First France, Now Australia

[Prime Time Andrew Doyle 0]

That was yesterday

 

SYDNEY, Australia - In one of Australia's worst outbursts of racial violence, thousands of drunken white youths attacked police and people they believed were of Arab descent at a Sydney beach, angered by reports that Lebanese youths had assaulted two lifeguards.

 

Young men of Arab descent retaliated in several Sydney suburbs, fighting with police and smashing 40 cars with sticks and bats, police said. Thirty-one people were injured and 16 were arrested in hours of violence Sunday.

 

The city was calm Monday, and police formed a strike force to track down the instigators, some of whom were believed to be from white supremacist groups. Police said they were also seeking an Arab man who allegedly stabbed a white man in the back.

 

Prime Minister John Howard condemned the violence, but said he did not believe racism was widespread in Australia.

 

"Attacking people on the basis of their race, their appearance, their ethnicity, is totally unacceptable and should be repudiated by all Australians irrespective of their own background and their politics," Howard said.

 

But he added: "I'm not going to put a general tag (of) racism on the Australian community."

 

Australia has long prided itself on accepting wave after wave of immigrants — from Italians and Greeks after World War II to families fleeing political strife in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. In the last census in 2001, nearly a quarter of Australia's 20 million people said they were born overseas.

 

However, tensions between youngsters of Arabic descent and white Australians have been rising in recent years, largely because of anti-Muslim sentiment fueled by the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States and deadly bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali that killed 88 Australians in October 2002.

 

About 300,000 Muslims live in Australia, the majority in large cities.

 

"Arab Australians have had to cope with vilification, racism, abuse and fear of a racial backlash for a number of years, but these riots will take that fear to a new level," said Roland Jabbour, chairman of the Australian Arabic Council.

 

The riots apparently began after rumors circulated that youths of Lebanese descent were responsible for an attack last weekend on two lifeguards at Cronulla Beach. Police said the assault was not believed to be racially motivated.

 

Police had increased the number of officers patrolling the beach in the Sydney suburb on Sunday after cell phone text messages urged people to gather there to retaliate for the attack.

 

Police said more than 5,000 white youths, some wrapped in Australian flags and chanting racist slurs, fought with police, attacked people they believed to be of Arab descent and assaulted a pair of paramedics trying to help people escape the riot.

 

Police fought back with batons and pepper spray.

 

Many of the youths had been drinking heavily, police said.

 

One white teenager had the words "We grew here, you flew here" painted on his back. Someone had written "100 percent Aussie pride" in the sand. TV broadcasts showed a group of young women attacking another woman, whose ethnicity was not clear.

 

The violence shocked this city of 4 million which prides itself on being a cultural melting pot.

 

"What we have seen yesterday is something I thought I would never see in Australia and perhaps we have not seen in Australia in any of our life times and that is a mass call to violence based on race," Community Relations Commission chairman Stepan Kerkyasharian told Sky News.

 

"Our disgrace," said a front page headline in Sydney's Daily Telegraph. Below was a picture of white youths attacking a man who appeared to be of Arab descent on a train in Cronulla.

 

Keysar Trad, a prominent member of Sydney's Lebanese community, said he had spoken to one victim who was released from the hospital Monday and was urging for calm.

 

"He doesn't want any retaliation by anybody from a Middle Eastern background," Trad said. "He wants everyone to allow the rule of law to take its course, leave it to the police and he said he holds no grudges against anyone."

 

Morris Iemma, the premier of New South Wales state, said police would use video images and photographs to track down the instigators. "Let's be very clear, the police will be unrelenting in their fight against these thugs and hooligans," he said.

 

Cronulla, one of the few beaches in Sydney that is easily accessible by train, is often visited by youngsters from poorer suburbs, many of them of Arab descent. Residents accuse the youths of traveling in gangs and sometimes intimidating other beachgoers.

 

Cronulla is several miles south of iconic Sydney beaches like Bondi and is not a popular destination for foreign tourists.

 

Aborigines rioted in the Sydney neighborhood of Redfern in February 2004 after blaming police for the death of a 17-year-old boy. Forty police were wounded, eight of them hospitalized, in a nine-hour street battle with residents.

 

This is tonight

 

More violence erupts in Sydney streets

 

New violence erupted in Sydney on Monday night in the wake of the Cronulla race riot, with gangs of men rampaging through the Sydney beachside suburb.

 

In what may be a reprisal for Sunday's mob attacks on Australians of Middle Eastern origin at Cronulla, cars carrying up to 50 men drove into the suburb on Monday night, smashing car windows with baseball bats, witnesses said.

 

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There were unconfirmed reports a person had been shot, reporters in the area saying they heard gunshots near the Northies Hotel.

 

Cronulla residents on Monday night flooded the suburb's streets with some claiming they had been told by police they could carry weapons as long as they were discreet.

 

Six people have been arrested for affray and taken to Miranda and Sutherland police stations for questioning.

 

Ambulance officers also helped at least one injured man seen by reporters lying on the side of the road.

 

Fears were growing on Monday night of an escalating cycle of violence and revenge in Sydney, with TV stations reporting text messages summoning Arabic men to Cronulla next Sunday.

 

Earlier on Monday evening, police had moved quickly to prevent violence at potential new flashpoints in the wake of Sunday's riot at Cronulla beach, which was one of the worst race-based clashes seen in Australia.

 

Police on Monday night blocked off streets around Lakemba Mosque, in Sydney's south-west, after about 500 mostly Muslim men gathered, apparently after rumours of an imminent attack on the building.

 

Police were pelted with rocks as the crowd dispersed, police said, and although no-one was injured, tensions on Monday night remained high among Australians of Middle Eastern background, who were targeted in Sunday's race riot.

 

Earlier on Monday, cricket bats, rocks and steel rods were confiscated by police monitoring about 100 people who had gathered near Maroubra Beach, not far from where a rampaging mob smashed car windows on Sunday night, also in apparent retaliation for the Cronulla riot.

 

The crowd at Maroubra had largely dispersed by nightfall, but Superintendent Phil Rogerson said police were also worried about violence flaring on Monday night at Coogee and Bondi, in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

 

Police have formed a taskforce to try to prevent a repeat of Sunday's riot, condemned by NSW Premier Morris Iemma on Monday as the ugly face of racism in Australia.

 

Sixteen people were charged on Sunday after a 5,000-strong alcohol-fuelled mob, some waving flags and chanting racist slogans, chased and beat people of Middle Eastern appearance at Cronulla beach. Thirty-one people were injured.

 

The clashes were sparked by an attack on young Cronulla surf lifesavers the week before, and text messages calling for retaliation.

 

Within hours of Sunday's riot, reprisal attacks led to one man being stabbed at nearby Woolooware and more than 100 cars badly damaged in a rampage through Maroubra beach in the nearby eastern suburbs.

 

Police on Monday set up a taskforce and will study video footage and photos to try to identify offenders in the mob, which they say included white supremacists.

 

NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said he was also considering establishing street squads and implementing alcohol restrictions to prevent further problems.

 

Community leaders from Cronulla and from Australian-Lebanese community groups met Mr Moroney and Mr Iemma on Monday and vowed to restore harmony.

 

Mr Iemma announced Strike Force Seta had been set up to track down the instigators of Sunday's race riot.

 

"There is no way that this sort of behaviour, this disgraceful and cowardly behaviour, will be tolerated anywhere," Mr Iemma said.

 

"Strike Force Seta will be there to pursue a criminal investigation - examining videotape information, other information that may come to hand, photographic information - to bring to justice those that were responsible for the incitement, those that conducted other activities on the weekend," the premier said. "That's (the purpose of) the establishment of the strike force."

