Austaralia: Former chief of Islamic body warns of rise of Islamic fascism THE founding president of Australia’s peak Islamic body has hit out at what he calls “a toxic subculture” in local Muslim schools and institutions that is fostering extremism. Haset Sali, who was founding president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils and who served as both a president and legal adviser to the organisation for more than 30 years, has attacked what he sees as the corrosive force of widespread corruption in many of Australia’s Muslim schools. He says the lack of functioning Muslim institutions is forcing many young Muslims toward the teachings of extremist imams preaching “Islamic fascism”. Australian Muslim schools have been the centre of a series of financial of corruption scandals, with five of Sydney’s Muslim schools previously having their funding frozen or placed under government or police investigations for financial mismanagement. These include Sydney’s largest Muslim school, Malek Fahd in the southwest Sydney suburb of Greenacre, which has been ordered by the federal government to pay back $9 million after an investigation by The Australian revealed millions had been funnelled from the school to AFIC. Another school in Sydney’s west had its funding frozen last year amid allegations the school misused hundreds of thousands of dollars in school funds and a gun was pulled on a whistle-blower. The school denied wrongdoing. A national audit by a former federal education minister into AFIC-managed schools also found widespread problems in Muslim schools around the country. “These people have only been lining their own pockets and couldn’t care less that we end up with a toxic Islamic subculture,” Mr Sali said. “It gives way to all sorts of splinter groups, and the rise of — I would go as far to say — fascist imams who are not necessarily qualified. Unfortunately a lot of the young people of who have seen what has happened to Islamic society in Australia have been attracted to these groups.” Mr Sali, who is a lawyer and former managing director of fruit company SPC, has also authored an English translation of the Koran and classifies the Islamic State as “Islamic fascism”, not unlike the fascist movement that stalked European politics throughout 20th century. “Islam is going through a crisis of identity around the world, including Australia. “As far as I am concerned, everything we believe, both Muslims and non-Muslims, is under threat at the moment,” he said. Mr Sali has been involved in a long-running feud with the new AFIC leadership since 2006. Mr Sali claims internal dysfunction and corruption issues at AFIC, now called Muslims Australia, has disenfranchised the vast majority of Islamic councils around the country. Muslims Australia president Hafez Kassem yesterday defended the record of the organisation, denying it was corrupt, saying “a lot has been done to make things better”. “We have worked really hard,” he said. “We have expelled people from AFIC and dismissed people from the Malek Fahd school who were not operating properly. We have complied with the inspection and have a new principal. I recently attended both the Brisbane and Canberra school, as they had been problems there, and now I don’t see anything.” He also defended Muslim Australia’s promotion of Islamic teaching, saying the body “is not political, we do not do politics”. “What do people want us to do? We’re not parliament.” he said. Mr Sali said “the current situation that has evolved has triggered that rise of what I bluntly call Islamic fascists”. “If this goes unchecked in Australia, in the Middle East or anywhere else, the dangers are extreme,” he said. “I think we live in the best nation in the world and I don’t want us to devolve into this type of situation.” Mr Sali said he was increasingly concerned about extremism creeping into the curriculum of Islamic schools, which he saw as a direct result of a failure of governance standards. “I am very concerned about the teaching curriculum. When we started first schools with the help of the Saudi funding it was very much at arms-length because they knew we had a strong leadership structure here. What has happened since then I cannot take responsibility for. “Most politicians do not want to be seen intervening in the Muslim community. The attitude seems to be, ‘Well it’s all too hard’.” theaustralian.au/in-depth/terror/former-chief-of-islamic-body-warns-of-rise-of-islamic-fascism/story-fnpdbcmu-1227069667028?sv=cb8c0a1ea31195da710a84d6b7745244#.VDEU6m4QeRw.facebook
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 08:42:55 +0000
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