Australia and terrorism scare

S P SETH

Australia is in the midst of a renewed terror scare after the killing of a police department official outside a police department in a Sydney suburb. The killer was a 15-year old high school Muslim kid of Kurdish origin who, in turn, was killed on the spot by the police. It is considered a terrorist act and the police believe that the killer had help from his associates. A few of the suspects were picked up for interrogation and will be charged. The 15-year old Farhad Jabar was a regular at a local mosque where he was believed to have been radicalized. Which led the chairman of the mosque, Neil El-Kadomi, to reportedly warn Australian Muslims that, “ If you don’t like Australia, leave.” Elaborating, he said, “Farhad was a real wake up call. To anyone who has crime in mind, if you come to this mosque we will tell the police.”

Most Muslim leaders here condemn terrorism. But the Grand Mufti, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, refused to call the shooting a terrorist act. He said, “Without enough information, and given that we are not an investigation body, I can’t comment on that.” This is unlikely to be helpful with the Australian public. However, Australia’s new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is not given to ramping up anti-Muslim hysteria, as his immediate predecessor, Tony Abbot, was prone to. Turnbull is saying all the right things cautioning against turning on the Muslim community, as most among them are peace-loving. In any case, as Turnbull said, any such hysteria will be counter-productive because the cooperation of the community is essential to weeding out the jihadis and terrorists.

This renewed terrorist threat is the byproduct of IS’ emergence in Iraq and Syria as a self-proclaimed caliphate.  It has been encouraging Muslims in western societies to do their part to promote jihad through individual acts of violence like killing a police man/men and otherwise creating a sense of insecurity, particularly in countries that are part of the coalition bombing IS in Iraq and Syria. Australia is part of that coalition, actively engaged militarily against IS. Over 150 Australian Muslims have gone to Iraq and Syria to fight for IS, and 20 or so have been killed there. Which has further reinforced the terror threat in Australia, leading to a raft of anti-terror legislation already promulgated or in the process that might include stripping of citizenship for suspects and cancellation of passports.

Even though the number of radicals/jihadists here is very small but their activities tend to create mistrust for the entire Muslim community, requiring them to prove their credentials any time some lunatic commits an act of terror. Most Australian Muslims wouldn’t condone terrorism, but there is probably a general sense here, as elsewhere in the world, that the west, and now Russia, have somehow turned on the Muslim world; citing the perpetual issue of the Palestine, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now the ongoing war against IS to help, as many believe, the ‘murderous’ Assad regime. And this sense of ‘injustice’ keeps being reinforced as the seemingly endless bout of Middle East violence continues.

Talking specifically about Australian Muslims, Chip Le Grand has written in the Australian newspaper after talking to community leaders, “Against a backdrop of tightening anti-terror and citizenship laws, the creeping threat of online radicalization and corrosive influence of Islamophobia, Muslim communities are confronting a crisis of cohesion, community and leadership.” Even the Muslim leaders, whose credentials are impeccable, are worried. Jamal Rifi, a medical doctor, is quoted as saying that, “It is very hard to be an Australian Muslim these days.” He added, “ It has always been hard but it is even harder now [even more so after the recent killing of an official in the police department]. The community is unfortunately in the situation where it is being attacked from the outside, attacked from overseas and eaten up from inside. We are at the crossroads. The soul of this community is actually being lost, to be honest.”

One thing is lost in this focus on the threat from Muslim terrorism. And this is that Muslims are not a monolithic lot. Australian Muslims, for instance, reportedly come from 30 countries; they have diverse linguistic, cultural, social and sectarian background and affiliations. And their community is riven with internal politics. Therefore, this image of a Muslim community harbouring and encouraging terrorism is completely out of sync. Which doesn’t mean that there aren’t hotheads, especially among some youth, that are receptive to jihadi propaganda. And even among them, the extremist/radical message doesn’t emerge out of nowhere. They go through a process of social and cultural alienation, combined with limited employment prospects. According to 2011 census, unemployment rate among Muslims was reportedly 12 per cent, about double the national average at the time and by far the worst of any religion. A Muslim name might be a put off for some employers, notwithstanding their better job qualifications.

With their increasingly closed social environment, Muslims, especially young among them, look for a sense of belonging and purpose and they fall prey to an insidious and highly dangerous message of encouraging them to do something spectacular for their community and religion. And they come to inhabit a world of like-minded youth with a similar sense of alienation and easy access to social media sites seeking togetherness in thinking and, where possible, acting out their new ideology. And for some, like Farhad Jabar, who at 15 was just in his teens, there is a weird kind of romance and adventure, like being a ‘real’ man in killing a supposed enemy.

A kid at this age is highly impressionable to extremism, particularly when that is all he is accessing and listening. And that can turn one into even a killer, as happened with Farhad Jabar. In the process, he ended up turning the spotlight on the larger Australian Muslim community, now having to do some explaining for his terrorist act. And put the chairman of the mosque he frequented--where he might have been groomed by some of his associates--in the position to warn that those Muslims who didn’t like Australia and were thinking on similar lines should better leave the country. It wouldn’t have been easy for Neil El-Kadomi to issue such a warning, but the activities of a few miscreants are creating an intolerable situation for the mostly peaceful Muslim community who want to go about their daily business of life like the rest of Australia.