Multiculturalism and Middle East terrorism.

In the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks on the U.S. World Trade Centre and the Pentagon by terrorists of Middle Eastern origin, Western societies with significant Muslim or Arab communities have experienced incidents of communal strife between members of those communities and members of the non-Muslim main-stream. Australia was not exempt.

Whilst some of these incidents were the result of senseless harassment of people believed to be Muslims, and included the destruction of a mosque in Queensland by persons as yet unknown, they also included harassment of Jewish Australians and anti-Semitic slogans daubed on Jewish properties. The spectre of communal racial and religious strife is haunting Australia.

Perpetrators of this strife are found on all sides, but whatever their origins, they play into the hands of the terrorists who are trying to turn all Muslims against all Westerners as part of a radical jihad. Part of the strategy through which the democratic world may be hoped to defeat this terrorist threat is the encouragement of moderate Muslims as equal members of our societies.

The other part of our strategy, however, must involve inhibiting any manifestations of Islamic fundamentalist extremism in our midst.

This has important ramifications for "multicultural Australia", in which successive Federal and State governments have attempted to utilise ethnic politics for short-term electoral gain, to the detriment of the social cohesion of our country. Unfortunately, such manifestations have already occurred and it does not serve our security to ignore or downplay them.

Andrew Bolt (1) has noted that many taxi drivers of Middle Eastern origin horrified travellers at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport by tooting their horns and cheering jubilantly upon hearing of the devastation wrought by the suicide hijackers at the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, and described racist graffiti painted on buildings in Melbourne's Collins Street, reading, "Victory for Islam, death to Jews and Christians". He also quoted reports from The Sydney Morning Herald of conversations with Muslims at coffee houses in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba, who said that the United States of America "deserved" the terror attacks.

Similarly, the A.B.C.'s Parliamentary and News Network radio station reported, on 15 September 2001, a demonstration by Muslim youths on the streets of Lakemba, supporting the terrorist attacks.

Lakemba's mosque, serving Australia's largest community of Muslims, is the meeting place of the "Islamic Youth Movement" that publishes Nida'ul ("Voice of Islam"), which has printed respectful interviews with Osama bin Laden and broadcast his fatwas to kill "Americans, Jews and their allies".

In January this year, Nida'ul responded to reports of Western efforts to strike at bin Laden's bases in Afghanistan by calling on the world's Muslim communities to take up arms against the United States and its allies. Nida'ul has also praised Muslim extremist "suicide bombers" and used quotations from the Koran to support "making war against the infidels", which by definition, includes Americans and Australians.

Andrew Bolt also raised the possibility of an alliance between the S-11 anticapitalist movement and local Islamic extremists by quoting the International Socialist Organisation's leader and S-11 spokesman David Glanz, from the S-11's Indymedia Website:

   "The suicide raids were born of desperation at the supreme arrogance and
   contempt of the rulers of the most powerful capitalist state on earth.
   Socialists do not deny the working class and the oppressed the right to use
   violence ... [T]o rid the world of oppression and injustice requires not
   merely the assassination of particular ministers or the flowing up of
   military targets, but tearing up the roots of the capitalist system
   itself."

Bolt concluded by declaring that Australia is "in a new war to defend our freedom and culture, and as the extremist of the far-left and of radical Islam show, the front line begins at home". In the course of this rare piece of journalistic truth-telling, Bolt asked the question, possibly rhetorically: "Why is such hatred allowed to spread from our Lakemba mosque?"

The answer to his question is as follows

When a government sets out to woo the votes of sections of the electorate on the basis of their ethnicity or religion rather than their membership of the mainstream Australian electorate, and when the ethnic groups being wooed express loyalty to foreign states or foreign political movements in a state of belligerence, severe strain is placed upon Australia's social cohesion.

An example of this was provided during the office of the Hawke Federal Labor government. During Mr. Bob Hawke's Prime Ministership, the Israel lobby within the Jewish community felt assured of Australian government support for Israel, given Hawke's long history of sympathy for the Zionist cause. What they had not counted on, however, was the Labor Government's perceived need to appease also the much larger Muslim and Arab community and its often volatile leadership.

The Imam of Lakemba's mosque is Sheikh Taj Eldine El-Hilaly. He has held the position since 1986. In September 1988, Sheikh El-Hilaly delivered a virulently anti-Semitic speech to a Muslim student group at Sydney University. He described Jews as "the underlying cause of all wars threatening the peace and security of the whole world", accused them of "a malicious disposition towards all mankind", and blamed them for the "use of sex and abominable acts of buggery, espionage, treason and economic hoarding to control the world." (2)

This was not the first time Sheikh El-Hilaly had uttered such virulent tirades. He had used his sermons in the past to denounce Israel and to applaud the support for terrorism offered by the Iranian and Libyan regimes, and was on record as being a supporter of the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.

In 1986, after protests from the Jewish community and many Muslims who opposed his installation as Imam, the then Federal Labor Government instituted proceedings to deport him. He was, after all, only granted an extension to a temporary entry permit in 1982 -- which he violated by overstaying -- on the understanding that he cease his violent sermonising and return to Egypt at the end of that first extension. After lobbying by some sections of the Sydney Muslim community and their supporters in the Labor Party, however, successive Labor Government Immigration Ministers continued to extend his visa.

In his Australian Magazine article "The Rise of Islam in Australia", (3) David Leser quoted an unnamed journalist "active in Sydney's Middle Eastern community" as saying, "there would have been violence if he was deported because it would have humiliated a lot of people in the Muslim community".

