Of Middle Eastern appearance
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 15: Divided Nation
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Randa Abdel-Fattah
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Randa Abdel-Fattah's biography and other articles by this writer
“Do you ever wish you were fully Aussie?" This question was posed to me by a teenage girl in a Sydney school last year.
"What do you mean by fully Aussie?" I asked.
"Um ... like Anglo, you know?" There was no malice or sarcasm intended. The girl was sincere and simply curious as to whether I yearned to be liberated from what she saw as the shackles of my hyphenated identity as an Australian-born Muslim of Palestinian and Egyptian heritage, and take refuge in the more convenient and legitimate hyphenated identity of Anglo-Aussie.
My first reaction was to laugh. Unfortunately, her sentiment could not be attributed to a naïve, schoolgirl view of Australian identity and citizenship. It was the kind of construction of Australian identity I have been hearing for some time now – from politicians, journalists, radio hosts, public figures, none of whom can hide behind the excuse of puberty or inexperience in life.
When the political rhetoric is spun, and demands are made for citizenship tests, and Australian values are invoked to justify an "us and them" mentality, and some migrants are deemed less Australian for their inability to speak English, and a ban on the hijab is called for in secular schools, and the deportation of an Australian citizen of Egyptian background is demanded because of outrageous comments he has made, it becomes blatantly obvious who our government and spin doctors have identified as the so-called ideological threat to Australian values.
"Muslim" and "Australian" are widely perceived as mutually exclusive and bipolar opposites. One does not need to adopt a victimisation complex to arrive at this rather obvious conclusion. Muslims – whether Australian born, migrants or converts of convict ancestry – are the new Public Enemy Number One. Such an enemy is constructed because, like it or not, we have been undertaking a rather urgent and almost parasitical soul-searching exercise since September 11. Our status as Australians feeds off the un-Australian status of others. We can only be truly Australian as a measure of those we deem to be truly not. As somebody who readily falls into the category of "other", I am curious as to why Muslims – and indeed people who fall under the crude misnomer "of Middle Eastern appearance" – are on this end of the deep and bitter wedge that has been forged in Australia. There is a fracture in our society and, rather than feel optimistic about it healing, I feel increasingly apprehensive about it worsening.
Is it because the criminals who attacked America on September 11, 2001 professed to be Muslim (although their actions clearly abrogated any such claim)? The language of the "Coalition of the Willing" has only ever been coloured with statements about the "terrorists attacking our way of life" and "our values". By the crude logic of shock-jocks and politicians anxious for votes, the purported alliance of the terrorists with Islam renders Australian Muslims and Australians of Arabic background (because the misconception is that every Arab is a Muslim) equally suspect as antagonistic to "Australian values".
There have been various attempts to define Australian values. A fair go, egalitarianism, gender equality – all values critics have pointed out are universal human values, certainly not values over which Australia can claim intellectual property rights.
However, the way in which the debate plays out demonstrates that it is not a generalist values debate. How Muslims view labour laws, free trade, the environment or capitalism has never been at the heart of the issue. The values debate has ostensibly focused on women's dress and attitudes to certain social norms (such as alcohol, a day at the beach or sexuality). Integration, fitting in, assimilation: it doesn't matter whether you belong to a union or recycle your plastic; whether you wear a bikini to the beach, can join in a jovial who-gotmore-pissed-on-the-weekend Monday morning water cooler conversation or date are the pivotal points that rate you on the one to ten scale of What Makes You Aussie.
THAT IS WHY THAT YOUNG SCHOOLGIRL ASKED ME whether I ever wished I was fully Aussie. I had just explained that observant Muslims don't drink alcohol or take drugs, don't have boyfriend/girlfriend relationships and don't wear bikinis or swimsuits to the beach or pools. There were a lot of don'ts in my talk and the girl, rather than seeing these as a matter of personal choice, took pity on me. But her assessment of me as different and weird accurately reflects a widespread wariness amongst the general population of overt religion. It is the place of observant Muslims in a secular society that conjures up this irrational fear and the perception that Muslims represent an ideological affront to a secular lifestyle. It is not a Muslim's spiritual beliefs in heaven and hell, the big bang, creationism or Darwinism. It is the hijab, the beard, the call to prayer, the fasting during work hours, the praying during lunch breaks, the self-discipline against indulging (even in moderation, even in tiny small doses!) in all things dear to secular life – sex, drugs, alcohol – that seems to me to be the point of divide.
I don't think the divide that has made Muslims feel like "the other" is based on race, colour or culture. It is a divide based on religious observance. Italians and Greeks may go to church on Sunday or wear a cross around their necks, but most date, enjoy a drink and have the appearance of religious anonymity. The religious observance is not explicit, and that is why their "integration" is perceived as a success of multiculturalism, whereas the Australian-ness of a non-drinking Muslim bloke who steps out of work to go pray at lunchtime, or a woman at the bus-stop with a suit and hijab on, is circumspect.
Well, what about orthodox Jewish women, I hear you protest. They cover their hair with a wig and only expose it to their husbands as a symbol of modesty. And what about nuns who also wear a veil? And Mormons, who have strict dress codes and also do not drink? It is most interesting. So many similarities between Islam and other faiths and yet for every five or more documentaries a week about Muslims, Muslim women or the veil, there are virtually none about the almost identical principles of modesty found in Judaism, or Paul's admonition to women in Corinthians that their hair should be cut off if it is not covered.