Looking West
Irfan Yusuf discussed with Waleed Aly his memoir, Once Were Radicals and the cultural confusion he felt growing up Muslim in Australia. The talk was informative and eye-opening. Irfan spoke of his frustration with questions such as “what is it like being a Muslim?” and compared it to asking “What is it like to be a Catholic?” He equates answering the question “what is your religion?” to ticking the Muslim box on a Sensus questionnaire – Muslims come from so many different countries and all have varying beliefs and degrees of faith. It’s so true. Although I say I am Orthodox, I don’t go to church regularly and most of the time I am confused about my faith.
Religion was always something that brought Irfan together with other youths he could relate to – and they could pronounce his name properly. Irfan spoke about the 80s and how Muslims back then were on the right side of the equation – Bush was sponsoring Binladen and Jihad was all about fighting the communists. Literature was circulated about Jihad and specialists in the field gave talks at mosques and at government functions. If someone said they wanted to do Jihad they were considered a hero by the West, but today they are considered “islamofascists”.
“Our whole identity was being defined by overseas conflict”, Irfan said when reflecting on the past. An interesting comment was made by the audience that governments use fear to control people and today Muslims are the scapegoats. I couldn’t agree more but I also think that media feed on this fear and make the problem worse than it has to be.
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MWF:Looking west (Muslims in Australia)
August 26, 2009 at 4:53 am (Creative commentary, Politics, Reviews) (Irfan Yusuf, Looking West, Once Were Radicals, Waleed Aly, writer's festival)
Looking West
Irfan Yusuf discussed with Waleed Aly his memoir, Once Were Radicals and the cultural confusion he felt growing up Muslim in Australia. The talk was informative and eye-opening. Irfan spoke of his frustration with questions such as “what is it like being a Muslim?” and compared it to asking “What is it like to be a Catholic?” He equates answering the question “what is your religion?” to ticking the Muslim box on a Sensus questionnaire – Muslims come from so many different countries and all have varying beliefs and degrees of faith. It’s so true. Although I say I am Orthodox, I don’t go to church regularly and most of the time I am confused about my faith.
Religion was always something that brought Irfan together with other youths he could relate to – and they could pronounce his name properly. Irfan spoke about the 80s and how Muslims back then were on the right side of the equation – Bush was sponsoring Binladen and Jihad was all about fighting the communists. Literature was circulated about Jihad and specialists in the field gave talks at mosques and at government functions. If someone said they wanted to do Jihad they were considered a hero by the West, but today they are considered “islamofascists”.
“Our whole identity was being defined by overseas conflict”, Irfan said when reflecting on the past. An interesting comment was made by the audience that governments use fear to control people and today Muslims are the scapegoats. I couldn’t agree more but I also think that media feed on this fear and make the problem worse than it has to be.
Like this: