Reading the Riot Act
You've got to love a country where they can't even organise a proper race riot. If the Cronulla 'riot' is the best we can do, then you might have to argue that multiculturalism has worked.
We've had plenty of examples of how to do it: a despised minority hits back at the exploitative majority and leaves devastation in its wake. The American blacks have shown how to destroy the inner-city of several urban areas in the north-east and on the west coast of the US; the 'Pakis' have done a good job on several occasions in north England; only a few months ago the streets of Paris held yet another object lesson; and communal violence from minorities have been endemic in states as far different as Sri Lanka and Ireland.
In spite of all these good examples, what do we do to create unprecedented moral panic in Australia? A few thousand Anglo-Australians, loudly encouraged by a miniscule minority of white supremacists, racists and fascists, congregate for a few hours of drinking and chatter, beat up a few dusky strangers, and disperse. (We cannot even get the oppressed orities into the streets to play the part they are supposed to, with minor exceptions, such as a few recent contretemps in Redfern (Aboriginal youth) and Macquarie Fields (young hoodlums of no fixed ethnicity) and have to rely on pea-brained surfers worried about the possibility that some 'Lebs' might be using their beaches.) In retaliation there are a few hit-and-run raids by gangs of dusky youths, mostly Lebanese Muslims from western Sydney, on Brighton and Maroubra, and on the outskirts of the Cronulla area. A few injured, some minor damage to property, and days and days of outrage from politicians, shock-jocks and editorial writers.
How can we hold our heads up in this era of globalisation, where inter-communal violence has been institutionalised in many societies, if this is the best we can do?
So let me give you some background so you can understand the genesis of the 'great riots' of December 2005. The beaches at Cronulla are the only ones in Sydney reachable by train. As such they are the ones most likely to be visited by groups of youths from western Sydney, seeking to exploit the marvellous beaches that are the birthright of all Australians. Ironically, these beaches are located in the least integrated, the most determinedly white-bread, suburbs of Sydney - the Sutherland Shire - "the Shire" as it is universally known, with little or no acknowledgement of the reference to Tolkien. The presence of these darker skinned bathers, many of whom refuse to defer to any authority other than those of family and community, has caused some angst among the 'clubbies', the members of the Surf Life Saving Association who patrol our beaches and protect surfers in trouble. A possible catalyst for the recent troubles has been a clash between clubbies and a group of Lebanese-Australian youths who wanted to play football on the beach, disturbing other bathers. (An alternative version of the background places more of the blame on a group of clubbies who had been giving younger Muslim women who wear the veil, even at the beach, a hard time, to the chagrin of the males who had escorted them to the beach.) Whatever the cause there was a clash on North Cronulla Beach on the first weekend in December between some clubbies and some youths, allegedly Leb, that left the clubbies worse off.
All of this might have led nowhere except for the atmosphere that has been developing in Australia over the last few years, initiated for its own purposes by the federal government. Aware that a small, but significant, minority of Anglo-Celtic Australians had attached themselves to the simplistic solutions offered by Pauline Hanson's One Notion, the Howard Gang, around 2000, expressed policies aimed at winning their vote. This was largely achieved, not by overtly racist policies, but by policies that had the same effect. Particularly in the area of reconciliation with Indigenous Australians (which was all but halted) and in the firming up of policies related to asylum seekers, boatsful of Islamic refugees largely from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the lead up to the 2001 election, the government toughened its rhetoric on such boats and, after 11/9/2001, linked such asylum seekers with Islamist terrorists, a link completely unsupported by the facts. Subsequently, and in the face of an ALP refusal properly to confront it on the issue, the government matched its rhetoric with actions that toughened the detention centres, made it far harder for asylum seekers to be granted asylum, instituted off-shore detention centres, barred access to asylum seekers (from the media, their lawyers and any acquaintances already here) and, perhaps, in the case of SIEV-X conspired in the death of a number of boat people.
After 11/9, and Australia's involvement in Afghanistan and, later, Iraq, the government continued to demonise Islamic people, including those already in Australia. The arrest of Willie Brigitte in France and some allegations against a tiny minority within Australia, all played up by the government and its friends in the media, exacerbated this. Then there were the western Sydney gang rapes, the two worst examples of which involved Islamic defendants: one group of Lebanese descent and the other Pakistani. These were also played up by the media, especially by the right-wing shock-jocks, as were a limited number of examples of gang violence in the Lakemba area. Mind you, the recent, truly frightening, displays of violence had no link to the Islamic Lebanese community: Redfern and Macquarie Fields and, now, Cronulla. But all these events had created an atmosphere of fear of the "other", seen specifically as Muslim youth, among the blond majority of the Shire.
Over the week after the events on Cronulla on 4 December, the last element of causation came into its own. Against the background of 'ethnic invasion' of the Anglos' beaches, a modern touch was added: the use of SMS to spread a message. And the message was an invitation to gather at North Cronulla to show 'them' that 'they' had no place on 'our' beaches. Armed with Australian flags, and augmented by the score or two of agents provacateurs provided by the Patriotic Youth League, Australia First and other lunar rights groups, seeking to exploit the disquiet of the locals as if they agreed with the even more racist views of the fascists. On 11 December there was excessive drinking and talk-talk among those gathered outside Northies (the local pub) and, by the early afternoon, the odd example of gang violence, whenever one of 'them' (and it didn't matter if the person was a Leb or Islamic or just dark) was spotted. The depredations of gang violence extended to the local railway station where a couple of likely candidates were attacked on the train as it waited to depart. That night and the next, groups of 'Middle Eastern' youths stages reprisal attacks on Maroubra (well away from Cronulla but a target because the leader of the "'Bra Boys", the local surfer group, had said that the Lebs wouldn't dare attack his suburb), the outskirts of Cronulla (a strong police presence stopped the worst incursions) and in Brighton-Le-Sands (for no good reason I could fathom).
And that was it for the shocking outbreak of racist violence in Sydney. The way the television and tabloid press played it up you'd have thought we were on the brink of civil war. Rather, it was the excessive behavior of a small minority of the majority culture expressing a fear of the "other" not justified by the circumstances, and it has given an impetus to the loonier elements of the lunar right, particularly amongst the commentariat, further to push the canard that the true danger to modern Australia is the "violent subculture" of Lebanese Muslims. An assertion that does not meet any of the known facts. Subsequent to the events, the SLSA and the Lebanese community have got together to ensure there is no repetition of the violence; one trusts that their actions and the more measured response of the constabulary will have more impact that the chattering classes and the politicians trying to exploit the situation.
First written: February 2006
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