Government and media provocations spark racist violence on Sydney beaches
Rick Kelly | 12.12.2005 17:12 | Analysis | Anti-racism | Culture | World
Both the Liberals and the Laborites are committed to implementing deeply unpopular right-wing economic reforms--exacerbating social inequality, eliminating job security, and driving down wages and living conditions. The two parties seek to deflect opposition to their agenda by fomenting racial divisions in order to channel the insecurity and disaffection felt by millions of ordinary people into deeply reactionary channels. At the most fundamental level, that is what caused Sunday's events.
Fomenting racial divisions
AUSTRALIA: Violence erupted on Sydney's beaches Sunday, following days of media provocation. Some 5,000 people rallied against so-called "Lebanese gangs", then attacked immigrants and Muslims, who had been accused over the past week of harassing beach-goers. More than 20 people were injured, and two were stabbed, in confrontations across a number of Sydney's eastern suburbs. About 100 cars were also vandalised.
Responsibility for the terrible clashes rests squarely with the federal Howard government and the state Labor government. Both administrations have cultivated a climate of nationalism, racism, and backwardness, without which Sunday's riot could not have occurred. The level of tension that has developed between young "Anglo" and "ethnic" Australians on Sydney's beaches is another malignant expression of the political establishment's attacks on "Middle Eastern gangs", refugees, and alleged "terrorists".
Tensions on the popular North Cronulla Beach escalated on December 4, when a lifesaver was allegedly assaulted by an 18-year-old man of Lebanese descent from the western working-class suburb of Bankstown. On December 7, a racist text message was sent to local residents, calling on every "Aussie" to get to the beach on Sunday, "to support Leb and wog bashing day. Bring your mates and let's show them that this is our beach and they are never welcome ... let's kill these boys."
Sunday morning, 5,000 predominantly young people gathered on the beach, waving Australian flags, and singing "Waltzing Matilda" and the national anthem. Extreme right-wing and neo-Nazi groups distributed literature among the crowd, many of whom were drunk. The mob chanted nationalist and racist slogans directed against Lebanese people.
People in the crowd then attacked anyone they found who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent or a Muslim. Numbers of young people visiting the beach were assaulted with fists, feet, and bottles. One woman had her head scarf torn off, and was forced to flee to the surf lifesaving club for protection. Two girls were also attacked, to shouts of "Kill the Leb b----s" from the crowd.
Dozens of thugs stormed the local train station and viciously attacked two men. Ambulance officers trying to help the injured were also attacked, and beer bottles thrown at their vehicles. Police vehicles were targeted as well. Drunken teenagers reportedly roamed the streets surrounding North Cronulla Beach, coordinating their attacks with walkie talkies.
"They threw bottles, broken bottles, food, anything they could get their hands on," 19-year old Mustafa, one of the victims, told the Sydney Morning Herald. "And what were we doing? We were there for a swim." Local resident Sarah Id, 17, is the child of Lebanese immigrants. "We had to get out because everyone was telling us to go home," she told the Herald. "They were saying, 'You don't belong here.' We were born here and went to Jannali High [a local school]."
In retaliatory attacks, about 50 young men of Middle Eastern descent later drove through the eastern suburbs, slashing car tyres and breaking windscreens with baseball bats. The youths also clashed with members of the "Bra Boys", a local surf-based gang, in Maroubra.
Riot police were mobilised across Sydney's eastern suburbs in response to rumours of further violent incidents, and police helicopters roamed the skies above the beaches.
A number of residents in the eastern suburbs told reporters of their revulsion about the day's events, and expressed their opposition to the racist attacks. One local, Dane Wheeler, told the Sydney Morning Herald that he believed that most of the mob had come from outside the area. Another resident courageously walked through the crowd wearing a t-shirt which read: "I'm ashamed to be an Australian in Cronulla. December 11, a day of racism."
Media incitement
While every media outlet has feigned outrage over Sunday's events, the violence was the culmination of a week-long campaign of provocation and incitement by the media, particularly by the Murdoch press and "shock-jock" talkback radio. Immediately following last week's alleged assault on the lifeguard, right-wing media outlets launched a blatantly racist campaign against immigrant Muslim youth.
A sample of the headlines in the Sydney tabloid the Daily Telegraph, gives a flavour of the campaign. On December 6: "Fight for Cronulla: we want our beach back". On December 7: "Gangs turn Cronulla beach into war zone". The gangs referred to were not, of course, local surf gangs and racist groups, but rather "thugs of Middle Eastern descent". Last Friday the Telegraph's front page screamed, "NOT ON OUR BEACH: Cronulla police vow to defend Australian way". Throughout the week, letters to the editor on the issue--a number of which were critical of the newspaper's coverage--were published under the subheadings, "Let's make it safe to go back to the water" and "Let's unite to fight this shame on the beaches".
