Prayers for Allison Sudrajat

Tomorrow at 1:30pm, after dhuhr prayer, Canberra’s small Muslim community will join friends and family of Allison Sudrajat for a traditional Muslim janaza (funeral) prayer service followed by burial.

I never had a chance to meet Allison either in Canberra or during the two weeks I was in Indonesia in January 2006. However, I did receive an e-mail from someone who knew her. The e-mail read …

Allison was a Muslim Australian who achieved wonderful outcomes for people in need all over the world. A terrible loss. Inna illahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun.

The last sentence is the transliteration of an Arabic prayer from the Qur'an which means: "From God we come. To God we return."

The following paragraphs are taken from the press release issued by AusAID where Allison worked for many years ...

Allison was one of our most capable and dedicated officers. During her 18 years with AusAID, her intellectual and practical approach to the challenges of development was truly extraordinary. Allison led Australia 's humanitarian response to some of the region's worst disasters in recent years. She was also a bold, passionate advocate for attacking poverty at its roots, working for better schools, better health and better government.

Allison had an extraordinary impact on her colleagues both in Canberra and at the two Australian missions in Indonesia and PNG where she had spent a total of 10 years working to improve the lives of people in those two countries. She was an inspirational leader and people looked to her with great respect, admiration and fondness. We will miss her enormously.

Our loss, however, pales when compared to her family's.

In her family's own words, Allison is dearly loved and missed by her husband, Ris, her children, Jamila, Imran, Zaini and Yasmin, her parents, brother, sister and extended family. Her family has suffered an unbearable loss. Allison was a wonderful daughter, a wonderful sister, a wonderful wife, a wonderful mother. Her family is proud that she spent her life and ultimately gave her life in service to humanity.

Please remember Allison and her family in your prayers.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

Prayers for Cynthia Banham

Back in 1992, I joined a close circle of friends, students at Macquarie University Law School. We came from a variety of backgrounds, and went onto work in a variety of fields. One recruited a whole bunch of us to his Young Liberal branch!

Quite a few of us were suffering lawyer burn-out. One went off to join a legal publisher and hasn’t looked back. Another toyed with the idea of teaching in an independent school and forming his own Dead Poets’ Society.

I had my own style of burnout in early-2002. One of this group of friends sat me down one day and suggested this: “Irf, you’re good at writing. You know how to sniff a story and put an angle to it. Why don’t you consider journalism?”

I didn’t believe it was possible. Going from legal practice to journalism? My friend persisted.

“You remember Cynthia from uni? She didn’t stay in law for very long. She went off to write stuff here and there in smaller publications. Now she has a small gig in the Good Weekend. Who knows where that might take her?”

I started looking out in the Good Weekend for the familiar name. Sure enough, there was Cynthia Banham doing some kind of trivia thing in the magazine.

Years later, I was helping a lady with a rather difficult matter involving her deceased husband. We weren’t getting anywhere with government authorities. The lady wanted to approach TV tabloid current affairs programs. I had other ideas.

I rang Cynthia Banham at the Canberra office of the Herald and introduced myself. She remembered who I was. We made arrangements to meet with my client in Parliament House in Canberra.

Cynthia went through my client’s story patiently and thoroughly. She checked and double-checked every single aspect of my client’s story. She then advised my client of what steps she would have to take and who she would have to approach from my client’s ‘opponent’.

I know few lawyers who would be this thorough, let alone journalists. Perhaps this reflects the stereotype I have that journalists are more able to play fast and loose with the facts. Cynthia certainly didn’t meet that stereotype.

Then late last year, I e-mailed Cynthia to get some advice about making the move she made out of legal practice all those years back. We arranged to meet, and then one of us had to cancel at the last minute. A few more rendezvous were planned and cancelled. Then on the afternoon of 7 March, as I was entering Canberra to attend a lecture at ANU, I thought I would give Cynthia a call at her work number and arrange to meet. No one picked up the phone.

At ANU, I saw my fiancé who told me about the plane crash. Within a few hours, it was clear why Cynthia hadn’t picked up her office phone.

I can’t claim to be a close friend of Cynthia. I was part of a large circle of friends which she was also part of at university.

Cynthia is now battling away in Perth, surrounded by family and loved ones. Please remember Cynthia, her partner and her family in your prayers.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

Peter Manning discovers Beit Lahm

Peter Manning has penned an excellent book entitled Us And Them which discusses his research into systematic bias against Islam and Muslim societies in general and Palestinians in particular in Australian media.

