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This article explores the concept of conviviality: the practice and negotiation of sharing space in suburbs with diverse populations. Australia has a growing Muslim population and reports of Islamophobia remain widespread. While there is some evidence, however, that forming intercultural connections can foster more positive attitudes toward religious minority groups, we know little about how Muslim and non‐Muslim communities share space in Australia. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative investigation into how conviviality is perceived in Australian suburbs with high concentrations of Muslim residents. Following qualitative, thematic analysis of 15 interviews with multicultural service providers who work with Muslims in Melbourne, Victoria, we conclude that conviviality is fostered by a sense of community between people who share similar backgrounds as well as increased opportunities to form intercultural social connections. We discuss the scholarly and policy implications of these findings, with consideration of existing arguments about the practices of sharing space in Australian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, the COVID-19 pandemic rendered visible and exacerbated socio-economic inequalities and divides. Migrant and religious minority communities in Australia faced particular challenges during the pandemic when government responses were not made culturally accessible, appropriate or relatable. This paper examines the role played by community-specific communication infrastructures in addressing government deficiencies to meet the needs of Muslim communities. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Muslims in an area hit hard by the pandemic – Western Sydney – we consider the role communication infrastructures played in combatting misinformation, providing up-to-date information and creating spaces for locally and culturally informed responses to be developed. We propose that community-specific communication infrastructures were critical to Muslims seeking to address gaps, needs and inequalities during the pandemic and they were effective because they were designed with an understanding of Muslim communities' social and cultural norms, practices, experiences and needs. The research offers insights relevant to migrant and religious communities, not-for-profits, and government agencies seeking to develop effective strategies to respond to challenges and crises as they emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newly established religious minorities in Western European countries and Australia have sparked fresh questions about the public place of religion. The current situation in the region reflects a certain agonism over the place of public religion and its relation to liberal secular order. This has especially been the case for the region's Muslims in a context marked by fears of radicalisation and extremism. This contribution considers these responses in relation to Belgium, France, Germany, and the UK; and Australia. The contribution explores the norm of freedom of religion that forms the region's core similarity but also the ground on which divergences in norms of state-religion connections can be found. It identifies key norms that operate in the region in order to draw out similarities as well as important differences between the countries. Exploring how the governance of religious diversity comes to reflect diversity-enhancing or diversity-limiting features, it assesses the ways and extent to which the region can be characterised under 'moderate secularism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

; ?>The appropriate role of religion in Australian society has been debated since colonization. Recently the Australian government has proposed legislative changes which, it is argued, will protect the right to religious freedom. These proposed changes have been criticised from all sides, providing evidence of ongoing division with the Australian public regarding the appropriate relationship between religion and the state. While history does not offer any easy answers to these complex challenges, in this article I suggest that understanding the historical relationship between religion and government in Australia can clarify the choices that face contemporary policymakers. I suggest three directions for policy (and law) reform in relation to religious institutions: protection of the rights of Indigenous people to practice Indigenous spirituality; protection of religious minorities; and greater limits on the presence of religious institutions in the 'third sector' of welfare provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author examines Australia’s growing religious pluralism and change within religious communities, including Muslim communities. The meaning of those developments for the concepts of social cohesion and citizenship is considered, as are the possible effects on social cohesion deriving from the lack of a federal bill of rights protecting minority individuals and groups in Australia. Also discussed are the aftereffects of the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, with the attendant focusing of attention on Muslim communities in Australia and around the world. The passage of dozens of anti-terrorism laws in Australia, and the implications of those laws for limiting the personal and group freedoms of religious minorities, especially Muslims, are examined in terms of concerns about social cohesion. Finally, the debate over whether to allow the development of Shari’a law in Australia and its potential impact on social cohesion are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the practice of Australia related to International Law in 2010 such as aviation and space law, human rights and social law and international environmental law. It mentions that the approach of Australia towards the Space Security, concerns of Australia regarding the treatment of religious minorities and alleged arrests on the basis of religion and 2020 target of Australia for reducing emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Despite Australian multicultural policy that asserts the right of all citizens to maintain and practice their religion, formal citizenship has not guaranteed the welcome or belonging of migrant religious groups at the neighbourhood scale. This is most starkly reflected in contests over the inclusion of minority religious spaces in the Australian landscape, which increasingly take place in the rural-urban fringe of metropolitan areas. This work examines the controversy over a proposed Hindu temple in metropolitan Sydney and reveals insights into the way that rural-urban fringe space is imagined, understood and experienced by land use planners, residents and temple members. Critical discourse analysis of policy documentation along with interviews reveals that land use planners circumscribe belonging in the landscape through the use of zoning ordinances and design controls, local residents mark the boundaries of white privilege through narratives of heritage and cultural difference and temple members claim rights to citizenship based on assertions of sameness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the concept of the religious minorities with respect to their language and culture and the protection of their rights under the constitutional law and the international law. The established democracies as well as the emerging democracies face the issue of protecting the minorities. Information on the role of the government of countries like Australia, Great Britain and Germany towards the protection of the religious minorities is also presented.

