There’s not much to say about the riots that hasn’t already been said, but one point that hasn’t been stressed enough is the small numbers of people actively involved. The crowd at Cronulla on Sunday was large, but it seems that only a couple of hundred were engaged in violence. Similarly, forty car loads of thugs were said to have been involved in the subsequent round of attacks on Monday night. That’s alarming but again it amounts to a couple of hundred people. The same was true in the French riots, which mainly consisted of small groups burning cars under cover of darkness. The availability of mobile phones makes organising this kind of thing a lot easier, and calls for a response. I hope that, in addition to those already charged, the police will pursue everyone involved in this shameful behavior. Many of them have been recorded on film and ought to be easy to identify.
Then there are the instigators of the violence. The senders of SMS messages will no doubt be hard to trace, but there’s no doubt about the role of talkback radio and 2GB in particular. It’s unclear whether Alan Jones or his talkback callers have committed a criminal offence, as suggested in comments here and elsewhere, but if he hasn’t, then the government’s spanking new sedition laws are clearly a dead letter.
The laws governing broadcasting are also relevant. Radio stations like 2GB get free allocations of valuable spectrum under a system of licensing which includes a prohibition on broadcasting matter that is likely to incite violence. If this system is to be maintained, 2GB should be stripped of its license by the Australian Broadcasting Authority for broadcasting people like Jones.
John Quiggin 
What annoyed me about this whole thing was Howard’s failure to condemn the racism as well as the violence it underpins. Just as his failure to counter Pauline Hanson’s nonsense further legitimised her ramblings, Howard’s failure to attack racism legitimizes the views of those perpetrating violence.
So, now we have these new “anti-terrorism” laws, will they be invoked against the thugs at Cronulla, Jim Saleam and Luke Connors, and Alan Jones for inciting hatred and advocating violence of one group against another? Thought not.
The behaviour of the mob in Cronulla is a textbook example of the “Church and King” riots that were an ever-present feature of English life in the 18th and 19th centuries. Irish and Catholics were the usual target of these riots. In the popular mind, Irish and Catholic were synonymous. Rioters were distressed in more or less equal measure at the “foreignness and primitiveness” of their Irish neighbours and the fear that these Irish were the shock troops for a “Papist” (Catholic) reconquest of England. In other words, the rioters believed they were protecting their neighbourhoods and cherished traditions.
The “Shire” is frequently referred to as the most “Anglo” neighbourhood in Australia. And NSW has had a long tradition of behaviour that could be called “King and Country” bigotry. For example, in 1922 a militant Protestant Association formed a majority in the NSW Legislative Assembly. They were elected on a platform of cessation of state aid to Catholic schools, strict inspection of denominational institution, and purging of the Catholic presence from the NSW Public service. Above all, a Bill passed the Legislative Assembly threatening any Catholic priest or bishop with gaol, were he to promulgate the Papal Bull “Ne Temere”.
It is remarkable how similar are the attitudes that informed the 1922 upsurge of bigotry in NSW to those that provoke today’s flag-draped rioters.
It is also notorious that the NSW Liberal Party is now dominated by the Christian Right.
These features of NSW public life have a long, if episodic, history. And these features seem to be largely endemic to NSW.
These incidents break out, rage, and then are forgotten. But they don’t go away. Perhaps it’s time for NSW to take a good hard look at their political and political culture. Until now, as is evidenced by the fact that most people have never even heard of the “Ne Temere” fracas, this kind of behaviour, in the cold light of day, arouses shame. But mostly, it provokes denial.
Some quotes from the Fairfax Press (SMH 13 Dec 2005. page 6)
“The Prime Minister, John Howard, has played down claims that racism fuelled the weekend riots, putting him at odds with the NSW Premier, the Police Commissioner and many community leaders.”
‘I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country.'” and so on.
My take on this is that he is trying to wriggle out from the legacy of his long history on race matters, on playing Hanson for all she was worth, and the Tampa election. All very predictable. But also further on in the same article…
“The Federal Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, also played down the racial motivation of the riots. ‘Its just criminal behaviour,’ Mr. Beazley said.”
