As I flip through channels, words like violence break the silence, they come crashing in, in to my little world via an Australian reporter being phone-interviewed on FOX news:
What we’ve seen here is that these locals are attacking anyone with a different color skin.
Shudder
Since FOX news helpfully changed the subject right after that incendiary quote, I am left to frantically type “Australia” and “race” in my Google toolbar. I’m dismayed by what I find; tensions between “local” Australians and those who are of Lebanese descent have exploded. Apparently a few of the Lebanese-Australians attacked innocent lifeguards on the beach and “locals” retaliated, much to the delight of Aussie Neo-Nazi retards.
Hordes of vigilantes who had marinated in sun and alcohol sought vengeance against the “Lebs” for this and other, more disturbing offences. No good can come of this revenge race. I cringe at the way “Middle Eastern appearance” is being tossed around, because I am just waiting for some brown person to get caught up in this tragic mix, since we look more “Middle Eastern” than, well, Middle Eastern people do.
Another thought strikes me– sure enough, you tipsters are on it. Mutineer Ananthan points me towards the following, massively disturbing words in the Sydney Morning Herald:
A BARE-CHESTED youth in Quiksilver boardshorts tore the headscarf off the girl’s head as she slithered down the Cronulla dune seeking safety on the beach from a thousand-strong baying mob.
Up on the road, Marcus “Carcass” Butcher, 28, a builder from Penrith, wearing workboots, war-camouflage shorts and black singlet bearing the words “Mahommid was a camel f—ing faggot” raised both arms to the sky. “F— off, Leb,” he cried victoriously.
Indeed, victory is yours, you idiot.Cronulla is a suburb which is south of Sydney (and incidentally, the birthplace of Elle Macpherson):
A crowd of at least 5000 – overwhelmingly under 25 – took over Cronulla’s foreshore and beachside streets. Police were powerless as 200-odd ringleaders, many clutching bottles or cans of beer and smoking marijuana, led assaults on individuals and small groups of Lebanese Australians who risked an appearance during the six-hour protest…
After a local man, “Steely”, had led a chant of “F— off, Lebs”, a young man demanded the megaphone and told the crowd it was “racist”. A bottle arced in from the audience and shattered on his forehead. He fled “like a bleeding rabbit”, someone yelled after him.
Here, have some perspective with regards to how significant this is:
Cronulla was possibly Australia’s biggest racist protest since vigilante miners killed two Chinese at Lambing Flat in 1860.
An eye for an eye and the whole world can’t see a damned thing:
Yesterday’s violence had been brewing for months. It came to a head last weekend when some Lebanese Australian men attacked members of the North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club after they asked the visitors to stop playing soccer because it was disturbing other beach users.
Because ignorance is as noble as serving your country in the military:
“Steely” – who did not want to identify himself “for fear the Lebs will come and shoot up my joint during the week” – said his children had been scared by Lebanese Australians coming in from the western suburbs.
“I’ve got a four-year-old girl and a boy who’s 11, and they see these bastards come here and stand around the sea baths ‘cos their women have got to swim in clothes and stuff, or they see them saying filthy things to our girls,” he said. “That’s not Australian. My granddad fought the Japs to see Australia safe from this sort of shit, and that’s what I’m doing today.”
Australia’s split 45 million years ago happened long before homo sapiens existed.
Yeah, we basically learnt in sociology in high school in mumbai when we were studying Indian tribal groups that all the racial groups are present in India – negroid, sino-tibetan and australoid.
you learned wrong. those terms don’t mean much, and they don’t even accurately describe what they mean to describe. to be short about, brown people are not an admixture of various groups as much as an ancient lineage of human beings which a shading and grading of various characteristics throughout the subcontinent. yes, there is something exogenous ancestry, but probably not much more than 10% of the ancestors within the last 10,000 years were born outside of brownwanaland.
manish, i have heard the gondwanaland explanation from several people! pretty hilarious, huh?
