Sunday, October 24, 2010

The disease metastasizes in Australia as well

The September 11 anniversary passed relatively peacefully and without incident in the United States, thankfully. I was quite apprehensive that the October 12 anniversary of the Bali bombings (among whose victims were Australians) would be marked by Islamophobic attacks and generalised hatred against migrants. Thankfully, that anniversary also passed without any major upsurge in xenophobic atrocities. The Bali bombings main victims and targets were Indonesians, but that point seems to have escaped the corporate media megaplex. But the main point I want to raise here is let's not become complacent and pretend the malaise has gone away. The hatred is still simmering beneath the surface.

So while I am on this topic of Islamophobic hatred, let's not forget that this disease is metastatizing in Australia, becoming a generalised xenophobia of migrants and refugees. The following is an excellent summary of the whole 'ground zero mosque' contrived uproar by Gary Leupp, a professor of history at Tufts University: chronology of a bizarre controversy.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a perceptive commentator on race relations, migration and politics in Britain. Her observations about the ongoing attacks on Arab and Muslim Americans applies equally to the Australian context.

It seems that we are just as two-faced as the United States.

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