Last Friday the Telegraph also dedicated a large part of its lead op-ed piece to a sympathetic interview with Koby Abberton, one of the leaders of the Bra Boys gang. Abberton, the newspaper explained, spoke with reporters, "to offer a view on why his home beach--Maroubra--is one of the few in Sydney not to have been swamped by Middle Eastern gangs in recent years".
Explicitly racist commentary was by no means the sole reserve of the tabloid press. The major op-ed column by Paul Sheehan published in today's "liberal" Sydney Morning Herald attacked Middle Eastern immigrant youth. After first downplaying Sunday's violence as merely "the actions of a minority of idiots", Sheehan attacked the "alien subculture" of Lebanese gangs.
"The cops hate and fear the swarming packs of Lebanese who respond when some of their numbers are confronted, mobilising quickly via mobile phones and showing open contempt for Australian law," he writes. "All this is the real world, as distinct from the world preferred by ideological academics who talk about 'moral panic' and the oppression of Muslims. They will see only Australian racism as the problem."
Labor, Coalition responsibility
Media provocation, however, can only be understood as an expression of the broader political climate of racism and backwardness that has been consciously promoted by both federal and state governments in recent years.
Prime Minister John Howard has based much of his political career on anti-immigrant attacks. Immediately after his election in 1996, he gave tacit support to the racist ideas promoted by the extreme-right politician Pauline Hanson. The Liberal-National Coalition won re-election in 2001 on the basis of a filthy anti-refugee campaign, engineered around the lie that asylum seekers had thrown their children into the sea as part of an attempt to reach Australia.
The government has scapegoated Muslims and Middle Eastern immigrants ever since the September 11 terrorist attack and the so-called war on terror. Immigrants and refugees have been repeatedly labelled "potential terrorists" by government ministers, and significant numbers have been the targets of intimidatory police raids. Howard has advanced all of this in the nationalistic framework of "protecting our way of life".
In response to Sunday's events, the prime minister pointedly refused to condemn the 5,000-strong mob as racist. "I believe yesterday's behaviour was completely unacceptable but I'm not going to put a general tag [of] racism on the Australian community," he declared. "I think it's a term that is flung around sometimes carelessly and I'm simply not going to do so."
The Labor Party, at both the federal and state levels, has been complicit in all of Howard's manoeuvres. In New South Wales, the state Labor government has constantly incited racial and religious divisions, and has cultivated an atmosphere of anti-Muslim racism.
Bob Carr, Labor premier of the state between 1995 and July this year, made repeated attacks on immigrant youth during his term in office. In 2001, Carr called for police racial profiling, after a group of men of Middle Eastern background were convicted of rape. He also demanded that the Howard government restrict immigration--claiming that criminals and potential terrorists were able to enter the country too easily. Carr also orchestrated a series of police raids on Indonesian and Middle Eastern immigrant families accused of involvement in terrorism. The current premier of New South Wales, Morris Iemma, was complicit in all of his predecessor's actions.
Sunday's violence was another indicator of the extreme social tensions that exist within Australian society. Sydney's western suburbs, where most of the young Muslims accused of gang activity live, feature high levels of poverty and youth unemployment, and a lack of recreational facilities. The city's eastern suburbs, such as Cronulla and Maroubra, while appearing relatively prosperous, also have high levels of youth unemployment.
The New South Wales Labor government's reliance on vicious "law and order" campaigns and the Howard government's promotion of the most backward forms of Australian nationalism are driven by the same political imperative.
Both the Liberals and the Laborites are committed to implementing deeply unpopular right-wing economic reforms--exacerbating social inequality, eliminating job security, and driving down wages and living conditions. The two parties seek to deflect opposition to their agenda by fomenting racial divisions in order to channel the insecurity and disaffection felt by millions of ordinary people into deeply reactionary channels. At the most fundamental level, that is what caused Sunday's events.
WSWS.org
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/riot-d12.shtml
Related:
Cronulla race riot
The lifesavers asked for it!
The Mainscream Media asked for it!
The Police asked for it!
Then the community decided it was ok to be racist!
More: http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9715
Race Riot Nationalists spread to third Sydney suburb
The latest violence comes after a racially motivated pro-government right wing Nationalist media taking John HoWARd's lead, ended up in a riot at Cronulla Beach which saw several people of Middle Eastern appearance attacked. Shame HoWARd....Shame on you!
