Mark Dodd
The Australian
June 09, 2009
ISLAMIC scholars are urging a rethink on the fight against homegrown extremism as the Rudd government stands accused of failing to match its tough talk on counter-terrorism with action.
The Rudd government should urgently boost funding for high-quality Islamic studies courses, moderate Muslim community groups, and police liaison teams to counter home-grown extremism, a leading Australian Islamic expert says.
Dr Ameer Ali
Such measures offered the best hope of blunting the potential radicalisation of hundreds of Muslim students who come to Australia to study each year. They would have a hugely positive impact on Australian Muslims, said Ameer Ali, vice-president of the Regional Islamic Council of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Dr Ali's call follows a blunt warning by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that the government had failed to match its tough talk on countering local extremism with the resources needed to deliver a solution.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland warned in March that a terrorist attack in Australia had "as much prospect of emanating from disgruntled and alienated Australian youth as it does from an overseas terrorist organisation". Government concerns about extremism were again raised by the Attorney-General's
Department in the May budget portfolio statement to "develop and progress" moves to reduce the risk of resort to violent extremism.
Despite the warnings, no new funding was provided to the Attorney-General's Department for programs to counter local extremism, ASPI's research programs director Anthony Bergin says in a new report.
"At this stage it's not clear what direction the Australian government's counter-extremism policy will take," he says. "It's unclear, for example, what the Attorney-General's Department's new body of counter-extremism work will look like or when it will commence. It's disappointing that the Attorney-General's Department was given no new funding to advance their counter-extremism work in this year's budget."
Australia's growing Muslim population numbers more than 300,000.
ASIO said in its latest annual report it was "aware of a significant number of Australians" who hold or have held extremist views, Dr Bergin said.
"Some of these Australians have shown a willingness to put these views into action - some have travelled overseas to train with terrorist groups or engage in jihad activities."
Mr McClelland said the government was committed to countering home-grown extremism and had looked to Britain and Singapore for possible models.
"Deradicalisation and rehabilitation strategies will necessarily be considered as part of this work," Mr McClelland told The Australian.
The Australian Federal Police had also developed a national community engagement strategy to "establish, maintain and enhance" relationships with the (Muslim) community," he added.
Speaking from Perth yesterday, Dr Ali, a Murdoch University academic and former chair of the Howard government's Muslim Community Reference Group, said university courses offering a "critical analysis" of Islamic studies should be used to counter home-grown extremism and act as a moderating influence on foreign students.
"These students are coming from a particular mindset.
"If we don't train these students to think critically they'll just continue to believe what they believe," he said.
"And we have to target the funding to train the trainers, the teachers at Muslim schools."
I have heard of "man made disaster makers and facilitators" but whats all this talk of Muslim extremists " whats all this about? "God" himself, has just spent the past six months reminding us all that Islam and it's followers are a "great civilizing force" and have played a "large part in the making of the USA" and "Islam is one of the worlds great Religions"
"God" said, just last week of Islam "..... As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.
I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.” And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers – Thomas Jefferson – kept in his personal library.
So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear...."
So with all that "God " says Islam and its followers has going for them / it, the infidel nation of Australia, receives a demand by its Muslim colonialist and fifth column dissitents to PAY them to behave like civilized human beings .... or else ... or else what?
The very moderate and "non man made disaster maker" and by coincidence a self confessed Muslim, Dr.Ameer Ali was in the news in 2005
Backing resistance no crime: PM's man
SMH
By Tom Allard
October 1, 2005
Australians should be able to support the armed resistance against foreign forces in Iraq - including Australian soldiers - without being thrown in jail, a leading member of the Federal Government's Muslim advisory body said yesterday.
In remarks that set him on a collision course with the Federal Government's new anti-terrorism laws, the president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ameer Ali, said the laws went too far and it was time to "draw a line through them".
"If you speak in support of the resistance in Iraq, that must not be seen as promoting terrorism in this country," he told the Herald yesterday.
Dr Ali - a leading moderate who acted as spokesman for the group of Muslims picked by the Prime Minister, John Howard, for his Canberra summit - said he would discuss the issue with the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, next week.
"He's giving us a briefing and I will be making our views on this known to him," he said.
While it has long been a crime under sedition laws to finance or participate in military action against Australian troops, the new laws add another dimension.
As the laws were first proposed by Mr Howard on September 8, people face between three and seven years in prison if they "communicate inciting messages directed against other groups within our community, including against Australia's forces overseas and in support of Australia's enemies".
Mr Howard has said the laws will not stop people criticising the war or calling for the withdrawal of Australia's troops, but actually speaking in favour of the insurgency does appear to fall within the definition of the new offence.
Under the new laws, groups that "advocate terrorism" can be banned, and in-principle support for the Iraqi insurgency would possibly qualify for this.
The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has denounced the insurgents as terrorists, not least because they use techniques such as suicide and roadside bombings against civilians.
But hostility to the invasion of Iraq is widespread among Muslims, and some believe the insurgency is a legitimate response, arguing the US-led forces have also caused many thousands of civilian deaths.
A spokeswoman for Mr Ruddock said the incitement provisions would be drafted carefully and involve consultation with those with concerns about civil liberties.
