Hello, we're from ISIS: Tiny Queensland town shares its name with terror group

29.05.2020 01:06

Welcome to Isis, where you can grab a beer and bet on the slot machines at a local social club or strip off for a swim in the war memorial pool.

That's Isis, Australia, a community of about 6,000 people that is a figurative million miles away from the atrocities committed in the Middle East by the terror group known by the same name.

And as far as the locals are concerned, it is the extremists who should be looking for another moniker.

The Isis Shire, in Queensland state south of Bundaberg, is proud of its history, and it's name.

Many businesses, including the pharmacy, hardware store, high school, Golf Club and even the high school, all have the name Isis displayed out front, former mayor Bill Trevor told the Daily Mail.

‘Once you start giving in or changing your ways because of those terrorist type activities, then they win and you lose and that’s the aim of the game with those people,’ Mr Trevor said.

Businesses have not been financially hurt or threatened because of the Isis association but the connotation does follow the community, he said.

When the Isis District Rugby League Football club team, Isis Devils, made the 2014 Bundaberg Rugby League Grand Final, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Grandstand and Bundaberg Rugby League said the teams' name would have to be changed to avoid confusion, Mr Trevor said.

‘We said we won’t turn up if that’s the case,’ Mr Trevor said.

Founded in 1887, the farming and sugar cane community was named after the Isis River in England before later identifying with the Egyptian goddess of the same name.

The shire, which had a population of 6,298 people in 2006 and covers 4,400 square kilometres, maintained its own government until 2008 when it was absorbed with two other shires into the City of Bundaberg in 2008.

Wayne Heidrich, the owner and editor of the Isis Town & Country newspaper and former Isis social club manager, said the rural community is 'divorced by distance' from the acts of the ISIS militants.

'The general opinion is that their actions should have no bearing on our historic name. After all, we had first use of it!' he said.

(dailymail.co.uk)