Muslim active citizenship in Australia: Socioeconomic challenges and the emergence of a Muslim elite (original) (raw)
Related papers
The most recent national Census demonstrated that Australian Muslims continue to occupy a socioeconomically disadvantaged position. On key indicators of unemployment rate, income, type of occupation and home ownership, Muslims consistently under-perform the national average. This pattern is evident in the last three Census data (2001, 2006 and 2011). Limited access to resources and a sense of marginalisation challenge full engagement with society and the natural growth of emotional affiliation with Australia. Muslim active citizenship is hampered by socioeconomic barriers. At the same time, an increasingly proactive class of educated Muslim elite has emerged to claim a voice for Muslims in Australia and promote citizenship rights and responsibilities.
Muslim Active Citizenship in Australia
The most recent national Census demonstrated that Australian Muslims continue to occupy a socioeconomically disadvantaged position. On key indicators of unemployment rate, income, type of occupation and home ownership, Muslims consistently under-perform the national average. This pattern is evident in the last three Census data (2001, 2006 and 2011). Limited access to resources and a sense of marginalisation challenge full engagement with society and the natural growth of emotional affiliation with Australia. Muslim active citizenship is hampered by socioeconomic barriers. At the same time, an increasingly proactive class of educated Muslim elite has emerged to claim a voice for Muslims in Australia and promote citizenship rights and responsibilities.
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2022
Despite a significant body of scholarship exploring the impact of securitisation and racism upon Australian Muslims, comparatively little work has been undertaken exploring the specific socio-economic challenges facing Muslim communities and resultant impacts upon citizenship. Even less research has looked at this in the context of the ‘9/11 generation’ of young Western Muslims born at or just prior to the turn of the century. Drawing upon Nancy Fraser’s social justice framework, this article argues that Muslim citizenship is not only affected by a persistent lack of recognition, but also by ongoing socio-economic disadvantage. Drawing on specially tabulated census data, this research article explores the socio-economic status and trajectories of Australian Muslims, paying particular attention to the situation of those born in Australia. It concludes with a call to pay more attention to the way in which the interplay between (often intergenerational) material marginalisation and persistent stigmatisation and misrecognition affects Australian Muslims’ civic and political activism.
Muslim Citizenship in Everyday Australian Civic Spaces
Questions about Muslims, multiculturalism and citizenship continue to shape the political discourse of many nations, including Australia, a nation often foregrounded as a beacon of multiculturalism in practice. The key assumption underlying these questions is that Islam constrains the full possibilities of citizenship in multicultural secular societies and that Muslims must be actively steered towards participation in civic life. By contrast, this article, based on research with 80 young Australian Muslims from migrant backgrounds reveals how Australian Muslims are enacting everyday citizenship through active, self-driven participation in multicultural civic spaces. This is a process overlooked by contemporary government approaches to the management of Muslim communities and alike. This article argues that is it access to these spaces of everyday interaction rather than an emphasis upon securitisation and civic literacy that fosters the development of citizenship and civic engagement central to the success of Australian multiculturalism. The article provides important considerations for those concerned with the future viability of multicultural policies.
Australian Muslim Citizens: Questions of Inclusion and Exclusion, 2006–2020
Australian Journal of Islamic , 2020
Muslims have a long history in Australia. In 2016, Muslims formed 2.6 per cent of the total Australian population. In this article, I discuss Australian Muslims’ citizenship in two time periods: 2006–2018 and 2020. In the first period, I examine Australian Muslims’ identity and sense of belonging, and whether their race or culture impact their Australian citizenship. I also discuss the political rhetoric concerning Australian Muslims. For the second period, 2020, I examine Australian Muslims’ placement as returned travellers during the COVID-19 pandemic. I conclude, from 2006 to 2018, Islamophobia was rampant in “othering” many Australian Muslims and, in 2020, the Australian government has adopted a policy of inclusion by repatriating its citizens (Muslims and non-Muslims), but with the COVID-19 crisis, a new dimension of discrimination has been added to ethnic minorities – in this case, Bangladeshi Australians who are mostly Muslims. They are now looked upon as the “other quarantined” or “detained Australian citizens.”