More: http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9717/index.php
Thugs ruled the streets, and the mob sang Waltzing Matilda
Sometimes when a victim was cornered, the mob started singing Waltzing Matilda. Advance Australia Fair was similarly employed against obstructing police, and the usually good-natured "Aussie Aussie Aussie" chant in the mouths of the Cronulla crew assumed a menacing tone.
More: http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9719/index.php
International Human Rights Day
One of the events for International Human Rights Day in Melbourne was a rally outside the State Library attended by about 100 people on Saturday December 10. Issues canvassed by speakers included opposition to mandatory detention of asylum seekers, treatment of indigenous Australians, opposition to the "anti-terror" laws, and scapegoating of the muslim community.
More: http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9714/index.php
Christmas in Guantanamo
After four long years, David Hicks - and scores of others - have been confined in steel cages in Guantanamo Bay, without trial or charge. Here in Australia, draconian anti-terror laws abolish some of our most cherished freedoms, and give ASIO and the Australian Federal Police carte blanche to treat the Islamic community like criminals.
More: http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9696/index.php
Australian treasurer steps up ideological offensive against welfare recipients
The treasurer's comment piece was released shortly before the Senate passed the Howard government's "Welfare to Work" Bill on November 6. The new legislation will slash welfare payments for thousands of new claimants, and force single parents and the disabled into low-wage jobs. By driving down the living conditions of some of the most vulnerable members of the community, the government intends to create an enlarged pool of cheap labour available for exploitation.
More: http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9710
Politically manipulated police raids in Australia
In the largest such operation yet seen in Australia--reportedly involving 850 federal and state police and intelligence personne--heavily-armed officers burst into at least 23 homes in Sydney and Melbourne in the pre-dawn hours of yesterday morning and arrested 17 Islamic men on vague and unspecified terrorism charges. Today, raids are still continuing in Sydney, amid angry protests by family members.
More: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/raid-n09.shtml
Responsibility for the terrible clashes rests squarely with the federal Howard government and the state Labor government. Both administrations have cultivated a climate of nationalism, racism, and backwardness, without which Sunday's riot could not have occurred. The level of tension that has developed between young "Anglo" and "ethnic" Australians on Sydney's beaches is another malignant expression of the political establishment's attacks on "Middle Eastern gangs", refugees, and alleged "terrorists".
Tensions on the popular North Cronulla Beach escalated on December 4, when a lifesaver was allegedly assaulted by an 18-year-old man of Lebanese descent from the western working-class suburb of Bankstown. On December 7, a racist text message was sent to local residents, calling on every "Aussie" to get to the beach on Sunday, "to support Leb and wog bashing day. Bring your mates and let's show them that this is our beach and they are never welcome ... let's kill these boys."
Sunday morning, 5,000 predominantly young people gathered on the beach, waving Australian flags, and singing "Waltzing Matilda" and the national anthem. Extreme right-wing and neo-Nazi groups distributed literature among the crowd, many of whom were drunk. The mob chanted nationalist and racist slogans directed against Lebanese people.
People in the crowd then attacked anyone they found who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent or a Muslim. Numbers of young people visiting the beach were assaulted with fists, feet, and bottles. One woman had her head scarf torn off, and was forced to flee to the surf lifesaving club for protection. Two girls were also attacked, to shouts of "Kill the Leb b----s" from the crowd.
Dozens of thugs stormed the local train station and viciously attacked two men. Ambulance officers trying to help the injured were also attacked, and beer bottles thrown at their vehicles. Police vehicles were targeted as well. Drunken teenagers reportedly roamed the streets surrounding North Cronulla Beach, coordinating their attacks with walkie talkies.
"They threw bottles, broken bottles, food, anything they could get their hands on," 19-year old Mustafa, one of the victims, told the Sydney Morning Herald. "And what were we doing? We were there for a swim." Local resident Sarah Id, 17, is the child of Lebanese immigrants. "We had to get out because everyone was telling us to go home," she told the Herald. "They were saying, 'You don't belong here.' We were born here and went to Jannali High [a local school]."
In retaliatory attacks, about 50 young men of Middle Eastern descent later drove through the eastern suburbs, slashing car tyres and breaking windscreens with baseball bats. The youths also clashed with members of the "Bra Boys", a local surf-based gang, in Maroubra.
Riot police were mobilised across Sydney's eastern suburbs in response to rumours of further violent incidents, and police helicopters roamed the skies above the beaches.
