http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8225812
Reporter: Michael Usher Producers: Danny Keens, Julia Timms Some say it's the very thing that makes Australia great. Others believe it threatens our national identity. It seems right now nothing divides opinion like multiculturalism. Our government insists it's working here, a shining example for the rest of the world. But in some countries like Britain and Germany they've declared multiculturalism a failure, a disastrous social policy that's torn communities apart. But let's be frank here. This debate isn't so much about race as religion and a fear of one in particular - Islam. Read Michael Usher's blog on this story and have your say Full transcript: TOMMY ROBINSON: Whenever I go out of the house, I wear this. Um, just 'cause I know the threat is real. It's not a joke. I know they're serious. I know there's killers within their religion and I know how seriously they take it. MICHAEL USHER: Tommy Robinson is ready to fight for Queen and country. TOMMY ROBINSON: This is bulletproof, yeah, bulletproof, stab-proof. MICHAEL USHER: To defend the British way of life against an invasion he says has already begun - the spread of Islamic extremism. It's a cause he's prepared to die for. TOMMY ROBINSON: There's no retreat, no surrender, and people aren't willing to surrender now or willing to submit. We're not being beaten into silence. MICHAEL USHER: As the head of a far-right organisation called the English Defence League, Tommy dares to shout what others fear to say out loud. TOMMY ROBINSON: We are reintroducing patriotism... MICHAEL USHER: That multiculturalism has provided the perfect cover for Islamic extremists to infiltrate Britain and plot their deadly attacks against democracy. TOMMY ROBINSON: All we're doing is telling you how we feel, telling you what we see. We're telling you what is happening to our country. We're living side by side with terrorists, Islamists, people who want to completely obliterate our way of life and culture and convert this country into an Islamic state. They're here. MICHAEL USHER: What is this area, Tommy? TOMMY ROBINSON: This is an Islamic ghetto. There's 19 mosques in this area. MICHAEL USHER: To prove his point, Robinson took me on a tour of his hometown of Luton, an hour out of London. I see a poster up ahead there, the Koran. TOMMY ROBINSON: The Koran in English. MICHAEL USHER: Once a stronghold of the English working class, it's now home to one of the UK's biggest Muslim communities and was the launching point for London's 2005 bombings. So terrorism, you're saying terrorism comes out of this area? TOMMY ROBINSON: Terrorism - this is terrorists' area. This is the hotbed, this is the heart of militant Islam. This is where the 7/7 bombers, they boarded a train in Luton. MICHAEL USHER: It's little wonder Robinson has been condemned by many as a racist and a thug, but his English Defence League has now spread to almost every city in Britain. And his claims gained credibility with many in Britain with the recent national broadcast of this shocking footage, secretly filmed inside an Islamic school in Birmingham. TEACHER ON TAPE: You are not like the non-Muslims out there and all that evil you see in the streets, you should hate walking down that street. MICHAEL USHER: Children were shown being taught to hate the British way of life. TEACHER ON TAPE: The person who's got less than a fistful of beard, then you should stay away from him, the same way you stay away from a serpent or a snake. MICHAEL USHER: The lesson literally beaten into them by their teachers. What do you think of extreme Islam? TOMMY ROBINSON: It's a cancer and it is embedded in every single Islamic community in this country. Every one of them, no matter what one you go to, there's a percentage of that community who wish for Shari'a law, who are homophobic, who are antidemocratic, who are causing mayhem all across the country. MICHAEL USHER: Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron, recently declared that multiculturalism here had been a failure. And he directly blamed Muslim extremists. He said mosques like this may preach peace and tolerance, but there are many other hardline clerics who incite violence and hatred and division in the very neighbourhoods where they pray and live. In Australia, we might consider ourselves a multicultural success story, but here too, hardline Islamic fanatics spark fear and distrust of the wider Muslim community. Do you hate democracy? IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: I hate democracy. Absolutely. With my heart, my speech and my hands, as much as I can. MICHAEL USHER: You're living in a democracy. IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: Well, unfortunately. I would love the majority