With the spectacular media circus which accompanied arrests of Muslim youth in Melbourne and subseqent beat up of Islamophobia and racism drums, we are more sure now that the Labor government is preparing us for an early election based on these sentiments. With total silence from all opposition parties, including the so-called progressive ones, the SJN has decided to run candidates to challenge Islamophobia, racism and low represention of marginlised communites in our decison making bodies which usualy leads to such racist and discriminatory electoral platforms for mainstream parties dominated by Anglo-Saxon politicians.
The network candidates, while supporting any actions to strengthen the security of this great nation, will challenge the need for draconian laws to achieve this vital goal. The existing Anti-Terrorism laws combined with the proposed more draconian ones that will be presented to the parliament soon is infact a threat to our security and social cohesion.
“The racist and anti-Muslim feelings and sentements have started to be flourished in the society after this media circus”said Jamal Daoud, spokesperson of SJN. “Instead, the government could strengthen national society by addressing the social injustices in the society, including fighting against racism, Islamophobia, poverty and unemployment”
The network will campaign on giving marginalised communites a chance to voice their concerns– and in particular to highlight the failure of all exisiting manistream parties to give these communites any opportunity to participate in decision making processes that shape their lives in this country.
“The marginalised communites of indigenous people, newly arrived migrants, refugees and people with disabilities are absent from the federal parliament” said Jamal Daoud, spokesperson of the network. “Even though these marginalised communites make up more than 40% of the Australian population, their representation in the Federal parliament is nearly nil”.
“Even the so-called left progressive parties have failed to field any candidate from these marginalised communities in any safe or semi safe seat”
“Real multiculturalism and social justice in any society means that the marginalised people should be allowed to represent themselves in order to have a genuine say in the future of the nation they belong to and equal access to its resources and common wealth” added Mr Daoud. “By doing this, we can reduce the feelings of marginalisation & social isolation, feeling of hopelsness and being targeted by own society. Such moves are very importnat to reduce social tension and feeling of being second class citizen”
“By failing to stand up and fight against these highly regressive laws and draconian practices, which violate basic human rights of presumption of inncoence and rights to get fair trial, the exisiting parties, including the so-called progressive ones, are in fact part of the problem and definitely not part of the solution”
“The network is meeting with representatives of these marginalised communites to involve them with the campaign, including involving them in finalising the candidate names and seats they will run in. The campaign will be a highly multicultural and grass-rooted one”.
“The history of Australian political life is not so bright when it comes to use discriminatory claims and in involving the highly marginalised communites. This is why racism and discrimination were always high on the agenda for political campaigning throughout Australian history”
The network hopes from this campaign to give the marginalised communites hope of the possibility getting some share in politico-economic life of this nation. It is not acceptable that marginalised communites and their suffering be used continually as electoral slogans for some parties to gain more votes. If these parties are serious about its rhetoric, they should give some power and voice for these marginalised communites to lead the fight for their rights.
The network will announce later on the names of candidates and the seats they will run in. The main platform for the campaign would be promoting real Multiculturalism and the issues of low representation of marginalised people in decision making processes.
In the coming federal election, the Social Justic Network is advocating that citizens vote for those who have actually acted on issues, and not who just said nice words. The most important issues in many parts of Sydney is promotion of real multiculturalism. Real multiculturalism for us is not a code word. It is a practical commitment to equal participation in the decision making process”
For more info about the campaign, you can contact the group’s spokesperson Jamal Daoud on 0424 163 667
