Sunday, December 11, 2005
BEACH TRASH DUKE IT OUT
Wild scenes at a Sydney beach:
Racial tension turned to violence today as at least 5000 angry people converged on the beach after simmering anger and disputes between beach users flared last week.
An ambulance spokesman said crews had treated at least five people after pockets of violence broke out among the crowd ...
He could not comment on a report that a girl of Middle Eastern appearance had been pushed over and was kicked repeatedly as she lay on the ground.
Let’s hope that report turns out to be untrue. Other (confirmed) reports are almost as disgusting:
Two ambulance officers were injured when an angry mob attacked their vehicle.
The ambulance was transporting six injured youths under police escort when the crowd descended upon the vehicle and began hurling beer bottles.
How did this situation come to be? Splat Guy puts together a concise time-line:
* Last weekend some people, probably Lebanese Muslims, bashed a bunch of lifeguards at Cronulla Beach, including knocking one unconscious. They also harassed girls and women on the beach.
* Residents, pissed off by the violence, got angry at the lack of police attendance and presence.
* The anger morphed into a rage that the beach was being “invaded” by people from the western suburbs (i.e., a euphemism for Lebanese Muslims).
* Some people started texting to incite others to “defend the beach” from thugs.
* Today they did that by forming a violent, rowdy, mob.
To be honest with you, I was quite surprised that such a group of chavs and bogans was able to organise themselves, let alone through the weak social network of SMS. The anthropological implications are fascinating.
Absolutely. Nilknarf, Yarra Boy, Davie, Skylark and Disasterplan have views; meanwhile, other Sydney beaches are now witnessing payback violence:
Reports on radio station 2GB indicated up to 50 vehicles with passengers armed with “baseball bats” had been causing trouble in Maroubra, in Sydney’s east.
Sky News reported that a group of people in cars and with baseball bats, bits of wood and stakes, had “slammed every single car” in some streets.
One eyewitness reported every car in a section of Maroubra Road had had their windows and windscreens smashed, and glass was littering the road.
There were also reports of crowd trouble at beachside suburbs of Kyeemagh and Brighton Le Sands, in Sydney’s south.
The above report doesn’t say so, but our bat-wielding friends are of “Middle Eastern appearance”, at least according to police radio. There’s just as many idiots on the opposing side:
Went to cronulla today… Was great, only saw 3 leb’s… and they were being taken away in ambulances…lol
Here’s another winner:
hahahaha sucked in wogs u all ran like a fucking girls, We showed you were the dominant race and we reclaimed Cronulla, AUSSIE PRIDE, good on ya shire boyz
The dominant race? Nice. Real nice. Round ‘em up—all of them, from both sides—charge ‘em, convict ‘em, jail ‘em.
UPDATE. Good point from J.F. Beck: “Racism doesn’t account for attacks on police and ambulance officers. Alcohol and yobbos, the perfect combination.”
UPDATE II. Stepan Kerkyasharian, president of the Anti-Discrimination Board of NSW: “Let us all get behind our police force and bring the perpetrators to justice, regardless of their background.”
UPDATE III. Video and more here.
UPDATE IV. Adrian the cabbie: “It was around 9 pm last night when I heard news of the riot. Having just dropped off a fare in Paddington I turned for the Airport when a message appeared onscreen, RIOT MARINE PDE MAROUBRA BCH POLICE ATTENDING KEEP CLEAR. I headed for Maroubra.”
UPDATE V. “Cronulla” is currently the top search term at Technorati.
UPDATE VI. Gary Sauer-Thompson:
The base economic issues are clear: poorly educated young people fuelled by anger, dispossession and booze/drugs, low incomes and poor job prospects, turning tribal.
Gary obtains this “clear” understanding of the issues from his home in Adelaide.
UPDATE VII. It’s all John Howard’s fault:
Howard’s fascist racist chickens are coming home to roost as events in Cronulla evidence.
Howard the Liar must take the blame for these actions, he is a shameful example of what Australia has become and its time for the majority of Australians who do not share these racist and war mongering views of his to KICK HIM OUT!
Howard’s racist ‘anti-terrorism’ laws have so successfully marginalised Australians whose heritage is Middle Eastern that we are now in a situation where mob violence has taken over the beaches and streets of parts of Sydney. The sight of thousands of drunken hooligans claiming to be ‘true Aussies’ was really quite sickening and reminiscent of the thugs dressed in brown shirts that chased Jews and communists around the streets of Munich.
This is a decade of Howard and Hanson coming home to roost ... it has come from John Howard stoking the fires of racism for his own benefit.
Everytime Howard used the refrain of nationalism in the gestural politics of migrants and refugees he consolidated his sovereign position as the populist Pide Piper playing a simple tune that can be hummed by anyone.
Hmm. The author presumably didn’t intend to describe Howard as a piper of Turkish bread. Hey, maybe it’s all George Bush’s fault:
The war on terrorism is the context for Cronulla.
UPDATE VIII. Davo comments:
The only channel offering a fair view of the Cronulla incidents is unbelievably the Australian ABC TV! Channel 7 and Ten are launching into white rascism attacks and interviewing every dhimmy available and are expressly blaming John Howard for bringing in the new anti-terror laws. What is going on here!