Australian Race Riots

Race riots break out on Aussie beach
Dec. 11, 2005. 09:56 AM
MIKE CORDER
ASSOCIATED PRESS


SYDNEY, Australia - Racial violence erupted in Sydney beachside suburbs on Sunday after thousands of white youths, many chanting racial slurs, clashed with police and attacked people of Middle Eastern origin.

At least 12 people were arrested for assault and other offences and several were injured in the alcohol-fuelled fights at Cronulla beach.

Late Sunday, after an uneasy peace had returned to Cronulla, the violence spread.

Police said youths damaged cars in at least one nearby suburb and a man was stabbed after what a police spokesman described as a short conversation with a "group of males of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern appearance." The victim was hospitalized in serious condition.

Dozens of police in riot gear also were involved in a confrontation with youths in the Brighton-le-Sands neighbourhood close to Sydney's Botany Bay, Sky News reported.

Earlier Sunday, crowds approached people of Middle Eastern background at Cronulla beach "with vile abuse," police Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin said.

In TV broadcasts, the rioters overwhelmingly were young white men. Many carried beer bottles, waved Australian flags and chanted anti-Middle Eastern slogans in response to reports that youths of Lebanese ancestry were responsible for an attack last weekend on two of the beach's life guards.

One white teenager had the words "We grew here, you flew here" painted on his back. On the beach, someone had written "100 percent Aussie pride" in the sand.

Two paramedics in an ambulance were injured as they tried to get youths of Middle Eastern appearance out of the Cronulla Surf Lifesaving Club, where they had fled to escape one mob.

The mob broke the vehicle's windows and kicked its doors as the paramedics tried to get the group out.

Some rioters stomped on police vehicles and other cars. Officers fought back with batons and pepper spray.

Sydney has many beaches, but Cronulla is one of few that are easily accessible by train and often is visited by youngsters — many of Middle Eastern ethnicity — from the poorer suburbs of western and southern Sydney.

Area residents accuse the visitors of being disrespectful and sometimes intimidating other beachgoers.

Days ago, police increased the number of officers patrolling the beach after mobile phone text messages began circulating calling for retaliation for the attack on the lifeguards.

But authorities seemed surprised by the number of people who showed up Sunday.

Area Mayor Kevin Schreiber accused the mob of flocking to the beach looking for a fight.

"As mayor and as a resident of Cronulla, I'm devastated by what has occurred on our beachfront," he said. "It is the actions of a few, but let's not kid ourselves that people didn't come from far and wide to participate."

The president of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, Keysar Trad, said the violence was "bound to happen" after callers to some radio talk shows whipped up ethnic tensions following the attack last weekend.

The scary thing is that this sort of thing could as easily happen here, despite our perhaps fervant claims to the contrary.

Well I dont see it happening here. There have been lingering problems in Australia for awhile. I just dont see any semi-mainstream anti immigration movements here. I dont see many gangs directly targetting white groups. One of the biggest issues in Australia is people believe that they are losing there heritage for what it is like to be Australian. I dont in Canada we ever developed this deep old school sense of what a Canadian is, much of our current indentity deals with being tolerant people.

I have to agree w/ Alfredson on this one. I have met a lot of aussi's in my day and, while they have not bought into the whole multiculturalism stuff as much as Canada if it can happen there...
...it only takes a few whacko's to make this sort of unfortunate news. I dont think Toronto or Montreal as having any serious anti-semitism but graves and churches were still attacked here. Also, I think the media may be blowing this up a bit. Not that I dont think it is important enough to be newsworthy, but the media's job is to make things into news (sometimes the context and scale get a bit lost in the shuffle ==> remember how a dozen people dying of a respiratory ilness got transalted into Plague City).

More info from Sidney Morning Herald (apparently the more left of centre daily as opposed to Rupert Murdoch's the Australian: www.smh.com.au

By Malcolm Brown, Les Kennedy, Jared Wormald and Robert Wainwright
December 13, 2005

SYDNEY erupted in a second night of racial violence last night as Middle Eastern mobs fired shots into the air, attacked women and smashed shops around Cronulla, while up to 600 young men - armed with guns and crowbars - prepared for a battle.

