ABC current affairs show The Drum will field a panel comprised entirely of Muslim women tonight as it addresses Friday’s deadly terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques, and the frequently sickening media coverage of the incident.
It will purportedly the first Drum panel of its kind.
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GetUp! board member Sara Saleh, Shelly Legal principal solicitor Lydia Shelly, Amnesty International crisis campaigner Diana Sayed, clinical and forensic psychologist Hanan Dover, and author and research fellow Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah will join host Ellen Fanning for the broadcast.
News of the panel comes as New Zealand and the world mourns the loss of 50 people. The announcement also comes amid some horrifically backwards and damaging commentary on the factors which led to an accused Australian white nationalist shooting defenceless worshippers.
Some panellists have already made their opinions known. In a piece published in The New Arab, Abdel-Fattah decried a permissive Australian cultural environment which ignored the telltale signs of white supremacy before the shooting.
Shelly agrees. In a response to The Australian associate editor Chris Kenny‘s tweet that racist Senator Fraser Anning‘s inclusion in Parliament is “the chance product of a bizarre system,” Shelly said he “is a symptom not the cause of white supremacy in this country.”
He is not a “chance product”. He is a symptom not the cause of white supremacy in this country. A symbol of a much wider problem that doesn’t get attention because the majority are not threatened. #auspol #media #ausmedia #whitesupremacy https://t.co/Pho444xM4V
— lydia_shelly (@lydia_shelly) March 16, 2019
The importance of the Muslim women addressing the attack, its causes, and its ramifications is obvious. Taking to Twitter, Dover said she had turned down similar media appearances over the past two decades, but “there is good reason why this line up will be my first.”
The Drum will air at 6pm tonight.
.@SaraSalehOz @RandaAFattah @HananDover1 @DsSayed We are all going on the Drum tonight & we have a msg for our communities. #auspol #representationmatters #abc #thedrum #media ✊🏿✊🏽✊🏾✊🏼✊🏻 pic.twitter.com/syPY2BKTti
— lydia_shelly (@lydia_shelly) March 18, 2019