A number of residents in the eastern suburbs told reporters of their revulsion about the day's events, and expressed their opposition to the racist attacks. One local, Dane Wheeler, told the Sydney Morning Herald that he believed that most of the mob had come from outside the area. Another resident courageously walked through the crowd wearing a t-shirt which read: "I'm ashamed to be an Australian in Cronulla. December 11, a day of racism."
Media incitement
While every media outlet has feigned outrage over Sunday's events, the violence was the culmination of a week-long campaign of provocation and incitement by the media, particularly by the Murdoch press and "shock-jock" talkback radio. Immediately following last week's alleged assault on the lifeguard, right-wing media outlets launched a blatantly racist campaign against immigrant Muslim youth.
A sample of the headlines in the Sydney tabloid the Daily Telegraph, gives a flavour of the campaign. On December 6: "Fight for Cronulla: we want our beach back". On December 7: "Gangs turn Cronulla beach into war zone". The gangs referred to were not, of course, local surf gangs and racist groups, but rather "thugs of Middle Eastern descent". Last Friday the Telegraph's front page screamed, "NOT ON OUR BEACH: Cronulla police vow to defend Australian way". Throughout the week, letters to the editor on the issue--a number of which were critical of the newspaper's coverage--were published under the subheadings, "Let's make it safe to go back to the water" and "Let's unite to fight this shame on the beaches".
Last Friday the Telegraph also dedicated a large part of its lead op-ed piece to a sympathetic interview with Koby Abberton, one of the leaders of the Bra Boys gang. Abberton, the newspaper explained, spoke with reporters, "to offer a view on why his home beach--Maroubra--is one of the few in Sydney not to have been swamped by Middle Eastern gangs in recent years".
Explicitly racist commentary was by no means the sole reserve of the tabloid press. The major op-ed column by Paul Sheehan published in today's "liberal" Sydney Morning Herald attacked Middle Eastern immigrant youth. After first downplaying Sunday's violence as merely "the actions of a minority of idiots", Sheehan attacked the "alien subculture" of Lebanese gangs.
"The cops hate and fear the swarming packs of Lebanese who respond when some of their numbers are confronted, mobilising quickly via mobile phones and showing open contempt for Australian law," he writes. "All this is the real world, as distinct from the world preferred by ideological academics who talk about 'moral panic' and the oppression of Muslims. They will see only Australian racism as the problem."
Labor, Coalition responsibility
Media provocation, however, can only be understood as an expression of the broader political climate of racism and backwardness that has been consciously promoted by both federal and state governments in recent years.
Prime Minister John Howard has based much of his political career on anti-immigrant attacks. Immediately after his election in 1996, he gave tacit support to the racist ideas promoted by the extreme-right politician Pauline Hanson. The Liberal-National Coalition won re-election in 2001 on the basis of a filthy anti-refugee campaign, engineered around the lie that asylum seekers had thrown their children into the sea as part of an attempt to reach Australia.
The government has scapegoated Muslims and Middle Eastern immigrants ever since the September 11 terrorist attack and the so-called war on terror. Immigrants and refugees have been repeatedly labelled "potential terrorists" by government ministers, and significant numbers have been the targets of intimidatory police raids. Howard has advanced all of this in the nationalistic framework of "protecting our way of life".
In response to Sunday's events, the prime minister pointedly refused to condemn the 5,000-strong mob as racist. "I believe yesterday's behaviour was completely unacceptable but I'm not going to put a general tag [of] racism on the Australian community," he declared. "I think it's a term that is flung around sometimes carelessly and I'm simply not going to do so."
The Labor Party, at both the federal and state levels, has been complicit in all of Howard's manoeuvres. In New South Wales, the state Labor government has constantly incited racial and religious divisions, and has cultivated an atmosphere of anti-Muslim racism.
Bob Carr, Labor premier of the state between 1995 and July this year, made repeated attacks on immigrant youth during his term in office. In 2001, Carr called for police racial profiling, after a group of men of Middle Eastern background were convicted of rape. He also demanded that the Howard government restrict immigration--claiming that criminals and potential terrorists were able to enter the country too easily. Carr also orchestrated a series of police raids on Indonesian and Middle Eastern immigrant families accused of involvement in terrorism. The current premier of New South Wales, Morris Iemma, was complicit in all of his predecessor's actions.
Sunday's violence was another indicator of the extreme social tensions that exist within Australian society. Sydney's western suburbs, where most of the young Muslims accused of gang activity live, feature high levels of poverty and youth unemployment, and a lack of recreational facilities. The city's eastern suburbs, such as Cronulla and Maroubra, while appearing relatively prosperous, also have high levels of youth unemployment.
