Canberra: Post Christchurch: Hate speech & Political Discourse, What Lies Ahead?

It’s been a year since the Christchurch terrorist attacks. How have hate speech and political discourse evolved since March 15? Are we now at a time where hateful language directed towards ethnic and faith communities around the world has become normalised? Or has Australia made progress since then? How do we understand the landscape of social harms caused by words and their relationship to action? Are there new ways of balancing freedoms and constraints around public discourse in the present-day? And where does responsibility on these issues lie?

Join us for a frank discussion with media personality Osman Faruqi and academic Dr Raihan Ismail.

RSVP by Monday 16th of March 2020

Light Refreshments will be provided

Speakers:

Raihan Ismail is an ARC DECRA fellow and a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, ANU. She was the co-recipient of the Max Crawford Medal in 2018, awarded by the Australian Academy of the Humanities for ‘outstanding achievement in the humanities by an early-career scholar’.

Her research interests include Political Islam, sectarianism, and the intertwining nature of religion and politics in the Middle East. She has presented at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, examining Saudi clerics and Sunni-Shia relations in the Middle East, the Crawford Australian Leadership forum ‘Global Realities’, discussing challenges and opportunities for the Middle East, the Canberra Writers Festival, examining the geopolitics of the Middle East, as well as other academic and non-academic events. She delivered the 8th Hancock lecture for the Australian Academy of the Humanities, titled “Hybrid Civilisation or the Clash of Civilisations: Rethinking the Muslim Other”.

Raihan is the convenor of the Political Islam seminar series for various Commonwealth government agencies, including AGD and Defence. She is a regular commentator in Australian and international media on Islam and Middle East politics and appeared as a panelist on the ABC’s Q&A program in 2016. In 2019, she was placed in the ABC’s Top 5 Media Residency Program for humanities scholars.

She has published in academic and non-academic outlets. She is the author of Saudi Clerics and Shia Islam, published by Oxford University Press in 2016. She is currently working on a book project on the transnational networks of Salafi clerics in Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, under contract with Oxford University Press.

She has a Bachelors Degree in Political Science, with a minor in Islamic Studies, a Masters in International Relations from the International Islamic University of Malaysia, and a PhD from the ANU

Osman Faruqi is an award-winning journalist and the editor of 7am, Schwartz Media’s daily news podcast.

He was formerly deputy editor of ABC Life. He regularly presents on the ABC News culture and arts program, The Mix, and has worked on the ABC’s award-winning investigative journalism program Background Briefing.

Osman has written on politics and culture for The Guardian, GQ and The Australian, was formerly Junkee Media’s news editor, and has twice judged the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

Event Details

Program: Post Christchurch: Hate speech & Political Discourse, What Lies Ahead?
Date: Wednesday 18 March 2020
Time: 5:30 PM – 7 PM
Location: Sir Roland Wilson Building, 120 McCoy Circuit, Canberra, ACT 2600
Cost: Free
Bookings: Online at Eventbrite