Bendigo, a Town Touched by the Gold Rush So Many Years Ago, is Now Struggling with Those Who Encourage Islamaphobia

Would Growing Up with a Mosque in Bendigo Have Been Different

I had a typical upbringing in Bendigo: bush dances, netball, and singing hymns at the local school. There was no hate; just a missed spiritual connection that is now being addressed

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• • Tasneem Chopra
  • theguardian.com, Tuesday 24 June 2014 09.44 AEST
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'Local Muslims in Bendigo are seeking a space to meet their spiritual needs.' Photograph: Bendigo Trust/AAP

My favourite memories during my 1980s upbringing in Bendigo were yabby catching, bush dancing, netball and The Brady Bunch. So much of who I am today as an adult, working professional and Australian, stems from my time in that country town with its predominantly Anglo-Saxon population.

Not surprisingly, the shrill tone of this recent "No mosque in Bendigo"campaign, deeply enmeshed in hate and irrationality, fails to resonate with the spirit of my neighbours, friends and the community leaders I grew up with.

I'm a fifth generation East African-born Muslim of Indian origin, and I grew up feeling very much a part of my hometown. I attended the local schools and can confidently say my faith was never cause for discrimination, hate or fear amongst my peers and community. While a country upbringing may be comparatively more conservative than a city one, I enjoyed the best qualities of inclusion, self-confidence and plenty of opportunities to succeed.

My Bendigo schooling saw me attend church services, sing hymns at school assembly and achieve straight As in religious education. None of these experiences placed me at odds with my faith. Instead they provided me a genuine understanding and respect for others' beliefs. My family were ardent members of the Indo-Australia Club, partaking in functions that celebrated our heritage. In school I studied the Dreamtime, Chinese culture, and learned French and Indonesian. I celebrated Easter with friends and Eid with my family, without any crisis of conscience. The naysayers and hatemongers had no oxygen when I was growing up.

I’ve wondered how my upbringing might have differed had there been a local mosque to attend, both for my own spiritual rounding and that of my classmates. My first mosque visit was in the Melbourne suburb of Preston as a 13 year old. I recall being mesmerised by its tranquil ambience. Upon returning to Bendigo I realised how much I missed that spiritual connection, which until that point I never knew I needed. Ultimately, that is the purpose of places of worship – to provide a spiritual repose for practitioners of any faith.

Thirty years on later, the political and cultural landscape of Australia has transformed significantly, without a doubt. But what I understand to be the fundamentals of Bendigo culture – understanding and acceptance – cannot have changed that much.

The anti-mosque group peddles a concept of fairness applicable only to those whom they deem spiritually fit. They have distributed hate material, given speeches and tied black balloons to the houses of pro-mosque councillors. Their strategy is to demonise the other, based on a false belief that the host culture needs protecting from being polluted and overrun. If that fear-mongering sounds un-Australian, that’s because it is.

Today local Muslims in Bendigo are seeking a space to meet their spiritual needs. In a democracy, it seems an entitlement so basic as to hardly warrant controversy. To the Bendigonians I know and love, the responses of bigots are foreign and in no way reflective of the majority view. Evidence points to a mainly externally sourced "rent-a-racist" collective, marshalled by the Q Society, who are sadly tarnishing the good name of the golden city where I grew up.

I view these agitators as extremist hate-ists, addicted to spewing forth vitriol. However, I am prompted to keep calm and recall the wisdom of my year 11 English teacher who assured me,"‘you can’t be rational with irrational people". Ah, for the wisdom of country folk; haters, take heed.

I know I have continents to span when I bring my Australian life into your worlds, but the global movements of
organized hatred connect our struggles. In an early year of my decade long life here, La Professoressa took me to Bendigo
to show me what a 19th century gold rush founded Victorian country town was like. We went to the Museum of Chinese
history, for similar to the building of the American railroad, Chinese immigrants were allowed into the country to do the hard
work in the mines. The Museum is a social history of those who brought their labour and then their family's lives to this
 town, old photographs and house decorations, signs of cultures intermingling. And over us, the visitors to this
commemoration of courage and desperation, stretched a most magnificent New Year's dragon, the largest in the
Southern hemisphere. In another moment of welcome, the Bendigo City Council voted to build a mosque for some
of its citizens. Suddenly, the anti-Islamic group that brought Dutch politician Geert Wilders to Australia, the same politician
aligned with European Right wing movement, went into action. Black balloons started to appear in front of the homes
 of councillors who had voted for the mosque and their Face book page labels those supporting the mosque as  traitors.
What connects this place so far away from the streets I used to walk is this is a campaign of hated that we have seen
in public buses in Washington, D.C., in the streets of New York when a similar plan to build a mosque near the 2001
 site was suggested, what connects us all in this is that hatreds are being pedaled in such tragic times, and that
 like the other people of Bendigo, we must make clear that we will refuse their hatred. "Local state MP Jacinta Allen
said it was totally unacceptable for people outside of Bendigo to swoop in to divide the community. 'Bendigo
has a proud history if tolerance and diversity dating back to the gold rush history, and we'll work hard to preserve
and build upon it'."  The other citizens of the town have taken to putting up rainbow colored balloons on the streets
 of Bendigo. This moment is now part of our queer history; Geert Wilders is a gay Rightist, the symbol of inclusion
 is our rainbow and two older lesbians a decade ago paused in the Bendigo Chinese Museum to take in yet
another diaspora, driven by economic need,a  despair which turned into a welcome. Let his be our contribution to
the voices of hatred, let us always know when it is right to be traitors.