US embassy cable - 05CANBERRA1455

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CANBERRA 001455 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR S/CT, EAP/ANP 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/29/2015 
TAGS: PTER, PGOV, PINR, AS 
SUBJECT: PM HOWARD ENLISTS MUSLIM LEADERS TO COMBAT 
EXTREMISM IN THEIR COMMUNITIES 
 
REF: A. CANBERRA 1423 
 
     B. CANBERRA 1381 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Woo Lee for reasons 1.4 (b/d). 
 
1.  (C) SUMMARY: Prime Minister John Howard and thirteen 
Australian Muslim leaders met at an August 23 "summit" to 
find ways in which the government and Islamic leaders could 
work together more closely to combat the spread of extremism 
within Australia's Islamic community (Refs A and B).  After 
the meeting, the PM and the Muslim representatives jointly 
issued a statement of principles condemning terrorism and 
laying out a framework for further dialogue and action. 
Future meetings will consider issues such as the training of 
imams and curricula at Islamic schools.  Plans for the summit 
received criticism from some quarters for not being 
"inclusive" enough, because the PM refused to invite some of 
the most vocal radical clerics (Ref B).  The PM was 
unapologetic, however, saying that his purpose was not to 
"change the minds of people who are hardened fanatics," but 
rather to curtail their influence.  END SUMMARY. 
 
Terrorism Condemned, Australian Values Praised 
--------------------------------------------- - 
2.  (C) As part of the Australian Government's efforts in the 
wake of the London bombings to reduce the likelihood of 
domestically-nurtured terrorism, Prime Minister Howard on 
August 23 hosted a summit with thirteen prominent Australian 
Muslims to ask for their help in battling extremist ideology 
within their communities.  After a two-hour meeting, Howard 
and the Muslim leaders issued a joint statement of principles 
rejecting and denouncing terrorism and committing to work 
together to promote understanding and combat extremism.  In 
the statement, the Muslim leaders agreed that they each had a 
responsibility "to challenge and to counteract" would-be 
terrorists.  With government political and perhaps future 
financial support, the leaders agreed to take the initiative 
to foster "mutual understanding and Australian values" and to 
challenge advocacy of violence and extremism within Islamic 
organizations and their communities more generally.  For its 
part, the government said it would seek the cooperation of 
state and territory governments at a special meeting of the 
Council of Australian Governments scheduled to be convened by 
the PM on September 27 (Ref A) in an effort to design a 
national strategy to address intolerance and the promotion of 
violence. 
 
Practical Dialogue 
------------------ 
3.  (C) PM Howard also announced that John Cobb, his Junior 
Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, would 
convene future meetings with the Muslim leaders and involve 
other relevant ministers for specific topics as appropriate. 
Participants would break into small groups to develop 
practical policy recommendations for the government on issues 
such as the training of imams, curricula in Islamic schools, 
Muslim youth, and the role of women.  Department of Prime 
Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) Senior Adviser for Domestic 
Security Policy Sarah Chidgey told us that the next meeting 
with Muslim leaders would take place in Melbourne on August 
31, with subsequent regional meetings in Brisbane and Perth. 
 
PM Defends Guestlist 
-------------------- 
4.  (U) According to press reports, PM Howard opened the 
summit with frank remarks stating that Australia was not 
immune from terrorist attacks and that anyone who thought 
Australia could escape terrorism was "deluding themselves." 
Howard emphasized that his purpose in convening the meeting 
was to identify ways of preventing the emergence of terrorist 
behavior and that he had engaged the Islamic community 
because the common thread in most terrorist attacks in recent 
years was that those attacks had occurred "perversely in the 
name of Islam."  He acknowledged that the ability of the 
government to eradicate extremism by legislation was limited 
and that was why he looked to Muslim leaders to influence 
their communities against embracing violence.  Legislation 
was necessary to protect the community, Howard said, but the 
government had to "win the hearts and minds" of people as 
well. 
 
5.  (U) Amidst continued criticism from parts of the press 
and excluded clerics that his guestlist for the summit was 
not "inclusive," Howard was steadfast in reiterating in both 
his opening remarks at the meeting and subsequent media 
interviews his reasons for not inviting the most radical 
Muslim clerics (Refs A and B).  He made no apology for not 
inviting people with extreme views because they would have 
dominated media coverage and obscured the summit's more 
important purposes.  "You won't change the minds of people 
who are hardened fanatics and hardened extremists," the PM 
said.  "You have to identify them and take measures to ensure 
that they don't become a problem.  The main aim of policy at 
present is to make sure that young and impressionable people 
in the Islamic community do not come under the sway or the 
influence of those hardened fanatics," he argued. 
 
Muslim Leaders (Mostly) Make the Right Sounds 
--------------------------------------------- 
6.  (U) Dr. Ameer Ali, President of the Australian Federation 
of Islamic Councils (AFIC), said in his opening remarks that 
the summit was an "historic event" since no previous PM had 
invited the Muslim community for open talks about problems 
facing the country and the Islamic community in particular. 
While he acknowledged that there might be differences in 
political points of view among the participants, Ali assured 
the media that the vast majority of Muslims shared the same 
values as other Australians.  "We are Muslims but we are 
Australian Muslims, (and) that identity must be preserved all 
the time," he said.  Ali also emphasized again that the 
majority of the Muslim community did not see Osama bin Laden 
as a leader, rejecting the position of a few radical clerics 
who had called bin Laden a "great man" (Ref B). 
 
7.  (U) Yasser Soliman, however, a member of the Council for 
Multicultural Australia, cautioned in his own remarks at the 
press conference that the Muslim community was a diverse and 
vibrant one that should not be described only in the 
"language of terrorism."  He also responded to recent 
criticism of multiculturalism in Australia by some 
politicians and commentators, arguing that the GOA's 
multicultural policies were in fact important elements in 
fighting extremism (Ref B). 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
8.  (C) The summit was a positive, if small, first step in 
the Howard Government's renewed effort to enlist Australian 
Muslims to police extremism in their own ranks.  The success 
or failure of the initiative will depend on whether it can 
achieve practical outcomes, such as changing the intolerant 
world view reportedly being taught in at least some of 
Australia's Islamic schools -- and, ultimately, whether it 
can better integrate the country's some 300,000 Muslim 
residents into the mainstream of Australian society. 
 
STANTON