How Does Islam Affect Australia

For this paper, I have chosen to interview an acquaintance of mine who is a devote Muslim and follower of Islam. For the sake of this assignment I will be referring to him under the pseudonym of Jack. I spoke with Jack about some wide-ranging topics discussing things such as, media, bias, stereotypes, and really in general what being a follower of Islam is like in this divided country right now. In our country, today it’s pretty apparent there is a type of fear of Muslims, so much so that 7 heavy populated Muslim countries are not permitted from entering the United States of America. I never had conversations as personal as this with Jack and I feel as if I gained a lot of insight into the types of things minorities, and especially Muslims

In particularly Section 116, preventing the Commonwealth government from passing laws that ‘prohibit free exercise of religion.’ Despite religious motivations behind recent terror attacks, Commonwealth Parliament has actively implemented mechanisms to decrease the likelihood of unjustified religious discrimination. Notably, cabinet recently proposed the introduction of a Minister for Muslims. Devising such a position, accommodates principles of equality before the law embodied in the rule of law by ‘encouraging institutional participation, and representation of Muslim needs in policy development’ (Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 2014). Establishing counter-terrorism initiatives in consultation with Muslim communities reflects democratic principles by incorporating the needs of individuals and groups into political

I am an Australian Muslim. The recent actions of the group known as Islamic State have put my faith in the spotlight as a threat to my nation and fellow Australians with whom I share the privilege of living in this great nation. It is here that I practice my faith freely.” This is someone that values and respects the land he lives on and is truly in disbelief in the attempts of ISIS to turn his faith against the country he lives in. Previously mentioned, Waleed Aly is becoming a reference point and communicator for Muslims in Australia. He has recently advocated his views about ISIS on news program The Project where he brings truth to the strategy of ISIS. He believes that ISIS want to diminish the social cohesion between Muslims and Australians so that Muslims become the enemy and threat for Australians so they have no where to turn. ISIS creates the stereotype for ordinary Muslims to be seen as though they stand for terrorism to the Australian public but really don’t at all. Aly says “They want to start World War III, a global warm between Muslims and everyone else, thats what they want to create. They want societies like Australia to turn on each other.” What Australians fail to see nor except is that when they show feelings of hostility and anger against ISIS and Muslims in general, it is feeding the Islamic State even more because they are

The abuse, stereotyping and scapegoating of Australian Muslims is on the rise in 2016 and the media isn’t helping.

To further this argument, research conducted by Dr Kevin Dunn (Christopher & Deresky 2008) exemplified how ‘marginalised’ the minority of Australian Muslims and people of Middle Eastern origin are in the Australian society. Australians are thought to be of the opinion that people with these cultural and religious backgrounds are the least likely to be able to fit into the culture of Australians (Christopher & Deresky, 2008).

This is a 39% increase in the Australian Muslim growth rate since 2001, alarmingly, surpassing Australia’s current total population projections, however, although Islam is the fastest growing religion internationally, it is not domestically and Muslims are still an under represented minority in Australia. The above mentioned figures are an example as to how statistics can be manipulated into the wrong context to fit a media publications own construction of Muslim discourse. The contemporary (post 2000) links between Muslims and terrorism made by the media were the unprecedented widespread attacks in the United States that occurred on 11 September 2001. These events set the scene for the Australian medias role in implicitly and explicitly identifying Muslims as the other, equating Muslims [and Islam] with the threat of terrorism (Anne Ally,2007). An example of the equating of Islam with terrorism is Sharia Law. The media often associates this holy law of Islam documenting the expectations of Allah, and the positive principles followed by billions of Muslims of different backgrounds and cultures globally through scenes of brutality and oppression of the people in the conflicted middle eastern region linking it to the corrupted Jihadist fighters

In coordination with the growing outcomes of terrorism, both international and domestic, we can examine the effectiveness of Australian Law in balancing the rights of the individual and the state. Throughout the course of time we see the changing face of international terrorism and how it has implications that are far reaching and affect our day to day rights and freedoms. I will be referring to the following cases in my response; Mohamed Haneef, David Hicks, Peter Greste and also Australian citizens involved in ISIL.