 

Police Minister Carl Scully said white supremacists had taken part in the Cronulla riot.

 

"There appears to be an element of white supremacists and they really have no place in mainstream Australian society; those sort of characters belong in Berlin 1930s," he said.

 

"I'm horrified that amidst that large crowd were pretty much people who have pretty ugly views."

 

Mr Moroney and Assistant Police Commissioner Mark Goodwin, a Sutherland Shire resident, said the riots were among the most violent they had ever seen.

 

"We have witnessed this weekend amongst the worst violence that I have ever seen in my policing service of 40 years," Mr Moroney told reporters.

 

"Never in my working life did I ever imagine a mob, a drunken mob, turning on a woman, an innocent woman who happened to stray into their path."

 

Mr Moroney denied his officers had taken a "softly, softly approach" to crowd control or that they had miscalculated the level of anger in Cronulla, which bore the brunt of the trouble.

 

Mr Iemma also defended authorities' preparations, saying no more could have been done.

 

"They had the resources there ... the resources deployed with the riot equipment, the back-up, the dog squad, the mounted police, Polair, maritime police and up to 150 police, and they performed outstandingly," Mr Iemma said.

 

To be hoenst, this isn't much of a suprise. The Sydney police have long been afraid of arresting people of "Middle Eastern" descent for fear of being called a rascist. As such this has led to roving gangs of Arabs doing what they like. Even though the way they did it was wrong, the mob finally shone a light onto what goes on in Sydney and hopefully something is done about it.

 

And to all those people who are like Keysar Trad who likes to shift the blame off the Muslims and onto everybody else, grow a spine, get a set of balls and stop digging your head into the sand. The reason this entire situation kicked off was the actions of Muslims attacking two innocent lifesavers last weekend, not talkback radio, not the PM, but their own damn fault, and if Muslims don't like being grouped with those that do these sort of things, do SOMETHING to distance yourself from them.

Edited December 12, 2005 by Prime Time Andrew Doyle

[Guest cosbywasmurdered]

All it says is that there were RUMORS of Muslims attacking two lifesavers. Even if it WERE true, it's not shining a light on the situation, it's doing something even WORSE than what these Muslims are (rumored) to have done.

[Prime Time Andrew Doyle 0]

Do you honestly think t was a RUMOR that started this? And it DID shine a light on the situation as Muslims have been doing whatever they wanted in Sydney. Tonight on MMM, the Spoonman (A dude that hosts one of the only FM talk shows) had on a former high ranking police officer from Sydney talk about how police had been afraid for the last 10 years of arresting a Arab for fear of reprisals. They have taken over parks, beaches and other places, and what happened last weekend was the starw that broke the camels back. While I do not agree with the bashing of innocent people, I totally understand where they are comming from. The police have failed to stand up to the gangs and it is about time something was done about it

[redbaron29 0]

Here is an article that will not make the front page of any U.S. news...because it doesn't fit "The Agenda"

 

A little contemplation on the beach

By Dan Silkstone, Sydney

December 13, 2005

 

 

THE day after it happened they returned — but in smaller numbers. Some of Sunday's combatants had returned, to hold court along the Cronulla foreshore, to re-create a little of the strength in numbers they had felt as the mob raged 24 hours earlier.

 

They revelled in a temporary new world they had created in which it was suddenly OK to say the previously unsayable.

 

Paul, a Cronulla local for 50 years said he was not surprised by the violence he witnessed on Sunday. "I was here a week ago and the Lebs said to me, 'What are you doing here, whitey? Piss off' … They've tried to take over this stretch and make it their own. They've got no respect for anyone or anything."

 

A little down the beach a group of young Australians are sitting all over the bonnet of their rusted old car, beers in hand, Southern Crosses and Union Jacks on their arms.

 

Andrew, 24, sat underneath a miniature umbrella hat, peering through a fog of inebriation. "I'm a local, a Shire boy all me life," he said, telling how he had come to the beach to "show support and take a stand". "I'm sick of the young Lebbos and ethnics coming down here and causing trouble," he said.

