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.”
I would hardly call those comments an attempt to apologise for or rationalise the situation. IT is not a question of drawming the lines between ethnic groups at all. Most desis and other migrants don’t draw lines between our distinct groups. However, the background of the situation is entirely relevant as to why this specific group was targeted, and this is acknowledged by members of the relevant communities (see here, and here, also The Age and more from here). And here I’ll take out the tired old line, old but true: it doesn’t excuse the appalling violence, but it is part of the whole story. We are all aware of the racist undercurrent here. It’s just never been this violent or to such an extent.
JINX Ennis!
Alan Jones has long been known to be on the lunatic fringe.
Ennis,
2GB listeners are mostly old timers from Alan Jones’s time. You must look at the actual people who participated in these protests, youth. Students with ignorant opinions. I cant recall there being many 2GB supporters out there smashing cars
How many uni students are there in this neck of the woods? Let’s say that there were … 50,000, of whom 25,000 were male. If, as divya said, these were 5,000 neo-nazi students, then you’re saying that 20% of the male university population is neo-nazi. That’s hardly a fringe element.
Ennis,
many, many of them were female. And FYI- you would be looking at the uni students of over 3 universities with an average student population of 90000 altogether.
and they arent all part of the neo-nazi movement. Many just accompanied their boyfriends as this article suggests:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17546783-2,00.html
Aside from the play on numbers, I just want to say that this isnt about me proving australia doesnt harbour racial tendencies but certainly nowhere near as what the world media is suggesting.
I dont know about you, but I must get back to work now,
Cheers,
Divya
I have to agree with Ennis. It is with more than a small amount of relish that I speculate if these riots are not the biggest group on group violence outside of Rwanda. Ironic that the few racist thugs are actually playing catch up to the Rwandan militas…
So since the Holocaust has been brought up, note that the murders are rightly condemned, regardless of the motivations. i.e. it is immaterial what Adolf said in Mein Kampf, or what the Nazis claimed as the Jewish problem. And so it should – sociopolitical issues can not be used to justify it.
But isn’t what is going on here? Claiming that the muslims, shi’a, lebanese, whatever bring it on themselves?
I’ve been trying to hold my tongue (moderately, compared to my normal chatty self), but the anti-Muslim comments are ridiculous. Honestly, I find all this talk about this huge, homogenous non-integrating Muslim mass disingenuous and Islamophobic. It’s comparable, in my mind, as blaming Black people in America for being poor, disenfranchised, and segregated. And further, just because a group of idiots decide to gang rape women does not give 5000 neo-nazi f–kheads the right to beat, bludgeon, or derogate the ethnic community with which those rapists identify, and vice-versa.
On a different note…
Except this is the US, land of genocide and migration, and you would be reversing significant and historic case law regarding the rights of children and native-born citizens in the name of “preserving the border.” I could do an entire shpiel at how our (native-born) lifestyles are often subsidized by this so called “illegal immigration,” but I honestly don’t have the energy right now.
“Oh! Do you come from a land down under? (oh yeah yeah) Where women glow and men plunder? Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover.”
(I suppose they left out the verse about xenophobia?) It gives the impression of a country full of frat guys.
Divya? That link you gave says something different from what you say it does. You said:
However, the article describes not the mass of demonstrators, but the dozen or so who were identified with existing neo-nazi groups. A spokesman of one of these groups said that:
Very different claims.
This coverage argues that the “lebs” are hardly religious, but rather are fairly modern but ganglike, same as the Ozzies:
http://smh.com.au/news/paul-sheehan/nasty-reality-surfs-in-as-ugly-tribes-collide/2005/12/11/1134235944844.html?page=2
‘We are all in this together’
The recent events in some suburbs in Sydney have painted an image of our city as a one breeding a culture of hatred and violence. We all recognise that racism, prejudice and discrimination arise from a lack of understanding of each other.
A public gathering entitled ‘We are all in this together’, has been organised for 4pm on Sunday the 18th December at Belmore park, located 30 seconds walk from Central Station in the city. The purpose of this gathering is simply to promote cultural, religious, racial, ethnic harmony of all Australians.
Leaders from AustraliaÂ’s sporting, community, arts, educational, religious and cultural domains will also be invited to attend, and to speak on promoting a culture of community harmony.
