“It's Just Your Turn”: Performing Identity and Muslim Australian Popular Culture

Abstract

Academic accounts of Muslim integration and inclusion in multicultural Australia are often at pains to emphasize that Muslim identity and Australian national identity are compatible with each other. While this political manoeuvre remains both important and relevant, it nevertheless chances reinscribing the very terms of debate it seeks to contest and worryingly aligns closely with prevalent governmental techniques to "domesticate" Muslim difference. Furthermore, it risks presenting both "Muslim" and "Australian" identities as self-evident, taken-for-granted categories. In this article, I consider two Muslim Australian popular cultural productions -namely, the television programme Salam Café and the stand-up comedy show Fear of a Brown Planet -in order to explore how Muslim and Australian identities, and the relationships between them, are performed, contested and rearticulated.What is most salient about both productions, the article argues, is that they present the identity of "Australian" as a site of political and cultural contestation, with the "nation" a contingent site through which multicultural politics are actualized. Such a move is salient for Australian multiculturalism more broadly, but is especially so for Muslim communitiesnot least because it undermines the West/Islam dichotomy altogether.

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“…His former comedy-partner Nazeem Hussain sees this as a way of 'democratising' comedy, by adding jokes about white people to the common jokes about other ethnic groups (Busbridge, 2013). However, it can also be seen as a way of highlighting the problems of generalising from one member of an ethnic group to others.…”

“…These debates have often raised questions and concerns about the role of Islam in 'Western' society. Following Samuel Huntington's (1996) notorious 'Clash of Civilisations' thesis, Islam has frequently been positioned as contradictory to Western, and thus Australian, culture (Busbridge, 2013). Adding to the long history of Orientalism (Said, 2008), the post-9/11 narrative of an incompatibility between Islam and the West was further strengthened by the 2002 and 2005 bombings in Bali, a neighbouring island of Australia.…”

“…Rahman and his comedy partner Hussain's show Fear of a Brown Planet was one of the first popular productions in which Muslims had a space to express and represent themselves (Busbridge, 2013). In 2008, Rahman and Hussain's show debuted at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, winning the Best Newcomer Award.…”

“…For example, Busbridge (2013) argues that in the wake of these attacks the way cultural difference is framed in Australia has shifted. While it was previously framed as a regular component of a diverse and multicultural society, the focus is now on difference as dangerous, and to be "managed, controlled, con-tained, disciplined" (Busbridge, 2013, p. 463).…”

“…Still, scholars have argued that Australia continues to privilege those of Anglo-Australian descent, e.g. through immigration and visa restrictions or the way in which people of colour are viewed as recent immigrants (Busbridge, 2013). This seems to be in line with Rahman's experiences, who in an interview said that he is often asked where he is from, or welcomed to Australia, adding that there is "an idea of white ownership of this country" (Freeman-Greene, 2010, as cited in Busbridge, 2013 In contemporary Australia, much like in the US and Europe, the post-9/11 years have been characterised by increased debates over the threat of terrorism.…”