The practises, beliefs and values of Christianity and Islam have an impact on Australia society; however, the media exploits the perceived tension between the two groups which has led to discrimination and violence. Over many years the way of which an individual lives their life has been shown to be affected by the religion of which they follow. This affects the way of life throughout the community surrounding these people, as well as having an impact on the social issues throughout this particular community. Christianity has a huge impact throughout Australia, this includes through schools, dress codes, the way of which people live in their day to day lives. Christianity has always been a highly popular religion throughout Australia as

Since 9/11, people seem to always associate Muslims with terrorists. More importantly, when people hear Muslim terrorists they never assume that they are from any other areas except from the Middle Eastern. Being young and not knowing the real reasoning behind the attacks of 9/11, I had always looked at Muslims as terrorists. To be specific, I thought they were mainly Middle Eastern Muslims. I was oblivious to the fact that there are other types of Muslims because all I have ever saw in the media were those types. It didn’t hit me that I was starting to become a victim of discrimination until I was on the bus and I saw a white male dressed up in a turban thinking that he was going to harm the passengers on the bus. I knew then that I had to alter my opinions about this because I knew that I wouldn’t like it if someone thought I was

That attack, the November Paris attacks, dominated the news for weeks, and prompted incredible shows of solidarity from countries around the world. The countries that do suffer the most damage from terrorism are predominantly Muslim, and those attacks mostly slip under the radar of the western media. This means that while we in the west stoke our fears of “radical Islamic terrorists,” it is Muslims who bear the brunt of terrorist attacks.“The four predominantly Muslim countries that endured the most fatal terrorist attack were Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan” (Institute for Economics & Peace

The face of Islam in western society has changed in light of the recent Paris attacks on November 13, 2015. Muslims in Canada are effectively trying to distance themselves from the extremist group associated with the Paris attacks. Due to the prejudice response to the attacks, Muslim Canadians are speaking up against the extremist group ISIS as written in the article by Sheema Khan in the national newsprint ‘The Globe and Mail’. The title of this article is “In the fight against terrorism, Muslims must own their message”, The Globe and Mail, 18 November 2015 (http://bit.ly/1lNjmYr).

Ever since the infamous day of September 11th Americans have been constantly stereotyping Muslims. Due to the fact that the attacks caused on the Twin Towers were caused by a group of Muslim extremists, it is now a popular stereotype that all Muslims must be extremists. Even Patel, who worked on making peaceful connections between religions, was categorized as a Muslim terrorist or an extremist on a series of Anti-Muslim blogs. I believe that most people aren’t well informed when it comes to Muslims and those who practice Islam and have just learned to associate those terms with terrible things. Most people portray Islam as an angry and violent religion while in reality it is quite the opposite. Many would be surprised to see the amount of similarities between the Qu’ ran and the Bible. Followers of Islam and Muslims are for the most part a peaceful group of

The first noted evidence of the religion of Islam in Australia was through the interaction between the Indigenous people of Australia’s North and Islamic fisherman from South East Asia when trading products with eachother as well as the occurrence of inter-cultural marriage as early as 1650. However, the major influence of Islamic religion to Australia came later in the 1860’s when a large number of camel drivers , with origins throughout Afghanistan arrived in Australia to develop a telegraph line that would eventually connect Australia with London. The predominant religion amongst the cameleers was Islam, despite being different ethnicities, such as punjabi, Pashtun, Baluchi and Sindhi. The camels proved to serve the needs of trade,transport

Since Islam is a religion that promotes peace and kindness, one could ask where the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists originated. Following the tragedies of September 11, 2001, Arabs and Muslims have been presented as potential terrorists. This idea stemmed from the theory that, “media bias increases when a specific ethnic, religious, or racial group is seen as a threat to national security.” (Stiffler, 2013). Since the attacks on September 11, 2001 Muslims and Arabs have been “hyper-visible” in the media as potential terrorists. Due to the negative media attention and failure of most media platforms to

After 9/11 has induced negative attitudes towards Muslim peoples who tend to be strongly associated with any act of terrorism. The media has played a colossal role in developing such negative association wherein it constantly portrays Muslim people in combination with violent terrorist acts. It does so in a way that they both go hand-and-hand. In other words, it has made it as though the Islamic religion is synonymous with terrorism. The media has perpetuated Muslim stereotypes over the years that followed the 9/11 incident. Because of this, society has developed, and still has developed, this prejudiced mindset about the Islamic religion and the Muslim communities around the world. People immediately assume that any violent act being