Anti-Arab violence going in Australia:

September 13, 2001 7:39 AM

Anti-Arab violence going in Australia: It's not just in the US - In Brisbane, a schoolbus packed with Islamic children was damaged by stones and bottles and there had been abusive calls to mosques. In Perth a mosque was defiled with human faeces and obscenities were shouted from a car doing wheelies in its carpark. The Australian Arabic Council today said a hotline for people to report racist attacks had been swamped by calls. Unconfirmed attacks included children being physically harmed and racially vilified at school. Muslum women being spat on and had their veils pulled off.
posted by Jase_B (22 comments total)

Christ.
Someone shot out the windows of a mosque here in Texas last night, too. Don't they understand that this achieves nothing?
posted by TeamBilly at 7:44 AM on September 13, 2001

It's happening all over the world. There's been some violence here in Canada too.

In San Francisco, there was a report of someone leaving pig's blood outside the mosque, splattered on the sidewalk and the entrance.

The level of ignorance is staggering.
posted by misanthropy at 7:52 AM on September 13, 2001

Where the FUCK is George Bush's reaction to this? He needs to stop whatever it is he is doing and get on the fucking tv and tell his fellow rednecks to stop picking on everyone with light brown skin.
posted by glenwood at 7:53 AM on September 13, 2001

Ok the redneck comment was a little uncalled for.
I apologize. But I'm still angry. We need leadership.
posted by glenwood at 7:54 AM on September 13, 2001

this is what i was affraid of.. everyone with a certian ethnicity has the hate of most the world to bear because of things they are helpless to change, because in some remote way their ancestors grew up somewhere in the vicinity of the ancestors of someone that we suspect has something to do with what happened. its a long-shot but hey hatred and logic dont often mix. my heart goes out to everyone, muslims, arabs, jews, christians, athiests, blacks, whites, wiccans, buddhists, asians we all have to bear witness to these horrible attrocities, commiting more is foolish.

pointing fingers and throwing stones will do nothing. hatred is the last thing we need. caring and sympathy are the only emotions there need to be right now. i hope everyone realizes that.
posted by jojomnky at 7:56 AM on September 13, 2001

I was thinking the same thing. He oughta include an admonition in the next speech.
posted by TeamBilly at 7:56 AM on September 13, 2001

This is my first posting to MeFi ever, and not on a subject I'd ever wanted to comment on...

Australians have been glued to the CNN coverage as much as anyone else. And I've been quite impressed with the coverage, and the sensitivity with which the whole thing has been treated (the BBC coverage less so)...

It hasn't just been the way the citizens of New York have rallied together, but how the potentially ugly and racist fallout from the whole business has been handled.

And then something like this happens, and I feel horribly ashamed of my own countrymen.
posted by chrisgregory at 7:58 AM on September 13, 2001

chris,
the saddest thing is, I think many of us in America view Australia as kind of an oasis from the political bullshit that goes on in the rest of the world.

This news really bummed me out a great deal.
posted by glenwood at 8:02 AM on September 13, 2001

This is just sad...

"'I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have,' said 19-year-old Colin Zaremba who marched with the group from Oak Lawn. "

Salon, 2001-09-13

This is a kid who was part of a group of "marchers" who marched toward an Islamic Mosque shouting and throwing stones.

Where were people like this when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City federal building? Why weren't they marching on a Christian church and shouting at people with white skin? My guess is that their hatred—like that of this 19-year-old bigot above—for people of color predated any of the acts of terror.

It is okay to be angry. It is okay to be scared. But it is never okay to hate, especially when it is powered by fear and prejudice.
posted by terrapin at 8:11 AM on September 13, 2001

Hello again,
Just watched George Dubya stumble through a televised phone conversation with Giuliani (spelling?)

George made a clumsy attempt at making a point that there's plenty of Muslims in NY who think of themselves as Americans too.

I'm not doubting that GWB is a redneck, but that he's avoiding turning this whole thing into a modern version of the Crusades...well, maybe the world's becoming a better place.

I just wish it was under better circumstances.
posted by chrisgregory at 8:14 AM on September 13, 2001

Read about US policy in Iraq, a nice little piece by Said. Now the whole western world will be thinking this is fair. What the fuck is the world coming to?
posted by acrobat at 8:16 AM on September 13, 2001

George made a clumsy attempt at making a point that there's plenty of Muslims in NY who think of themselves as Americans too.