Our Kim playing the “me too” card following John Howard is also very predictable, continuing a well-trodden path blazed out during the Tampa election.
Strategic question arising: Why won’t the opposition take on Howard on the policies which are making my Australia a worse place day by day?
Tactical question arising: Why doesn’t Kim pick up the phone and consult with his colleagues on the ground in NSW (or anywhere else) before playing the “me too” card?
Chris at Australian Anarchist Weblog has a wealth of links on this.
What Derick said.
John Howard: “Hey Kim, joke for yer – when is an Opposition not an Opposition?”
Kim: “I was just going to say that!”
So where do I complain to the ABA or sign a petition?
BTW Aidan, good joke.
I’m an occasional reader of this blog. I grew up in the Shire and can verify that it is one of the most xenophobic areas of the city. I reguarly heard racial slurs against, well anyone non-anglo! But it went from there to all the usual macho-meathead attitudes toward anyone deemed not to fit in with the agro surf/sport culture. It’s deeply ingrained. Also I agree with Katz, it’s present in other areas as well, such as the south coast of NSW, and I experienced it as well up in Lismore when I was studying. I’m Anglo-celtic, but these things have always been a worry here in Australia. I can only put it down to igorance. Until now I thought Australians of this nature were just cowards, ie they’ll carry on with their bigoted rubbish behind closed doors, but were too gutless to act on their bravado. That seems to have changed. On the other side, there has be acknowlegment that there is an attitude problem with some of these people from non-anglo backgounds too. Why? Becasue they’re all human beings and these losers from both sides that have been creating havoc over the last week are all probably more alike each other than they care to admit. Either way, Australia needs to take a good, long hard look at itself. These problems have been there and brewing as long I can remember, certainly since I first came to Australia as a child in 1980. I can still remember the Asians Out! and No Wogs! graffitti in the Sutherland Shire. Also remember there is a huge amount of support for Pauline Hanson down there. It’s common to hear people you would think are rational say “Pauline Hanson was right about a lot of things”.
The PM and Leader of the Opposition’s response has been a joke. You can’t just say something is black when everyone can see that it’s white. Howard is probably trying to play down the racism angle on his trip to Malaysia, but also he knows that the Shire holds a lot of Liberal votes. Beazley is jusy being useless as per usual. Take a stand mate! No wonder no one votes Labor federally anymore. At least Morris Iemma has had the guts to call a spade a spade.
I lived in London for a long time and was struck by how conservative Australia had become. I’m sure this conservativism, rise of stict religious attitudes and these riots are all stops along the same road. I’m just starting to worry where this road is leading. London has problems of this nature also, as do many European cities. I thought it would never happen here, but this weeks riots as worse than anything I saw in the UK. Even the Oldham riots only consisted of a small number of people. This sort of thing will reinforce our image in England as being a bit backward, deserved or not.
I also agree that 2GB and Mr Jones should go down for their role in all this. They have been stirring up trouble for as long as I can remember. The new sedition laws should apply to them. But they won’t. I think we all know that.
JQ, while it may be true that only a small minority were involved in actual violence, a large part of the crowd were present, and had been drawn by text messages promising confrontation, to give them support and to egg them on. One witness estimates the crowd to have been 20,000 to 30,000, many times larger than the official estimate of 5,000.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1529417.htm
Thus, intelligent handling of so-called ring leaders is called for, lest they be perceived as martyrs. By all means wield the stick, but hit the right persons and hit them just hard enough.
The NSW Government at the moment appears to be bent on severe retribution.
London, post the 1980 Notting Hill riots, provides an intelligent use of the carrot. The site of Notting Hill’s riots became the site of Europe’s biggest annual street party. Sydney’s much-boasted beaches seem to be the ideal location for just such an event.
“At least Morris Iemma has had the guts to call a spade a spade.”
No he didn’t. In fact, Iemma came out against the racist name-calling.
I don’t see anything racist. If the Lebbos and the western suburbs bogans wanted to fight over ownership of a beach this is the way they’d do it, isn’t it?
Why do people keep saying it’s racist? They aren’t even different races.