Sydneysiders who have witnessed the violence of the past week and feel that they ‘want to do something’ to promote a culture of harmony and understanding in society are encouraged to attend this gathering. This is not a political event, a reactive rally, nor a protest.
It is a peaceful gathering where all Sydneysiders from all walks of life, young and old, can come in and share the spirit of harmony and understanding – the true spirit of Australia.
The organisers of the event are group of young Australians who believe that the seeds of understanding and seeds of social harmony lie deeper than the seeds of prejudice and discrimination.
Together, we can show that Sydney embraces diversity.
Michael Mcglynn, Matt Noffs, Kolitha Wickramage, Mahesh Radhakrishnan, Rishi Shankar.
i’m not familiar with australia, but it seems like there are 5,000 or so goondas of the surfer variety who hang out at the beach and really like busting heads. And then another bunch of goondas whose parents are from Lebanon who also bust a lot of heads. And the two are going at it. couple that with still-existing racism. how many of us expect, really, to find Aus is free from racism? given that, i don’t think its time to run for the hills. you know what, even in india you have chauvanist and nativist sentiment about migrants from one state to another. granted, 5,000 people doing it is a bit eye-opening.
if you have a group of marginalized poor whites fighting a group of marginalized colors, both of whom are proven to be violent, whose fault is it? society’s? or the goondas who like to fight? just bc there are apparently 5,000 of them might just mean, there’s about 5,000 surfer dudes idiots in that area.
Ennis, if you read my post (at 8.14pm, I think) and followed the links you would find those articles you’ve just linked, so jinx to you again mate.
Raj, that’s a very selective verse from a rather yob song.
I’m a little confused as to why the term uni students is being bandied around here – is there some article I’ve missed? There are more than six universities in Sydney alone, apart from the state of NSW as a whole and so this hardly constitutes a large % of the student population.
flygirl,
don’t bother. Apparently living in Aus/Sydney for 20+ years does not mean we’d know anything about actually living here now would we?
No, of course it doesn’t give them the right to do that. But your analogy doesn’t work for me. I read about these riots with horror but also a very personal sense of recognition based on two instances in which I was targeted and harassed (and, I think, would have been assaulted, had passersby not stopped and physically intervened) for my “inappropriate dress” by young Arab Muslim guys. I wasn’t in Australia; I was in Paris. My rage at being verbally assaulted and terrorized because my appearance didn’t conform to their cultural standards of “appropriate” (although I was in Paris, (Paris!, where women dress in far more revealing outfits than my skirt and t-shirt or jeans and tank top!), was immense.
So while I completely condemn the rioting and racist acts of a mob, I also think this incident points to a very real issue that every woman among us should think long and hard about. Assimilation is not a cool word anymore. But I’ll be damned if I want any country in which women enjoy freedom of mobility, to allow or even tolerate “cultural difference” when that cultural difference threatens to limit my rights and even endanger my life. And tolerance, when it includes cultures with very different views about female behavior, does threaten to do all those things to me and every other woman around me.
1) Yes, racist mobs suck! No one is safe from THEM, either.
2) Of course, most Muslim men would no doubt cut off their hands before they’d deliberately scare a woman!
3) Yes, many men who aren’t Muslim harass, abuse, and rape women anyway!
4) But values do differ from culture to culture. Islamic countries, particularly those in the Middle East, have very different ideas about what is acceptable female behavior. Immigrants from those countries bring those values with them. And the article referenced above about the gang rape suggest that not all immigrants are making sure their children understand that those values do not apply in the country to which they have immigrated. And there, to me, surfaces the most important debate about assimilation vs. cultural diversity. A line must be drawn.
I am not alone in having been targeted for verbal abuse by Arab Muslim men who feel comfortable imposing their values on me. So some of the events which the media claims led up to this explosion of violence make me think. And make me feel uneasy. I think (hope!) all of us here vigorously condemn racism and mob violence. But moving on, I also think there are pressing issues buried within this conflagration that NEED TO BE ADDRESSED. Hence I am both upset and alarmed when I see the possibility of this conversation getting shut down due to other people’s fears that taking a more subtle view of the incident might win them the name “Islamophobe.”
Raju, you’ve…well, hit the nail on the head again.
This is how the situation is playing out in Sydney. This is how things are in those beachside suburbs.
