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The rise of anti-Muslim racism in the U.K. and Australia from 1989 to 2001 is compared in order to assess the extent to which the upsurge of Islamophobia after 11 September 2001 was a development of existing patterns of racism on these two countries. The instances of racial and ethnic targeting by the state of the ethnic and religious minorities and the casual relationship and shifting patterns of acts of racial hatred, vilification and discrimination are discussed.

The post-September 11, 2001 cases of intensive anti-Muslim racism in Britain and Australia, where communities of Muslims were criminalized as 'evil' and 'fifth column' enemy within by politicians, the security services and communities justice system, are examined. Even though constituted by disparate ethnic groups, the affected communities in each of these nations have experienced similar treatment in the State's anti-terrorist measures, and also ideological responses and everyday racism, making comparable the two cases.

The outbreak of mass racist violence against young men of 'Middle Eastern appearance' on Cronulla beach, Sydney, in December 2005 was the result of a campaign of populist incitement waged in the media and by the state. The battle to reclaim control of the beach for white Australian has displayed the battle that the Howard government has waged to reclaim control of the nation itself from asylum seekers and the Muslim/Middle Eastern 'enemy'.

The migration stories and the ways migrants use their gardens as sites of cultural practice in the Fairfield municipality of Western Sydney, one of the most ethnically diverse regions in Australia is explored. Research reveals that many migrant gardens are places in which creative labor is expended to symbolize connections not only to homeland but also to Australia and to other cultures.

The emergence of ethnic politics in Australia, in the Bourdieusian sense is traced. The undermining of the Lebanese community leadership is associated with the moral panics surrounding the 'Lebanese youth gangs' in Sydney since 1998.