Yeah, Australia’s first female Muslim MP thinks hateful attacks against Muslims are “racist”.
Mick Tsikas / AAPIMAGE
Last week Labor’s Dr Anne Aly sparked conservative outrage as parliament debated reforming Australia’s Racist Discrimination Act, by suggesting attacks aimed at Muslims should also be covered under the law.
Aly sat down for the latest episode of BuzzFeed Australia’s political podcast Is It On?, laying out *her* argument for anti-Muslim hatred being considered racist.
She is also well aware of the “but Islam is not a race” retort used by trolls online:
Because (attacks on Muslims) have the same motivations as racism and the same impacts of racism. So you can define racism as only being about a certain category or in terms of its mobilisers and its impacts. If you look at its mobilisers then you would consider hate speech against Muslims, racism.
Dr Aly, who worked as de-radicalisation expert before entering parliament last year, brushed off a claim by Liberal MP Tim Wilson that she’s actually arguing for blasphemy laws.
AAP Images
She pointed to the fact that hatred against Jewish people and Sikhs could both be protected under the Act’s controversial 18C, despite neither being “a race”.
“In the same way that Jewish people and Sikhs are also covered under 18C because they have established they are one people, in other words to be considered one kind of race,” Aly said.
The full interview with Anne Aly features on BuzzFeed Australia’s podcast Is It On? You can listen to it now! View it on iTunes and subscribehere.
