology.

Applying Bourdieu, neoliberalism establishes itself as doxa described as an unquestionable orthodoxy that operates as if it were the objective truth. Doxa embeds across social space in its entirety, from the practices and perceptions of the state and social groups. The contemporary ubiquitous nature of the neoliberal paradigm as a doctrine of governance has managed to establish itself as “a credible vision, at once universal and foundational, for describing social reality itself” (Chopra, 2003: 422).

Neoliberalism preserves the central idea of classical economics that the free market is an essential prerequisite for a free society. This outlook implies freedom as individual freedom from state interference and freedom of the market. The commitment to neoliberalism is predicated, by definition, on a marked opposition to the idea of the welfare or protectionist state

(Peters, 2001: 14-15).

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The underlying assumption of neoliberalism is that economic and social behaviour can be understood in terms of the human attributes of rationality, individuality, and self interest. The neoliberal redefinition of the social in terms of the economic is primarily in terms of the language of quantifiability, calculability, cost-benefit rationalisation and business management techniques (Bourdieu, 1998: 31). Those parts of the social fabric not translatable to mathematical terms are accordingly discarded; “a radical separation is made between the economic and the social, which is left to one side, abandoned to sociologists as a kind of reject” ( ibid. ). The outcome of this claim is that the social cannot pose any legitimate objections to neoliberalism, since it cannot be represented as a variable in the equation. Furthermore, Bourdieu (1998) argues that neoliberal discourse views and presents itself as the “scientific description of reality”

(1998: 31) claiming the status of objective, scientific truth whose truth-value transcends history. This is what allows neoliberal discourse to “embark on a programme of methodological destruction of collectivities” (ibid. : 95-6).

Neoliberalism as doxa , is therefore a self-evident truth about the human and the social which is beyond question and is what gives the dominant discourse its strength. The negative effects of the neoliberal paradigm both for governance and for understanding the social are experienced in a variety of ways. According to Bourdieu, the over-riding achievement of neoliberalism is nothing other than the oldest dream of capitalism; the establishment of a framework for the more efficient accumulation and distribution of profit according to Darwinian principles.

Individuals have to bear responsibility for the situations in which they find themselves.

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9.3 Implications for the research topic

Bourdieu asserts that any research must be composed of two

"minutes." The first an objective stage of research - where one looks at the relations of the social space and the structures of the field. The second stage must be a subjective analysis of social agents' dispositions to act and their categories of perception and understanding that result from their inhabiting the field. Proper research, he says, cannot do without these two together (Bourdieu cited in Mouzelis, 2007) This theoretical approach has been employed in the analysis of Indigenous alignment with Islam in the context of the interview transcript (pp. (199 - 217).

In Pierre Bourdieu's work, the habitus comprises perceptual structures and embodied dispositions which organise the way individuals see the world and act in it; “the cognitive structures which social agents implement in their practical knowledge of the social world are internalized, embodied social structures” (Bourdieu 1984: 468). The individual agent develops these dispositions in response to the determining structures (such as class, family, and education) and external conditions (field)s they encounter. They are therefore neither wholly voluntary nor wholly involuntary. Crucially, the habitus is derived directly from the socioeconomic or structural position in which individuals find themselves.

For many Indigenous people the habitus is shaped by the lived conditions of colonialism, inequality, dispossession, inter-generational poverty, ill- health and unemployment. Dispositions indicating alienation, social exclusion, and minority status inform their daily social interactions. On the other hand, political debate, discourse or even policies are particularly prone to the obstacles posed by deep-rooted dispositions which resist the force of good argument. Nationalism is one example Bourdieu (2000) gives of this. For many Indigenous people, nationalism is reminiscent of invasion,

328 colonialism, and numerous technologies of power associated with governance and control. The historic denial regarding the facts of dispossession by large sections of Australian society conforms to the objective structures of political power subsumed within a discourse of

‘national interest’ and uncritical histories. Socio-cultural conflict or tension arises when established histories of Australia’s past are challenged. Put differently, the socio-cultural habitus or the functioning social space at the micro-level, describes the relationship between a particular group of people and the practices of those who inhabit that shared space. The shared social space of Australian society is shaped by the dominant discourse and discursive practices embedded in Western liberal democratic ideals. The embodied activities and competencies that are ‘learned’ and carried out by individuals in a social space by necessity reflect the values and ideals of the dominant society. The periods following the events of 1788 are recognisable by the various iterations of power embedded in the structures of authority informed by Australian identity and emerging nationalist sentiments. The structures that typify social spaces give rise to dispositions in the members of a social space. Dispositions can be understood as inclinations to certain responses or tendencies to make one choice over another, and to privilege one action over another. The nature of a system of such dispositions (habitus) that endures across space and time is recognisable in the form of national identity discourse. On the other hand, an Indigenous habitus may be largely acquired as a result of being integrated, acclimatised, and shaped in the particular environments of resistance discourse formed around anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, or anti-

Christian sentiments. When referring to the responses in the research transcript, strong resistance sentiments were expressed leaving a space for the re-empowering discourse of Islamic principles to emerge.

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Bourdieu’s ‘field’ refers to objective structures of power and material inequality which accumulate around any form of practice. A field is a setting in which agents and their social positions are located. The position of each particular agent in the field is a result of interaction between the specific rules of the field, agent's habitus and agent's capital (social, economic and cultural) (Bourdieu, 1984). The main thrust of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology is the focus on the idea of power and control (Peillon, 1998). Bourdieu’s analysis of fields of activity is about access to, control over and struggles for capital, as fields are structures in terms of domination. Only those who can mobilise the relevant resources are able to take part in the struggles which define a field. Resources take the form of economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital. Therefore, if Indigenous people lack any of these forms of capital relative to the majority society, it places them in a field in which the effort of struggles is largely unproductive. On the other hand,

Islamic alliances provide a form of capital which is both empowering and symbolic. For Bourdieu, the accumulation of one kind of capital represents the stake of the struggles in one particular field. The overarching field of power or central structure of domination is for Indigenous Australians the nation state which is a political field. Interconnecting sub-fields are governments, bureaucracies and administration concerned with Indigenous welfare. These sub-fields maintain control of economic capital, and prescribe dominant cultural values and social capital. In terms of symbolic capital, incremental but significant re-distributions are occurring. Land rights legislation and the recent apology to the stolen generations are examples of symbolic cultural capital. Yet the state as a political field determines the political struggle for the monopoly of symbolic violence and for the right to formulate the law as was the case with the Northern Territory Emergency

Response legislation (2007). The control over the formulation and delivery

330 of Indigenous welfare and policy programmes constitutes both a resource within a ‘welfare’ field and a major stake within it. (Peillon, 1998: 217).

