How Australia confronts militant Islam

A nation's blunt refusal to back down to terror

Australians are sometimes accused of being direct, even blunt. But this way of going about things seems to have worked well enough when dealing with the threat of radical Islamism Down Under. Its approach is worthy of close examination — not least in Britain. And what has been accomplished so far, though controversial, has been done with a high degree of bipartisan co-operation.

Like other predominantly Anglo-Celtic nations, Australia is a tolerant and accepting society — in spite of what some members of the domestic left intelligentsia and the civil liberties lobby proclaim. While not without racial tensions, Australia has a relatively low level of ethnically motivated crime and a relatively high level of inter-marriage between the numerous ethnic groups. The country has not fought a war of independence or a civil war and has not been in imminent danger of invasion — even though Japan briefly considered doing so in 1942. Al-Qaeda’s act of war against the United States on September 11, 2001, was the first major attack to take place on American soil. Similarly, Jamaah Islamiyah’s bombs, which exploded at the Bali tourist resort in Indonesia on October 12, 2002, brought civilian Australians into the front line. Some 20 Australians were murdered on 9/11. The Australian death toll at Bali was 88 — a horrendous toll for a population that is about a third that of Britain.

Australia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, happened to be in Washington on 9/11. Australia immediately committed special forces to the war against the Taleban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, which was under way when Mr Howard’s Liberal-National Party conservative coalition defeated Labor, led by Kim Beazley, at the election in November 2001. Labor supported Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan but opposed Mr Howard’s decision to commit Australia to the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq (in support of the US and Britain) in 2003.

Despite their differences on Iraq, the major parties have been more or less united on the need for a tough-minded approach to national security. Mr Beazley generally supported Mr Howard's anti-terrorism legislation and his position has been followed by Kevin Rudd, who took over as Opposition leader last December.

While the political conservatives dominate Australian national politics at the moment, the social democrats are in office in the six states and two territories that comprise the federation. By and large, the Labor Premiers, who control the police forces, have backed Mr Howard on national security. This amounts to strong bipartisan support — since about 80 per cent of Australians vote for either the conservatives or social democrats.

Since 9/11 — and particularly since the Bali bombing — the debate on national security in Australia has been frank. Australia is an immigrant nation and Muslims have been part of the immigrant experience for more than a century. Muslims from Afghanistan, Turkey and South-East Asia, among other places, have settled in well and made a significant contribution to Australian society. Yet, as in other Western democracies, there is a radical Islamist presence in Australia that has been growing in recent years and that owes its allegiance to Wahhabism and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The composition of the Australian Muslim population is significantly different from that of Britain. Radical Muslims — or their parents or grandparents — have come mostly from Lebanon or North Africa, with some from the sub-continent. In addition there are a few home-grown converts to the cause — the best known of whom are David Hicks, who is held at Guantanamo Bay, and Jack Thomas.

The evidence indicates that all radical Islamists in Australia were either born there or entered the country on valid visas. Asylum seekers, who arrived unlawfully, have not comprised a potential threat to national security.

It so happens that the approach advocated for Britain by Martin Bright in his important Policy Exchange pamphlet When Progressives Treat With Reactionaries is consistent with what has occurred Down Under over the past five years. Put briefly, the Australian system takes Islamist ideology seriously. It does not deal with radical Islamists. It confronts extremists’ views, rather than seeking to co-opt “pragmatic” radicals who happen not to be in favour of the use of violence in the here and now for purely tactical reasons. After the bombings of 7/7 in London, Tony Blair declared correctly that “the rules of the game had changed”. In Australia the rules changed dramatically some time earlier. A few recent examples illustrate the point.

After the shock of 7/7 Mr Howard established a Muslim Community Reference Group and said that no radicals would be invited to join. When Sheikh Taj Aldin al-Hilali (the Mufti of Australia) ventured into Holocaust denial, Andrew Robb (the Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism) let it be known that he would not be reappointed to the group. Last February Peter Costello (Mr Howard’s deputy) publicly declared that, if the radical Muslim cleric Abdul Nasser Ben Brika really wanted to live under Sharia law, he might choose voluntary deportation to Iran. The next month the Prime Minister told Reuters TV that Australia could not ignore “that there is a small section of the Islamic population which identifies with some of the more extremist views associated with support of terrorism”. In New South Wales the former Labor Premier, Bob Carr, and his successor, Morris Iemma, have made similar candid statements where necessary.

