Pages

Monday, December 12, 2005

Cronulla, Day 2

Local media reported a "terrifying escalation" in the conflict, as 70 car loads of Lebanese youths arrived in the predominantly white suburb of Cronulla - the flashpoint for yesterday's running battles - intent on revenge.

The Sydney Morning Herald described how the youths began smashing up shops and cars with baseball bats and threatening passers-by. There were more disturbances in the neighbouring suburb of Brighton-Le-Sands where bricks were thrown at passing cars.

Around 600 people, some armed with pistols and crowbars and summoned by mobile phone text message, gathered to confront one another on Maroubra Beach, in a mainly white suburb to the south of the city.


That's actually one of the better media reports I have read about this. Meanwhile PM John Howard "appeals for calm" and tries to avoid comparisons to Chirac.

He said: "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 1930s Berlin." Is he watching the news?

Witnesses said "chaos" had broken out in a shopping centre at south Sydney's Cronulla Beach, the scene of mob violence on Sunday, with vehicles damaged and police making arrests as gangs of men roamed the streets.

Reports said: "People are standing around in shock, just watching. Every window in some cars have been smashed. Roads have been blocked by police."

One resident, who didn't want to be named, said about 50 cars had swept into the area, disgorging men of Middle Eastern appearance who begun wrecking every car in sight with baseball bats.


Are these the white supremacists Howard is so concerned about? Probably not.

Note that the 'white supremacists' spared the nearby Korean community of some 60,000.
"There is no chance that this riot will spread to Korean residents," said a representative from the Korean Society of Sydney. He seems pretty confident. You'd think that Koreans would be quite worried if indeed there were thousands of angry white supremacists roaming the streets like it was Berlin in the 30s.

Color me crazy, but could it be that despite claims by Howard and the media most of the Aussie rioters are not in fact neo-Nazi or white supremacists? Are most of these people in fact locals extremely angry at what they see as continued harassment and generally intolerable behavior by members of the Lebanese immigrant community? Instead of condemning the rioters with a broad brush, shouldn't the authorities try to understand the root causes of the unrest?

9 comments:

  1. The worst racist slogan I've seen reported so far is "wogs" which is slur from British imperial history referring, I think, to dark-skinned people. It's racist in the strictest sense but hardly an indication of white supremacism. No one to my knowledge is chanting "white power".

    ReplyDelete
  2. -is "wogs" which is slur from British imperial history referring-

    most people in the UK know the word 'wog' (it's use is declining) from the old jars of marmalade. They had a small picture of the early 1900's stereotypical black man and he was known as a gollywog.

    But i have heard people use it to refer to non whites in general.

    -----------

    the important factor of the article is an insight into how it would be viewed if we decided to fight back against "rioting youths", or a US/UK intifada.

    We will be called the white supremacists. :(

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have sent a variety of people to this post (and the previous) so that they can supplement the usual reports from the MSM … and they’ve been overjoyed to read something that helps them get a clearer picture. Very timely info!

    Now if I remember correctly Australia has laws that result in punishment for criticism of Islam. I vaguely remember a Preacher fined (or jailed?) for something he said. I can’t find the link right now. Does anyone remember this?

    ReplyDelete
  4. J,
    You're right. You would be called white supremacists. That would happen here too.

    Thomas,
    I hope it is clear that I wasn't attributing racial motives to those who are engaging in this violence. I'm simply saying their use of racist terminology is unfortunate, and a natural by-product of understandable anger at certain thuggish Muslims, and frustration at the fact that their government is not taking care of the problem.

    It can turn into racism, though, if someone doesn't step in and clarigy the situation.

    Does that make sense?

    Not all Muslims are thugs, or Jihadis.

    By the way, I linked to both of your articles on this subject. Hope you don't mind. Great job.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I do remember that. I posted about it, but I can't find the link. Sorry.

    I do remember that during his trial, it was pointed out that he most of the allegations were related to passages of his sermons where he quoted from the Koran. So, in other words, he was being tried for reading from the Koran verbatim.

    Wish I could find that link.

    ReplyDelete
  6. For those interested in the Australian nightmare of Islam, or as I so wittily put it some time back, "Ozlam," search for jihadwatch catch the fire" which will give details of the minister and pastor charge with and found guilty of maligning Islam by reading passages from the Qur'an in church. When the defense lawyer tries to read out the relvant passages in court he was silenced, forbidden to read the Qur'an in court because it might emflame the jury and the people against Islam.

    Yeah, it just keeps getting worse. There's only so much the people will put up with regardless of the politicians and media and intelligentsia telling them the public is racist and to blame for the ills of poor and suffering immigrants who feel excluded.

    Activist governments have diverged so far from the non-voting majority in the West that we're stuck with an angry and frustrated mass of people who don't vote against the activists except when things reach a point of intolerable chaos. And then they get the blame for being whatever the catch word of the day might be: "racists" today, whatever tomorrow.

    But the phantasists of the dhimmi Left remain in power. Except on the streets where life matters to people who walk and drive.

    ReplyDelete
  7. this is what was texted by the Middle Eastern looking men as part of the call the continuing the violence The Aussies will feel the full force of the Arabs as one — 'brothers in arms' unite now," the message said.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great post-- some good information here.

    It seems to me that there is some confusiuon about this situation due to the fact that some of those who attacked Lebanese immigrants were in fact, racists. Of course, the mainstream media is making a big deal of this, due to their politically correct bias, as well as their tendency to oversimplify and rarely look beyond the superficial.

    While some of the violence is atributable to actions by racists, pure and simple, there is more to it.

    Many non-racist people were getting more and more fed up with persistant abuse by many of these Lebanese Moslem immigrants...

    ReplyDelete
  9. BTW Whilst in the Navy a "wog" was short for pollywog - someone who had not crossed the equator

    ReplyDelete