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Islam and Muslims in Australia: the Social Experiences of Early Settlement and the Politics of Contemporary Race Relations

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Islam and Muslims in Australia: the Social Experiences of Early Settlement and the Politics of Contemporary Race Relations © 2020 Authors. Center for Study of Religion and Religious Tolerance, Belgrade, Serbia.This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Fethi Mansouri1 Original scientific paper Deakin University UDC 28-67(94) Australia ISLAM AND MUSLIMS IN AUSTRALIA: THE SOCIAL EXPERIENCES OF EARLY SETTLEMENT AND THE POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY RACE RELATIONS Abstract “Hello, brother” were the last words uttered by Haji-Daoud Nabi, an elderly man who opened the doors of a Christchurch mosque in New Zealand in March 2019. Moments later, he was shot down and killed in a brutal terrorist attack car- ried out by an Australian white supremacist. This recent tragedy captures the in- creasingly precarious position that Muslims in the West presently occupy that is no longer confined to discursive racialization and verbal abuse, but is now starting to become a life and death challenge, quite literally. The Christchurch mosque attacks occurred in a local and global context of persisting Islamopho- bia and rising far-right nationalist fringe groups entering the mainstream in Australia and elsewhere. This paper discusses contemporary attitudes towards Islam and Muslim Australians through an examination of the historical context for the settlement of Muslim communities in Australia from the early days of the nineteenth century to the contemporary era, which has seen a more diversified migration from many parts of the Muslim world. The paper discusses the critical factors that shaped this migration and examines the contemporary social expe- riences of Muslim Australians in a global context of hyper-securitized agendas often connecting Islam and Muslims to extreme violent ideologies. Keywords: Muslim Migrants, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Identity Poli- tics, Australia Introduction This paper examines the history of Muslim migration to and settlement in Australia, focusing mainly on the experiences of racism and social exclusion that characterised this early period of migration. It must be stated from the outset that 1 Fethi Mansouri holds the UNESCO Chair for comparative research on cultural diversity and social justice and an Alfred Deakin Research Chair in migration and intercultural studies. He is the Director of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisa- tion at Deakin University, Australia. His most recent scholarly books include: Contesting the Theological Foundations of Islam and Violent Extremism (eds, 2019); Interculturalism at the Crossroads: Comparative Perspectives on Concepts, Policies and Practices (ed, 2017), and The Politics of Women and Migration in the Global South (eds, 2017). Contact E-mail: [email protected] ANALYSES 127 ПОЛИТИКОЛОГИЈА РЕЛИГИЈЕ бр. 1/2020 год XIV• POLITICS AND RELIGION • POLITOLOGIE DES RELIGIONS • Nº 1/2020 Vol. XIV the focus of this paper is not on the more positive grass-roots initiatives around inter-faith dialogue and broader race-relations, rather on the persistent negative characterisation of a diverse faith community and its religion in public policy and politicised discourse. The paper also examines the effect of such enduring legacy of this early racism and the subsequent racialization of Muslims on their contemporary social experiences. Contrary to popular belief, Muslim migrants started settling in Australia well before Australian federation in 1901. Indeed, early scattered Muslim presence can be traced all the way back to the sixteenth century with the arrival of the Makassar fishermen and Malay pearlers in West- ern Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.2 In the nineteenth century, during the European explorations across the Australian “Red Centre”, migration of between 2,000 and 4,000 Afghan cameleers began.3 However, following the formation of the Australian Federation and the adoption of the “White Australia policy” in 1901, this source of migration significantly decreased and communities such as the Afghans and Syrians started to experience racism, social isolation and labour market discrimination. These early experiences are indicative of discrimi- natory and racialized practices that have endured and are currently identified as instances of “Islamophobia”.4 Notwithstanding this early history of Muslim presence in Australia, Muslim migration and settlement only really gathered pace after World War II when the number of Muslims in Australia increased significantly, from an estimated 2,704 in 1947, to 22,311 in 1971 and 604,240 in 2016.5 With the adoption of the Austral- ian multicultural policy in the early 1970s, the early prominence of Turkish mi- grants began to shift and migrants