What then, do the overlapping fields of institutional power and authority invested in the structure and management of the criminal justice system offer Indigenous people caught up in the system? Conversely, what does the resistance politics embedded in the discourse and practice of

Islam by Indigenous Australians pose to the nation state, and at a another level, prison authorities?

An important issue to consider is the habitus construction in prison.

This is because, as discussed above, Indigenous people are overrepresented in Australian prisons and the prison is the site where many

Indigenous inmates become involved with Islam. The prison habitus could be conceptualised as extra influential layers imposed on the individual by force for actual survival. This is in line with Erving Goffman’s (1961) ‘total institution’, where previous social meanings are deconstructed and then reconstructed to reflect the institutional or organisational field. However, there is a transitional ‘learning’ period for newly arrived prisoners which may be uncomfortable and demeaning, hence the desire for common group membership with internal consistency of behaviour, rules, and dispositions.

“The application of rules is not determined by their intrinsic logic, as rationalist philosophers would have it, but by social agreement” (King,

2000: 420). Gang power is less alienating for individuals within the group and provides the opportunity for inter-gang competition usually driven by hierarchical power-related violence. Belonging to an ‘outlaw’ religious group works in a similar fashion and is why prison Islam has an opportunistic gang-like structure with links to ‘outside’ power associated with global

Islamism, Jihadism, fundamentalism and violence. (The less Islamic the more gang-like and this should not be confused with actual criminal intent

331 to carry out terrorist acts). It should also be stated that even if prison Islam is fundamentalist in nature it does not necessarily follow that militancy or violence will result.

9.4 The Nation of Islam example

Groups such as the Nation of Islam, though appearing at first to look like manifestations of dissent, have actually functioned in U.S. history as vehicles of social control, since their teachings have not attacked the root causes of oppression Curtis, 2007). The argument that the absence of a direct and organised assault on the political economy and patriarchy of the

United States effectively sustains the status quo, reflects a partial view of political action and resistance. Rebellion also includes cultural acts of resistance that reject the values and expectations of the powerful. In this sense, the NOI’s activities, and the growth of Islam more generally among black Americans, were extremely rebellious in the 1960s. During the 1950s, the Nation of Islam permitted a space for an anti American critique of the

Cold War. During the Vietnam era, in the middle of a civil rights movement that was an important component of U.S. foreign policy, many in the Nation of Islam and other African American Muslims rejected American nationalism; refused to serve in Vietnam; criticised the civil rights movement as hollow; and challenged the legitimacy of the non-official state religion, Christianity.

The argument could be made that the responses and sentiments of

Indigenous Muslims are demonstrating similar liberation discourses while simultaneously embracing the formative tenets of Islamic belief and practice. Similar too are the reactions of Australian federal and state governments, and the concerns of the senior hierarchy of NSW Department of Corrective Services management. The NOI example demonstrates a

332 parallel between the reactions of U.S. government officials and those in

Australia.

Curtis (2007) explains that the way the Nation of Islam Muslims dressed and talked, in addition to the pictures they drew and the poems they wrote, questioned the cultural foundations of the state and its legitimacy to rule. The fact that U.S. government officials associated members of the NOI with violent revolution, despite the lack of any organised effort in the movement to confront authorities with violence, indicates the extent of the ideological challenge. According to one observer, the NOI was among the most watched organizations in the government’s

Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) (Curtis, 2007). This evidence indicates that the message of the Nation of Islam and its members was politically dangerous in some way.

Indigenous Australians aligning with Islam face one additional complication regarding their choice of faith. The events of September 11 and subsequent terrorist attacks in Spain, the U.K. and Indonesia have mobilised media and political commentary. Concerted campaigns to construct a ‘politics of fear’ have gradually influenced practice (in

Bourdieu’s usage) in that Islam is generally regarded with suspicion within certain sections of Australian society, media and politics. Additionally,

Indigenous Australians who find themselves in a cycle of intergenerational socio-economic disadvantage generated in part by associated latent trauma conditions would appear to be poorly placed to effect positive social and economic changes. Yet as has been demonstrated using the Nation of

Islam as a model for re-empowerment, so Indigenous Muslims are experiencing Islam as a source of resistance and empowerment. This is despite the danger of ‘speaking the unspeakable’, or put another way, challenging the orthodoxy. In so doing, the Indigenous Muslims have

333 gained cultural and religious capital in the field of Indigenous resistance and empowerment politics. Effectively, Indigenous Muslims are redefining the nomos (what constitutes the doxa at the level of field) by self- determining the relations that structure the field. The relations that structure a field operate through the legislation of what kind of resources count as valid currency of exchange, that is, what kinds of resources translate as valid capital for the field. Thus, in the overlapping fields of politics, culture and religion, what different groups challenge each other for is not just an increase in the amount of capital they possess, but the criteria by which something is considered genuine cultural capital, and for the right to define that nomos (Chopra, 2003: 426-8). The nomos of the field of Indigenous self-determination, as Chopra, (2003) notes is arbitrary and can be understood appropriately only in terms of the history of a particular field in a particular society. The contested nature of the concept of Indigenous self- determination is offset somewhat by Indigenous Muslims converting religious capital into cultural capital which resists or circumvents previously imposed definitions of what is considered legitimate capital. The state is historically the agency, which, through policy, sets the exchange rate between different fields. Bourdieu views neoliberalism as just the sort of

‘value system’ between fields, at once altering the fields and, at the same time, naturalising the meta-value as the essential value for every sphere of sociality. Within a post September 11 environment, the capital invested in

Islamic conversion and alliances is a powerful instrument with which to reflect back into Indigenous communities as a concrete example of resistance and empowerment strategies.

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9.5 Conclusion

As was the case with the Nation of Islam, the ideological and cultural resistance the group offered could also be applied to Indigenous

Australians converting to Islam. The resistance and empowerment strategies exhibited by Indigenous Muslims in this research had their origins in histories of oppression.

