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Angry scenes from outside a community meeting in Camden last night evoked frightening memories of the Cronulla Riots for many Muslim Australians.

Nearly 800 people turned up to the meeting called to protest plans for an Islamic school in the semi-rural town on Sydney’s outskirts. Police turned away around 100 people when the community hall where the meeting was staged became over-crowded.

Outside the Hall, young people draped in Australian flags, sported clothing and placards adorned with anti-Muslim slogans, chanted “Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi” and yelled racial abuse. One yobbo was caught on film threatening any Muslim who fronted with physical violence. This follows a recent hate crime at the site of the planned school involving the suspension of a pig's head between two stakes.

The school, which is proposed to accommodate 1200 students, would sit adjacent to an existing public school but it is being opposed on racial, religious and planning grounds by local residents. Over 2500 submissions have been made to the council with only 600 in support of the Islamic school proposal.

Inside the hall, NSW MLA, Rev. Fred Nile, was the keynote speaker at the meeting. He claimed Islamic schools were breeding grounds for terrorists. Fred Nile quoted from the Koran to justify his anti-Muslim stance. If he’d consulted his Bible and considered the example of Jesus who preached tolerance towards minorities he may have been able to represent a genuinely Christian perspective on the issue.

Nile’s Christian Democratic Party (CDP) campaigned against Muslim immigration at the Federal Election and is opposing both the Camden school proposal and one planned for Bass Hill. The Party’s number one NSW Senate candidate, Pastor Paul Green, ran on a platform of “No More Muslims, No More Mosques” and appeared in election propaganda wearing a tuxedo and bow tie. He preached disdain towards Muslims (bordering at times on hate-speech)on the campaign trail: “Every vote for the Christian Democratic Party is a vote for a ten year moratorium on Muslim immigration. And as a Senator I’ll be asking every Council in Australia to refuse all applications for new mosques until a Christian Church can legally be built in Saudi Arabia. Then Australian Muslims can have one mosque for every Christian Church built in Saudi Arabia." Neat argument – apply the standards of democracy practiced by Saudi Arabia. I thought Christianity had moved on from the principle of an “eye for an eye”?

Another NSW upper house MP, Liberal Charlie Lynn, also voiced his opposition to the proposal at the meeting – on planning grounds. This is the line which was also adopted by the Labor Party candidate for the seat with Kevin Rudd’s support during the election campaign.

Islamic groups - who were not invited to put their case to the meeting - said the tenor of the gathering and the political contributions were disappointing and irrational. The Quranic Society, which is behind the school proposal, told the ABC they just want to build a school for their children like a Catholic or Jewish school.

Tonight, members of the Community Relations Commission, the Police and the Camden Mayor have met in the town in an effort to ease community tension following the meeting.

This issue is a powder-keg. It highlights the racist undercurrent empowered by the dog-whistling of the Howard Government and the hate-speak of people like Pauline Hanson and the CDP. The result is a dangerous, racially driven mob mentality which has already crossed over into physical violence once at Cronulla.

History shows us powerful examples of the manifestation of racist mob violence fed by fear. In another time and place - Germany circa 1938 - Jewish people endured a night of horror called Kristallnacht (crystal night) which involved hordes of racists smashing thousands of Jewish shopkeepers’ windows and ransacking their homes. There are scary parallels between the rise of anti-Semitism in 1930’s Germany and the post-September 11th development of Islamophobia.

As I’ve argued before, Kevin Rudd must tackle Islamophobia head on and engage Australian Muslims in meaningful, cross-cultural bridge building exercises which he can drag the rest of Australia along with – kicking and screaming if need be. Failure to provide such national leadership will simply encourage racism to thrive and fuel the potential for hate-crimes and mob violence on the scale of Cronulla or worse.    [read more]