Top down: race riots on Cronulla beach

Published on 12/12/05
by matt

Racists intimidate two middle eastern boys

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.

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