Sydney unveils a new face of Islamophobia
Annabel Stafford; 2/6/08
There is a new face of Islamophobia in Sydney. Gone are the images of angry young men draped in Australian flags and brandishing beer bottles as they rampage through Cronulla terrorising anyone who looks Middle Eastern. In their place is middle-aged, earnest-looking Kate McCulloch, wearing a large Akubra hat plastered with Australian flag stickers. She tells the TV cameras that she is not racist, but Muslims take our welfare, do not live by our rules and are not welcome in Camden.
They are different faces, but their message is the same. They do not want Muslims on their beaches, in their streets, in their suburbs.
See: http://www.theage.com.au/national/sydney-unveils-a-new-face-of-islamophobia-20080601-2kjs.html
Family deplores victory in its name
Harriet Alexander; 2/6/08
One by one, in various corners of the state, the direct descendants of John and Elizabeth Macarthur read in the Herald that an anti-Muslim activist in Camden was citing their pioneering ancestors as her inspiration in a crusade against an Islamic school. “The Macarthurs will be proud of us,” Kate McCulloch told the Herald after her successful campaign to block plans for an Islamic school at Camden. The Reverend Kate Macneil, a “seven greats” granddaughter of the famous colonials, was writing a sermon for her Woy Woy church when she became so rankled by Ms McCulloch’s comments that she wrote a letter to the Herald instead. “We write as direct descendants of John and Elizabeth’s daughter Mary Isabella,” she wrote in a letter on behalf of her father and three siblings. “No one can say what their reaction would have been. “But we can say that they were first-generation Australians, who sought to continue to honour their cultural heritage in a new place and valued education for their children.”
See: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/family-deplores-victory-in-its-name/2008/06/01/1212258647605.html