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Keywords: Anti-Muslim

  • RELIGION

    Crossing boundaries with the wire-cutter Pope

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 April 2016
    15 Comments

    Lesbos is famous for crossing boundaries. It was the home of the poet Sappho and the tender, delicate lyrics dedicated to the woman who was her lover. More recently it has been the home of refugees who have crossed from the murderous conflict in Asia. Pope Francis is also as famous for crossing boundaries as we Australians are for patrolling them. He is reinventing the papacy as a one-man barbed-wire-cutting team. So it is not surprising he decided at short notice to cross into Lesbos.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The changing face of racism

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 30 November 2015
    10 Comments

    It is naive to equate racism with individual acts of bigotry. The current anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment for instance goes deeper than sporadic attacks against individuals. Australian jobseekers with Middle-Eastern sounding surnames must submit up to 64 per cent more resumes than someone with an Anglo name in order to secure an interview. People may not actively engage in racist displays against Arabs, but that doesn't mean they are willing to spend time in close proximity to them.

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  • MEDIA

    A fascist by any other name

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 17 November 2015
    15 Comments

    In journalism, 'he said, she said' often functions as an evasion. Reporters' loyalty should be to accuracy, which isn't about compromise between extremes. When denialists and climate scientists take diametrically opposed stances, the truth doesn't lie somewhere in the middle. Sometimes, one side's right and the other's just wrong. The same can be said of reporting about the rightwing United Patriots Front. While they deny being fascists, that's what they are, and that's what we should call them.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'Australian Muslim' is not an oxymoron

    • Somayra Ismailjee
    • 15 June 2015
    16 Comments

    There is a particular anatomy to the process of othering. In any context, the formula consists of propaganda, hatred, division, suppression and control. I'm from Perth. Some people would dispute this due to my brown skin and non-Anglo name. But I was born here, and have lived here for my entire life. Still, people like me are too often considered Australian only by law, and not by sociocultural connotation.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When legitimate criticism hurts

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 August 2014
    17 Comments

    Antisemitism and racism are rightly considered shameful. Those accused of these things usually deny the charges vehemently. Declaring critics of the actions or policies of, say, the Zimbabwe or the Israeli government, to be racist or antisemitic should be called for the bullying it is. Prejudice needs to be demonstrated, not asserted. 

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  • RELIGION

    Community fear feeds Fox News Muslim bashing

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 02 August 2013
    10 Comments

    The now notorious Fox News interview in which host Lauren Green quizzes academic Reza Aslan as to why he, a Muslim, 'would be interested in the founder of Christianity', is mind-boggling in its casual persecution. A similar mistrust of Muslims is evident in Australia, as the Ed Husic debacle demonstrated. Even I, a non-practising Muslim at best, encounter hostility when I write on certain issues.

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    The Vatican's Facebook guru

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 21 September 2012
    2 Comments

    Last weekend's Muslim riot in Sydney, prompted by a YouTube trailer for an anti-Muslim film, illustrated the disturbing power of new media. As secretary of the Vatican department responsible for the Church's social communications, Monsignor Paul Tighe grapples daily with the dilemmas and promises of new media.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Justifying Bin Laden's execution

    • Tony Kevin
    • 03 May 2011
    43 Comments

    Obama was admirably honest that Bin Laden had been killed after, not during, the firefight. Why wasn’t Bin Laden taken alive and returned from Pakistan to face US courts? Here is a case where the cutting of the Gordian knot through an on-the-spot execution may be justified as the lesser evil.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Shame under Howard and Rudd

    • Tony Kevin
    • 27 May 2010
    29 Comments

    The Howard years made me feel ashamed to be Australian, and I felt about his electoral defeat the way East Germans felt about the Berlin Wall coming down: as a kind of cleansing. Rudd disappoints for a different reason.

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  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Rise of European extremism

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 18 June 2009
    6 Comments

    Fitna is a heavy handed piece of anti-Muslim propaganda. It plays into the kinds of sentiments and fears that are exposed when, for example, plans are put forward to build a Muslim school on Sydney's southwest fringe.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Rudd trip repairing Australia's damaged reputation

    • Tony Kevin
    • 11 April 2008
    7 Comments

    Kevin Rudd's China visit is proceeding brilliantly. But by announcing Australia's interest in a Security Council candidacy to the UN Secretary-General, he may have shown his hand before Australia is able to undo the damage the previous government did to our reputation in the UN.

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  • RELIGION

    Necessary tolerance of religious vilification

    • Peter Hodge
    • 03 April 2008
    2 Comments

    Not all behaviour that offends religious beliefs amounts to vilification. However, when freedom of expression results in incitement to religious hatred, a line has been crossed.

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