Nazism was much more than a ‘White Sumpremist’ movement as it is portrayed today by the capitalist media. Most of the ‘White Racists’ today, that the media gladly portrays as neo-Nazis have no clue as to the occult significance of Nazism, or the fact that Hitler was an Orientalist. Yeah ofcourse, they didn’t like the jews, and Himler had a Genetic Fetish due to his early career as a paultry farmer, however upon close examiniation the assertion that 6 million jews perished in the Holocaust has proven to be as big and empty lie as ‘Bid Laden was responsible for 9/11’ (ever heard of the The Leuchter Reports?). Winners controls history, losers suffer condemnation. Thats the rule of war. I mean these Aussies and other ‘white supremists’ more often than not believes that ‘Aryan’ means Nordic! So….
Great comment thread all, the situation here has indeed been a long simmering one, however I blame the Govt. and the PM for allowing a culture of permissivness regarding this kind of behaviour (like all right wingers he thinks allegations of racism come with politically correct motivations so he allows the language of racism to be used as a rejection of PC) even today the PM has disavowed the idea of racism as an accelerator for this violence. He is of course nuts.
A simple word from him in that direction would go a long way, but he won’t of course given his political history of ambivalence toward asian migration to Australia and the fact that this racist mob were mostly blonde beach types from the whitest suburb in Sydney.
Many folks of my political persuasion have watched in dismay over the past decade as the seeds of this were planted, first with the PM’s pussyfooting around with the nationalistic anti migration One Nation crowd and now with anti-terror laws targeted specifically at muslims.
This has also been amplified by the usual tabloid press (mostly Murdoch owned) and shock jocks of the nastiest persuasion.
Anyway I do go on……..I’m sure that by now we all know how this story goes, it’s a scene played out for far too many years and in far too many countries to ever go away.
I’m quite disgusted by this country today.
Interesting comments flygirl..
*It only took 54 comments for the Holocaust denier to come out of the woodwork. That’s a first for SM. Nice rajawati. And by nice, I mean the exact opposite.
just how far is your head mired up your ass?
Joining the debate a little late due to the transatlantic time difference…..
My own thoughts:
Riots by the Aussies are possibly partly opportunistic in nature — racist thugs who’d just been looking for an excuse to “vent” against suitable targets.
Racism in Australia (which, frankly, I hadn’t been aware of, apart from the antagonism towards Aboriginals — there’s a lot of Aussie ex-pats here in London and they usually been above-average friendly towards me, disproportionately compared to the local Brits) towards those perceived as being from a Middle Eastern background has been exacerbated further by the fact that the country’s been explicitly named as a target by Al-Qaeda. Plus the bombs in Bali etc.
The apparent discrepancy between the behaviour of many Muslims in other Western countries (including here in the UK) compared with the US may not only be due to the factors mentioned by Razib earlier (fractured community, significantly higher level of education and income amongst American Muslims), but perhaps also because Muslims in the US are much more vastly outnumbered compared to their counterparts in other countries, especially in Europe. Maybe this acts as some kind of psychological “check” against the potential of riotous or seditionary behaviour on the part of disgruntled American Muslims, along with indirectly acting as a subtle incentive for them to integrate quietly. I’m just guessing here.
The freaks come out at night.
I suspect that poster “Rajawati” is either someone deliberately yanking everyone’s chain as a subversive “joke”, or has RSS-leanings…..
A N N A girl! oops..I mean A T T A girl!
I ass-ume that was a rhetoric 🙂 BUTT from what I can surmise,sadly not as deep as we would have wanted it to be.
By the way, Wiki says the official figure is somewhere between 9 to 11 million.
“I think this is a pretty inflammatory thing to say without any basis of knowledge, as the speaker herself admitted.”
I didn’t mean for it to inflame, but if the foo shits…
You are right, I should do some more research, but I believe that the majority of Australian Lebanese moved there post-1960s, and the majority of American Lebanese moved here during the Ottoman era and are Christian. (Danny Thomas) My conclusion that Aussie Lebs are Shia is deductive. Does anyone have hard facts? I’d like to see them.
I’m not defending alcohol-fanned hooliganism, which is what this is. That said, it seems, from what I’ve read, that a minority of Australian Lebanese enjoy baiting the majority, like Jahjah. And I do venture that the Lebanese Shia are radicalized and take certain aggressive characteristics with them.