The New South Wales Labor government's reliance on vicious "law and order" campaigns and the Howard government's promotion of the most backward forms of Australian nationalism are driven by the same political imperative.
Both the Liberals and the Laborites are committed to implementing deeply unpopular right-wing economic reforms--exacerbating social inequality, eliminating job security, and driving down wages and living conditions. The two parties seek to deflect opposition to their agenda by fomenting racial divisions in order to channel the insecurity and disaffection felt by millions of ordinary people into deeply reactionary channels. At the most fundamental level, that is what caused Sunday's events.
WSWS.org
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/riot-d12.shtml Related:
Cronulla race riot
The lifesavers asked for it!
The Mainscream Media asked for it!
The Police asked for it!
Then the community decided it was ok to be racist!
More:
http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9715 Race Riot Nationalists spread to third Sydney suburb
The latest violence comes after a racially motivated pro-government right wing Nationalist media taking John HoWARd's lead, ended up in a riot at Cronulla Beach which saw several people of Middle Eastern appearance attacked. Shame HoWARd....Shame on you!
More:
http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9717/index.php Thugs ruled the streets, and the mob sang Waltzing Matilda
Sometimes when a victim was cornered, the mob started singing Waltzing Matilda. Advance Australia Fair was similarly employed against obstructing police, and the usually good-natured "Aussie Aussie Aussie" chant in the mouths of the Cronulla crew assumed a menacing tone.
More:
http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9719/index.php International Human Rights Day
One of the events for International Human Rights Day in Melbourne was a rally outside the State Library attended by about 100 people on Saturday December 10. Issues canvassed by speakers included opposition to mandatory detention of asylum seekers, treatment of indigenous Australians, opposition to the "anti-terror" laws, and scapegoating of the muslim community.
More:
http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9714/index.php Christmas in Guantanamo
After four long years, David Hicks - and scores of others - have been confined in steel cages in Guantanamo Bay, without trial or charge. Here in Australia, draconian anti-terror laws abolish some of our most cherished freedoms, and give ASIO and the Australian Federal Police carte blanche to treat the Islamic community like criminals.
More:
http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display/9696/index.php Australian treasurer steps up ideological offensive against welfare recipients
The treasurer's comment piece was released shortly before the Senate passed the Howard government's "Welfare to Work" Bill on November 6. The new legislation will slash welfare payments for thousands of new claimants, and force single parents and the disabled into low-wage jobs. By driving down the living conditions of some of the most vulnerable members of the community, the government intends to create an enlarged pool of cheap labour available for exploitation.
More:
http://adelaide.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/9710 Politically manipulated police raids in Australia
In the largest such operation yet seen in Australia--reportedly involving 850 federal and state police and intelligence personne--heavily-armed officers burst into at least 23 homes in Sydney and Melbourne in the pre-dawn hours of yesterday morning and arrested 17 Islamic men on vague and unspecified terrorism charges. Today, raids are still continuing in Sydney, amid angry protests by family members.
More:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/raid-n09.shtml
Rick Kelly
Comments
Hide the following 10 comments
Not a Bali back-lash
13.12.2005 16:02
Australian racists are asshole interlopers who stole that continent brutally from the indigineous people, fine ones to complain about immigrants.
Danny
What you talkin bout willis.
14.12.2005 17:21
mark
You mean England ?
14.12.2005 20:39
Danny
Danny boy.
15.12.2005 01:19
There have been plenty of reports on attacks on asylum seekers in Scotland, English people have been attacked on the basis of their race in Wales, and Ireland is notoriously racist.
Frankly, your little Englander view of Australia as some sort of backward colony smacks of racism itself.
mark
You are being a bit English
15.12.2005 15:28
There has never been a race-riot in Scotland, mainly because historically it is such a homogenous nation. I'm sure when we have more immigrants who wish or are forced to live here, and if our underlying racism isn't tackled now, then we may well sink to Austarlias shameful and indefensible current state.
"I've lived in the UK and I've lived in Australia, I know what I'm talking about. You do not."
Nice assumption and strange logic. Fancy talking facts instead ?
"There have been plenty of reports on attacks on asylum seekers in Scotland, English people have been attacked on the basis of their race in Wales, and Ireland is notoriously racist."
I fully agree, although I think it is woefully misleading to describe anti-English sentiment as racist - it is nationalist as both nations are racially indistinguishable. Racism and racist violence is a global problem. It's just a fact Oz is worse than Scotland or Wales for sure, if only because we don't have race-riots and you do. Or look at the politics of our nationalist leaders - nationalism in Scotland and Wales is remarkably left-wing and free from racism. If Scotlands attitude to natioanlism and racism is admirably represented by Alex Salmond then Pauline Hanson is the Australian equivalent.
