- Race riots spread to suburbs
- Thugs ruled the streets, and the mob sang Waltzing Matilda
- United in condemnation, divided over the causes
- Worst possible outcome - vigilantes rip unity to shreds
- 'What is Australian anyway?'
- Strike force probes new hate alert
- Locals talk of fear and disgust after violence of bloody Sunday
- Ethnic tensions troubling the whole neighbourhood
- Nasty reality surfs in as ugly tribes collide
- PM refuses to use racist tag
For years, groups of Lebanese youths have been causing trouble on Cronulla beach (a suburb in the south of Sydney): verbally harassing women, kicking sand at people; that sort of thing. It's the kind of trouble that maladjusted youths like to cause: not bold enough to get the police involved, but enough persistent niggle to get noticed, feel a sense of power, and make a firm statement that you have no intention to blend in. That doesn't need to be a racial blend, just some kind of cultural or social difference that can easily exist among people of the same race, like youths making a nuisance of themselves at a shopping centre, for instance. But it's easy (too easy) to pick on race as the key issue here. Cronulla and its surrounding suburbs are one of the last white enclaves in Sydney. The few youth of Lebanese or similar origin that live in the area cause no trouble and receive no trouble, anecdotal evidence suggests. But that's common sense anyway. If you live in an area and have your head screwed on right, you adopt the civil code of that area, which on the beach generally means enjoy yourself and be considerate of others. The troublemakers live outside the area but are connected by the train line or, of course, by car.
"OK, but what happened?"
Last weekend, a lifeguard was physically assaulted by – you guessed it – a gang of Lebanese youth. That's when the proverbial hit the fan, as it should. Lifeguards are an Australian icon: they volunteer to sit watchfully over the beach and rush out to assist those who encounter trouble in the water. An attack on a lifeguard is a symbolic attack felt by anyone who has enjoyed a day at the beach; that is, millions of people. It seems this fellow had asked this group to stop playing soccer so close to other people as the flying sand was a nuisance. For his trouble, he got bashed. Later on, of course, and by a group of about four men. The cowardly way that Lebanese misfits always behave. (Notice I said Lebanese misfits; it's only the misfits I'm talking about, not other Lebanese people.) Drive by shootings, gang rapes, and generally antisocial group behaviour are the first thing that comes to most Sydney people's mind when you mention the words "young male Lebanese". It is not racist of me to point that out; it is based on a long list of abhorrent crimes committed in Sydney in very recent years, and on first and second hand experience of these people. Anyone who loves multiculturalism, as I do, must be on guard against people who will seek to destroy it and give a whole community a bad name through their vile actions.
"For heaven's sake! Will somebody just tell me what happened!? This man is a raving lunatic!"
Sorry... OK, so that lifeguard copped a cowardly beating last weekend, which was the last straw. For the first time, the tensions on Cronulla beach reached the media. (I certainly knew nothing of them previously, and haven't been anywhere near Cronulla for at least ten years.) People were obviously fuming in Cronulla, and some text messages got out, and were reported in the media, suggesting that a demonstration be held in Cronulla "on Sunday" (i.e. yesterday) in defiance of these unwanted elements on the beach. The message was couched in racist rhetoric, and every night of the week the TV news had a story about or related to "that message".
Well, come Sunday, come trouble. Thousands of local men (teens to thirtysomethings), and some supporters from near and far, congregated in a grassy area early in the day and settled in for a festive, boozy day. I don't know what the mood was like or what people's intentions might have been, but you can't have a fight without an opponent. They were probably expecting that a large group of Lebanese men might turn up en masse, but that didn't happen. Exactly what did happen, I've no idea, despite reading all the reports I could. But for whatever reason, a handful of Lebanese people, or people of similar appearance, did come within reach of the mob, and were set upon. These people didn't come as a group and I don't think they incited anything. They may even have been locals. The mob's behaviour was disgraceful: they bashed whoever they could get their hands on before police could rescue the victim(s) and shepherd them to safety. Ironically, "safety" was a hotel, probably the same hotel that had sold a whole palette of beer that morning.
