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Riots must not be allowed to hurt our image

16dec05

THREE weeks ago I was travelling from Islamabad to Hong Kong on Pakistan International Airlines after covering John Howard's terror, trade, aid and cricket tour of Pakistan and Afghanistan. A mature Pakistani businessman travelling beside me startled me with two comments.

The first surprise was that he wanted to know whether I had seen the truth about the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington, DC. The truth, he said, was that the planes that crashed into the World Trade Centre towers were specially equipped with explosives by the US Government and that there hadn't been a plane involved in the Pentagon explosion at all.

The second surprise was his assertion that there were race riots in Australia directed against Muslims.

His first statement was part of a conspiracy theory popular throughout the Muslim world, fed by dodgy websites, which denies any Muslim involvement in the attacks and disdains all evidence to the contrary, including Osama bin Laden's public statements. The breadth of those beliefs and the conviction with which they are held are almost insurmountable problems for the US in its attempts to win hearts and minds as part of the war on terror.

Another part of the ostensible truth is that because the Americans didn't want to seriously damage the Pentagon, the attack was staged using a small amount of explosives and there was no plane.

My fellow passenger cited a website that showed there were no aeroplane wings or tail at the Pentagon after the attack. He was puzzled when I pointed out I was in Washington on September 11 and with my own eyes had seen the Pentagon and the plane responsible for the damage. A polite but fanatical believer in the conspiracy theory, the businessman did not wish to call me a liar but was clearly disconcerted by an outright, witnessed challenge to the truth.

Still, the suggestion that there were anti-Muslim riots in Australia surprised and intrigued me. Australia, through Howard's visit and aid for the earthquake victims, had received a favourable reception in Pakistan, politically as well as in the press.

Howard's inept display of bowling to kids playing cricket in a mountainous region still struggling in the aftermath of the October disaster received wide coverage. His cricket diplomacy (it was a ball wrapped in sticky duct tape that caused the bowling loss of form, I'm reliably informed) worked a treat, as did the presence of an Australian military medical team.

The businessman's view of Australia was one of a relaxed nation, multiracial and generally so laid-back that race or religion wasn't really an issue. We were not seen as being closely allied to Israel and even our commitment to Iraq was considered a result of doing what we had to do because of the overwhelming power of the US. We liked cricket and spoke English and the Bali bombings were not directed against us by Muslims because they were actually the work of Jewish and US provocateurs, in the businessman's version of the truth.

Therefore the proposition that Australia was anti-Muslim was intriguing. After some gentle cross-examination, it became apparent that my fellow traveller was referring to the attack on reporters and television camera crews in Melbourne after alleged terrorists appeared in court.

From the Australian perspective there was no doubt the aggressors had been the Muslim friends of the accused who resented the media coverage and were filmed punching and kicking reporters and cameramen as well as throwing chairs and tables. From my friend's perspective it was an anti-Muslim demonstration.

How, then, would he view the events of the past week in Sydney's beachside suburbs and Muslim areas around the Lakemba mosque? Images of chanting mobs of Aussie yobs flashing Nazi-style salutes and wearing sacrilegious T-shirts, retaliation by armed thugs and incendiary attacks on churches make it hard to deny these were race riots between Christians and Muslims.

Of course, a website outlandish enough to accuse President George W. Bush of ordering the September 11 attacks wouldn't have any trouble luridly depicting the riots as another attack on Muslims.

The point is, how we react to these odious and criminal outbreaks of violence, laced with racism, can have a profound influence on how we are perceived overseas, particularly in our region's Muslim countries.

Howard's trip to Kuala Lumpur for our admission to the East Asia Summit is a case in point.

Knowing he was flying to Malaysia, where in the past Australia was lambasted for racism (including the rise of Pauline Hanson), Howard moved quickly to head off the impression that all Australians were racist.

There is a tendency among insecure Australians to be too sensitive to allegations of racism and to exaggerate the effect overseas of what happens here; there is also a tendency to declare ourselves international pariahs at the drop of a hat and to indulge in self-flagellation without perspective. What we say about ourselves is easily reflected and magnified by our critics and so can become a self-fulfilling condemnation.

Before Howard left, he said the Australian community was sickened by mob violence and that "attacking people on the basis of their race, their appearance, their ethnicity, is totally unacceptable and should be repudiated by all Australians, irrespective of their own background and irrespective of their politics".

He then moved into damage control, declaring: "I think it is important that we do not rush to judgment about these events. I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country. I think it would be an enormous mistake if we began to wallow in generalised self-criticism because the overwhelming majority of Australians have the proper instincts and decent attitudes and decent values."

Howard was well received in Kuala Lumpur; Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi was gracious and correct. There was no formal allusion to the Sydney riots and little informal interest. And why should there be, given the difficulties in the back yards of other countries represented at the talks? Some months ago there were violent attacks on Japanese in China and threats to cut off diplomatic relations. Were Junichiro Koizumi and Wen Jiabao, the prime ministers of Japan and China, quizzed and embarrassed? Nope.

Australia has to confront racism, as an editorial in the New Straits Times said yesterday; but, as it also points out, no one should jump to conclusions about the beachside violence and Australia's generous response following last year's Boxing Day tsunami is evidence of goodwill towards Asia.

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