When it comes to building places of worship, Bendigo has always played the long game.
Lunchtime bells ring out from the imposing gothic-style Catholic cathedral on a hill overlooking the central Victorian city of more than 150,000 residents. Excavation work for the Sacred Heart cathedral began in 1896, but the tower and spire weren’t finished until 1977.
In bushland 14km away, a giant Buddhist stupa, billed as the “largest in the western world”, has been under construction since 2012.
For Bendigo’s 500-strong Muslim community, time and patience are also key in their journey to build a mosque. The community has rapidly outgrown a prayer room at La Trobe University’s regional campus, which has been in use since 1997.
The first sod for the mosque was turned last week, five years after the project became a rallying point for right-wing extremists, most of them from out of town.
Bendigo made international headlines in 2015 when anti-Islam protesters hijacked a council meeting and the far-right United Patriots Front and pro-diversity campaigners faced off at a series of rallies with a heavy police presence.
A high court challenge to stop the mosque failed, and the extremists Neil Erikson and Blair Cottrell were convicted for racial vilification in 2017 over a mock beheading video outside the council chambers.
But local Muslims say in some ways the controversy has been a blessing in disguise.
“The whole experience has been really good for us,” says the president of the Bendigo Islamic Association, Sameer Syed. “We’ve made so many friends.”
The engineer, who grew up in an Indian family in Melbourne and Saudi Arabia, moved to Bendigo in 2008 for work and to raise a family.
He expects the project to be finished in about five years, if the funds can be raised. The first stage of the project is a multi-purpose community hall. The Victorian government has chipped in $400,000, and $800,000 of donations have flowed so far.
‘People were quite embarrassed’
The city’s federal MP, Lisa Chesters, laments how the mosque saga dented Bendigo’s pride as it became an “unfortunate backdrop” to right-wing extremism.
“People were quite embarrassed to say that they lived in Bendigo,” she says.
“Economically it hurt us, because every time they had a protest our town would go into lockdown and our traders would lose a lot of business.”
Chesters recalls instances of “hideous” fake news being spread on social media at the height of the controversy.
“It was just all lies. One particular post kept popping up – it was a photo of the fountain in town and it was a claim that a Muslim man had raped a Bendigo girl. It was completely fake but it was presented as though it was news. It was deliberately created to incite fear and hatred,” she says.
Bendigo’s mayor, Margaret O’Rourke, is thrilled construction is finally under way, but says the turbulence around the approval process was not the sole reason for delays.
“Like all construction projects it’s about raising the funds, that’s been part of why it’s taken so long,” she says.
Other Victorian towns have built mosques without attracting the same attention. In 2016 Ballarat opened its first mosque in an old house in an industrial estate with little fanfare. The much smaller town of Shepparton has four mosques, which were built without drama.
O’Rourke struggles to explain why Bendigo’s mosque project became so controversial, but says the current council strongly supports the project.
Two former Bendigo councillors, Elise Chapman and Julie Hoskin, campaigned against the mosque going ahead.
“We’re drawing a line in the sand. This is a different council,” O’Rourke says.
Hoskin ran at the May federal election for Fraser Anning’s Conservative National party, attracting 1,667 votes (1.6%). Anning was widely condemned last year for delivering an inflammatory speech to the Senate which invoked the term “final solution” and called for a plebiscite on whether to end immigration by Muslims.
Hoskin insists her objections were based on what she claims were flaws in the planning process, including a lack of consultation for those directly affected, rather than prejudice.
“How dare anyone suggest that I’m in any way racist or bigoted,” Hoskin says. “I don’t regret standing up for what was right on those planning issues. I would have done it if it was a scout hall.”
She says her current solicitor is a Muslim and she has hosted travellers from all over the world at her house, including those who follow Islam.
Muslims are ‘central to this community’
At the Bendigo Mall, most people seem relaxed about the mosque project.
Colin Scott, taking his two children to the library, says 99% of locals don’t have a problem.
“There’s just a few idiots who spoil it for everyone,” he says.
He says Bendigo embraces people from all walks of life. “It’s a bit more friendly than big cities. You walk down the street and people will say hello.”
Margaret Grey says of course there should be a mosque in town.
“Where would Australia be without the Muslims? The outback cameleers even carried things on the camels for developing the railways,” Grey says.
Margot Spalding, who co-founded the furniture business Jimmy Possum, spearheaded a grassroots campaign in 2015 called Believe in Bendigo to counter hate speech and intolerance.
“There’s probably a small minority who will maintain their rage, but they can do that and it won’t make any difference ultimately,” Spalding says.
“The Muslim community in Bendigo, in the face of real ugliness … have maintained a strength and dignity and have behaved in an exemplary fashion. Many of us could learn from that.”
Last week the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, applauded community leaders such as Spalding for standing up for diversity in “heated times”.
“That sense of goodwill [has] won out over some very dark views,” Andrews says.
“Certainly all of those have driven this project … have worked very hard to not allow Bendigo to be hijacked by people who invariably are not from Bendigo, they might come to town and put their extreme views, but they are not part of this community. There are big hearts in Bendigo.”
Andrews says Muslims are “central to this community”, particularly as doctors and nurses filling the skills shortage in regional areas.
“They’re there providing services that none of us can do without.”
One such doctor is Aisha Neelam, the spokeswoman for the Bendigo Islamic Community Centre. She says she is humbled by the support from residents.
“Muslims first came to Bendigo during the gold rush, and today we feel very much a part of the community,” Neelam says.
“Our families are like any other in Bendigo. We work here, we’re your neighbours, our kids go to school here, we volunteer. We love that Bendigo has something for everyone.”
Every Thursday, a gaggle of about five or six anti-mosque protesters peacefully picket the building site.
There are reports local police are stepping up patrols around the construction site. But a spokesman for the Bendigo police station says it’s “business as usual”.
Syed says since the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand in March, safety issues have been at the back of people’s minds. He says there have been talks with police and security experts, but there are no plans to fence off the site.
“At the moment we haven’t changed anything, it’s still very open,” he says. “I can’t see anything [like Christchurch] happening in Bendigo.”