What’s the difference between this and a mob of diggers having a set-to with some GIs during WW2?
“Why do people keep saying it’s racist? They aren’t even different races.”
MP, I can’t guess your classificatory scheme for determining racial differences. You possibly already know that there have been many typologies over time.
For example, English racists in the nineteenth century were adamant that the Irish composed an entirely different, and inferior, race to the English. That idea now looks ridiculous, but it was widely believed at the time. This form of racism was a corruption of Darwinian, “scientific racism”. This idea has lost much of its credibility, but occasionally crops up.
These days, “racism” tends to be a synonym for ethnocentrism. Out-groups are declared to be unacceptable by reason of their habits and beliefs, rather than their genetic make-up. From the point of view of a Darwinian, this doesn’t seem to be racism. Is Howard a doctrinaire Social Darwinian? Dunno. However, his weasel words about the Cronulla events not being an example of “racism” may carry just this mental reservation.
“What’s the difference between this and a mob of diggers having a set-to with some GIs during WW2?
If the GIs had wanted to settle down in Australia and to defend their turf and their culture against attacks by ethno-centric Australians, then there’d be no difference. However, in the case of the Americans, none of this was actually desired, none of its was actually feared, and none of it actually happened.
Let’s say Howard did criticise the mob on Sunday etc as racist? Would he have also had to call the response from the Bankstown, Lakemba etc boys also racist?
I think, Howard by trying to distance himself from the events, was taking the politically correct position of trying to not politicise it, and in fact inflame the situation. By politicians becoming involved (either deliberately or by accident) tensions are sure to mount.
By leaving it to NSW authorities, it’s an attempt to localise the problem, rather than ‘nationalise’ it
[…] A cheap gag from the comments at John Quiggin John Howard: “Hey Kim, joke for yer – when is an Opposition not an Opposition?â€? Kim: “I was just going to say that!â€? […]
The one thing which the participants on both sides of the riots have in common is that they are almost all men who are steeped in a degenerate form of violent, macho masculinity. Also, they have almost all been born, raised and educated in the years since second wave feminism first began to attempt to influence the attitudes of boys and young men about masculinity and their relations with the opposite sex. Despite this, these young men have clearly been socialised and educated in a manner which has not been informed by feminism, by socialising agents who would be resistant to feminism, and in many cases would have been informed by an anti-feminist “backlash” mentality.
We can speculate on the relative degrees of culpability of their families, their schools, their faiths, their older male role models, the politicians, popular culture, etc., but the one thing which is crystal clear is that feminism and the general movement for gender equality and respect, far from having “gorn too far” has clearly not gone far enough where the socialisation of boys and young men is concerned.
“If the Lebbos and the western suburbs bogans wanted to fight over ownership of a beach this is the way they’d do it, isn’t it?”
From where I’m sitting it didn’t look like Lebbos and bogans fighting over ownership of a beach. It looked like a mob of drunken white brownshirts going around bashing up anyone – man or woman, who looked dark-skinned.
I agree with the analysis above as given by Weekly.
As a side note, the international reation to, and reporting of, these riots was interesting. I am in Korea at the moment and the riots have been widely reported as being ‘race riots’ up here. This is about the only story shown on the news here about Australia all year, so most Koreans I have spoken to who are aware I am an Australian have asked me about them, believing them to be roughly on the scale of the Paris riots.
It seems to have been reported as if all Australians are that racist. Pity I cannot understand the local news – I think it would have been interesting.
.
As a general comment about racism – you probably have really not experienced it until you have lived in a country that is overwhemingly one ethnic group. It is human to fear what is different – not, I hasten to add that it is right, but it is human. Where a country has only one ethnic group the definition of what is different is easier and the racism becomes more pronounced. Australia is nowhere near as racist as most other countries, so, perhaps while we should notice that we have a way to go, we should also give ourselves some credit for how far we have come.
Isn’t Korea a near racially homogeneous monoculture? It appeared that way when I passed through briefly earlier this year. Such places (eg Norway) always seem to have a naive idea of what racism is all about.
