Emma Clancy
A survey of Victorian high school students has found that more than half view Muslims as "terrorists" and nearly half believe Muslims "behave strangely".
The 2005 study of year 10 and 11 students by the Australian Catholic University found that about 40% of high school students said that Muslims are "unclean". It also found that more than a third said they had never been taught about Islam or Muslims at school.
The results are an indictment of the education system in Australia. The racist attitudes revealed by the study are not surprising in a climate where fear and racism towards Muslims have been fostered by the government and corporate media.
Andrew Blair, president of the Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals, told the February 6 Sydney Morning Herald that schools have a social responsibility to educate young people about Islam.
Resistance activist Gemma Weedall from Mary MacKillop high school in Adelaide told Green Left Weekly, "People need to be educated about Islam, so that they don't fear what they don't understand. Students in particular need to speak out against racism and show that not everyone agrees with the racist views on display recently."
Sydney University Global Solidarity officer Simon Cunich told GLW that the research result can't be seen in isolation from the "war on terror" and the racist policies towards Arabs and Muslims enacted by both state and federal government.
"A generation of young people is reading newspaper headlines, every day that characterise Muslims as 'dangerous extremists' and 'terrorists'. The voices challenging this racist media barrage are few and far between, and so the ideas become legitimised", Cunich said. He warned that the problem wouldn't be solved by simply increasing the level of education about Islam in schools, though that would be a start. "These attitudes aren't unique to high school students. They reflect a racism in society which needs to be challenged where it is being generated — by governments and the corporate media."
From Green Left Weekly, February 15, 2006.
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