{"id":1734,"date":"2003-02-28T02:05:57","date_gmt":"2003-02-28T07:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/altmuslim\/?p=1734"},"modified":"2003-02-28T02:05:57","modified_gmt":"2003-02-28T07:05:57","slug":"australian_aborigines_find_solace_empowerment_in_islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/altmuslim\/2003\/02\/australian_aborigines_find_solace_empowerment_in_islam\/","title":{"rendered":": Australian Aborigines Find Solace, Empowerment In Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">\n<tr>\n<td><img><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td align=\"right\">\n<div class=\"caption\"><\/div>\n<p><\/p><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>In the long history of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ozramp.net.au%2F%7Esenani%2Faborigin.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Australian Aborigines<\/a>, who found their quiet island overrun by colonists who quickly dominated the continent and rendered them <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heraldsun.news.com.au%2Fcommon%2Fstory_page%2F0%2C5478%2C6046300%25255E2862%2C00.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">second-class<\/a> citizens in their own land, one can find many parallels to the African-American experience.  Both are stories of marginalized communities who continue to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ananova.com%2Fnews%2Fstory%2Fsm_752187.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">fight<\/a> to reclaim a dignity that was taken from them by force over a hundred years ago.  Lately, the two experiences are sharing another trait in common \u2013 the growing appeal of Islam among the most downtrodden.  \u201cThe white Australian government has neglected them,\u201d said Karander Seyit, editor of the Australian Muslim News.  \u201cIf Christianity is not willing to treat them like human beings, I know Islam would.\u201d  Islam\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.islamfortoday.com%2Faustralia.htm\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">seeds in Australia<\/a> (like in America) stretches back to the founding of the modern country \u2013 the first Muslim settlers came only a dozen years after the European ones.  While many Aboriginal Muslims are finding a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za%2Findex.php%3Fclick_id%3D2024%26art_id%3Dvn20030228061003872C703624%26set_id%3D1\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">spiritual solace<\/a> in Islam that helps them cope with the poverty and alienation from mainstream Australian society, some are combining Islam with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au%2Farticles%2F2003%2F02%2F26%2F1046064104803.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">angry politics<\/a> and are flirting with <i>jihadism<\/i>.  \u201cIt\u2019s not a part of our religion to stand there and get stepped on,\u201d said a 20-something <a href=\"http:\/\/news.independent.co.uk%2Fworld%2Faustralasia%2Fstory.jsp%3Fstory%3D382371\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Aboriginal Muslim<\/a> who expressed support for Osama bin Laden on an Australian documentary aired this week.  \u201cThat\u2019s why Islam is so good for the Aboriginal people.\u201d  (Like the majority of Muslims in Australia, however, most do not support bin Laden.)  More attention has been focused on Australian Muslims as a whole since the Bali bombings, making life even tougher and creating more anti-Muslim prejudice among the general population.  Aboriginal Muslims have it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.co.za%2Findex.php%3FfSectionId%3D132%26fArticleId%3D53834\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">even tougher<\/a>, as they face hostility from both the Aboriginal communities from where they came as well as from Australian Muslims who have become more recently suspicious of newcomers.<\/p>\n<p><i><\/i><\/p>\n<p>Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard being an Aborigine in Australia.  It&#8217;s tough being a Muslim there, too.  If you&#8217;re both, you can find yourself uniquely alienated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":530,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-briefings"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>: Australian Aborigines Find Solace, Empowerment In Islam<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It&#039;s hard being an Aborigine in Australia. It&#039;s tough being a Muslim there, too. If you&#039;re both, you can find yourself uniquely alienated.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/altmuslim\/2003\/02\/australian_aborigines_find_solace_empowerment_in_islam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\": Australian Aborigines Find Solace, Empowerment In Islam\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#039;s hard being an Aborigine in Australia. It&#039;s tough being a Muslim there, too. 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