The enduring hardships experienced by Indigenous peoples during the early periods of government control caused many children to be thrust into confrontation with adult responsibilities early in life. Such people often develop a high degree of politicisation evidenced by continuous resistance and activism by various Indigenous social movements. This is despite periods of incarceration or life-time involvement with the criminal justice system. The neoliberal project treats the individual as essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities, owing nothing to society for them. The Muslim theory of society emphasises the self-affirmation of the individual. The individual’s moral worth is shaped by the contributions of the community of believers, even as that community is itself shaped by what the individual has to offer it. This is an empowering concept in and of itself and within practice, decouples its adherents from ideological engagement with the less appealing aspects of dominant society.

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Indigenous Australians and Islam

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10.0 Conclusions

10.1 Summary of thesis argument

Imperialism and colonialism destroyed the essence of Indigenous societies without making satisfactory amends. For many Indigenous

Australians the ‘original sin’ of invasion and terra nullius has never been satisfactorily resolved. Unlike other colonised states Australia remains at odds by not reconciling with Indigenous peoples. Indigenous tribes were dispossessed of their land and the means to provide economic and cultural means. Some Aborigines were massacred; Aboriginal children were taken without their parents' consent, sometimes with good intentions but mostly not. These events have left legacies of social and cultural dysfunction and intergenerational disadvantage.

Modernisation in the form of nation states and the legacies of imperialism has also contributed to the fracture of many Islamic societies.

Contemporary and historical regional conflicts in Middle Eastern lands have become symbolic of the socially constructed tensions between and within

Islamic states and the West. For both Indigenous peoples and Muslims, administrative legal systems based on Western processes of rationalisation and domination have been instrumental forces in the modernisation project.

Australian colonial administrators and later, governments, placed

Indigenous issues and affairs under specific departments and were considered subjects of the British Empire. Emerging post-colonial policies encouraged cultural homogenisation (assimilation) through education with schools teaching the dominant language and emphasising national loyalties. In Muslim societies education is paradoxically instrumental both in the formation of secular and Islamic nationalism. The increased weakening of Indigenous social structure through removals and dispossession have

337 provided virtually no access to equitable power sharing, and the nation- state remains the dominant intervening power. Indigenous Australians have largely remained as a periphery collective in terms of gaining benefit from mainstream (Western) service provision. The three inter-connected causes of the post-1960s catastrophe of the communities included alcohol, the poison of passive welfare, and disconnection from the real economy.

The contingencies of imperialism, colonialism, the White Australia policy and contemporary shifts to neoliberal governance have compounded the disadvantage experienced by many Indigenous Australians. Numerous royal commissions, enquiries, reports, and official statistics adequately quantify the extent of the issues affecting Indigenous Australians. The

Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody discussed the important topic of underlying issues explaining the disproportionate detention rates of Aboriginal people. However, the number of Indigenous people being incarcerated is increasing on a yearly basis. The prison and criminal justice systems are the common factors uniting Indigenous and

Muslim as found in this research. This is not an isolated precedent, but a process following closely that of the African American experience.

10.2 Summary of the conceptual process

• At a global level, Islamic identity has replaced secular nationalism which

has become an existential threat to the West.

• This is a broad statement indicating a trend having become more

pronounced since 11 September and as a reality in parts of the Middle

East. Global media coverage and political posturing has assisted with

public opinion formation which in turn challenges long-held notions of

national identity in an increasingly ‘global village’.

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• Many Indigenous people rebel against the unchanged or worsening

conditions they face as disempowered members of an otherwise

affluent society.

• Indigenous Australians’ political and strategic development remains

relatively ineffective despite continuous decades of resistance and

activism.

• Australian national security is currently linked to the global awareness

of ‘Islamic terrorism threats’, although the Islamic aspect is overplayed

and attributed to Muslims in general.

• When military (or political) reactions outstrip in their severity the events

that caused them, grave processes are set in motion which widen the

gulf and propels resistance into extremism.

• Many Muslims and Indigenous people make this connection and

understand it, even if the majority of people do not engage in any form

of extremism. For Indigenous people, the recent Howard Government

‘Intervention’ program in the Northern Territory is a case in point.

Decades of ineffective government policy and mismanagement have

contributed to the social decay in many remote Indigenous

communities. The ‘intervention’ has done little to empower Indigenous

communities, rather the opposite is true.

• There appears to be a new wave of Islamic awareness among the

ummah regarding group solidarity as a response to continuing injustices

within Islamic states and the secular world.

• Many Muslims in Australia are aware of the poor state of Indigenous

affairs. Partly this is brought about by their own country-of-origin

histories, particularly those from Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Sudan

and Somalia.

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• There is a simmering resentment by many Indigenous Australians

against the Australian state authority on the legal basis of denial of self-

determination in real terms as evidenced by all social determinants

(inhibited social, economic and political development)

• High rates of Indigenous incarceration indicate fundamental problems

when dealing with the underlying factors of influence leading to

Aboriginal imprisonment. Imprisonment is often seen as a rite of

passage for younger Aborigines. On the other hand, prison can also

become the nexus for radical personal change triggered by

experiencing Islam. This point is a critical juncture in terms of how the

experience is interpreted by prison authorities, because as mentioned

above, prisoner radicalisation is the fear of prison management and

state politicians.

The long debated motive for the British colonisation of Australia has revolved around England’s need to resolve problems with overcrowded prisons. It is ironic indeed that twenty first century Australian prisons are over-represented by Indigenous prisoners, and those who convert to Islam are often further stereotyped and regarded with suspicion by many non-

Indigenous Australians.

For the Indigenous people involved in this study the dominant themes revolve around group politics, identity, resistance, and self- empowerment. For them it is a critique of Australian nationalism driven by

Indigenous inequality, and psychological and physical separation. The

‘system’ has afforded these Indigenous people no favours; rather, it is blamed for forcing them to the margins of society making them ‘fringe dwellers’ on their own country.

The notion that Indigenous disadvantage has become a Muslim cause in the case of Islamic conversions assists in claiming a form of 340 recognition as a re-empowered collective. Many Muslims in Australia are sympathetic to Indigenous historical and socio-economic issues. This is partly due to the long association with Indigenous Australians beginning with the sea-faring Macassan trepang collectors and traders.

It could be argued that the universal nature of Islam is better suited to contextualising the condition of Indigenous Australians than the nation state which has effectively exploited Indigenous people and country without fair and reasonable recognition and compensation. It seems unlikely, at least in the near future, that attempts to redress Indigenous disadvantage will make significant improvements. The so-called war on terror and the current economic crisis will reprioritise government agendas to realign with the immediate crisis afflicting global consumer sentiment. The continuation of neoliberal economic and social governance is making it more, not less difficult for Indigenous Australians to attain significant advances in their socio-economic well-being. On the other hand, an Islamic economic framework contains the ethical and moral dimensions missing in radical capitalism. The Islamic ummah in Australia is in a strong position to assert its proven authority in these areas. Additionally, for Indigenous Australians, bottom-up or popular action remains an option for those unable to obtain relief through personal agency or Indigenous political and social participation.