Other harassment included chasing two women wearing headscarves. There was no physical harm, but how low can you get? It demonstrates loud and clear that no matter how righteous the anger felt over ethnic pests on the beach, this over-reaction was misguided and set a real low for behaviour in Australia. The mob's hunger was not sate, and they invaded the train station in the belief that further enemy combatants would be arriving. They found two men inside a train (i.e., not disembarking) and beat them up. All the while they were flying Australian flags, singing Waltzing Matilda, chanting racist slogans and displaying racist messages on clothing.
A demonstration against pests (whatever their race) became a race riot, and Australia hung its head in shame.
The violence was caused by a lot of factors: resentment, the lifeguard incident, alcohol, sun, more alchol, large numbers of people, and more alcohol. These factors will make for a nasty mob, but I believe it took one more thing to ignite the violence: neo-nazis. Some people made a long journey to be in Cronulla yesterday, and some of those journeymen were neo-nazis, as confirmed by the police today. I believe that they were the trigger that caused a mob to set upon innocent bystanders. The mob themselves would have gladly started violence if a large menacing Lebanese gang had turned up, but it's a bit beyond me to believe they would bash people who were not looking for trouble. Maybe I'm wrong; either way, I hope the police can identify people from the copious news footage and make some more arrests quick smart.
To finish the factual part of this story, Lebanese gangs retaliated later, and in different suburbs. They roamed other beachside suburbs nowhere near Cronulla with baseball bats, smashing the windows on at least 100 cars. Arrests were made. These actions were repeated tonight, and more arrests were made. There was no further violence or significant mob gatherings at Cronulla today, but police maintained a presence and will probably be preparing for another round somewhere, sometime.
I'll quickly address two reactions in the press. The SMH editorial was extremely well written. Here's an excerpt:
There is no excuse for such violence and such hatred. The failure they represent is profound. No side emerges with credit - not the crowds of braying Anglo-Celtic Australians, waving the national flag as they beat up bystanders because of the colour of their skin, not the Lebanese community, whose young men have such difficulty in understanding Australian social norms and finding a place in Australian society, not the State Government, which has routinely dismissed calls in the area for a better police effort to combat the casual depredations, boorishness and criminality of ethnic gangs.
... Australia has changed suddenly and inexplicably into a darker, nastier place, and the whole population is struggling to understand why.
The one thing I disagree with there is the suddenness of the change. The "casual depredations, boorishness and criminality of ethnic gangs" has been going on for at least five years, and are a failure of an otherwise successful Australian multiculturalism, a failure which came to a head yesterday. The change isn't sudden.
Failures in multiculturalism slip between the cracks of people's understanding of civil society. Society doesn't work if people aren't nice, or at least civil, to each other. When many cultural groups mingle, there's more opportunity for incivilities to occur, because society as a whole no longer has the same broad set of expectations of civil behaviour. Moreover, it's not logistically feasible for police to settle every minor dispute and, as I wrote earlier, some misfits will target these unpolicable gaps to create trouble for their own amusement.
One example of this trouble was reported in The Daily Telegraph:
A YOUNG woman this week told a TV camera crew of the intimidation she has experienced on Cronulla beach.
"They'll stand over you while you're sunbaking, block your sun so they get your attention, then say, 'She's not worth doing 55 years for'," she told them.
For those unsure of what these lowlifes are referring to, it's the length of the prison sentence which was given to Sydney's infamous gang rapist, Bilal Skaf.
Sickening. This behaviour is as bad as, or worse than, the non-physical harassment meted out to the two innocent women during Cronulla's day of infamy. Yet we hang our heads in shame over that one day, while this other behaviour goes on every weekend undeterred by police and barely reported even now.
Only when the everyday actions of antisocial Lebanese and white supremicists meet the full force of the law will Australian society be free to celebrate its multicultural success unreservedly.
Update. Tuesday's news has more detail about what happened when and where on the day. I won't bother going into it any further. One thing is clear, though: the retaliation by the Lebanese that night and last night is just as despicable as the riot itself. (It's not being reported that way, though; surprise, surprise...)
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