Religiosity, Citizenship and Belonging: The Everyday Experiences of Young Australian Muslims
Since 11 September 2001 Muslim Diasporas have emerged as objects of anxiety in Western societies. Underlying this (in)security-driven problematisation is the question of whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens while maintaining their religious beliefs, rituals and practices. This apprehension has prompted reactionary government programmes, particularly targeting young Muslims. Such responses fail to recognise the societal capacities that practising Muslims possess, including those informed by the ethical precepts of Islamic faith. This paper argues that it is timely to explore expressions of Islamic religiosity as they are grounded in everyday multicultural environments. The paper draws on survey data and interviews conducted with Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. We take into consideration key variables of age and generation to highlight how young, practising Muslims enact citizenship through Islamic rituals and faith-based practices and traditions. The paper will draw from key findings to argue that these performances provide a foundation for exploring ways of ‘living’ together in a manner that privileges ethics central to Islamic faith traditions.
Muslims in Australia: The Building of a Community
2002
mosque attendance and membership in Islamic organizations suggest that 400,000 may be a more redistic figure. But even 200,000 would make Islam the largest religion in Australia after Christianity though fewer in number than the nearly three million persons who daim no religious allegiance, over I6 percent of the population. Numbers alone, however, give little information about or insight into the human dimension of Muslim communities in Australia, the challenges they face, the pains and joys they experience. This needs to be seen in the context of the background and history of Muslim migration, the structure of Amtralia as a nation-state, and the distribution of Muslims within it, Australia comprises sixvast states and two territories. The population is largely urban, and loyalties are expressed in the rivalries between the capita cities of these states and territories: Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra (the Federal Capital), Darwin. Hobart, Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney. Each state has a large number of smaller towns, villages, and settlements in country areas. Sydney and Melbourne account for h o s t a third of the Australian population and are on the verge of becoming megacities with their own corporate pride and character. They are also composite entities consisting of subsets of identification and loyalty, ofien distinguished by the ethnicity, social dw, professions, employment patterns, and social status of their inhabitants. It is within the interstices of this structure that the Muslim 1.1 percent has its place; Although not large, the figure is significant when compared with census figures for 1947: for which no M u s l i m s were indicated, and only 0.5 percent of the population was listed as not belonging to a Christian denomination. (At that time, Aboriginals were not included in the census). It is not until I971 chat Muslim residents were recorded, when they constituted 0.2 percent of the population.The I996 figure of 1.1 percent reflea a Hteady and continuing growth curve. Equally important, the individuals the statistic represents are not evenly distributed,-and it is in &is respect that the breakdown of Australia into states and cities is significant. Half of Australia's Muslims are in Sydney, 32 percent in Melbourne, and only 4.3 percent live outside the major cities. Compared with the rest of the population, Muslims comprise 2.1 percent of the population of Sydney and 1.6 percent of that of Melbourne. Yet in some Sydney suburbs, Muslims are 5 percent of the population, and, in a few, up to I0 percent,' sufficient in number for a Muslim community to be visible and identifiable as such. In fact they have established a critical mass, a visibility, a demographic, social and industrial importance, and the capacity to make an individual and distinctive contribution to the shaping of Amtralia. This, however, does not take into account the number of MusIims in Australia holding strategic positions as professionals. For many of these Muslims, primary contacts are with their professional peers, their relationships with other Muslims perhaps marginal or even incidental to their ethnici ty or religious commitment. According to the I996 census, 72.16 I or 35.9 percent of the Australian Muslim community was born in the country, the largest single group. Of those born abroad. the biggest group is those born in Lebanon, 27, I25 (13.5 percent) followed by Turks at 22,270 (I I. I percent). In descending order of size are 6,939 from Indonesia, 6.65 I from Bosnia-He~zegovina, and 5,221 from Iran, followed by Muslims born in Fiji, Cyprus# Malaysia, Egypt, Macedonia, India, and Singapore, down to the United States, repsesentcd by 242!Thosc born in Australia largely remain in t h e ethnic col~l~nunities of their parents*
To be or not to be an Australian: Focus on Muslim youth
In 2001, 67% of Australians identified themselves as Christians and only 1.5% as Muslims, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Other Australians are Jews, Buddhists and Hindus – to name just a few of the religious minorities. Since 1975 until recently when the Anti-Discrimination Act was legislated, multiculturalism has been the official policy of the Federal Government. Yet in these terror-ridden times, the policy – however interpreted – has well and truly fallen into disfavour. This article discusses both the historical and contemporary dimensions of Muslim Australians’ national identity, focusing particularly on Muslim youth. It examines how one group of Australian-born Muslims exhibited their national identity during the Second World War and how the newly arrived Muslims feel about their identity during the ‘War on Terror’. The article is based on both primary and secondary sources – particularly on oral testimonies.