Much of the book is devoted to Manning’s own travels through the Middle East and his discovery that Muslims are not just a bunch of 5-headed monsters who worship the Moon-god and drink a mixture of camel urine and yak fat.

I found Manning’s descriptions of Beit Lahm to be most interesting. Some readers will be aware that Beit Lahm is a large town in the occupied West Bank. Like many West Bank towns, Beit Lahm has a mixed population of Christians and Muslims.

Manning decided to visit that part of Beit Lahm which is not promoted by Israeli tourist guides and not cut off by the insecurity wall. He calls the visit “one part of my own private pilgrimage”.

More importantly, travelling to Beit Lahm was a journey to retrace how his perceptions, assumptions and prejudices of the “other” had become entrenched.

Although we normally associate Beit Lahm with piece on earth and goodwill to all men, there isn’t much goodwill shown at the Israeli checkpoints, border crossings etc. In the nearby Christian village of Beit Jala, Jewish settlements are being built on stolen land. Beit Jala was where a 5th century Archbishop (formerly of Anatolia) settled to be closer to Beit Lahm. He lived and prayed in one of the many caves in the district. In 1928, the local Palestinian Greek Orthodox community built a church in his honour which to this day is known as St Nicholas’ church.

Yes, the occupied West Bank was the eventual home of Santa Claus! And better still, Santa Claus was indeed a follower of Christ!!

The heart of Beit Lahm (which we also know of as Bethlehem) is Manger Square. Adjacent to it is the Mosque of Omar. Here, in the heart of Christ’s birthplace, believers in Christ worship God side by side.

Manning found the Church of the Nativity more impressive than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which he had seen in Jerusalem. In Bethlehem, the different Christian denominations – Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic – showed a greater degree of cooperation than their brethren in Jerusalem.

Manning talks about how overawed he was to see such ancient sites. He remarks that it is hard for Australians to appreciate what it is like to see something 1,700 years old given that our own written history goes back hardly 200 years.

Bethlehem is a town which largely survives in tourist dollars. Yet sadly it is suffering. The locals tell Manning that the reduced tourism is caused by Israeli tourist operators scaring away Christian tourists by telling them that Bethlehem is too dangerous.

One site that especially troubled Manning was to see children begging in the streets, something he had not seen anywhere else in the Middle East. This was a town that had suffered under siege of the Israeli armed forces who had surrounded the Church of the Nativity and shot one of its bellringers dead.

Manning’s book is well worth reading, if only for the chapters dealing with his Middle Eastern travels. Instead of pontificating from the sidelines, manning actually travels to the region and discovers the reality of the place by meeting with its people, be they taxi drivers, intellectuals, hoteliers and even children.

Far-Right Western Christians who blindly defend and support Israel in all its military incursions would do well to read Manning’s description of Beit Lahm and Beit Jala and then visit these places themselves.

Maybe one day God will bless us all with the ability to experience Christmas in Christ’s birthplace.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

CRIKEY: Aussie muslims are no Londonistanis

Alan Jones was fired up last Friday, arguing that the fact Easter eggs were being sold as early as January at Woolworths (or Safeway for Mexican readers) and Coles supermarkets was evidence of the demise of Australian Christian culture.

"It is legitimate to ask how far we will go to accommodate those of non-Christian faith when we live in a predominantly Christian country," says Jones.

Melanie Phillips argues a similar line (minus the chocolate) in her recently released book Londonistan, a favourable review of which is found here and an unfavourable one here.

Phillips spoke at a Quadrant dinner in Sydney and was earlier hosted in Melbourne by the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council (who also were going to host the tour of Raphael Israeli). Avidly opposed to multiculturalism, Phillips argues the war against terrorism must go beyond security measures.

She argues Britain (and by implication, other Western countries) has been bending over backwards to appease religious, ethnic, linguistic and even sexual minorities.

I could always condemn Phillips' argument as racist and Islamophobic. But to some extent, she is spot on. There are radical Islamists, i.e. proponents of a politicised ideology which wants Muslims to wage war on the West.

Phillips states her book offers no opinion on whether political Islamism is consistent with orthodox theology. Her disclaimer becomes meaningless when she states that political Islamism is the dominant strain of theology in nominally Muslim countries. When even experts in the field aren’t prepared to make such claims, it takes extraordinary hubris for a tabloid columnist to make them.

Phillips also says British multiculturalism allowed the Islamist xenophobic agenda to foster and grow. Presumably, that means pre-multicultural Britain didn’t take a hard line against hostile xenophobic ideology.

