KATANNING – A Muslim imam in one of Australia’s most cultural towns has been setting a success story for how more than 50 ethnicities can live together in harmony, an effort recognized lately during a visit from a Federal Government Minister for the first time in 45 years.
“[The visit] gives us more initiative to move forward, more initiative to participate and encouragement for us to promote Katanning and also Australia throughout the world,” imam Alep Mydie told ABC News on Thursday, June 23.
“For us as an Australian, if we ever go to Malaysia, Brunei or Singapore, people will see us as Australian Muslims so that we can tell them: ‘This is what we are here, not what you hear from other people, this is what we want — to participate with the government, not isolate us away’.”
Mydie is the leader of more than 400 Muslims in the Western Australia town of Katanning, located 277 kilometers south-east of Perth in the Federal electorate of O’Connor.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton visited Katanning this week and described the rural town as one of Australia’s ‘greatest successes’ of multiculturalism since World War II or the 1970s.
He said the fact Katanning’s Muslim community was hailed as one of the great post-war successes would spur the local community on to promote the town within Australia and further afield.
Katanning boasts 50 different ethnic groups in a population of more than 4,000 people and Muslims make up about 10 per cent of the town.
The mosque was built in 1980 by the local Islamic community who arrived in Katanning in 1974 after moving from Christmas and Cocos islands.
“When we first arrived here, there was not many infrastructure, like English classes for example,” he said.
Despite its great success, Katanning needed more local services, particularly in the areas of health and education, to support its multicultural community.
“We need more studies because everyone has to go back to Perth and have to go [to] Albany for more studies,” Keh Blut SoeTeeshava, a refugee from Burma, said.
“More of the young people have to leave Katanning and went back in Perth so we do really need more services here.”