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AUSTRALIAN www.alwasat.com.au ¿ info@alwasat.com.au
¿ ALWASAT ¿ Issue 42 ¿ Jumada Al-Thani 1435 ¿ April 2014
Huntingdale Mosque On behalf of the ‘Board of Mutawalli (BOM)’ of Australia Bangladesh Islamic Council (ABIC), it’s my sheer
pleasure to inform you that Alhamdulillah BOM signed the contract for purchase the next door property 1287, North Road,Huntingdale (marked as “B” in the photo below) at the price of $750,000.00. Out of which $350,000.00 paid till today which consists of $170,000.00 ‘Karze Hasanah’; and remaining $400,000.00 to be paid by December 2014. Respected Muslim brothers and sisters, before we proceed further, I need your kind consideration on the followings: - Huntingdale Masjid is located in a very vital position. We would like to utilize this locational advantage for the benefit of common Muslims residing in Melbourne. With wider vision and proper planning, we desire to build shops and other facilities to generate
History Column
regular income, so that such income could be utilized to help other Masjids in Melbourne. - As the Muslim community is growing, demands for old homes, religious education centres for adult/ children,funeral services for low income earners are also growing. Alhamdulillah, we have organized number of free funeral services and currently owing ten burial spots at Werribee Cemetery and one at Springvale Cemetery. We plan to buy more in near future for the benefit of common Muslims. - Currently we are facing huge problem for car parking in Huntingdale. Several incidents had occurred between the neighbors and attending Mussallies on Fridays. Therefore, we need the adjacent properties for building car parks; otherwise the City Council would not permit us to do any further developments of the Masjid. As part of our Master plan, once we would acquire “C & D” (in the above
photo), then we can proceed for the major project to build shops and car parks at ground floor and Masjid on first + second floors of “ABIC & D”(in the above photo). Moreover, we intend to build small apartments in property “B & C”; with car park facility on the third floor and the roof panel. If the council permits, large underground car park also may be built in future. We now need 1000-2000 members to contribute $10-$20/month ($5/ week) at least for fiveten years; which will give us opportunity to acquire the remaining properties as shown in the photo above. We seek your cooperation. All the credits belong to Allah Subhanatwala, please make Dua for us. May Allah reward everyone. Wassaalam, Razzak A. Syed, Khadim, ABIC. ABIC A/C, BANK: CBA BSB: 063209 A/C. 10073973
ACCESS Ministries Cross Cultural Training ICV ICV was delighted to contribute to the ACCESS ministries Cross Cultural Engagement training for first-year Chaplains and Student Wellbeing Workers. The training took place on Thursday 17th April from 12:00-1:00pm at Camberwell Sister Lina Ayoubi coordinator of ICV Pastoral care presented to approximately 40 people, currently working as ACCESS ministries Chaplains or Student Wellbeing Workers in schools around Victoria ,who were eager to learn about respectful pastoral engagement with young people and families, especially when working with people from a cultural or faith group they are unfamiliar with. The presentation touched
on some key questions about Muslim community representation around Victoria: population, location, cultural groups, what cultural or relational elements that Chaplains/ Student Wellbeing Workers would do well to be aware of when offering pastoral care to a young person or family
from an Islamic background ie. modest clothing, contact between genders, Halal food, etc about rituals and festivals important to Muslims. and how Chaplains and Student Wellbeing at schools may respond on behalf of the school when there is a happy or tragic occasion such as death or
significant trauma in a family/community and how to reach out to a grieving family. The feedback from participants and Access ministries management was extremely positive: bridges and friendships were sure to stay.
Crime Stoppers Wanted Police need your help to locate this wanted person.
If you know something, say something. INDECENT ASSAULT – ST KILDA – 22 FEBRUARY 2014 Police are looking for a man who allegedly indecently assaulted a woman in St Kilda on 22 February 2014. The woman accepted a lift from the man whom she met outside a King Street venue around 5am. He then drove her to the St Kilda address near the intersection of Robertson and Wellington Street and indecently assaulted her in the car, believed to be a silver sedan. Police have released images of a man whom they believe may be able to assist them in their enquiries. He is described as Caucasian, aged in his mid to late 20s, around 183cm tall with short, straight brown hair and was wearing a black long-sleeved jacket with blue on the sleeves and shoulders and jeans.
