MUSLIM COMMUNITY'S RESPONSE TO LONDON BOMBINGS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CANBERRA 001381

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR S/CT, EAP/ANP

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/11/2015
TAGS: PTER PGOV PINR ASEC KCRM AS
SUBJECT: MUSLIM COMMUNITY'S RESPONSE TO LONDON BOMBINGS
STIRS CONTROVERSY

REF: PERTH 95

Classified By: Political Counselor Woo Lee for reasons 1.4 (b/d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: The London terrorist incidents of July 7
and 21 have sparked a debate in Australia about the value and
meaning of multiculturalism and about the need for the Muslim
community to condemn more forthrightly violent extremist
propaganda within its own ranks. Australia's relatively
small Islamic community of around 300,000 has been outspoken
in the media about its views, both in support of and in
protest against extremist behavior. Several Muslim leaders
have made controversial public statements asserting Osama bin
Laden's greatness and seeking to vindicate Muslims who use
extreme methods in (alleged) defense of their religion. PM
Howard has strongly denounced such statements, as have some
Muslim organizations. Even many "moderate" Australian
Muslims, however, while renouncing violence, appear to blame
the West for bringing terrorism upon itself. END SUMMARY.

EXTREMIST STATEMENTS FROM SOME MUSLIM LEADERS
--------------

2. (SBU) Following the London bombings, a handful of
Australian Muslim clerics ignited a storm of controversy when
they asserted in the media that Muslims were not to blame for
the bombings and that, in any case, this form of violent
jihad was justified. Sheikh Mohammed Omran, imam of a
Melbourne mosque, claimed in a July 11 television interview
that Osama bin Laden was a "great man" and that he did not
believe that bin Laden or any Muslim had been responsible for
the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. or the July attacks on
London. In yet another interview, Omran asserted that the
mastermind behind 9/11 and the London bombings was "100%...
from the U.S. government." Meanwhile, Abdul Nacer Benbrika,
also known as Abu Bakr, an Algerian-born Muslim cleric whose
Australian passport was revoked earlier this year, told the
press that he also considered bin Laden a great man, that
Islam did not tolerate other religions, and that violent
jihad was a part of Islam which vindicated anyone who fought
for the sake of Allah. Benbrika said he thought that it
would be a "very bad" idea to compel Muslims in Australia to
respect other religions. He believed that Islamic law and
Australian law were two distinct, mutually exclusive codes
and that, for Muslims, Islamic law trumped all other doctrine
and allowed them to break Australian laws if need be in the
practice of their religion. According to the Australian
press, a small number of Benbrika's students have attended
terrorist training camps in central Asia. Benbrika stated in
one interview that he would be betraying Islam if he were to
instruct such students not to train or engage in violence.


3. (SBU) Both Omran and Benbrika claimed that Australian
Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) officials
interviewed them frequently. The press reported that ASIO
had raided Benbrika's home during a June operation and
revoked his passport on the grounds that he was likely to
threaten the security of Australia or a foreign country if he
went overseas. The media also reported on a liaison program
ASIO had with leaders in the Muslim community to encourage
Islamic leaders to dissuade young Muslims in Australia from
engaging in terrorist activity, in addition to providing the
agency with information on extremism in the community.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE: EXTREMIST SPEECH "UNACCEPTABLE"
-------------- --------------

4. (SBU) In the days following the July 7 attacks, PM Howard
challenged Australia's Muslim leaders to speak out in their
communities to condemn terrorism and extremism in their
midst, noting that the London bombers had been British-born
Muslims. He called the statements by radical Muslim clerics
in Australia "appalling" and "utterly unacceptable to the
overwhelming majority of Australians." In a July 29 radio
interview, the PM said he personally believed that immigrants
to Australia should "overwhelmingly seek to become an
Australian...not abandoning in any way the heritage they have
from another land, but they should imbibe Australian values
and Australian beliefs." Islamic community leaders had an
obligation to "strenuously oppose both broadly and within
their own communities expressions of support for terrorist
behavior." Winning the fight against terrorism, the PM said,
required strong counterterrorism laws and good intelligence
services. But it also entailed excluding from Australia
people who might pose a threat, having a society where no
group was impenetrable, and putting an obligation on
community leaders to "oppose, criticize, and disassociate"
themselves from terrorist attitudes.

5. (SBU) Attorney-General Ruddock joined the debate, saying
the Government would look into whether incendiary literature
sold in Islamic bookstores in Sydney and Melbourne breached
anti-terrorism laws by promoting jihad and justifying suicide
bombings. The inter-faith Australian National Dialogue of
Christians, Muslims, and Jews issued a statement on July 22,
following Ruddock's announcement, calling on the owners of
the bookshops in Sydney and Melbourne to withdraw hate
literature and "apologize for diminishing the culture of
respect" in Australia. The organization comprises the
National Council of Churches in Australia, the Australian
Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC),and the Executive
Council of Australian Jewry. The statement continued, "All
fair-minded people will be dismayed to learn that notorious
racist and vilifying texts printed overseas have found their
way to Australia and have been made available for sale at
bookshops patronized by customers seeking knowledge of Islam
and Muslim life."