Some Indigenous men employ their alliance with Islam (either within or outside of prison) strategically and tactically. This does not mean that a purely instrumental use of Islam is the main factor in their reversion or alliance. In fact, the degree to which adherence to Islamic principles is practiced is evidence of strong spiritual and religious dedication and commitment leading to self-empowerment and solid identity formation.

Thus the theoretical frameworks for conditions amenable to religious

341 conversion are socially located in the total institution of the prison.

Conversions to Islam have become common place in prisons where minority groups are over-represented. This raises the problematic question of why some groups continue to be caught in the criminal justice system more than others. In the case of African Americans, their histories of oppression were expressed through socio-religious movements such as the

Nation of Islam. The links between ‘black nationalism’ in the U.S. and

Indigenous social movement activism are similar in intent. Both groups recognise the capital of collective action to politicize their status as marginalised and disadvantaged members of society. The fact that discrimination based on racist policies and social attitudes have contributed to the enduring disadvantage experienced by Indigenous Australians is beyond dispute.

Secular consumer societies in late modern western democracies tend to have precarious relations with religious groups and institutions. The separation of church and state although constitutionally ensured, does not extend to willing acceptance of all faiths and belief systems. The dominant

Anglo-Christian base of Australian national identity is being challenged ideologically and numerically by non-Christian religions. Islam in Australia is experiencing a resurgence fuelled by immigration and demography.

Many indigenous Australians describe a history that builds on a feedback loop of increasing disconnection. An increasing awareness of connectedness diminishes to the point where social cohesion is lost. Within a feedback loop of increasing disconnection new social movements emerge in which to exercise political mobilisation. The numerical and political isolation of Indigenous Australians could be attributed in large part to racism. The Aboriginal response to white control is to actively maintain a

342 politics of resistance. Within the repressive environment of the prison a politics of resistance continues in the form of Islamic alliances.

The term ‘religious conversion’ is inadequate to account for the multitude of influences and motivations leading to the acceptance of Islam within the violent environment of the prison. Indigenous inmates know violence under the name of colonisation and its continuing form under the name of exploitation. Contemporary globalisation, government policy, the interests of multinational companies, all converge to promote a self interest that rewards individualism and competitive domination. For many

Indigenous communities there are multiple destructions, the foundation destruction being loss of connection to country, Dreaming and kin.

A prominent theme in this thesis is the concept of collective trauma associated with the fundamental loss of connections. Cultural trauma is realised when Indigenous people collectively remember horrendous past events. For some this manifests as enduring dysfunctional families and communities. The multiple violations of the experiences of Indigenous

Australians conditioned by institutional destruction of families contribute to violent behaviours repeated through generations. The rate of potential offenders and perpetrators increases in dysfunctional communities and by default, higher rates of contact with the criminal justice system. The claim of this thesis is that historically conditioned events lead to the ultimate realisation that imprisonment is the catalyst for change. This was clearly demonstrated in the dialogue of the Indigenous Muslims interviewed in this study. However, although Islamic practice in prison is beneficial and empowering, it is perceived by prison management as a threat if radicalisation occurs. A difficulty exists for prison management in how to allow a reasonable exposure to religious engagement, and that of misreading overt expressions of Islamic identity. The reality lies somewhere

343 between concerted attempts by inmates to exercise power and control, and prison management politicising Islam to justify increasing surveillance and harsher treatment of prisoners.

Prior to, but particularly after September 11, 2001, Australian governments in line with most Western governments have become increasingly wary of identifiable ‘home grown Islamic organisations. Fears of nefarious efforts at recruitment, or to socialise and groom potential radicals underpin government and security organisation concerns. Since the events of September 11 there have been notable ‘over-reactions’ to so- called national security threats in Australia involving intrusive surveillance, monitoring, questioning, and suspicion-related interventions.

Often this places Islam in general and some Muslims in particular in a form of double jeopardy. The social good of Islam is misrepresented in preference to suspicion and fear, making it more difficult to harmoniously coexist within dominant society expectations. Public acceptance and government support is conditional on groups and individuals continually demonstrating ‘Australian values’ such as embracing government integration agendas, sporting and educational assimilation, and political neutrality. For most Muslims and Islamic groups in Australian society this form of benign assimilation is acceptable. It is indeed rewarded by positive public awareness and community-based programs which are liberally funded. However, far from being prepared for a meaningful place in

European society, Indigenous Australians were more often controlled within

'total' institutions under the auspices of the state: institutions where individuals and groups are under total control with no real agency in their lives. Such 'total' control led to a position where Indigenous peoples were only socialised to life within institutions, not in the relative freedom of society at large. The hardships endured by Indigenous children in

344 government and other institutions severely affected their physical health and the abuses they suffered affected both their physical and mental well- being.

The argument that neoliberal dominance increases the number of disengaged people and dysfunctional communities and makes it more difficult to return to the working mainstream is indisputable. Yet in Australia,

Indigenous disadvantage has become entrenched during the post 1980’s surge of neoliberal dominance. The truly disadvantaged as many

Indigenous communities are, remain continually isolated from any economic and social benefits extended by well-meaning government policies.

It is understandable given the historical and current circumstances, that some Indigenous people perceive Islam as a safe harbour in which to shelter from the storm of oppression and social exclusion. An Islamic framework embraces the historical legacies of injustice and racial prejudice.

This becomes more acute within a prison environment. Unlike previous

Christian ‘civilising’ projects acting as defacto cultural, social, and religious colonial reformers, Islam has no other agenda than to provide comfort, support, agency, and hope. Islam is no halfway house dividing colonial ambitions and ethnocentrism. As more of the oppressed seek an alternative

Islamic framework, the more it is realised how the toxic and destructive side of modernity is to some Indigenous minorities.

Islam has the potential to provide a moral resurgence seemingly lacking in a neo-liberal political and economic environment. This is an important ‘correction’ to existing political circumstances. An Islamic life- world immediately connects with the long history of Indigenous oppression and provides a solution for a resurgent agency to move past the old interlocking dynamic of black entitlement and white obligation. Islam affords

345 the opportunity for personal responsibility but without the conditions of government political paternalism.