"Frankly, your little Englander view of Australia as some sort of backward colony smacks of racism itself."
It's a pity you don't understand the language you use ( what is the first language in Australia ? )
'Little-Englander' is a derogatory term used by imperialists for those English who didn't want an empire. Little Englander is therefore a term of praise, albeit a strange one to level at a Scot, as those little-englanders would have opposed the setting up of a genocidal, apartheid and backwards colony such as Australia was - and still seems to be.
Danny
language danny
16.12.2005 13:43
Attacks on immigrants in Scotland are commonplace. There is racism in Australia, but it is rare for it to spill over into violence. That is why racism in Scotland is worse than racism in Australia.
"I've lived in the UK and I've lived in Australia, I know what I'm talking about. You do not."
Nice assumption and strange logic. Fancy talking facts instead ?
The logic is pretty obvious, but I'll spell it out for you. I have first hand experience of both Australia and the UK, whereas you it seems do not. That is why I can compare racism in the UK to racism in Australia. You are basing your views on one incident reported in the press.
And as I said before, the UK has had far more and far more serious race riots than Australia has. That is an indisputable fact.
"I fully agree, although I think it is woefully misleading to describe anti-English sentiment as racist"
No it is not, go and get a dictionary and look up the definition of racism.
It's a pity you don't understand the language you use 'Little-Englander' is a derogatory term used by imperialists for those English who didn't want an empire.
No it is not. That was the usage a century ago, but the meaning has changed. It now refers to a naive and ignorant nationalism. Though since you seem to be Scottish I guess 'Little Scotlander' would be more accurate.
mark
Abo-bastards ?
16.12.2005 14:53
Sad but true.
>There is racism in Australia, but it is rare for it to spill over into violence.
Lie.
>That is why racism in Scotland is worse than racism in Australia.
Cloud cuckoo land. Ask any Scottish aboriginal. Is aboriginal a racist term ? I dunno, but I know the common Aussie diminuation, Abo is normally followed by bastard, as it those Abo-bastards this or that Abo-bastard did that. Hell, that's just friendly Aussie banter isn't it ?
>The logic is pretty obvious, but I'll spell it out for you. I have first hand experience of both Australia and the UK, whereas you it seems do not. That is why I can compare racism in the UK to racism in Australia. You are basing your views on one incident reported in the press.
It seems ? It seems ? How the fuck does it seem that way ?
I never once said I had no connection to Australia, and the fact that you assume that seems analogous to you wanting to believe Australia is free from racist violence. In denial in other words. You choose to believe things without the slightest evidence and then you repeat them as fact. Your logic is obvious nonsense because you base it on garbage assumptions. Not only have I strong connections to Australia I have stayed with friends in the Shire. Now unlike you I didn't trumpet this because unlike you I don't think having first hand experience of Australia makes my comments any more valid than anyone elses, it's not like it is some remote Andean mountain village - it's not a big deal having gone to Oz, maybe you should travel more. One reason for this is I'm white, I generally don't experience the racism of a white society first hand, but through second hand experience, and through conversation, Australia is sick with racism.
>And as I said before, the UK has had far more and far more serious race riots than Australia has. That is an indisputable fact.
Which I didn't dispute. As I noticed you didn't dispute many of the Aussies blown up in Bali were at a nightclub with an apartheid door-policy. As much innocent victims of terrorist atrocities as were South African victims of ANC violence.
>"I fully agree, although I think it is woefully misleading to describe anti-English sentiment as racist"
>No it is not, go and get a dictionary and look up the definition of racism.
Well if it doesn't mean discrimination between the races then its hardly a meaningful word is it ? And to mix up national resentments, nationalist violence and to compare that to racism based on the colour of your skin or racial group, well, let's just say I'm guessing that you are white.
>No it is not. That was the usage a century ago, but the meaning has changed. It now refers to a naive and ignorant nationalism. Though since you seem to be Scottish I guess 'Little Scotlander' would be more accurate.
Ah, now you are just being silly ! Little Scotlander indeed. The meaning of the phrase 'little-englander' was changed completely to allow it to be still be useful to the establishment once they had been forced to forsake the empire. I find it telling that you use such an establishment phrase and accept the most offensive of it's meanings.
