ABSTRACT
Halal food certification is a service provided by Islamic religious authorities to food manufacturers to certify that their processes and products meet the dietary and customary standards required by observant Muslims. As such it forms part of a pluralistic Australian society. In recent times, halal certification has come to be set against ‘the Australian way of life’ by some who seek to reassert Anglo-Saxon monoculture. This chapter argues that such is typical of what US historian Frank Van Nuys calls the ‘national safety valve’ of popular racism as a scapegoating mechanism, focusing on the development of the anti-halal movement in the lead-up to the 2015 Senate inquiry. It assesses the movement within the context of widening social inequality, and explores the utility of a polarised public sphere to the shifting of blame onto Muslim Australians for the negative consequences of neoliberal policies for which political leaders are not willing to be accountable.
