The City of Casey council in south-east Melbourne has capitulated to a campaign by racist anti-Islam activists and rejected an application to build a mosque and Islamic community hub in Narre Warren North.
The council received 1,003 objections to the development, most of which argued that the mosque threatened the “character” of the area. The motion was carried unanimously.
The decision is not all that surprising considering that mayor Sam Aziz has made no secret of his Islamophobic views in the past. And councillor Rosalie Crestani is deputy president of right wing Christian fundamentalist party Rise Up Australia, which has fascist links.
She held up a sign during the meeting saying, “Narre Warren North residents said to me: radicalisation and terrorism risks of Islamic mosques should be considered in decision making”.
Mayor Aziz spoke to his motion. He seemed on a mission to insult repeatedly the mosque applicants. Aziz praised racist locals for “respectfully” submitting their “legitimate objections”; he thanked them for their “genuine concerns”.
To add insult to injury, Aziz angrily chastised the Muslim community for daring to speak to the media and voice their dissent. He then had the audacity to claim that Australia is an open and equal country that does not discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity!
The mosque is needed to cater for the region’s rapidly growing population of 120 different nationalities, including Urdu-speaking Muslims from India and Pakistan. The few local mosques in surrounding suburbs are overflowing at the busiest prayer times and on special holy days. Furthermore, most services are conducted in languages other than English and none in Urdu.
Narre Warren North, with average household incomes 33 percent higher than densely populated, multi-ethnic neighbouring suburbs, is home to only 6,200 residents, representing 2.5 percent of the Casey population. The council is pandering to relatively well-off white bigots who are determined to keep Muslims out. As one local Muslim woman said: “By excluding our facilities from these areas, they’re pushing us into ghettos”.
Objectors have gained a hearing from some people who would not consider themselves racist with the claim that the development is not suitable for “that site”, a green wedge. But green wedges have been set aside for non-residential development.
A permit can be sought for no less than 40 uses including schools, places of worship, sport and recreation facilities and rural industry. The mosque applicants bought the land in good faith. What are they supposed to do with the land now? No doubt council will be happy to pocket the rates.
Local Muslim Jamil feels that “Muslims have been cowed and intimidated for too long now”. Mosque supporters left the meeting chanting in unison: “The mosque is welcome, racists are not!” and “We’ll be back!” Outside, Muslims and other anti-racist activists joined to chant “Build the mosque!”
Despite the loss of this round, the mood was defiant. Spirits were buoyed because, by attending the meeting in a unified and organised fashion, we took a public stand and put councillors on notice. One local Muslim woman, Inaz, said: “The amount of people who turned up to stand up against division in Casey was extremely heartening; the place felt electric!”
Saarban Islamic Trust plans to resubmit, confident of growing local support.

