Artists tackle anti-Muslim racism

Fear of a Brown Planet

Aamer Rahman and Nazeem Hussain

THIS BRILLIANT stand-up comedy show was part of both the Melbourne Comedy Festival and the Sydney Cracker Comedy Festival.

In an extremely tight 45 minute routine, Aamer Rahman and Nazeem Hussain ruthlessly rip apart the extremes of Islamaphobic racism and the hysteria that has characterised Australian politics since 9/11.

Rahman and Hussain traverse political territory from the Palm Island and Cronulla riots to the anti-terror and sedition laws, and the recent racist protests against the building of a Muslim school on private land in Camden. They baffle at how it is that Muslims are labelled “extremists” whilst the “white people” of Cronulla were able, in a matter of moments, to turn a barbeque and a few beers on the beach into a neo-Nazi rampage.

They also subtly point out that the sedition laws introduced by the Howard government only make it illegal to incite hatred and violence against the current prime minister, leaving us all free to talk about doing whatever we like to John Howard.

Rahman made a few deadpan suggestions about the sedition-free activities some “deranged” people might contemplate doing to the former Prime Minister, like, say, as just one idea, sawing off all his limbs, and perhaps punching him in the chest till he bleeds