
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.
Summer was effectively cancelled along 125 miles of the New South Wales
coast recently as the authorities urged people to avoid beaches for
fear of revenge attacks by armed hooligans.
The violence could disrupt the annual Christmas Day pilgrimage to Bondi
Beach, Australia’s most famous strip of sand, by more than 50,000
British and Irish expatriates and tourists. Morris Iemma, the Labour
leader of New South Wales, apologised for massive security measures
across Sydney, its biggest police operation since the 2000 Sydney
Olympics. “It is a long-term fight to ensure the hooligans, thugs and
criminals who create disorder will not win,” Iemma said.
The civil unrest gripping Australia’s biggest city began two weeks ago
after two teenage lifeguards at North Cronulla beach, in south
Sydney’s, were attacked by a Lebanese Australian gang. There had been
anecdotes of sporadic violence and intimidation at Cronulla by groups
of Lebanese Australians over several years, but this attack on the
lifeguards, the most iconic of Australian symbols, went too far for
many people.
“It was a culmination of so many things over so many years,” says Danny
Hanley, a resident whose daughters Renae and Simone were killed in the
Bali bombing. He blames it on many “crimes against ordinary
Australians”.
The result last Sunday was ugly trip into the dark side of the
Australian Dream. Images flashed around the world of young mates, full
of alcohol, beating up a luckless few as the sun shone and the surf
rolled.
They were chanting as if at a sports event: “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
Oi, Oi, Oi”. There were bursts of “Waltzing Matilda” and Australian
flags were waved in the assembled throngs.
Police waded in to defend people being assaulted simply because of
their skin and hair colour.
These events have left a nasty blot on Australia’s reputation – and its
boast – of being a tolerant, all-embracing society. “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.
But the Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, re-elected last year on a
hardline anti-immigration platform, claims the riots are criminal, not
racial. “I do not accept there is underlying racism here,” he said.
“Some of it is just incredibly bad behaviour fuelled by too much
drink.”
Many Australians feel Howard is ignoring the problem. Others say his
narrow response shows how well he has read Australia’s mood. But by not
condemning the racism, Howard and Labour leader Kim Beazley have both
arguably failed to show moral leadership.
The ascent of Howard has given new authority to phone-in radio, his
preferred medium for reaching ordinary Australians. Serious questions
are being asked about whether Sydney presenters such as Alan Jones, the
Wallabies union coach, had a role in inciting last week’s violence.
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.
In reality, Australia’s national disquiet started more than 200 years
ago when Cook and his crew confronted Aborigines in Botany Bay.
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.
– Guardian Newspapers Ltd
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