IRSHAD MANJI: Well, I think that the challenge here is actually to reach an emerging generation of Muslims and I can tell you, I now go around the world talking about the need for a liberal reformation of Islam, and easily, Tony, the most support that I get for this message comes from young Muslims, who are sick and tired of their madrasa teachers, their Islamic religious school teachers, their imams, selecting verses from the Koran that are retrograde and negative whatever telling what there is to be proud about Islam, and not proud in an arrogant way, proud in a very, very positive sense.
And so I think that it's worthwhile for the Government of Australia to reach a new generation, but what they'll find when they do that, Tony, as I have found, is that
this generation, while very reform-minded, is scared. They are scared not so much of the rhetorical persecution that I referred to earlier, being called names such as self-loathing Muslims or racist, they are scared of something even more concrete, and that is physical violence against themselves and their families from fellow Muslims.
TONY JONES: That's such an extraordinary thing you have just told us. Did you have that experience of people coming up and saying that in more than one place in Australia?
IRSHAD MANJI: Oh, yes, more than one place in Australia, but also, Tony, more than one place in cities throughout the West, and this is something that I think we only really attribute to the relatively closed societies of the Middle East, but I can tell you that that fear of retaliation and keep in mind, not from the Government, but from other community members, is deep among Muslims.
TONY JONES: They weren't fearing from their own family members, you're saying this is from thugs in the community?
IRSHAD MANJI: That's right.
[
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2005/s1443671.htm]