I wonder what Pauline thinks about all this. She has been awfully quite the past couple of years. I reckon it must be time for a comeback. Pauline, your country needs you! 🙂
“It looked like a mob of drunken white brownshirts going around bashing up anyone – man or woman, who looked dark-skinned.”
How convenient to see only one side of the equation.
I wonder what Al Grassby’s reaction would be, if he was still alive.
Katz
So “racist” means ethnocentrist. I thought it might.
But then, not even that. Just anyone “unacceptable by reason of their habits and beliefs”.
The person who finds it unacceptable that children be taught religious rubbish, is racist? Anyone who objects to women being forced to wear certain clothing is racist?
It’s not up to me to define “race” – the people who are using the word have that obligation.
And you’ve done it. Thank you.
I agree with the comments that this is about “men who are steeped in a degenerate form of violent, macho masculinity”. Both sides are trying to prove how tough they are by acting in a shocking, sick manner frankly. It’s always been there in the Sutherland Shire. It’s a very homogenous place. A breeding ground for intolerance I’d say, and the appearance of the far right groups there on the weekend was truly sickening. Growing up there I witnessed violence toward ANYONE who was different. That attitude has taken root there. If you were white and anglo even but not the right look, or tough enough in their eyes it was on. If these bozos weren’t going after this Lebanese or muslim “invasion” as they call it, they’d probably go back to beating each other up. I think on the other side of the equation there are a bunch of guys from the Lebanese community running amok with little respect for anything. They just can’t hide behind Australian nationalism. At the end of the day they are basically all cut from the same cloth. I agree with Andrew that Australia is not nearly as bad as many countries where racsim is institutionalised, and I hope the repsonse by the wider community of horror at all this shows that we will get over this. I also hope it makes a lot of big mouthed brash people think a lot harder about their words and actions from here on in.
Terje,
You are right – it is.
However, MP, the Australian Constitution and some important early legislation was racist in the Darwinian sense.
Australia was founded on official racism:
The “Race Powers� provision of Section S.51 of the Constitution excluded Aborigines from commonwealth citizenship and consigned them to the status of mere residents in the various states.
Under the same “Race Powers� provisions the following racist legislation was passed:
Australia’s first enacted legislation enabled the forced deportation of Pacific Islanders.
White Australia.
Motherhood bonuses to be paid only to bona fide whites. Any dispute as to the racial identity of a mother was to be settled by a medical practitioner who judged on the basis of “appearance�.
Under the Defence Act, non-white boys were prohibited from joining the Militia. Again, any dispute as to racial identity was to be settled by a medical practitioner and his colour swatches.
Official racism, based on supposedly “scientific” quasi-genetic principles, slowly fell into disuse in Australia, but these ideas were never officially repudiated, as they were in post-Nazi Germany or in post-Apartheid South Africa.
One reason for this might be that Australian official racism was by no means as extreme as Nazi or Apartheid official racism.
Another reason might be that Australian political elites didn’t want to stir up old hatreds by killing official racism noisily.
No one in authority talked about racism for years, until Howard brought it up in the 1980s, and he’s been bringing it up for his own purposes ever since.
Maybe this latest discussion of racism may serve as an opportunity to finally confront our national history of racism, as mild as it might be, rather than to continual to live in a state of denial about it.
What boring silly nonsense Katz. Why should I, or anyone else, have to “confront” something that occured before my birth? Every ethnicity and major religious group on the planet has racked up a plethora of crimes. Such is the nature of humanity. Are we all to wear sack cloths, daub ourselves in ashes and self-flagellate?
Steve – I for one would be a bit more confident of your position if you told us you were indifferent to Anzac Day.
And I don’t see why “confronting our national history of racism, as mild as it might be..” means that we should self-flagellate.
David, good points.
If you are going to celebrate and honour something in your nations past then you should also aknowledge and confront the bad things.
Just as we remember the fallen and what they did for our country, we should remember the bad parts of our history and ensure that they don’t repeat.
