Posted on 08/31/2006 10:53:33 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
THE chairman of the government's Islamic advisory committee has warned of more Cronulla-style riots unless the Prime Minister tones down his comments on Muslim migrants.
Prime Minister John Howard sparked a backlash in some sections of Australia's Muslim community by saying Muslim migrants needed to conform to Australian values by learning English and treating women with respect. But the head of the government's new Muslim advisory committee, Dr Ameer Ali, warned of trouble unless the Mr Howard backed down.
"We have already witnessed one incident in Sydney recently in Cronulla, I don't want these scenes to be repeated because when you antagonise the younger generation, younger group, they are bound to react," Dr Ali told Macquarie Radio.
But Mr Howard today stood by his comments.
"I don't apologise," he told reporters.
"I think they are missing the point and the point is that I don't care and the Australian people don't care where people come from.
"There's a small section of the Islamic population which is unwilling to integrate and I have said generally all migrants ... they have to integrate."
The comments prompted a fierce reaction from young female Islamic leader Iktimal Hage-Ali, a member of the Prime Minister's advisory group. She accused Mr Howard of threatening to further marginalise Muslims. "There's no value in pointing out the minority of the Muslim group," she said.
"There's a whole lot of other ethnic communities whose parents, whose grandparents don't speak the English language, and it's never a problem in the mainstream Australian community for them to go on living their everyday life without speaking language.
"Yet as soon as it's a person of a Arab descent or a Muslim person ... politicians feel like they need to bring it to mainstream attention as the only group, like marginalising us even more then we already feel marginalised today."
I'm wondering if she is consideing the fact that other ethnic communities
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