In a terrifying escalation of the conflict, up to 70 cars from Hurstville and possibly Lakemba invaded Cronulla and Brighton-le-Sands to launch revenge attacks, following the vicious attacks by Cronulla locals on people of Middle Eastern appearance on Sunday.

Twenty carloads of men arrived at Cronulla by about 10.30pm, smashing shops, and cars in Elouera Road, and threatening people who got in their way. They reportedly stabbed a woman at Carringbah, but her condition was unknown.

Gunshots were heard near Northies Hotel at Cronulla and there was an unconfirmed report of a man being shot.

About 11.30pm a group of about 100 Cronulla locals surrounded a car carrying men of Middle Eastern appearance, but police cleared the crowd and let the car escape.

Hours earlier, about 200 men had assembled outside Lakemba Mosque - some armed with Glock pistols - and dozens more gathered at Campsie. They were preparing to travel to Maroubra Beach, where up to 300 locals, many armed with crowbars, waited for an arranged fight, according to "Bra Boys" at the beach.

But some young Muslims said they had gathered to protect the mosque because of a threatened attack on it by a gang from the southern beaches.

Following Sunday's riot at Cronulla beach - when local mobs had bashed people of Middle Eastern appearance - police confiscated iron bars and other weapons at Maroubra last night and blocked roads around the mosque. About 20 police cars surrounded the mosque, where four men showed their pistols and ammunition to a news crew, and boasted that others were carrying arms.

At 10.45pm, on the Kingsway at Caringbah, about 12 cars sped by, followed by another vehicle that stopped. Four men got out and began attacking patrons of Antonio's Pizzeria. They knocked a woman unconscious on the footpath and smashed the window of a denture clinic.

Thai-born Suchada Goodier, 44, owner of a Thai restaurant on the Kingsway, said she was walking on the street when she was attacked. The group then started bashing her car. "What have I done?" she said. "I have done nothing."

In Bay Street, Brighton-le-Sands, a young woman was sitting in a car when men approached and opened the door to her vehicle and put a hand up her dress, saying: "We are going to rape you, you Aussie sluts." A witness, Linda El-Hassan, 19, said a shot was fired at the woman's car but she was unhurt. Miss El-Hassan said she was Lebanese and opposed the violence. "We all came to this country and we are all one in this country."

The mobs vandalised cars and Bay Street was strewn with rubbish and a government bus was attacked and its back window smashed. Many police gathered in Bay Street, where a senior officer was heard to say: "Let's get our [riot] gear on and smash 'em."

At Lakemba Mosque earlier, a media crew had been involved in an altercation with some in the crowd about 7pm. A man is believed to have suffered a broken leg during a scuffle.

Islamic leaders tried to calm the crowd, imploring the men over a loudspeaker to go inside and pray. Outside the Maroubra Bay Hotel, police dressed in riot gear prepared for violence.

A Channel Seven reporter, Robert Ovadia, was surrounded by a group who menaced him, spat in his face, threatened to head-butt him and told him that the media had stirred up all the trouble. Ovadia called police, who sent a patrol car. The Herald's reporter at Maroubra retreated under a hail of water bombs.

The Bra Boys had told the media they were not welcome.

Police said there was evidence of text and email messages promoting another confrontation at Cronulla next Sunday. One email congratulates those involved in Sunday's riots but warns of armed retaliation. "This is only the beginning, this is a start of the war! Leb's n wog's won't stand for this and will start singling out the aussies and gang bashing them with drawn weapons. We must continue to come together to help the innocent and family's so everyone can enjoy our beach's!"

The Premier, Morris Iemma, said Sunday had exposed the "ugly face of racism in Australia". But John Howard said: "I believe yesterday's behaviour was completely unacceptable but I'm not going to put a general tag [of] racism on the Australian community ... I think it's a term that is flung around sometimes carelessly and I'm simply not going to do so. I do not accept there is underlying racism in this country. I have always taken a more optimistic view of the character of the Australian people."

The mobs vandalised cars and Bay Street was strewn with rubbish and a government bus was attacked and its back window smashed. Many police gathered in Bay Street, where a senior officer was heard to say: "Let's get our [riot] gear on and smash 'em."

At Lakemba Mosque earlier, a media crew had been involved in an altercation with some in the crowd about 7pm. A man is believed to have suffered a broken leg during a scuffle.