of Australia to be Islamic... MICHAEL USHER: If you believe Ibrahim Siddiq-Conlon, Islam and multiculturalism can never co-exist. IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: Muslims are oppressed right now. For example, our women find it hard to wear their veils or their burqas. We can't get mosques approved. MICHAEL USHER: He says all true Muslims must adhere to the Islamic law, or Shari'a, and fight to destroy any other political system. IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: So actually we're being oppressed by your current system. MICHAEL USHER: You want to bring down the Government? IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: Well, that's the aim of every Muslim essentially. Every Muslim has been commanded to, as I say, hate any other system except Islam and work for it. MICHAEL USHER: Shari'a law, in many ways, is extremely strict. It seems, um... Almost medieval in some ways. IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: Well, OK, yeah, we cut off hands but I tell you what, there are going to be no people stealing. If you knew you were going to get your hand cut off, I tell you what, you ain't going to steal. MICHAEL USHER: Surely there are moderate, reasonable Muslims. IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: As long as they love Shari'a and hate democracy, that's fine. MICHAEL USHER: They have to hate democracy? IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: They have to. You have to hate it. MICHAEL USHER: Incredibly, these fanatical views are coming from a man born and raised in Australia. Ibrahim Siddiq was once Shannon Conlon. IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: We call for Shari'a in Australia... MICHAEL USHER: Since he abandoned Christianity 12 years ago, he's emerged as one of Australian Islam's most radical voices, promoting the rise of an all-powerful Islamic state through his group Shariah 4 Australia. IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: Islam in Australia is getting stronger. That indeed the awakening is occurring. SAMAH HADID: The very fact that he lives in a democracy allows him to platform those views. So he needs to understand that it's actually the freedoms of this democracy that allows him to form an argument like that and to platform it. I wouldn't identify with that sort of ideology at all. MICHAEL USHER: Would many Muslims identify with that? SAMAH HADID: Absolutely not, not the ones that I know anyway. You know, there was a play about the Cronulla riots... MICHAEL USHER: Samah Hadid is among the vast majority of Australian Muslims who embrace our social diversity and agree with the Federal Government that multiculturalism has been a stunning success here. SAMAH HADID: I'd say I'm a product of multiculturalism and so I find it quite interesting when people say that multiculturalism has failed. The majority of young Muslims, Australian young Muslims, that I know do not care for political Islamic or Islamist ideology. They're just going about their day-to-day existence, trying to contribute to their own professional fields, trying to, you know, make their communities a better place. MICHAEL USHER: So they're not out to force Islam on to everyone? SAMAH HADID: Not the ones that I know and MICHAEL USHER: They're not out to turn Australia into an Islamic state? SAMAH HADID: Absolutely not. That's really my representation of the majority of Australian Muslims that I know. MICHAEL USHER: But here in Britain, large numbers of Muslims make no secret of the fact that an Islamic state is their ultimate goal. Forget about the laws coming out of Westminster. There are already 100 Shari'a courts delivering Islamic justice. And with the Muslim population growing at 10 times faster than any other group, Islamic extremists are no longer keeping their beliefs to themselves. ANJEM CHOUDARY: I don't agree with the British values. MICHAEL USHER: But you are British. ANJEM CHOUDARY: Well, I mean a British passport is a mere travel document. MICHAEL USHER: Born and educated here. ANJEM CHOUDARY: I may be been here but if I was born in a barn, it wouldn't make me a horse. My dear Muslims, we live in a time of fitna. MICHAEL USHER: Anjem Choudary is the face of extreme Islam in Britain and he's proud of it. ANJEM CHOUDARY: This is the downfall of Western civilisation. MICHAEL USHER: His views have made him one of the most vilified men in Britain. Two Islamic groups he represents have been banned by the Government. ANJEM CHOUDARY: You're Muslim first, you're Muslim second and you're Muslim third. MICHAEL USHER: So, in fact, wherever there's a Muslim around the world, there'll never be multiculturalism, because you don't agree with being multicultural? ANJEM CHOUDARY: No. No. Multiculturalism is an anathema