Seems pretty logical to me. (And I didn’t even have to flagellate myself)
what Andrew Reynolds says hit a note with me – I’m an exchange student program at the moment and have been living in Qingdao, China, for the past 9 months. this “race riot” story did indeed make the nightly news here in China as well. it’s probably the first time since the 2000 Olympics that anything happening in Australia has made the nightly news here. the scenes of drunken, violent, sweaty, bare-chested, beer-bottle wielding yobbos yelling racist insults and gang-bashing individuals is, as you can imagine, great publicity, and simply brilliant for Australia’s international reputation.
“As a general comment about racism – you probably have really not experienced it until you have lived in a country that is overwhemingly one ethnic group.”
You’re obviously addressing white people when you say that. Actually, I’d say many people have experienced racism in Australia, just very few white Australians. And countries with large minorities like the USA tend to have a worse problem with racism than countries like Norway which are overwhelmingly of one ethnicity. Situations where a minority ethnic group has a better economic position than the general population – such as Indians in Fiji or Chinese in Indonesia in also a recipe for ethnic tension. A World Bank study several years ago found that the countries with the worse ethnic strife were not those overwhelmingly of one ethnicity but rather those where the population was divided between two or more large ethnic groups – such as the case in Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. is Korea a racist place in your experience? or is it just ethnocentrist? I know Koreans loathe the Japanese, but I would draw a distinction between racism and ethnocentrism.
China, like Korea, has an overwhelmingly monogenous ethnic make-up. In the past 9 months I have come accustomed to being occasionally stared-at, pointed-at, overcharged, and hearing the odd exclamation of “foreigner!” when I walk down the street. but I wouldn’t characterise it as “racism” in the same way as that which is experienced by minorities elsewhere. I am started at and pointed at only in those areas where foreigners seldom go, and then it is simply because it is not a common thing for Chinese people to see a white person and so it is a bit of an event when they do (black people are even rarer in China and they get a hell of a lot of attention wherever they go). As for being overcharged, this is because of the fact that coming from Australia, I am obviously much richer, and in a place where prices are often not fixed and you have to bargain, of course they will ask a high price if they think you’ve got money. I experience every day what it’s like to be an ethnically distinct individual in a country where almost everybody is the same ethnicity – but I would characterise this as “ethnocentrism” rather than outright “racism” – I don’t consider myself to have experienced “racism” in the form of structural discrimination or abuse, I have not once been abused, insulted, shunned, scorned, treated as inferior, nor denied entry to any place, on the contrary, I am almost always treated with more courtesy than the chinese give each other – treated as a guest to whom they want to make a good impression of their country. as a foreigner from a rich country I am usually welcomed and made a fuss of most places I go, and always complemented on how well I speak chinese – which I in fact speak dreadfully. Here, being white makes you different, but not at all “inferior” or “threatening” in the same manner that many whites regard e.g. aboriginals in predominantly white countries. However it is true that the respect and courtesy that the Chinese show to white people is not always extended to other foreigners – that is, black people or people from south-east Asian countries, and needless to say, the Japanese are all totally despised here. in general, I would say that the sort of ethnocentrism that you experience as a white in China or Korea is, I believe, different from the sort of racism that is experienced by aboriginals in Australia, or other minority groups in predominantly white countries.
I moved to Australia five years ago and one of the things that struck me then, and still does now, is the amount of jingoistic language in the media here. It’s rare for any news item to not include the adjective “Aussie” (and always in a positive sense) in some form or another no matter how tenuous the link. I’ve travelled through many countries and have yet to see anywhere else (except maybe the US) that has such a self-obsessed media. Sadly, the racist rabble on the streets of Sydney seem to have swallowed the hype.
P.S. Katz, your “Celtic Victim” attitude needs adjusting. Before laying into the Poms for their treatment of the Irish I suggest you examine Celtic history with a bit more of a critical eye. Celts are hardly blameless in their treatment of other nations/races/tribes.
“What boring silly nonsense Katz. Why should I, or anyone else, have to “confrontâ€? something that occured before my birth? Every ethnicity and major religious group on the planet has racked up a plethora of crimes. Such is the nature of humanity. Are we all to wear sack cloths, daub ourselves in ashes and self-flagellate? ‘
Denial’s alsways worked for you, eh, Steve.
