The ‘Young Muslim Man’ in Australian Public Discourse

Abstract

Through an analysis of two highly mediatised recent events in Australia this article seeks to interrogate the intersections of gender, ethnicity and culture in the construction of Australian national identity. A series of gang rapes in the early 2000s attracted widespread public outrage and the harshest ever condemnation of acts of sexual violence in Australian history. Linked to these events, in December 2005 a series of riots at the Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla led to further questioning of ethnic relations and the state of Australian multiculturalism within media and political discourses. While many of the responses to the gang rapes and the Cronulla riots have drawn on the language of 'women's rights', a closer look at the discourses suggests a different story. Responses to the gang rapes have often characterised the attacks as being against the Australian community, rather than against individual women. It is also interesting to contrast the outrage surrounding the gang rapes with the general silence regarding the increased racist violence committed against Muslim women in recent times. Furthermore, the linking of the gang rapes with a particular religious/ethnic community can be contrasted with the discourses on the alleged gang rapes involving Australian sporting teams, such as the Bulldogs and more recently the Wests Tigers. Finally the manner in which the events of Cronulla have been recast and linked back to the 'threat' posed by young Muslim/Lebanese/Middle Eastern men to Australian women suggests that ethnicity and gender both play an important and mutually reinforcing role in the construction of Australian national identity.

Grooming and the ‘Asian sex gang predator’: the construction of a racial crime threat

“…16 The rapes, as with current grooming cases, were implicitly constructed as an extrinsic attack on dominant white culture and nationhood itself. 17 Grooming concerns should be contextualised against deeper-seated concerns and frustrations around migration, the alleged failure of multicultural Britain, positive discrimination and growing Islamophobia in the wake of the 9/11 and 7/7 bombings. Against this backdrop, it is perhaps unsurprising that confident assertions from a reputable mainstream media outlet of an Asian (Muslim) crime threat sufficed to open the floodgates for a national scandal.…”

Religion on the Fringe: the representation of space and minority religious facilities in the rural–urban fringe of metropolitan Sydney, Australia

“…Another letter from a resident who identified herself as a 20-something female stated: I enjoy going out locally without the violent and forward behavour [sic] that comes from muslim males, the majority of muslim men I know do not agree at all with our Australian culture and I believe this can only cause trouble in our humble and quiet community. (Letter of submission to Camden Council 2007) These letters from police and the community expressed fear of ethnic youth gangs and hyper-sexualised Muslim men, and participated in larger political and media discourses on 'ethnic gangs' and 'gang rapes' that linked particular acts to entire communities and indeed religions (Al-Natour 2010; Collins et al 2000;Grewal 2007). In response to concerns such as these, Camden's planners stated:…”

Reclaiming the Voice of the ‘Third World Woman’

“…This accusatory implication of 'left-wing western intelligentsia' in the oppression of Muslim women is an increasingly frequent rhetorical device. In Australia throughout the early 2000s, various reported instances of 'young Muslim men behaving badly' provided an opportunity for numerous right-wing political and media commentators to criticize a 'multiculturalism gone mad' created by an academy and a judiciary disconnected with reality (Grewal 2007a). Moreover, not all the accusations were completely baseless.…”

“…In fact Gorashi identifies the dogmatic secular emancipation discourse of Hirsi Ali as one also found among many Iranian feminist dissidents living in exile. Moreover, while Gorashi explains how 6 A series of violent encounters between young men of 'Anglo-Celtic' and 'Muslim' backgrounds at the southern beach of Sydney in December 2007: for more details, see Lattas, Andrew (2007), Lattas, Judy (2007), Grewal (2007a), Ho (2007) and Poynting (2006).…”