I lived in Sydney for two years – in Bondi Beach and in Surry Hills. I frequently heard mutterings about “wogs” and “Lebs”. The gang-rape incidents didn’t help race relations for sure. There was much muttering too, about traditional ways of living being threatened by the changing demographics of the western suburbs and townships (Liverpool, Blacktown, Paramatta etc) – not just the large Lebanese presence but also Asian immigrants like the Vietnamese. I was quite nervous after 9/11, worrying that someday, I would be in a bar surrounded by yobs, someone would hear my name, and turn on me. Nothing happened but it was a reflection of how I felt the simmering tensions were capable of quickly rising to the surface.
And still, I must confess, I’m shocked. Sydney was a beautiful, friendly city and this has defiled its memory for me.
Nice to see the anti- holocaust denier support. I recall my Russian-Jewish grandmother, after years of requests, finally permitted by the Soviet Union to make a phone call to her remaining family in Poland. This was sometime in the late 1960’s and I was around ten.
The call was monitored of course, and my grandmother spoke yiddish, but it was clear that she was running down a list of names, and that the answer to almost all was “no.” The call was cut off in mid-stream (even though it implicated the Nazis more than the Soviets).
Sheesh. I regret the focus of Holocaust museums on the Jewish holocaust. We’ve had ten or twelve in the 20th century with a couple ongoing. Let’s acknowledge them all.
Why always this focus on us Jews? What, Rajawati, did we ever do to you?
Whoops, got my grandmas confused. My Polish-Jewish grandmother, in this case.
All I can say is, you’re kidding right???? Please tell me you’re kidding. Muslims dont riot in the US because they arent in the majority!?!?!?!?! I thought I had heard all the excuses, but that was a new one. And I guess that the france riots were an attempt by islamofacists to take over france, and the 9/11 memorial in PA is actually a memorial to the hijackers.
Why is it that we always are very quick to dump (justly too, I ight add) on the blond white racists, but never stop to lament the sad retarded reclusiveness of the Muslim communities everywhere? Do we honestly think all this is going to get any better without Muslims starting to integrate better?
I’m sure its far enough to prevent said person from seeing mere objective proof — like pictures of prison camps, dead bodies heaped sky high; testimony from thousands who fled Europe in an exodus and those who survived; testimony from Poles, Gypsies, and others who were slaughtered; remanants of the kill houses in prison camps…(list goes on).
Sigh
Would the local reaction have been the same were it a community of any other skin color? Say it weren’t the Lebs but were migrant “Italians” or “Japanese” or “Canadians” who had settled down in Australia. Now a bunch of these migrant youths went out and committed the same hideous act as the Lebanese youth had done and then some more (Like the assault on the lifeguards). Would the local surfer population have reacted in the same way as they did in this case?
Something to think about. Perhaps this act easily become interpreted as a racial crime cause of two skin colors in the picture. Perhaps the local population would have reacted the same had it been anyone else.
(an no I’m not an ozzie or any way related to it)
Jeremy
Dont worry about it – these anti-semites get everywhere on the internet – even cool places like this – dont let it make you feel any less at home here.
here at the mutiny, we are staunchly against all stupidity, no matter the ethnicity or creed of the perpetrator, TRUST me. 🙂
i hear you. but it’s not as simple as saying that they’re too reclusive– you or i might say “reclusive”, others would contend “excluded”.
i think this is an important thought– and one which we can all consider. it’s not like i saw any other brown parents (besides my daddy) at our monthly speech and debate tournaments, much to the bitter disappointment of other brown competitors. they would furiously cut me off, when i had the nerve to rant about how “my dad won’t leave me alone!” with a heated, “at least YOUR dad is HERE.”
same with PTA. my ex-bf’s soccer team. fill in your own examples. fine, maybe it’s not the “retarded reclusive” degree that we see in certain communities, but we ain’t innocent, either. honor killings don’t just happen in muslim families. i can’t see a family that HAD integrated murdering a wayward daughter, can you?
MRT,
I was referring to those Muslims settled in the US who may have anti-Western/anti-US tendencies like those living elsewhere in the West (including here in the UK).
I was not referring to “all” or even “most” American Muslims.