I’ve watched the electorate here change from an open, relaxed society into a fearful, parochial populace with creeping xenophobia. Muslims continue to be demonised, they have suffered the most since 9/11, Bali and 7/7. This, you willl acknowledge, has happened everywhere. But this is still something totally out of the blue here. So try and get an idea of how things are here, and how this arose before calling it.
Andrew Priest in The Australian talks about the policing issues and where they went wrong. Andrew West tries to play the “cultural clash” card, and so far is the only commentator to try it. I never thought I’d link this, but Tim Blair lists some good sources of information and analysis on his blog. Other useful links: Antifa Group Fight dem Back watches race relations in Aust/NZ, Crikey carries alternative commentary on Australian politics.
There is a undercurrent of racism (as with anywhere from the US to the UK) here that needs to be dealt with – not by allowing a bunch ignoramuses shoot their mouths of (cf. Pauline Hanson 1996, Bronwyn Bishop 1998, 2002, 2005, John Brogden 2005) and calling it free speech, but by actually engaging in real debate which has been suppressed here. This is partly due to the current climate, where anything approaching dissent is given little, if any, coverage. Couple that with the really pathetic level of politcal discourse around at the moment and you’ve got a heady mix.
That may be the one positive thing to come out of this; that at last we will put the ghost to rest and really look at way of really re-engaging people with the idea of multiculturalism (which has since 1996 been put into the unmentionable drawer) and making a real attempt to educate people about racism (and John Howard will be voted out of office! look, a flying pig!). For this we need, alas, excellent and visionary leadership (Peter Costello…step up..?)
[Now if you will excuse me, I will wander back to life and try and work out at what point I became a flag-waving Aussie patriot. shudders]
Please explain where I say that “cultural difference” are a justification for violence against women. I believe my statement was that, “just because a group of idiots decide to gang rape women does not give 5000 neo-nazi f–kheads the right to beat, bludgeon, or derogate the ethnic community with which those rapists identify, and vice-versa.” (emphasis mine). I’m not an apologist for the actions of a bunch of gang rapists – I am simply taking issue with the idea that it is ok to blame this on some crazy Muslim way of life (that of course every Muslim in a non-Muslim country must prescribe to).
I’m sympathetic with your experience, and so I hope this response won’t be viewed as an attempt to “shut down conversation.” My point is simply this: it is inaccurate and unhelpful to blame this situation on some “inherent deviant trait” that Muslim men purportedly harbor towards women. Taking a very small % of people who feel they have license to threaten and harass women as the prototypical example for a whole community is not useful, nor is it accurate. Further, I would challenge our definition of Islamic countries. Are these countries with majority Muslim populations? Countries with Islamic states? In light of the previous anecdote and its claims regarding immigrant Muslim men, the numbers in aggregate of all men who commit violence against women in the US would no doubt be comparable. Just because we redominantly ignore issues of violence against women (except in a tokenistic sense) doesn’t mean that they don’t happen in other (non-Islamic) areas of the world. By framing this issue as a distinctly Islamic problem, we totally obscure all other factors, relations, and issues that underpin this horrific series of eventss. I think it’s convenient and easy to pretend that Muslims worldwide are repressive and violent instead of examining underlying social systems and the relative behavior of other non-Muslim communities as well.
From comments by aussies here and the media coverage it’s becoming pretty obvious that this is really more aimed against the lebanese community there rather than non-whites as a whole. Obviously that doesn’t make it any more acceptable, but it does put the rioting into better context. There are some wider hate groups involved, but the intensity here seems to be fuelled by antagonism between two specific ‘subcultures’ in that one area.
Cronulla is atypical:
Things can’t end up well when that group, which seems to be particularly xenophobic, is brought into close contact with an immigrant group having trouble assimilating:
So I guess it’s important that we put this into better context. Australia’s really taking a beating now, and i’m not sure it’s entirely deserved. That said, there’re definitely some race issues to address there, what happened is still hard to believe.
I dont really care if Muslims brought it up on themselves or the lame excuses/perspective (as usual) that our resident conservative mutineers are offerring for the MOB OF 5000 PEOPLE CHASING DOWN PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE ARABS.
No one looks more Arab in the West than the Desis. My blue eyed Syrian friend certainly doesnt look very Arab though most of my desi friends look more Arab than him to the man on the street. If in a first world country like Australia, mobs of upwards of thousands of people can chase people who look like Arabs on the beach, viciously attack people who look like Arabs on the train (picture of person being attacked on the train from New York Times) it should be a cause of concern to all people who look like Arabs.