There remains a significant terror threat in Australia — with some convictions for terrorist-related offences and a number of Muslim men in Sydney and Melbourne awaiting trial on serious charges. However, the tough line on security seems to have worked well and there have been no terrorist attacks.

The Howard Government has let it be known that radical Islamism is also a threat to the overwhelming majority of the Muslim community and reminded its leaders of their responsibilities to resolve potential problems in their own self-interest. This approach has strengthened the position of moderate Muslims.

Meanwhile, the conservatives, with the support of social democrats, have advanced the cause of citizenship tests as a means of emphasising that all who choose to live in Australia are expected to sign-on to our democratic values. Moreover, imams have been advised to preach in English. There is little backing in Australia for the extremist right-wing view that Muslim immigration should be banned. But there is bipartisan support for tackling the real threat posed by radical Islamism in a direct, even blunt, manner.

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NORFOLK POLICE LET OFF VANDALS BECAUSE THEY'RE FOREIGN

A local cop foolishly told the truth. He was later reprimanded for it

Two criminals caught on CCTV vandalising cars were not prosecuted because police said they were unemployed foreigners and to bring them to justice would cost too much. One victim received a letter from Norfolk police saying the pair would not be prosecuted because they were both foreign nationals with no jobs and no income and the case was `not in the public interest to pursue due to the expenses incurred in having a trial'. The disclosure was greeted as a further example of police forces' excessive pandering to criminals.

This weekend Derbyshire police were criticised for refusing to release pictures of two escaped murderers because to do so might have infringed their human rights. The latest case involved the vandalism of at least five cars in Norwich. Two men, aged 19 and 29, were arrested on suspicion of damaging cars but a Norfolk police spokeswoman said that after `careful consideration of all the evidence' it was decided to deal with the offenders by way of a police caution.

Barry Ferguson, 29, one of the victims of the vandals, who are in the country legally, said he was dismayed by the decision. `Even though these people were caught in the act they are getting away with wanton vandalism,' he said. `I can't believe the police have spent all this money on CCTV and then have not bothered to charge them. `There would be outrage if a British person got away with this but it is being justified in this instance because these people are foreign with no income. What is the point of having CCTV if these crimes are ignored?'

The police spokeswoman said: `Any decision is tested against the attorney-general's guidelines. It has absolutely nothing to do with their ethnicity or level of income. `This caution, whilst not a conviction, is added to their police record and can be cited in court should they reoffend. The victims, if they wish to do so, can pursue compensation through the civil courts.'

Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said: `It is only right and proper that anyone who carries out any type of crime should face the courts. Being jobless, foreign or anything else is no excuse for letting people off. `The long and the short of it is that we are making excuses for not dealing with those who commit crime.'

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MORE CLERICS PREACHING HOLY WAR IN UK MOSQUES

Britain's Channel Four is to air a documentary today that shows clerics at a number of leading British mosques exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and to follow Islamic law over UK law, The Observer reports.

The documentary, Undercover Mosques, Dispatches, contains video footage secretly filmed in British mosques over a period of 12 months. At the Sparkbrook mosque, run by the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), an organisation that maintains 45 mosques in Britain, a preacher is captured on film praising the Taliban. In response to the news that a British Muslim solider was killed fighting the Taliban, the speaker declares: `The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.' Another speaker says Muslims cannot accept the rule of non-Muslims. `You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir,' Dr Ijaz Mian tells a meeting held within the mosque. `We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others.'

When contacted by The Observer, UKIM said: `We are a nationwide organisation and hold different programmes in our mosques. We are very concerned about this. We have instructed all our branches not to allow any more speakers with radical or fundamentalist views.'

Elsewhere the documentary records the huge popularity of DVDs and Internet broadcasts produced by extremist preachers. At the Islamic bookstore at Regent's Park Mosque in central London, DVDs of a preacher called Sheikh Yasin are sold. In one DVD, Yasin accuses missionaries from the World Health Organisation and Christian groups of putting the AIDS virus in the medicine of African people.

Inside the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, a preacher is recorded saying: `Allah has created the woman deficient.' A satellite broadcast from the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, beamed into the Green Lane mosque suggests that Muslim children should be hit if they don't pray: `When he is seven, tell him to go and pray, and start hitting them when they are 10.'

Another preacher is heard saying that if a girl `doesn't wear hijab, we hit her'. Another preacher says: `The time is fast approaching where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength and, when that happens, people won't get killed - unjustly.'

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