We told you the threat is white supremacy. You ignored us

Randa Abdel-Fattah: The planes crashed into the twin towers. The bombs hit Iraq and Afghanistan. We were divided into moderates and extremists.
We were socially engineered to play the part of the integrated, always-ready to-condemn, apolitical, safe Muslim.

We were told that the price for conditional belonging was the sacrifice of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan Syria, Yemen, Myanmar and every other broken, exploited third-world body and soul that paid the price for the West’s wealth and ‘freedom’.

We were expected to forgive Abu Ghraib, forget Guantanamo Bay, be silent about Gaza.

We were told the borders would be patrolled by whiteness, not the indigenous owners of this land. Our mosques were vandalised, our hijabs ripped off our heads, our leaders seduced into accepting we needed to be spied on, racialised and marked as a suspect community at-risk of ‘radicalisation’ via countering violent extremism programmes.

We told you the threat is still white supremacy. You ignored us and said: ‘Accept Australian values or go back to where you came from.’

The Arab revolutions in your colonial playground were crushed by dictators cashed up and supported by you.

The divided and conquered morphed into the grotesque. Local communities were seduced again into denying race, denying history, forgetting our troubles were playing out on stolen land.

We took responsibility for terrorism and condemned, over and over again. We disciplined and tamed the beards, the hijabs, the niqabs, the Friday prayers in schools, the sermons.

We let academics research our children to find the genetic code for ‘becoming terrorist’. We focused on ‘social cohesion’, ‘community resilience’, ‘Australian values’. We produced public speakers, athletes and diversity liaison officers. We complained about the incendiary media headlines, fascist rallies, race-baiting politicians and commentators. We cleaned up the bacon, always with the bacon.

We told you the threat is still white supremacy. You ignored us…
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