Australia & Religions … Theory & Reality

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website, Australia’s first mosque was built at Marree in South Australia in 1861. And before that since the 1800’s Muslims have been part of Australian society. However, after the Australian government resolved the case of the indigenous people, and after Asians become a major focus of immigration, Australians next turned their attention to Muslims. According to the organization, Issues Deliberation Australia /America (2007), the majority of Australians interviewed do not want to keep the rate of migration as it is, and prefer the largest percentage of immigrants to be from Europe. Moreover, twenty-six percent of Australians felt it important that people coming to live in Australia should, on a day to day basis, dress like other Australians, which reflect how Australia is a multicultural environment. The report (2007) stated that approximately half of the Australian people believe that Muslims in Australia present a negative impact on the country and almost the same percentage believes that Muslims pose a threat to national security. In addition, they feel that Muslims do not respect Australian values such as democracy, law and the rights of individuals, and they do not integrate with the Australian way of life and dress. That was the individual point of view.


However, Government officials and politicians are not much different from what individuals believe.

In his lecture, which was entitled ‘Cronulla, conflict and culture: How can Muslim women be heard in Australia?’, a UTS public lecture (2006) suggested that one of the main causes of the Cronulla conflict was the view adopted by some politicians pointing fingers at Muslims of being racist against their women and how they are eager to undermine Australian women. The lecturer quoted several quotes from different political speeches such as “Fully integrating means accepting Australian values, it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language if you don't already speak it. And it means understanding that in certain areas, such as the equality of men and women ... people who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have got to learn very quickly that is not the case in Australia (John Howard, cited in Kerbaj 2006)”. According to the lecturer (2007), there was a kind of hidden collusion that promotes the idea that “Muslim misogyny is a threat to women’s rights and moreover, a threat to the Australian way of life”.