The last word on the difficult question of how to move forward as an enlightened, humane, and inclusive society free of discrimination, prejudice and fear is given to Noel Pearson. Historical empathy and emotional empathy are two distinct categories as Pearson notes. The former is based on a legitimate history, while the latter is shallow and simplistic. We as a nation appear to be languishing in a shallow and simplistic mode, our vision clouded by materialism, accumulation, rampant capitalism, and existential anxieties. Non-Indigenous societies and modern Western democracies have much to learn from the societies we tend to feel most anxious about –

Indigenous and Islamic. Both offer alternative ways of living, thinking, acting, and responding.

10.3 Future directions

There are several directions in which this research might be expanded.

1. The question of Indigenous over-representation in prisons needs to be

revisited in terms of political action to address the enduring underlying

social issues influencing the rate at which Indigenous people are being

incarcerated. At an institutional level, the complete prison-industrial

complex needs to be examined for its effectiveness in reducing crime.

Public and political attitudes also need to be challenged regarding the

acceptability of warehousing prisoners to create an impression of a

safer society.

2. The concept of trauma recognition in many Indigenous people is

perhaps a worthwhile area of research to better understand the context

in which dysfunction in Indigenous communities exists. Continued

research and funding opportunities require expanding trauma-related

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issues in Indigenous societies. The complexities involved in repairing

this damage begins with recognising the importance of socio-historical

factors in determining intergenerational repetition of the violence/trauma

cycle. However, the healing process is complicated when incarceration

becomes part of the destructive cycle.

3. A comprehensive institutional investigation of the circumstances

involving Islamic conversions would benefit inmates and prison

management. More effort is required to convince corrections authorities

of the benefit religion has in inmate management and reducing

recidivism. Further research into how Islam is both empowering and

potentially harmful within a prison environment is a necessary

component of any future study, but Islam should not be used as an

excuse for stigmatisation and discrimination. However, for a beneficial

role of Islam in prisons, hard-line attitudes and treatment require being

replaced with more humane systems of management. Within the prison

it would be instructive to re-train corrective services management to

accept the value of religious participation as a central tenet of

rehabilitation.

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Glossary and Terminology

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities: Within this thesis the term ‘Indigenous Australians’ refers to two distinct cultural categories; mainland Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and are used as an inclusive term for the traditional or First Peoples of Australia. When referring to specific instances representing either Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples or cultures the names ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Torres Strait Islander’ will be used. For generic reference, the term Indigenous will appear more often but is in no way meant to portray a homogenous understanding of culture. Similarly, “the plural terms peoples and communities acknowledge the diversity of Aboriginal peoples and communities within Australia, all of whom have different histories, political dynamics, social situations, cultural characteristics, economic resources and administrative capacities” (Atkinson, 2002: x).

Murri and Koori: Curthoys (2002:xvi) describes Murris as “the term derived from local languages, meaning ‘our people’ or ‘us’ for Aboriginal people in southern Queensland and in the central section of Northern New South Wales”. Kooris is the “term given to Indigenous people in southern and eastern New South Wales” (ibid.).

‘Whitefella’ and ‘blackfella’ are used when vernacular meanings are being alluded to, or in reference to colloquial expressions of racial difference.

Islam and Muslim peoples and communities: When speaking of Islam and Muslims it is recognised many ethnicities and cultures share a common faith despite some interpretational and regional differences. Where the issue of ethnic, cultural, and religious sensitivity arises, every attempt will be made to maintain a neutral terminology while accepting ethnic and cultural difference as the normative assumption.

Religious conversion and reversion: Religious ‘conversion’ and ‘reversion’ are terms having subtle differences depending on religious orientation. From an Islamic perspective “Every person is born a Muslim because we are all created by the One Almighty God hence, a preferred term would be reversion rather than conversion” www.themodernreligion.com/islam_conversion_main.htm (Accessed March 8, 2005). A non-Muslim may not be aware of this difference and instead use the term conversion. For the purpose of this thesis, ‘conversion’ and ‘alignment’ are terms most used, however reversion will be used when appropriate. ‘Acceptance’ of Islam is another form of recognising the incorporation of the Islamic socio- religious framework. For the purposes of this study it is not necessary for an individual to have formally converted to Islam. This is because formal conversion is just one stage in a process of enculturation, socialisation, and religious practice (Rambo, 1993: 1). Rambo (1998) assumes that conversion is what a group says it is, leading to the questions of how a particular group experiences conversion and what their expectations are.

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Islamist, Islamicist: Islamism is an umbrella term commonly applied to a variety of Islamic movements that are in reality quite diverse. Islamist or Islamicist refers to a specialist in the study of Islam or a member or supporter of an Islamic revivalist movement (Stanley, 2005). In the current political climate Islamist refers to the radicalisation of Islam and is increasingly used to describe a person or group espousing political Islam.

Indigenous glossary

Yolngu – an inclusive name for the various clans and language groups who inhabit the northeast coast of Arnhem Land and nearby islands.

Balanda – Non-Aboriginal; a person with ‘white’ skin e.g. Macassans, Europeans.

Birrinydji – A Dreaming being in the image of the Macassan bunggawa or boat captain.

Walitha’ walitha – Allah; a universal being and person familiar for members of the yirritja moiety.

Bunggul - a ritual or ceremony.

Warramu - the spirit of the dead.

Grokman - the spirit of the dead.

Dhuwa - Aboriginal society is divided into halves or moieties, the dhuwa and the yirritja.

Yirritja - a moiety in north-east Arnhem Land society, see above. (adapted from McIntosh, 1996)

Islamic glossary

Al-hamdu lillah – An Arabic phrase meaning “Praise to God” or “All praise belongs to God. The phrase is found in the first verse of the first sura of the Qur’an, and the term is often shortened to Hamdala.

Alim – A Muslim scholar and the singular form of Ulema.

Bismillah – An Arabic noun recited several times as part of Muslim daily prayers.

Da’wah – literally means “issuing a summons” or “making and invitation”. In Islamic theology, the purpose of Da’wah is to invite people, both Muslims and non-Muslims, to understand the worship of Allah.

Deen – An Arabic word usually translated as “religion” but also as “way of life”.

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Hadith - The hadith are oral accounts of the Prophet Muhammad’s life and times in 7 th century Saudi Arabia.

Halal – An Arabic term designating any object or action permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. It is the opposite of Haram.

Haram – In Islam the term is used to refer to anything that is prohibited by the faith.