I am waiting for Michelle Malkin, O Reilly and our resident conservative mutineeers to name this die Kristallnacht with the same urgency and paranoia they dubbed the French riots as the European intifada.
Divya, Did you miss the fact that most of these attackers were UNIVERSITY students ? If I were you, I would worry more about my safety then wasting my time adding ‘perspective’ on here.
I was not referring to Vinod_at_large as our resident conservative scholar. Hes one of my favorite conservatives.
vandesi
Since apparently this needs to be spelled out: there is no excuse for a group of thugs beating people up and I condemn it wholeheartedly. If you look at my first two comments you’ll see I wrote that “I literally feel ill”, so, apparently I can feel outrage too. Wrong of me to write you were posturing and I apologize for it.
But on any thread here, someone seems like they are offering excuses to someone else. 7/7 happens: it’s a backlash to Iraq or racism or radical islamism or whatever your theory is. So, depending on your point of view, it comes across as apologia. I’ve seen it time and time again. And people do have one point: it does seem that some people have one standard if someone is majority and white, and another standard if someone is poor and brown.
I state again, that the police should have cracked down hard on all of this: rowdy or harrassing behavior on beaches, and why did they let alcohol be served when it was known that something was going to go down? Some of it was racist behavior, and some of it was undoubtedly plain old drink-fuelled thuggism.
I don’t think it is any less offensive to bring up the events leading up to this outburst than it is to talk about 9/11 or the Iraq war or Bali. There have been tensions on this beach: to state that is not to condone it. If we don’t talk honestly about what happens, how will we ever move forward?
Again, since some people need this sort of thing: the holocaust denier’s deluded, thugs who beat up people should be locked up whatever their motivation, and Aussie women or women anywhere shouldn’t feel like they will be harrassed simply because they follow a different cultural tradition. How hard is that? And that goes for having your headscarf being torn off by an angry racist mob (poor girl, she must have been terrified) or women wearing bikinis being harrassed for wearing bikinis. And note: I am not equating a racist mob with small groups harrassing women on a beach, okay?
Note to police: don’t serve alcohol to big, angry mobs. Just a helpful hint.
MD, I beg to differ. The “roots” of this violence implies a causal story. The backdrop to this violence involves Lebanese gangs who were active in the area, and white gangs who weren’t happy about it.
Imagine some Italian-American gangs in Boston engage in some violence against Irish American men and women. Then, one day, there’s a fight and two Irish American guys get beat up by some Italian Americans they had a confrontation with. Next 5,000 Irish Americans decend on the North End, beating people up.
Would you really find a causal link between the background and consequence? Why would anybody blame the entire North End for the actions of a handful of gangsters, unless they were racist? Why would 5,000 people mobilize in a first world country where there are police and courts to take care of minor things like 2 groups of young men getting into a scuffle, unless they have prior animus?
Looking for the roots of the conflict is perilously close to blaming the victim. After 9/11 I had to tell friends outside the country repeatedly that no matter what the US had done wrong in its foreign policy, this was in no way a root cause of 9/11, A-Q were a bunch of murdering bastards who would have attacked anyway and they shouldn’t engage in blaming the victims.
Many lynchings in the US were “motivated” by supposed attacks and threats, but this was often post-hoc.
I spoke to an Australian friend who said this:
We want to avoid buying into post-hoc justifications used to blame the victim.
Flygirl asks:
Why don’t you ask Divya? She said:
I was just following her lead, even though she refuses to explain the gap between her statements and the articles she quotes to justify them. What’s stranger still is that after introducing the argument that these were uni students, she claims that this shows our ignorance:
Go figure.
Ennis, you misunderstand me.
I loathe root cause excuses, as I’ve stated before and which is why I brought up the case of 7/7. Notice I use the term excuse, not explanation. There were plenty of people at those SM threads who said that the larger racist and anti-Muslim society were the ’cause’ of 7/7 and I took that explanation as offering an excuse. I got offended, but later, when I calmed down, I saw that some of the comments were not about an excuse, but trying to understand what motivated these young men, even if we utterly reject that motivation. A forensic psychologist studies murderers to understand why they murder, but we don’t assume they are seeking to justify the action, and we study both what they think the motivation is, and what we think the real reasons are (someone hearing voices that tell them to kill versus realizing the person is mentally ill).
