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AUSTRALASIAN MUSLIM TIMES
www.amust.com.au ISSUE # 182
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Multicultural News & Views
JANUARY 2021; JAMAADIYUL OULAA 1442
South Asia: Bigotry with a difference BOOMERANG PAGE 5
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‘The Furnace’: Cinematic film of Australia’s ‘Wild West’ and its Cameleers Faseeha Hashmi It’s rare to see a film that captures the true meaning of gold fever, yet, ‘The Furnace’ in cinemas now, that preserves the legacy of the cameleers, is a fictional tale about the heavy price of greed and the search for identity in Australia’s wild west. The film illuminates the forgotten history of Australia’s ‘Ghan’ cameleers, predominantly Muslim and some Sikh men from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, who traversed Australia’s sweeping desert interior. Many of whom were able to form unique bonds with the traditional owners of this land. Well-adapted to the cinematic setting, the western-style theme is an enduring genre with crisp narration: “There is no grace of God here. Just the land and all its spoils,” that ties well with overlapping faiths and loss of one’s moral compass. The film has an
intriguing stillness derived heavily from the parched land, that leaves you with a sense of awe for the land’s extensive vastness and unforgivingness. Set in the circa 1897 gold rush period of Western Australia, the film tells an imagined tale of a young Afghan cameleer, Hanif, an unlikely hero searching for a sense of identity in a new barren land. Hoping to return home to Afghanistan, the cameleer stumbles upon a wounded bushman who has stolen Crown gold. Infatuated by greed, the mismatched pair develops an unlikely partnership and set off towards a secret furnace to remove the marking of the Crown and reset the bars of untraceable gold; to make a new life for themselves. The fictional movie highlights the fact that Muslims and other minorities have been in Australia for over 150 years and have made significant contributions that brought major economic and social benefits to this country. continued on page 8
Ahmed Malek plays a young Afghan cameleer, Hanif in ‘The Furnace’.
Concern raised against Sri Lanka delays COVID-19 vaccine, insists Hindutva fascist organisations on ‘cremation-only’ policy Zia Ahmad
Amaani Siddeek As the Sri Lankan Government stalls on announcing a concrete plan to acquire a coronavirus vaccine, it continues to implement a cremation-only policy that is scientifically unfounded and widely recognised as inhumane. With 8,567 active cases and 185 deaths at the time of writing, Sri Lanka continues to face the worst Covid-19 outbreak since the pandemic began, inciting fear and panic among the people. Despite the almost three-month-long wave that began in October, the Sri Lankan government is no closer to securing a coronavirus vaccine, despite many countries across the world already lined up to receive the new Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines. But it is the country’s stringent ‘cremation-only’ policy that has gained global notoriety for its lack of nuance and respect for the funeral rites of Sri Lanka’s minority communities. “DISAPPOINTING: #SriLanka’s highest court refuses to hear case filed by Muslims & Christians against forced cremation of #COVID victims,” said the People’s Rights Group Sri Lanka in a Twitter post. “Where else can they go for justice?” Cremation, which is forbidden in Islam and generally not preferred in Christianity and Judaism, was mandated by the Sri Lankan government early in the pandemic, citing ground-water contamination. The claim which was spread initially by
right-wing Buddhist monks was later taken up by hydrogeologist, professor Meththika S Vithanage in an article she wrote in April. Since the publication of the article, many virologists and epidemiologists have debunked the claims noting primarily that the coronavirus is highly unstable without a host and cannot be spread by water. “The coronavirus will die quickly in a dead body – probably all will have gone in less than a week,” said Scottland’s virologist Dr Hugh Pennington in an email response to the People’s Rights Group – Sri Lanka. Viruses, which require living cells in a host body to survive, cannot grow and spread from a dead body, the virologist also explained. continued on page 6
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Calls have been made to include Hindutva fascist organisations into inquiry relating to extremist movements and radicalism in Australia and their links to international extremist organisations, that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has been asked to report on 30 April 2021. The Humanism Project, an Indian diaspora organisation advocating for pluralism and diversity supported by a large number of Muslim organisations including AFIC, ANIC and IFAM as well as many South Asian groups have raised concern about the normalisation of India based fascist organisations like RSS and the threat they pose to the multicultural ethos and the internal security of Australia. In a letter sent to the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison on Monday 4 January 2021, Dr Haroom Kasim from The Humanism Project (THP) drew the attention to the waving of the flag of Indian fascist
organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), at the one day international cricket match between Australia and India at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday 27 November 2020. The letter also raised concern over the visit of the Australian High Commissioner to India, Mr Barry O’Farrell, to the headquarters of RSS in Nagpur meeting RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday 15 November, and his subsequent laudatory tweet about RSS, which has already instilled a sense of dread among the persecuted minorities of India as well as the Australian citizens of Indian minority origin. “Mr O’Farrell’s open praise for RSS is already being used by right-wing media outlets in India and Hindu right-wing groups in Australia as a propaganda tool to promote the paramilitary and its affiliate groups in Australia and indulge in acts of jingoistic chest thumping at public events involving Indians, of which this latest incident of RSS flag waving at the SCG is yet another example,” the letter said. continued on page 2 Indian PM Modi with RSS leaders.
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