Hizb-ut Tahrir – An international pan-Islamist, Sunni, vanguard political party whose goal is to combine all Muslim countries in a unitary Islamic state or caliphate, ruled by Islamic law and with a Caliph head of state elected by Muslims.

Imam – An Islamic leadership position, often the leader of a mosque and the community. An imam is the one who leads the prayer during Islamic gatherings.

Insha’Allah – An Arabic term meaning “God willing” or “If it is God’s will”.

Jahanam – One of the seven ranks of hell. Tradition consigned unrepentant wicked Muslims to this layer of hell to suffer while awaiting their eventual transfer to paradise.

Khalifah or Caliph – Head of the Islamic community.

La ilaha illa allah – Is one of the major pillars of the Muslim faith meaning There is no God but Allah.

Masjid – Literally means ‘a place of bowing down’. Masjid usually means a mosque.

Muslim Brotherhood – A Sunni transnational movement and the largest political opposition organisation in many Arabic states, particularly Egypt.

Noor – Is the Arabic term for light

PBUH – A Muslim phrase ‘Peace be Upon Him’ said after mentioning, or out of respect for, a Prophet.

Sahabah – Companions of the Prophet Muhammad.

Shahada – The Profession of Faith that converts to Islam must recite. It is also referred to as someone that affirms or attests, or bears witness. This is the first of the five pillars of faith.

Stephallah or Astaghfirullah – An Arabic phrase meaning “I ask Allah for forgiveness”.

Ulema – Muslim scholars

Wahhabi – plural Wahhabis – Followers of the strict puritanical teachings of ‘Abd al-Wahhab.

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Zakat – The fourth of the Five Pillars of Islam and is the obligatory alms or charity tax imposed on all practicing Muslims.

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Appendix A

Non-Indigenous Converts to Islam survey 35

Major themes: personal stories of conversion to Islam n= 43

Main thematic factors influencing conversion

1) Feelings of personal loss or crisis, emptiness, lack of meaning of life, loss of personal direction

2) Doubts, inconsistencies, shortcomings of existing religion/theology

3) Positive attributes of Islam (eg religious life-style, ethics, and morals)

4) Meeting, questioning and/or socialising with Muslims (including marriage partner)

5) Cognitive/spiritual search for spiritual, religious, theological or philosophical answers

6) Cognitive/secular oriented enquiry or revelation about Islam/Muslims

Positive thematic factors associated with Islam once converted

1) Sense of personal empowerment

2) Sense of religious/social completeness, comfort, meaning, purpose

3) Supportive friends, relations, Islamic Ummah , sense of community

4) Changed world-view perceptions

5) Islam as logical and natural, with ritual, guidelines and boundaries

Negative thematic factors associated with conversion and adherence to Islamic faith

1) Fear of adverse reactions from other’s (non-Muslim) (family, racism, discrimination)

2) Difficulty negotiating satisfactory mixed religion/relationship outcomes

35 The websites consulted include: (http://www.muhajabah.com/journeytoislam.htm;http://www.islamfortoday.com/conv erts.htm#COTW ; http://www.shariahprogram.ca/articles/convert_revert_islam_birthright.shtml http://www.islamicgarden.com/conversion.html http://www.convertstoislam.com/Stories/stories.html )

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3) Unwelcome attention from government security agencies

4) Negative perceptions of Muslims (terrorism, fundamentalism, gender inequality)

5) Geographic and social isolation from Muslims and/or Islamic Ummah

6) Difficulties associated with changed religious status

Summary of responses: converts to Islam n=43

Factors influencing conversion Total factors

1 Feelings of personal loss… 19

2 Doubts about existing religion… 16

3 Positive attributes of Islam… 6

4 Socialising with Muslims… 29

5 Spiritual, religious, theological, philosophical orientations… 8

6 Cognitive revelations… 14

Positive thematic factors post conversion

1 Personal empowerment… 2

2 Sense of completeness, comfort, meaning… 13

3 Supportive friends, relations, Islamic ummah… 4

4 Changed world-view perspectives… 3

5 Islam as logical and natural… 3

Negative thematic factors post conversion

1 Fear of reaction by others… 5

2 Difficulties negotiating mixed religious/family relations… 3

3 Unwanted attention from security agencies… 2

4 Negative perceptions of Muslims/Islam… 6

5 Geographic and social isolation… 1

6 Difficulties with changed religious status… 6

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Discussion and Analysis

1) Feelings of personal loss or crisis, emptiness, lack of meaning of life, loss of personal direction

This theme appeared 19 times out of 43 responses in the revelations of why people converted to Islam. The personal realisation of meaninglessness stimulated some people into actively searching for meaning, other people spiralled into depression and others reached a crisis point. Respondent 6 noted: “Basically I just used to drift from one point of view to the next and to do my best to ‘fit in’ with whichever group of people I was with”. No social or cultural explanations were apparent for this aimless existence, although any number of underlying social and cultural factors may have contributed to this condition. Another person (8) wrote: “[t]here remained a part of me that was filled with longing, a feeling that I clumsily describe as an ache or yearning for the Absolute; a need to surrender to something much greater than myself and my surroundings”.

How is it that some people seem to instinctively know something is missing in their lives? (Spiritual/ theological) How has the socialisation of these people determined their current predicament?

What is different about those who intellectualise and those who are motivated by concrete social conditions? (low socioeconomic, lack of suitable housing, drug or alcohol addictions, trouble with the law)

Person (8) continues: “[e]ither we have faith in and we worship God or we have faith in and we worship man-made systems. The first is done knowingly and leads to contentment. The second is usually done unknowingly and leads the individual on a deceptive path that is perpetually unfulfilling”. An acknowledgement is made here that an almost unconscious adherence to materialism is not only unfulfilling for this person, but a

355 conscious and reflective consideration of alternative means to achieve contentment.

Once again, this point raises the issue of secular materialism as a borderless system of meaning while a religious system has the potential to maintain boundaries and provide direction.

What are the attributes of contemporary Australian society contributing to the sense of emptiness that a religion seemingly replaces or compensates for?

Two respondents (11&16) identify as becoming quite aimless and disillusioned after leaving the armed services.

Does the order, routine, and discipline of the armed forces operate in a similar way to the order, routine, and discipline of some religions?

Although both these people experienced the services negatively, they nonetheless searched for meaning once returned as civilians. This might be explained from a moral perspective. Respondent 11 drank to excess in the army, this being a feature of the socialising within some sections of the forces. The other person (16) attended a fundamentalist, independent

Baptist church but became involved in a moral argument due to the hypocrisy of several church members. On both occasions, the two respondents turned to Islam to help rectify what appeared to be extremes of moral difference.