Islamic leaders tried to calm the crowd, imploring the men over a loudspeaker to go inside and pray. Outside the Maroubra Bay Hotel, police dressed in riot gear prepared for violence.

A Channel Seven reporter, Robert Ovadia, was surrounded by a group who menaced him, spat in his face, threatened to head-butt him and told him that the media had stirred up all the trouble. Ovadia called police, who sent a patrol car. The Herald's reporter at Maroubra retreated under a hail of water bombs.

The Bra Boys had told the media they were not welcome.

Police said there was evidence of text and email messages promoting another confrontation at Cronulla next Sunday. One email congratulates those involved in Sunday's riots but warns of armed retaliation. "This is only the beginning, this is a start of the war! Leb's n wog's won't stand for this and will start singling out the aussies and gang bashing them with drawn weapons. We must continue to come together to help the innocent and family's so everyone can enjoy our beach's!"

The Premier, Morris Iemma, said Sunday had exposed the "ugly face of racism in Australia". But John Howard said: "I believe yesterday's behaviour was completely unacceptable but I'm not going to put a general tag [of] racism on the Australian community ... I think it's a term that is flung around sometimes carelessly and I'm simply not going to do so. I do not accept there is underlying racism in this country. I have always taken a more optimistic view of the character of the Australian people."

Can't we all just get along?

Hey tayser, I'd appreciate some thoughts from you on this.

I heard this was a reaction to a number of problems Sydney has had for a while, with Lebanese street gangs.

There have apparently been a number of assualts and gang rapes, and this is supposed to be some kind of vigilante justice.

"Leb's n wog's won't stand for this and will start singling out the aussies and gang bashing them with drawn weapons."

Dialogue from a Clockwork Orange?

Kept thinking of 'ol Jacko when I read about the Oi Oi Oi...

And yeah, the similarity in language to Clockwork is striking.

Howards Liberals are social conservatives and the National Party are social conservatives. Between 1988 and 2004 the more conservative parties held France. I have to wonder how much politics play into these disturbances. If immigration increases and immigration is continually played as a drain on tax dollars rather than an investment in the future and a long term benefit to the country then obviously those points of view would rub off on the less mindful individuals in society. Here in Toronto and in many parts of Canada diversity is constantly referred to as a strength... I wonder to what degree multiculturalism is seen as a benefit in France or Austrailia.

It's more complex than just black and white politics, but you're definitely heading in the right direction, anyhow, this should give you a firm base for understanding the framework which allowed it to happen on sunday, I'll post more later

www.smh.com.au/articles/2...06264.html

An angry ride into the dark side of mateship

By Damien Murphy
December 13, 2005


BARRY HUMPHRIES once defined being Australian as hating people from anywhere else. It is perhaps a good starting point for what happened at Cronulla on Sunday.

Sydney has long been Australia's most divided city.

Those who live in the eastern suburbs rarely venture beyond the CBD if they can help it. Those from the northern beaches think they have found nirvana, the North Shore knows it has, and the western suburbs take pride in their mostly hardscrabble existence.

Most Sydneysiders would not live anywhere else, unless a Lotto win impelled them, and think it onerous to visit friends or relations in other suburbs. Many also do not like strangers. Some play upon that dislike.

"At Cronulla, there's John Howard dog-whistling on immigration, Bob Carr singling out the ethnicity of rapists, and the anti-terror laws," said Amanda Wise, of Macquarie University's Centre for Research on Social Inclusion.

"As a result, Lebanese Australians are demonised. It seems as if our political leaders do not want to take a stand on principle for fear of losing votes or not attracting votes, so it becomes easier for ordinary people to speak out against a particular ethnic group ... you end up with a riot at Cronulla."

It is not quite thinking globally while acting locally, but most of the 10,000 who gathered on the Cronulla foreshore had been unconsciously affected by the stream of negative stories from the Middle East and Bali. It coloured their own experiences of seeing young Lebanese Australians daring to treat their beach like they owned it.

Sutherland Shire, nearly surrounded by water, is one of Sydney's most whitebread areas. It has a strong Anglo-Celtic population that enjoys a White Australia lifestyle trammelled only by the occasional visitor from across Tom Uglys Bridge, Blacktown and beyond.