If my nation had such an awful, racist riot as Australia just had, I wouldn't have the brass neck to post nonsense about how it's not a racist country. I might even find a few words of self-criticism. The fact that you haven't says more about you than me, more about Oz than Scotland. It's sad that you just can't accept Aussies obvious problem without trotting out nationalist excuses like 'we might be racist but at least we aren't as bad as England is'. You aren't as bad as Nazi Germany was either, good on ye mate. Have another tinnie and ignore the problem.
Danny
An Aboriginal perspective
16.12.2005 15:27
The following is an extract of an oral submission provided by an Aboriginal woman to the National Inquiry into Racist Violence at its public hearing in Redfern, Sydney, on 24 August 1989.
My reason for being here today is because I have been affected by racism all my life which, no doubt, all Aboriginal people have, but in 1957 I was taken away and put into the homes at Cootamundra by the Aboriginal Welfare Protection Board Act. That Act was brought into being in trying to take away children and bring them up as white.
Whilst in the homes we had all white values instilled so that when you leave you not only think white, you act white and hopefully ask to be accepted as a white person even though your skin is black. A lot of the problems with kids that I went through the homes with, came out of that Act. And it still affects the Aboriginal community today. The attitudes behind the Protection Board Act and the assimilationist policies have not changed. Only the names have changed. I feel that assimilation is still going on, for example mainstreaming, closure of Aboriginal departments and organisations, and it means that Aboriginal people do not have any support any more.
In 1957 I was taken away along with my other sisters and brothers, six of us. I did not see my other family, my sisters and brothers, until 1966 I think it was, when I met my family again. In 1982 I had a brother who was a queried death in custody. In 1988 my brother was refused admission to a hospital here at Redfern; he then walked out of the hospital. They told him to come back on Monday, it was Sunday, because they had no hospital - no doctors on duty on Sunday. He presented with chest pain and I thought that any person presenting with chest pains to any hospital would therefore be warranted to immediate investigation. He was told to go home. He walked down from Redfern, right across the hospital, down to Cope Street and died; 32 years old. My brother who died in custody was only 26 years old. He was training over at the Police Boys Club at Glebe; had been no drinking for 12 months and they have got it down as a natural death.
My son in May of this year went up to - came in from Padstowe - went up to Kings Cross to celebrate his birthday with other boys and boys from the football team that he played with. There were white boys with him too and the police up there were moonlighting as bouncers at the club. They grabbed my son and another boy and stabbed the other boy in the arm. They grabbed my son and belted him; took him to the Kings Cross police station; hit him on the back of the head with the baton. He was then taken to St Vincents Hospital where the head injury required four stitches. I then - when he came home and I seen him, he had black eyes; he had choke marks on his neck. I went then and took photos of the injuries; took to the Legal Service. I have been informed that it is in the Internal Affairs Bureau, but I along with other Aboriginal people here feel that these sorts of things are not going to be investigated properly; nothing will come out of them because it is all done internally by police investigating police.
I feel that that should be taken out of the police hands and put into other bodies and have the investigations carried out by other bodies, other than the police.'
Danny
A non-European perspective
16.12.2005 16:14
Officially there is no racist violence in Australia, at least they don't publish statistics for it despite the recommendations of the 1989 National Inquiry into Racist Violence. It concluded that racist violence was a serious problem and the police should take it more seriously.
A 1994 police report (
And that is how Australia keeps itself free from racist violence - by not acknowledging the violence as racist.
"Peter Tan was a Perth taxi driver who was attacked without provocation by two juveniles, suffered horrific injuries to the head, and died. One of the offenders was charged. The accused told police, "I don't like Chinese, to start with, so I belted shit out of him." The youth, although charged with murder, was convicted instead of manslaughter, and received a sentence of only two years and five months."
"There is a particular irony here in the widespread ideology, which often circulates in ethno-religious vilification, that Muslim women are oppressed, are forced to wear the hijab by the men in their families, and are confined to the household by their menfolk. Amal's mother was divorced; her brothers were 14 and 16 years old when these events occurred. No man obliged either woman to wear the hijab; they chose to do so and insisted on this right in the face of vilification and attacks. What confined them to the household was precisely these attacks. As Amal's mother, Fairuz (whom we also interviewed) said, 'I can't go out; I don't have my freedom'.
Jamila, a young Australian-born Muslim of Indonesian background is married to an Anglo-Australian man who has converted to Islam. She used to wear what she called the 'normal' hijab. Since she was abused and threatened in a train on her way to work, she has given up her job, and now wears the full burqa in public places.
It was partly that incident and then a lot of other things that happened in my life that made me decide to cover my face, so I became a full - purdah - covered woman. That was one of the incidents that made me decide maybe work is not for me. It's not only that, ... I decided I wanted to go back to school, educate myself a bit better, so that I could combat far worse incidents.
