Monday 07 Mar 2016 - 10:55 Makkah mean time-27-5-1437
Australian PM Turnbull and the Richmond AFL footballer Bachar Houli at the Islamic Museum of Australia in Thornbury before his speech to the Islamic Council of Victoria. Image from AAP
Victoria, Australia (IINA) - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has praised the Muslim community as “respected and valued” in Australian society. He made the remarks while addressing the community leaders at the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) on Monday, The Guardian newspaper reported.
“I want to emphasize to each and every one of you that the Australian Muslim community is respected and valued,” he said. “And we do not consider or talk about or contemplate the Muslim community solely through the prism of security. You are an integral part of an Australian family that’s bound together by the shared values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.”
The Islamic Council of Victoria invited Turnbull to meet leaders shortly after November’s deadly Paris attacks. At the time, Turnbull reassured the public that Australia was a successful multicultural nation with top-class intelligence agencies.
After the Parramatta shootings, which occurred less than a month after he took the prime ministership, Turnbull spoke to Islamic community leaders of the necessity of mutual respect. He reiterated that in his address on Monday, which coincided with a visit to the Islamic Museum of Australia.
“The glue that holds us together, the bonding agent, is mutual respect,” the prime minister said. “It’s a two-way street. It means you respect others and they respect you. It means you seek to understand others and they understand you. It means that you and each and every one of us is enriched by the cultures and faiths of our neighbours.”
The relationship between the federal government and Australia’s Islamic community reached a record low after the assertion by the then Prime Minister Tony Abbott in February 2015 that Muslim leaders were not doing enough to stamp out terrorism.
“I’ve often heard Western leaders describe Islam as a ‘religion of peace’. I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often, and mean it,” Abbott said during a speech on national security.
Many community leaders were upset with the tenor of the debate on extremism and the former prime minister’s fondness for polemical “with us or against us” statements.
Turnbull’s strikingly different tone, including in his remarks on Monday, have been welcomed by the leaders of Muslim organizations.
“It went beyond our expectations,” said Nail Aykan, the general manager of the ICV. “Everyone felt he was humble and genuine.”
Aykan said Turnbull was introduced to 18 young Muslims slated as future leaders, which emphasized that about two-thirds of Australia’s 500,000 Muslims were under the age of 35.
Aykan said he hoped that some of the youth assembled would run for office. “Social cohesion is a core aspect of what we’re trying to achieve but one level above that would be civic participation,” he said.
One of the council’s vice-presidents, Junaid Cheema, said Turnbull’s message “resonated and was authentic”.
“He’s obviously fixing a lot of the damage that has been done in the past,” he said.
No Australian prime minister has visited the Islamic Council of Victoria since the 1980s.
From her side, the chief executive of the Arab Council of Australia, Randa Kattan, said the government’s tone on Muslim and Arab affairs had “drastically” changed since Turnbull took office in September.
“We have particularly witnessed the stark difference in tone and approach in countering violent extremism,” she said.
While, Silma Ihram, the head of the Australian Muslim Women’s Association said: “It’s too early to come to a conclusion.” “[Turnbull’s] ability to engage with the Muslim community is much better than his predecessor, as is his understanding of Islam.
“However, possibly because of the legacy of his party, we are yet to see substantial on-the-ground policy improvements.
Samier Dandan, the head of the Lebanese Muslim Association, said the experiences of earlier waves of Muslim migrants could be drawn on to help assimilate more recent arrivals, including the 12,000 Syrians set to be granted humanitarian visas.
SM/IINA
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