Abstract
Muslims have a long history in Australia. In 2016, Muslims formed 2.6 per cent of the total Australian population. In this article, I will discuss Australian Muslims’ citizenship in two time periods, 2006–2018 and 2020. In the first period, I will examine Australian Muslims’ identity and sense of belonging, and whether their race or culture have any impact on their Australian citizenship. I will also discuss the political rhetoric concerning Australian Muslims. In the second period, 2020, I will examine Australian Muslims’ placement as returned travellers during the COVID-19 period. I conclude that, from 2006 to 2018, Islamophobia was rampant in “othering” many Australian Muslims. And in 2020 the Australian government has adopted a policy of inclusion by repatriating its citizens (both Muslims and non-Muslims), but with the COVID-19 crisis, a new dimension of discrimination has been added onto ethnic minorities – in this case Bangladeshi Australians who are mostly Muslims. They are now looked upon as the “other quarantined” or “detained Australian citizens”.
RAS ID
32569
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
2020
School
School of Arts and Humanities / Centre for Research in Entertainment, Arts, Technology, Education and Communications
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Publisher
Islamic Sciences and Research Academy of Australia
Comments
Kabir, N. A. (2020). Australian Muslim citizens. Australian Journal of Islamic Studies, 5(2), 4-28. https://ajis.com.au/index.php/ajis/article/view/273