'Surf rage,' race fuel riots in Australia By MIKE CORDER, Associated Press writer
SYDNEY, Australia -- A Muslim cleric in a gray robe and white skull cap sits down with a youth in a baseball cap and shorts for talks on cooling tensions. Lebanese members of a motorcycle gang and a group of surfers agree both sides need to calm down.
Some unlikely alliances are being formed to try to head off any escalation in the ugly fighting on beaches near Sydney this week that exposed racial divides and tarnished Australians' self-image as a nation of laid-back, sun-kissed beachgoers.
The clashes, some of the worst ethnic violence in Australia in decades, are more racially motivated than religious. Only about 300,000 Muslims live among Australia's 20 million people, and many here with Middle Eastern ancestry are Christian. The country's history also has been tainted by abuse of dark-skinned Aborigines.
While deep-rooted antagonism between some whites and those of Arab descent was the driving force behind the unrest, the flashpoint was a turf war between surfers and weekend visitors to a shore that the surfers regard as theirs alone, analysts say.
Tensions have risen in recent weeks along with summer temperatures, drawing more casual visitors to beaches frequented mostly by locals and die-hard surfers in the off season.
On Dec. 4, a group of youths of Arabic appearance beat two lifeguards on the beach in the blue-collar suburb of Cronulla after an argument during which both sides hurled insults.
A week later, hundreds of whites flooded the area to "reclaim" the beach. After hours of drinking beer and shouting slogans Sunday, some whites starting beating up people they felt looked Middle Eastern, setting off a riot that police quelled with clubs, dogs and pepper spray.
More clashes followed Monday, including bands of Arab-appearing youths rampaging through suburbs breaking windows in stores, houses and cars. Nearly 40 people were injured and 27 arrested over both days.
The riots exposed the dark underbelly of Sydney's outwardly easygoing surf scene, said Paul Wilson, a criminologist and forensic psychologist at Bond University.
Some Australians criticize the country's Middle Eastern communities, saying they don't do enough to assimilate into society. But most people seem intent on calming tensions.
Lebanese religious leaders met Tuesday at a Cronulla surf club with members of the beach fraternity to discuss ways to cool antagonisms.
Also Tuesday, a group of surfers known as the Bra Boys, who hang out at Maroubra beach near Cronulla, met with members of the notorious Comancheros biker gang, which has many Lebanese members.
Bra Boys member Sonny Abberton said the meeting was the start of a dialogue "to try to ease some tension and calm the racial violence that can never be tolerated in Australia."
His group held a similar meeting with Muslim leaders yesterday.
Muslim community leaders and surfers in Cronulla also met yesterday in what they billed as "a mission of peace."
There is a broader undercurrent of racial tensions that goes beyond disputes over beach use.
Ethnic communities that have sprung up in the suburbs of many Australian cities have been the target of racial slurs.
Arabs and other Muslims say they have suffered increasing resentment since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, a close Australian ally.
That anger deepened when Islamic extremists in Indonesia used bombs to kill 202 people, including 88 Australians, on the resort island of Bali in 2002 and to attack the Australian Embassy in Jakarta two years later. Six of the Bali victims lived in Cronulla.
Paul White, an expert in Middle Eastern culture at the University of Western Sydney, said there has been a corresponding rise in anger among youths with Middle Eastern ancestry.
"These young people have this sense of wanting to be respected, wanting to be treated as equals," he said.
This story appeared on Page A16 of The Standard-Times on December 15, 2005.