Sweet Jesus, not another 'ragger'

Much of the opposition in Camden has been orchestrated by outsiders, including Christian fundamentalist politician Fred Nile. Now, Nile is an expert on all things Muslim. During a recent state election in New South Wales, he told the Liberal Party that he would not share any preferences with Liberal candidates who were Muslim.

Nile elaborated for journalists - his Christian Democratic Party would refuse to give preferences to the Liberal candidate for the inner-Sydney seat of Marrickville, an Egyptian chap named Ramzy Mansour.

Then again, Marrickville is a safe Labor seat. Even the prayers of Ramzy's Coptic Orthodox parish priest and all parishioners in his church couldn't have got him the seat.

Some Camden residents have a slightly better understanding of Islamic traditions. The Advertiser ran a profile of an Anglo-Australian Muslim woman who had lived in the Camden area for over 15 years and who just happens to cover her head with a loosely fitting scarf. Until that article, she had been active in the local community.

Now, she feels shunned. One of her adult children described her feelings to me. "Mum asked one of them, 'What's changed about me?"' Then one of the locals said to her, "We thought you were wearing that thing because you had cancer". Yeah, right! Cancer for 15 years?

Some locals placed two pigs' heads on stakes at the entrance to the proposed school's property. The space between the pigs was draped with an Australian flag. Such respect for the flag. Such patriotism.

Yet still some are insisting with a straight face that this has nothing to do with racial or sectarian bigotry. Among them is Emil Sremchevich of the Camden Residents' Action Group. Sremchevich declared with a straight face on the Channel 9 Today show that the vast majority of objections made to the council were based on planning grounds.

He blames the media for zeroing in on rednecks. I'd love to believe him, except that he was shown on the ABC Stateline program as saying: "... the Muslims don't wish to integrate because they've obviously displaced a lot of people out of it."

And when two pigs' heads were found on the property, he lamented the incident had distracted from the real issues. When I see two decapitated pigs flying over my house, I'll believe the Camden school issue has nothing to do with racial or sectarian bigotry.