Over the past decade, issues concerning Islam and Muslims have featured prominently in public and media discourse. Much of this discourse is stereotypical, anecdotal and often unsubstantiated. Indeed, relative to the extent of comment on Islam and Muslims, few factual data exist on what Muslims really think. This article presents the views and opinions of the Queensland Muslim community based on the findings of a survey conducted at the 2009 Muslim Eid Festival in Brisbane. The findings of this research contradict many of the assumptions made about Australia’s Muslims concerning their views and opinions on a range of social and political issues. The research shows that Muslims highly value Australia’s key social and political institutions, including its democracy, judiciary, education and health-care systems. However, Muslims do express a lack of trust in certain institutions, namely the mass media. Also, consistent with the views of people globally, Muslims are deeply concerned about conflicts in the Middle East as well as the environmental crisis. This article suggests the need for a shift in public discourse to more accurately reflect the commonality, rather than incongruity, between Muslim views, opinions and concerns and those of the wider society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Australia is the home of 340,393 Muslims and they constitute about 1.7% of the total national population of 19,855,287 million people.1 Muslims have migrated to Australia from several Muslim countries on their own will for a better life. The Australian government also welcomed the immigrants because it needed labor for a sustainable economy. However, in times of crisis, for example, after the 9/11 incident the media and some politicians positioned the Muslims as the “Other”. In December 2005 there was a riot at Sydney's Cronulla beach between some Lebanese-Australians and the mainstream Australians but the politicians and the media sided with the wider society. In September 2006, when the Egyptian-born Mufti al-Hilali presented a controversial sermon in Arabic in which he depicted scantily-dressed women as uncovered meat and blamed them for inciting men to rape, the rhetoric of “us” and “them” was final. The racial profiling of Muslims through the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 has also caused unease in the society. Against this backdrop I interviewed 14 Muslim youths of diverse backgrounds, 15–17 years in Melbourne and tried to gain an understanding of their identity. Overall, the participants appeared to be peaceful, and their bicultural skills strengthened their Australian citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Australian laws concerning religious vilification and the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of religious belief pose a danger to the future of multiculturalism. They have a chilling effect on legitimate expressions of religious freedom because of the impact that 'folklaw" and risk-averse management have on people's behaviour. They may also create conflict by establishing a new forum for disputes that courts can never resolve. Communities who share values based on faith need the freedom to argue their understanding of truth and to discriminate between right and wrong as they see it. A new approach to multiculturalism is proposed that balances the different interests involved and which may benefit other minorities as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-improvement is often seen as the driving force behind international migration. In other cases, people are forced to depart because of social or political upheaval, oppression or national disaster. Finally, people may migrate for family reunion. Immigrants acquire new identities as they settle into the new society and learn to refer to themselves as, for example, 'Australians' or 'British'. In doing so, a former national identity may become an 'ethnic identity'. As they settle into a new country, migrants face numerous challenges as ethnic or religious minorities. In this paper, an historical perspective is given to settlement issues of various religious migrant groups in Australia, with a special focus on Muslims. The paper examines how a religious group can become the victim of resistance from the wider society when the group is perceived to be a direct or an indirect threat. It concludes that Muslim Australians have become the 'current enemy' because the perceived international threat of militant Islam is negatively impacting on them. This paper relies on both primary and secondary sources, including oral testimonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the significance of migration, ethnicity, and religious minorities in discovering the national identity and citizenship in Australia. National identity is the sum of all qualities either real or imaginary in which the minds of Australians describes the country itself. Likewise, it is a self definition of self or personhood mostly found in daily interactions and public discourse that involves, process of negotiation and not the fixed identity. It also discusses the difference between citizenship and identity in claiming effective international relations. Muslim communities are identified as the immigrant in the country. It is described as one country that search for immigrant workers and settlers.