Jamila is now contemplating emigration to Indonesia.
Latifah, a twenty-five year old midwife, born in Australia of Lebanese background, recounts:
I was with my sisters and friends at the beach. … Two guys come past and started, 'cause I wear the scarf, and some of my friends did, some didn't, and they came up, and they were going 'get that effing thing off your head, look at it flapping in the wind, I want to come and rip it off.' They were swearing their heads off at us, and we got really scared. … We didn't say anything to them, we just ignored them, and they came up and they were swearing and threatening to rip our scarves off, and hitting us.
Alya, a 40 year-old Sunni Muslim professional woman of Egyptian birth, discusses letters and telephone calls she received in the wake of the terrorist hijackings in the USA: 'From September 11, I got some incredibly, incredibly threatening letters, and telephone calls about people wanting to do certain things. … about coming to blow us up, and killing. "You just wait, as soon as you walk out, we'll be coming there. We're going to kill you." Really abusive things. … Others just saying 'you don't belong in this country; go home; we're going to kill you; you're all terrorists; what are you doing here?,' but … in very profane language'.
Another Muslim woman in her forties reported such threatening letters to her ethnic community organisation. Again, the letters being anonymous, it proved difficult to take any action. The effect was the same: the woman was afraid to leave her home alone, even to do the shopping. One of the letters, headed 'Australians Against Arabs', said:
F---ing Lebanese are terrorising our beautiful city of Sydney. You c---s are problematic. As we mentioned last time, our aim is to protect innocent Australians from those f---ing Lebanese …we will get rid of Lebanese from our streets. Just remember that you are numbered and you (sic) number will be coming up sooner than later. F--- off!
Note, in passing, another ideological irony: those terrorising frightened Arab-named residents say that 'Lebanese' are terrorising 'Sydney'. The stated aim is to force the victims to move out of the neighbourhood. In 1991, HREOC documented a number of cases of Arab people forced to move house by such campaigns of race hate. Our indications are that the same has happened since 2001. "
Danny
Homepage:
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/isma/research/#7
mark
17.12.2005 12:26
Cloud cuckoo land. Ask any Scottish aboriginal. Is aboriginal a racist term ? I dunno, but I know the common Aussie diminuation, Abo is normally followed by bastard, as it those Abo-bastards this or that Abo-bastard did that. Hell, that's just friendly Aussie banter isn't it ?"
The problems that indigneous Australians face are not the result of the disgusting attitudes of a minority of Australians. They are caused by the British invasion, when most of them were killed and their lands were stolen.
Australia has tried to make ammends, but there isn't any easy answer, there is no recipe to follow to make better the damage that British colonialism caused
"One reason for this is I'm white, I generally don't experience the racism of a white society first hand, but through second hand experience, and through conversation, Australia is sick with racism."
My wife isn't white. She experiences more racism in Britain than she does in Australia.If you want to compare Pauline Hanson's hateful One Nation party to British organisations then how about the BNP, the National Front, Combat18 and Stormfront.
"And to mix up national resentments, nationalist violence and to compare that to racism based on the colour of your skin or racial group, well, let's just say I'm guessing that you are white."
So according to you 'No dogs, no blacks, no Irish" is racist, but "No dogs, no Irish" would be just fine? There are plenty of examples of very serious racist violence between people of the same colour skin. The genocide in Rwanda would be one example. The Holocaust would be another. Race is defined by nationhood and culture just as much as it is by ethnicity.
"As I noticed you didn't dispute many of the Aussies blown up in Bali were at a nightclub with an apartheid door-policy. As much innocent victims of terrorist atrocities as were South African victims of ANC violence."
This is just plain rubbish. The Sari and Paddy clubs in Kuta were Balinese owned. They decided to put a cover charge on locals because a) they didn't spend as much on drinks as the tourists b) the clubs had become overrun with prostitutes. It's a distasteful solution, but it's not up to you or me to tell the Balinese how to run their business. What's the solution? to boycott the local tourist industry because it's not PC enough? I'm sure the Balinese would appreciate that gesture of solidarity.
"If my nation had such an awful, racist riot as Australia just had, I wouldn't have the brass neck to post nonsense about how it's not a racist country...
...Have another tinnie and ignore the problem."
Well your nation has just had a worse riot, less than 2 months ago in Birmingham. It's not a case of ignoring the problem, it's just that I disagree with your analysis that the riots had nothing to do with the Bali bombings, and that Australians are inherently racist. That is ignoring the problem because it denies the possibility of a solution.
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