This one word is notably missing in the Islamophobia report

There is one word notable by its near-total omission from “A National Response to Islamophobia: A Strategic Framework for Inclusion, Safety, and Prosperity”, the long-awaited report from Aftab Malik, the government’s first special envoy to combat Islamophobia. That word is Christchurch.

The name of the town where an Australian terrorist murdered 51 Muslims at their places of worship, in Aotearoa-New Zealand in 2019, is mentioned only once, and only in the context of mosques threatened “with chilling reference to the Christchurch attacks”, rather than an analysis of the attack itself. Elsewhere, there is a photo of a man reading a newspaper in which the attack is splashed across the front page, and in a collage of anti-Muslim headlines, one is about a mosque being graffitied with the terrorist’s name.

It is baffling that a landmark report on Islamophobia in Australia should attribute so little significance to a major Islamophobic hate crime, one not only committed on this country’s doorstep but also undertaken by one of its citizens. The report by the royal commission into the attack does not appear in Malik’s bibliography, despite its finding that the terrorist’s Islamophobic worldview was apparent from his high school years in Grafton, and that by the time of his arrival in New Zealand, he intended to commit a terrorist attack. This was an Australian crime that happened to take place on the soil of Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Yet even though Malik’s second recommendation is to formally recognise the UN’s International Day to Combat Islamophobia on March 15, he fails to explain the significance of that particular date. (Clue: in Aotearoa-New Zealand, the event that is elsewhere described as the Christchurch attack is generally referred to as March 15.)

Malik partially redressed this failure during the press conference launching the report, stating, “It was an Australian citizen who was responsible for killing 51 Muslims in their place of worship in the Christchurch terror attack. This fact alone should compel us to act.”

Indeed. And such “action” could usefully have included looking across the Tasman rather than just the United Kingdom and the United States for ideas on how to combat Islamophobia. Why, for example, would a report that highlights the dangers of online hate fail to mention the Christchurch Call, the much-acclaimed post-March 15 initiative to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online?

Most Australian Muslims have nonetheless welcomed the report, despite our misgivings about the role of envoys and our scepticism that the government will meaningfully act upon its recommendations. For example, changes to counter-terrorism legislation that has disproportionately targeted Muslims would be a productive (if unlikely) outcome of the report. Anti-Palestine racism receives more recognition from the envoy than had been feared, given his earlier remarks on that topic, even if there is no mention of Palestine under his recommendations to DFAT.

But events over the past fortnight have only highlighted the inadequacy of envoys as a mechanism for combating racism. As a Muslim woman “of South Asian appearance”, I was taken aback to find myself more aware of my South Asian than my Muslim identity while observing the “March for Australia” rallies in person in Melbourne a fortnight ago. Perhaps Islamophobic slogans have become so familiar that they fail to pack the same punch as rants about the invasion from India. But it was apparent that the protesters’ hate could fasten onto anyone regarded as alien to a white supremacist vision of Australia. “Mass migration” is a usefully liquid term in that regard.

It was instructive to overhear some of the fascists referring to their anti-racist opponents as “the Palestinians” — using “Palestinian” as a generic term for the enemy, the unwanted. Likewise, the word “Indian” is being used in the same sense as the UK term “—aki”  (generally closely followed by the word “bashing”) to describe anyone of South Asian descent. Palestinians, Indians and, of course, First Nations peoples — all unwanted, all loathsome. 

I have covered a range of far-right events for Crikey over the past decade; the March for Australia rallies were the most terrifying. This was due to not only the large numbers of protesters involved or the physical violence unleashed, but also the fact that the alt-right is no longer pretending it’s just there for the lols and the shitposting.

The alt-right “tricksters” were still there, of course. But I was more disturbed by the number of middle-aged to elderly protesters, their faces glowing with ecstasy as they listened to neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell deliver his fascist speech. Tomorrow does not belong to these pensioners armed with their wheelie-walkers and mobility scooters, but they’re determined to ensure that it doesn’t belong to the “Indian” migrant next door, either.

As The Age reports, some Indian community leaders have called for the appointment of an envoy to address the surge in anti-Indian racism. But appointing envoys as the perceived need arises is a distraction from work that can be more effectively undertaken by the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

Should every migrant community argue their case for an envoy? This thought occurred to me as I witnessed some threatening behaviour towards a 30-something-year-old guy “of African appearance” who apparently just got caught in the crush while trying to get to Flinders St Station. He tried to push against the crowd, saying that he was just trying to get through, and a woman yelled that if he wasn’t with the protest, he shouldn’t be anywhere near here. Similar abuse from others. I hope he got out safely.

As for me, when I lie awake haunted by the spectre of the group of nannas giving an out-of-key rendition of “You’re the Voice” while wearing Australian flag capes and waving placards about mass migration, I seek solace in the thought of my preferred choice of anti-racism envoy. That would be another guy “of African appearance” that I spotted near the march, his hair wrapped in a durag, a tinned beverage raised towards the sky. As he stood on a bench surrounded by so-called patriots chanting about mass migration, he yelled, “You’re too late! We’re already here! We’re already here, and there’s more of us coming! And you’re going to love our music, and you’re going to love our food, and it’s going to be GREAT!”