It’s not hard to see why Australian Muslims are growing suspicious of the government’s special envoy on Islamophobia

The appointment of the “special envoy” to combat Islamophobia in Australia has sparked a wave of controversy. The identity of the envoy, British-born Muslim Aftab Malik, was revealed almost three months after Jillan Segal’s appointment as an envoy to combat antisemitism. The delay of Malik’s appointment and the relative secrecy surrounding Labor’s announcement have stirred anger among Muslims and Muslim advocates. This contrasted sharply with the attention given to the announcement of the antisemitism envoy in the press conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Giles, and the Member for Macnamara, Josh Burns.

These hiccups notwithstanding, Muslim advocates and organisations — like the Australian National Imams Council and the Islamic Sciences and Research Academy — have welcomed Aftab Malik’s appointment.

If the federal government is genuinely committed to addressing Islamophobia and antisemitism within its borders, it must actively demonstrate its dedication to the principles of democracy and human rights. And yet recent national and international events have made the appointment of special envoys deeply problematic.

Politics

I would suggest that Aftab Malik’s efforts to combat Islamophobia need to be top-down in the first instance: he should begin by correcting misconceptions about Islam in the parliament, where numerous Australian politicians seem to have little understanding of the Islamic faith. Most of us remember Pauline Hanson’s attempt to fuel fear in the Australian community about Islam by wearing a burqa during Question Time in the Senate in 2017. At the time, Attorney General George Brandis warned Hanson “to be very very careful of the offence you may do to the religious sensibilities of other Australians”.

More recently, the decision of the Australian Army to award a contract worth $917 million to Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems scandalised many Muslims. After all, when Elbit Systems markets its equipment as “field-tested”, the euphemism cannot help but evoke the images of death and destruction wrought by the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza. Can Malik question the Army’s decision, or interrogate the federal government about the consistent support it has shown Israel in the current conflict? If not, does his appointment amount to anything more than PR, an attempt to help the government “save face” with Australia’s Muslim community? In which case, can the special envoy amount to much more than a mere “servant of power”.

The fact that Aftab Malik is a British-Pakistani Muslim — a profile that does not reflect the identities of the majority of Muslims in Australia — as well as his previous work on government-funded projects on countering violent extremism programs have only reinforced Muslims’ concern that he is just “another government flunky”.

Media

Quite apart from the problems that exist in federal parliament, combating Islamophobia also needs to focus on endemic issues with the media. As I argued in my book Muslim Perspectives on Islamophobia, the tendency of media outlets to associate instances of violence committed by Muslims to the Islamic faith contributes to the prejudicial stereotypes concerning the whole community, its beliefs and practices. Such stereotypes become part of the prevailing épistème, a term used by Michel Foucault to describe the “social knowledge and unconscious assumptions” that order the life of a society.

Apart from what the media tells them, the average Australian knows very little about the Islamic faith, let alone Islam’s vast contribution to Western knowledge and culture. Can Islamophobia in Australia really be addressed without coming to terms with the deficient education provided by the media itself?

Multiculturalism

The sheer complexity and insidious nature of Islamophobia make it harder for the special envoy to succeed in combating it. It is no wonder, then, that so astute a writer as Shakira Hussein would suggest that the special envoy “should not exist in the first place”, and that the Australian Human Rights Commission could easily cover the position’s role and responsibilities.

Australia is a vibrant tapestry of diverse ethnicities, each with distinct needs and challenges. Ironically, the current approach of addressing both Islamophobia and antisemitism through these two special envoys runs the risk of driving a wedge among these communities, leading to broader social dysfunction and betraying of the spirit of multiculturalism.

If “multiculturalism” is to amount to more than an ironic entry in Don Watson’s Dictionary of Weasel Words, we must work together to ensure it represents a living, breathing concept that celebrates diversity and fosters unity. It remains to be seen if the appointment of the special envoys contributes to that end.

Zouhir Gabsi is Senior Lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Deakin University.