You also need to take into consideration my comment (and Razib’s) about the comparatively higher level of income and education of US Muslims.
I’m sure your own suggestions as to why Muslims in the States are more integrated and law-abiding than in other Western countries would be welcomed.
By the way, you missed my point about Muslims being outnumbered. Muslims are not the “majority” in any Western country, including the UK. However, when you consider that (unless I’m mistaken) they constitute 10% of the French population and, here in the UK, are approximately 1.5 million in a total British population of 60 million, then it’s a considerably different situation compared to the US where there are estimated to be between 1.5 – 3 million Muslims in a total population of nearly 300 million.
Both the visibility and ratio are very different indeed.
So true in the context of racism anywhere in the world.
Immigration, especially when it is happens fast and furiously, on a large scale and in a short time as many countries are experiencing today, is prone to bring about backlashes-whether exprerssed or not – from the population that is on the “receiving” end of it.
The trick is to contain the virulet expressions of this, emphasize the positives of the immigration to both parties, and then have an environment that acclimatizes the immigrants and immigrees to each other. A fracture in this delicate exercise can bring about the kind of behavior this town saw recently.
Its also common sense that the people that are immigrating don’t try to change the subtext of the life they chose to move to. Besides being numerically handicapped, and thereby making such a plan of action somewhat of a dangerous pursuit, its also bad manners for a guest (many do get social benefits afterall to get them started) to tell the host that their rooms are small , for example.
If there have been numerous incidents where the “Lebs” have had issues with the general Aussie culture, then why did they go there in the first place? Perhaps because Australia was an easier place to migrate to for a variety of reasons such as greater availability of visas, and a faster track to gain the material trappings of modern life.
And then once “in” (or “out” as it may be viewed), perhaps it is considered easier to impose their traditional/idealist view on the prevalant culture?
If so, then obviously, this sort of attitude to immigration is flawed in both purpose and approach, and as long as this sort of migrancy continues, it will create the fissures that lead to the incidents we see today.
I have seen that the general vein of an anrgument made in favor of immigration, tries hard to gloss over or ignore the existence of some of these issues in a straight forward and constructive way – because that may make the person voicing these opinions seem old fashioned and even xenophobic. However, in any new wave of migration, it must be remembered that the receivers of the new population may have already been immigrants themselves (South Asians, Lebanese) but may feel that they are now “local” and therefore view the next approaching wave with some manner of caution. Therefore, saying there is a problem with Lebanese immigrants may be too generic , as opposed to saying Lebanese immigrants of a particular origin in Lebanon, a socio economic context, and a window of their immigration, are more alike than Lebanese immigrants of a different time/emo space.
The other problem that I see with the general response to immigration, is that somehow the immigrants must be welcomed with open arms, as if immigration is a right. It is a first step towards being citizens in a new land with its own culture that they can help positively influence. Coming in is not an invitation to stay and dissonate. If that contract is unrecognized, bad things happen.
Interesting thread, and I’ve been typing fast and without much editing, so I assume that this appears like a random flood of thoughts, but I hope the intent of it shows through as well.
Hey folks – forget Australia. There’s a lot of bad shit going down in the US right now. Check out these action alerts about really really bad legislation, HR 4437, which is being railroaded through Congress this week. I heard that someone is introducing an amendment to kill native-born citizenship to this bill, which already strips a number of rights from documented and undocumented immigrants, and even people who work with them.
Please get involved, and call your representatives today. Hopefully, someone can write a longer piece about how important it is that folks get involved on this one. If this thing passes, it’s not going to be a temporary setback for immigrant rights – it’s going to be a nightmare.
Since when did this forum turn into appologists for racist thugs? Does the differnce in ethnic/religious background justify the kind of garbage being spewed on here. The kind of broad statements about basis of tensions seem to be trying to justify the actions of a lot or racist/stupid/drunken louts. Check out the link:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/bali-tampa-911-a-potpourri-of-causes/2005/12/12/1134236003147.html
Give the posturing a rest vandesi – this forum isn’t about apologia.
