Spectres of Fear 37
National memorial services held throughout Australia became theatres of “ symbolic convergence ,” coining Bormann , for privileging “ Australian ” qualities of “ mateship ” “ openness ” and “ tolerance ,” as enunciated by a defiant Australian Prime Minister John Howard ( Gordon , The Age 25 , October 2002 , 2 ). Eminent people such as the Anglican Bishop to the Australian Defence Force evoked the metaphor of the “ imagined community ” by emphasising that all Australians needed to mourn ( 1 ).
Popular discourses of fear were played out via the Tampa crisis which foregrounded the practice of “ bogeyfying ” Muslims . On August 27 , 2001 , Captain Arne Rinan of the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa made three mayday calls “ reporting a medical emergency ” to the Australian immigration authorities claiming that his vessel had 438 refugees on aboard , most of whom were Afghan asylum seekers . 6 Concerned with national security , the Howard government refused permission to allow the Tampa to enter Australian waters , an action which drew international criticism ( Nahid and Moore , November 11 , 2003 ). Kabir and Moore note that the Tampa crisis provoked a similar backlash against Australian Muslims as was witnessed during September 11 ( 6 ). Overnight , the Tampa asylum seekers elicited national polemics which defined them as either as deserving poor needing compassion or as possible threats to the nation . Amplified in this debate was a concern to construct the other , to manage their apparent indeterminacy .
Carrol affirms that in the post-September 11 world the penchant for fantasy making leads to state sponsored forms of paranoia ( Carroll 2002 , 92 ), or what Wark calls the “ security hypothesis ” ( 1997 ). Consequently , western nations have been compelled to re-establish an illusion of control of the Other , which cannot be securely possessed ( Jackson 1998 , 130 ). In Australian popular culture , the social ramifications of post-September 11 have manifested in increasingly nationalist discourses over the potential violation of national space by “ undesirable persons ” who are imagined to embody a counter will to the dominant Anglo-Celtic culture ( Hage 1998 ). Hage and Perrera ( 2000 , 8 ), claim that the politics of “ whiteness ” has been integral to the way Australian national space is imagined in terms of “ absolutist space ,” as referred to the phrase “ One Nation .” New South Wales backbencher Reverend Nile underscored the present angst against Australian Muslims when he demanded that Muslim women be banned “ from wearing the chador in public as they could be used to conceal weapons .” 7 Similarly , former One Nation party stalwart David Oldfield said , “ The dress of Muslim women is used to mask the tools of death carried by
terrorists .” 8
Maha Krayem Abdo , president of The United Muslim Women ’ s Association responded that Nile ’ s comments would incite further violence among Australians . 9 Abdo ’ s condemnation of Nile ’ s exemplifies the extent to which Australian Muslims are publicly denouncing “ incendiary ” comments about them . Joe Wakim , of the Australian Arabic Council censured Niles : “ Are