After the outrageous Sydney University speech in 1988 many people expected the then Immigration Minister, Mr. Mick Young, to take action against El-Hilaly. Instead, he merely continued to uphold the Sheikh's latest visa extension to June 1989.

However, it was only a few weeks after El-Hilaly's virulent attack on the Jews that a large group of Labor Party leaders attended a banquet at the Lakemba mosque. They had been invited by the Sheikh to thank them for his visa extensions. Attending the banquet were the then Prime Minister, Mr. Bob Hawke, Treasurer Mr. Paul Keating, Communications Minister Mr. Gary Punch, and backbenchers Messrs. Leo McLeay, John Mountford and Stephen Dubois, as well as former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and former New South Wales Ministers Mr. Barrie Unsworth (State Premier 1986-88) and Mr. Frank Walker (State Attorney-General 1976-83).

Shortly afterwards, the then Opposition Immigration spokesman, Mr. Alan Cadman, produced in Federal Parliament a bundle of photographs taken at the banquet, but Prime Minister Hawke reacted angrily and succeeded in preventing them from being tabled. The Bulletin (4) published two of the photographs, however, one of which showed the above-mentioned party standing alongside Sheikh El-Hilaly in some kind of reverential pose. In September 1990, the then Immigration Minister, Gerry Hand, granted El-Hilaly permanent residence in Australia.

The Australian of 19 September 1990 published a highly critical editorial about the affair, entitled "Special Handling for Favoured Cleric", which read, in part:

   "Since he arrived here on a three-month visitors' visa in 1982, Sheikh
   El-Hilaly has flouted immigration laws, condemned Australian society and
   preached virulent racism ... however, the Imam's immigration history shows
   that he has received special treatment ...

   When he was Immigration Minister, Senator Robert Ray wanted to end
   ministerial discretion and make immigration regulations apply uniformly.
   Despite problems in practice, the principle was excellent: it would have
   reduced the Government's vulnerability to pressure. Mr. Hand wants to
   revert to the old ways, with unfortunate results. Sheikh Hilaly has
   breached the conditions of his stay: he should be treated no differently
   from others who flout the rules ... Let him return to Egypt and apply in
   the normal fashion."

But Sheikh El-Hilaly is firmly ensconced as Imam at the Lakemba mosque, and still preaching his Islamic fundamentalist views which equate the United States -- and its allies -- with Satan, despite opposition from the Jewish community, moderate Muslims, and other Australians deeply concerned about religious fanaticism and its threat to social tolerance. It seems that by attempting to ingratiate itself with the Muslim community, and in response to criticisms of favouritism towards the pro-Israel lobby -- and perhaps even in response to threats of violence from at least some of El-Hilaly's supporters -- the Hawke Labor Government made dangerous errors in the contentious game of ethnic vote-buying.

And now this powerful Muslim figure remains free to preach his hatred of the citizens of his "adopted" country and foster the Islamic extremism of the likes of the "Islamic Youth Movement" and their Nida'ul terrorist propaganda. Recently in what may be seen as an insult to Australians, he attempted to blame the racially-motivated pack-rape of Australian girls by Muslim Lebanese youths on "Australian society". (5)

Whereas El-Hilaly publicly expressed sorrow over the terrorist slaughter in the United States of America, it is noteworthy that he declined to condemn the perpetrators. His equivocal statement cannot be seen as anything but opportunism. The entire history of his behaviour and utterances -- especially those delivered in speeches and sermons in the Arabic language -- shows a deep antipathy towards Western society.

The need may be understood to urge tolerance towards Australian Muslims and ensure they do not become victimised by "tarring them all with the same brush" as the World Trade Centre terrorists, but the effect of the inflammatory views of El-Hilaly will not assist this process. If he remains free to utter such views, communal strife is almost guaranteed.

The Hawke Labor Government's meddling in the local factions of the Middle Eastern political divide involved trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. High on the list of considerations was how any given policy would "go down", not with the Australian electorate at large, but with the organised lobbyists of the most strident, or even the most potentially violent, ethnic or religious group.

The majority of Australians, who presumably owe no allegiance to any country but their own, were ignored as "unproblematic", and the wooing of the "ethnic vote" was a disincentive to consult the majority. Vocal or powerful representatives of ethnic lobbies who could make a case for delivering "ethnic votes" were virtually elevated to the status of a "consultative elite".

Whatever lofty notions may exist, multiculturalism in practice has encouraged immigrant groups to maintain an allegiance to their former homelands, and, despite the generally accepted understanding of "culture", the maintenance of mother-country influences has included politics and the establishment of political organisations based on mother-country politics.

Multiculturalism as practised in Australia has not been able to separate the maintenance of customs, traditions and "culture" from the political and ideological concerns of foreign states. It has removed from immigrants -- and in many cases, their offspring -- the onus of being Australians first and foremost. It has weakened our sense of shared, common nationality and encouraged divided loyalties. For the sake of Australia's unity, social harmony and foreign relations that best serve our own national interests -- surely a vital consideration in these ominous times -- multiculturalism must be replaced with an expectation of national loyalty, no matter what religion or ethnic background one hails from.

If the home-grown, budding Islamic extremism in Lakemba is tolerated under the rubric of "multiculturalism", grave damage will be suffered by Australian society.

(1.) Herald Sun (Melbourne), 17 September 2001

(2.) The Australian Magazine, 19-20 November 1988.

(3.) Ibid.

(4.) The Bulletin, 22 November 1988.

(5.) The Age, 1 September 2001.

MR. RAYMOND WATSON is a Melbourne writer whose articles on current affairs have appeared in Quadrant, Codex and News Weekly.