The Silenced Afghan-Australian Perspective on the Brereton Report | Conduit – Muslim Perspectives
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EDITORIAL ┊ As Australians around the nation reckoned with the ‘blunt truths’ made manifest by the Brereton Report last week, a portion of our community remained unsurprised by the findings. They are the domestic victims of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by Australia: Afghan-Australia

Did you know that 40% of permanent ADF personnel in 2019, were aged between 20-29? That means that during their most formative childhood and adolescent years, these ADF personnel would have been bombarded with anti-Muslim rhetoric from the most senior members of parliament, overexposed to sensationalised anti-Muslim stories from the media, and they would have contextualised it all in their classrooms as they sat through that same propaganda-infused curriculum that I did.

Is the idea of an ideological campaign sounding less far-fetched now? To me, what I’ve described so far sounds like an effective way to create an army of soldiers with extreme anti-Muslim sentiment. This process has another name: Radicalisation, and you’ve been stewing in it for quite some time, Australia.

  • CoralMarks [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Before having read the article and just having seen that picture for the first time, how have I not seen this before? wtf
    I know that I shouldn't be surprised anymore at this shit, but flying the Nazi flag?

    But hey look at that Chinese dude making mean memes.

      • CoralMarks [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        No I had not seen that video yet - I don't know what to say other than :gui-better:

        Interesting article btw. It is just horrible what disaster the war on terror has globally been for literally everybody except for some very select people and nobody is even any safer now than on 9/12 either.

        In Year 7, when I transitioned to high school, two of my Afghan peers revealed some new changes: one requested that I keep their Afghan heritage secret as they were now Italian and their Anglo-sounding name helped ease that transition; another felt the need to publicly denounce their Islam in front of their white friends at the Great Aussie Bush Camp, punctuating the declaration with the bite of a pork sausage.

        When someone, at the age of 14/15 I assume, has to go to these lengths to hide their ethnicity to have somewhat of a normal life you should know something in your society is going horribly wrong, but hey must be their culture.

        I'm from Europe and, probably not really surprising, but a lot of the things he touches on that lead to the demonization of Islam in general has pretty much been unfolding in the same manner over here, like where the general consensus seems to be that Islam and therefore all Muslims are of lesser culture and need to be taught the right ways, and maybe if they are really, really trying to be good assimilated Europeans, maybe, just maybe, they might be accepted, but keep in mind that that acceptance is always only temporary and can be revoked at any moment. But hey we are the good guys™.