Standard Sepia Mutiny thread:
(I’ve done the same thing vandesi – after the 7/7 bombings there were commenters saying that racism was the cause, while others were saying, no, it’s indoctrination. And, as I recall, I got irritated that people were trying to understand why 7/7 happened, but it wasn’t apologia. It was a different – people had their theories why 7/7 happened. Come now. This is one of the better forums for discussion on the net. And, no, abhi didn’t pay me to say that).
native-born citizenship to this bill
The only thing people are talking about doing is eliminating automatic conferance of citizenship on children of illegal immigrants. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Thousands of white youths attacked people they believed were of Arab descent at a Sydney beach. Later, Arabs retaliated in the suburbs.
On reading this in the New York Times, I literally pissed my pants. I mean thousands of white youth! This doesnt sound like the Nazis to me. Sounds more like average White Australians gone insane.
Meanwhile, back in France, things have “calmed” down … I wonder if this is going to be the norm for countries where the “disenfranchised minorities” (sic) express their opinions :
As many as 60 cars still burn nightly in France
Most Canadians will also tell you that America is racist, sexist, fundamentalist, illiterate etc.
I guess its a common reaction to being next to a larger culturally dominant country.
My bad – that was me, but I mistyped. I meant to say:
You’d be surprised how dirty your legs and bobs get down under …
Federal Labor MP Harry Quick blames racism
contradicting Prime Minister Howard’s view that there is no underlying racism in Australia
I’m with Al Mujahid on this – I’m simply amazed at the scale of the violence.
Lookit, young people get into fights. Turf, alcohol, racism … all a potent mix.
But we’re talking about thousands of Australians, possibly 5,000 or more. That’s not a minor thing, no matter how resistant to assimilation any group is. I can think of very few first world racial situations recently that involved that many people. As I recall (although I could be wrong) violence in france involved very small groups of roving individuals, more like 30 at a time, maybe fewer.
And what does this say about the police? Once you have more than 50 people assembled, the police should be able to spot them and move in. You really don’t want to let these groups get that large, they become much harder to deal with.
BTW, I’m waiting for the law and order Aussie premier to use the same language about the white rioters as the French minister did about the Arab ones – will the PM call them “scum”? If not, will the people who defended that label in France use it themselves here?
People. I am appalled at the Australia backlash going on in blogospeheres everywhere. Honestly! I lived in Sydney as a desi immigrant with my desi immigrant family AND extended family for nearly 20 years and never encountered a bout of violent racism. The world media usually doesnt take notice of Australia which is why most of you dont know much about us (a real relief to be honest!).
When these riots flared up, alongside other issues, the media decided it was just what they needed to further emphasise just how racist a country Australia is. I am sorry, but if you havent learnt by now that all you hear in the media isnt correct you never will.
Yes this atrocity has occurred and will continue occurring until a breaking point is reached whereby discussion can begin to tackle the issues at their core. But please, dont uneccessarily burn my country when a whole heap of you guys are from countries where occurrences like this have also been an issue! Try and judge fairly and try not to generalise! A majority of desi’s and other races here, despite all that has occurred, will tell you that Aus is a great place to live and that 5000 ignorant uni students do not speak for the 22 million that did not participate in this ruthless mess.
I’m not saying that AU is deeply racist, but I will say that it’s not easy to mobilize 5,000 people for anything that isn’t sport related. This is an unusually large race riot for a first world country, and that’s very significant. 50 people are disgruntled individuals, 5,000 … and you start to wonder what that says about both society and the state’s ability to maintain order.
MJ: The PM has a long history of failure with regards to race issues. He has consistently failed to contradict or condemn outright racial vilification since he came to office and has promoted a culture of fear and suspicion. In his book, multiculturalism is a dirty word. He refuses to call Australia multicultural as he refuses to acknowledge that this was racially motivated. The NSW Premier took a stronger stance.
divya, welcome to the fray 🙂
Ennis,
5000 is a fraction of the population of three universities that begun this whole mess. 5000 in comparison to 22 million is what I am asking you to consider. Out of those 5000, more than half were under 25.
As for society and maintaining order- its a bit hard when violence erupts unexpectedly. Order is being maintained, believe me, police taskforces are everywhere and are doing their very best to prevent the violence from recurring.
