Race riots spread to suburbs – National – smh.com.au
In the Sydney Morning Herald extensive coverage of the Autralian race ‘riots’ between ‘Aussies’ and ‘Lebs’ (Lebanese and other foreigners).
Race riots spread to suburbs – National – smh.com.au
RACIAL violence erupted in several Sydney suburbs last night in retaliation for a rampage by thousands of young residents through Cronulla that turned the seaside suburb into a battlefield.
Political, community and religious leaders joined stunned locals to condemn an afternoon of violence by a crowd that turned on people of Middle Eastern appearance and those trying to protect them, with police and ambulance officers also attacked.
As the violence spread, police cars raced through Sydney streets from Cronulla to Miranda, Brighton-le-Sands, Rockdale, Maroubra, Woolooware and Tempe. Police said they had received reports of firearms being “flashed” threateningly but not discharged. “So far we have had no one shot,” an officer said.
A 23-year-old man was in St George Hospital in a serious condition after a fight in Woolooware about 10.25pm. A radio report said he had a knife embedded in his back. Police said the man was with friends when he had an altercation outside a golf club with a “group of males of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern appearance”.
The violence followed a week of simmering tension after an attack the previous Sunday on two lifesavers. Appeals by text message for “Aussies” to descend on the beach to reclaim it drew a crowd estimated at 5000 people, but a carnival atmosphere in the morning gave way to an ugly mood as a hard core of about 200 turned violent. Thousands chanted them on.
The trouble began with scuffles about midday. As the crowd moved along the beach and foreshore area, a man on the back of a utility began to shout “No more Lebs” – a chant picked up by the group around him. Others in the crowd yelled “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie … Oi, Oi, Oi”. Members of the mob set upon their prey with fists, feet, flags and beer bottles. Two paramedics were injured as they tried to get victims out of the North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club, where they had fled to escape the rioters. One of the women had fled into the clubhouse for safety after her headscarf was ripped off.
An account of the events on the streets and Cronulla beach is also given: Thugs ruled the streets, and the mob sang Waltzing Matilda
A BARE-CHESTED youth in Quiksilver boardshorts tore the headscarf off the girl’s head as she slithered down the Cronulla dune seeking safety on the beach from a thousand-strong baying mob.
Up on the road, Marcus “Carcass” Butcher, 28, a builder from Penrith, wearing workboots, war-camouflage shorts and black singlet bearing the words “Mahommid was a camel f—ing faggot” raised both arms to the sky. “F— off, Leb,” he cried victoriously.
It was one last act of cowardly violence on a sad and shameful day that began as a beach party celebrating a kind of perverted nationalism that was gatecrashed by racism.
A crowd of at least 5000 – overwhelmingly under 25 – took over Cronulla’s foreshore and beachside streets. Police were powerless as 200-odd ringleaders, many clutching bottles or cans of beer and smoking marijuana, led assaults on individuals and small groups of Lebanese Australians who risked an appearance during the six-hour protest.
Cronulla was possibly Australia’s biggest racist protest since vigilante miners killed two Chinese at Lambing Flat in 1860.Yesterday’s violence had been brewing for months. It came to a head last weekend when some Lebanese Australian men attacked members of the North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club after they asked the visitors to stop playing soccer because it was disturbing other beach users.
“Steely” – who did not want to identify himself “for fear the Lebs will come and shoot up my joint during the week” – said his children had been scared by Lebanese Australians coming in from the western suburbs.
“I’ve got a four-year-old girl and a boy who’s 11, and they see these bastards come here and stand around the sea baths ‘cos their women have got to swim in clothes and stuff, or they see them saying filthy things to our girls,” he said. “That’s not Australian. My granddad fought the Japs to see Australia safe from this sort of shit, and that’s what I’m doing today.”
The word went out last week that the Shire boys would not take it lying down any more. Yesterday was shaping as a giant clash if Lebanese Australians came to run the gauntlet.
Chairman of the Community Relations Commission and President of the Anti-Discrimination Board of NSW responds in SMH: Worst possible outcome – vigilantes rip unity to shreds
Forget race and bring all criminals to justice, writes Stepan Kerkyasharian.
AdvertisementAdvertisementYESTERDAY we witnessed a sight that I thought we would never see in Australia.
A few years ago Australians of all backgrounds – indigenous, Muslim, Asian, European – united to display national pride, Australian pride, to put on the best ever Olympics.
A few weeks ago tens of thousands of people, young and old, combined to help our Socceroos ride the wave to the World Cup. Those Australians were, again, of all backgrounds. Young girls wearing the Islamic hijab were proudly displaying green and gold.
And then at North Cronulla beach we had a bunch of thugs bashing that great symbol of Australian devotion to their countrymen, surf lifesavers.
It is sad that these thugs appear to be more or less of the same ethnic background, or are perceived to be, because that causes pain to the hundreds of thousands of people of that background who live and work peacefully. That community’s leaders condemn the actions of these young thugs just as the rest of us do. Yesterday, as if on cue, people took this opportunity to reclaim territory – whatever that means.
SMH links the troubles to a major question in Australia’s identity politics: Ethnic tension troubling the whole neighbourhood
WHILE Sydney grapples with a problem of ethnic identity on the beach at Cronulla, Australia has resolved the most significant question of its international identity in a conference room in Malaysia.
For decades, Australia has been asked whether it is a Western nation or an Asian nation.
When John Howard flies into Kuala Lumpur tomorrow to represent Australia at the inaugural East Asia Summit of 16 nations, he will be providing the answer.
Australia is Western – and Asian.
An account of Mustafa one of the victims of the riots: A day at the beach becomes a nightmare
The Lebanese were too scared to come to Cronulla today, “and that’s why there is so few of us. The Lebanese did not come because there were too many pigs. Today the beach might be theirs. Tomorrow it will be ours.”
The trouble had started earlier in the afternoon when a Lebanese youth and his girlfriend were walking along the North Cronulla beachfront.
According to their account, two girls turned around and screamed “Lebanese get off our f—ing beaches”.
Mustafa said “at that point the whole street turned on us”.
As usual is the case with events like this, most local people don’t want this mess: Locals talk of fear and disgust after violence of bloody Sunday
STUNNED by the racist rampage in their suburb, Cronulla residents have condemned the violence perpetrated by local youths, saying they felt shamed, saddened and disgusted.
A long-time beachfront resident, Jeanie, said she would be moving her family to live with a son in Thirroul for a few days until the violence abated. Like many residents the Herald spoke to she would not give her surname for fear of reprisal.
“It’s a sad day for Cronulla and a sad day for Australia when the locals are behaving like pack animals,” she said.
“It’s absolutely disgusting, and I don’t want to live here any more. I’ve made arrangements to get out of town because it’s not safe any more. This isn’t how I want to live, like I’m in Beirut. The local surfers are boozed up and behaving just as bad as the Lebanese gangs.”
One outsider in the crowd, who would only give his name as Tony, wore a T-shirt that read on the front, “I’m ashamed to be an Australian in Cronulla”, and on the back, “December 11, a day of racism”. Tony, from Caringbah, said: “I know people who are saying that this is enough, they don’t want to live here any more [and] I can’t blame them.”