What is the relation between moral direction, adherence to the Islamic faith, and the attributes of contemporary secular materialism?

Respondent 20 explained: “…I lived a comfortable, privileged life, in the

‘western lifestyle’ sense – financially secure, educated and trained, healthy, with no major crises in my life. I married. I worked. I travelled. I indulged myself. Food, wine, entertainment, weekends away, fancy hotels, overseas trips. Eat, drink and be merry. Having no children, I had no real

356 responsibilities. I sought mainly to entertain myself, and have a good time”.

Yet this person recognised that: “[…] that period just seems like a life without purpose, and it’s truly painful for me to look back and see 25 years of a Godless life”.

In all of these examples there is an unexplained relation between so-called secular existence and notions of a higher purpose. Yet converting or reverting to Islam for these people has solidified their quest for meaning and thrown into sharp relief the alternative aimlessness of previous outlooks and existence.

Is it only when one becomes enmeshed in a new and supportive environment that a clear picture emerges of the folly and futility of previous lived experiences? Or does the reverse happen, in that desperate situations call for radical re-appraisals of direction, with religion and belief one avenue of salvation? How is it possible to separate these factors out without examining the social and cultural environment within which these factors are embedded?

2) Doubts, inconsistencies, shortcomings of existing religion/theology

This theme appeared 16 times in a total sample of 43.

A purely psychological analysis might suggest a separation of social factors and the inherent ability or inclination of people to develop a spiritual, religious, or theological orientation or framework independent of undue social and cultural influence .

Sociologically, this seems improbable, but it does indicate the enormous variability and number of permutations the relation between religious belief

/practice and social/cultural influence provides.

Further explanations of respondent feelings of loss or crisis combined with the factor of doubts and inconsistencies in existing religion reveal a social and cultural perspective.

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Respondent 21 – A (personal) crisis instigated reinvolvement with the

Catholic Church to the point of “You could say I was a Catholic junkie”.

However, this person became aware over time of the inconsistencies of the church to the point of suffering what he thought was depression. This example raises the question of guilt, shame, or confusion in the process of relinquishing powerfully felt and long- held beliefs, for that of a different religious orientation.

Respondent 22 – Was disillusioned with parents’ chosen religion and

“…inside I was hurting. I wasn’t being true to myself”. Eventually this person returned to the church and became a Catholic, questioned aspects of church doctrine, relinquished Catholicism, and turned to Islam for answers. These two examples highlight a strong relation between feelings of personal loss or crisis; and doubts, inconsistencies, and shortcomings of existing religion/theology. When a long held-held orienting and guiding framework of reference becomes untenable, what takes its place?

What are the social and cultural processes in place making major life- changing events difficult to begin, continue and complete? Or conversely, what are the social and cultural factors prompting change and then maintaining adherence to a particular faith or ideology?

If. as these testimonials suggest, a crisis is the triggering motivating factor, then what prompts these people into remaining in unhappy or unproductive circumstances for a crisis to occur?

It would seem that the fairly even combination of feelings of loss or crisis, and doubts in the consistency of an existing religion are complimentary, in that one influences the other. Take for example the case of Indigenous religion and the feelings of personal loss associated with removal and dislocation from country. Important issues of identity and cultural practice become enmeshed with continually changing social dynamics; usually to

358 the detriment of identity, belonging, and religious belief and practice. It could be reasoned that for an Indigenous person to convert to Islam, some aspect of an Indigenous religious, spiritual, social, or cultural framework is missing, unrecognised, or underdeveloped. On one hand, these testimonials suggest that proximity and socialisation play the most significant part in influencing conversion to Islam. Or is the contact and socialisation an end product of the search-for-meaning process or a relatively separate influence?

What questions are required to differentiate between conversion to compensate for loss, and conversion due to social and cultural proximity and immersion? What difference does it make to the adherent in each case? Does an urban Aborigine in Western Sydney identify with ‘culture’ in the sense that it would harbour feelings of loss and alienation if not able to be realised in meaningful practice?

What is the connection with Islam if a ‘solid’ Indigenous ‘traditional’ link also exists? If loss of ‘culture’ is not the issue, then what other factors might influence an alliance with Islam?

On the other hand, if the underlying motivation to embrace a different meaning framework, or to remain with the existing framework, is indeed to

‘search for meaning’ in a world that no longer makes sense, then in a multicultural society, what are the constraining and enabling factors?

Is a search for meaning a rebuttal of the pluralism, materialism and relativism of modern society? What fears and anomie lie behind the desire for alternate, logical, and guiding meaning systems? What evidence is required to support a social factor influence?

(socioeconomic etc?)

Respondent 24 - “I felt a lacking in my own life that was Christian in name but materialistic in reality. This produced a desire to find meaning…”

359

Respondent 25 - Found contradictions in Christian teachings although

“raised as a strict Roman Catholic”

Respondent 26 – Grew up as a Christian “but my family was not really religious”. This person was socialised into being distrustful of different religions and beliefs and had to overcome this prejudice.

Respondent 30 – Embracing Islam: “It came from my own search for truth and a meaningful understanding of Christianity”. One of the concerns of this person was: “what I saw as the lack of certain guidance about how to live everyday life”.

Respondent 31 – “[Q]uestioned my family’s belief in a way as to ask why are we believing in this religion. Is it something Italians do automatically?”

The response from the parents: “we have always been this”. This person describes the lack of (school) education as not allowing us to make a choice.

Respondent 37 – “It was the charismatic evangelist Billy Graham, armed with the New Testament and a tone of paternal superiority” that triggered this person’s “decade long quest for inner fulfilment”.

3) Positive attributes of Islam (eg religious life-style, ethics, and morals)

This factor attracted seven out of 43 responses. Common responses such as “I quickly began to admire the ethics of Muslim families” (3), and: “Of knowledgeable Muslims, [we] found that there was something very real, almost tangibly so. The faith and obedience to Allah and their religion had bestowed on these Muslims a beautiful graciousness…” (5).

In searching, respondent 8: “was introduced to living Islam. There was a quality inherent in the people I encountered […] that I found immediately striking and attractive; a generosity that amazed me. Even amidst the

360 hectic activity of the busy marketplace I sensed a feeling of serenity, a sensation that everything that was occurring was in its rightful place”.

