Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows scenes from a youth conference held in Sydney in 2006. Fadi, the organiser, welcomes participants and sets up the discussion groups. Young male and female Muslim participants brainstorm their concerns on issues ranging from family communications to problems at school and with the police. The diversity of participants is shown. Although the organisers expected a better attendance, they still express pleasure about the size of the participant group and the progress of the day. Middle Eastern music is used in the clip.

Educational value points

• The one-day conference 'All Eyez on Youth: part of the solution, not the problem’ held on 25 November 2006 was run by youth leaders from the Independent Centre of Research Australia (ICRA), which was founded in 2003 to provide a youth centre in western Sydney for disadvantaged Muslim youth. Conference aims were to give a voice to these young Australians and to present a conference report to government representatives.

• The importance of the conference and the film was heightened by the events of December 2005 known as the Cronulla riots. The so-called race riots between young Australians of Anglo-Celtic background on the one side and of Middle Eastern heritage on the other shocked Australia. Prejudice against groups with Middle Eastern backgrounds, particularly Muslims, was strengthened by these events and further enflamed by 'shock jock’ radio commentators.

• The clip presents a picture of articulate young Australian Muslim leaders taking action to help recognise and address the needs of their community. Fadi Rahman, youth leader and founder of ICRA, is shown with his volunteer helpers, three young women, Alyah, Amna and Zouhour. Rahman and his helpers are clearly proud of what they have achieved in the face of the threatened closure of the centre by the local council.

• A range of voices of young Australian Muslims is heard and their candour is poignant and powerful. They freely express their feelings about their place in Australia and perceived injustices in the way they are treated. Tom Zubrycki, the filmmaker, believes their desire is simply to be accepted for what they are, both Muslim and Australian.

• The clip from a film by renowned Australian documentary maker Tom Zubrycki shows a style of filmmaking that he calls 'observational narrative’. Zubrycki selects people whose lives he will follow in order to explore an issue. He spends months observing and filming the subjects of the film. During this time they become accustomed to speaking to camera. The narrative or story-line is unplanned and unscripted and the hand-held camera is unobtrusive.

• Most of Zubrycki’s films explore the subject of 'the outsider’. In his film Temple of Dreams (2007), from which this clip is taken, Zubrycki sought to give voice to Lebanese Australian Muslim youth who he felt had been marginalised and misrepresented in the Australian media. The son of Polish migrants, Zubrycki acknowledges his empathy for outsiders but also a deeper concern for social justice.

• Many of the conference delegates in this clip are Lebanese Muslims, a population group that the 2001 census revealed to make up the latest waves of Lebanese migrants to Australia. Many fled Lebanon after the Arab–Israeli War of 1967 and the civil war in 1976 and, at the time of the census, more than 74 per cent of Lebanese-born Australians were living in NSW, most of them in Sydney.

Muslim girls are entering the conference hall.
Fadi, conference organiser I would like to welcome everybody on behalf of the ICRA team. Today, what I will ask from the youngsters and those who are running the workshops and those who are observing – it’s only about the young people, here 'em out. If a young person happens to, you know, mouth off or say a swear word, don’t jump down his throat because he’s allowed to make mistakes. The whole idea of our youth conference is to make sure that the young people have a voice and they speak what’s in their heart.

The clip features short scenes of the various roundtable discussions.

A man is speaking to a small group of youths.
Man The way my parents were brought up – completely different to the way I’m brought up here. Although we can speak in Arabic together or English, there’s just like a huge cultural barrier.

A woman is addressing a panel of youths.
Woman Does anybody know what stereotypes mean?
Girl 1 Like a category that’s put on you without actually … just … just …
Girl 2 Like being misrepresenting.
Boy 1 Rapists, terrorists…
Woman Are they stereotypes?
Boy 1 Yeah.
Boy 2 If they see a Lebanese boy there and there’s an Australian boy there, they always straight away to the Lebanese boy, they go, 'Where’s your ticket?’ Straight away, they book you.

The organiser is surveying the various discussions in progress.
Fadi Oh, It looks great, doesn’t it? I reckon it does. Wow! Capture it on film.

The clip continues with further glimpses discussions at various tables.
Man So did that happen to you at school?
Boy Um, there’s these two teachers that piss me off. We talk to the counsellor sometimes, but the counsellor hardly ever does anything.

Girl It doesn’t come down to one voice speaking for Islam. It comes down to that we are all human beings and everyone’s got their own opinion.

Boy The minute waits for us, like our community slip up just one tiny bit and then all of a sudden you just get a mob just trying to portray the community as a whole in a bad image.

Another organiser is talking to the filmmaker.
Woman I’m really impressed, honestly. We’ve got 80 people. I’m glad that we got this number, even though 140 people registered, but I still, I feel like it’s an achievement. I think we pulled it off, Tom.

The clip continues with more discussions.
Boy 1 It’s always a Muslim done it. You know, Ahmed, he done a robbery, whatever the case is, or he’d taken drugs, it’s always the Muslim bloke who’s done drugs, and that’s what hurts when if it’s an Anglo-Saxon guy, it’s by his name, and it’s a general cultural they don’t mention.
Boy 2 It comes down to ignorance on the media’s part.

Girl You feel alone. You hate your life. You’ve got no-one to talk to. Just probably some people will fall into committing suicide.

Fadi is addressing the whole conference.
Fadi Please to the observers or to anyone who had taken notes, we need you to come and see one of the ICRA teams in order for them to at least get a photocopy of the notes that we’re taking as we really need them to help this report together.