Since when has “confront” equalled “Are we all to wear sack cloths, daub ourselves in ashes and self-flagellate?
Do you know the meaning of the word nuance?
Katz- I’m not in denial about the unpleasant aspects of Australian history since colonisation. I despise the likes of Keith Windschuttle, who think that unless an Aboriginal death attributable to colonial violence is recorded in an historical record it never occurred. That is absurd and racist. I also accept that Kanakas, early Chinese migrants etc were badly treated. This type of stuff should be taught in schools alongside the positive stuff. As far as I am aware, it is. It certainly was in my secondary school. I simply object to the white middle-class guilt trip you seem to want to foist upon those unlucky enough to have been born with white skin.
As another example of what annoys me, some mischievous “latte liberals” are no doubt glad Howard is currently in Malaysia and probably being grilled by some of the grubs that run the ASEAN countries. Yet racism is appalling in much of South East Asia. If you know any Chinese Malays living in Australia I suggest you ask them about their treatment in Malaysia compared to Australia. That may help you see my point.
By the way I am not a Howard admirer. His Industrial Relation legislation (among other things) is draconian and will hurt many ordinary workers, irrespective of ethnicity.
Umm, what exactly did this Alan Jones say to put himself in the frame for fanning sedition?
The news in S’pore is rather varied on “riots” in Oz. There are commentators talking of Lebanese making random assaults & vandalism around Sydney, footage of churches burning, surfies confronting police at Cronulla.
Which of these has Alan Jones encouraged? Certainly the Lebanese rapes/assaults/muggings on non-Lebanese non-muslim people has been going on for quite some time. If this Alan Jones is behind any of that, he has MUCH to answer for.
The argument over Australian or not ignores the obvious – that this behaviour is indeed very Australian and very nasty but not common.
Both sides have a great deal in common. One side is sticking up for the right of their sheilas to wear what they like or don’t like on the beach. The other side is anxious to ensure that women are dressed as if living in another time and another place. Each side has llittle respect for the other and is charged with testosterone and alcohol.
Which is the worse situation? a Muslim woman who has her hajib ripped off or another women who is threatened with rape/or raped and humiliated if she ventures into areas considered the turf of a gang which treats women who show their heads, arms and legs as fair game.
Many girls in Sydney have to be very aware of how to escape from danger. For a woman in a hajib life will be easier if she leaves the scarf at home. However, the gangs of both sides restrict women in where they can travel, how they can travel and whether they are safe on their own in public.
What has happened goes beyond debate on multiculturalism and racism.
You can be sure that as deprivation becomes deeper as more working poor result from the changes to Welfare and Work legislation, women will be even greater targets for the gangs and their buddies who have too much time , too much technology and too little care for others not like them.
Jill Rush says: “You can be sure that as deprivation becomes deeper as more working poor result from the changes to Welfare and Work legislation, women will be even greater targets for the gangs and their buddies who have too much time , too much technology and too little care for others not like them.”
I am in total agreement Jill. Welfare to Work will result in latch key kids, and kids being brought up by stresssed out, poor and overworked mums. This will have some ugly social ramifications years down the track when these disadvantaged kids grow up.
So we do not have all out civil war ala downtown Beirut. Which means multiculturalism is a smashing success. That means that cultural elites of all parties will not have to admit they were wrong about multiculturalism. What a relief!
“I simply object to the white middle-class guilt trip you seem to want to foist upon those unlucky enough to have been born with white skin.”
Not at all Steve. My preferred line is that the Australian Constitution provided a huge opportunity for Australians to establish a thoroughly racist regime. In fact, Australia merely flirted with the edges of racism and never demanded as thoroughgoing racism as the Constitution allowed. This is good news.
Moreover, most Australians have overcome many of the racist ideas and practices that were taken for granted when the Constitution was adopted in 1901. This is good news.
However, some racist attitudes persist and tend to flare up during times of tension. This is bad news.
And the best news of all: most of us don’t feel the need to pattern our behaviour on the racist practices and attitudes that persist in many parts of the world. Thus, the behaviour of ASEAN regimes and populations is no example and we should congratulate ourselves that we don’t behave like them.