What if a group of white surfers from some rival beach came and stirred things up, and the second set of white surfers decided to show them down by meeting them with a mob? By bringing up the first group, am I excusing their behavior? (And apparently, such things have happened at this beach in the past). No. I’m trying to understand what happened. There are many layers to dissect here.
*And on that note, I had a colleague tell me this anecdote: a scientist gave a talk. An audience member said, “well, what should we (government) do about it?” To which the scientist said, “it’s not for me to tell you what policies to follow. I can only tell you what the data show.” Boos from one set of the audience, cheers from another (the scientist was a weather scientist).
How hard is that? And that goes for having your headscarf being torn off by an angry racist mob (poor girl, she must have been terrified) or women wearing bikinis being harrassed for wearing bikinis
I find this excuse for thuggery being peddled (not by MD) by majority rights apologists as especially amusing. This racist thuggery had nothing to do with saving the honor of white damsels in distress. This riot was about the Lebanese altercation with the lifeguards who didnt want swarthy males playing soccer on an ‘Aussie’ beach.
Actually, you’re right Al Mujahid: some majority rights apologists are using that as some sort of excuse, and rereading Ennis’ comments I see that is what he meant (and what vendasi is getting at).
Oh, and I want to add one last thing: mob violence has it’s own dynamics. Racism exists. But that doesn’t mean that mob violence is only related to the racism. Not all racists form violent mobs. So, why in this instance, did the mob form?
Problems highlighted by this incident:
What others factors do people think contributed?
In response to MD, I’m actually wondering what role mobilizers played in this. I have a hunch not all 5000 people were sitting around waiting for the day to come when they could beat the crap out of others (although maybe there were). And we’ve heard about the infamous text message/hate radio, but who was the leadership? What role did they play?
And does this remind anyone of the Minutemen at all? (violent vigilantism)
All I’ll #5, the ever popular Groupthink 🙂
One distinction I want to make is about the actions of the few vs. the actions of the many, another is about the actions of organizations vs. the actions of informal groups.
When we’re looking at the behavior of a few individuals belonging to a structured organization – let’s say the members of A-Q who were involved in 9/11 – I don’t think that their actions tell you much about the society that they’re from.
If you’re looking at informal behavior by a large group of people that this is more related to the society.
That is, it’s easier to read the behavior of an Australian mob as being related to group characteristics than it is to read the behavior of a handful of gangsters of Lebanese origin as being related to group characteristics.
As for 5,000 people being nothing, remember that in 2001, Al-Qaeda was of a similar size:
Many people were quick to read A-Q’s behavior as revealing something deep about hatred in Arab society broadly, but many of the same people are unwilling to read the behavior of 5,000 Australians as related to Australia at all.
Personally, I think that the search for root causes is futile in either case, but that group characteristics may have played a slightly larger role w/ Australia. Even so, group characteristics wont explain much of the variance on a cross-national level and therefore provide little leverage.
MD – the mob formed around a nucleus of a peaceful protest against the earlier violence. That’s how people had originally assembled.
Islamic leaders have described the riots “un-Australian”…… I’d go a bit further and call it a strong indicator that not much has changed since the Aborignes were slaughtered!
With all the focus on Islam, lets not forget that many of the Lebanese in Australia are Christians. It is the governments treatment and pinpointing of Islam that has cause Islam to be in the spotlight. However, this riot is merely about racism…. whites against non-white!
Australian racism has deep roots. Look up “blackbirding”. Or Australian colonial policy in Papua New guniea. Or Australian mismanagement(and theft) of Nauru’s mineral wealth.
More recently, look up Pauline Hanson. Or the Tampa incident. John Howard won an election by demonising (and lying) about refugee claimants treatment of their children. It was an election campaign reminiscent segregation era (pre-aparthied) South Africa.
Australian immigration policy is also white tilted, and there are commentators in Canada (Herb Grubel) who have applauded AU’s immigration policy becuase it ensures a higher proportion if immigrants are British (through work-study programs) in comparison to Canadian immigration policy.
The question is, why is Australia so racist compared to Canada (which also has a racist past — see Komagata Maru)? How did it turn into the ‘evil’ dominion? What went wrong?