Respondent 14: “learned the truth about Islam. How it values peace and equality and doesn’t treat women badly at all”, and: “Islam has everything the soul needs for nourishment. It has everything an individual and a family and a community needs. It’s holistic, and down to earth, and spiritual – all at the same time. It is humbling”.

Respondent 28 – Theological consistencies and: “The ritual of prayer also attracted me”

When asked why she (34) had embraced our [Muslim] religion: “I used to feel very peaceful deep in my heart, even though I was in a strange society far away from my homeland”.

These responses are congruent with the principles of Islam as a faith and a way of life.

How different is lived Islam from Australian secular materialist experience? What are the main experiential differences?

4) Meeting, questioning and/or socialising with Muslims (including marriage partner)

This factor scored the most responses of 30 out of 43. This suggests that meeting, questioning and socialising with Muslims is the most likely activity associated with the eventual alliance with Islam.

The Imam at Preston Mosque (Shiek Fahmi El-Imam) estimates that about

2,000 Melbournians, mostly of Christian background, have converted to

Islam in the past 10 years. “Usually after meeting Muslims, visiting Islamic countries or reading about Islam…”

Of the 30 responses, nine people either were married, or later married,

Muslims.

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Seven had Muslim friends; four proactively sought answers by asking questions of Muslims; four had contact with Muslims at university; others were exposed to Islam by socialising through travel, work, and visiting

Mosques.

Do multicultural environments such as those in Lakemba,

Broadmeadows, Preston or Auburn attract more Indigenous converts than areas of lesser social and cultural diversity? If so, what other factors assist or hinder conversion in those environments?

What is the relation between Islamic visibility (Mosques, schools, shops, dress and population numbers) and rate and numbers of converts? How can this be tested?

5) Cognitive/spiritual search for spiritual, religious, theological or philosophical answers

Eight respondents demonstrated specific orientations toward discovering a religious/spiritual framework suited to their particular world-view. This orientation is different from those people who became eventual converts by proximity and socialising with Muslims. The former group pursued a more individualistic theological, philosophical, and personal journey in their search for religious/spiritual satisfaction.

Respondent 17 – “I went on a journey searching all the different faiths and

I ended up being a born-again Protestant Pentecostal Christian”. This person became an almost ‘obsessed’ religious scholar but eventually came to realise some serious shortcomings of Christian doctrine.

Respondent 18 – “During my teenage tears, I used to spend hours wondering about, and searching, for truth and knowledge”. “I was now open to exploring totally different religions”.

Respondent 19 – Looked to religion for meaning and existence via

Christian religions, Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism.

362

Respondent 25 – The same as above. Both these people had traumatic early experiences. 19 had friend who died, and 25 came from a broken family.

Respondent 30 – came from a religious family: “Spirituality and religion are very important in my family”. This person as a minister’s daughter…struggled to reconcile her discomfort with aspects of Christianity and explored different denominations and religious cults…”.

Respondent 32 – Grew up in a Christian home where prayers were said daily and church was attended regularly. Unable to accept parent’s beliefs.

Later: “I studied every new religion I came across – desperately looking for something concrete that confirmed what I believed”.

Respondent 36 – “[A]fter years of spiritual struggle, he turned to Islam”.

Respondent 42 – “I have always been a person with faith”. “I looked toward

Eastern religions at an early age and continued my searching of various religions though never really finding spiritual fulfilment. Mainstream

Christianity, into which I was born, provided some comfort, but not many intellectual answers”.

6) Cognitive/secular oriented enquiry or revelation about Islam/Muslims

This group came to embrace Islam mainly through the influence of others and not, to any degree, by any intrinsic religious or spiritual faith driving the search for fulfilment as in the case of the previous group.

Respondent 10 – A gradual introduction to religious difference and coming from a background of relative religious isolation.

Respondent 11 – Involved with anti-religious stepfather and experienced a troubled early adulthood. Realised that religion might provide the answers and over several years of turmoil, found Islam.

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Respondent 12 – Religiously naïve but inquisitive. Came across a mosque by chance and made enquiries.

Respondent 14 – Isolated, had no friends and was teased at school. “My home life, also, was less than perfect. I started suffering from deep depression that would stay with me for years”. Tried various religions, mostly New Age but illness provoked a more intense search for something more meaningful.

Respondent 15 – Came from a materialistic family with practically no religious instruction.

Experienced many personal conflicts leading to eventual discovery of Islam through a friend.

Respondent 22 – Became disinterested and disillusioned in religion but later in life realised something was missing. Went through periods of doubt until meeting Muslims and asked questions.

Respondent 24 – Progressive conversion to Islam after experiencing various materialistic and meaningless pursuits.

Respondent 26 – Came from a non-religious but xenophobic family.

Struggled with conflicts over religious difference emanating from family of origin.

Respondent 27 – Struggled with social and geographic isolation while becoming involved in Islam.

Respondent 31 – Did not receive any meaningful guidance from the

Christian society nor from school education.

Respondent 34 – Wanted to learn about Islam from the experience of contact with Muslims.

Respondent 35 – Drifted away from the church of origin and became interested in fellow Muslim workers. Gradually influenced by example and desire for congruent belief system.

364

Respondent 38 – Decided to convert after several years of introspection and research.

Respondent 42 – Questioned material security and looked for “more to life than living, enjoying life and dying.

How and why is gender significant considering the four to one ratio of women aligning with Islam as to men? Do Indigenous women experience spirituality/religiosity differently to men?

Keywords: isolation (3) troubled, naïve, unhappy (home life), meaninglessness (2), ascetic, materialistic (3), disillusioned, emptiness, non-religious, prejudice (within family), questioning, disinterest, introspection.

Responses and keyword summary suggest lack of social/community involvement. The reasons for this are many and varied. The social and individual factors indicating troubled, unhappy, disinterested, disillusioned, introspective, and meaninglessness do, however, indicate aspects of social alienation or exclusion, or of ‘not belonging’.

Materialistic and un-religious, tend to indicate satisfaction with conforming to secular consumerism without the need to explore deeper meanings of society.

There is a similarity in the felt experiences in themes 1 and 6

1) Feelings of personal loss or crisis, emptiness, lack of meaning of life, loss of personal direction and;

6) Cognitive oriented enquiry or revelation about Islam/Muslims

The same general feeling of lack of meaning drive the search. However, theme 5 (Need for spiritual, religious, theological or philosophical answers)

365 was more faith based in motivation without evoking negative personal or social experiences although two respondents experienced personal crisis.

366

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