But as Israeli reviewer Michael Fox (hyperlinked above) notes, George Orwell was hard-pressed to find a publisher for his satire of Soviet Russia Animal Farm. Even TS Eliot (then at Faber & Faber) knocked the book back. Monocultural societies are often the first to adopt xenophobic politics.

Even if Britain’s Muslims have been radicalised, of what relevance is this to Australia? British Muslims are largely from South Asia and (to a lesser extent) the Arab world.

Aussie Muslims are from over 60 different countries, the two dominant ethno-religious groups hailing from a former French protectorate and a deeply secular state knocking on the doors of the EU.

First published in the Crikey daily alert for Friday 2 March 2007.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: AFIC must act now on Hilaly

In late October last year, I was in Canberra for a multicultural festival marking the end of Ramadan. I was helping a friend tape kids’ posters to a wall for the festival poster competition when we were approached by Ikebal Patel.

At the time, the Hilaly scandal was at its peak. Mr Patel took the opportunity to criticise some pieces [URL: ] I’d written in the newspapers.

Irfan, I heard his entire speech. All he said was that women should wear the hijab [head scarf]. You know that the media are out to get us with this. We should be supporting the Sheik, not rushing to the media.

Or something to that effect. My friend was angered by what she heard and walked off in disgust.

It’s therefore interesting that Patel has now been elected to the presidency of Australia’s peak Muslim body, the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC). It was AFIC which created the position of Mufti of Australia and then appointed Hilaly to that position.

Patel has promised that AFIC will now enter “a new chapter of inclusiveness”. It’s pleasing that the AFIC executive consists of persons from numerous ethnic and linguistic groups and includes at least one female.

But it’s concerning that Mr Patel doesn’t wish to deal with the urgent issue of the ongoing Hilaly crisis. Patel has suggested the matter be left to the National Board of Imams which doesn’t meet until April.

Patel must understand that this is an election year (twice for NSW voters). If the performance of Kevin Rudd and/or Maxine McHugh starts to worry the PM, or should there be an upward adjustment in the reported national security threat level, there’s every possibility Howard and other ministers will raise the Muslim bogeyman and hold all responsible for AFIC's failure to act. Espcially if Hilaly is caught out having made another disastrous comment. Howard has done this in the past, and there’s little to stop him doing it again.

For that reason, Patel needs to act fast. He doesn’t need to wait for an Imams’ Board that didn’t exist when AFIC first created the mufti position. Patel’s executive has the power to act. They must act now so that a key conservative wedge is removed and mufti day is brought to an end once and for all.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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Colin’s lesson for Muslims

I’m sure “moderate” Muslims will appreciate Colin Rubenstein’s brief lesson in The Age today on what “moderate” Muslims should do to moderate their views in order to convince him they are “moderate” enough for his liking.

It seems part of Colin’s strategy is for “moderate” Muslims to only reject Muslim-haters when his organisation isn’t sponsoring one of their speaking tours. Otherwise, “moderate” Muslims should embrace them.

At the beginning of his article, Colin makes it very clear what his position is ...

Characterising Muslim communities as a threat or danger per se is a sentiment we reject and with which we do not wish to be associated.

Colin mentions Daniel Pipes as an example. Pipes is apparently a scholar with only moderately critical views of Muslims. Colin proves this by reminding us that Pipes doesn't support the internment of all American Muslims. He only wants to intern those who are not "anti-Islamist".

So any Muslim who isn't openly anti-Islamist will be interned. So if you are someone who ticks the "Muslim" box on your census form and really couldn't give two hoots about some wacky Islamist group, you should be interned without delay.

Colin, do you believe that?

Of course, Pipes isn't as harmless as Colin makes him out to be (??). For instance, Pipes published an article in newspapers across the globe suggesting that a better way for Western countries to respond to their citizens being kidnapped by Iraqi dissidents is to lynch their Muslim minorities.

Gee, thanks, Danny-boy! I should let Danny Nalliah’s congregation know about that suggestion so the can include it in their next prayer.

Somehow I doubt even Colin would agree with Pipes that Australians burning mosques and shouted “We want revenge,” “Punish the Muslims” and “Down with Islam” would have been the best way to seek Douglas Wood’s release.

And it seems Waleed Aly and I are not alone in finding Pipes somewhat extreme. Unless, of course, the Council of American-Islamic Relations has set up an office in Israel. Even Israelis, regard Pipes as an extremist fruitloop hell-bent on Israel exterminating as many Palestinians as possible. Still, it’s easy to pontificate on Israeli military policy from the safety of Philadelphia.

