War of Terror
The rioting in Cronulla yesterday was the action of uneducated, racist thugs, and cannot be tolerated. The police were often overwhelmed, but it’s a welcome move that they’ll be reviewing video and still photography to identify and arrest additional participants for prosecution. But I’m going to be one of those “ideological” people who don’t blame the Lebanese, at least not entirely, but certainly without offering their “gangsta” culture as an excuse for the Cronulla Neanderthals.

Since my arrival in this country, I’ve learned a lot about Lebanese youth and the influence of American rap culture has had, an unfortunate mix, given an ingrained misogyny still highly prevalent, even among the otherwise more assimilated, and this comes out in offensive and sometimes disgusting behavior, the kind of macho nonsense we’d most of us taken for granted as thoroughly marginalized. But “yobbo” culture also still has its celebrants, and the tensions inflamed by anti-Muslim rhetoric and the focus turned on Muslims in the broader community, despite reassurances to the contrary from government officials, have done their job now. One 24-year-old was quoted in the paper as having been “at war for 10 years” – where did he learn this? It doesn’t matter; there’s no excuse. Was his girlfriend taunted or teased at the beach? No excuse, on either side. We can’t arrest people for thought-crimes (despite the ludicrous sedition laws), but we can acknowledge the brewing resentments and work for resolution of the conditions causing them. Lebanese “gangstas” aren’t to be tolerated any more than the neo-Nazi Patriotic Youth League’s organizing efforts or the “Bra Boys” surfie gang.

The race riots in America of the 1960’s are the only comparable events I can think of – even the more isolated incidents around the U.S., or most recently in Paris, are more on the order of the events some months ago in Macquarie Fields. This is organized violence; it’s racism; it’s despicable.