 

As a couple of bikini-clad young women sidle by, four pairs of eyes track them left to right and one of the friends calls out "You right, ladies?"

 

Barely a moment later, another of the young men, Brad, tells angrily how the Lebanese frequenting the beach are ogling and mistreating local women, making them feel unsafe.

 

"We are all fed up with it and something must be done … they've got no respect, they hate women and they are gutless. This is just the start of this. It's gonna go all summer long."

 

All over Cronulla, draped from the balconies of apartment blocks and newer developments are more Australian flags than at the MCG on Boxing Day. The boys on the car bonnet are especially mad at one of the first reprisals of Sunday night, in which a group of Middle Eastern youths reportedly attacked an RSL club at beachside Brighton, clambering atop the structure to burn the Australian flag.

 

"That is just un-Australian," Brad said.

 

Alyce Harrington, 17, says she left work early to attend the "Aussie Pride" display on Sunday and later got caught up in the Brighton incident, fleeing into the RSL when things turned nasty. She smiles sweetly when she says she came to "support the Aussies".

 

"I don't like being pushed around," she said. "I go to school nearby and there's a lot of Lebanese and ethnics. They call us sluts because we wear bikinis. They whistle at us like we are dogs."

 

It was not all like this. At the entrance to the beach, three young men smiled broadly as they stood beside a shrine to strine: an Australian flag dug into the sand, beside it a large placard reading, "Peace." Beside them another flag, doubling as a beach towel, and two pairs of thongs.

 

Teenager Shane Nash and his mate Reis Fleming, 15, had been joined by a new friend, Fijian-born Ryan Peters, who said: "This is Australia. This stuff is not supposed to happen here. We are trying to say that everyone is Australian. It's not about wogs and Lebs and skips. Everyone should be covered by this flag."

 

Fresh from a swim, 24-year-old local Tim Atkinson said he was disgusted by what took place in front of him on Sunday. "It was disgraceful, the racism, the chants, I'm really ashamed."

 

THE LEAD-UP

 

DECEMBER 4 Two surf lifeguards attacked by men of Middle Eastern appearance at North Cronulla Beach.

 

DECEMBER 5-10 Text message calls on "Aussies" to descend on Cronulla beach.

 

DECEMBER 8 Police and specialist riot officers patrol the beach amid threats of gang violence.

 

DECEMBER 11

 

NOON: About 5000 people converge on the beach. Some 200 turn violent — bashing people of Middle Eastern appearance and pelting police and paramedics with bottles.

 

8PM: About 50 carloads of youths damage more than 100 cars with baseball bats and other weapons in Maroubra, assaulting people.

 

10.25PM: A 23-year-old man is stabbed in the back outside Woolooware Golf Club, near Cronulla.

[EricMM 0]

Ain't no justice like mob justice.

 

Everyone looks horrible, here.

[Darthtiki 0]

You'll probably want to add Los Angeles to the 2005 Riot World Tour

[Guest Brian]

Sacramento, especially once you get to the deuce-four, will also get a good dose of race rioting.

[Guest]

You'll probably want to add Los Angeles to the 2005 Riot World Tour

Depends.

[jesse_ewiak 0]

What the articles that have been posted lack is context. From what I've read and looked up, "The Shire," the area of Sydney to which Cronulla belongs, is the most racially homogenous, conservative and..well, slightly backward upper middle class area in Sydney. A place where a mxed race couple is still a bit of an oddity.

 

I'm not saying anyone is innocent here. Like any ethnic group, there are unsavoury elements in the Lebanese community I'm guessing, but I'm also betting Whitey is still #1 on the arrest lists.

 

The problem is that with many of the young and foolish in the Shire being of a somewhat xenophobic bent to start with, they were more likely to take offense at the macho tribal behaviour of Lebanese blokes on their local beach (making crass comments about girls, antagonising equally boneheaded white local boys, and so on).

