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In wake of racial violence in Sydney
Australian state government prepares savage attack on democratic
rights
By Rick Kelly
14 December 2005
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In response to racial violence last weekend in Sydney, state
Labor Premier Morris Iemma yesterday called an emergency session
of the New South Wales (NSW) parliament for Thursday to pass a
series of repressive measures that will allow police to declare
lockdown zones throughout the city. The laws will
provide extensive new powers to police who are already engaged
in sweeping and unprecedented operations.
Last night police erected at least six checkpoints at various
points in eastern Sydney. Motorists were stopped, and had to issue
their drivers licence and explain why they were driving
into the area. At one checkpoint, a queue of more than 200 cars
formed as police searched vehicles for weapons. People of Middle
Eastern appearance were the primary target of the roadblocks.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that in one incident,
four men and one woman were ordered by police to turn around and
leave the area, despite no weapons being found. Weve
done nothing wrong, the woman said. Weve just
been to visit a girl at Mortdale and came here for a drive.
An extra 450 police, including 20 dog-squad units and riot
police, patrolled the citys eastern suburbs last night.
At least one arrest was made, but the violence seen on Monday
night was not repeated. The situation remains extremely tense.
Over the past three days, at least 37 people have been injured
and 27 arrested, cars and shops have been vandalised, and gunshots
fired in several locations. In one incident, shots were fired
at a church as a primary school held a Christmas carol service.
Extra police from Queensland and Victoria may soon be brought
into Sydney, and summer leave for many NSW officers has been cancelled.
In announcing the emergency recall of parliament yesterday,
Iemma vowed to take back the streets. These
criminals have declared war on our society and we are not going
to let them win, he declared. I wont allow Sydneys
reputation as a tolerant, vibrant international city to be tarnished
by these ratbags and criminals who want to engage in the sort
of behaviour weve seen in the last 48 hours... This is a
fight that will continue and we will not be found wanting in the
use of force to meet this, what is effectively a declaration of
war.
The new legislation will give police even more authority to
close off streets, erect checkpoints, conduct random searches,
and seize vehicles. Alcohol-free areas can be declared and licensed
premises shut down. Penalties for riot convictions are to be extended
from 5 years to 15, and for affray from 5 years to 10. The presumption
of bail will also be removed for anyone charged for riot and violent
disorder.
Many of these measures were first trialled during the Sydney
Olympic Games in 2000. They will now become part of everyday life.
The modus operandi of the state Labor government is similar to
that used by the federal government to ram through draconian new
anti-terror legislation. In that case, Prime Minister John Howard
seized on a terrorist scare to push through far reaching attacks
on basic democratic rights without any significant debate in parliament
or the media.
Likewise, in the wake of the racial violence, there will be
no public discussion or even the semblance of a parliamentary
debate on Iemmas new legislation tomorrow. Having created
the social and political climate that has led to the clashes in
Sydney, the political establishment is rushing to exploit the
situation to further its own right-wing law and order
agenda.
Howard rang Iemma to back his response and the state opposition
Liberal Party gave immediate support to the proposed new laws.
Opposition leader Peter Debnam has played a particularly foul
role in fomenting racial division in recent days. He has accused
police of implementing a softly-softly approach, and
yesterday claimed that Sydney had become a war-zone with
roaming gangs of hundreds of ethnic thugs.
Debnams perspective, if not openly racist language, is
shared by politicians and media commentators of all stripes. The
unanimous response to the aftermath of Sundays racist rally
on North Cronulla Beach has been to blame young Muslims and Lebanese
immigrants for causing trouble, and to demand greater police powers.
Like Howard, federal Labor leader Kim Beazley refused to describe
Sundays attacks on Muslims as racist. This is simply
criminal behaviour, and thats all there is to it, he declared
on Monday. Two major areas of itCronulla and Maroubraand
that is what has to be cracked down on, and that is what I would
urge the police forces to do.
In official responses to the violence in Sydney, no one has
called for an examination of the economic deprivation and social
inequality that has created such alienation among wide layers
of working class youth. Nor is there any discussion as to who
bears political responsibility for the reactionary and fratricidal
manner in which these social tensions have been manifested.
Addressing these issues would inevitably lead to an indictment
of the entire political order in Australia. In the interests of
maintaining the international competitiveness of Australian capitalism,
both Labor and Liberal governments in Canberra and Sydney have
presided over a prolonged assault on the social position on the
working classundermining wages and conditions, destroying
job security, and degrading public education. At the same time,
social inequality has significantly deepened, as a small minority
has accumulated enormous wealth.
Racial and religious differences have been deliberately inflamed,
and sections of working class youthparticularly those who
are Muslimvilified and scapegoated to divert popular opposition
to deepening social inequality.
The new laws proposed by the NSW government have nothing to
do with protecting the safety of ordinary citizens. They are ultimately
driven by the same impulse behind every measure introduced in
recent years to strengthen the power of the capitalist statenamely
the need to prepare for the suppression of future social unrest.
Unable to provide decent employment and living conditions for
working class youth, the response of the ruling elite is consistent
and unambiguousstate repression and the cultivation of racism
and communalism.
The bipartisan reaction to the racial violence in Sydney is
identical to that seen in other recent social eruptions. In its
origin and form, the recent violence differs from both the Redfern
riots in inner Sydney in February 2004 and the clashes between
youths and police in outer suburban Macquarie Fields earlier this
year. What is not different, however, is the response of the state
government.
In all three cases the pattern has been the same: an enormous
police operation is mounted, sections of working class youth are
condemned as criminals and thugs, any examination of underlying
political and social processes is rejected on principle, and draconian
new laws are introduced.
The Australian media is an active accomplice in all of this.
The Australians editorial, Racism Not Endemic,
today assailed academic and sundry other Howard-haters
who have condemned the government for contributing to the violence
by demonising Muslim Australians. The newspaper concluded that
the best way to prove that Australia was not racist is for
the worst offenders in the recent riots to be prosecutedand
treated exactly the same before the courts.
The Daily Telegraphs editorial, More power
to the rule of law, argued on similar lines. The newspaper
also ran as its lead op-ed an extraordinary open letter
from an anonymous police officer. He pined for a return to the
old days, when hoodlums would cop a flogging, a kick up
the bum, a slap over the head from police. The young
kids were afraid of the police and thats how we controlled
and protected the community, he continued. Fear is
the only thing a young male understands. That real power is lost
forever.
In a particularly crass form, the open letter summed up the
attitude of the political and media establishment as a whole to
working class youth.
See Also:
As Australian media covers up Howards
role
Racial violence continues in Sydney
[13 December 2005]
Government and media provocations spark
racist violence on Sydney beaches
[12 December 2005]
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