Monday, December 12, 2005

Disgrace Riot

An ugly weekend in Sydney. A solidarity march to try and unify a small beach community about a half-hour South of us, turned into a race riot, driving the mob to attack many innocent people based upon their complexion.

Here's what we've garnered from the past few days. A week ago, there was an incident at Cronulla beach where a lifeguard got punched out while on-duty by a group of Lebanese youth. Small skirmishes have been flaring up in Cronulla all week between the surfer clique, vowing to reclaim the beaches.

On Sunday, an 'Australia Pride' rally at the beach meant to bring the warring fractions together took a turn for the worse when the members of the middle eastern community who made an effort for mediation were attacked by those not even from the Cronulla community. Being at the end of a railway line, the event drew in ruffians from the surrounding suburbs. Hiding behind the guise of national pride and attacking innocent and not so innocent people in a mob fashion. The numbers were something like 18 people arrested, maybe 6 injuries reported.

The immmigration policy in Australia has been a contentuous issue for years. Until the 1970s there was a blantantly racist whites-only policy in place, but Sydney is an extremely cosmopolitan place nonetheless. The Olympic ramp-up certainly galvanized an embracing of diversity within the community here, but obviously some of their old habits die hard.

Although some of the violence spread to Maroubra Beach, three beaches South of us, the Eastern suburbs were generally spared of such unrest. Bronte doesn't see much in the way of controversy, being very family oriented and sheltered. We had strongly considered moving to Cronulla when first arriving in Sydney. It was a ideal surfside town with easy access into downtown. What a mind's picture of an Australian surf culture would be. Unfortunately, there seems to be more under the surface than just a day at the beach, pardon the pun.

posted by ncawthon at 3:32 PM