Australians All

It’s tough, but not impossible, for Muslims to gain trust

Waleed Aly

First published in The Australian, 9 December 2006

Keith Ellison made history last month when he became the first Muslim to be elected to the US Congress. Ellison, a Democrat and lawyer from Minnesota, did not make an issue of his faith during the election campaign. Despite this, absurdly, it is clearly an issue now.

When Ellison mentioned that he intended to be sworn into office on the Koran, talk-radio host Dennis Prager argued this would do “more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country than the terrorists of 9/11″.

When it comes to an oath of office, Prager insisted, “America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress.” It seems to have escaped Prager that members of Congress are not required to swear on a holy book at all.

Earlier, Ellison had been fighting waves of guilt by association. CNN’s Glen Beck deployed all the right caveats before requesting of him: “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.” Rumours spread rapidly that Ellison’s election campaign was funded by terrorists. This was clearly news to al-Qa’ida. New York’s Daily News reported that chat rooms linked to al-Qa’ida labelled Ellison “the first Jewish Muslim that goes to Congress”, a fool who was attempting to “deceive us”.

“He is one of them,” one message reads. “If you have one billion Muslims like him, we shall (continue to) fight you as the Muslim fights the infidel.”

The example is extreme, but it neatly encapsulates the problem faced by many Muslims who succeed in mainstream society. For all the popular bluster demanding Muslims integrate, those who do most spectacularly are rarely free from McCarthyist suspicion. Meanwhile, they are liable to face the suspicion of their own communities, often on the basis that they have sold out. They risk falling between two worlds: judged by their own and distrusted by the mainstream.

One way around this is to downplay one’s Muslim identity. The most obvious Australian examples of this are National Australia Bank boss Ahmed Fahour and “Crazy” John Ilhan, both wildly successful Muslim businessmen who, although they do not deny their backgrounds, are not widely associated with Muslim Australia.

Here one may be tempted to point to Iktimal Hage-Ali as an exception. Her success in the mainstream cannot be denied: she has been named NSW Young Australian of the Year. And her religion is scarcely a secret: she sat on the Howard Government’s Muslim Community Reference Group.

Non-Muslim Australians may expect Hage-Ali’s success to be a cause for pride and celebration among Australian Muslims. Yet Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph this week reported that posters on at least one Muslim internet forum were less than impressed. They took vehement exception to Hage-Ali’s admission that she had consumed a celebratory champagne and, for good measure, attacked her mode of dress and appearance. Thus was she disparaged as a person unfit to represent Australian Muslims.

For some commentators, this is easily explained as enraged jealousy. But such glib explanations miss the point. It is this final objection – to Hage-Ali’s representative status - that holds the key to decoding the Muslim virulence. It is difficult to imagine most Australian Muslims would care about what Hage-Ali drinks and how she dresses in private. Their ire is manifest when it becomes public and ostensibly representative.

Deeper social dynamics drive this. As an oft-stigmatised minority presently experiencing the growing pains of generational change, many Australian Muslims are negotiating their identities. Some – probably most – will adopt the Hage-Ali model.

Only about 30 per cent of Australian Muslims are religiously observant. They are the ones who are most desperately in need of role models to whom they can relate. They need to believe Muslims can obtain mainstream success without surrendering their faith; that it can accompany the preservation of an Islamic identity. This is why, when a Muslim success story involves the public abandonment of an element of Islamic practice, an almost allergic reaction ensues.

It is promising, then, that public figures are beginning to surface who successfully merge Muslim identities with Western culture. Australia and New Zealand recently witnessed Allah Made Me Funny, a Muslim stand-up comedy tour from the US featuring Preacher Moss and Azhar Usman. Moss in particular has an impressive comedic CV: he was a writer for the US television skit-comedy show Saturday Night Live and is a stand-up comic of 20 years’ experience.

The show attracts as many non-Muslims as Muslims and has been staged deliberately in mainstream theatres and comedy clubs. Moss and Usman are well aware of the social dimensions of their work. Both argue that stand-up is one of only two indigenously American art forms (the other being jazz). They quite explicitly speak of their work as a particularly American expression of Islam and a step in forging an integrated Western Muslim identity.

If the US has stand-up comedy, Australia has sport. Naturally, the Canterbury Bulldogs’ Hazem El Masri looms large here. But it may be that an even more significant story is about to unfold. Late last month, Essendon drafted Bachar Houli at pick 42 of the AFL’s national draft. Houli is probably the first devout Muslim to have made it on to an AFL list. As footballer and Aboriginal activist Michael Long has shown, the AFL is one of Australia’s most potent cultural forces and Houli is keenly aware of his potential significance.

“Getting drafted is not just about me,” he acknowledges. “It also opens up the way for other Muslims around the community to know they can make the highest level.”

His willingness to be up-front about his faith with his team-mates has earned him only respect so far, in stark contrast to many of his successful co-religionists. As Houli signed autographs for young non-Muslim footy fans recently, he was ever so slightly altering the social landscape for the benefit of Muslim and non-Muslim Australians alike. At this point, we need common heroes.