Australian Federation of Islamic Council under fire
Updated
The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Council has been dumped as concerns are raised over the relevance of the group.
Presenter: Stephanie March
Speakers: AFIC vice president Hafas Malas; Sydney based writer on Muslim Affairs, Irfan Yusuf.
MARCH: Ikebal Patel was appointed as President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils in February last year. His time as leader of the umbrella body of Islamic groups in Australia has now come to an end. Six state member councils have supported the vote of no confidence in the Fijian migrant. In May 2006, as the then treasurer of AFIC he spoke out about problems of internal mismanagement within the organisation.
Vice President of the Federation, Hafas Malas, says Ikebal Patel was removed from his position because of problems with his leadership style.
MALAS: We stood beside him, we supported him until 2006, until he became the office then he changed and started to do differently as any other people might.
MARCH: How has his behaviour changed?
MALAS: Well he started to have 'jobs for the boys'.
MARCH: Ikebal Patel has been replaced by Haset Sali, a Queensland lawyer who attracted attention last year when he compared the actions of controversial former Mufti of Australia, Taj Din al-Hilali, to those of Adolph Hitler. Reports have labeled Haset Sali as more moderate than his predecessor. But Sydney based writer on Muslim issues, Irfan Yusuf, says the change in AFIC's leadership will have little effect on Muslim communities in Australia. He says Federation members are out of touch with those they claim to represent.
YUSUF: That's dominated by middle age migrant males, first generation migrant males, many of whom have sort of poor English language skills and don't really understand mainstream Australian life very well and again, that's a problem of representation, they don't really reflect the reality of Muslims, at least 50 per cent of whom are female, and most of whom are brought up in Australia and under the age of 30.
MARCH: He says another problem is that the organisation only represents religious institutions.
YUSUF: Muslims by and large, you know they're like the rest of the population, they're fairly secular, some of them are interested in religion, some of them aren't.
MARCH: Despite its apparent narrow representation the Federation is also an advisory body to state and federal governments. But Irfan Yusuf says that doesn't matter.
YUSUF: I think governments tend to, they tend to talk to AFIC because they have to be seen to be talking to AFIC. But I think they know quite well that this is an organisation that's sort of had its day and it's really irrelevant largely.
MARCH: AFIC also manages over 50 million dollars of assets, mostly land housing Muslim schools. But Irfan Yusuf says Muslim communities see little benefit from the money earned by AFIC in the form of grassroots community projects.
YUSUF: A lot of AFIC's money has gone into litigating. A lot of their litigation is pretty much intra-council litigation, they're prone to kick out state councils and introduce new ones, they kicked them out and had to go to court. So I mean I guess really the people who are benefiting the most from AFIC are the private legal profession. So I guess for the sake of those lawyers AFIC should continue to exist because otherwise I guess those lawyers would be out of a job.
MARCH: He says there's not much the group can do now to save its reputation?
YUSUF: I guess there's really not much AFIC can do. I think it's pretty much a rotting carcass and I guess the best thing that can happen is if it's perhaps buried.