م2014 هـ ¿ نيسان1435 ¿ جمادي الثاني42 ¿ الوسط ¿ العدد
EbonyGRAHAM DATE OF BIRTH: 2 March 1989 HEIGHT: 166 cm BUILD: Medium EYES:Brown HAIR: Brown COMPLEXION: Fair Ebony GRAHAM was allegedly involved in drug trafficking in Footscray. A warrant for her arrest has been issued for failing to appear at the Sunshine Magistrates’ Court.
Report information confidentially online at www.crimestoppers.com.au or call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
BUNYIP KNIGHTS AND DAMES One of the ongoing struggles in Australian society has been the conflict between the notion of social hierarchy and that of an egalitarian society. Under the early governors, Bligh and Macquarie, the struggle was between Emancipists (freed convicts and their families) and Bilal Cleland the Exclusives (free settlers). ilal42@bigpond.com The latter felt inherently superior to those who had been in bondage, who they insisted, should be denied civil rights. Governor Bligh did not bend to the will of the free settlers and officers of the NSW garrison. They overthrew him in the Rum Rebellion coup in 1808. My great great great grandfather, an emancipist and a constable in Van Diemen’s Land, signed the petition against the traitors. Several of the petitioners were flogged by the administration of Van Diemen’s Land, which supported the Rum Rebels and their leader, John Macarthur. Macarthur and his cronies formed the backbone of those greedy few who saw themselves as born to rule over their inferiors. They were also enthusiastic supporters of the free slave labour provided by the convict system. His son, along with political ally William Charles Wentworth, a progressive Emancipist who had turned extreme conservative by the 1850s, sought the creation of an hereditary aristocracy in the Australian colony, which would control a NSW version of the House of Lords. This major threat to the future development of a democratic constitution was eventually defeated. One of the major contributions to its defeat was a speech in 1853 by republican Daniel Deniehy. He showed that this ‘bunyip aristocracy’ would mean a feudal society for Australia: “We were not permitted to form our own Constitution, but instead we were to have one and an Upper Chamber cast upon us, built upon a model to suit the taste and propriety of certain political oligarchs, who treated the people at large as if they were cattle to be bought and sold in the market, as indeed they were in American slave states, and now in the Australian colonies, where we might find bamboozled Chinese and kidnapped Coolies.” Cheap Chinese labour, probably kidnapped to work in slave like conditions, was now favoured as a replacement for convict labour, by these pretenders to nobility. Deneihy savaged them mercilessly: “Next came the native aristocrat James MacArthur, he would he supposed, aspire to the coronet of an earl, he would call him the Earl of Camden and he suggests for his coat of arms a field vert, the heraldic term for green, and emblazoned on this field should be a rum keg of a New South Wales order of chivalry.” The rum keg was reminding the pretentious fool of his family origins, in the Rum Rebellion. The democratic spirit was already so strong in the colony that this proposal was abandoned. Not until the Order of Australia was introduced in 1975 was an Australian honours system introduced. Until then British honours were awarded to Australians The egalitarian, republican spirit remained strong throughout the 1800s. The most famous of all Australian writers, Henry Lawson, in 1887 wrote “A Song of the Republic” in which he called for a new society in Australia, distinct from the old world with its injustices, class system and monarchy, which threatened to make “a hell in a Paradise”. He contrasted the dead land of the old country with the young green “land that belongs to you”. Sons of the South, make choice between (Sons of the South, choose true), The Land of Morn and the Land of E’en, The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green, The Land that belongs to the lord and the Queen, And the Land that belongs to you. Here we are in 2014 with an echo of the imperial British honours system of “knights and dames” introduced by an English immigrant Prime Minister, who apparently hankers after the ways of his aristocratic superiors in the old country. As Deniehy reminded the aristocratic pretenders of the colony in 1853: “The stately aristocracy of England was founded on the sword. The men who came over with the conquering Norman were the masters of the Saxons, and so became the aristocracy. The followers of Oliver Cromwell were the masters of the Irish, and so became their aristocracy.” He then asked upon what basis Wentworth and his cronies had conquered the local population, for that was what aristocracy signifies. We might well ask, upon what did Abbott base his new imperial honours aristocracy? Does he think he has conquered us like William the Bastard in 1066?
The author is a prominent Australian Muslim scholar and activist