MELBOURNE — On April 6, 85 people attended a forum at Melbourne University organised by Students Against War and Racism on the topic of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in Australia and the United States.

Hala Abdelmonour, founder of the Melbourne Uni Arabic Culture Club, said the "climate of fear" created by the government and mass media has resulted in Australian Muslims "moving away from our ability to speak openly and freely and having constructive criticism" and was "making the Muslim community more afraid of outsiders".

Visiting US anti-war activist, National Council of Arab Americans member and editor of the International Socialist Review, Ahmed Shawki, said: "I have lived in the US for 30 years and never have I sensed this level of xenophobia and racism, except perhaps during the Iranian US embassy kidnapping of 1979-80.” He added that "racial stereotyping is now alive and well in the name of defending against terrorism".

Shawki pointed out that US anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda helped justify the US government's goals in the Middle East. That region's abundance of oil is a declared "national interest of the United States — Middle Eastern countries merely sit on top of it".

Nick Hamilton

From Green Left Weekly, April 12, 2006.
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