An ever increasing anti-Islamic sentiment is raising its head in Australian society. This issue has revealed a contradiction to the tolerant and multi-cultural society in which we claim to live. This progressively more alarming issue may be blamed on the dominant Christian following in Australia, however this is simply one side of the problem. The Christian bias certainly plays a part in this issue but culpability may be placed in the lap of the media and their representation of Muslims and western antipathy towards Islam as a whole.
Continually appearing in Australian headlines are words such as extremist and fundamentalist in regards to the tradition of Islam and as a result whenever one hears mention of Islam immediately images of terrorist organisations and suicide bombers come to mind. This portrayal of Islam as a whole as extreme, encouraged by the media, then affects the way Muslims are perceived and treated in our society. An example of this can be seen in a recent case where a senior Australian Muslim, Sheik Taj El Din Al Hilaly, faced charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer:.
Sheik Taj El Din Al Hilaly accused police of overreacting during the incident in Sydney, when the cleric was stopped during a traffic check and found to be driving an unregistered and uninsured car. New South Wales police said the cleric was initially stopped because a piece of metal was protruding from one of the windows, though Mr Hilaly said it was a piece of soft plastic. .
The arrest came at a time of raised tensions among Australia's Muslim community, which had been targeted by security officials since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, and last October's Bali bombings. .
Following the Bali bomb, in which 88 Australians were among nearly 200 people killed, the Australian Government put the country on terrorism alert and launched a series of police raids on the homes of Muslims suspected of having terrorist connections.