(Razib is, I think, wrong that the Leb issue in Australian is a Muslim issue. Like everywhere else, Arab emigrants in Australian are disproportionately Christian. Note, however, that Arab emigrants to the USA and Canada have done quite well — there’s something unique about Australian racism that prevented that success down under).
I’m not sure that is entirely true, or the whole story Ennis. It wasn’t simply a spontaneous reaction or counter protest – people had specifically texted each other to show up I believe.
Ennis, I am totally confused as to what you are saying. Looking for why something happened is futile? Than why bother to look at or understand anything? Look at this thread again and tell me people aren’t bringing out their standard hobby horses for an incident that has a specific genesis. Racism provides the grounds for a riot like this, but to blossom into a riot you need other factors. I mean, this is a whole are of study, you know?
Yankeedesi wrote:
I have to agree with Ennis. It is with more than a small amount of relish that I speculate if these riots are not the biggest group on group violence outside of Rwanda. Ironic that the few racist thugs are actually playing catch up to the Rwandan militas…
We desi’s don’t have to go all the way to Rawada to find comprable situations. Mumbai 92/93. Shiv Sena protecting us from the muslim masses. These are of course exagerated examples, but they do speak to the power of this kind of “enobling” rhetoric.
MD wrote:
Al Mujahid: some majority rights apologists are using that as some sort of excuse, and rereading Ennis’ comments I see that is what he meant (and what vendasi is getting at).
You’ve kind of led me to the question I’ve been trying to ask, Do you think there is an undercurrent of anti-Islamist … prejudice.. on this thread.
Yes!
Yes, vendasi, by hobby horses that is what I meant, although I hate it when the charge of racism gets thrown around. I think it is too easily used, so that if you bring up anything outside of the ‘accepted’ view on a topic a person is labeled sort of deviant, if you know what I mean. There may be some predjudice, but it works both ways, both to condemn and to excuse. I don’t think it is unique to one group of people or one country or one side of the political spectrum.
On other threads I’ve seen the opposite: I’ve seen actions excused because people feel sympathy for a minority group. I don’t care for either.
there’s been a nasty comment and i think its out of line; you might not agree with Divya or anyone else, but you cross the line when you make things personal. the result is we have fewer voices willing to share their perspective. and thats a shame, and Sepia Mutiny is much the ill for it. otherwise its an echo-chamber
You’ve kind of led me to the question I’ve been trying to ask, Do you think there is an undercurrent of anti-Islamist … prejudice.. on this thread.
No, for that I go to LGF (Little Green Footballs)
maximum respect to flygirl for her analysis and for pointing us to australian coverage. i learned a lot from reading those articles.
peace
LOL. That was hilarious, Amfd.
“maximum respect to flygirl for her analysis and for pointing us to australian coverage. i learned a lot from reading those articles.
peace”
yes i agree!
Hmm..I don’t think I placed some of my earlier comments in the correct context. Bringing to light previous gang rapes and general youth anarchy (on both sides: Macquarie Fields is not a Lebanese dominated suburb) was an attempt to illustrate some of the simmering tensions in Sydney at the time, rather than as a pointer to the cause of this particular protest even occurring or descending into a riot. Or, heaven forbid, that Middle Eastern descended Australians in any way deserved what happened.
Some of the rather defensive responses from us Aussies are due to some of the extreme notions of Australian society presented here. So you’ve raised our hackles somewhat by displaying a very particular ignorance of how things are here 🙂 I only wished to suggest that some of these notions of Australia – as some sort of racist paradise; that immigrant communitites are ghettoised and live in constant fear of racial retribution and daily discrimination is pretty far off the mark. They’re quite ludicrous, and everyday realities of existence here are much more diverse than such impressions. So I state this for the record, not as some new immigrant, newly converted. I’m hardly going to defend any iota of racism in any way shape or form. But I felt that people needed an idea of what is happening on the ground here. In doing so we couldn’t address the core issue that for the love of god, a race riot happened in Sydney. Sydney!
Clearly there’s a difference in watching this unfold overseas to watching it unfold over here. You can’t imagine what its like watching this unfold over here. It’s utterly surreal. I can’t imagine this is happening in a city two hours drive away. Of course we will ask why and how. How the f*** did this happen? When did this happen? That such a thing even happened has us waving our arms around in stunned disbelief, blabbing about how unbelievable this is.
