Team Australia and the new tide of anti-Muslim racism

Last month prime minister Tony Abbott announced new laws as part of a $630 million government package to “fight terrorism”. Abbott’s terror laws are a massive and outrageous attack on the civil liberties of all Australians.

However, heightened rhetoric about terrorist threats from supposedly growing numbers of “home-grown extremists”, and demands from Abbott that “when it comes to counter-terrorism, everyone needs to be on team Australia”, reveal the real agenda behind these attacks.

“Team Australia” is really just a new example of one of the oldest tricks in the government’s playbook – divide and rule. The only way to get onto the team is to show unequivocal support for attacks on civil rights, and if you happen to be a Muslim Australian, to denounce all the supposed extremists in your ranks.

In an obvious attempt to vilify Muslims, Abbott exhorts: “Everyone has got to put this country, its interests, its values and its people first. You don’t migrate to this country unless you want to join our team.”

The government is embattled and unpopular over its disgraceful budget attacks on health, education and pensions, so it’s prime time to cast around for a scapegoat. The demonisation of Muslims – and the whipping up of nationalism and racism on the basis that all people who don’t subscribe to Abbott’s reactionary agenda are extremists – creates a convenient distraction from the real extremism: the Liberals’ attacks on workers and the poor.

With the media as ever a willing accomplice of government-sponsored racism, newspaper headlines in recent weeks have decried the threat of Australian “jihadists”. After treasurer Joe Hockey’s proclamation of an “end to the age of entitlement”, the only thing more threatening than the dole bludger is of course the “jihadist dole bludger”. With sympathies running high for the victims of Abbott’s welfare cuts, finding targets to legitimise suspension of welfare payments is eminently useful.

According to the Murdoch press on 14 August, the government has already cancelled welfare payments for at least 12 Australians who have travelled to Iraq and Syria. They quoted the dubious advice of professor Greg Barton, international director of the Global Terrorism Research Centre, who urged a firm stand on this front. He said research indicates that “extremists use welfare as a way of taking advantage of governments”.

Barton need not have bothered: Abbott had already pledged to clamp down on what he calls “terrorist tourism on the taxpayer”. This racist hysteria is so transparent that it would be laughable if it were not sure to result in an increase in attacks on Muslims and a rising tide of Islamophobia.

This was precisely the outcome of the racist demonisation and fear mongering towards Muslims created by the government in the aftermath of 9/11. A study carried out for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found that 89.7 percent of Australian Muslim respondents experienced “a lot more’” racist harassment and violence in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the USA.

Along with increased violent attacks, policing and the feeling of being watched came constant pressure on Muslims to prove that they were not the “angry extremist” caricatures of the government and the media. One study that collated anecdotal experiences of racism quoted a Muslim man who spoke of always feeling “too much pressure … to be consistently proving yourself. That you are not what the other person is thinking. That you are a good person.”

One of the most disgusting features of this new attack is the call from Abbott for “moderates” in the community to root out extremists. The height of racist denigration is attempting to force an oppressed group to enforce its own systematic oppression.

In this respect it is encouraging that some Islamic councils have boycotted meetings with government about the anti-terror laws and have publicly denounced Abbott’s attempts to scapegoat and vilify Muslims.

The Islamic Council of Victoria recently put out a media release stating that it “in no way support[s] the expansion of the Anti-Terror legislation” and that it refuses to tolerate the government’s “insults and cheap rhetoric”.

In the climate of fear-mongering, scapegoating and virulent racism Abbott is creating, all workers should know where to stand. And it’s definitely not with team Australia.