During his visit to Canberra in July, AMUST sat with Aftab Malik, the Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, to discuss his role, the personal challenges he has faced, his much awaited recommendations to the Australian government, which is due to be released this month, and the next steps moving forward.
AMUST: What led you to accept the role of the envoy?
Aftab: To cut a very long story short, this was not a role that I sought. I didn’t seek it out. It actually landed on my doorstep. Well, at the (NSW) Premier’s Department, my colleague who I had worked with for about six years said, “you should apply for this role.” And I said, I’m really not interested. She was very confused. “why wouldn’t you want to do it? This is such a great thing for the community.”
After about three weeks, she did not stop gently reminding me about the role. I tried to explain that working with Muslim in NSW was challenging enough due to the diversity, numbers, history and politics. To engage all Muslims across the country would be a huge challenge.
There’s not one organisation, one leader, and everyone has strong opinions, and I also have opinions as well. Not satisfied with my answer, she went to our director and then the director said the same thing for about another two weeks: why don’t you apply for the role? I repeated myself, adding that I am quite content working where I am.
She too thought it was somewhat unconvincing, so she then went to her boss, who then asked to see me. She explained that through her interactions with me, she realised that there was much Australians don’t know about Islam. She felt it would be to the benefit of wider society to learn about the diversity of Muslims and the richness of discourse in Islam.
While all this was happening, a few friends in the community were also encouraging me to take up the role. One of my friends was really quite blunt, I think he got annoyed by my excuses and said get over yourself. I told him that I was hesitant because this role would invite the community into my personal space, and that of my family, and I said, I was fearful about the impact that could have on us all.
Then I spoke to some friends overseas and my teachers. This whole thing must have taken three or four months as a process for me to think about it. And then I said, to my director, you can forward my CV.
AMUST: What challenges did you anticipate and have you faced?
A: Now, in retrospect, I was incredibly naïve even when I thought I was thinking about the challenges of this role. The challenge, I thought, was how could I get the communities to agree on some core goals? And that’s really what I was thinking about.
How will I unify? How am I going to get people to speak? What I did not anticipate was the vitriolic, personal criticism that I would receive, and that was a real blow because husn ad-dhann (benefit of doubt) is something very important.
I’m open to criticism. The reason why is because I acknowledge I’m not perfect and I acknowledge I don’t know everything, but God has given me an intellect to be able to understand, analyse, process, diagnose and think. But I’ve never been exposed to so much invectives my whole life. That’s life, I guess.
AMUST: What are some of the criticisms that you’ve faced from the Muslim community. And how do you respond?
A: You simply just need to put my name in Google and lots of things will come up. I think most things said about me are mainly on WhatsApp groups. And unfortunately, in the first few months, people forwarded me messages that were really upsetting and I just asked people, please stop sending these things.
I need to really focus on creating, I’m not a destructive individual. I like to create things and I like to bring people together. My job is, ultimately, a fact-finding mission, to find out what are the concerns about Islamophobia, and what are the remedies and present that to the Prime Minister.
I’ve said, several times, jokingly of course, I’m not the caliph of Australia, I have no power over anyone.
AMUST: When do you expect to deliver your recommendations?
A: So I’m hoping to deliver them in in August. I haven’t set a date yet but inshaAllah it will be in August. It ultimately depends on finding a date that works for everyone.
AMUST: How do you hope your recommendations will be taken and to whom are you delivering these recommendations?
A: I think there are three audiences. So I’m hoping that I encapsulate and captured the concerns of the Muslim community. As you know, it’s incredibly diverse. There’s also the wider society to whom I’m hoping to convey that Islamophobia is not only a problem that is interpersonal, it’s actually much deeper: institutional and systemic.
And the third audience is to the government. I’m hoping I’m able to make the recommendations in such a manner that they are achievable, It’s not like a wish list.
Having spent 10 years working in government, (which was one of the other criticisms that I received: that I’m too close to power), I’d like to think that I understand process and protocol, and what matters to Government when making decisions
So I’ll frame the recommendations in a way that speaks to the mechanics of government in sense that it will be easier for them to incorporate than for them to figure out what needs to be done.
So there are three fundamental audience that and ultimately, Allah knows best if I will succeed in that.
AMUST: With the concept of being close to power, the concern is in addition to being able to influence, you may be being influenced by the same power.
A: But then again Yusuf (as) was close to power, wasn’t he? So it really is about moral integrity, and that’s why sometimes, at my low points, I do take these invectives quite personally because that’s really what is being questioned: the motives of the individual.
I didn’t choose to work in the NSW Premier’s Department because I wanted to be close to power. I came to work at the Premier’s Department because I believed I can contribute to a discourse and help frame and shape policy.
I’m not delusional into thinking that I can do that. But at the end of the day, when I return to my Lord, I’m going to be answerable for all this. I’m going be in front of my Lord and say I did this with a clean heart and with the clean intention, with no ulterior motives.
AMUST: Once you deliver your recommendations, what will happen after that?
A: Then, I go into hiding for about three months (laughs). Look, I don’t know, I mean, this is new territory for me as well, so I’m sure some of our community will hopefully be happy, and perhaps, others not so. But once I hand over these recommendations, I’ll just continue to do my work because the government has to make a decision.
And I’m not privy to when they will make a decision. I’ll read it in the newspaper like everybody else. I mean, I found out from the newspaper that they were waiting for my recommendations before they will make any decisions.
But subsequently it turns out that the government is going to make a decision after receiving the Race Discrimination Commissioner’s report, which I believe is to be delivered in December. So decisions are not going to be made anytime soon. So I will continue doing my work.
AMUST: So you still have more than two years left in your term. What more do you hope to achieve in that time?
A: So this is a question that I asked, when I travelled around Australia, to all the Muslims who engaged me. I asked “in three years time when you look back, how would you determine that this role was a success? What is it that you need from me?”
And they told me the three major achievements would be:
- That the recommendations that I deliver to the government are accepted;
- that I can push back against the media framing around Muslims; and
- that I can create a cultural shift around how people perceive and engage with Muslims.
Saying that, they were very gracious and said that’s going to take 10 years or so and one person could not achieve it alone. So, that is the goal I have to work towards achieving, set by these stakeholders across Australia.
AMUST: Do you make a distinction between Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism?
A: Yes. I take my cue from Palestinians themselves. Anti-Palestinian racism is more specific than Islamophobia. The latter entails a fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims which include different ethnicities. However, anti-Palestinian racism entails the erasure and exclusion of Palestinians and their narratives. However the two can, and do, intersect.
AMUST: Do you see anything in the plan that the Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism has put forward clash with your recommendations to the extent that it would limit Muslim voices?
A: I’ve been so focused on my report and recommendations that I actually haven’t yet read the report. I have read the foreword and a few articles responding to it, but at this time, not the report itself. I think what’s important is that my work speaks for itself and then it’s for others to analyse, deliberate, discuss.
AMUST: What plans do you have after your role as the envoy finishes?
A: I don’t know because this was not a planned move. I didn’t wake up one day and say I’d love to be the special envoy. As I said earlier, I was very comfortable in the work I was doing.
But now, I don’t know. I really did not plan on this role so therefore I don’t know where I go next. Saying that, my entire life has been like that. I don’t make plans with anything. I just go wherever Allah takes me and I just deal with it then . But my wife has a lot to say. She told me that my next career move will be decided by her (laughs).
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