Bachar Houli Explains How He Calmly Deals With Racial Abuse

On the Hot Breakfast

Image: Getty

Richmond triple premiership player Bachar Houli explained on the Hot Breakfast this morning how he has managed to calmly deal with racial abuse during his career.

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Houli told a story from his recently released memoir, Bachar Houli: Faith, Football and Family, about a Collingwood fan abusing him and how he responded.

“He called me a jihadist, which Ed, to be quite honest, as a Muslim growing my beard, and being proud of my faith, it was just a matter of time, and particularly it was after the Adam Goodes incident,” Houli said.

“So things were heated up, and yeah, I don’t know all the things behind certain things, but I was kinda prepared for it, and I was prepared myself for the way I should respond to these sort of things, particularly if it’s said to me face to face and I hear it, because I’m sure a lot of this sort of stuff happens and I don’t hear it, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

“But I just prepare myself in terms of how do I respond to a certain thing, and when I’m looking for answer in life, I turn back to faith, and I turn back to Prophet Muhammad and how he dealt with, his own people and how he dealt with non-Muslims at the time and it was through calmness, through wisdom, and through the beautiful words of delivery… if you respond to harm with harm, I think you don’t get what you’re looking for, rather than looking for beautiful ways to respond to it from an education perspective is very effective.

“And I felt like that was done that day, and I would never… I gave my word that I was gonna give this man up, but it felt important that the message gets out there in terms of like, how to respond to certain things, and don’t be aggressive with everything.”

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Houli said he didn’t want any plaudits for his handling of the situation, however, and said that he would hope it can be learning moment for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

“I don’t look for any sort of recognition, for me it’s all about awareness,” he said.

“And I just want people to once again go back, go back to the true teaching of Islam.

“And unfortunately, Ed, we’ve got a lot of people in our community, in the Muslim community that just don’t know how to respond to certain things and, like I said, just want to respond to certain things with harm, or words of harm.

“So it’s not acceptable, and if our Prophet were here today he’d be very, very upset with the way we respond to certain things.

“So I’m just trying to revive the teachings of our beloved Prophet, and hopefully it can penetrate through people’s heart and realise that this religion is a true religion of peace.”

Houli also discussed Richmond's third flag in four years and more.