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Last updated on August 3rd, 2017 at 10:40 am
Not a lot right in this Guardian/Observer piece on Sydney’s beach troubles, beginning with the headline:
When the sands ran red
Sunday’s violence took place on streets near the beach, not actually on the beach itself; otherwise, the event may have taken on the festive air of a oversized and particularly anarchic volleyball game. Reporter Bernard O’Riordan blunderingly commences:
It is supposed to be the lucky country, where the beach culture more than any other phenomenon symbolises all that is breezy, open and inclusive about Australia. But the cocktail of fear, alienation and youthful anger spawned by the worst racial violence ever seen here now threatens the traditional Christmas of sun, sand and surf.
The worst ever? Nobody was killed. Or raped, for that matter.
Morris Iemma, the Labor leader of New South Wales, apologised for massive security measures across Sydney, its biggest police operation since the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Actually, he apologised for the inconvenience to residents affected.
Elsewhere, young men smashed the windows of a car before the terrified occupants made a rapid escape. This was racist scapegoating at its worst: the two occupants were Bangladeshi exchange students living at Cronulla.
Lebanese gangs later attacked Asians. Mobs of idiots will behave idiotically.
The Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, re-elected last year on a hardline anti-immigration platform …
Immigration was barely mentioned during the 2004 campaign. Besides which, Australia under Howard is not anti-immigration. The migration program for 2004/5 will admit up to 120,000 immigrants, plus 13,000 refugees.
By not condemning the racism, Howard and Labor leader Kim Beazley have both arguably failed to show moral leadership.
By allowing the clown O’Riordan to cover events in Australia, The Guardian has inarguably failed to show journalistic leadership.
In reality, Australia’s national disquiet started more than 200 years ago when Cook and his crew confronted Aborigines in Botany Bay.
If only the Aborigines had enforced a hardline anti-immigration policy.
But Sydney’s racial violence and the outback murder of the British backpacker Peter Falconio have only added to a growing awareness that all is not well in the lucky country.
The Falconio murder took place more than four years ago. His killer was subsequently caught, tried, and jailed. When will this terrible nation be healed?
(Via Paul C., who writes: “I hope no-one was swimming last Sunday – those bloody sands would have attracted thousands of Noahs …”)
- Perhaps this was the Blood And Sand Bernie O’Riordan was talking about.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 12 19 at 10:01 AM • permalink
- Oh, no. More forbidden food items, just like the deporking thread. Are Muslims allowed to drink cocktails of fear?Posted by andycanuck on 2005 12 19 at 11:36 AM • permalink
- Ooh, and I’ll have a pint of alienation as the chaser. (As long as it won’t, literally, get me stoned.)Posted by andycanuck on 2005 12 19 at 11:40 AM • permalink
- “In reality, Australia’s national disquiet started more than 200 years ago when Cook and his crew confronted Aborigines in Botany Bay.”
The chickens have come home to roost in Australia’s belfry.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 12 19 at 12:22 PM • permalink
- I think it all started when Adam and Eve were ethnically-cleansed from the Garden of Eden.Posted by Mystery Meat on 2005 12 19 at 12:35 PM • permalink
- Yesterday, however, NSW Premier Morris Iemma announced that the beaches were now “safe”. I have this mental image of two bloody big white pointers
lolling around in the outer line of breakers off Cronulla. On hearing the Premier’s words, one turns to the other and says “Beauty Bruce!!
One youngster had written ‘Love ‘nulla, fuck Allah’ on his T-shirt.
Uh huh.
Police waded in to defend people being assaulted simply because of their skin and hair colour.
Damned blood-nuts.
‘That was the ugliest manifestation of racism we have seen so far in this country,’ said Keysar Trad, head of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia.
Again, nobody got incited to kill or blow others up. Is Trad sure about that?
Many Australians feel Howard is ignoring the problem
I agree, though not the problem the article suggests. Instead, the problem which has been ignored over the last few decades.
In the days before the riots, Jones of Radio 2GB cautioned his listeners not to take the law into their own hands, but seemed to warm to callers who had exactly that in mind.
One caller named Charlie suggested all junior footballers in the Sutherland Shire, which includes Cronulla, should gather on the beach to support the lifesavers. ‘Good stuff, good stuff,’ Jones told him.
Is gathering on the beach or supporting the lifesavers considered taking “the law into their own hands”? I guess I am a vigilante then. Apaprently you don’t even need to assault someone.
What a trashy article.
- “What a trashy article.”
It’s the Grauniad. You were expecting maybe news reporting?
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 12 19 at 07:49 PM • permalink
- … and as for “In reality, Australia’s national disquiet started more than 200 years ago when Cook and his crew confronted Aborigines in Botany Bay.” … what planet does this twit inhabit???
Perhaps a more accurate assessment would be along the lines of “In reality, Australia’s national disquiet started more than 30,000 years ago when nomadic aboriginals embarked upon millennia of inter-tribal raids, rapes and blood-feuds”????
Perhaps a more accurate assessment would be along the lines of “In reality, Australia’s national disquiet started more than 30,000 years ago when nomadic aboriginals embarked upon millennia of inter-tribal raids, rapes and blood-feuds”????
Now, now. Everyone knows the only aboriginal people who ever indulged in violence were those of Europe. Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians spent millenia in perfect peace and harmony, no matter what evidence there is to the contrary.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 12 20 at 12:03 AM • permalink
- 1. The Observer wrote: Elsewhere, young men smashed the windows of a car before
the terrified occupants made a rapid escape. This was racist scapegoating at its
worst: the two occupants were Bangladeshi exchange students living at Cronulla.Tim Blair writes: Lebanese gangs later attacked Asians. Mobs of idiots will behave
idiotically.What kind of clown are you Blair? I believe he was talking about the youth in
Cronulla, not the Lebanese, you buffoon!!2. As for suggesting it wasn’t the worst racial violence Australia has seen: tell
me one racial incident that was worse.3. Falconio disappeared four years ago. The sentencing was last week, hence the
timeliness. D’oh!4. And for those dummies that obviously don’t know the Shire: it has long been
called the “insular peninsula”. You all need to get out of your poison chambers
more often.What hate mongerers you all are. Merry Christmas to one and all. Don’t choke on
your turkey bones.
I believe he was talking about the youth in Cronulla, not the Lebanese, you buffoon!!
Since that arse with ears Iemma represents Lakemba, which has the highest concentration of Lebanese muslims, he won’t talk about, or police lebanese racist gangs.
2 . As for suggesting it wasn’t the worst racial violence Australia has seen: tell me one racial incident that was worse.
A spate of gang-rapes by Lebanese leaps to mind. Pity it didn’t leap to your mind, assuming you have one.
What hate mongerers you all are.
If you want to call people hatemongers, insulting them doesn’t increase your credibility.
What happened to the Australians?