I’m staying with a christian Lebanese Australian friend at the moment and am having trouble dealing with the anti-Muslim sentiment from his parents’ generation. The younger generation are very open-minded, but my friend’s mother and aunt are adamant that Muslims are breeding up to take over Australia. It’s not all Muslims, they concede, but the younger Muslims are being brainwashed by extremist shieks and that will be enough to destroy our country.
Their fear is understandable since they come from a generation that has seen their home country torn apart by religious wars. The challenge, then, is to ensure that our traditional Aussie open and relaxed attitude is enough to counter any brainwashing that may be happening. The fear shared by the older generation can’t help our fight.