When I was at uni, my best mate's girlfriend took me to a pub. She probably did it just to shock me. I was rather devout back in those days, and the idea of going to a place filled with beer and cigarette smoke wasn't exactly spiritually appealing.
The pub we went to was the Harold Park Hotel. There was a new comedy show playing. Two wisecracks named Peter Saleh and Anthony Mir calling themselves the 'All Aussie Are Boofta' show were performing. After the show, she told me: 'I wasn't sure whether to laugh or be disgusted. So I laughed.'
Peter (now known as Akmal) was of Egyptian heritage. I'm not sure what Anthony's heritage was. They poked fun at all things Arab, Lebanese etc. From taxi drivers to suicide bombers — nothing was sacred. The show ended with a battle of the toilet graffiti. Peter spoke of visiting a petrol station dunnie to take a slash. On the wall, some redneck had scrawled: 'F*cking Arab terrorists go back to F*ckistan'. Or something like that. Below this in kindergarten-capitals, a 'fresh-of-the-boat' cabbie from Bankstown responded with 'ALL AUSSIE ARE BOOFTA'.
It wasn't terribly sophisticated. A purist might say it was racist. But it sure made the audience laugh. Including me. This was more than just 'Shuddupayerface' ethnic humour. Arabs and Anglos could laugh together at themselves and each other. Everyone could see that conventional fears were about as much of a threat as the on-stage gags.
It's all good and fine to respond to prejudice by marching through the streets or penning a pompous and outraged op-ed for fine publications like this one (God knows, I've done both). But perhaps the most effective and most difficult ways to tackle prejudice and fear is to laugh at it. And to get both potential racists and potential victims (two interchangeable categories of people) to laugh with you.
These days, people are scared shitless of suicide terrorism. Australia hasn't had suicide bombers attacking its churches as has been the case in Pakistan. Mother England has. London's home-grown 7/7 bombers targetted its public transport system, killing over 50 people. Pundits and politicians railed against Muslims, terrorists, Pakistanis, converts, etc.
The Daily Mail had a daily field day. The Guardian pumped out plenty of opinion pieces from self-styled Muslim spokespeople responding to the latest attempt at collective blame by some MP. Evangelists and evangelical atheists were weighing in on the