In reply to the explosive story today about the extremist preacher Nassim Abdi and, as a Sunni Muslim, I would like first to condemn the extremist preacher and his message. I would like to reiterate here that he is not the only extremist preacher with similar or more extreme messages vending their extreme ideology on daily basis in our suburbs.
But at the same time, we have a clear message here in that we need to seek explanations from our authorities as to their role in allowing and even facilitating this extreme preacher to promote his extremist ideas.
I should mention here that our authorities had refused to cooperate with us and many moderate leaders and active community members in fighting against such extreme ideology.
In this regard I should mention that we presented the NSW government in 2013 with a petition of hundreds of signatures of local Muslim residents in Auburn area to close down this centre (Al Bukhari bookstore), but it was knocked back under the slogan of “freedom of speech”.
Not only this, our authorities have been in support of such extreme groups for the last few years, since 2011.
On the PM's first Iftar, Malcolm Turnbull chose to invite mainly extremists, many of them leaders in the extreme organisation ASWJ. Myself and many of the moderate leaders and active members were not invited.
On many occasions, ASWJ representatives were the main guests in consultations about fighting against extremism, the very extremism they promote and preach. Myself and many moderate Sunni leaders who are experts on extremism and have a demonstrated track record of speaking against it were never invited.
As if that isn’t enough; State and Federal governments have generously funded extremist organisations, including ASWJ, with several grants and funds. While we have no accurate figure, we suspect that the extremist ASWJ organisation receives hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax-payers funded grants. Ourselves and many other organisations led by moderate Muslims failed to secure even a $5000 grant to help us with our activities to promote harmony and to tackle radicalisation and extremism.
The media should start asking the right and tough questions. The media currently asks the naive question of “where did all this radicalisation come from?” Instead, it should start asking questions about evaluating publicly funded projects aimed to fight against extremism that are actually conducted by extremist organisations. The media should also start to ask why authorities prefer to deal with extremists, whilst ignoring moderate voices like mine.
Authorities not only ignore people like myself, but on many occasions harass me and even collude with foreign authorities trying to end my activities. The same has happened with other activists.
I wish to reiterate that these preachers do not speak for us as Muslims in this nation. We encourage the media and authorities to work with us to overcome the highly negative and sometime criminal messages these extremists promote.
Jamal Daoud
Social Justice Network
Mob. 0404 447 272