MUSLIM MODERATES RESPOND TO CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENTS
-------------- --------------

6. (SBU) Clearly concerned with the damage being done to the
image of the entire Australian Muslim community by Omran and
Benbrika, on July 26 the Australian Federation of Islamic
Councils (AFIC) sent letters to 200 Muslim clerics and
community leaders calling on them to condemn terrorism and
acknowledge that Muslims had been involved in attacks such as
September 11. The letter appealed to all Muslims "to disown
and denounce terrorism and violence in no uncertain terms...
to act and to win back the hearts and minds of (Muslim)
youth, and to continue the ongoing efforts to build a culture
of peace and harmony in Australia." It quoted a verse from
the Qur'an that "to take an innocent life is as if you have
taken the lives of the whole of humanity ... and to save one
life is as if you have saved the whole of humanity."
Nonetheless, the letter also subtly attempted to validate the
reasons behind the increasing radicalization of young
Muslims: "The Muslim youth is no longer an ignorant group and
is well aware of the global politics that has (sic) been
taking place for the past fifty years."

MIXED ATTITUDES EVEN AMONG "MODERATES"
--------------

7. (C) On August 1, we met with the President of the Islamic
Society of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT),Mohammed
Berjaoui, to hear his views on the extremist statements
recently publicized. The Islamic Society is one of the
Islamic councils under the umbrella of AFIC. Berjaoui
claimed that most Muslims thought extremist clerics such as
Omran and Benbrika were "idiots." He said they had no
credibility in the Muslim community and that the media should
ignore the more sensationalist statements and focus on the
positive comments from Muslims such as AFIC's July 26
condemnation of terrorism. Berjaoui noted that his own
organization had held a media event on July 26 to condemn
terrorism, following AFIC's request. He also believed,
however, that U.S. involvement in Iraq had put America and
its allies at greater risk for terrorist attacks and he
blamed the U.S. alliance with Israel for many of the attacks
the U.S. suffered in Iraq and elsewhere. He argued that 9/11
had been the fault of the U.S. insofar as it had trained
Osama bin Laden to fight in Afghanistan in the 1980s, a
sentiment also expressed by Sheikh Omran who claimed that
"the West made (bin Laden) what he is."


8. (C) The President of AFIC, Dr. Ameer Ali, recently stated
that he wanted all of Australia's twenty-three Islamic
secondary schools registered by AFIC in order to "maintain
standards." In an August 8 conversation in Perth, Ali told
us that he wanted the GOA to give AFIC the power to grant
authority to imams to teach Islam and to approve the visits
of foreign imams, and that the time had come for Australia,
like France, to train its own Muslim clergy. Most of
Australia's imams were foreign born and trained, Ali said,
and had "no idea" how to live in Western society. Ali hoped
to gain GOA support for his ideas at the Prime Minister's
upcoming summit with Islamic leaders (septel). (Comment: Not
surprisingly, given Ali's views on the need for AFIC control,
some in Australia's Muslim community have criticized his
proposals as a power grab. Even if well-intentioned,
however, without the power of the GOA behind it, AFIC
probably would not have the authority to implement its plan.
Reflecting Islam's lack of hierarchy, at this time AFIC is
effectively a loosely organized body of Islamic councils
across the country. The Islamic Society of the ACT's
Berjaoui told us AFIC had "no input into (his) work." AFIC
could issue advisory statements, but member councils were not
obliged to follow them. End comment.)

DEBATE EXTENDS TO MULTICULTURALISM
--------------

9. (C) In the wake of the UK bombings and the extremist
statements by some Australian clerics, the media has begun to
debate the viability of multiculturalism in Australia and
whether it was inadvertently culpable for extremist thinking.
One journalist asserted that a big problem for Australian
multiculturalism was that it "failed to anticipate that
immigrants might one day be opposed to the central tenets of
Western society." In discussing how young Australian Muslims
reconciled their faith with growing up in Western society, a
Muslim journalist wrote in "The Age" newspaper, "Torn between
trying to respect their parent's cultural norms and being
attracted to freedoms enjoyed by their peers, the resulting
internal turmoil is a constant riot in the head." Some
editorials argued that Australia's increasingly multicultural
society allowed space for terrorists to disseminate their
radical ideas. Others responded that tolerance should not
become a casualty of Australia's CT policies and that
multiculturalism cannot be a scapegoat for all the views that
Australians dislike. This latter view, however, has
distinctly been on the defensive in the wake of the July
bombings.

PROFILE OF MUSLIMS IN AUSTRALIA
--------------

10. (U) The most recent Australian Census in 2001 listed
281,576 Muslims in Australia, an increase of forty percent in
five years. There are now Muslim communities in all
Australian States and Territories, with the largest
population in Sydney, followed by Melbourne. More than
one-third of Australian Muslims are born in Australia.
Australia's Muslim community is drawn from more than seventy
different countries. The Census also reported that Arabic is
the fifth most commonly spoken language in Australia.

COMMENT
--------------

11. (C) Some Muslim clerics in Australia have been publicly
promoting extremist ideas for years without provoking a
public outcry. The London bombings and the GOA's aggressive
response in reevaluating Australia's counterterrorism posture
have awakened the Australian public to the threat of domestic
Muslim extremism. Australia's Islamic community may only
number around 300,000, but its vocal leaders and their
agendas are now being more closely monitored by the
Australian intelligence services, the media, and the general
public. While Muslim moderates have publicly opposed
extremist statements, privately, their views are more
complicated and may even share aspects of the anti-Western
ideology that breeds terrorism. The fact that AFIC,
Australia's largest and arguably most influential national
Islamic body, views many Western policies as "attacks on
Muslims" indicates that Australia still has a long way to go
in explaining the West to its Muslim community.
STANTON