to Islam and Muslims. We don't believe that every culture can exist and express itself within society. MICHAEL USHER: How do you view someone like me - a young, white Christian man who likes democracy and likes the society we live in? ANJEM CHOUDARY: Well, I think obviously you're misguided. I would invite you to look at the Koran at the word of God MICHAEL USHER: I'm misguided. ANJEM CHOUDARY: I believe that you're misguided. I would invite you to look at the Koran as the word of God and to embrace Islam and God willing you will attain paradise. MICHAEL USHER: Where am I headed? ANJEM CHOUDARY: If you die the way that you're dying, then you'll go to the hellfire. TOMMY ROBINSON: It's a ticking time bomb. That's exactly what it is. MICHAEL USHER: If it continues like it is, do you think there will be only more Anjem Choudarys? TOMMY ROBINSON: There's going to be 100,000 Anjem Choudarys. We need mid-England to hear our voices, to help us with the struggle that we are living in. MICHAEL USHER: There is no doubt Tommy Robinson's English Defence League is a growing protest force in Britain. WOMAN: He wants us to follow Shari'a law. So it's a big, big problem in this country. MICHAEL USHER: Tonight in London's Fleet Street we discover they are not just ranting hooligans. The country's comfortable middle class are signing up. Is the English Defence League just working-class lads like yourself who are racist? TOMMY ROBINSON: We're mainly working class lads but we're trying to break into Middle England. As you can see today from the people that are here - we've got a trader, we've got a computer IT expert, we've got a barrister, we've got a judge - we've got all sorts of different people coming together. We will defeat Islamism in this country. LEO MCKINSTRY: There has been an evaporation of our national identity, social cohesion has broken down and there are parts of Britain that just don't feel like England any more. MICHAEL USHER: Leo McKinstry is a commentator and columnist who's long criticised British multicultural policy which allows 500,000 immigrants into the country every year. LEO MCKINSTRY: We can't go on with this policy saying, "You can come and live here but you can cling completely to your own culture, the world you came from. You can still treat women badly. You can have Shari'a law." That's no way to build a harmonious society. TOMMY ROBINSON: I think if things were left the way they were and nothing changes, you are probably five years away from having English lands wanting to blow themselves up because people are so angry about what's going on, so angry and so feel under threat and the complete oppression to do with Islam. MICHAEL USHER: While they plot a new cultural course in Britain and deal with extremists on both sides, our Government has taken a stand, declaring new support for multiculturalism. Who has mums and dads or grandparents from other countries? CHILDREN: Yeah! MICHAEL USHER: Immigration Minister Chris Bowen took me to Marion Public School in Sydney, where 90% of the students are from migrant families but all proudly Australian. Who else knows what multiculturalism is? SCHOOL GIRL: All different cultures that get together and it doesn't matter what they are, like Vietnamese, they just still mates. They're still friends. CHRIS BOWEN: Multiculturalism in Australia has been a very, very good thing, particularly when you see what's happening around the world. You see debates in Germany and Great Britain and France and we have just got to remind ourselves in Australia multiculturalism has been an outstanding success. We've got it right. Other countries in the world struggle with it. We get it right. IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: You know, being Australian, well, Australia, essentially, as we pretty much said, centres around evils - drinking, culture, partying, freedom of nothingness, atheism. So if they want that I say, fear Allah. Fear Allah. Come back to Islam before it's too late. You can never stop Islam. You will never, ever stop it. MICHAEL USHER: If anything needs to stop, perhaps it's the extreme rhetoric, the hard line, the fundamental views that so quickly confuse the debate on multiculturalism. SAMAH HADID: If we ever want to work towards a multiculturalism that works for everyone, we need to stamp out racism and we need to stake a stand on religious prejudices, but also take a stand on those who, you know, do peddle extremist views and say to them very clearly, "You do not represent us." IBRAHIM SIDDIQ-CONLON: Bloody well said. Thank you. SAMAH HADID: No worries. Thanks. MICHAEL USHER: No worries. That's about as Australian as you get. SAMAH HADID: Absolutely! And they call me un-Australian. Really! I mean come on! 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