Malcolm Fraser says discrimination against Muslims rising in Australia

Malcolm Fraser has let fly at Howard's brave new social paradigm fueled by the politics of exclusion and fear. The International Herald Tribune reports that Fraser, in a lecture at the Australian National University Fraser, "said Australia's reputation as a successful multicultural society was threatened by its treatment of Muslims — a minority of 400,000 among 21 million.

"Today, for a variety of reasons, but not least because the government has sought to set Muslims aside, discrimination and defamation against Muslims has been rising dramatically," the 76-year-old former center-right leader said in a lecture on contemporary Australia at the Australian National University.

The federal discrimination watchdog, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, interviewed more than 1,400 Arab and Muslim Australians in 2003 and found that 93 percent believed there had been an increase in racism, abuse and violence against their groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States.

The commission heard that women wearing hijabs feared being spat on as they walked their children to school and others suspected they had been refused jobs because they had Muslim names.

Fraser appeared to criticize Howard, once a senior minister in Fraser's government, over his claims that Muslim immigrants are falling to assimilate into Australian society and were not doing enough to condemn extremists.

"Too many in positions of influence have used language that creates a divide between the rest of the community and Islam," Fraser said of Australian politics.

Howard usually adopts a policy of not responding to Fraser's criticisms, which have become more prevalent in recent years.

Fraser is a critic of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which was supported by British and Australian troops, and of Washington's failure to engage in diplomacy with Iran and Syria to resolve the ongoing conflict in Iraq.

"The West's attitude to Islam is now capable of being depicted as so antagonistic, so destructive and hypocritical that it is possible to raise recruits from countries such as the United Kingdom," Fraser said, referring to suicide bomber jihadists.

Fraser accused Howard's 11-year-old government of "playing on the politics of fear."

There is a risk that "our government will build within individual Australians a fear and concern of Islam that will take decades to eradicate," Fraser said."

This blog has been banging on about this issue from its inception. I did not imagine I would ever be a fellow traveler with Fraser on any issue, but his assault on Howard's dishonest and morally bankrupt fear mongering is laudable. Australians all need to combine to rid ourselves of this canker on the body politic.