Colin might also look at some one contributor to AIJAC’s own publication, who apparently exposed alleged extremists spreading hatred in Australian Muslim student bodies.

That same author takes a leaf out of Professor Raphael Israeli’s book, writing the following diatribe on a neo-Con website:

Everywhere in the world, Muslims are in conflict with their neighbours. And as Mark Steyn recently said, every conflict appears to have originated by someone with the name of Mohammed …

Despite … witnessing massive influxes of Islamic crime, Western countries continue to believe in the reality of assimilation and moral relativism.

In Australia, Lebanese Christians have assimilated and become a respected part of our community … However, Lebanese Muslims have encountered serious problems because of their refusal to accept our right to live our way of life. Nothing so clearly demonstrates that it is not an issue of race — but of culture.

Pauline Hanson couldn’t have put it better. This is a classic example of holding an entire faith-community of some 300,000 people from over 60 different ethnic groups responsible for the actions of 10 or so convicted criminals.

I don’t know about you, Colin, but I don’t regard insisting on group-responsibility against the followers of any Semitic faith as the sure sign of a moderate.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

New AFIC executive elected ...

While Jewish leaders were busy defending Muslims from the vicious and vitriolic attacks of a Jewish Professor, Muslim leaders were busy until the weekend jostling and jockeying for positions on the executive of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC).

The last time AFIC had an election, the two sides ended up in court. The court appointed an administrator. The peak body was thus out of action at a time when its leadership was needed to deal with the Hilaly debacle.

The new President, Ikebal Patel, is from the ACT. He is under pressure from a number of state councils (including the Islamic Council of Victoria) to do something about getting rid of the position of Mufti.

If my last conversation with Patel is anything to go by, Mufti Day won’t be coming to an end soon. On that occasion, I was in Canberra for a Multicultural festival. It was at the height of the Hilaly affair, and Patel asked my better half and I to stop writing articles critical of Hilaly and realise that the attack on Hilaly was “a grand media conspiracy”.

It’s great to see Muslims can look forward to a continuation of savvy AFIC leaders.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

Muslim migrants and their presence in Europe

The recent comments of Professor Raphael Israeli have again raised the issue of the exact role played by migrants from Muslim-majority states living in Western countries. Israeli made some passing remarks to Muslims in the UK and France. It is important that, in addressing these remarks, we rely on facts and research.

I recently came across a study by Aristide R Zolberg and Long Litt Woon published in the March 1999 edition of the academic journal Politics & Society. Entitled Why Islam Is Like Spanish: Cultural Incorporation in Europe and the United States, the study addresses key issues relating to migration, ethnicity and citizenship. It compares the fixation of anti-migrant sectors in Europe against Muslims to that of anti-migrant sectors in the United States against Spanish-speaking migrants.

Although the paper was published before the events of September 11 2001, its observations remain valid.

In June 1998, the state of California held a referendum on the issue of bilingual education. That referendum caused considerable controversy, with the formation of an “English-only” movement at the centre of what was perceived by many as a clash between “Anglo-America” and the “invading” Spanish language.

In Europe at that time, the memory of minority Muslim responses to the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and the French ban on headscarves was seen as proof of “resurgent Islam” threatening European cultures.

The authors claim that

... Islam and Spanish are metonyms for the dangers that those most opposed to immigration perceive as looming ahead: loss of cultural identity, accompanied by disintegrative separatism or communal conflict.

Muslims in Europe come from a variety of backgrounds – South Asia, North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Indonesia. Then there are historically European Muslims – Bosnians and Albanians. Within each group migrating from a single nation are numerous ethnic and tribal groups. Many Turks in Germany are ethnically Kurdish, while many French Algerians are Berbers and not Arabs. There are thus enormous varieties of ethnicity, language, class and sect.

The authors say that this leads to Muslim communities having no shared or agreed upon political orientation. Different Muslims have different orders of priorities in their identity and their lifestyle. Not every European who happens to be Muslim regards religion as always central to their life.

The authors argue that Europe’s Muslims practise many versions of Islam, and that these range as widely as their Christian counterparts. This leads to “perennial calls by religious leaders for unity of the umma (community)". And usually these calls are in vain, as anyone who has tried to celebrate Eid on the same day as everyone else soon finds out.

The authors claim that essentially the objections to a Muslim presence in Europe boil down to one question: “can one be Muslim and European?”

How do we answer this question? I have my own views which I have shared at different times on this blog. Readers are welcome to share their own views. Anyone have any ideas?

© Irfan Yusuf 2007