Phillip Gomes puts it best in his comment.
Extremely sorry for the commotion I may have caused. I am just a passer by in this site, and decided to come and see the replies that may have ensured following my post. Anyhow, I’d just like to make it clear that, I am NOT anti-seminte and I acknowledge that millions of jews lost their lives as a result of WWII, nevertheless as an amateur historian I still believe that the figure of 6 million is exaggerated. I grew up in an international school, have Jewish friends and never really thought of my self as a Racist (Racist Indian living in a foreign land?). I’ve never wished to impose my opinions on anyone, although I see I don’t need to be telling you that.. In my post I actually resented neo-nazism and also I am not an RSS enthusiast, as I think th BJP is rather stupid, although admittedly I may have a slight militaristic leaning. Perhaps my head really is lost up in my arse, however if you’re wondering about the Bin-laden comment, thats just because I’m a bit of a conspiracy bluff, although that doesn’t mean I ‘believe’ there is a ‘Jewish Conspiracy’ out there, as the ancient Japanese saying goes ‘if you learn how to read, but you believe every thing you read, than it is better not to learn’. Well, lastly I just hope my single appearance would not put people off their well intelligent discussions, and the e-mail I put was rubbish as well, as I wasn’t quite expecting e-mails of praises to be sent after a comment like such as that one. Nevertheless as a man, once I have taken an action I cannot regret and fret for doing it.
Once again, sorry and take care.
Ikram, the immigration policy is not white tilted (not since about the late 70s in any case). Hansonism is an issue we have not shaken off and will not be able to shake off because we still haven’t dealt with it properly. We’re dealing with those repercussions now. This is entirely due to the current PM, whose unparallelled use of wedge politics has calcified latent attitudes and increased paranoia. That in part answers the “what went wrong?” question. Pauline Hanson fell from grace because John Howard managed to grab her vote base. There really has been an extraordinary shift in discourse and attitudes since he came into power. It’s no exaggeration, or we wouldn’t be asking how and why things have changed so much since the Hawke/Keating years.
As for the state of the Lebanese in particular here, I don’t have an answer to that. The youth in these gangs are primarily Muslim. However, I don’t make a link between Islam and these youth for the obvious reason that their gangsta culture has nothing to do with Islam. I think it’s primarily social, but how that arose – well, you’ll have to ask community leaders. Some of the community responses can be found here at the SMH.
Meanwhile, over in Cronulla, some disparate groups try to restore order through more communication.
If
Okay…one more and I’ll stop multiple posting 🙂
Al Mujaheed, no, a neo nazi could not care less whether we’re middle-eastern looking or desi, being The One Brown(ish) Menace. (I’d still point out that generally amongst “average” Australians, a distinction is made between Arabs and desis).
It’s galling that now that the race issue is out, the racial aspect is being talked down and attempts are being made to sweep it under the carpet. Not a single minister apart from the PM has bothered to comment. I’ve seen more articles on Lebanese community members (and other Muslims) trying to deal with their issues, but we’re still not dealing with the core question of Australian racism.
Michelle Grattan, long time political observer and commentator, does a nice analysis here, and another commentator tackles the issue of multiculturalism in The Australian. It will be interesting to see how things pan out, the current situation is tense, but under control. Rumours about circulating text messages are that tension will spill out on Sunday.
Thanks Raju and siddharta.
Thanks for a most interesting discussion, Mutineers.
An article on the BBC page adds another wrinkle to this: one of the witnesses who was not directly (in his words) a rioter but a passive participant is not even White (his picture is on the page linked below). So far it seems like everyone has been projecting this as “White” vs “Lebanese” thing. I wonder if there is more to this than that simplistic view.
Long-term tensions behind Sydney riots
still point out that generally amongst “average” Australians, a distinction is made between Arabs and desis
I dont believe an average australian can tell the difference between a desi and an arab (just by looking at them) Most of the racist shit is random anyway, so an anti arab ‘average’ australian will attack the ‘arab looking person’ and I am pretty sure that desis look like arabs to an average australian.
Here\’s a transcript of a talk given by a retired Australian police officer about Middle Eastern gang crime in Australia, with specific references to Lebanese gangs:
Some excerpts: (This talk was given before the French & Australian riots)
The Rise of Middle Eastern Crime in Australia