Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Today is the fifth anniversary of the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001, and it means a lot of things to different people. There have been many other events in many parts of the world, before and since, where greater numbers of people have been killed. Terrorism existed prior to 11 September 2001 and will no doubt exist for quite some time into the future. However, that does not negate the fact that September 11 will stick out in many people’s minds in many parts of the world for a range of reasons. It is appropriate to mark and acknowledge the event. It is particularly appropriate to acknowledge the thousands of people killed and the ongoing mourning and suffering of their families and to acknowledge the Australians who were amongst those killed in that tragedy.

It is understandable that there is a lot of discussion, no doubt all around the world and certainly in the mainstream media, on the internet and in the general community, about what has happened, what has changed and what has not changed in the five years since September 11, particularly that overarching question of whether we feel that the world is a safer place and that our own country is a safer place. I think that is an ongoing and appropriate debate to have, but I do think we need to re-examine the approaches that we are taking with the current circumstances we face.

I was reminded of that tonight in watching some of the different retrospectives and examinations on television and a repeat of that some might call ‘famous’ and some might call ‘infamous’ statement by the United States President in addressing congress that you were either with him or with the terrorists. From my point of view, I am certainly not with the United States President in the approach that he has taken towards many of these issues over the last five years.

Of course it should go without saying, but unfortunately the way the debate goes it sometimes has to be said, that I am not with the terrorists. But I am very concerned that, in the midst of that false dilemma that is put forward in that question of either being with the US administration or with the terrorists, the two of them are going together down a very dangerous and destructive path for the world and certainly for our country.

We do need to continue to look for other paths. Some of the neoconservatives in the United States who have recognised in recent times the mistakes that have been made and the dangerous path that we are now going down also recognise that we need to take a different approach. One phrase that is used that I think does combine some of the different rhetorical approaches that people are taking, if people insist on suggesting that we are in a war on terror and we are waging a war on terror, is that we need to ‘demilitarise’ that war.

One of the very alarming aspects that I have found in recent years when discussing how best to make the world a safer place is that the whole notion of disarmament seems to have gone out the window. Quite how it makes the world a safer place to increase the number of weapons of mass destruction and to encourage and support other countries to further develop nuclear and other weaponry is beyond me. Surely we have learned enough of the continual shifting alliances amongst nation states to recognise that continually adding to the range of weaponry and the distribution of weaponry around the globe is just going to increase the prospects of more of it being used in more destructive ways down the track.

September 11 is also a date that is often referred to by many Australians as the time when they started feeling less safe and less welcome in their own country. I refer specifically to Muslim Australians. I have spoken with many Muslim Australians, particularly in my own state of Queensland, in the last couple of years. Many of them were born in this country or have lived in this country for decades. They felt welcome, involved and integrated, but within the last couple of years they have felt less secure, less welcome and less safe in their own country, Australia.

I do believe it is important that the rest of us recognise those feelings. It is not just a matter of taking a ‘them and us’ approach. That, in itself, actually forces people to take sides when what we need is to have all of us on the one side. We need to support Muslim Australians and to work with them, because in many ways they are much more in the firing line in between those two sides of that false dilemma that I referred to earlier. A lot of the focus of the extremist radical terrorist minority in other parts of the world is actually aimed at so-called moderate Muslims or so-called moderate or mainstream Islam. In many ways they are copping it from both sides and need to be supported rather than singled out and attacked.

It is quite possible that the Prime Minister and many others in the government genuinely think that they are being supportive, but I can assure them—and there are hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Australia, of course, and I do not in any way suggest that I have spoken to all of them—that a very large proportion of the Muslims I have spoken with and heard from certainly do not feel supported. They feel more isolated, singled out and victimised and less welcome and secure in their own country.

Not only is this unfair and unreasonable for those people who in many ways are in a more difficult position, as I have just mentioned, but it is against the interests of our entire country. It increases division across the board. If the rhetoric from community leaders and political leaders continues to insist on presenting a false divide between either supporting terrorists or supporting the rhetoric that actually insults you and insults your beliefs then you almost force people to make an impossible choice, and I think that is a very dangerous approach to take.

I do think it is an appropriate time to reflect on some of those difficult choices we face and the difficult times in front of us. But whilst there are challenges, I also think we do not want to overdramatise it to the extent of spooking ourselves out of just tasking a common-sense approach. Whilst there are always particular threats and challenges that we have to face and we always need to look at how those evolve and change, we also need to recognise that what has worked in the past from the point of view of democracy and the rule of law actually has a pretty good track record of success, and undermining that will reduce the prospects of success.

Using the platform of any system of government or of any system of leadership to actually single out, isolate and alienate a section of the community is always fraught with danger no matter which country you are in, so I do urge everyone to take the opportunity to rethink the nature of the rhetoric we use in Australia and to rethink our approach to make sure that we are more encompassing and more embracing of Muslim Australians rather than continuing to add to the divide that is quite genuinely growing in some parts of our community.