So you can see Steve, I don’t feel guilty at all.
I don’t know that multiculturalism is a “smashing success” Jack. It’s a deeply flawed model in many ways but it does work – sort of. Sydney is a culturally diverse place in a way that relatively few world cities are and for the most part, it hangs together pretty well. There’s definitely a problem with young Lebanese guys who define their tribal identity against what they perceive as Anglo Australian identity. That many of them are also into criminality in a big way is undeniable but then so too are many of the guys who are part of the southern beaches surfie culture. Young men, outlawry, testosterone, booze, drugs, anger, tribalism – it’s an ancient story and in no way uniquely Australian. But in the meantime, four million other people – a huge proportion of whom were born elsewhere – keep the place ticking over, all day, every day.
I’m a bit over the stuff about the Sutherland Shire being like Dubbo 30 years ago. It’s true that Kathy Lette doesn’t live there any more and nor do that many social researchers – it’s more your plumber who has done well – but it isn’t stuck in that much of a timewarp. People from the south-western Sydney hinterland have been going to the beach at Cronulla for generations and Kingsway is actually only 30 odd k’s from Martin Place -and they travel and have TV reception and everything.
I walked a few blocks up George St tonight around knock-off time and actuallytook note of the human tide. We are an incredible melange and it all just sort of happens.
I read a comment from an Australian living in Canada today who has seen the news reports and who expressed his utter disgust at what Australia has become: ugly, redneck racist, separatist, etc. He announced his intention of applying for Canadian permanent residency tomorrow. I pointed out to him that a significant chunk of Canada has been trying to separate from the rest of Canada, because they don’t have the same language or culture, for many decades. I also pointed out to him that those drunken native Americans he sees panhandling in the Toronto CBD are actually not a whole lot different from the aboriginal drinking schools he used to skirt around in Taylor Square.
We’re not that bad. But we could do with some perspective.
“NSW has had a long tradition of behaviour that could be called “King and Countryâ€? bigotry.
Remember Lambing Flat!
I wonder what Al Grassby’s reaction would be, if he was still alive.
Going on his Donald Mackay form, he’d probably call the harrassed girls sluts before re-stacking some local ALP branches and angling his way to making a buck or two out of it.
I agree with the esteemed professor that there are indeed similarities between the rioting in France and that in Australia.
Sadly, I am sure he will not be happy with the comparison I draw.
You see, I have noticed something. The default reaction of the media and their allies among the intelligensia is to blame white people for any instance of racial unrest. This, I am sure will come as no surprise to conservatives, and their leftist opponents will now be busily rolling their eyes.
But I can prove it.
In the wake of the lengthy Muslim riots in my native country, international newsmedia and academics like Professor Quiggin scrambled to apologise for the Muslims, who were “frustrated” with the racism they were suffering at the hands of white Frenchmen, as well as their unfortunate economic and social circumstances. When interviewed and asked as to why they were targeting French people and French property for violence, the youths repeatedly stated that they hated the French people, who were weak, and so on. This was explained away by earnest reporters as youthful lack of eloquence. What they really meant to say was a lot of stuff about inequality and white racism.
During the French riots, which were experienced from one side of the Republic to the other, thousands of cars and a handful of Christian churches were burned, one old handicapped Frenchwoman was doused with gasoline and set alight, and several Frenchmen were murdered.
The universal explanation afforded them by the newsmedia and academics was: “frustration with the racism they suffered that the hands of the French.”
My countryfolk, many of whom are irretrievably stupid, agreed with them. They were anxious for the violence to stop, so in ancient Gallic fashion, they paid Danegeld to the barbarians. But let us give the media their bone. Let us say the Muslims were indeed reacting to racism.
Now, let us move to Australia, a land which I have spent more than 30 years adoring. This land is, I assure you, blessedly free of the effortless racism one finds in Europe (perpetrated by all races against all others).
I have lived in Sydney’s south for this period and I have personally seen the intimidation and anti-Australian racism that these Lebanese mobsters casually dole out to their caucasian countryfolk. These are no believers in societal harmony. To quote a Muslim spokesman from last night’s Channel 7 news, the gangs attack Australians because they: “believe themselves superior to Australians and hate western society”. That is a verbatim quote.
