Seeing as how I work in the sutherland shire - with some locals, I’ll try and give a timeline and mood.
For many years there have been fights in cronulla. It used to be between the rockers and the surfers in the 1950’s. For the last ten years it has been the western suburbs gangs coming to pick fights with the locals after a day at the beach. Apparently there was at least one hospitalisation a week from these fights (this is from moderate workers who are amazed).
Anyway, last week (4th dec) a group of middle eastern males (lebanese by all accounts) verbally and physically abused volunteer lifeguards who were going home after a day of working as lifeguards. This caused an uproar in the papers and around.
An SMS went around the shire telling everyone to rally on sunday and reclaim the beach on wog bashing day. Hence the large number of people who turned up on the 12th and was reported around the world. (attacking ambulances? that was just wrong)
Since then there have been reprisals and the westie gangs have adopted the tactic of driving around in convoys of cars (around 10-20) filled with people driving around and then smashing an area (cars/ shops/ anybody on the street / houses) for 5 minutes and then moving on before the police get there. There seems to be no racial aspect to this - the westie gangs are attacking everyone they can find, including the employees of the shops who may not even live in the area.
Now there is an SMS going around saying that all “lions of Lebanon” meet at Cronulla on sunday to take on the aussies. There are predictions of deaths before the end of the year.
Now if anyone can tell me what the fascination with forming a group and bashing up other people - for no real reason - is, I would like it.
I just love the bizaareness of the Bra Boys (beach gang from another suburb with suspected links to serious crime) and the Comancheros (bikie gang from the western suburbs with the again suspected links) holding a press conference to say they want no part of this. None of their people are involved and they want out.
The misanthropy doesn’t affect the other ethnic groups in Sydney, so why have these lebanese boys decided that they hate Australia and will attack it - rather than go to their “spiritual home” of Lebanon? I just don’t understand the whole thing.
For the record, I am a country farm boy whose grandparents were all born in Australia, yet about 10% of my friends can claim the same thing.
It sickens and frightens me that Australians have fallen to this level - more so, that we don’t seem to be turning it around, but just wading in deeper.
Remember a few years ago when there were those ferals who desecrated mosques and abused people on the streets for the almighty crime of looking Middle-Eastern? This kind of behaviour is abhorrent, and at the same time it’s the kind of thing that has always happened in one form or another right throughout history. It’s so depressing to realize that even while our society in general is evolving to embrace other cultures, ifestyles, and races, we’re still somehow spawning new generations of hate-filled people who would destroy all that if they could. Why? It doesn’t make any sense.
I firmly believe that ‘racism’ is just sociopathy that’s found a face it thinks will justify itself. I do not doubt that if those ‘white supremacy’ guys didn’t have the Lebanese to pick on, they’d be beating on women, children, gays, Aboriginals any other people or group they could label as their victims. The great irony, of course, is that the Lebanese guys that attacked the life guard share exactly the same mentality as the gang who supposedly decided to - in GIANT inverted commas - ‘get even’. *They * attacked the guard because he tried to stop them picking on women.
Assholes are assholes and race has nothing to do with it. There’s plenty of them to be found in every country and every religion. When these wastes of oxygen manage to make their way into a mob and start feeding off each other’s malice, it’s a truly horrifying thing to see the evil beneath the mask.
Photographs on the front page of The Australian show scenes of some of the mob, and the scary thing is that they mostly didn’t look like vicious people. I’d not have looked at some of them twice if I saw them in the street. The fact that they can hide so well in the general populace somehow makes me feel betrayed in a way I can’t explain, but basically I would have liked to think that someone who is that twisted with hate would show it in some way, so you could identify them. Dark, malevolent psyches on innocuous looking people just seems fundamentally wrong.
For the record, I live near Adelaide, South Australia.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the “Lions of Lebanon” sms was started by the Supremacists also. I’d guess the only “aussies” that are going to be on that beach next week will be the supremacists wanting to stir it up more.
