Top down: race riots on Cronulla beach
December 12th, 2005
The PM won’t call it racist, but I will and most others have. The riots on Cronulla beach on the weekend are hard to understand/imagine/believe. Radio and print media report neo-nazis, bikers and surfies crowded into the beach to heap abuse on anyone who looked different enough. The picture above (from the SMH) shows a crowd intimidating a couple of middle eastern kids who got in the way. The worst thing is the numbers of teenagers, families with young children and locals celebrating the dark day with balloons, booze and bottle-throwing.
It’s ridiculous, the text messages (and this was apparently built up with text messages that flew around the city right across to Penrith - just the kind of thing the anti-terrorism laws were designed for, though as Crikey says those laws are unlikely to be used against anyone not of middle eastern descent) say they’re just fighting back after a couple of lifeguards were beaten up last weekend. But this was far worse than anything those suburban gangs have done. The call of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi”, which has always been vaguely threatening yelled at cricket and rugby matches, took on a much scarier tone when it’s “Oi” was yelled by 1000s as they chased individuals across the beach. Worse still, was the Waltzing Matilda and the John Williamson songs and Eureka Flags.
After five years of our government marginalising our middle eastern community as ‘illegal’ refugees, possible terrorists, rapists and fundamentalists, the message has made its way down.
Lots of bloggers writing about this one, jo jo summarises, Technorati has blog posts by the 1000, splat asks what happened there… Who the hell knows. All I know is, whatever Paul Sheehan says, this stuff has been bubbling beneath the surface for a very long time.
December 12th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
in relation to the appearance of the Eureka flag in this mindless debacle. Sadly whoever the maggots were weilding that flag, which incidently graphically is the sign of the southern cross, have no idea of what it trully represents, and from what social, political and racial climate it was originally borne in 1854. Those originally gathered beneathe that flag welcomed all from any race, colour and religion to stand with them in solidarity to defend their rights and liberties. There was true multiculturalism under that flag.
Those in Cronulla weilding that flag do so falsely and they bring shame upon those of us trying to Reclaim the Radical Spirit of Eureka, and any commentator who automatically associates that flag with actions such as those at Cronulla shows just how ignorant of our social history they really are.
December 13th, 2005 at 6:47 am
I’m not criticising the Eureka flag, just its use as a nationalist rallying cry, like the yelling of Waltzing Matilda and the crowd draped in Australian flags.
I hope there’s serious consideration of the real causes of this mess. And by that I mean Alan Jones’ hysterical ranting on talkback radio. Seriously, if a community radio presenter on some ethnic show out at Lakemba was to incite the sort of activity Jones was inciting on mainstream radio, there’d be calls for jail/deportation/etc.
December 13th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
I sincerely hope this will tar Howard, but the more likely outcome will be blame targetted at the media, then deflected to the state govt/NSW police without the problem being addressed. Fairfax is already pointing the finger at Jones, and it won’t be long before people of Jones’s ilk (News Corp., PBL, etc) start reapportioning the blame to NSW State politics and policing.
It will be easy for Howard to avoid, as he will be able to claim that this was a state-only matter, and can point to previous riots in Sydney as being unique to that city/state. Nonetheless, I think much of what he has done in his reign has led to disenchantment among many groups, not just racially, but socio-economically.
December 14th, 2005 at 2:18 am
there’s some interesting debate going on at Senator Andrew Bartlett’s blog
December 15th, 2005 at 10:47 am
If Australians are “racist”, wouldn’t the crowd at Cronulla then have been attacking Asians, Indians, Islanders etc as well? In several of the photos, you can see men of non-caucasian appearance partaking in the violence as well. The violence was not particular to white-Australians. From what I can see, it is a united multicultural group rioting against one group - those of Middle Eastern Descent. It just happened to play out wrong because the initial idea was to protest against the Middle Eastern gangs that have troubled Cronulla…not against all Middle Easterners. It just, unfortunately, got extremely out of hand due to a bunch of drunken idiots who came looking for *any* fight.
December 19th, 2005 at 2:24 pm
completely off topic
but one time i saw a photo of andrew bartlett at age 20-something, he was wearing all black and had long black hair and looked like the BIGGEST sepultura fan.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:25 am
It is reassuring though to see in the Herald today that an AC Nielson poll had 75 percent of respondents disagreeing with Howard’s claim that the riots weren’t race related, and 81 percent supporting multiculturalism.
Former Fairfax journo Antony Loewenstein picks up the story at his blog.
February 17th, 2006 at 11:36 am
[...] My brother, whose band played at the festival, said a lot of punters dressed in Aussie flag clothing and even whole flags. That sounds awful - last refuge of the scoundrel and all that, especially in light of the Cronulla race riot last year - but even worse, meatheads wandered around asking people to kiss the sweaty flag they were wrapped in, and beat up those who refused. [...]
August 18th, 2006 at 10:08 am
[...] After the Cronulla riots there was a rash of white boys getting National-Pride-inspired ‘Southern Cross’ or ‘Aussie Pride’ tattoos. [...]