But it wasn’t unexpected. The text message organizing the riot seems to have been reported in the SMH a day before it happened.
Pardon my outrage:
but MD give your head a shake
Are you serious? You don’t find this starnge? If it had been random attacks against desi’s, do you think this thread would be wringing its hand trying to rationalize (and perhaps even justify) the actions of some louts? I mean look at statements like these:
“I’m not defending alcohol-fanned hooliganism, which is what this is. That said, it seems, from what I’ve read, that a minority of Australian Lebanese enjoy baiting the majority, like Jahjah. And I do venture that the Lebanese Shia are radicalized and take certain aggressive characteristics with them.”
Does anyone really think that people who have tendencies towards racism need any real reason to go on violent rampages? It’s rumors of arab kids getting into fights with life guards today. Gang rapes from a couple of years back, or their beliefs that they don’t need permission from thugs to get to the beach tomorrow. Of all the people on the net, shouldn’t we be the first to recognize inflamatory rhetoric.
It’s not that one or two people wrote crazy posts (Hollocaust deniers here? your search engine led you to the wrong kind of Arians moron) or that some people wanted to share their experiences of Australia as being mostly tolerant. But that any number of people kept hinting that these kids deserved it (and thankfully any number of mutieers called them on their inflamatory statements).
I’m just curious as to the rational behind this? Do mutineers wish to draw clear distinctions between arab and desi populations (as someone ironcially suggested the I’m not a Leb t-shirts)? Or perhpas we would like to hold on to a notion of Australia as a mostly tolerant society that will accept us for ourselves and not see us as a wog, curry, and commit random acts of violence against us?
Divya:
How easily have you been able to mobilize 5,000 uni students for anything without sport/music/women in bikinis involved? It’s really not that easy to do. Furthermore, once violence began, the police had reasons to prevent large gatherings from occurring again. Why wasn’t this just a one day event? Lastly, I’d love to see the polls on how Aussies are reacting. Even coverage in the SMH indicates that there is a fair amount of sympathy for the nativist message of the gundas.
Manish,
Police were on standby in the event that anything occurred, however, one text message would not warrant an entire taskforce by the beach, in this case though, it was a completely unexpected number of people, beyond what the police or anyone else could even begin to imagine. Would you have expected 5000 neo-nazi uni students to turn up after an sms?
Manish, it was the SMH 🙂
It was reported in local Sydney city and suburban papers. Local shock jock Alan Jones has been fanning the flames for a at least a week on talkback radio (can’t find link, SMH has taken it down). From the article you linked it seems to have been viewed as a largely surfie turf issue. No one expected such numbers or for things to escalate to such a degree.
And our glorious PM yet again fails to read the mood of the situation and respond adequately.
Appeals for violence were brewing on the radio, and seem to be popular after the fact:
These were repeated appeals for violence on Sydney’s top rated morning show program, and afterwards 2/3rds of callers approved of the violence. Sounds like more than just a few drunken malcontents.
flygirl, jinx!
Divya:
After 3 days of hate radio, with people encouraging violence on the air, yes I would expect the police to pay attention.
I’m writing too much here, but I just found this strange
A BARE-CHESTED youth in Quiksilver boardshorts tore the headscarf off the girlÂ’s head as she slithered down the Cronulla dune seeking safety on the beach from a thousand-strong baying mob.
The writer seems to have a sympathetic to the victims and yet the word choice is strange? Slithered?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/thugs-ruled-the-streets-and-the-mob-sang-waltzing-matilda/2005/12/11/1134235951620.html
Ennis,
Let me tell you how: at the recent Voluntary Student Union protests, our rather small university of 10 000 students managed to churn up 2000 protestors. Compare this with other universities with three times the population of ours and there you have it. Yes it was pre meditated, and FYI, police were on alert after the riot, and were at the scene each time. And yes, there is widerspread support for the “gundas” as you put it, however, there is not support for the violence, but that does not mean all those people will take to the streets. You seem to believe that the lebanese gangs are completely innocent. think again. Look up the Macquarie Fields rape case. Both sides have caused havoc equally as bad as one another. thats why its best not to take sides in matters like this.