Standing up to extremism is an unexpected burden

BRAVE humanitarian Jamal Rifi is our Australian of the year.

FOR Jamal Rifi the opportunity to study, work, live and raise a family in Australia has been a boundless blessing. Yet 30 years after his arrival on our shores he has found himself confronted by the shocking reality that young men he has known all his life have turned their backs on this freedom, plurality and prosperity to embrace a nihilistic extremism that idolises violence, intolerance and, even, death. Dr Rifi, already a tireless community leader, has chosen not to turn away but to face up to the heavy responsibility of defending and bolstering this nation’s Muslim communities while combating the cancer of Islamist terror. “People like me are the real representatives of the Muslim community,” the Sydney GP said last year, “not (Islamic State jihadists) Sharrouf and Elomar — that is the message I want to send.” His is a suburban skirmish in a global struggle that must involve police and armies as well as families and imams.

It is no condemnation of Islam as a faith — or Muslims as a global cohort of believers — to argue that the insidious influence of Islamist extremism is a challenge that Muslim communities must accept as their responsibility. It is not theirs alone, and it is not a dilemma they invited, but it is a phenomenon that “hijacks” their religion and carries out atrocities in its name. People are not being slaughtered in the name of Presbyterianism or Scientology. So the remedy, the rejection, of this awful mutation of one of the world’s great faiths must start with an open and committed repudiation by the law-abiding and peace-loving people who make up the overwhelming majority of the adherents of Islam.

This is the responsibility that has been embraced by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in his worldwide call to Muslims. He has spoken of the urgent need for a “religious revolution” to save the Islamic world from being “torn” or “destroyed.” President Sisi despairs how “it is inconceivable that the thinking we hold most sacred should cause the entire ‘umma’ (Islamic world) to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world.” In his speech — pointedly made from Cairo’s centre of Islamic scholarship, Al-Azhar university — he described how extremism was “antagonising the entire world” and sending the message that 1.6 billion Muslims wanted “to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants” so that they could live the life they prefer.

As we have reported today, despite tough new laws, disruption operations by our security agencies and the community efforts of people like Dr Rifi, young Australian men and women continue to travel to Iraq and Syria to answer the Islamic State jihadist call. With approximately 90 of our nationals operating as combatants in the so-called caliphate, and others having been killed or having killed themselves in suicide attacks, the disease is far from cured. Authorities have confirmed another 90 potential jihadists remain in this country — possibly against their will — because their passports have been cancelled. This occurs at the same time our military personnel are putting themselves in harm’s way by joining the international coalition to buttress Iraq’s battle against the terrorists.

It is chilling — and verging on the incomprehensible — to see that the sons and daughters of migrants who fled to this country from civil war in the Middle East should turn their backs on our peace and plurality to enjoin a bloodthirsty jihad against diversity and choice. It constitutes a violent rejection of all we hold dear, as well as a threat against our security. Tragically, as much as some might want, we simply cannot wish away this reality.

It forms a disturbing backdrop to the naming of our annual Australian of the Year; an award that seeks to highlight all that is inclusive, productive and prospective about our nation. Yet, against this horrible intrusion of intolerance into our national fabric, and in a political and social context that is volatile and risky, Dr Rifi’s leadership has been a beacon of strength, honesty and inclusiveness. He has not risen to this challenge overnight. As Natasha Robinson writes in our pages today, his life’s story is an ode to the success of our immigrant nation and his contribution to the Lebanese, Muslim and broader communities has been long and outstanding. A founding member of Muslim Doctors Against Violence and the Christian Muslim Friendship Society, he has also served on a variety of community bodies and worked extensively on programs to steer youth into constructive engagement and away from extremism. He has spoken out bravely against the rise of Islamic State, its worldwide call to jihad and the pernicious influence of so-called online imams on Muslim youth.

His family has walked the journey and confronted the risks with him — it is not a burden anyone should have to bear but we are grateful they have done so. Dr Rifi even broadened his reach with the typically Australian idea of a barbecue against extremism. This GP’s example is inspirational but his work is not yet done and he needs many more of us, Muslims and non-Muslims, to stand strongly alongside him.