 

This, combined with it look likes the media beating up of a largely harmless brawl between "men of middle eastern apprearance" and some local boys the week before, led to a "show of solidarity" by locals at Cronulla beach, which, fuelled by beer, a mob mentality, and outright stupidity, resulted in the bashings of several people of middle eastern appearance by large mobs of racist drunk morons.

 

The Lebanese retaliation was only to be expected; it would not me remiss to say that they are a combative people. The extremes to which they went in revenge is perhaps above and beyond what other ethnic minorities in Sydney may have been capable of, but you certainly can't say that their rage was unjustified.

 

I gave an example of a lone guy getting bashed by many, but there have been far worse images in the media from what I've seen in the last couple of days over here. There were images of a VISIBLY PREGNANT woman of middle eastern appearance being chased by a mob. I don't care how unacceptable you consider the behaviour of Lebanese men on your beloved local beach to have been. When a pack of you are chasing a visibly pregnant woman because of her ethnicity, you deserve to be fucked to death by an angry elephant.

 

Would seeing something like that make me want to break a few windows if I was Lebanese? You bet it would.

 

The real problems stemming from these incidents are worse than a few bruised idiots of either race and some vandalised cars. The problem is that the emphatic Lebanese response to the racist bashings will polarise those Australians who were sitting on the fence between racial tolerance and xenophobia, and this will make life tougher for the majority of the muslim community who have done nothing wrong in the past week. The other problem is that the rest of multicultural, racially tolerant Sydney has been hugely embarrassed by the actions of a few hundred Shire residents, and this will make life tougher for Cronulla locals who condemn the actions of their racist neighbours, but will be looked down upon by other Sydneysiders for years to come. All in all, as usual with stuff like this, a truly fucked up situation.

[Adam 0]

I never thought it'd come to that in Aus. Its so unlike us to resort to fucking rioting. Its against pretty much everything that we stand for, the 'no worries mate' attitude.

 

I've only ever been to Sydney once, and I don't know the full story on the attacks, but I must say that programs like 60 Minutes certainly loved running those gangrape stories where Lebanese men were to blame.

 

Talking to people from Sydney, the harrassment happened to everyone, and people were getting sick of it. Both sides, of course, are at fault. The Lebanese community for not telling the stupid ones to shut the fuck up, and not doing more to prevent it from happening, and distancing their ethnicity from the crimes of those in their community; and the fuckhead white supremist redneck assholes who decided to chase random people and beat them down because they weren't white.

 

Its times like this I'm glad I live in a place where there are so many different races all around the place no one seems to care all that much. We just get pissed and have a good time.

[Guest clockworkraven]

Man, someone actually used the word 'un-Australian'.

 

I have friends who live in southwest Sydney, and going to the beach has been a recent thing after ages of hanging around and being assholes in a lot of other places as well, like PTAD said.

 

It's not like it's Aussies fighting back against hatred and violence, but it's not completely based on the fact that they're Muslim, either. I just hope that shit like this doesn't start up in Melbourne.

[Adam 0]

It won't get this fucking far, I'll tell you that. If the bogans start that racist shit down here, they'll get a rude shock.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Weren't those terror plots down there that got busted a few weeks ago kind of shaky in their credibility?

[Guest Vitamin X]

I demand video footage!

[Adam 0]

I don't have too hard of a time believing the terror plots were legit, simply because a week before the London train bombings they caught a bunch of guys taking video of the Melbourne railways.

 

I figure they've got a good handle of what is going on, and while the whole arrests and everything were scaremongering to get the anti-terror laws (as well as taking the focus off the workplace and VSU reforms), they probably stopped something before it got too advanced.

 

Don't quote me on that though, no information was ever released about who the suspects worked for, what they were planning or anything, only that they had stockpiled a whole lot of weapons.