Clumsy or no, this could do a world of good and I am quite relieved that it was at the very least acknowledged.
posted by glenwood at 8:19 AM on September 13, 2001

I'm an Australian and I certainly don't condone any of this action towards innocent people. I think it's disgusting quite frankly.

However you should also know that it was reported that groups of Islamic students cheered in Queensland as they watched the attack footage on tv, to the horror of bystanders.

This does nothing to help race relations, and what we are seeing with the schoolchildren sounds like a backlash by equally ignorant people. We all need to learn to be tolerant of each other.
posted by Jubey at 8:21 AM on September 13, 2001

I was just reading this report where - minutes after the first plane crashed - three men yelled "Take that f****** turban off, you terrorist" to a sikh.

The WTC is collapsing *behind* them at that
moment and they find the time to chase people with turbans about?

And why the immediate jump to conclusion turban=arab=terrorist? Before they even *knew* if this was a freak accident or attack. Before any images of Bin Laden in his turban-style headgear hade been plastered over the media.
posted by dabitch at 8:39 AM on September 13, 2001

Australia's played it's own little role in most of the major conflicts of the last century, WW1 and 2, even Vietnam. I had friends who sailed on ships on border duty during the Gulf War, who saw the bodies floating in the water.

I'm frightened that this is going to turn into something big, because Australians are going to be there too. And it's all insane. I don't want Country Joe McDonald to be offering a further set of updated lyrics to his protest song "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag".

Before we go through all this again, I think people should go borrow Three Kings on video and watch it, then listen to some Phil Och's songs, maybe Cops of the World, and maybe try and think about how we're living in a new Millenium now and maybe we should try a different approach, one that doesn't involve killing lots of people. Because that avenue doesn't have a real good track record.
posted by chrisgregory at 8:41 AM on September 13, 2001

... in other words - this catastrophy is just feeding what was already there - as terrapin was saying "predated". This is too easy.
posted by dabitch at 8:44 AM on September 13, 2001

I like the Australian spelling of "faeces" way better than the American "feces". That is so cool.
posted by fuzzynavel at 8:46 AM on September 13, 2001

This is crazy... don't this people understand that by doing such damage they are no different then those terrorists who did this evil thing.

Why is Islam on the spot here..just because some crazy freak said that he is doing this in the name of Allah... this is totally against islam.

Those students in Queensland who cheered as they watched the attack are in total denial, they don't know what Islam is, I guess they are just biased. Surely it doesn't help the race relations but again ignorance is bliss.
posted by pyr at 8:48 AM on September 13, 2001

I spent a significant part of my morning explaining to one of my students (who was old enough to know better) that suicide bombing wasn't part of Islamic teaching - that it was just a cheap and easy form of warfare being directed by some madmen, and that it had nothing to do with religion at all.

The positive thing was that I managed to convince him. But really, we've spent the last twenty years hearing about Muslim extremists and Islam Fundamentalists. And jihad, of course.

I think it's fair to blame the media for these sorts of representations. But it's not a time to point fingers.

You don't think that for the next couple of years every middle-eastern lookin' person boarding a plane isn't going to find themselves subjected to the most intense scrutiny?

Like a criminal. Anyone want to be treated like a criminal?

Prejudice feeds on ignorance. And to stop the former, we're all obliged to diminish the effects of the latter.
posted by chrisgregory at 9:21 AM on September 13, 2001

George Bush Sr's statement. Rather well put I think,

"We must guard against painting with such a broad brush that we cause innocent Arab Americans or Islamic believers anywhere to come under unfair attack. There will be a tendency in some quarters to lump in with the terrorists all those who believe in Islam. This we must strongly condemn.

posted by jonah at 9:53 AM on September 13, 2001

It's not just Muslims that are getting the shaft either. According to canoe.ca Arabic Christians in Australia are having their places of worship vandalized as well.
posted by Fley Mingmasc at 11:06 AM on September 13, 2001

It was reported that groups of Islamic students cheered in Queensland as they watched the attack footage on tv, to the horror of bystanders.

Jubey. where's the link? we don't need more rumours.
posted by flowerdale at 1:15 AM on September 15, 2001