Remarks by His Excellency Greg Moriarty, Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, at a Buka Puasa at the Ambassador’s Residence, Jakarta
August 24, 2011
I’d like to thank you all very much for attending this buka puasa this evening.
It’s a great honour for us to have you here. And it’s a great honour for us as an Embassy community to participate in this important aspect of the lives of our Indonesian Muslim colleagues.
Also during this holy month of Ramadhan it’s also important to acknowledge the contribution that Muslim Australians are making to modern, contemporary Australia.
In Australia now, we have around half a million Muslim Australians. And Islam is the fastest-growing religion in Australia.
Our Muslim community is made up of people from around about 60 different ethnic backgrounds.
They are an important part of modern Australia and who we are today.
It’s also important to acknowledge the contribution Muslims are making Australian society.
We have a recently elected Muslim member of the Australian parliament, who’s also planning to come and visit Indonesia later this year.
We’ve also recently appointed a Special Envoy for the first time ever to the Organisation of The Islamic Cooperation.
And plans are well under way to develop an Islamic Museum in Australia. And government, business and community groups are very supportive of that.
Here in Indonesia we in the Embassy acknowledge that fasting has been an important part of Islamic tradition since the The Prophet Mohammad’s time in Medina.
And since that time, fasting every year has been a time when Muslims concentrate on self-restraint, on the less fortunate in society, and on spiritual values.
And I think that it’s important for us here to share in this time with them to acknowledge the experience they are going through and to show our respect for that tradition.
So we are very pleased to join with our Muslim colleagues and with our many Indonesian friends in celebrating that tradition.
I’d like to thank you all once again for coming and joining with us tonight.
And I invite you to berbuka puasa. For those who would like to pray we have made arrangements for that. Thank you very much for coming.