Abstract
Islamophobia operates to downplay or even deny the reality of Muslim diversity. It rejects the ability of Muslims to be both genuinely religious and genuinely peaceable citizens of non-Muslim Western societies. Muslims are seen as being difficult to integrate into Western societies such as Australia society because of their religion. There has been an unofficial policy swing back to promoting monoculturalism, which threatens to establish a two-tier Australian national identity. On the other hand, some religious personalities have called for Muslims to isolate themselves from being influenced by any non-Muslim culture and prioritise their connection to Islam and the worldwide Muslim umma. This chapter, based on questionnaire responses of 537 religious Australian Muslims, challenges the meme that there is an inherent conflict between religious and Western identities. Most respondents value a concept of Australian identity that is affirming and inclusive and consists of achievable attributes rather than exclusive ascribed ones. There is evidence of the identity category ‘Muslim Australian’ on offer for participants to foster, giving them a third choice other than the assimilationist Australian-only or the isolationist Muslim-only. The data demonstrate that the large majority of Muslims surveyed—Australian-born and migrants—experience no internal conflict between the two forms of identity. It finds that religious Muslims are fully capable of valuing multiple forms of identity and harmonising the quotidian requirements of both Islam and their citizenship in secular Western societies. Muslim Australians are claiming the right to establish ‘Muslim Australian’-ness for themselves.
This chapter was previously published by Rachel Woodlock in 2011 as Being an Aussie Mossie: Muslim and Australian identity among Australian-born Muslims 22(4): 391–407. DOI:10.1080/09596410.2011.606187. © University of Birmingham, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, www.tandfonline.com on behalf of University of Birmingham.
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Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international organisation that has courted some controversy both in Australia and elsewhere, for being strongly critical of the various governments of nations in which Hizb ut-Tahrir members live; they are suspected of tacitly supporting violent methods of political opposition. Rejecting Western-style democracy, they call for the (re-) establishment of a worldwide caliphate.
- 3.
The data gathered for analysis in this chapter were part of an Australian Research Council Linkage Project Muslim Voices: Hopes & Aspirations of Australian Muslims, headed by Professor Emeritus Gary D. Bouma (Monash University) and Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh (Deakin University) with generous support provided by the following industry partners: the Australian Multicultural Foundation; the Department of Immigration and Citizenship; the Islamic Council of Victoria; and the Victorian Multicultural Commission.
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Al-Dawlah al-Islamiya fi al-‘Iraq wa al-Sham.
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This refers to the belief that ‘rich’ asylum-seekers who arrive on Australian shores, buying their way through the services of people smugglers, are illegally jumping ahead of ‘genuine’ refugees patiently waiting in refugee camps to gain legal entry to Australia.
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Such as the Liberal Party’s Bronwyn Bishop, Sophie Mirabella, Stephen Parry and Cory Bernardi, and Palmer United Senator Jacqui Lambie.
- 7.
Gary Clark, husband of the retiring Liberal member in Lindsay Jackie Kelly; Greg Chijoff, then husband of the Liberal candidate for the seat, Karen Chijoff, who was defeated at the polls; member of the state Liberal executive, Jeffrey Egan; Troy Craig; and Robert Matthew Holstein. Craig and Holstein pleaded guilty in 2008, but given their limited involvement no convictions were recorded against them, although Holstein was fined AU $500 (Age 29 April 2008; SMH 20 May 2008). Chijoff was convicted and fined AU $750 in 2008. In 2009, Clark was convicted and given the maximum individual fine AU $1,100 and ordered to pay court costs (over AU $2,000). Egan was found not-guilty (Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters 2010).
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This is a political messaging technique where by a politician or public personality communicates a hidden message to a particular sub-group whilst appearing to communicate another message to the rest of the population. It is achieved by using meaningful code-words, phrasing, or response-delays that are interpreted by the sub-group to mean something different, usually opposite, to that heard by those outside the sub-group. It takes its name from high-frequency whistles that when blown can be heard by dogs but not humans. Dog-whistling has been used by Australian politicians to send racist and Islamophobic messages about stigmatised groups such as Muslims, Indigenous Australians, and asylum-seekers (Poynting and Noble 2003; Maddox 2005).
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The Christian Democratic Party is a small political party founded by the Reverend Fred Nile MLC, who is often outspoken in his opposition to Islam.
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Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for someone to do an act in public that is ‘reasonably likely’ to ‘offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate’ someone because of their race or ethnicity.
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The Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) acts as the peak representative body for Victorian Muslim mosques and organisations. Membership is voluntary and not all Victorian Muslim groups are interested in (or eligible to hold) formal membership. However it is widely recognised as being a positive and representative body.
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A previously published version of this chapter (Woodlock 2011) looked at identity among second-generation Australians using the subset of Australian-born Muslims’ responses only, and without taking into consideration their level of religiosity.
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A Mann–Whitney U test showed there was a significant difference found with medium effect size when looking at the difference between Muslims residing in Victoria (Md = 5, n = 304) and those in New South Wales, agreeing with being good Muslims and good Australians, (Md = 5, n = 228), U = 25736.5, z = −6.21, p < .000, r = .30. The median for both groups was the choice ‘strongly agree’ (5) on the Likert-type scale. See my doctoral thesis (Woodlock 2015) for a full statistical analysis of the data.
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It should be noted that because data collection was purposely skewed towards capturing religious Muslims’ responses, even the 35 low-salience responses analysed here do not fully represent the completely non-religious for whom there is no meaningful adherence to Islam beyond an ancestral–cultural connection. As such, further research would need to be undertaken to have a deeper understanding of their perceptions of identity affiliation.
- 15.
Controlling for sex and location, and again using a Spearman \( \rho \) correlation coefficient, there was a small but statistically significant positive correlation between the two variables: \( \rho \)= − .28, n = 640, p < .000. The co-efficient of determination was 8 % of variance.
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The Chi-square test for independence (with Yates Continuity Correction) result was: \( {\chi}^2 \)(1, n = 293) =3.77, p = .05, phi = −.12.
- 17.
Controlling for sex, there was a statistically significant difference with medium effect size, in perceptions of racism and prejudice between Muslims residing in Victoria (Md = 3 [stayed the same], n = 290) and those in NSW (Md = 4 [moderate rise], n = 221), U = 20041, z = −7.60, p < .000, r = .34
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Meaning ‘peace’, a traditional Muslim greeting.
- 19.
There is no reified ‘true’ Islam. Muslims contest and manifest interpreted, lived ‘Islams’ that are the product of their particular circumstances. From a scientific perspective, we can only say that some or most Muslims believe X to be truly Islamic and are able to draw on Y resources to support their belief.
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Woodlock, R. (2016). Identity and Islamophobia: An Australian Investigation. In: Pratt, D., Woodlock, R. (eds) Fear of Muslims?. Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29698-2_9
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