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To: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck who wrote (17010)	9/7/2002 10:36:27 PM
From: lorne	Respond to of 23908

Muslim Women's Gym Sharpens Australian Divide By Michael Christie Friday September 6 12:31 PM EST SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) - A gym in Sydney meant only for Muslim women is sharpening the divide between Australia's Anglo-Celtic mainstream and the Islamic minority. The tiny, second-floor gym in a suburb with a high ethnic minority population has been granted an exemption from anti-discrimination laws on grounds that Muslim women suffer high levels of diabetes, cholesterol and obesity. Muslim women also have certain dress code requirements, prayer needs and sensitivities about undressing before non-Muslims that cannot be satisfied by the 499 or so other health clubs around Australia's largest city. But none of those arguments used by the New South Wales state Anti-Discrimination Board to justify the exemption seem to wash with the majority as a fury over the gym pours forth from newspaper letters pages and right-wing "shock jock" radio shows. "If Muslims are allowed to discriminate against Australians and Christians in this way, what will be next?" asked a C. Power in a letter to Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph. In an unscientific phone-in survey conducted by the conservative newspaper, 98 percent of 482 people who took part said the gym discriminated against others in the community. "We have meekly discarded Christian customs in this country to accommodate Muslims and others. Christmas carols and plays in our schools are a thing of the past. Enough is enough," wrote another contributor, K.E. Hudson. SINGLE ROOM OF CONTROVERSY The gym, "Soul Fitness," has been open for around four months in the district of Punchbowl, where an estimated 13 percent of the population is Muslim. It has about 350 members, but consists of a single room with a scattering of exercise machines and is protected by a locked door and buzzer. No men or non-Muslims are allowed inside. "Who is disadvantaged?" asked New South Wales anti-discrimination commissioner Chris Puplick. "The answer is nobody is disadvantaged because it's not as if something is being taken away. It wasn't as if this gym existed and it said to all of its non-Muslim members" to leave. "And nobody is denied access to the other 499 gyms," Puplick told Reuters. Some local academics see a growing "Islamaphobia" they compare ominously to 19th century Eastern European anti-Semitism. The Sept. 11 attacks by Islamic militants on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have fed anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia, as they have in other Western countries. Discrimination against Muslims has increased sharply, anti-racism officials and campaigners say. Most cases of harassment go unreported because the Islamic community fears complaining too loudly will only increase the backlash. Cowed by the ferocious public reaction, the owners of the Muslim women's gym did not wish to be interviewed by Reuters. Yet Sept. 11 was merely a catalyst for rumblings that were already around as the numbers of illegal immigrants of Islamic background increased, and the government responded by slamming shut Australia's doors to boat people. In the year since, Sydney has been rocked by the conviction of Lebanese Australian youths for gang raping white Australian girls in a crime colored by racial taunts against the victims. More recently, public attention has focused on a woman in Nigeria sentenced by an Islamic court to death by stoning for bearing a child out of wedlock. The Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas of the Philippines are guaranteed coverage every time they behead a hostage. It was only 40 years ago that Australia officially pursued a policy to keep its population white. Asian immigration has dramatically changed the face of the island continent of 20 million in the last few decades. But the search for a national identity, 100 years after a collection of British colonies agreed to form a nation, is still influenced by the White Australia policy, experts say. "Like it or not there is within the Australian psycho-social debate a very profound assimilationist streak," said Puplick. Animosity toward Muslims who wear different clothes and behave according to different beliefs is borne of the lingering view that "anyone could come to Australia provided they became an Aussie as quickly as possible." Puplick compares the current furor over the Arabic Islamic community and its gym to 19th century anti-Semitism in Eastern European, triggered by the Jewish community's determination to be different. He is pessimistic that anti-Muslim sentiment will quickly abate. "I have some ongoing concerns about all of this because there will always be September 11 anniversaries," he said. ca.news.yahoo.com