Lorraine Pratley

Muslims and anti-racists protest as council votes to reject Narre Warren mosque

A new battle over freedom of worship is brewing in Melbourne’s south-east. A planning application submitted by a local Muslim community for a permit to build a mosque and, later, a school has met organised racist opposition.
The proposed site is in Narre Warren North, a semi-rural suburb at the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges. Adjacent to rapidly growing outer suburbs, Narre Warren North is part of the city of Casey, one of the fastest growing municipal councils in Victoria.
The project, Melbourne Masjid, will provide a cultural and social community hub with plans to include sporting facilities, space for community functions, a library and a leisure centre for seniors. Zain Shah, president of the Saarban Islamic Trust, the group applying for the permit, is dismayed at the opposition to the mosque.
“We really didn’t expect such a reaction”, he told Red Flag. The mosque is needed for Urdu-speaking Muslims primarily from Indian and Pakistani backgrounds, for whom there is no mosque with services conducted in their language. “Current mosques cannot cater for Casey’s 13,900 Muslims”, said Zain. “Many have to use community rooms and private houses.”
It’s little wonder that the far right is getting a hearing when its hate speech is barely distinguishable from that found in the mainstream media.
Local racist opposition was quickly identified, fanned and organised by far right racists such as the Christian fundamentalist Rise Up Australia Party, as well as the United Patriots Front, which is the fascist core of Australia’s far right movement. A meeting in a community hall was attended by at least 600 people on 14 March, many of whom were from outside the area, including from Bendigo, where racists have waged a concerted campaign against a mosque over the past year.
A Facebook hate-page has attracted nearly 10,000 likes. The page explicitly calls for local residents to submit formal objections to council. It is replete with a full list of potential objection grounds and an access link to the objection form. The council has received 780 so far. These objections have been overwhelmingly generated by the racist hate campaign.
One Facebook post is a vile rendition of the Old MacDonald nursery rhyme, featuring terrorists, burqas, female genital mutilation and Muslims here, there and everywhere. As for post comments, everyone is a lay expert on Islam, convinced that mosques are Trojan horses for various dastardly forms of social, cultural and political subterfuge; places where children are taught to hate all non-Muslims; vehicles of “jihad by stealth”.
Old articles about mosque applications are posted to give the sense that mosques are going up “everywhere”. The truth is that there is a significant shortage of mosques in Australia. Kevin Dunn, professor of human geography and human studies at the University of Western Sydney, has calculated that in Sydney there is a church for every 1,600 Christians, yet only one mosque for every 4,500 Muslims.
The racists also prey on insecurities in adjacent suburbs that have higher unemployment and lower incomes than Narre Warren North. They claim that more Muslims mean falling house values, a timeless appeal to struggling mortgage holders. Aside from the inherent racism in this argument, the proposed mosque site is in a green wedge zone, specifically set aside for non-residential infrastructure such as schools and places of worship.
It’s little wonder that the far right is getting a hearing when its hate speech is barely distinguishable from that found in the mainstream media. On 5 April, channel Nine’s A Current Affair aired a segment titled “Mega mosque”, set to sinister music, in which the inevitable “terrorism breeding ground” connection was made.
Reporters used terms like “huge”, “giant” and “super-sized” eight times in a six-minute segment. Narre Warren North was described as a “quiet Aussie suburb”, code for “white”. This is despite the fact that 120 different nationalities are represented in the municipality. An owner of an adjoining property claimed the mosque will be “frightening to the people of the area”. There being no such thing as a phobia of “looking at buildings”; we know that the correct term is Islamophobia.
This case is part of a worrying trend. The Newcastle Muslim Association is currently jumping through hoops to get a mosque application through council, now “softening” its design by removing the minaret and domes from plans and including more trees, essentially to hide the mosque. Imagine if this were a requirement to build a church! It is a racist disgrace.
Local anti-racists and activists from Campaign Against Racism and Fascism recently met with mosque applicants to launch a campaign to defend this Muslim community’s right to build a place of worship. Stephanie Saunders, president of local group Casey Multi-Faith Network, attended.
“I’m here to work towards peace in our community”, she said. “I believe racism is a dangerous weapon used against a lot of groups of people.” We’re gearing up for a fight!

Anti-racists fight to defend Narre Warren mosque

Successive federal governments have a shameful record of putting Australia’s first peoples last. The Abbott government’s proposed changes to child care funding are no exception. Its Child Care Assistance Package will drastically limit Indigenous kids’ access to early childhood education.
Confirmed by every imaginable study and statistic, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids begin life at a profound disadvantage. Due to inadequate existing funding, there is already a shortage of 15,000 child care and early childhood education places available to Aboriginal children.
The proposed changes will introduce a job “activity test” for parents accessing childcare rebates. The plan is to slash access to subsidies from 24 hours per week to 12 hours for those not meeting workforce participation requirements. Further prescriptive requirements and administrative barriers will force out the most vulnerable families.
The government’s own Closing the Gap report confirms that targets for access to early childhood education were “not met” in the last year. 
Sharron Williams, chairperson of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, says: “We want to send a clear message to minister Morrison that excluding vulnerable families from child care won’t get them into work – it will put them under more strain and make it harder for them to address the barriers to finding and keeping jobs”.
As much as our rulers like to blame Aboriginal people for their own disadvantage, research shows that Indigenous children who have attended early learning programs are more socially and developmentally ready for school and more likely to achieve positive educational outcomes. These “reforms” are a money grab which neatly demonise the unemployed while stripping funds from basic services.

Muslims and anti-racists protest as council votes to reject Narre Warren mosque

Anti-racists fight to defend Narre Warren mosque

Government intent on deepening disadvantage for Indigenous kids

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