began to arrive from different Muslim-major- ity countries from across the Arab world. This increase in Arab migration was due to two main factors. Firstly, there were what can be broadly described as push factors from conflicts affecting some Arabic countries, in particular the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990). Secondly, there were clear pull factors attracting migrants to Australia pertaining to Australia introducing and implementing progressive social policies, in particular multiculturalism, as well as more expansionist eco- 2 Nahid Kabir, Muslims in Australia: Immigration, Race Relations and Cultural History, Kegan Paul, London, 2004; Amanda Wise, and Jan Ali, Muslim-Australians and Local Government: The Grassroot Strategies to Improve Relations between Muslim and Non-Muslim Australians, Centre of Research on Social Inclusion, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2008; Fethi Mansouri, Muslim Migration to Australia and the Question of Identity and Belonging, Muslims in the West and the Challenges of Belonging, Fethi Mansouri, Vince Marotta (eds.), Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2012, pp. 13–33. 3 Wafa Omar, Kirsty Allen, The Muslims in Australia, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1996, p. 9; Mansouri F, Percival Wood S, Identity, Education and Belonging: Arab Muslim Youth in Contemporary Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2008, p. 9. 4 Gary Bouma, Islamophobia as a Constraint to World Peace: The Case of Australia, Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2011, pp. 433–441; Fethi Mansouri, Michele Lobo, Amelia Johns, Addressing the ‘Muslim Question’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2015, pp. 165–170. 5 Australian Bureau of Statistics 2013, Cultural Diversity in Australia, available at: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/look up/2071.0main+features902012-2013, (accessed 06.06.2019); Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016, Religion in Australia, avail- able at: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0~2016~Main%20Features~Religion%20 Article~80, (accessed 07.06.2019). 128 АНАЛИЗЕ Fethi Mansouri, ISLAM AND MUSLIMS IN AUSTRALIA: THE SOCIAL EXPERIENCES OF EARLY SETTLEMENT AND THE POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY RACE RELATIONS • (pp 127-147) nomic programs with well-targeted migration schemes to meet workforce de- mands.6 During this period of migration expansion and diversification in Austral- ia, the successive waves of Arab migration were inherently heterogeneous and included a variety of religious beliefs and geographic affiliations, though initially, in particular prior to 1975, most Lebanese migrants who moved to Australia were adherents to the various Christian denominations. However, after the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1975, a greater number of Lebanese Muslims started to also migrate to and settle in Australia.7 This was followed by other groups such as Egyptians and Syrians and more recently Iraqis, Somalis, and Sudanese, all of which add to the diversity of Muslim communities in Australia. More recently and as a result of the Australian government placing more importance on skilled labour, the face of Muslim migration has started to change. Data released by the Department of Home Affairs provide a more ac- curate and interesting view on migrants coming from Arab and Muslim coun- tries as permanent residents. In the financial year 2017–18, the number of per- manent migrants from Muslim countries had increased, with a growing number of Pakistani (6,235) and Malaysian (3,205) relocating to Australia as permanent migrants.8 Most of these migrants are assumed to be Muslims since, accord- ing to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2013 87.7 per cent of migrants from Pakistan identified themselves as Muslims.9 Skilled migrants from Arab and Muslim countries permanently relocating to Australia in the financial year 2014–15 also come from Malaysia (3,205), Indonesia (1,773), Iraq (466) and Syr- ia (313).10 What can be noticed from these figures is that the Arab component of overall Muslim migration is decreasing as the presence of Muslims origi- nating from Central and West Asian nations increases, particularly those from Pakistan, India and Indonesia. The Humanitarian Programme has also contributed to a modest increase in Muslim migration to Australia with a significant proportion (58.9 per cent) of vi- sas granted offshore during 2015–16 allocated to applicants from Middle Eastern countries.11 Reflecting recent political and security events in the region, Iraqis re- ceived the highest number of visas granted under the Humanitarian Programme 6 Fethi Mansouri, Sally Percival Wood, Identity, Education and Belonging: Arab Muslim Youth in Contemporary Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2008, p. 11. 7 Scott Poynting, Victoria Mason, The Resistible
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