Keywords: Muslim Australians
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 02 July 2015
18 Comments
Against the background of Australia's migration history, we can see the importance of Muslim groups maintaining their own praying community and culture including the use of their native language of worship. This will inevitably change with successive generations, but the pace of this is a matter for the communities themselves. The most harmful thing native born Australians can do is to pressure migrants to abandon their cultural roots in order to fit our expectations and to placate our fears.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 29 June 2015
58 Comments
It is particularly dangerous for a Prime Minister to demand that public institutions or private citizens take a stand on complex issues. To take a stand for something means that you take a stand against something else. In the Q&A case, to take a stand means to condemn Zakky Mallah. From there it is a short slide to standing for 'genuine' Australians against Muslim Australians.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 18 June 2015
13 Comments
Refugee Week has been overshadowed by stories of harsh new laws, reports of government misbehaviour and ministerial silence. Regrettably hostility towards asylum seekers is widespread. We must look beyond this crabbed little world to imagine a polity in which states cooperate to change the conditions that force refugees to flee.
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- William Morris
- 15 June 2015
7 Comments
'Frank points out that the Church cannot credibly proclaim a message of social justice in a pluralist democracy when its own processes fall short of ordinary community standards of justice. It needs to turn its teaching about human rights and human dignity back on itself, the Church, insisting on due process within the life of the Church community.' Bishop William Morris helps launch Frank Brennan's new book Amplifying That Still, Small Voice.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 21 May 2015
18 Comments
The world is gazing with astonishment at our single-minded way of dealing with people who come to us for protection. It is iconic, now that nations in the region have adopted it. The modern understanding of icons as embodying qualities people desire differs from the Byzantine approach in which traditional religious icons do not impress us with their dominance over their environment, but draw us to their eyes.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 30 April 2015
33 Comments
Only extremists regard Muslims as enemies. But if a populist and incompetent government were to scapegoat them and declare them to be enemies, as was done to asylum seekers, it would be a short step to build on the laws already introduced with further discriminatory legislation. That in turn would lessen the protections under the law that other groups would enjoy. Of course, this could never happen in Australia. But that is what they once said in Germany, Chile and South Africa.
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INTERNATIONAL
Indonesia is a country of great promise with a significant, maybe crucial, contribution to make to our troubled world. As a very large, pluralist, Muslim-majority democracy it offers a template for other societies in transition. President SBY was acutely aware of this opportunity and through his democracy forums and other initiatives did much to re-brand Indonesia in this positive light. All this good work is being undone by the anal, small-town thinking the executions represent.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Ellena Savage
- 20 March 2015
13 Comments
The language of martyrdom is being used to recruit young Australians to brutal stateless warfare. Because martyrs are morally superior to suburban burnouts. IS propagandist Abu Ismail described Melburnian Jake Bilardi as 'a lion on the battlefield although he was at a young age and with a weak body'. So, Bilardi was a weak young lion and therefore ripe for battle. How obscene!
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 26 February 2015
41 Comments
I fear for those Muslim young people driven into the arms of ideological extremists so unnecessarily. I'm prompted to recall my school years, when Soviet troops were invading Hungary to put down the brief revolution. I wondered uneasily whether it was not perhaps my duty to go to Hungary to fight for freedom there. For an idealistic young man whose Catholicism was tightly intertwined with anti-communism, the thought was natural.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tony Kevin
- 24 February 2015
29 Comments
On Monday, Tony Abbott made his finest speech as prime minister. Yet it was also scare-mongering, heavy handed and intimidatory. It reminded members of the Muslim Community that the Australian Government has the power to control and punish them. It may be a vote winner for a while, but for long term effect it’s worth contrasting it with the British Government’s successful calming messaging during the 1969-97 terror campaign.
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EUREKA STREET TV
- Peter Kirkwood
- 18 February 2015
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 05 February 2015
23 Comments
Our unpopular politicians have not been served well by advice that they should be 'on message' - more controlled and less quirky in their dealing with the media. Pope Francis, whose approval ratings are off the scales, takes the opposite approach, famously engaging the public imagination with symbolic gestures that embody his program.
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