Oh, please…
Could we just stop with the ‘Oh my God, the Australians have suddenly turned into Nazis !1!!!1’
There’s an escalation of violence, yes. But it’s not all due to some conspiracy from a bunch of Supremacists. Acknowledge that part of the blame also lies with the Lebanese gangs.
Of course supremacists are gonna jump on this and play it for what its worth but I hardly think they started this.
The funny thing is, the Lebanese in America are by far one of the most successful and assimilated Arab groups, and totally unremarkable by now. Most of them here are also Christians–are they mostly Muslim in Australia?
No one involved in this sorry saga can stand on the moral high ground.
Yobbos without two brain cells to rub together who think it’s their birthright to chuck a brick at anyone who looks different. That goes for both sides.
Media talking heads who make ill-thought comments and believe they are doing the community a service, when all that motivates them are ratings.
Community and religious leaders making public statements blaming the other side, in a grubby attempt to consolidate their own positions.
Politicians who dodge and weave and can’t see past next week. Their only motivator is the opinion poll. I guarantee they end up smelling like roses.
Public servants who receive a bonus for slashing the budgets of emergency services. Thoughts of serving the public interest second to thoughts of increasing superannuation interest.
Senior police who think a beat is something to do with music.
The thing that links them all is that all they think about is their own self interest, whilst under the delusion that their actions stem from the purest of motives.
Who suffers? Joe Bloggs who gets the snot punched out of him outside a cafe, Mohammed Bloggs who gets pulled out of his taxi and kicked half to death, Nguyen Bloggs sweeping up the glass from his smashed shop front, Constable Bloggs getting a dozen stitches in the back of his head at the emergency room.
I’ve been scanning the SMH and other blogs and papers and I have another dumb-Merkun question: What the hell is a “Bra Boy?” Are they like guys who conduct panty raids for bras or something?
Unfortunately, between the Iraqi elections and Tookie there hasn’t been much coverage in the American media about this.
Uh…you did. Your post totally let the Lebanese gangs off the hook for anything and put the blame entirely on white Australian supremacy groups. Somehow I don’t think it’s that cut and dried.
Agree totally. The Lebanese are by and large, a peaceful and successful migrant group in this country. However, there is a problem with groups of young Lebanese men who think they are God’s gift, strutting about the suburbs chests puffed out, heads tilted back, intimidating passers-by. Just the other week I crossed the road at a safe distance in front of an oncoming car full of these guys, only to have it speed up and cross to the wrong side of the road to “play chicken” with me. Both sides are disgusting in this violence, but the Lebanese started it. Most people are unwilling to come out and say this for fear of being labelled racist.
Mehitabel:
a majority of Lebanese Australians are Maronite Christian.
-a “Bra Boy” is a member of a beach gang from Maroubra Beach.
Sorry, where did I say that all the aussies had turned into Nazis? I certainly don’t see it anywhere in my post.
I made a comment about 1 aspect, who might have started it. I said it wouldn’t suprise me if they did.
There are reports that other SMS’ have started circulating in Queenland trying to organise whites to go out and start fighting also. Best to just write that off as a conspiracy also. It’s a tactic that has been used by other supremacy groups in other countries to try and stir racial hatred by inciting racial violence.
the Lebanese who have retalliated (and indeed those who allegedly attacked the two lifeguards) have their portion of the blame, and I am certainly not denying that.
Pretty clear that Twist meant the SMS message that’s been sent around, not the whole situation. People can un-bunch their knickers now.
Or maybe it’s like the mobile/cellular terminology for phones? Did people not recognise sms as being a text message? I had thought it was common usage, but maybe it’s just regional.
At any rate, it’s plausible that the SMS that’s been broadcast all over the media didn’t start with the Lebanese gangs - but I’m not sure if that’s actually the case. I’m guessing someone in what passes for a news industry here will mention it if so.
Some areas of Australia are getting more active supremacist groups lately, I’d be surprised if Sydney didn’t have any groups just thrilled about this situation. Fucking arseholes, them and the gangs they think they’re so different from.
Why? It doesn’t make any sense.