At the end of the nineteenth century, white Australians found themselves in a turbulent and rapidly changing world. As British settlers in a vast, often-perplexing and under-populated continent, they were increasingly aware that they lived in a crowded and predominantly Asian neighbourhood. Their supposedly empty spaces seemed to invite the unwanted attention of hostile outsiders, fertile soil for speculation about vulnerable borders, invasion and violation. It was commonplace of the period for white females to be considered at once particularly vulnerable and also innocent symbols of the new nation. They needed to be protected against Asian males allegedly bent on conquest and violation. It does not follow that these "invasion narratives", however persistent, meant that the entire population was disabled by fear and dread, but there is convincing evidence of a deeply embedded cultural anxiety about the destructive possibilities and hostile intentions of Asian outsiders. In this article, the authors examine recent representations of Muslims as hostile outsiders in Australia, focusing in particular on the veil as a marker of female oppression under Islam and a sign of the threat attributed to the Islamic community in Australia. While it would be misleading to propose a simple line of progression from late nineteenth century apprehensions to those a century or more later, there are nonetheless intriguing parallels and recurrent expressions of survivalist anxiety across the period examined in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee Muslim women face a number of formidable obstacles in the resettlement process within Australia. As Muslims, they are a religious minority that has come under considerable racial attack in recent years in the wake of international terrorism. As refugees, they are struggling to put past traumas behind them and find ‘security’ in a strange land with different customs. As women, they are trying to find a voice for themselves amidst ethnic traditions that limit their range of expression and an Australian society that aspires to, but has not yet achieved, equality for women. Our qualitative study, upon which this paper is based, explored resettlement issues of Muslim refugee women during their first five years of arrival in Perth, Australia. It is based on focus groups and semi-structured interviews with 80 Muslim refugee women: 35 Iraqi, 34 Sudanese and 11 Afghan. Our study re-affirms that well-documented issues of resettlement continue to be poor English language competency, securing employment and accommodation and gender-specific problems. In addition, however, our study highlights a new and emerging issue, which is that of personal, psychological and cultural insecurity, heightened by the current political climate and exacerbated by their religious background. This leads to problematic ‘intersections’ with an Australian society that is far more complex and more difficult to cope with than is portrayed in popular discourse and political rhetoric of the easy-going ‘lucky country’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study emerged from an incidental, and somewhat surprising, finding that 15 percent of working journalists who attend training on improving the ways that mainstream new media report stories about Islam and Muslims, wrongly associated Sikhism with Islam. We wondered if this was indicative of the Australian population and, through a random stratified survey of the Australian population, found that it was. The question about the extent to which populations wrongly associate Sikhism with Islam is an important one. In Australia, Muslims and Sikhs are minorities. Ignorance of Islam and its religious diversity coupled with ignorance of Muslims and their ethnic and cultural diversity underpins the intolerance of Islam in the West and the concomitant animus directed at Muslims. Intolerance and violence directed at Muslims and people wrongly assumed to be Muslims (such as Sikhs) increased after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 (9/11). This speaks to religious literacy, the treatment of religious minorities and raises important questions around educating various publics (including the news media) about both Islam and Sikhism. It also speaks to the role of the mainstream news media in perpetuating Islamophobia, and its detrimental flow-on effects to Muslims and Sikhs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article notes that many Muslims do not feel fully accepted by Australian society. For this, the best polls for measuring attitudes toward ethnic and religious minorities are social distance surveys. Of the groups in the survey--British, Aboriginal, Greek, Asian and Muslim--the people surveyed in the sample felt most distant from Muslims. However, only a minority believe Muslims should be excluded from migrating to Australia. In the Saulwick Poll it is hard to tell whether some of the general categories are polite ways of expressing anti-Muslim feeling.