Jennifer Cornwall, who is writing a municipal history of the shire, said Sunday's riot was part of a continuing problem fanned by the rise of Pauline Hanson, Tampa and terrorists. "Now they're fighting the 'Lebs', as they call them, but I have a 1974 report by the council on problems between locals and so-called 'wogs' that talks about parochialism and racism," she said. "Before that, the locals fought the 'Bankies'. Really, it's partly about protecting your territory from outsiders and sticking with your mates."

Sunday's images of young mates, full of alcohol, beating up a luckless few while the sun shone and the surf rolled into was a trip into the dark side of the Australian Dream.

Once the beach epitomised egalitarian Australia and was an integral apart of the national character. The surf took no notice of class, wealth, religion or politics, and the wearing of swimmers was always a great leveller.

They played beach cricket at Gallipoli, On the Beach was a book and film about the end of the world, and in Freshwater there is a statue of a Hawaiian, Duke Kahanamoku, the man who introduced surfboarding to Australia in 1913, seven years after Australia established surf life saving clubs.

The clubs took off after World War I, entrenching a military and alpha male ethos that lingered on Australian beaches until the arrival of short balsa and foam surfboards in the 1950s gave puny men who once had sand kicked in their face the chance to stand tall on the waves. It was no accident that Australia's first surf god was called Midget.

While the surf lifesavers visited other beaches for friendly competitions with rival clubs, surfing was and is about the individual. A wave to oneself is primal and as surf breaks are in limited supply around Sydney, the only way to get one is to have your mates run interference for the favour returned.

The tactic is called "localism", and it changed the Australian surf beach into a place where violence ruled.

Beaches at North Narrabeen, North Steyne, Maroubra and Cronulla are notoriously tribal, and although few have gone as far as emblazoning "Locals Only" - as residents did at The Pass in Byron Bay in the 1970s - visitors are hassled in the water, car parks and on the beach.

Clifton Evers, a lecturer in gender studies at the University of Sydney, said the dominant male ego was a highly regarded part of surf culture and the Cronulla riot was an attempt to maintain ownership of the beach.

He dismissed the attack on the North Cronulla lifesavers as the trigger for Sunday's melee, saying the surf culture and the lifesaving movement were often at loggerheads over the use of waves and there was little love lost between both groups.

"The SLSC movement and surfing is a male world grown out of control. Listening to the guys' chants on Sunday, it's clear the protest was an inversion of victimhood," Dr Evers said.

"They kept saying: 'Our world is under attack, our woman need defending, our way of life was under attack.' Of course, nothing of the sort was going on. The whole thing is an attempt to shore up the privileges they enjoy as gatekeepers of the beach culture."

Dr Evers thought that what perhaps the riot displayed most was the power of mateship.

"Most of those guys wouldn't have had a clue. They could be wound up by all the fascist groups in the world and wouldn't know. But they could have been there because one of their mates reckons the outsiders [needed] to be taught a lesson," he said. "And, you know, all those young blokes driving to the beach suburbs in their cars from the western suburbs to fight are being driven by the same thing - mateship.

"You hate who your mates hate. In Australia, mateship is stronger than racism."

I've never been to Australia but friends who have visited have told me that it's not as open to multiculturalism as Canada is. Racism seemed to be more prominent.

From a chilly Canadian perspective, reading that article is like reading about something like mating habits of wombats - so very, very strange. My intent is not to say that we're better - it's mostly the beach culture stuff that's pretty foreign up here. I mean, I've been to "the beach" in Toronto and it mostly seems to be about babies in megastrollers with dogs.

Lets not forget that from a warm Aussie persepctive, how strange would it be too read an article talking about The October Crisis or any number of issues surrounding the debate about language in this country.

I would tend to agree with most that Canada is less likely to see the racial and cultural tensions that exist in Australia and France and one could assume that for the time being our suburbs are unlikely to go up in flames. However, what are the chances, given that tensions really have not dissolved all that much in the language and independance debate, that the time of firebombing cafés or terrorist groups (be they Francaphone or Anglophone) may once again return to create havoc in cities such as Montreal?

Not to say that this will happen, I would tend to believe we are civil enough not to make that same mistake again, but, when it comes to social movements or social clashes, they can go from quiet muddling to riots in what really amounts to a very short period of time.