• Shahram Akbarzadeh, Greg Barton

06 March 2007European experience shows that mutual trust and respect is the only option, write Shahram Akbarzadeh and Greg Barton

MIGRATION, un-Australian attitudes and simmering social unrest. These, it would appear, are the fears that gnaw at the peace of mind of many ordinary Australians - dark anxieties produced partly by the dislocating effects of economic globalization and partly by the spectre of terrorism. Add Islam to the mix and you have the perfect storm.

We should not be surprised then that the recent comments of Professor Raphael Israeli - “When the Muslim population gets to a critical mass you have problems. That is a general rule, so if it applies everywhere it applies in Australia,” - provoked such an outburst of letters, talk-back radio calls and online commentary.

Much of the discussion that ensured was heartening in its unequivocal rejection of Israeli’s pronouncements but many respondents also appeared confused by the “academic” claims of this visiting speaker from an esteemed university. Israeli touched upon the important issue of social unrest in France and elsewhere then quickly conflated it with the threat of terrorism. Then, in the face of the criticism that ensued, declared himself a victim of political-correctness - a message-bearer shot by those who would not heed his message. This message bears examining.

In late 2005 Paris was shocked by three weeks of civil unrest and rioting in its outer-eastern working class suburbs. These suburbs are home to large migrant communities from North Africa. These communities are predominantly Muslim and constitute around 7 per cent of the total population in France. In the simple logic of Raphael Israeli size is everything and once Muslims reach a critical mass they turn on the country. Muslims live in “neighbourhoods that breed violence and trouble,” he wrote in the Australian (22 February). This is a serious warning: we are dealing with a community that will not rest until it has Islamised society through violence.

The above musings are so fantastic in the literal meaning of the word, that they would have been laughable if you heard them at a dinner party. But having them published in a national daily gives them a disturbing air of credibility.

The problem with Israeli’s argument is that it totally ignores all other factors except one: the religious background of the rioters. The eastern suburbs of Paris are urban sprawls marked by high unemployment, housing estates and poverty. The rioters were disgruntled youth with no hope of a decent future, hyped up by a hip-hop culture of delinquency and rebellion against authority. Islam was not the issue. And dwelling on the nominal religion of some of the groups involved diverts attention from a very real and pressing set of issues: high unemployment, poor living conditions, a sense of being rejected by the rest of French society and despair that things will ever get better. The riots were not about Islamising France through violence. Virtually all French commentators have noted the conspicuous absence of a religious dimension to the riots.

For Israeli, however, the religious background of the rioters is enough to label them as anti-social, fanatical or even terrorist. In other words, a whole group of people are labelled as undesirable because of their religion. This is ludicrous, especially since what connects the majority of Muslims to their religion are cultural practices, traditions, and communal affiliation rather than doctrinal devotion or religious observance. For the majority of French Muslims religion is more about identity than it is about religious practice - as it is with virtually all large “religious” communities. There are simply not enough mosques to come close to accommodating the Muslim population in France, or indeed Australia, if all adults decided to attend the Friday prayer.

The obvious flaw in this perspective is that instead of seeing Muslims as fellow members of our imperfect humanity - social beings who are influenced by their surrounding experiences - it chooses to cast both them and the faith to which they are notionally linked as being, at worst, inherently evil, and, at best, completely unable to integrate into modern western society. This is, in essence, what Israeli wrote in his open letter to Tony Blair in the wake of the 2005 London bombings. In that letter Israeli rejected British policy towards “peaceful Islam” as “wishful thinking”. Two years later, the same message was expressed in his interview in Australia: interfaith initiatives and multiculturalism are misguided because we are dealing with an inherently irreconcilable group of people who would abuse the system for their evil objectives.

It is hard not to think of Samuel Huntington when listening to Raphael Israeli. Both men are senior professors from world-renowned universities. Although both are capable of excellent scholarship they, like all of us, are vulnerable to allowing personal prejudice to cloud academic judgement to the point where personal fears are proclaimed as public facts. On the subject of Islam and Muslim society both men misread the evidence before them and twist it to fit their simplistic and bigoted convictions. They assert that they want to help us respond with prescience to the separate threats of social unrest and terrorism and yet their counsel would lead us astray.

Terrorism is a very real threat in our time, and one that we will likely be living with for the rest of our lives. We need to get it right. Rejecting and alienating our fellow citizens and compatriots and the basis of their religious affiliation will cost us all dearly in the struggle against terrorism. Five and a half years after September 11 we now know from experience in America and Northern Europe that, with respect to al-Qaeda-style terrorism, racial-profiling and community drag-nets are not merely blunt instruments - they simply do not work. What does work, as we have seen over the past year in Britain, is cooperating and partnering together with Muslim communities to identify concerns and interrupt plots. For this to work, however, there needs to be a high level of mutual trust and respect. Fear and loathing diminishes both our humanity and our security. •

Shahram Akbarzadeh is Director of the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies at Monash Univeristy. Greg Barton is the Herb Feith Research Professor for the study of Indonesia and works with both the Islam Policy Centre and the Global Terrorism Research Centre in the Faculty of Arts at Monash.

Photo: Public housing in the Paris suburb of Montreuil. iStockphoto.com