Eerily familiar motive, no? Yet when the much frustrated populace of Cronulla staged a one day mini-revolt in reaction to years of racism (the racism and violence perpetrated by Lebanese against white Australians there is a matter of record, please do not dispute that they suffered this much) and a total lack of police involvement (also established), there is to be no international sympathy for them.
At Cronulla, no one was killed, no cars were set alight, no mosques were burned. Some people were attacked, true, but they were not stabbed as were several Australians the evening afterward.
Here was another ethnic group, suffering constant racism at the hands of another, and when they snap, this time, it’s their fault. No understanding. No talk of “frustration”, no sympathetic stories about police or governmental neglect. They’re white, so the racism is entirely theirs.
Can you not see the double standard? French Muslims revolt, when interviewed, they say they hurt Frenchmen because French are weak. The French Muslims are blameless, they are the victims of white racism.
Muslims in Australia attack Australians (for the same reason, according to their spokesman) and when the Australians respond to this racism with far, far less violence than was enacted by French Muslims, they are condemned loudly, around the world, as racists.
This you on the left cannot with honesty argue around. You can only lie and obfuscate. It is the undeniable default reaction of the international newsmedia to any racist situation involving white people. If there’s whites involved, it’s their fault.
My leftist friends, you must know at your core that this is wrong. All people are the same under Communism, no? Then surely you must acknowledge that all people are equally capable of racism, and no group is more capable than any other.
Think on this. Please.
What an interesting post PrQ.
Here we have everything from blaming the media to little johnny getting his fingers burnt from playing with fire to a neo-fight club situation where feminiism still has a way to go.
On the limited facts that I can find out about this situation – young males belting each other en masse, alcohol induced violence – I can’t even start to figure this one out.
I hope by the time the verdicts are handed down we actually get a clearer picture of what happened and then try to tackle the underlying motives fro it.
“In the wake of the lengthy Muslim riots in my native country, international newsmedia and academics like Professor Quiggin scrambled to apologise for the Muslims, who were “frustratedâ€? with the racism they were suffering at the hands of white Frenchmen, as well as their unfortunate economic and social circumstances.”
Perhaps you’d like to give a link to this interview, Marcian. I don’t recall giving it.
I’m struck by the brazen hypocrisy of your condemnation of people who use “frustration” as an excuse for rioters, followed immediately by your eagerness to claim this excuse for the criminal actions of those with whom you sympathise.
Jack
In the interests of efficient communication, could you (1) define multiculturalism, and (2) set out, as concretely as possible the causal link between multiculturalism and the Cronulla riot. I know I’m pushing my luck here, but if you could manage all this without using the word ‘wet’, I’d be doubly grateful.
You miss my point entirely. The hypocrisy is yours, in your entirely ideological unwillingness to apply the term to white Australians. If I wish to apply it to white Australians and allow that French racism might have been to blame for French Muslim “frustration”, then who is the inflexible doctrinaire?
Not I, sir.
assume the conservative intolerants are correct. This is the sequence of events that would happen:
1) move all middle easter muslims out of south east sydney
2) relative calm and rejoice
3) soon afterwards mob turns on black sudanese people
4) now all black people are removed from australia
5) soon afterwards mob turns on all asian people
6) now we are back to white australia policy, state sponsored genocide.
* Of course thats a rather extreme future path, its most likely the coalition will settle for “Christian only” immigration.
Marcian
You didn’t respond to John’s challenge to show where he ‘scrambled to defend Muslims’. And it was you who used the word frustration. John didn’t use the term in connection with either side, so your counter-accusation of hypocrisy is either obtuse or disingenuous. Going by your style taken as a whole, I stongly suspect the latter.
It’s funny you should use the word obfuscate, because it’s entirely clear who is doing the obfuscating. Why don’t you go and obfuscate somewhere else.
Oh, i forget point 5.5 – move all french people out of australia!
Has anyone noticed how the standard leftist response to this situation is to blame “racism” while the rightists blame “multi-culturalism”.