Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 40

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Popular Culture Review
ability to keep the world in awe. It was awe of the Chimera’s monstrous
semblance which fascinated the Greeks and medieval Europeans. Chimera
represented the horror of foreboding events, or what Jackson (1998) and
Bauman (1999) opine as the indeterminacy of human life. Awe, like terror, is a
response of the irrationality of the Other. A post-mortem of the World Trade
Centre event—which Friedman calls “a new cyborgian Frankenstein . . . a
device for historical perception” (2002, 14)—has abandoned the modernist
belief of the “existential safety of larger totalities” assured by western
governments (Bauman 1999, 39).
“Bogeyfying” Australian Muslims in Australian Popular Imagery
Rather than considering Islamism4 and its violent methods as a radical
fringe movement in the Muslim world, the western world has tended to view
Muslim societies as a monolith, handcuffed to pre-modernity. This popular
conception has made it almost impossible for Australia’s 300,000 plus Muslims
not to be indicted by many non-Muslim Australians as supporters of Islamism.
The extent of Islamophobia in Australian culture was identified in a
2003 survey of more than 5,000 Australians. Over half of the survey respondents
“said they would be concerned if a relative married a Muslim” (Hughes 2003).
The survey also indicated Australian Muslims are being increasingly
marginalised, and as being “unable to fit” into Australian culture. (Hughes
2003).
Like many other western nations, Australian culture was beset with the
nightmare of international terrorism post-September 11, 2001. By many
accounts this event prompted an existential crisis for many Australians. The
otherwise laidback and temperate ideals of Australian culture had been shaken
by a growing angst of an imperceptible Other—the same Other who had
committed the crimes of September 11, 2001. Fear that a similar event could
happen in Australia seemed more probable than possible. Such a fear was
brought to the fore with the infamous Bali bombings of October 12, 2002, which
were referred to by Australian commentators as “Australia’s September 11.”
The Indonesian-based Islamist group Jamaah Islamiyyah claimed responsibility
for the bombings which killed 202 people, of which 88 were Australians.5 The
profound shock of the Bali bombings caused a national angst which had been
unprecedented in the modem era (Gordon, The Age 30, November 2002,1).
The mass carnage of the Bali bombings was yet another reminder of the
indeterminate nature of jihadists. The subsequent Australian media depictions of
Jamaah Islamiyyah foregrounded their “bogeyness.” Much of Australian anger
was focused on the Bali bomber Amrozi bin Nurhasyim who was routinely
showed smiling with his Indonesian captors. Dubbed by the media as the
“smiling assassin” the young jihadist reaffirmed, to the Australian audience,
orientalist fantasies of Muslims—savage, cruel and mys-occident.